Notes from the Resistance
The proposal we’re discussing was published in the Federal Register by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Its purpose is to revise the regulatory definitions of two phrases that have existed in federal firearms law for decades, “adjudicated as a mental defective” and “committed to a mental institution…” [Watch]
I guess everbody’ll keep making it about guns as long as people want to keep ignoring the obvious…
[Via Jess]
The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump had denied hundreds of pardon requests this week. Patrick “Tate” Adamiak was not among the denials. [More]
Not that they want to tell us what standardized and reproducible criteria they use…
Squire admitted that his firearm and ammunition were manufactured outside Louisiana. The question is whether that past movement permits Congress to regulate his present, entirely intrastate possession. [More]
We need a Bruen-type ruling recognizing the Constitution was ratified with the interstate powers in the Commerce Clause understood to be the way to keep states from imposing tariffs and embargoes on each other.
The metastasized monster it has become reflects when FDR’s power grab against the last vestiges of federalism. I find it intriguing that the polar flip in interpretation of the Constitution came about “because one justice, Owen Roberts, switched his vote. Ever since, historians have argued about why he did so.”
UPDATE
Mark W. Smith says there are bigger implications:
MASSIVE NEW DECISION FINALLY THREATENS NFA AND MACHINE GUN BAN!… the question presented really in the Squire case in the en banc court in front of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is whether or not Congress, created by Article One of the United States Constitution, has the legal authority to enact federal gun control law 18 USC 922G1 because the only potential connection to congressional authority found … is to this commerce clause.
[Via Jess]
We need a Bruen-type ruling on just about every federal law.
GOA and GOF File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Pennsylvania’s Lifetime Carry Ban for Citizens with Minor, Decades-Old Drug Misdemeanors [More]
Funny, how the ones against this are the power addicts.
Judge Easterbrook then turned to the government’s position directly: “The United States contends that § 922(g)(4) is valid even with respect to persons who were never dangerous or who have recovered. That approach is hard to square with Heller, McDonald, Bruen, Rahimi, Hemani, and Wolford.” [More]
Considering what Easterbrook has said in the past, that’s an amazing turnaround.
Dramatics aside, it’s a known fact that any interactions with law enforcement, no matter how mundane, escalate the chances of a negative and potentially life-threatening outcome. Armed agents of the State with qualified immunity, taking someone by surprise over what is likely to be a bookkeeping error? [More]
So “false positives” have the potential to be much more than inconvenient delays?
At least it’s bipartisan!
The need to apply consistent criteria is not only a matter of basic fairness, but of law. [More]
The very first comment needs to be addressed. With an initial estimate of 50 FTEs processing applications, the need to minimize subjectivity and establish consistency should be self-evident, especially noting how DOJ has shown it can still be all over the board on 2A, even under a “pro-gun administration.”
Further noting this is a rule and not a law, it’s not hard to see how lack of clear criteria could allow all kinds of negative dispositions under a new administration for those applicatons already in the pipeline before it terminates the program altogether.
The US Supreme Court decision in Hemani offers great support to the 2A challenges to Virginia gun ban laws. [Watch]
He’s right when he observes “shall not be infringed” must be viewed and argued in the context of what The Framers would have considered to be infringements when it comes to “dangerous and unusual.”
I’d like to see him acknowledge that “in common use at the time” needs to include arms that standing army soldiers deploy with, not just what’s commercially popular, because otherwise, the machinegun ban will continue and any new developments in arms technology will be withheld from We the People.
And the bottom line is, prohibition does not work in a society that has rights, and you need to amp up the totalitarianism to where it does. If someone can’t be trusted with a gun…
[Via Jess]
[T]he Supreme Court has just denied cert in a case where the solicitor general of the United States under Donald Trump actually wanted the court to take it. This is huge great news folks because it is signaling that the Supreme Court is done with criminals defending the right to keep and bear arms and much more likely to let law-abiding ordinary citizens vindicate their rights. This is a big deal, folks, because as you know, those 18 USC 922G cases are problematic because their bad facts make bad law. [Watch]
I’m more concerned with the fact that the SG knows that and proceeded anyway. After all, didn’t NSSF tell us, “USA Today and gun control groups [were] in a tizzy [because] U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote, ‘The United States has a substantial interest in the preservation of the right to keep and bear arms and in the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment…'”?
And Smith himself declares “Prosecutorial discretion has always been a part of our legal system.”
So why does this seem to be a tradition with “pro-gun”Republican administrations?
We condemn any program that involves enforcing unconstitutional “laws”, even if such “laws” are enforced only against violent criminals. Unconstitutional “laws” are illegal, harmful to public safety, tyrannical, and are inevitably enforced against ordinary, non-criminal citizens.
[Via Jess]
N.J. court rules that officers previously terminated for using cannabis off duty can be reinstated [More]
They get guns but you would not.
Must be all that superior training…
[Via Jess]
Boston gang members, associates facing slew of firearm, drug trafficking charges… “I think it goes without saying that today’s arrests and seizures have made our communities safer.” [More]
If what they did was bad enough to determine they cannot be trusted without a custodian, what difference does what firearms they had make?
Beware of laws that can be used against you and me.
[Via Edmund M]
What have we been saying all along…?
Now… what do they have to do to get that right recognized?
[Via Jess]
Understand that when Codrea writes “heavily redacted,” what that means is that there’s absolutely nothing of use here. They sent pages of almost nothing but black bars. [More]
Good write-up! I typically like Tom Knighton’s stuff. But why do you think the site added an “Editor’s Note” at the end?
I’m glad to see Bearing Arms is picking up on my stuff more. (I’m going to be working on my response to Cam Edwards later this week.)
What criteria must citizens seeking similar relief need to meet to prove themselves eligible for equal treatment? [More]
It’s apparently a need-to-know secret, and you don’t need to know.
Are regular marijuana users the modern equivalent of “habitual drunkards” at the Founding? What about someone who regularly takes a sleep gummy? In oral arguments before the Supreme Court today in United States v. Hemani, the federal government argues that they are the same. [More]
“Full might,” eh?
Anyone who can’t be trusted with weed and a gun…
Or booze and a gun…
I’m thinking Bondi needs lithium therapy…
[Via bondmen]
Gunman accused of killing Caltech genius was only just released from jail by soft-on-crime CA law — weapons charge mysteriously dropped [More]
If he had been adjudicated as qualifying for a weapons charge, what was he doing out?
[Via Michael G]
I put this together on ChatGPT to illustrate a point raised in my last article.
Who thinks the Bill of Rights would have been ratified if “except for prior restraint background checks, waiting periods and purchase/carry permits” had been tacked on right after “shall not be infringed”?
The late Robert J. Kukla made a brilliant observation in his 1973 classic, Gun Control, equating the release of violent misfits from prison with opening the cage of a man-eating tiger and expecting a different result. [More]
Anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian.
The State previously filed an answer brief taking the position that Appellant Christopher Morgan was properly convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. On further reflection, the Attorney General is of the view that the conviction violated Morgan’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Properly understood, the Second Amendment permits the government to dispossess felons whose convictions indicate that the felon is dangerous, but not merely all felons as a categorical matter. [More]
So… which Republican AG approved that previous answer?
And point of order– it’s nice to see the insistence on punishing nonviolent offenders forever has been reconsidered, but what good does a lifetime disability on violent ones do if they’re then allowed to stalk among us?
