I don’t usually cover state level gun lawsuits (and Texas is pro-Second Amendment enough that they aren’t necessary here), but Washington State vs. Gator’s Guns is interesting, in that Washington State’s unconstitutional “high” (i.e. standard) capacity magazine ban has a good chance of being thrown out as unconstitutional.
Unlike two other cases challenging the law, Washington state’s Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson is the one suing Gator’s Guns. That means the case will be tried in rural Cowlitz County, as Ferguson can’t get the venue moved to liberal, urban Thurston County.
Pete Serrano of the Silent Majority Foundation: “We’ve had several hearings before judge [Gary] Basher, the presiding judge in this jurisdiction, who said ‘I want to know whether or not this ban is constitutional. Everything else can come in on the back end.'”
The AG’s playbook on cases in Kings and Pierce County was radically different. Serrano: “The Attorney General came in hard, fast, hit the person, and either tried to extract the settlement agreement or punish them immediately and had a favorable venue.”
Usually scheduling order hearings are uneventful things that can be done by Zoom. Not this one. Serrano: “Here the judge ordered us into the court in person on Monday and said ‘Listen, you guys can’t get the scheduling together because we’re pushing to have this thing done and heard by the end of 2023.'” The AG is trying to drag things out well into 2024.
The constitutional issues in the case have been covered before. Serrano: “We’ve briefed it in Brumback [vs. Ferguson], we’ve seen it briefed in other cases throughout the state and.”
“You have [U.S. District] Judge [Roger] Benitez’s opinion on the same thing in California.”
Washington Gun Law President William Kirk: “Let’s also remember that a lot of the case law that we’re talking about on the assault weapon bans, is also similar case law that would be cited in a magazine ban case as well.” I suspect this is a reference to Bruen. One thing I haven’t seen in this video or the snippets on this case online is how Bruen has changed the burden of proof on government regulation of citizen firearms.
Serrano: “There’s nothing really original here.”
Kirk: “Did the Attorney General bite off a little more than they could chew on this one?”
Serrano: “Oh absolutely…It was like here’s a gift from God. Or, you know definitely not God, but from Bob Ferguson. It’s [a gift] from Satan…He’s going to go into a rural small conservative county and sue someone who allegedly sold over a thousand of these magazines.”
In 12 years, Cowlitz County has gone from mild blue to deep red.
This is the sort of magazine ban I can see being struck down even before Bruen. In light of the the post-Bruen environment, it’s hard to believe it won’t get struck down.
Only stubborn Democratic dedication to complete civilian disarmament keeps the Bob Fergusons of the world trying to impose gun control methods that have already been found unconstitutional.
The turmoil resulting from the disasterous tenure of Wayne LaPierre has now dragged on for over four years. La Pierre’s scorched earth policy for hanging on to power is dragging the NRA down with him.
Here’s confirmation that [Wayne LaPierre’s Virginia home] is for sale, and of its ownership. Reports of a planned NRA move to Texas can be considered 100% confirmed, and in the near future. The listing has been on Realtor.com for 46 days, so the listing began in late September. The decision to move must have been finalized before then. We’re hearing rumors of offices having been leased in Irving.
We’re told that this was not discussed at the last board meeting, and that the Relocation Committee has not met in over two years. This is being done without any board input. It’s the bankruptcy lawsuit all over again. There is also no indication that the NRA’s employees have ever been told. Let’s amend that. We can assume that a handful of insiders in HQ have been told to make ready, and that everyone else is considered disposable.
The move to Texas itself is not unexpected. In August, there was a story that the NRA was closing in on a new headquarters in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. And indeed, there are sound reasons to move to the Lone Star State, though Wayne and his cronies are pulling the trigger way too late to save themselves from the legal difficulties that have ensnared them in New York. But the manner in which they’re doing it, in the dead of night without informing the board of membership, reeks of an organization ruled by a corrupt cabal for their own self-interests that are effectively divorced from the organization’s membership.
Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there are two kinds of people: Those devoted to the goals of the organization, and those dedicated to the organization itself. “The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.” LaPierre’s NRA has clearly been captured by the second group. Or to put it another way: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” LaPierre’s NRA has become a racket. The NRA exists to serve its members and protect the Second Amendment, not to serve and protect Wayne LaPierre.
At least that’s the way it should be. Lots of captains have gone down with their ship, but LaPierre’s refusal to step aside for the good of the organization is a case of the captain taking the ship down with him.
Here’s a story I missed from September that takes on an even more sinister cast in retrospect.
Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of a new Second Amendment lawsuit challenging multiple parts of California SB2, which unilaterally declares numerous locations as “sensitive places” where California will now ban the carry of firearms by licensed, law-abiding Californians. The complaint in Carralero v. Bonta can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.
“SB2 restricts where persons with licenses to carry a concealed weapon may legally exercise their constitutional right to wear, carry, or transport firearms. And it does so in ways that are fundamentally inconsistent with the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen,” argues the complaint. “The Second Amendment does not tolerate these restrictions. This Court should enter judgment enjoining their enforcement and declaring them unconstitutional.”
“With Gov. Newsom’s signing of SB2 today, California continues to exhibit its disdain for the rights of Californians, the U.S. Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s General Counsel and Vice President of Legal, and FPC’s counsel. “Unfortunately for California, and contrary to Governor Newsom’s misguided statements, the state does not have the power to unilaterally overrule individual rights and constitutional protections. Fortunately, courts across the nation have already struck down laws just like SB2, and we expect the same result here.”
FPC is joined in this lawsuit by three individuals, Orange County Gun Owners, San Diego County Gun Owners, and California Gun Rights Foundation.
If Democrats actually revered the Supreme Court as much as they claim to, Bruen would have ended their attempts to pass Second Amendment infringing legislation. But the goal of disarming the civilian population is only slightly less sacred a Democratic Party cause than taxpayer-funded abortions. So they soldier on trying to thwart the Constitution.
This bill would remove those exemptions, except as specified. The bill would make it a crime to bring an unloaded firearm into, or upon the grounds of, any residence of the Governor, any other constitutional officer, or Member of the Legislature. The bill would also prohibit a licensee from carrying a firearm to specified locations, including, among other places, a building designated for a court proceeding and a place of worship, as defined, with specific exceptions. By expanding the scope of an existing crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
Well, it’s not like any particular houses of worship are under particular threats from particular terrorist organizations, now is it?
Just four years ago on the last day of Passover, a man armed with a rifle burst into a synagogue in Poway, near San Diego, fatally shot one woman and injured three other congregants, including the synagogue’s rabbi.
A year before, an even more horrific attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue left 11 dead.
In the aftermath of the attack on Israel, many American Jews are arming themselves. But in California, not only will Jews and worshippers in other faiths be banned from protecting themselves in their houses of worship, but would-be killers will know that potential victims in “sensitive” areas will be unarmed.
Everywhere in the west, the radical left is protesting to support Hamas, despite (or perhaps because) of the latter’s calls to completely destroy the Jews. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom and California Democrats are disarming law-abiding Jewish American citizens in their synagogues.
After the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that a challenge to the Biden administration’s rule regulating pistol braces as short-barreled rifles (SBR) would likely prevail, a district judge entered orders enforcing the appeals court’s findings — blocking any enforcement against the plaintiffs, their customers, or their families.
The case, styled Mock v Garland, was brought against the Department of Justice by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) to challenge the reclassification of popular pistol braces as SBRs, which are heavily regulated weapons under the National Firearms Act (NFA). That law requires extensive background checks, a $200 tax that in some cases takes over a year to pay, and carries additional restrictions on the firearm.
Violating any of the nuanced rules in the NFA can subject the owners to heavy fines and penalties.
While the district court had initially denied the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction, the instructions from the 5th Circuit instructed the district judge to grant the request in a manner consistent with their findings.
On October 2, Judge Reed O’Connor issued the order blocking enforcement of the law against the individual plaintiffs, FPC and their members, pistol brace manufacturer Maxim Defense, and their customers and families.
The lawsuit will now proceed to trial, along with challenges brought by several other gun rights groups in separate cases seeking to have the rule struck down entirely.
As I’ve stated before, the pistol brace rule would retroactively make millions of law-abiding Americans criminals for not registering them (which, for the left, is no doubt the point). Government agencies should not be able to unilaterally and retroactively declare ownership of legally obtained goods suddenly forbidden on penalty of law.
This ruling is also another example of why the black-pilled “Republicans are useless” mutterings are wrong. Without Reagan, Bush41, Bush43 and Trump judicial appointments, it’s overwhelmingly likely that none of the landmark Second Amendment cases (Heller, Bruen) go our way, and ruling Democrats would be busy working on complete disarmament of American citizens.
It’s important to celebrate every victory for freedom, no matter how small.
Well, I’ve had better weeks. In addition to my job ending, my dog had to get $1,700 worth of veterinary work done (removing and testing a lump on his chest, and while he was getting that I got his teeth cleaned). So feel free to hit the donation jar at the bottom of the post.
A prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden tax probe likely intervened to protect President Biden from Department of Justice scrutiny, Eileen O’Connor, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, testified at the first House Oversight impeachment hearing Thursday.
The impeachment inquiry, which was formally opened earlier this month without a full House vote, builds on the committee’s months-long probe into Biden’s alleged foreign influence peddling.
U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss led the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes, which began in 2018, and was assisted by assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf.
IRS whistleblowers who worked on the probe, and have since provided a trove of information to the committee, identified many deviations from standard procedure, which they claim were driven by Weiss and his staff as well as officials at main Justice in an attempt to slow walk or otherwise obstruct the probe.
The whistleblowers highlighted the fact that attorneys from the DOJ’s tax division suggested the removal of Hunter’s name from documents, including subpoenas, and pointed out that prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware prohibited IRS and FBI investigators from asking about or referring to “the big guy” or “dad” in witness interviews.
Wolf also ordered investigators not to escalate the tax probe into a campaign-finance probe, according to a document the GOP committee obtained from the whistleblowers. Specifically, she told them not to pursue the possibility that a hefty sum Hunter received from a major Democratic donor to pay his back taxes may have constituted an illegal campaign-finance contribution.
Why, it’s almost as if there’s a different rule for powerful Democrats than for other Americans…
“Adam Schiff Funneled Millions To Defense Contractors After Taking Donations.” Of course he did. “This financial maneuvering coincided with Schiff receiving $8,500 in contributions from PMA Group PAC and two family members of Paul Magliocchetti, founder and owner of the lobbying firm retained by both defense companies. In 2011, Paul Magliocchetti was sentenced to 27 months in prison for making illegal campaign contributions.”
Target closes nine stores in Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle and New York City, citing losses from crime.
States are fighting back against ESG companies trying to destroy their oil and gas industries.
“Oklahoma is a natural gas and oil industry state,” [Oklahoma State Auditor Cindy Byrd] said. “These things are very important to us, and we’ve seen that shut down over the last few years, which is really hurting Oklahoma.”
Increasingly, the environmental social and governance (ESG) industry is coordinating efforts among banks, insurance companies, and asset managers to cut America’s production of fossil fuels. It coordinates these efforts through a coalition of net-zero associations under the umbrella of the U.N.-affiliated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).
The net-zero clubs that are part of GFANZ encompass virtually all elements of global finance, including the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), the Net Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAMi), the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance (NZAOA) and the Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance (NZFSPA). Members of these alliances pledge to work together to achieve UN goals of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 or sooner.
We thought about investments, getting good returns, trying to make money with your money, and that was the prominent thought when I first got in office,” said Kentucky State Treasurer Allison Ball. “I remember when I first started coming to events, I began to hear about an initiative called ESG, and I thought at the time that this was academic; I didn’t really take it very seriously.
“In the course of the last couple of years, it began to become very aggressively pushed,” she told The Epoch Times. “There’s been an effort to really make it the only game in town, to really shift that mentality from investing to make money, making sure you’re getting good returns, to using investments as leverage to push certain mostly political ideas.
“Coal and oil and gas industries, those are signature industries in Kentucky,” Ms. Ball said. “And they’ve been targeted very strongly by the E part of ESG, so I began to see real impacts on the economy of Kentucky, my home area.”
The felony convictions of four former Navy officers in one of the worst bribery cases in the maritime branch’s history were vacated Wednesday due to questions about prosecutorial misconduct, the latest setback to the government’s years-long efforts in going after dozens of military officials tied to Leonard Francis, a defense contractor nicknamed “Fat Leonard.”
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino called the misconduct “outrageous” and agreed to allow the four men to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $100 fine each.
California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein dead at 90.
“A group of five Harris County residents filed a petition in state district court on Friday seeking to remove Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo from office, arguing that she has abandoned her duties and responsibilities as the elected chief executive of the state’s most populous county….petitioning to remove Hidalgo under Texas Local Government code allowing for removal of an unfit or incompetent elected official.” She’s been on “mental health leave” since July.
“Prosper ISD Taxpayers Debate Priciest High School Stadium in Texas.” As in $94.8 million pricey. And that’s after they already built one for $53 million, the fifth priciest in the state, that opened in 2019. And they’ve already built two high schools that cost $200 million each, presumably with gold-plated microscopes and Tito Puente as the music teacher…
Time for a roundup of criminals who had critical failures in their Victim Selection Process rolls.
Out in El Monte, California, a would be thief armed with bear spray and a hammer got a righteous beatdown trying to rob a family jewelry store.
In Texas news, a convicted murderer who preyed on the elderly got his ticket to Hell punched by his cellmate, who also happened to be a convicted murderer.
Convicted North Texas killer Billy Chemirmir, who was suspected in over 20 murders, was killed in a state prison Tuesday morning, officials confirmed to WFAA.
Chemirmir, 50, was serving life in prison without parole after he was twice found guilty of capital murder by Dallas County juries. He was accused of killing 20 other women in Dallas and Collin counties and still faced charges in those cases.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s office confirmed they were notified by Texas prison officials that Chemirmir was killed Tuesday morning. State prison officials confirmed that Chemirmir was found dead in his cell early Tuesday and his cellmate, who was serving on a murder charge out of Harris County, was “identified as the assailant.”
What caused Mr. Chemirmir’s cellmate to extinguish him?
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot told WFAA that Chemirmir was killed after apparently making inappropriate comments sexual in nature towards his cellmate’s children. According to Creuzot, the cellmate allegedly beat Chemirmir, dragged him out of his cell and killed him while other inmates watched. No one intervened and Chemirmir may have been stabbed with a pen, Creuzot said.
It does indeed sound like the “He needed killin'” defense applies here, though the prison guards have some splain’ to do. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Pro-tip: If you go around breaking down doors and beating people in a Chicago high rise, don’t be surprised if you get shot.
A resident who fatally shot Abnerd Joseph during a disturbance in their Loop high-rise building was released without being charged following the shooting, according to Chicago police.
Family of the assistant school principal said Friday they are “left with questions and looking for closure.”
“We can’t make sense of it,” said his sister Jeanna Joseph, who last spoke to her brother Wednesday, the day before the shooting. “We don’t really know what’s going on. … We have questions and we don’t have answers to those questions.”
The shooting happened about 7:30 p.m. Thursday on the 48th floor of the building at 60 E. Monroe St. as Abnerd Joseph was “wildly” knocking on residents’ doors, attempting to enter apartments and “yelling incoherently,” according to a police report.
When the doorman and four tenants went to check, he allegedly struck the doorman several times. A tenant then tried to calm him down and was also hit and fell down, the report said.
Sounds like he was as high as an SR-71.
Another tenant warned Joseph that he was armed and told him to stop hitting people. The police report said Joseph “turned and charged” at the tenant, who opened fire, hitting him several times.
Joseph, 32, was shot in the chest, abdomen, flank, an armpit and a ring finger, according to the report. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy Friday determined he died of multiple gunshot wounds and his death was ruled a homicide, the office said.
The Biden economy continues to batter ordinary Americans, CIA’s bribing experts to protect China and the deep state, Ukraine makes Russian ships and air defense systems in Crimea go boom, UAW goes on strike, and sanctuary city chickens come home to roost. Plus a personal update at the end. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Joe Biden continues to work his special brand of magic on the economy: “Real household income suffers biggest drop since Great Recession.”
Nominally, households earned more money in 2022 than they did in 2021. But thanks to inflation caused by Bidenomics, real household income (that is, income adjusted for inflation) not only fell, but fell by an amount not seen since the Great Recession.
According to Census Bureau numbers released Tuesday, median household income fell from $76,330 in 2021 to $74,580 in 2022, a decline of 2.3%. This is the biggest drop in real household income since 2010, when it fell 2.6%. Even at the height of the pandemic, when millions of people couldn’t work, real income only fell 2.2%.
The decline in real income was driven entirely by near-record-high inflation. According to the Census Bureau, inflation rose 7.8% between 2021 and 2022, which was the largest inflation increase since 1981.
Isn’t not being able to feed your family a small price to pay for our elites not having to deal with mean tweets? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
A ‘senior-level’ CIA whistleblower has come forward to allege that the agency bribed analysts to change their opinion that Covid-19 most likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, according to the NY Post.
The whistleblower told House committee leaders that his agency ‘ tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans,’ according to a Tuesday letter from the chairmen of two House subcommittees investigating the pandemic response and US intelligence, Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) and Mike Turner (R-OH).
The pair have requested all documents, communications and pay info from the CIA’s Covid-19 Discovery Team by Sept. 26.
“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” reads the letter from the House panel chairmen.
“The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis.
“The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” the letters continue, adding that the analysts were “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise.”
Hunter Biden indicted on federal gun charges. A whole lot of observers think this is just an excuse to avoid indicting him (and his father) on bribery and corruption charges.
Washington refused to fully fund construction of a wall along the Mexican border as Congress obeyed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — whom Republicans bow to — and the galaxy of gangs, drug cartels, pedos, Chinese spies, terrorists and Methodists who back Democrats. There are some overlaps. My point is, Democrats cannot destroy the nation without help.
There seemed to be no stopping the onslaught. What to do? What to do? What to do?
Well, they were messing with Texas and as Texans say, don’t mess with Texas.
Its governor’s press office said in June, “In April 2022, Governor Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to charter buses to transport migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C. The Governor added New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia as additional drop-off locations last year and most recently added Denver as a busing destination last month. Since beginning the migrant busing strategy last spring, more than 21,600 migrants have been transported to these self-declared sanctuary cities while providing much-needed relief to Texas’ overwhelmed border communities.”
Battles are usually fought with horses, tanks or aeroplanes. Greg Abbott used buses. As of June, he shipped 500 busloads of illegal aliens to sanctuary cities. The shipments continue.
Virginia Democratic statehouse candidate Susanna Gibson is complaining that there are videos of her having sex with her husband online. Gee, how did they get online? “Gibson had an account on Chaturbate, a legal website where viewers can watch live webcam performances that feature nudity and sexual activity…The videos show Gibson and her husband, John David Gibson, having sex and at times looking into the camera and asking viewers for donations in the form of ‘tokens’ or ‘tips’ to watch a private show.” It did not take Columbo to crack this case. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The Democrat Party has a latent disaster on its hand vis a vis one RFK Jr.
On the one hand, they are fully dedicated to sabotaging his campaign. Under no circumstances whatsoever will he be permitted to win the nomination.
Even if he had 80%+ support from the electorate, the sick truth is that party leadership (influenced by the consultant and donor classes) would rather lose with Brandon than win with RFK Jr. because of what he’s liable to do to the Deep State and D.C. largesse were he ever to assume office. It would be a proverbial bloodbath for the administrative state and all of the grifters who feed on it.
On the other hand, they need to keep RFK Jr. within the Democrat Party fold because if he were to go rogue and run third party — which he, frankly, should have been doing all along — it would be a veritable death knell for the Brandon entity’s prospects in 2024, which are wafer-thin as it is.
Whatever perceived threat Cornel West poses to Brandon’s re-election with his Green Party run, magnify that threat by 10x, 100x and you’re in the ballpark of what RFK Jr. would do to the party. It’s not outlandish to speculate that a strong third-party run by RFK Jr. might literally break the Democrat Party for years or possibly forever. That’s how sick of the party’s BS its own members, not to mention independents and non-voters (the largest, unserviced voting bloc in the country), are.
RFK Jr. has already proven himself nearly bulletproof from relentless Democrat Party and corporate state media attacks — arguably on the same level in this regard as “Teflon” Don.
There’s a petition to have the Hays County district attorney removed from office.
The person who filed it? The Hays County district clerk.
The petition was filed by Hays County District Clerk Avrey Anderson on Tuesday, Sept. 12. I
It alleged that Hays County DA Kelly Higgins implemented and executed a policy or policies that refused to prosecute a class or type of criminal offense under state law.
The petition said DA Higgins has made public declarations that he would not prosecute the following:
simple drug possession offenses
simple cannabis possession offenses
procedures committed by a licensed physician in the case that they are treating transgenders
procedures committed by a licensed physician in the case they are performing abortions
According to the court documents filed, there’s been an excessive amount of felony possession of cannabis, methamphetamine and cocaine cases being declined for “random and nonspecific reasons.”
I know one of the first questions in your mind: Is Higgins a Soros-backed DA? Answer cloudy. She got $2,000 from Chip Shields in Portland, OR. Shields founded Better People, a pro ex-con thing, but I can’t find a direct Soros link to Higgins. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Things that make you go Hmmmm: “A representative of the Harris County attorney’s office told a district court judge that the county would use all legal means to prevent the deposition of the deputy director of election technology Jason Bruce.”
National Review looks back at Simon and Garfunkel. Don’t agree with everything here, but they did make some great music Back In The Day…
“14-year-old son died after attempting the ‘One Chip Challenge.’ You don’t want to jump into that sort of thing without building up your resistance first. Me, I’m pretty sure I could do it, especially if I could find a way to make money off it. Maybe I could get 100,00 people to pledge a buck for every one I eat, and then then see how many I can eat on a live-stream…
Ever wanted to hear The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz do an album of REM covers? Yeah, me neither, but here’s “Shiny Happy People.”
Also, my most recent job just ended. So here’s the tip jar, if you’re so inclined:
I don’t usual rattle the jar, because I make good money when employed, and I’m hardly destitute, but every bit helps. If you know of any remote Senior Technical Writer positions, let me know.
New Mexico Democratic Governor Lujan Grisham declaration that she could unilaterally suspend parts of the United State Constitution by decree have gone over like a depleted uranium balloon:
New Mexico’s Democratic attorney general notified the governor, a fellow Democrat, on Tuesday that he will not defend her in litigation challenging her public health order temporarily banning firearms in certain counties and imposing other gun restrictions.
The prohibition applies to Albuquerque and Bernalillo counties.
“Though I recognize my statutory obligation as New Mexico’s chief legal officer to defend state officials when they are sued in their official capacity, my duty to uphold and defend the constitutional rights of every citizen takes precedence,” New Mexico attorney general Raúl Torrez wrote to fellow Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in a letter. “Simply put, I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety but, more importantly, I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.”
Multiple plaintiffs — the National Association for Gun Rights, We the Patriots USA, residents of the affected counties, and Gun Owners of America — filed lawsuits against Grisham and her administration over the dictate.
Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen announced Monday that his office would not enforce the order, arguing that it is unconstitutional, according to the NM Political Report.
“There’s no way we can enforce that order. This ban does nothing to curb gun violence,” Allen said at a Monday press conference. “We must always remember not only are we protecting the Second Amendment, but at the same time, we have a lot of violence within our community. Let me be clear, I hold my standards high, and I do not or never will hedge on what is right.”
It’s well documented that Democrats love banning guns almost as much as graft and abortion. The fact that so many prominent New Mexico Democrats have said categorically that they won’t back Grisham’s insane power play is telling as to just how far out of the mainstream her illegal ban grab is.
Brandon Herrera, a YouTube influencer with a focus on firearms, has announced that he is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales for Texas’ congressional district 23 seat.
Herrera, who has over 2 million YouTube subscribers, had been hinting towards a congressional run for weeks on his YouTube channel. He previously made an appearance at a congressional hearing earlier this year after being invited by U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) to testify against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Congressional District 23 is a rural, majority-Hispanic area that encompasses western San Antonio and contains a large span of the Texas-Mexico border—including Uvalde, Eagle Pass, and El Paso county.
Herrera first announced his run at the Young Americans for Liberty conference and then in a YouTube video.
“Several Republicans who swore to defend gun rights, to protect borders, just in general, putting the rights and interests of the American people above their own, turn their back on these values,” Herrera said.
“There can be no more incumbent politicians who vote time and time again against the interests of the American people without fear of losing their positions,” he continued.
Herrera calls himself a “Second Amendment absolutist” and has repeatedly criticized Gonzales for being the sole Texas Republican member of the U.S. House to vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a Biden-backed law meant to enact stricter background checks for gun purchases.
Here’s his campaign announcement (which looks like it was filmed in a hotel room):
“I have a deep love for the values that this country was founded on, the ideas of freedom of self-governance. You see, America was never supposed to be the country that gave you everything you always wanted. It was simply a place that gave you the freedom and the opportunity to chase those things for yourself to pursue happiness to build great things.”
“I’m working with groups like The Firearms Policy Coalition, National Association for Gun Rights, and Gun Owners of America.” Notice who’s missing?
“Tony Gonzalez claimed to be in favor of gun rights, but he voted in favor of Biden’s post-Uvalde gun control and claims he would do it again.”
And here he is at Young Americans for Liberty:
“ATF is out of control.”
“They are a regulatory body that does not have the Constitutional authority to write the law, yet they write the law. They’re banning FRTs [forced reset triggers], they’re banning arm braces, they’re banning bump stocks. All things, I will remind you, comply to the letter of the law and were actually previously approved by the ATF for sale.”
“The American experiment was about having the freedom to be who you want to be, to live how you want to live to do what you want to do. Unless that means you want to fuck kids. That’s that’s when the wood chipper gets hungry.”
Here’s his website. His six highlighted issues (gun rights, immigration, budget deficits, censorship, leftwing control of education and abortion) are all solidly conservative, but he might want to throw up paragraphs about the lousy Biden economy and protecting the oil and gas industry (TX-23 includes big chunks of Eagle Ford and Permian Basin fields).
Herrera is one of the biggest gun bloggers in Texas, but sometimes it’s difficult to translate “internet famous” into electoral success. (In 2015, Fark’s Drew Curtis drew a paltry 3.7% of the vote as an independent in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race.)
On the other hand, Second Amendment rights are a hot-button issue for Texas Republican voters, and Herrera has just under 3 million subscribers on YouTube. If 1/10th of them sent him $5 each, his campaign would have enough money to run a competative race.
TX-23 used to be a full-blown swing district, with Will Hurd and Gonzalez winning by narrow margins, but it’s gotten redder thanks to redistricting and a Hispanic swing toward the GOP thanks to Biden’s feckless border policies. Swing districts tend to produce squishy congressmen like Hurd and Gonzalez.
Pretty much nothing about Herrera makes me think he’d be squishy.
The FBI is investigating after a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service was killed at a gun range at a correctional facility in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the shooting happened at the firing range at the Federal Correctional Institutional in Phoenix, located near Pioneer Road and Interstate 17 in north Phoenix. Aimee Arthur-Wastell, spokesperson with the FBOP, said the range was being used by multiple federal agencies at the time.
The FBI specified that the agent was there for “routine” training when they were killed, but didn’t offer specifics as to how the agent was killed or if anyone was in custody.
According to Phoenix police, officers who responded to the area found a person shot, later determined to be the IRS agent. The agent was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. It wasn’t immediately clear if the agent died en route or at the hospital.
According to Arthur-Wastell, no FBOP or firing range employees were injured.
“To preserve the integrity and capabilities of the investigation, details of the ongoing process will not be released,” the FBI said in a statement.
Yeah, I bet.
You wonder just how many of Jeff Cooper’s rules were ignored here. Then again, it only takes one.
You’d like to think that federal firearms facilities take at least as much care on observing range safety procedures as the average mom-and-pop shooting range in Texas does, but given how the rest of the federal government is run these days, that’s no sure thing.
It also brings up the question of just why the IRS needs its own armed agents in the first place. Are there not enough armed agents in other branches of the federal government to provide muscle for the IRS on the (theoretically rare) occasions it’s required?
Feel free to share your own “the agent was investigating Hunter Biden and/or Hillary Clinton” jokes in the comments below.
