-Ephesians 5:11-13
With the background checks bill stalled in the Senate, the New York Times was surprised to learn that it may largely be due to the determined and noisy efforts of a pro-gun advocacy group less than one-tenth the size of the National Rifle Association (NRA) –
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Sunday, August 30, 2020:
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reported last week that from January through July more than 12 million background checks for the purchase of firearms were processed, an increase of 71 percent from the same period a year earlier. “That equates,” said the group, “to nearly 5 million first-time gun owners in the first seven months of 2020.”
An analysis of those background checks by the NSSF further revealed that almost 60 percent of those purchases “were among African-American men and women, the largest increase of any demographic group. Women comprised 40 percent of first-time gun purchasers.”
The NSSF opined that it was the combination of mayors and governors emptying prisons of violent felons in response to the COVID threat, the “peaceful protests” being taken over by radicals such as Antifa and BLM, and the resulting looting, burning, and riots that were followed by calls to defund the police that “continued to spur sales.”
The NRA welcomed the new owners, tweeting that “New Gun Owners Could Sway Future Elections,” adding hopefully that “voters who recently bought guns for self-defense will join other 2A voters and be an even more formidable voting bloc. They know anti-gun politicians are the biggest threat to their fundamental right to self-defense.”
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), called it a “sea change”:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Saturday, August 15, 2020:
The endorsement of President Donald Trump for president by the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA) on Friday comes just a month after a similar endorsement from the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO).
Said PBA President Patrick Lynch:
I have 36 years in this job, 21 as a president of this fine organization. I cannot remember when we’ve ever endorsed for the office of president of the United States until now. That’s how important this is.
Mr. President, we are fighting for our lives out there. We don’t want this to spread to the rest of this country.
Now, many times people say that a union like ours, a law enforcement group, gives endorsements [freely]. Not in the New York City PBA, sir. In the New York City PBA, Mr. President, you earn the endorsement and you’ve earned this endorsement. I’m proud to give it.
The two police organizations together represent more than 275,000 law-enforcement personnel. What’s remarkable is that NAPO endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008 and in 2012, while the PBA in the past has endorsed anti-gunners Michael Bloomberg for mayor of New York City and Andrew Cuomo for governor.
It’s also remarkable that citizens are exercising their Second Amendment rights by buying firearms at record rates. The Washington Free Beacon, after analyzing FBI data, reported that July 2020 saw an estimated 1,795,602 gun sales — a new record and an increase of 133 percent over July 2019. It was the fifth straight month of record gun sales.
The Second Amendment also enjoyed a victory with a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday that California’s ban on “high-capacity” firearms magazines violated it.
Judge Kenneth Lee wrote the majority opinion:
California’s near-categorical ban of LCMs strikes at the core of the Second Amendment — the right to armed self-defense. Armed self-defense is a fundamental right rooted in tradition and the text of the Second Amendment.
Indeed, from pre-colonial times to today’s post-modern era, the right to defend hearth and home has remained paramount.
California’s law imposes a substantial burden on this right to self-defense. The ban makes it criminal for Californians to own magazines that come standard in Glocks, Berettas, and other handguns that are staples of self-defense.
Its scope is so sweeping that half of all magazines in America are now unlawful to own in California. Even law-abiding citizens, regardless of their training and track record, must alter or turn over to the state any LCMs that they may have legally owned for years — or face up to a year in jail.
But the Second Amendment overrides California’s zeal in banning LCMs:
The Second Amendment limits the state’s ability to second-guess a citizen’s choice of arms if it imposes a substantial burden on her right to self-defense….
California’s almost blanket ban on LCMs goes too far in substantially burdening the people’s right to self-defense.
We affirm the [lower] district court’s summary judgment, and hold that California Penal Code section 32310’s ban on LCMs runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
Lee concluded:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 31, 2020:
When St. Louis Circuit Attorney (chief prosecutor) Kimberly Gardner announced last week that she was bringing charges against the St. Louis couple who made the news defending themselves and their home against rampaging protestors in June, she said:
Today, my office filed charges against Mark and Patricia McCloskey following an incident involving peaceful, unarmed protesters on June 28th.
It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner [i.e., brandishing] at those participating in nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St. Louis.
This resulted in immediate pushback from the White House to the U.S. Senate to the Missouri governor’s mansion to the state’s attorney general. It also resulted in the McCloskeys filing a lawsuit demanding that Gardner be disqualified, along with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office (CAO).
According to Missouri Governor Mike Parson, the president is “interested” in being kept informed about the case and has offered any assistance he could as president. Parson said he would likely pardon the couple if they should be convicted, adding: “A mob does not have the right to charge your property. They [the McCloskeys] had every right to defend themselves.”
Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr asking him to investigate Gardner, whom he said had expressed hostility to Second Amendment rights in the past.
Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a brief seeking to dismiss Gardner’s charges on the grounds that their Second Amendment rights had been violated:
The right to keep and bear arms is given the highest level of protection in our Constitution and our laws, including the Castle Doctrine, which provides broad rights to Missourians who are protecting their property and lives from those who wish to do them harm.
Despite this, Circuit Attorney Gardner filed suit against the McCloskeys who, according to published reports, were defending their property and safety. As Missouri’s Chief law enforcement officer, I won’t stand by while Missouri law is being ignored.
And then he pointed directly at Gardner, calling her charge “a political prosecution”:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, June 2, 2020:
There are at least 10 cases pending on appeal to the Supreme Court that involve state infringements of the Second Amendment. It’s been 10 years since the Court has ruled on the matter.
But following the court’s dismissal of a New York City case over an individual’s freedom to carry a firearm in a locked case because the city relented and loosened its restrictions, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh urged his fellow justices to take on one or more the ones currently pending.
Wrote Kavanaugh:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 29, 2020:
When the White House pulled the nomination of Kenneth Charles “Chuck” Canterbury, Jr. to head up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) last week, it didn’t say why. But Canterbury’s confirmation was in jeopardy almost from the beginning.
The White House announced the nomination a year ago, but after hearing what Canterbury had to say about his commitment, or lack of, to the Second Amendment, it died in committee.
During that hearing, GOP Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana expressed his frustration at Canterbury’s lack of candor:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 6, 2020:
An estimated 1.8 million guns were sold in America in April, according to the research consultancy Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting. This is a 71-percent increase from last April, and a continuation of the surge that began in March when a record of more than 2.5 million firearms were sold to Americans.
Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), said the reasons for the continuing surge are simple:
This shows us there is continued appetite among Americans to be able to provide for their own safety during times of uncertainty. These are buyers who have witnessed their governments empty prisons….
Police departments are stretched beyond capacity in many cases. Law-abiding Americans recognize this and are exercising their right to own a gun and defend themselves and their loved ones….
Our rights don’t end during a pandemic. In fact, the need for responsible and law-abiding adults to exercise their rights is magnified.
Timothy Lytton, professor of law at Georgia State University and an expert on the U.S. gun industry, agrees. Civil society could be severely “eroded” during the crisis, leading to a possible breakdown of law and order. In that case, said Lytton, a firearm can be viewed as a “self-help” survival tool in such a circumstance.
He adds a more important reason: “Many of the public health measures, such as shelter-in-place, restricting peoples’ movements, restricting what people can buy … raises fears among many of the potential for government takeover and tyranny.”
Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association (NRA), comes closer to the real reason for the continuing surge:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, May 4, 2020:
Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association (NRA), said on Sunday that “The cancelation of the annual meeting had a significant impact” on the pro-gun group’s financial condition. He blamed it and other cuts on the pandemic shutdown:
The health crisis has caused us to postpone countless fundraising and membership events along with competitions, training seminars and other revenue streams — those disruptions are the primary drivers of our decision-making process. Like every other business and nonprofit, we are forced to make tough choices in this new economic environment.
Those “tough choices” included laying off dozens of employees, furloughing others, and scaling back on the group’s usual fundraising, membership, and shooting events.
The NRA’s chief operating officer Wayne LaPierre sent an e-mail to his people:
This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, April 27, 2020:
It’s becoming clearer all the time that when Donald Trump vacates the White House, he will leave behind a legacy of appointing constitutionalist judges. They will be tasked with the burden of restoring the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights to its proper place in judicial reasoning. The impact of his appointments on the American culture will be generational.
One judge not appointed by Trump but by President George W. Bush makes the point. Born in Havana, Cuba and educated in law at Western State University, Roger T. Benitez was appointed to a new seat on the Southern District Court of California by President Bush in 2003.
His two recent decisions have thrust him into the public spotlight.
In 2016, California voters were persuaded that precious rights could be ignored in favor of faux security promised by anti-gun politicians. Laws were enacted limiting magazines to 10 rounds and requiring background checks on anyone purchasing ammunition.
The California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA), with funding from some private groups and individuals and the NRA, sued the state’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra.
Benitez’s ruling on the first, Virginia Duncan v. Xavier Becerra, ran 86 pages. The judge reviewed all the reasons the State of California presented to support the law limiting magazines to just 10 rounds.
His ruling came down to this:
The magazine ban arbitrarily selects 10 rounds as the magazine capacity over which possession is unlawful. The magazine ban admits no exceptions, beyond those for law enforcement officers, armored truck guards, and movie stars. The ban does not distinguish between citizens living in densely populated areas and sparsely populated areas of the state.
The ban does not distinguish between citizens who have already experienced home invasion robberies, are currently threatened by neighborhood burglary activity, and those who have never been threatened.
The ban does not distinguish between the senior citizen, the single parent, and the troubled and angry high school dropout. Most importantly, the ban does not distinguish between possession in and around one’s home, and possession in or around outdoor concerts, baseball fields, or schoolyards.
The ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American citizens for the lawful purpose of self-defense. The prohibition extends to one’s home where the need to defend self, family, and property is most acute.
And like the ban struck down in Heller, the California ban threatens citizens, not with a minor fine, but a substantial criminal penalty….
Under any level of heightened scrutiny, the ban fails constitutional muster.
The judge took the opportunity to review some history behind the Second Amendment:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 27, 2020:
Two days after District Court Judge Roger Benitez ruled that California’s law requiring background checks in order to purchase ammunition was unconstitutional on April 23, the Ninth Circuit reversed his decision.
This is the second time one of Benitez’s decisions ruling in favor of the Second Amendment was reversed, and both cases are now likely to find the issues decided at the highest court in the land.
Benitez’s ruling on the first, Virginia Duncan v. Xavier Becerra (Becerra is the attorney general of California), ran 86 pages. The judge reviewed all the reasons the State of California presented to support the law limiting magazines to just 10 rounds. California voters had approved the measure in 2016 and it became effective two years later.
His ruling came down to this:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 23, 2020:
Dave Workman, senior editor for GunMag.com (published by the Second Amendment Foundation), reviewed the 3,100-word anti-gun platform available at Joe Biden’s campaign website and called it a recipe “to turn the right to keep and bear arms into a heavily-regulated privilege.”
The de facto Democrat Party candidate for president insists, of course, that he will follow “constitutional, common-sense gun safety policies.” But consider just the first policy:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 31, 2020:
Given the opportunity presenting itself in the form of the coronavirus shutdown, many anti-gun states shut down gun stores and manufacturers as being “non-essential.” On Saturday, the Trump administration revised its own list of “essential” businesses deemed important to the safety and security of the Republic and the list now includes gun stores and gun manufacturers.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the agency responsible for executing directives by the Department of Homeland Security. In its revised memo, released on Saturday, it said that CISA “has developed … an ‘Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce’ advisory list. This list is intended to help State, local, tribal and territorial officials as they work to protect their communities.”
Under the “Law Enforcement, Public Safety, and Other First Responders” section is now included
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, March 11, 2020:
On Monday the Missouri House General Laws Committee approved House Bill 1637 — the “Second Amendment Preservation Act” — and referred it to the full house with a “do pass” recommendation. The bill has more than 80 sponsors, enough to pass the bill.
The bill, if it became law in Missouri, would prohibit any person, including any public officer or employee of the state, from enforcing any past, present, or future federal “acts, laws, executive orders, administrative orders, court orders, rules or regulations” that infringe on the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms.
The bill defines “infringement” as taxes and fees on firearms, accessories, or ammunition; registration or other schemes devised to track the ownership of firearms; any act that forbids the possession, use, or transfer of a firearm or its accessories or ammunition; or any act that orders the confiscation of firearms or its accessories or ammunition from law-abiding citizens.
That would include President Trump’s “bump stock” ban and any federally mandated “red flag” laws. It also pertains to any federal agents who try to enforce those laws in Missouri.
The knee-jerk reaction from the Michael Bloomberg-funded anti-gun group Moms Demand Action was predictable, and wrong:
This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, February 28, 2020:
With more than a dozen states passing so-called “red flag” laws – aka ERPOs or Extreme Risk Protection Orders – the question is more relevant than ever: when is the Supreme Court going to rule on their constitutionality?
Connecticut was the first state to impose such a law on its citizenry 20 years ago, and an appellate court ruled it to be constitutional. Since then? Nothing but silence.
But things are heating up in New Mexico that just might force the issue: the governor expects local sheriffs to enforce her shiny new unconstitutional red flag law, but the sheriffs are refusing to do so.
What if she presses the matter?
Upon signing into law Senate Bill 5 – the state’s version of an ERPO or “red flag” law – on Tuesday, New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham claimed that “this law is sensible and balanced. It is a good public safety measure. If it saves even one life, and it will, we will have done good work here.”
Not if those good intentions violate the U.S. Constitution, say the sheriffs she is counting on to enforce it. Sheriff of Cibola County Tony Mace is also chairman of the New Mexico Sheriffs Association. In a public statement, he made clear that sheriffs don’t work for the state, the governor, or the legislature:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 27, 2020:
Upon signing into law Senate Bill 5 — an ERPO or “red flag” law — on Tuesday, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham claimed that “this law is sensible and balanced. It is a good public safety measure. If it saves even one life, and it will, we will have done good work here.”
Not if those good intentions violate the U.S. Constitution, say the sheriffs she is counting on to enforce it. Sheriff of Cibola County Tony Mace is also chairman of the New Mexico Sheriffs Association. In a public statement, he made it clear that sheriffs don’t work for the state, the governor, or the legislature: “The sheriff is elected by the people within a sovereign state and county to protect and serve all people within the county.… [He] swears a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States as well as the Constitution and laws of the state of New Mexico, in that order of precedence.”
And he and his association think that the red flag law doesn’t conform to either constitution:
Modern “Red Flag Laws” deny responsible gun owners notice or a chance to defend themselves against an initial confiscation order….
Citizens have a right to bear arms and we cannot circumvent that right when they have not even committed a crime or even been accused of committing one. “Shall not be infringed” is a very clear and concise component of an Amendment that our forefathers felt was important enough to be recognized immediately following freedom of speech and religion.
We sheriffs have sworn to uphold those and other God-given rights for our citizens at all costs.
In response, Governor Lujan Grisham told reporters that the sheriffs “cannot not enforce. And if they really intend to do that, they should resign as a law enforcement officer and leader in that community.”
Lea County Sheriff Corey Helton is one of dozens of sheriffs who have signed a resolution drafted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. Regarding the newly minted red flag law, he said, “I’m proud to say I’m a constitutional sheriff and I’m just not going to enforce an unconstitutional law. My oath prevents me from doing that.”
That resolution holds that
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 12, 2020:
In a rush to beat a Tuesday deadline, the Virginia House Democrats passed a bill banning possession of “assault”-style weapons by innocent Virginians, including the popular AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.
The bill also makes it a felony (punishable by up to five years in jail) to import, sell, transfer, manufacture, purchase, possess, or transport “large capacity magazines, silencers, and trigger activators [bump stocks].” In addition, the bill also forbids any formerly law-abiding Virginian from carrying a shotgun with a “magazine that will hold more than seven rounds of the longest ammunition.”
It further infringes on rights of Virginians by requiring formerly law-abiding citizens owning the soon-to-be outlawed firearms to obtain a permit to possess them “in accordance with procedures established in the bill.”
The bill now moves to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where passage is expected.
Democrats used the mass shooting that took place in Virginia Beach in May 2019 as cover for their egregious infringements of the Second Amendment. Missing from any of the arguments supporting the bill was
This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, February 5, 2020:
Now that the newly compliant Democrat-controlled legislature in Richmond, Virginia has passed most of Democrat Governor Ralph Northam’s gun controls, he faces the next challenge: how to enforce them.
He says he’s up to the challenge.
Following the Democrat Party’s takeover of both houses in Virginia last November, the party gained control of both the legislature and the governor’s mansion for the first time in a generation. Gun owners awakened, saw what was coming and pressured nearly all of the state’s counties and many of its cities to pass “Second Amendment sanctuary” resolutions. These were passed to protest the coming abrogation of their rights by politicians in Richmond, the state’s capitol.
The governor’s spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky, referring specifically to one of those bills (making it a felony for a gun owner to “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a way that endangers a minor) said “This bill will keep children safe from loaded, unsecured firearms.” She added that this “is something that everyone … should support.”
But what if they don’t? Will those resolutions keep Governor Ralph Northam from enforcing them anyway?
When he was asked, Northam said they will be enforced, and any law enforcement officer, including county sheriffs, who doesn’t will face “consequences”:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, February 4, 2020:
Following the Democrat Party’s takeover of both houses in Virginia last November, the party gained control of both the Legislature and the Governor’s Mansion for the first time in a generation. Gun owners awakened, saw what was coming, and pressured nearly all of the state’s counties and many of its cities to pass “Second Amendment sanctuary” resolutions. These were passed to protest the coming abrogation of their rights by politicians in Richmond, the state’s capitol.
When speaking about a bill that would make it a felony for a gun owner to “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a way that endangers a minor, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky said, “This bill will keep children safe from loaded, unsecured firearms.” She added that the bill “is something that everyone … should support.”
But what if everyone doesn’t support the bill, or any of the new gun-control legislation? Will those Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions keep Governor Northam from enforcing them anyway?
When he was asked, Northam said the new gun-control measures will be enforced, and any law-enforcement officer, including county sheriffs, who doesn’t enforce them will face “consequences”:
This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, January 27, 2020:
Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) has devised another way to attack the rights of law-abiding gun owners: tracking their purchases of firearms using credit cards.
The core of her bill (H.R. 5132, the Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act) seems, on the surface, innocuous enough:
To request information for financial institutions for the purpose of developing an advisory about the identification and reporting of suspicious activity … relating to how homegrown violent extremists and perpetrators of domestic terrorism procure firearms … for the purpose of carrying out “lone actor” or “lone wolf” acts of terror within the United States.
Said Wexton when introducing her bill:
This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 27, 2020:
“If a crime involves the use of a firearm, it must be the firearm’s fault” is almost the automatic reaction of anti-gun politicians plagued by crime in their jurisdictions. Since guns were involved in all three of the shootings that occurred in Seattle, Washington last week, politicians are threatening to infringe further on law-abiding gun owners’ precious rights in retaliation.
Following the third shooting in Seattle in as many days, Mayor Jenny Durkan said “We will not allow this to be the new normal. We know gun violence is preventable and are taking urgent action.”
A similar statement was issued by Congressional Representative Democrat Pramila Jayapal, who pointed to the need for stronger gun controls.
The shooting Wednesday night in front of a McDonald’s located in Seattle’s high crime area was gang-related. One of the three thugs was wounded while the other two bolted but were later apprehended by police. Seven bystanders caught in the crossfire following an argument were either killed or wounded.
The thug who was wounded, 21-year-old Jamel Jackson, was booked into jail for unlawful possession of a firearm following being treated at a local hospital. The other two who bolted from the scene
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