The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th. I’m off this week, and enjoying not doing much of anything. Sometimes the best vacation is the staycation. I decided to run a 4th of July falling plate match at the club. Trying to decide whether to paint the plates with patriotic patterns, or paint them with the Union Jack. Shoot all the plates down, for America! For Independence!
It would be a good thing for us if he did. He didn’t have much luck reviving the gun control movement when he was the face of it. This will bring him out from the shadows.
This would be good for us. Everytown has done much better with Bloomberg in the background signing checks rather than being the face for gun control. This would put him back front and center. He’s probably counting on the Dems picking the loon, thereby making himself the default non-loon choice. But by 2020, Trump will be a known quantity, and Bloomberg will struggle to do well outside of the big coastal cities. It will be hard for the gun control movement to keep him in the background.
Justice Kennedy is stepping down. Will this change anything?
Can we put some teeth in Heller and McDonald now? I’ve said before that I’m not really sure Kennedy is the weak link, and have suspected it could be Roberts. It could also be the pro-Heller contingent of the Supreme Court didn’t want to roll the dice again between both Roberts’ and Kennedy’s tendency to go wonky when it’s a controversial issue.
We’ll know when we get a replacement. If we see some grants of cert on 2nd Amendment cases, it will be telling.
Murphy wants to balance New Jersey’s budget on the backs of gun owners. Actually, no. Because this won’t even come close to fixing the state’s budget woes. He just wants to screw you.
Gun taxes look to be going up across the board in New Jersey. For gun owners in New Jersey, it doesn’t look like Murphy is done with you by far. Purchase permits go from $2 to $50. FID cards go from $5 to $100. Carry permits go from $50 to $400, but who the hell cares because no one can get one anyway.
You will be made to pay. Murphy will balance the state’s out of control spending on the backs of gun owners. Actually, no. Because this won’t even come close to fixing the state’s budget woes. He just wants to screw you.
I would note that Pennsylvania will be welcoming to New Jersey gun owners, but if you come here, you need to fight. Because your other fleeing compadres are coming here and voting for the same shit that ruined New Jersey.
Anish Kapoor and Everytown are SLAPPing NRA over using “Cloud Gate” in Chicago in one of their videos.
Looks like sculptor Anish Kapoor is collaborating with Bloomberg’s Everytown to sue NRA for using footage featuring his Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago in their video “Clenched Fist of Truth” Assuming NRA, or more accurately NRA’s PR firm, used their own or licensed material, I can’t imagine there’s any basis for this suit other than grabbing headlines. How can you copyright any picture of an object in a public place? This strikes me as a SLAPP suit. Regular readers of this blog know I’m not the world’s biggest fan of what I’ve dubbed Angry Dana videos, but it’s free speech.
While Illinois has an anti-SLAPP provision, the applicability of state anti-SLAPP provisions in federal courts varies by circuit. Federal anti-SLAPP provisions in the 7th circuit seem applicable, but only to get the suit dismissed. I’d note that Illinois doesn’t seem to have a SLAPPback provision. Â Either way, I hope NRA pursues every avenue to recover the money spend defending against this suit.
Bloomberg is gathering signatures for the Oregon semi-auto ban by paying people to lie.
I-1639 is a ban on semi-automatic firearms. It has nothing to do with a grocery tax. They get paid for signatures, and so they get signatures. The people getting paid don’t care how. This is why I do not believe in direct democracy.
You can find more examples of this kind of deception at the original link.
Vote on ERPO could happen today. Time to call.
A vote could happen as soon as today, so be sure to call. I made probably a weekend’s worth of work for myself getting my club involved.
I don’t understand why people think we need HR 2227, the “Red Flag” law, when it’s trivially easy to make someone a prohibited person in Pennsylvania by 302ing them for psychological observation, and we already have prohibitions for people who file a Protection of Abuse order. This is probably harder to get than a PFA. So what’s the point? I think the point is Bloomberg thinks he can get this, and he’s right. Republicans love themselves some law-and-order, and if you can figure out how to get them chasing after that bone, you can beat NRA.
My issue with this bill is that in certain jurisdictions, like Philadelphia, these ERPOs are going to be rubber stamped. They’ll issue the order as a matter of routine. I also don’t really like that it defines “Family or Household Member” as “other persons related by consanguinity.” I have non-immediately family members deeply concerned about my mental health because I shoot. I get their are penalties for abuse, but what about cranks that think anyone who likes guns is off their rocker? What’s to prevent an abusive husband from using this to disarm a spouse? Nothing. I am also disturbed that the evidentiary standard for applying an ERPO is “preponderance of the evidence” (a lower standard) but getting one removed is “clear and convincing evidence” (a higher standard). The default legal disposition is “easy to get an ERPO, hard to get rid of an ERPO” which is exactly how it will be done in practice.
This also won’t do jack to stop mass shooters. We’ve seen in recent cases where authorities and families don’t take the barest of measures, readily available. So what’s adding more bullshit that’s only going to get abused by the authorities? I’m so glad we have the Republican Party to protect our gun rights. So glad. Such a great job they are doing.
Gun control is coming up in committee. The GOP has been getting sqishy, so don’t take anything for granted.
Gun control on the move in Pennsylvania. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Bloomberg is going to be relentless, and given how squishy Republicans in this state have been getting, I would not count on anything. Give your lawmaker a ringy dingy or drop him a line somehow to let him or her know you oppose gun control, and these bills specifically.
NRA makes it easy. If you don’t have time, hit their “Take Action” link. But personal contact is always more effective.
For now at least, the courts aren’t allowing Deerfield to enforce its new “assault weapon” ban.
A judge has temporarily barred Deerfield from enforcing its ban. That’s very good news. This lawsuit against Deerfield is not a Second Amendment lawsuit, but a preemption lawsuit. Deerfield had a safe-storage ordinance on the books for “assault weapons.” Under Illinois’ preemption law, passed with the Concealed Carry bill, existing ordinances were grandfathered, but new ones preempted. Deerfield decided that since they had an assault weapons related ordinance on the books, they could change that into a ban and still claim the grandfathering.
This is good news for us, but not as much as it could have been if it was a Second Amendment case.
Who needs government censorship when we’ve got plenty of it from our lovely silicon valley monopolists …
Who needs government censorship when we’ve got plenty of it from our lovely silicon valley monopolists. No word is forthcoming on what triggered the deletion. I’m so old I can remember when Internet pioneers would have thought a rule like this was stodgy and naive, like something those clueless fogies in Congress would come up with. Information wants to be free, right? The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it, right? Can’t stop the signal? I remember all these ethoses (ethoi?) from back in the freewheeling days of the early internet, before the oligarchy descended.
If you’d have told me back then that it wouldn’t be the Government screwing up the Internet, I wouldn’t have believed you.