Massachusetts Still Ignoring SCOTUS Bruen Decision

Is anyone shocked that Massachusetts is in denial about Second Amendment rullings? SAF FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN MASSACHUSETTS CHALLENGING CARRY PERMIT DENIALS - Second Amendment Foundation

The brief argues that Massachusetts laws related to carry permit issuance, which empower licensing authorities to deny a license to carry based on a subjective determination that an applicant is “unsuitable” or “may create a risk to public safety,” are unconstitutional under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The statutes at issue allow precisely the kind of discretionary “appraisal of facts, exercise of judgment, and formation of an opinion” that Bruen’s footnote 9 held is incompatible with a shall-issue regime.

Click thru for the details. I expect that a court in Massachusetts will continue to live in denial, and this will have to go to a federal court.

Useless Nitwits at the UN Want Sailors Disarmed and Helpless

Do we think the UN is biased in favor of Somali pirates, or are they just stupid? UN Agency Tells Merchants Not To Arm Against Pirates Despite 90 Sailors Being Held Hostage | The Daily Caller

The UN wants countries to discourage shipping companies from either arming crews, or hiring trained, armed security, because it "might" cause an escalation in violence.

“It’s the same type of fear mongering that you see being brought up with regard to individual citizens defending themselves,” Lott told the DCNF. “With regard to civilians, you often see the claim in the media that people should behave passively when they’re confronted by a criminal, but that’s really a misreading of the evidence.”

Lott noted that when all forms of active resistance are compared to a passive response, the passive response is safer; however, passive responses poses far more risk for injury than using a firearm for personal defense.

Click thru for more from the UN. (Hat tip to The Crime Prevention Research Center.)

Is Connecticut Using Technology to Block the 2A?

From The Gun Writer we get a story from a blue state. Connecticut gun dealers forced to suffer yet another no-sales day

Connecticut doesn't let FFLs run NICS checks. They dealers have to use the Connecticut system, which would be fine if that system actually worked.

Saturday was supposed to be a big sales day for Lock N’ Load Firearms, which is located in Southington, Connecticut. The gun shop has two major sales each year, and Saturday was its “Customer Appreciation Day.” The store spent a lot on advertising the event and on party goods. Several vendors came out for the sale.

The fun ended around 11:40 a.m., when the state’s computer system went down, and it stayed down throughout most of the day.

An employee of another gun store said the outages are becoming a regular thing.

And outages are not the only problem.

Common names, he said, like “John Smith” have become a serious issue for the state’s computer systems, which lack the clarity of a NICS Unique Personal Identification Number or UPIN, which gun owners can apply for.

Which is insane.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has begun to ask if the whole thing is a deliberate attempt to stand in the way of the Second Amendment.

Click thru for details.

Must Keep the Poor Folks from Exercising Their Rights

This was illegal when the racists wanted to keep poor blacks from voting. My guess is that it is illegal today. SoCal City Jacks Up Concealed Carry Application Fee by 1000 Percent

As one X user pointed out in response to Moros's post, Glendale was "only" charging $100 for a concealed carry license a year ago. That's still about twice what I pay for my carry license in Virginia, but it's also almost 1,000 percent less than the $1078 Glendale is now forcing residents to cough up before they can exercise a fundamental civil right.

Say that again. Glendale is now charging $1,078 for new permits, and they are charging $828 to renew those permits.

There's already a legal challenge underway to the sky-high fees imposed in Santa Clara County, California, but it may be necessary to go after Glendale as well. And the Justice Department, which just entered into a settlement with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department over the lengthy delays in processing carry applications, should be very interested in what Glendale, Santa Clara County, and other jurisdictions are charging residents to exercise a right.

They will do blatantly illegal stuff to "get their way." It is the municipal version of 2-year-old throwing a tantrum in the grocery store.

Flock Cameras, Liberty, and Justice

From The Law Dog Files: It is better that ten guilty persons escape - by Ian: Than that one innocent suffer.

The title to this article is Blackstone’s Ratio, quoted from his seminal work: “Commentaries on the Laws of England”.

John Adams, Founding Father and second President of the United States, expounded further on Blackstone’s Ratio.

Flock cameras treat everyone as guilty. The surveillence state, once established, will find more ways to "punish the guilty," and more things for you to be guilty of.

A deputy sheriff in Bugscuffle County, Texas is able to look for a license plate registered to Los Angeles, California; or New York City, New York; or Toadstomp, Montana — with no Constitutional protections for the owners of that plate whatsoever.

There are — as one might imagine — multiple issues here, not the least of which is that there are no active audits being run. Since a search warrant is not required, LEOs are getting caught running searches for license plates using “Test”, “Training”, and the always popular generic “Investigation” — if they even input a reason. Several officers didn’t either bother entering a reason for the search.

Is anyone shocked that cops are using Flock to stalk people, their ex-partners, their girlfriends/wives, people that they are interested in romantically.

Click thru for the "If you've got nothing to hide..." argument, and how it falls apart.

Fort Worth Police Versus the First Amendment

Libs of TikTok has the story. Fort Worth Police EXPOSED for Violating 1st Amendment

Americans should be able to trust that Law enforcement agencies will uphold the Constitution.

Three cops are featured in the post. They threatened to ticket and/or arrest preachers for preaching at an event on public property. The threats are clearly against the 1st Amendment.

[Fort Worth PD] then announced that they will provide “refresher training” to their officers on First Amendment protections.

As soon as they did that, they blocked Libs Of TikTok on social media.

Click thru for the details.

Why the Left Hates Free Speech

Dana Pico at The First Street Journal has thought on Free Speech and The Left. The truth has a conservative bias.

When Elon Musk was trying to buy Twitter, now X, the Left was having fits. The New York Times had many articles and opinion pieces that basically boil down to "Free speech is bad," or "Free Speech is dangerous."

And today? There were riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland, following the attempted beheading of a Scotsman by a Sudanese asylum seeker, and the Usual Suspects complained not about the attack, but about Twitter not censoring people writing about it! There’s more of that here and here and here.

The result is that the government the United Kingdom is going to crack down even more on freedom of speech.

Why? Because they are afraid of what will happen if and/or when the citizens of the UK finally see the results of their policies.

Click thru for more details, and more analysis.

Australians Are Trying to Take Back Self-Defense

Or self-defence, as they spell it. I wish them luck, but the state will not want to relinquish the power that it has taken. ‘Everybody’s fed up’: Two home invasions, two intruders dead and the moral dilemma facing Victorians

The story covers a recent decision not to prosecute, and a similar case from 2015. Click thru for those details.

The problem for Victorians caught up in a youth crime crisis that has seen home invasions skyrocket to record levels in the past few years is that they don’t know whether the law supports them protecting their homes.

Under Victorian law, homeowners are allowed to defend themselves during a home invasion. But the amount of force they use must be proportionate and reasonable to the threat they face.

Which might sound good in theory, but how is a woman homeowner (the case from 2015) supposed to defend herself from a large man trying to choke her? Spoiler, she didn't defend herself, because firearms would be "disproportional," so her neighbor had to come to her aid. He was charged with murder.

In reality it means that the Monday-morning quarterbacks get to second guess the decisions you made at 3AM Saturday, when someone kicked in the door to your home. The state doesn't like self-defense, because it doesn't respect state authority.

Victoria, Australia, is a state in the southeastern portion of the mainland. It is home to Melbourne.

There is more, on the state of crime in Victoria, Australia, and some on the push to reform the laws around self-defense. Click thru.

Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak Is a Political Prisoner

The Gun Writer brings us the following: How you can help free Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak

Things are moving very well in our efforts to free Patrick “Tate” Adamiak from prison, but we need your help.

We need letters—tons of letters—that explain why President Donald J. Trump should pardon Adamiak.

There is a long list of reasons that he should be pardoned. Here are a few:

1. He was investigated and prosecuted by Joe Biden’s ATF.
2. He did nothing wrong.
3. Nothing ATF found in his home was illegal.
4. He had no criminal record.
5. He was an active-duty U.S. Navy sailor.

Click thru for the rest.

At the bottom of that article, there is a link to a bunch of articles on Adamiak.

The places to send the letters:

Mr. David Warrington
White House Counsel
Office of White House Counsel
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

OR

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of the Pardon Attorney
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington DC 20530

Lockdown Orders During COVID Cost Lives

They are only counting lives lost to missed/delayed medical treatment, and they are only studying the UK, but at least they are admitting to something. From The Times (of London). Stay at home advice during Covid cost lives, inquiry concludes

The refrain was, "trust the science." There was no science involved.

The message was drawn up by the Cabinet Office in Boris Johnson’s government, without any input from health leaders, the report said.

Say that again. No input from the health care community. Just a bunch of political hacks doing political hack stuff. Just people trying to increase their power.

Here is one example: People were told to stay, so people suffering medical emergencies did.

It meant patients suffering heart attacks did not go to A&E because they did not want to “burden” the NHS, which led to a rise in deaths from heart attacks.

Then there was the cruelty.

Restrictions on visitors meant many died in hospital alone and their families could not visit them on their deathbeds. Hallett recommended that in future pandemics, limits on visitors should be “the least restrictive possible”.

Read the whole thing.

John Lott on Australia As a Defenseless Victim Zone

Topher Field is a Australian documentary film maker and libertarian political commentator. He also has a YouTube Channel.

John Lott is a researcher and author of the book More Guns, Less Crime.

These two had a conversation. This is an interesting, if brief (9 minute) excerpt of that meeting, about America's experience with armed self-defense. It is 9 minutes out of a conversation that lasted just over an hour. I have not listened to entire conversation, but I will try to get to that this week.

This is the Topher Field video What if everything you've been told is upside down? Topher Project Special with John Lott

95% of the time that people use guns defensively, they don't fire the gun. It's simply brandishing a gun is enough to cause the criminal to go break off the attack.

Of course those stories don't end up in the news, unless something "odd" happens, like the defender holds the attacker at gunpoint until police arrive. But mostly, there is no news story.

The extended conversation is The TRUTH about crime and G.u.n.s EXTENDED interview with John Lott Jr - Topher Project SPECIAL.

Can We Kill the Deep State?

American Greatness asks a question that makes me sad. How Deep Is the Deep State?

Trying to figure out what the extent of the Deep State really is, has engaged Roger Kimball for some time. Is it an onion with many layers? Is it a building with many sub-basments? Peel a layer and find another. Excavate a level and find another. It is turtles, all the way down.

That said, I suspect that the difficulty in surveying the deep state is not its depth but its extent. That is, I suspect that its roots are shallow while its area is both indefinitely large and protean.

It is in the media. It is in social media that is not controlled by Elon Musk, and maybe even in X. It is in education, and state government, and NGOs, and...

You can’t blame the Democrats for wanting to shut up Gabbard. She has been one of the administration’s most effective tools for exposing deep state corruption. The latest revelations concern the direct, personal involvement of Barack Obama in the effort to take down Donald Trump in the aftermath of his election to the presidency in 2016.

Go read the whole thing. It is not that long, and worth your time.

The UK Versus Freedom

JoNova has a post on the loss of freedom of movement in Britain. The 15 minute city is back

How could they resist? The 15-minute city is the fantasy idea that the unwashed masses can get everything they need within 15 minutes of home. But of course, their family may live somewhere else, as might their favourite dentist. How many old folks in nursing homes will miss out on visits because someone doesn’t want to fill out a permission slip or get a fine?

The Telegraph calls this Stalinist. Labour opens door to ‘Stalinist’ 15-minute cities across Britain

Under the scheme, drivers would need a residents’ permit that allows 100 days of free travel per year through six traffic filters during operating hours.

The surfs were tied to the land. How is this different?

When you add in their abandoning jury trial, and the assualts on free speech, you have to ask, "What F- is going on in England?"

In that place where Great Britain used to be... More like Airstrip One every day.

Hat tip to Pirate's Cove: If All You See…

The UK Government and Its Latest Gun Insanity

The UK is losing its mind. Impro Guns brings us the information. Channel 4 Tests ‘Converted’ Blank Firing Guns

Film makers and gun dog trainers in the UK are having to hand in their toy firework guns because they can be made into acrappy zip guns. The item ‘converted’ only has to successfully fire one shot to be declared illegal. It doesn’t matter if the piece of tubing glued to the sawn off chamber goes flying off afterwards

Meanwhile, the actual criminals in the UK are adopting 3D printed designs.

Republican (RINO) Governor of Tennessee In Favor of Gun Control

Governor Bill Lee doesn't think the courts should worry about the Constitution. Tennessee Governor Defends Gun Control: Don't Worry About 'Abstract Categories of Constitutionality'

Bill Lee, the Republican Governor of Tennessee, has been defending gun control for years, but the state’s latest reply brief in a case challenging Tennessee’s recently struck down “intent to go armed” clause is particularly offensive, asking the court to set aside the “abstract categories of constitutionality.”

I am sick to death of Republicans who are really Progressives in hiding. He doesn't think the courts should involve themselves in issues of the Constitution.

Despite Governor Lee’s rhetoric positioning himself as a conservative, the state’s latest brief would be right at home among the attorneys general of New Jersey, New York, and California for its nonchalant treatment of civil liberties and constitutional rights.

A real conservative should challenge him. (Hat tip to Jews Can Shoot)

Lawrence Michael DeStefano Is Being Persecuted by New York

From The Gun Writer... DeStefano: ‘I will never tell Letitia James who bought my guns’

DeStefano has sold his “self-built arms” kits to customers in all 50 states, but New York is the only state where he ever encountered legal problems.

He was arrested in Florida, and expects to be extradicted to New York.

Click thru for the insanity.

Free Speech Must Be Destroyed in the Name of Multiculturalism

From the London Telegraph: Free speech will have to go to preserve multiculturalism: One Australian politician has said the quiet part out loud

Multiculturalism is the new religion of the Left. You will not be allowed to say anything heretical about it. Like the fact that it is failing miserably.

It’s not often the Premier of New South Wales says something that changes the political debate in the UK and elsewhere, but so it is this week. Following the awful carnage on Bondi Beach, NSW Premier Chris Minns gave a press conference about new legal restrictions on speech, and said this:

“I acknowledge that we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that, we have got a responsibility to knit together our community, that comes from different races and religions.”

It is why the UK and Australia, and other places, are putting people in jail for expressing opinions, and in parts of Europe for citing crime statistics.

You will believe only what the state permits you to believe.

Western civilization was fun while it lasted.

They Had to Become Fascists to Stop the Fascists

They can't even hear how tone deaf they are. From Tyler O'Neil at The Daily Signal: The Orwellian Excuse the Congressional Black Caucus Gave for Trying to Block My Congressional Testimony

When the Congressional Black Caucus and 260 left-leaning organizations sent letters trying to prevent me from testifying before Congress, they claimed to be opposing efforts to “undermine civil institutions” and to prevent the use of “government power to silence people.”

His crime? He was criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center for targeting conservatives, such as the time the SPLC got the FBI to investigate Traditional Catholics.

To the Left it is simple. If you oppose anything and anyone that they like, you are evil and must be silenced. That they don't see that as fascist behavior is a testament to the low quality of education in this country.

The details are every bit as insane as you think they would be.

The Police State Required for Nationwide Gun Confiscation

And it would be a police state. The Reality of Nationwide Gun Control - by Holly MathNerd

If you think the lesson of what happened there is that we need nationwide gun control, I want to persuade you of something uncomfortable but important: you really don’t want that.

I promise that you don’t, and if you keep reading, I think I can explain why.

Click thru for the insanity.

Hat tip to Eric S. Raymond on X and to Sarah Hoyt at Instanpundit.

65 No-Go zones in Sweden

Sweden will no longer exist as a part of western civilization. From Peter Imanuelsen at PeterSweden we get the following post. SHOCKING: Now 65 no-go zones in Sweden

Police recently released their new report on dangerous areas in the country and the news is not good.

There are now 65 areas that police list as ”vulnerable areas” in the country. This is just a politically correct term for what is essentially a no-go zone.

They also have another term called ”especially vulnerable areas” where things are the worst.

But then eliminating western civilization was the goal of at least some of the immigrants. I'm not sure that was the goal of the people in charge of letting the immigrants into Sweden.

There are also reports of people in these areas taking on themselves the role of ” Islamist morality police” enforcing strict rules on women in some of these areas.

They act as ”religious enforcers” and attempt to impose sharia like rules in these areas.

Click thru.