Much has been written in the last couple of days regarding United States District Court Judge Roger Benitez’s decision on Friday declaring California’s ban on “assault weapons” — as defined in the statute — to be an unconstitutional limit on the right of California citizens “to keep and bear arms” under the Second Amendment.

But this was not Judge Benitez’s first foray into Second Amendment jurisprudence that produced a favorable outcome for advocates of Second Amendment rights. Back in August 2020, the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court decision that similarly found as unconstitutional a related California statute — one banning the ownership of “large-capacity magazines.” The author of that lower court decision was Judge Roger Benitez.

In between those two decisions, there was an “en banc” decision from the Ninth Circuit on a different subject of constitutional disagreement over the meaning of the Second Amendment. In Young v. Hawaii, the Ninth Circuit upheld Hawaii’s “open carry” firearm regulations, which require applicants applying for an “open carry” license to show either an “exceptional case or demonstrated urgency” to carry a firearm. The plaintiff, George Young, twice applied for an “open carry” license, but his applications were denied based on his failure to meet the “exceptional case or demonstrated urgency” requirements. //

there are some interesting aspects of Judge Benitez’s opinion on Friday that are worth noting because he takes some time to explain where Second Amendment jurisprudence stands — 13 years after the Supreme Court changed everything with its decision in the District of Columbia v. Heller.

As Judge Benitez wrote, there was Second Amendment law pre-Heller, and there is Second Amendment law post-Heller, and only the latter seems important to Judge Benitez — unlike the majority view in the en banc decision in Young v. Hawaii. //

The Second Amendment “elevates above all other interests the right of lawabiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” Heller, 554 U.S., at 635. The Supreme Court clearly holds that the Second Amendment protects guns commonly owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.

This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection. The banned “assault weapons” are not bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns… Instead, the firearms deemed “assault weapons” are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles. This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes.

Prior to 2008 [Heller], lower court opinions did not acknowledge that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to own firearms, or that the right applied against the states. See e.g., United States v. Hancock, 231 F.3d 557, 565–66 (9th Cir. 2000) (“[T]his court has concluded that ‘the Second Amendment is a right held by the states, and does not protect the possession of a weapon by a private citizen.’”)

Judicial recognition of an individual right to keep and bear arms to be respected by the states would come later with the Heller decision in 2008 and the McDonald decision in

2010. //

Heller involved a “federal” law, in that it was gun ownership prohibition in the District of Columbia. McDonald extended Heller to state and local regulations by holding that rights under the Second Amendment were applicable to state law under the 14th Amendment. //

When a severe restriction on the core right of self-defense amounts to a destruction of the Second Amendment right, it is unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny. “‘A law that imposes such a severe restriction on the fundamental right of self-defense of the home that it amounts to a destruction of the Second Amendment right is unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny.’” //

DeeInFL
17 hours ago edited
This line of questions from Justice Alito I found quite interesting during oral hearings on New York State Rifle & Pistol case.

Alito: Mr. Dearing, are the people in New York less safe now as a result of the enactment of the new city and state laws than they were before?

Dearing: No, I don't think so. We made a judgment, expressed by our police commissioner, that it was consistent with public safety to repeal the prior rule and to move forward without it.

Alito: Well, if they're not less safe, then what possible justification could there have been for the old rule, which you have abandoned?

Dearing did not have an answer except that the city's arbitrary restrictions on transporting firearms may have made its other rules a bit easier to enforce.

Kagan’s conclusion is blunt: U.S. law “generally requires a lawful admission before a person can obtain LPR status. Sanchez was not lawfully admitted, and his TPS does not alter that fact. He therefore cannot become a permanent resident of this country.” //

Immigration advocates will lament the fact that many of the 400,000 people with temporary protected status are illegal immigrants and that these people will not be able to become permanent residents. Yet blatant violations of immigration law do not disappear when Congress grants illegal immigrants a temporary status due to horrible conditions in their home countries.

The Court made the right decision in this case.

The motion makes the point that the Minnesota Rule providing for a change of venue does not give discretion to the Judge to deny a motion when a fair trial is likely not possible in the location where it is set to take place. Rule 25.02, subd. 3 states:

Subd. 3. Standards for Granting the Motion. A motion for continuance or change of venue must be granted whenever potentially prejudicial material creates a reasonable likelihood that a fair trial cannot be had. Actual prejudice need not be shown. //

The motion also makes the key point — not understood by the media and many in the legal punditry — that the “impartial jury” right in the Sixth Amendment, belongs only to the defendant, and not to the prosecution. There was a concerted campaign launched in the community and the media to ensure that the trial takes place in Hennepin County because Floyd was black, and the racial composition of Hennepin County made it the only county in Minnesota where there was a high probability that the jury would include one or more black jurors.

It severely undermines the confidence in our gun laws as well as the ATF ... if there are not criminal consequences,' Sen. Tom Cotton said. //

David Chipman, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, refused to say during a Senate Judiciary hearing on Wednesday whether Hunter Biden should be prosecuted for an illegal firearms purchase in 2018.

According to a March report by Politico, subsequent reporting by The Federalist, and Hunter Biden’s own memoir, the president’s son appears to have lied about his drug use on an ATF form, a felony that earlier in the hearing Chipman had considered a serious crime. When Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, specifically asked the ATF nominee about the Biden son’s gun purchase, however, Chipman evaded the question.

ZippyPeanutArs Praefectusreply2 days agoignore user
If you disallow sideloading, your wrong. If you tell me I MUST get a third-party product from you and you only -- that I do not have the liberty to get it elsewhere -- then you're up to something that's no good; I don't trust you.

(Also, if you inject code into my processor's firmware that slows my processor and you don't tell me, I don't trust you.)

(Also, if you do everything in your power to prevent me from repairing my own product or prevent me from using a third-party repair shop to to fix my paid-for product -- including using your wealth and power to disrupt supply chains to those third-party shops, I don't trust you.)

(Also, if you tell me that my data is irretrievably lost and that it would be foolish to try, and a third-party tells me that it is retrievable, and it turns out to be retrievable, I don't trust you.)

(If you remove an app from your store because a repressive government pressures you to do so -- and I can't get that app from another source other than you -- I don't trust you.)

(Also, if you solder in RAM and intentionally make it impossible for me to upgrade a product I bought from you, I don't trust you.)

So, Epic might not have legal standing here, but I'd trust Roger Stone before I trusted Apple. //

bushrat011899Ars Centurionet Subscriptorreply2 days agoignore user
I think consumer devices designed to run software a user buys should allow them to load software from an arbitrary source. Consoles included. Consider 20 years from now, what if a developer wants to release a new PS4 game, but Sony has shut down digital distribution services and has stopped signing the game discs. I would argue that the ability to get software for that device is integral to its operation.

Allowing users to sideload software ensures that critical functionality is preserved for all time.

I don't care for Epic in the slightest, but one outcome of this court case improves software freedom, and the other entrenches walled gardens in legal precedent. I know which outcome I want. //

LrdDimwitArs Scholae Palatinaereply2 days agoignore user
quamquam quid loquor wrote:
How far can this case go up for appeal? My understanding is the higher it goes, the more political and broad it becomes.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily true that the higher it goes, the 'more political' it becomes. That can often happen, but isn't guaranteed.

This is a federal case. There are three levels: the district court (where the trial just ended), the appellate court, and the Supreme Court. Appealing to the appellate level is automatic; any party has the right to appeal any judgment, and the appeals court must consider the appeal (if filed properly). The appeals court is usually a panel of 3 judges from the whole court; you can petition for an 'en banc rehearing' where the whole appeals court revisits the case, but that's not automatic (and is rarely granted). After that, a party that still doesn't like the decision can ask the Supreme Court to intervene. This, too, is not automatic; the Supreme Court has the discretion to decide which cases it wants to hear, and declines most petitions.

As for 'how broad' a ruling is, rulings set precedents; the key holdings of a case are binding on future decisions involving the same issue. District court rulings basically aren't precedent at all, but can still sometimes be used for reference when there is nothing better . Appeals court rulings are binding precedent on subsequent cases in the same district (for district courts and future appellate rulings; only an en banc appeals court can overrule its own precedent). District courts are supposed to rigidly follow binding precedent. Different appeals courts can issue conflicting rulings, and thus a given situation might be handled differently depending what part of the country you're in. (This is called a circuit split, and reliably gets the Supreme Court involved to sort it out nationwide). Supreme Court rulings are binding precedent on everyone but themselves, and they make a point not to reverse course often because of the chaos that ensues.

While a decision in Google v. Oracle isn’t expected for a few months, the justices’ pointed questioning at the Big Tech giant indicates Google broke the law to get ahead. //

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Google v. Oracle on Oct. 7. The case involves several legal issues, all of which boil down to one principal question: Did Google cheat and steal its way to the top? 

While a decision on the case isn’t expected for a few months, the justices’ pointed questioning at the Big Tech giant points to the answer being a clear and resounding yes.

Some legal commentators, including myself, questioned the process of “counting” electoral votes on January 6.

The meeting of Congress on January 6 is required by statute — 3 U.S.C. Sec 15, referred to as the “Electoral Count Act.” Pursuant to that statute, the President of the Senate — the Vice President — shall open and announce the vote of each state’s electors of the Electoral College. It also establishes a mechanism for the filing of “objections” by Members of the House and Senate to the counting of any state’s electors as announced.

But the statute alters the process adopted in the 12th Amendment to the Constitution — something a statute cannot do. The 12th Amendment only provides that the President of the Senate shall open the certificates and the votes shall be counted. It confers no power on Congress to adjust or reject the vote count as cast by the electors. Thus, the opening of the certificates and counting of votes is merely a ministerial act, not a substantive one. The outcome of the election will be the same whether the ceremonial opening of the certificates takes place or not.

If Congress is meeting for purely ceremonial purposes, a question arises as to whether the January 6 protesters were disrupting any actual “government business or official function” as contemplated by the statute. //

peregry • 4 hours ago

You're assuming that the government wanted to get big sentences for these people.

They don't.

Rather, they WANT the outrage when all these "insurrectionists" either walk or get minimal sentences. The media and administration will spin it as the courts favoring these people and/or letting them off easy because they're "white" and will wink and nod and talk about how if these defendants were minorities the book would have been thrown at them.

The entire point is to create MORE outrage at Trump and those who were at the capital on Jan. 7, and against the right in general, by creating impossible expectations among their base and then when the results of the legal system do not match the expected outcome, to call it injustice... //

skeptic62 peregry • 3 hours ago

These “trials” have more to do with November 2022 than they do with January 2021. Our justice system has been weaponized by the Left. //

Mudboy skeptic62 • 2 hours ago

They are following Lenin's successful formula to overthrow a country, by legitimizing criminal anarchy and co-opting the justice system.

On Monday, the Supreme Court, in a 9-0 decision in Caniglia v. Strom, overruled the First Circuit Court of Appeals which had held a plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights had not been violated in a civil case involving the police entering his house without a warrant to seize lawfully owned and possessed firearms inside. //

There is an interesting factual anomaly here that I noted in my earlier article.

Among the three judges on the panel of the First Circuit Appeals Court that extended the doctrine to cover warrantless searches of homes was retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

You could look at this as the Supreme Court unanimously reversing a former Supreme Court Justice.

I’m not sure that has ever happened before.

All year, we’ve been planning a family trip back to Tanzania in June–the precise window of time when our kids’ new school would be finished and Haven of Peace Academy would still be in session. We had such a traumatic ending last March. All year, our family has talked about going back and finishing better.

But U.S. immigration won’t let us leave the country with Johnny. So that means Grace, Lily, and I will still go to Tanzania this June–only half of us. I’m excited to go, but this is not what I wanted. So I lament.

Yet this isn’t my first struggle with U.S. immigration. It’s been going on for fifteen years.

I think part of the reason why I have compassion for immigrants is because I have four of them in my family. Maybe this is news to some, but children adopted internationally by Americans don’t automatically become U.S. citizens. In the fifteen years I’ve had my children, I’ve often been prevented from bringing them into the United States. And now I’m being prevented from taking one out.

On May 26, 2020, Dr. Baker performed an autopsy on George Floyd’s body following his death. He is the only expert who testified at Chauvin’s trial who actually examined Floyd’s “injuries.”

On May 29, 2020, the Hennepin County Coroner’s Office issued a press release that reported the preliminary findings to the Hennepin County Prosecutor’s Office as stating that the autopsy “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”

But on June 1, 2020 — three days later — the official Coroner’s Report described the cause of death: “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restrain, and neck compression.”

What happened during that three-day time frame is the subject of the new defense motion which, if true, could potentially help Chauvin along with the three remaining defendants.

The motion contends that after Dr. Baker’s preliminary findings were quoted in court documents, he received a telephone call from Dr. Roger Mitchell, the former Medical Examiner of Washington D.C.,

During this first conversation, Dr. Baker reaffirmed his conclusion from the observations during the autopsy that he did not believe the neck compression played any role in Floyd’s death.

After the call, Dr. Mitchell is said to have written an op-ed intended for publication in the Washington Post that was going to criticize Dr. Baker’s conclusions. Dr. Mitchell called Dr. Baker a second time to advise Dr. Baker of his intention to have the piece published. The motion filed by Thao’s attorney recounts part of that second conversation, and attributes to Dr. Mitchell the following comments:

[Y]ou don’t want to be the medical examiner who tells everyone they didn’t see what they saw. You don’t want to be the smartest person in the room and be wrong. Said there was a way to articulate the cause and manner of death that ensures you are telling the truth about what you are observing and via all of the investigation. Mitchell said neck compression has to be in the diagnosis.

The motion then notes that the final autopsy report has a reference to “neck compression” as having contributed to the cause of Floyd’s death, which was inconsistent with the Preliminary Report which triggered Dr. Mitchell to call. //

The motion contends the contents of both conversations, and Dr. Mitchell threatening to publish an Op-Ed in the Washington Post critical of Dr. Baker amounted to “coercion” under the law, and that the defense should have been provided with evidence of the contacts between Dr. Baker and Dr. Mitchell given Dr. Mitchell’s connection to the prosecution evidenced by the November 5 meeting with four members of the prosecution team.

Let's say you're on a flight, and you inadvertently violate an FAA regulation. If you file a NASA report (which you can do at: https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/ ), you could gain valuable immunity by participating in the program.

If the FAA finds that you've violated a regulation, neither a civil penalty nor certificate suspension will be imposed on you, as long as:

• The violation reported must have been inadvertent, not deliberate.
• The violation must not have involved a crime, accident, or lack of qualification or competency on the part of the reporter.
• Evidence of having filed an ASRS report within 10 days of the event's occurrence (your receipt) must be presented
• Immunity from action under the ASRS cannot have been used in the last five years.

But the ASRS reports aren't just limited to you busting a regulation. They can be safety related too. For example, if there's a confusing intersection at an airport, or you accepted an ATC clearance that got you close to other traffic, those can (and should) be reported too. The goal of the ASRS program is to improve aviation safety as a whole. The more events you report, the more improvements can be made.

Does your aircraft have an electrical system?
NO →
Typically balloons, gliders

14 CFR 91.225 (e) states the requirements under the provision of 14 CFR 91.225 (b) do not apply to certain aircraft without an electrical system, including balloons and gliders. Refer to 14 CFR 91.225(d) & (e) for specific exemptions and airspace limitations.

Do you operate your aircraft above 10,000 feet MSL within the 48 States or DC?

YES

If you operate your aircraft above 10,000 feet MSL within the 48 States or DC do you remain below 2,500 feet AGL?

YES

ADS-B not required

The case has been assigned to Senior Federal District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson.

Judge Magnuson was appointed to the Court — by Pres. Reagan in 1981. He turned 84 in February and is reported online as having an active caseload.

In my experience, many federal judges quit handling criminal trials when they assume Senior Status, as they are able to limit the types and amount of work they do at that stage.

The Senior Status judges who continue to take criminal cases do so because they enjoy the criminal trial process. I suspect that in his 40 years on the bench Judge Magnuson has presided over hundreds of criminal jury trials.

We won’t have cameras in the courtroom this time, and this case might move quite fast. A federal defendant has a statutory right to go to trial within 70 days of his initial appearance. Given that the state trial just ended, and the defense has that transcript to work from in terms of the facts and witnesses likely to testify, it might make sense for the defense to push the matter to the earliest possible trial date.

I’ll have another story soon taking a closer look at these and other issues.

But very little about what DOJ did today makes sense to me. I think it has the potential to cause problems in a variety of ways.

Did the Minnesota Attorney General request DOJ to charge the three officers who haven’t gone to trial yet? Will the Minnesota AG drop that case out of fear of maybe losing it??

Hmmm.

Former solicitor general Ken Starr's new book, 'Religious Liberty in Crisis,' is an excellent and educational introduction to a complex topic, but fails to offer much reassurance. //

A federal lawsuit filed on March 29 against the U.S. Department of Education cites 33 current and former LGBTQ students at federally funded Christian colleges and universities for what the nonprofit Religious Exemption Accountability Project refers to as “unconstitutional discriminatory policies.”

According to the class-action suit, the religious exemption status of the 25 listed schools allows them to maintain discriminatory policies while receiving government funding. This suit, perhaps intentionally, follows the recent passage of the Equality Act in the House — effectively adding gender identity and sexuality to the groups protected under the Civil Rights Act — which is now with the Senate.

The lawsuit and the bill represent a significant escalation of attacks on religious liberty within the first 100 days of the Biden administration. Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty, by former solicitor general of the United States, Baylor University president, and dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law is thus well timed. Indeed, Baylor is one of the 25 schools named in the class-action suit (perhaps surprisingly, Pepperdine, which also has strong evangelical chops, is not). //

Starr recognizes these threats to religious liberty. His practical suggestions to combat them are threefold: get elected, vote your faith, and become a genuine friend of freedom. However, those with antipathies towards many forms of Christianity and other religious traditions believe it is precisely those religions that are the opponents of true freedom.

What is more important: one’s religious belief, which many characterize as simply a subjective choice; or one’s racial, sexual, or gender identity, which many define as a biological given? Or perhaps even more sinister, what if American civil religion finds its fulfillment not in some generic Judaeo-Christian ethic, but racial, sexual, and gender identitarianism?

As Pecknold observes: “The ‘Great Awokening’ is an attempt to give civil religion some real doctrines, real moral claims on lives. It’s both a parasite on the old underdetermined civil religion, and a brand new, bolder civil religion.”

Federal American law and jurisprudence have never sought to coherently and consistently define what constitutes legitimate religion — apart from such acts as once demanding that conscientious-objector emanate from belief in a “supreme being” — largely because of the influence of disestablishmentarianism and indifferentism. Perhaps that worked when the majority of Americans adhered to a shared, coherent ethical and cultural framework that owed its character to Christianity. Those days are increasingly behind us.

Classical liberalism, its adherents often argue, is designed to accommodate all religions and none. But, says Pecknold, “this amounts to a non-answer which insists on toleration while the Woke Hierarchy establishes its church.”

In an America increasingly antagonistic to many traditional forms of religious practice, especially those who are suspicious of the sexual revolution, it’s worth questioning the strength of our legal and jurisprudential levees against the progressivist flood. As a person of religious conviction, I confess I have my doubts.

In one fell swoop, the CDC did to private contracts and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment what had already been done to the First Amendment.

As I’ve said time and again, the real purpose in virtually all regulations promulgated to allegedly prevent the spread of the Wuhan virus were simply stalking horses to increase the power of the administrative state and undercut the ability of the citizenry to object to curtailment of freedom because of a “public health emergency.” We’re slowly seeing the courts correct the overreach by bureaucracies and by particularly fascistic governors. Whether the cases decided in the favor of freedom will be able to hold in the face of some future assault carried out by our betters to keep us safe from ourselves remains to be seen.

While leftists argue that banning camping in the city will just force homeless people to relocate to more rural areas, data suggests that lifting restrictions instead incentivizes homeless people to leave shelters that have strict regulations on drug and alcohol use and instead set up camp in public places.

“After the policy was instituted, the sheltered homeless count decreased 20 percent while the unsheltered count increased by 45 percent, according to the City of Austin’s latest data,” Save Austin Now reports. “In other words, 1/5 of Austin’s homeless left shelters for the streets while the overall number of homeless simultaneously shot up.”

In granting certiorari earlier this week, the Supreme Court will finally address the constitutionality of New York’s law. However, in granting review of the case, the Supreme Court narrowed the issue for review to “whether the State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.” This question differed from that which the petitioners had sought review, namely “whether the Second Amendment allows the government to prohibit ordinary law-abiding citizens from carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense.”

Both framings of the issue, however, squarely present the Supreme Court with the question of whether Heller and McDonald’s guarantee of an individual right to keep and bear arms is limited to the home. While several circuit courts have read Heller and McDonald as limited to the possession of guns within a home, Justice Thomas’ recent dissent (joined by Justice Kavanaugh) from the denial of certiorari in a gun case exposed the folly of such a view:

As this Court explained in Heller, at the time of the founding, as now, to bear meant to carry. When used with arms, . . . the term has a meaning that refers to carrying for a particular purpose—confrontation. Thus, the right to bear arms refers to the right to wear, bear, or carry upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person. The most natural reading of this definition encompasses public carry. Confrontations, of course, often occur outside the home. See, e.g., Moore, supra, at 937 (noting that ‘most murders occur outside the home’ in Chicago). Thus, the right to carry arms for self-defense inherently includes the right to carry in public.

This conclusion not only flows from the definition of bear Arms but also from the natural use of the language in the text. As I have stated before, it is extremely improbable that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen. The meaning of the term bear Arms is even more evident when read in the context of the phrase “right . . . to keep and bear Arms. To speak of bearing arms solely within one’s home . . . would conflate bearing with keeping, in derogation of [Heller’s] holding that the verbs codified distinct rights. In short, it would take serious linguistic gymnastics—and a repudiation of this Court’s decision in Heller—to claim bear Arms does not extend the Second Amendment beyond the home.

Justice Thomas added to the above reasoning an analysis of “cases and treatises from England, the founding era, and the antebellum period,” all of which “confirm that the right to bear arms includes the right to carry in public.”

Of course, several justices are nonetheless likely to resort to linguistic gymnastics to avoid what they perceive as bad (or unpopular) policy. But will five justices stand firm? We will know next year.

from the so-much-for-shutting-the-guy-up dept
Tue, Oct 29th 2019 9:38am — Tim Cushing

Longer yellow lights are on the way, thanks in part to a man a state government agency once forbade from criticizing red light cameras without a proper license.

As The Newspaper reports, the Institute of Transportation Engineers -- which develops standards for managing all aspects of driving under the US Department of Transportation -- has agreed with recommendations made by a team of engineers that found ITE-approved yellow light timing standards reduced public safety and resulted in more accidents. //

An ITE panel concluded in September that a team of engineers who objected to the practice were right on the fundamental issue: drivers approaching an intersection to make a turn under certain conditions can neither safely stop nor legally proceed without risking an automated ticket.

The appeal of ITE yellow light timing standards was brought by a group of engineers that included an engineer who the Oregon Board of Engineers once infamously claimed wasn't an engineer. //

Jarlstrom was fined $500 by the Oregon Board of Engineers for practicing engineering without a license. Jarlstrom does, in fact, have an engineering degree. He's just not licensed by the state. The Board took this to mean it could tell Jarlstrom to stop presenting his red light camera research to public entities. A federal court disagreed and Jarlstrom obtained an official apology from the Licensing Board.

His criticisms of red light cameras (and the consequent shortening of yellow light times) were correct. ITE guidance allowed city engineers to shorten yellow times on left/right turn signals by approving a calculation that shaved 5 mph off the speed limit solely for the purpose of determining yellow light timing.

The research presented to ITE showed this made things much more dangerous for drivers approaching turning lanes during a yellow light. It created a "dilemma zone" where drivers were given two options, both of them bad: make an unsafe stop or get a ticket.

the Supreme Court today agreed to hear the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Corlett, a major 2nd Amendment case that will address the question:

Whether the state’s denial of Petitioner’s applications for Concealed-Carry Licenses for Self-Defense violated the Second Amendment?

Interestingly, that is not the question as posed in the Petition. In the Petition the Court was asked to answer the following question:

Whether the Second Amendment allows the government to prohibit ordinary lawabiding citizens from carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense? //

the question as posed in the Petition asked for an interpretation of the breadth of the Second Amendment’s pre-emption of state regulation, whereas the question as reformulated by the Court focuses on what New York has done and whether that act violates the Second Amendment — a question that can be answered without sweeping away all other state-imposed limitations on gun ownership and possession.

The language chosen by the Court suggests a narrower analysis of the specific New York’s firearm permitting process, and seems to focus on the specific applications made by the Petitioners within the framework of the statutory limitations created by New York going back to a point in time prior to the adoption of the Second Amendment. //

Deciding the applicable “standard of review” — particularly if the Court decides that “strict scrutiny” is the proper standard — would then be a basis to send the case back to the Second Circuit without addressing the foundational issue of how broad are the protections afforded by the Second Amendment. It would also cause a likely “reset” of other cases recently decided or currently pending in other circuit courts. A decision establishing the “standard of review” would “rewrite the rules” in a meaningful fashion on how lower courts should evaluate state restrictions on gun ownership and possession. Such a “reset” of lower court cases would allow the Supreme Court to again put off resolving the more controversial issues about how far the Second Amendment should reach in prohibiting state regulation of firearms. //

DannyBhoyo13
4 hours ago
From what I gather, the Supreme Court narrowing the question under dispute give them another opportunity to punt on decision concerning, “shall not be infringed.” //

Romeg
4 hours ago edited
The Right of Self-Defense PRE-EXISTS the creation of ANY State since it is a Natural Right that is part and parcel of being a natural person while The State is an artifice, a creation of mankind whose 'just powers' derive from those who created The State. Having thus been created and granted such powers as it has and not having been granted, expressly, the right to LIMIT natural rights, The State, therefore, LACKS the power to grant unto itself the power to LIMIT the Natural Rights of those who created IT.

It never occurred to the Founders to apply the language of the Second Amendment to the states since, first off, The Constitution of The United States establishes the Federal Government and the Bill of Rights, which includes The Second Amendment thereto, LIMITS the powers of The Federal Government. But for the Natural Right of Self Defense which presupposes the right to Keep and Bear Arms, the American Revolution would have been lost before that first shot was fired on April 15, 1775 and NO STATES would exist as the consequence. They would be Provinces akin to other former elements of the United Kingdom.

If NO STATE can invade a woman's privacy for the sake of protecting the life of another human being then how, in G*d's Name, can it have the power to tell one of its citizens that unless you can demonstrate some special need, you don't have the right to arm yourself for your own protection?

The language is plainly on display in the Second Amendment to The Constitution of The United States: "A Well Regulated Militia Being Necessary to the Maintenance of a Free State*, The Right To Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed"

*Free State, in the context of this amendment, does NOT refer to any political subdivision. Rather it refers to the CONDITION of being Free, as in the language of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4: 10-14, to wit:

"10-But I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at length ye have revived your thought for me; wherein ye did indeed take thought, but ye lacked opportunity. 11-Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. 12-I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. 13-I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me. 14-Howbeit ye did well that ye had fellowship with my affliction."

You can’t win, but that’s all part of the plan.

Reason, rules, processes – these are the foundations of a free society, which is why the cultural left is so dead set against them. A citizen needs to be able to rely on clear rules and fixed processes to vindicate his rights in order to have any rights. But the rights of free citizens – your rights – are an obstacle to the Lil’ Stalins who yearn to rule over us. If the liberal establishment can create a society where you can’t appeal to facts, evidence, or law, then – until the peasants' revolt – its poobahs can wield undisputed, undiluted authority. That’s their dream, a country where you live in terror of them because you can never be sure that what you are doing or failing to do is suddenly going to be criminalized. //

If you can’t rely on the law or the evidence, then you are at the mercy of the whims of the liberal elite. Sure, the cop did the right thing, and the evidence is indisputable that he did the right thing, but it doesn’t matter at all. The cop is wrong and subject to all sorts of sanctions not because he violated any rule but purely because it is useful for him to be guilty of something.

The Rule of Law has become the Rule of Power, which the bad guys possess for the moment. And they are so arrogant about it that they do not even bother to make a straight-faced argument against cops saving black children’s lives. Hey, it’s just a routine kid knife fight – no biggie. We all remember back in the day, hacking up other suburban teens with machetes and scimitars, and how the cops never bothered us. Not allowing black teens to be gutted is worse than Jim Crow – it’s Jim Eagle. Heck, it’s Jim Rodan.

And we all know if that punk planted a shiv in the other girl’s gut on the bodycam tape, the cop would be lynched for not stopping her. You can’t win, which is the idea.

You can’t have a society where normal people can’t possibly prevail by obeying well-established rules. You’re not wrong because you did something wrong but because you're being wrong is handy for the people who hate you. //

This is how our oppressors like it. But this is not how we like it. Normal people can only take getting bopped on the noggin by the southpaw monkey in the Nairobi Trio for so long before they hit back. You cannot have an enduring status quo where one side is firmly bound to rules and obligations while the other gets to make it up as they go along. Eventually, you will inevitably reach a breaking point. And that’s coming. Then the bad guys are going to miss the rules that they still expect to protect them.