Video and still from @reallouiehuey on Twitter.

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Infowars

On April 26, protesters were rallying to support re-opening Colorado at the state capitol in Denver. Exactly what happened next is unclear. The lack of video from before the incident is concerning too, because we don't know what really happened to incite the incident.

The protesters' version seems to be that Jafar Partowmah, who rally participants say is a concealed firearm permit holder, was arrested for open carry because his shirt blew up and exposed his two handguns. Supporters state that Partowmah was not engaged in any kind of threatening or aggressive act. However, the video from the scene does not show what happened prior to the incident.

Police are reporting that Partowmah was openly carrying and was arrested for that as well as struggling with the officers. Partowmah is clearly shown resisting arrest in the video.

Open carry is illegal in Denver as it is considered to have special status in the state (see the Colorado pages for more info). Open carry is otherwise legal in most places in the state, though cities can ban in it in certain public places. Concealed carry cannot be regulated as strictly, making Colorado an outlier among the Western states. 

However, a close watching of the video is telling. It shows Partowmah's red t-shirt tucked in to his belt, with an empty Kydex holster visible inside the waistband. Presumably he was already disarmed by police prior to an attempted handcuffing. With the position of the holster and the tucked t-shirt, it's more likely that Partowmah was deliberately openly carrying. 

Clearly, Partowmah struggling with the officers is bad optics and hurts his case. If his exposure of his weapons was accidental, he should be filing suit in federal court. There is a lot of relevant case law regarding the constitutionality of case law the court could rely on.

​I’ve recently changed my opinion (a little) on gun confiscation by police in light of the COVID-19 crisis. While I still believe that local police won’t go door-to-door rounding up guns and confiscation/enforcement will be far less draconian than the media will hype it to be, I’m concerned that things have shifted.
 
I still think there will be three groups; those that enforce the law zealously, those that only enforce it when they have to, and those that quit/ignore it/actively work to subvert it from the inside.
 
The first “third” will compose true-believers, cops who righteously (and some what blindly) believe it is for the best, and those who don’t care and like kicking doors.
 
The middle group, the blindly righteous are good people who are the kinds of cops who are dedicated to keeping streets safe. They do a good job and always play by the rules. That dedication and rule-abiding will be what bites us in the butt. These guys believe that the regulations are in our best interest and for the common good, so the public must obey and the officers must enforce.
 
During this current crisis where religious services and public assemblies are being disrupted, these Dudley Do-Rights were the cops taking people away and passing out flyers. In normal times, you might get a speeding ticket from these folks, but they’ll never, ever frame you. In a Biblical sense, I’d compare them to Saul, the persecutor of Christians who encountered Jesus and scales fell from his eyes.
 
Yes, these people can be “saved.” A lot of them will get shot though, and that will polarize many of them to the gun control true-believer camp as armed resistance to gun confiscation “confirms” the lies they’ve been told about gun owners. The rest will rally around their deceased brethren and kick doors, shoot dogs, and blow off wives’ heads because we’re fighting back. You hurt me, I hurt you.
 
True-believers are usually deluded leftists. You can’t fix them, but few are in law enforcement compared to the rest. The middle-ground ones are cops who grew up in foreign countries or immigrant communities and regard guns and people who carry them as bad. Or they have little experience with people other than cops carrying them and believe the lies that an armed citizen is dangerous. They can learn or be terrorized, sorta like the Iraqi police.
 
In the second “third” you find most human beings, except these are cops. Most of us aren’t quite sheep, but we do what we are told. Usually, doing what we are told isn’t bad. Who here follows the rules at work, even if it’s a PITA, and does a decent job even though they can cut corners? Do you stop and wait patiently at a red light, even though no one is around and it’s 3 AM? That’s most people.
 
The middle of the road folks will go along to get along. They’ll tell people to “move along” on the beach or reluctantly pass out flyers at the local church, but the sergeant will have to be breathing down their neck if they are going to book or cite anyone for daring to leave home while a disease is out there. We all get upset at these cops when they’re busting us for speeding, but most of the time, if you’re cool and it wasn’t that bad, there’s a good chance they’ll let you off.
 
Most cops will leave people alone if they don’t draw attention to themselves. Think of the guy going 80 on the freeway versus the dude blowing past the state trooper at over 100. These are the cops that’ll enforce gun laws in a really half-assed manner and only when someone is looking. I worked with plenty of guys who would write the bare minimum traffic citations to stay off the sergeant’s radar. But woe betide you if you were a jerk and doing something really stupid on the road.
 
These guys are like “cool” California cops now. There’s lots of stories of normal people committing minor gun infractions or outright breaking magazine laws, etc. and a cool cop doesn’t care. Heck, this used to happen with marijuana too, but you know who I’m talking about. Many of these guys brag that they hate gun control, but admit they would use it against a true dirtbag who needed to sink under the weight of any and all charges.
 
The problem is that when you’re sitting on the fence, you have to fall one way or the other. Cops getting shot and police brass pushing for arrests will make the half-assed guys go one way or the other. Some will go to the first “third” and enforce the law, either out of revenge or fear for their jobs.
 
I fear the group that will follow orders is larger than assumed because of the COVID crisis. Now the current crisis is nothing to shoot over and a lot of cops can rationalize it as “for your own good.” Even gun owning, staunch patriots are disagreeing vehemently over the shutdown orders and restrictions.
 
But let’s say things in the gun control world slowly ratchet up. With no door-to-door confiscation, there is no catalyst to kick off an instant boogaloo. It’s individuals going after cops when they raid the house or in revenge. The event looks like a guerilla war and the mass media will be against the “gun nuts” shooting police and politicians.
 
This isn’t quite the world where a cops who is reasonably safe is going to quit over refusing to assist in a warrant service or do something to a gun owner. As long as the cop is reasonably safe and getting fed/paid, he’s going to do his job over fear of not being fed/paid.
 
That being said, everyone has their limit. When stuff hits the fan, whether it be retaliation against police or law enforcement going Waco-style on somebody, sides will be polarized. How long is that going to take? I can foresee a long grind where one by one, gun owners are targeted in a way to reduce the boogaloo chances and make those that do boogaloo be the outliers.
 
Using the COVID crisis as an example, you can bet deputies would outright refuse to enforce beach closures or even drive-by a church or protest if the FBI was arresting cops for deprivation of civil rights under color of law. Would the governors and mayors be closing businesses if a federal court deprived the elected officials of sovereign immunity? The US DOJ going full-bore in favor of liberty would put a stop to the most odious of our COVID restrictions.
 
Yet we are told the restrictions are temporary and to save lives. They’ll go away eventually and they really aren’t that bad. For a cop who just wants to get paid and not make waves, they aren’t going to tell their chief to pound sand for giving that officer park shutdown duty. It’ll take an embarrassing arrest, news exposure, and a lawsuit to get the department brass to back off and allow the cops not to be stepping on necks.
 
It’s not just police; look at all the people on Facebook who truly think that going to the beach will kill some grandmother hiding at home. “Just follow orders” is a delusion that affects everyone to some degree or another. Ordinary people rat on each other in oppressive regimes to save their own skins, so if you think you’re immune because you’re not a cop, wait until you have to choose between dueling with the SWAT team or diming out your shooting buddies to avoid a felony.
 
The final group, the ones that would up-and-quit, ignore it and be normal cops, or actively work to subvert the law (resistance) don’t bear mention here.
 
What changed was my observation of how authorities (police) are reacting to the COVID restrictions. They’re doing what they’re told because it isn’t odious, the public isn’t that mad (lots of Karens still support them for making going outside illegal), and it’s to save lives. It’s not like they’re herding Chinese people into boxcars or anything.
 
The idea that most cops won’t support gun confiscation has been predicated on the idea the boogaloo will be so nasty and large that you have to choose on side or the other. Unwilling to kill people over a civil right and probably other leftist ideas, cops in the middle wouldn’t risk dying and defect.
 
So if there is “soft” gun confiscation and repression, I fear we do have to worry. Officer Half-Ass might suddenly care that you’re shooting way out in the desert with a semi-auto “assault rifle” and “high capacity” magazines. On one hand, gun control that goes too far, too fast, and gets enforced immediately with a heavy hand is in our favor. If not, I worry.
 
All that being said, there are still more cops that are on our side. This is highly geographical, of course. Look at all the rural sheriffs supporting Second Amendment Sanctuaries. LAPD might kick down your door, rural CA cops might bust you if they find out, but cops in Vegas might just look the other way, while some Montana undersheriff helps you modify your AR-15 into full-auto.
 
Time will tell.

This incident took place in Neptune Beach, Florida. 

Three criminally inclined gentlemen decided to burglarize an apartment. Notice how fast it happens. One, two, three and the door is forced open. None appears to be armed, but one does slip on some gloves. You see them going inside the house and then a few second later, they go flying out the door and down the stairs. One dude vaults over the landing railing and takes a nasty landing. If you have the sound off, it's almost funny to see the suspect fleeing.

Couple of things to notice. Again, the front door yields after three fairly minor impacts. Most apartments and homes have similarly weak doors. Can you get to your gun and deploy it the seconds it took to breach the door? That's one hit recognize something's up, one hit to begin to react, and one hit to start moving while the criminals are pursuing you. Home carry or a pistol at hand seems like a good idea.

Three burglars mean multiple targets. Can you engage multiple targets effectively, especially at ultra-close distance? What if they are armed and shoot back? Are you prepared to shoot from a sitting position? Around a door frame or behind furniture? Does your self-defense weapon have the ammo for such a firefight? Not all of them will flee at the first shot though.

​Concerned about what will happen if you are involved in a self-defense shooting? Can you afford a defense attorney? Join the US Concealed Carry Association today for knowledge, training, and legal protection.

Breitbart: Mark Kelly Hides Gun Control Support During Arizona Senate Run

He's the astronaut husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords who survived an assassination attempt by a mentally ill lose who passed all the background checks Giffords is clamoring for. She's a living martyr for gun control, none of which would have stopped her from being shot. Prior to the shooting, she and Mark at least seemed to be not rabidly anti-gun. 

As if any self-respecting gun-owning 'Zoner would vote for this Democratic douche canoe anyway. I don't see the illegal immigrant generation (that's illegal aliens given amnesty by Reagan and the kids of illegal aliens) voting for a bald white guy though.

The decision has now been stayed by the 9th Circuit (little surprise), but that doesn't mean that Judge Benitez's words of wisdom don't hold true. Here is a selection. All quotes below are his.

The experiment has been tried. The casualties have been counted. California’s new ammunition background check law misfires and the Second Amendment rights of California citizens have been gravely injured. 

First, criminals, tyrants, and terrorists don’t do background checks.

A ballot initiative known as Proposition 63 (the “Safety for All Act of 2016”) (a misnomer)...

The Second Amendment is not a 'loophole' that needs to be closed.

To emphasize the point, all standard California driver’s licenses now look exactly the same, whether issued to a citizen resident or to an unlawfully present alien. Here is the rub. Without additional proof of citizenship, everyone who wants to buy ammunition with a standard California DL is rejected at the main gate because a person who presents a standard California DL at the main gate may be either a U.S. Citizen or an unlawfully-present alien. The first person has a federal constitutional right to possess a firearm and buy ammunition. The other person commits a federal crime by possessing either a firearm or ammunition.

"Warning: the following description of background check obstacles will be dreadfully boring and convoluted."

While there are no numerical limits on the quantity of ammunition one may buy today, Carnac the Magnificent might easily predict that in the not-to-distant future, this will be deemed a “loophole” that the State will endeavor to close. 

In their quest to insure freedom and liberty for our country’s citizens, our Founders enshrined the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. One intended effect of the Bill of Rights is to protect the minority from abuse by the majority by keeping some rights beyond the reach of majoritarian rule.

With its newest over-arching and sweeping background check system, the State completely chokes off many law-abiding responsible gun owners while burdening all citizens who want to buy ammunition. Another pesky loophole closed. 

Is an untried, untested, sweeping ammunition background check system, that returns an unusually high percentage of rejections, a constitutionally-permissible burden to impose on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding responsible citizens who desire to defend themselves with whatever common ammunition suits their situation?

A government may not choose to implement a first-of-its-kind background check system that impedes, defeats, and completely bars the acquisition of ammunition by numerous law-abiding, responsible citizens. That choice infringes the Second Amendment.

The Court notes that this deferential treatment of government restrictions of Second Amendment rights is not to be found anywhere in the Bill of Rights or in the text of the Second Amendment. It begs the question, is there anything that a government cannot claim to be a substantial state interest? And if that is the case hen can the state, through its legislative powers, run roughshod over constitutionally protected rights by claiming they are “common sense laws” that promote the government interest? After all, there is hardly any governmental intrusion that cannot be rationalized as important (for example, a Japanese internment camp). 

And the cure, making it difficult for law-abiding citizens to acquire ammunition, is far worse than the disease. 

And of course, criminals don’t do background checks.

The experiment does not differentiate between a would-be purchaser who is an honorably discharged member of our military, a concealed carry permit holder, a hunter, or a former law enforcement officer, versus an edgy-looking, furtiveglancing, impatient and angry customer.

Also, while openly carrying an unloaded handgun or long gun is prohibited in a public place or on a public street within an incorporated city and in a prohibited area of an unincorporated area of a county, the carrying is not prohibited in non-prohibited areas of an unincorporated county area, such places generally being rural. No doubt, in the not too distant future, this too will be deemed a “loophole” that must be closed.

A ballot proposition is precisely what the Bill of Rights was intended to protect us from – a majority trampling upon important individual rights.

When a legislature’s findings may be given deference it is because a legislative body may be better equipped than the judiciary to amass and evaluate the potentially vast amounts of data bearing upon complex issues. Yet, the referendum process does not invoke the same type of searching fact-finding by a deliberative body.

If Congress is correct, ammunition recordkeeping and anti-importation laws do not work. It is a quixotic notion that criminals (and those bent on committing crimes) will abide by the law, and pay for a background check where their identifiers are recorded and information about their firearms and ammunition is transmitted to law enforcement.  Human experience and evidence teaches otherwise. As Los Angeles jail inmates reportedly said, underground market guns usually come with ammunition.

Any other right in the Bill of Rights could not be subjugated upon such flimsy grounds. But the rights embedded in the Second Amendment are unwanted by some and unappreciated by many. “The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan.”

Beyond the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment has been described as “the Rodney Dangerfield of the Bill of Rights.” Well, Mr. Dangerfield can feel better about himself now, because with Proposition 63, the Second Amendment gets even less respect than he does. 

There is only one policy enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are poisonous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are the antidote. To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear firearms and ammunition. No legislature or popular vote has the constitutional authority to dictate to a citizen that he or she may not acquire ordinary and popular ammunition for his or her guns. Nor may the acquisition process be made so unreasonably difficult that she simply throws up her hands and surrenders the right. 

Like the minors [buying wine online] who want instant gratification and for whom waiting upon interstate shipping is a discouragement, some ammunition buyers bent on immediate crime want ammunition right away and would likely be frustrated in their criminal purposes by waiting for interstate shipping of ammunition. Also, it is not hard to imagine that a prohibited person would not want to lead law enforcement to his door by internet-ordering ammunition to be delivered to his home address. 

The right to keep and bear arms is the insurance policy behind the right to life. If a state regulation prevents a citizen from protecting his life, his other constitutional rights will be superfluous. 

 Law-abiding citizens are imbued with the unalienable right to keep and bear firearms along with the ammunition to make their firearms work. That a majority today may wish it were otherwise, does not change the Constitutional right. It never has. California has tried its unprecedented experiment. The casualties suffered by law abiding citizens have been counted. Presently, California and many other states sit in isolation under pandemic-inspired stay-at-home orders. Schools, parks, beaches, and countless non-essential businesses are closed. Courts are limping by while police make arrests for only the more serious crimes. Maintaining Second Amendment rights are especially important in times like these. Keeping vigilant is necessary in both bad times and good, for if we let these rights lapse in the good times, they might never be recovered in time to resist the next appearance of criminals, terrorists, or tyrants. 

​The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals placed an emergency stay on Judge Benitez's injunction against California's ammo ban. The background check law on ammo is still in force. This was not surprising. What is surprising is that it came at 11 PM. The California Attorney General's office sure worked fast to get this in place.

Judge Benite'z refused to stay his injuction as requested. He did do this last year with the magazine ban law, creating "Freedom Week," where the injunction took place at the end of business on a Friday. Millions of magazines flooded the state.

I'm guessing he didn't do it like that this time because he knew that the CA AG would be wise to that and would win an emergency stay anyway. It might have just felt good to say "No, you tyrant." Which is what Benitez hinted at in his decision (the money quotes coming in tomorrow's post).

If the recent hearing over the magazine case in front of the Ninth is any clue, the ammo ban will probably go a similar path. Lots of choices still remain. This is but the first battle won and the second lost in a long war. The US Supreme Court could take this up early and direct the courts to find consistent with Benitez's ruling. We'll see.

But a whole lot of people got to order ammo online yesterday and the tyrants of California got a finger in the eye. And the gun stores of the Intermountain West are still open for those who want to drive.

So a bunch of mad moms in Lewiston, Idaho, got together to teach a gun safety class. You can read the article, but just look at the picture. It's truly worth a thousand words. And the woman has a concealed firearm permit too. Cringe x 1000.

Current regulations require that on Army Corps of Engineer lands (often flood berms, wetlands, and reservoirs), someone wishing to carry a firearm who is not hunting (so defensive use) must have written permission.

Here is the proposal.

After lawsuits and settlement over Second Amendment rights, the ACE has finally proposed doing away with the regulation. This is necessary to "take the law off the books", absent an act of Congress. When this method was abbreviated during the Bush administration to open National Parks to defensive carry, activist lawsuits basically undid the repeal of the regulation, which necessitated jamming a repeal onto an unrelated bill in Congress.

Anyway, what this proposal would do is subject carrying on ACE land to existing federal, state, and local law. That makes it consistent with most other federal lands, like National Parks, which follow local laws (except in buildings, then federal law applies). 

So this is a good thing. 

Decision here

Rhodes v. Becerra case info here

T-shirt here (not my work)

So Prop 63 passed back in 2016 and since July 1, 2017, Californians haven't been able to order ammo online. Well, they can but it has to ship to a dealer. Who then has to run a background check. And if you buy ammo in person, same deal. It's a nightmare.

Olympic shooter Kim Rhode filed suit and US Federal Court Judge Roger T Benitiz, the same man who brought California Freedom Week for magazines, found against the state. 

In essence, he granted preliminary injunction against enforcing the ammo background check law. This looks to be the same as with the magazines. Until the state asked for him to stay the order, "high capacity" magazines were allowed to flood the state essentially nullifying the states ban. It's estimated that for that week, the overwhelming majority of "high capacity" magazines were shipped to California with other states taking lesser priority.

So here, it looks like Benitiz did the same thing. Too bad there is such little ammo on the shelves of the nation's retailers. California may be sucking up ammo while they still can, before Benitiz is forced to stay his order. If so, good for California. Any cuts at the state's regime is good.

Now about the stay, Benitz probably had to stay his magazine injunction pending appeal because if he didn't, the state would appeal it to a higher court. When he stayed his injunction, he got to write the terms, which literally declared any magazines bought in that time period were essentially legal to possess.

The short version is that if people bought magazines while it was, per the court, legal to do so, the state couldn't go back and retroactively declare them illegal. This included any magazines already owned and not grandfathered by Prop 63 or whatever the assembly bill was (the bill was to embarrass Gov. Newsome by "stealing" his ballot initiative while he was running for governor). The state would have to prove that any magazines bought/imported after the ruling were done after the ruling, which would be nearly impossible to prove. That was the actual nail in the coffin for California's ban. By the way, the case was recently heard in an appeal and the judges seemed to be in our favor. 

So if past is prologue, it looks like California is due for an ammo freedom week. If "purchase" means money changing hands, Californians might buy ammo now and have it shipped later while it's in stock. Stay tuned to the gun blogs folks, we'll know a lot more by Monday.