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.

Remember that gun store that said they would stay open in defiance of the governor's order?

Well, the State Police shut them down anyway.

If they're so freakin' defiant, why don't they keep re-opening until they're dragged out in handcuffs (to be cited and released)?

​Do 'no guns' signs have the force of law?
There is no law prohibiting guns in places posted 'no guns.' Failure to leave or disarm when requested to do so would be a trespassing violation, 6-3-303. This section would have to be liberally applied to allow a sign banning a particular behavior, carrying a firearm, to constitute trespassing. Common understanding of the law in Wyoming a 'no guns' sign is a request and a verbal warning by security or the property owner/management is the warning that must be heeded to avoid a violation. A guest or patron of a public business is not an intruder. Frontier Carry is not aware of any case law or legislative intent regarding firearms and this section

Where concealed​ firearms are prohibited
The below does not apply to open carry (other restrictions may apply). This applies only​ to concealed carry.
​
6-8-104(t)
No person authorized to carry a concealed weapon pursuant to paragraphs (a)(ii) through (iv) of this section shall carry a concealed firearm into: 

• Any school, college or professional athletic event not related to firearms (may not necessarily be at school);
• Any portion of an establishment licensed to dispense alcohol for consumption on the premises, which portion of the establishment is primarily devoted to that purpose (bars and bar areas);
• Any place where persons are assembled for public worship, without written consent;
• Any college or university facility without the written consent of the security service (does not specify public or private; assume both).

The above does not apply to open carry.

​This does not apply to open carry. Concealed carry is heavily regulated. This may be regarded as a fortunate oversight by the legislature or a recognition that openly carrying firearms is constitutionally protected. Whatever the case, citizens and authorities are more sensitive to open carry, and in light of a lack of laws or court cases documenting an affirmative right to openly carry at the above locations, caution is advised.

Businesses and police may not be aware of the difference in the law between open and concealed carry.

Fox News

A Canadian man went on a shooting rampage and killed 13 people, including a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer. The rampage seems to have started with the killer targeting people he knew before killing others randomly.

While all mass shootings are disturbing, this one has a facet we haven't really seen. The killer went far out of his way to complete his police disguise. Early news reports state he was wearing a police uniform and driving a Ford Taurus Police Interceptor dressed up to look like an RCMP vehicle.

That's right; he was driving a fake police car. We don't have an actual photo of the car (the RCMP photo looks like a standard RCMP vehicle with the number photoshopped for the alert), but most people aren't savvy enough to spot minor differences in police vehicles.

Killers like to copycat each other. Could this become a disturbing new trend?