Category: Anti Civil Rights ideas & “Friends”
For several years the FBI has been operating a shadow gun ban regime whereby Americans who are not prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law are being denied their Second Amendment rights without due process. This extralegal practice was brought to light again in recent weeks in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit case Turaani v. Wray. The case revealed that the FBI’s current administration of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System amounts to a may-issue gun purchasing scheme that is incompatible with the proper adjudication of a Constitutional right.
For more than a decade, gun control advocates and their allies in Congress have pushed legislation that would prohibit those on one of the federal government’s watch lists from purchasing firearms through the NICS system. As the federal government’s watch lists are oftenerroneous and the procedures for placing an individual on them are nebulous, opaque, and do not comport to any reasonable standard of due process, such legislation would empower the government to extinguish Americans’ Second Amendment rights with nearly unfettered discretion.
Given that such measures are a threat not only to Americans’ Second Amendment rights, but also their First and Fifth Amendment rights, NRA has been joined by the American Civil Liberties Union in opposing this dangerous legislation. NRA is not opposed to prohibiting dangerous individuals from possessing firearms, but the government must be forced to prove that an individual is dangerous by securing a conviction against them in a court of law.
Despite Congress having repeatedly rejected this may-issue scheme for gun ownership, the FBI has pressed forward with their shadow gun ban.
In 2013, the Congressional Research Service published a report titled, “Terrorist Watch List Screening and Background Checks for Firearms.” The document made clear that the FBI was checking the government’s watch lists during NICS background checks. Moreover, if a person came up on a list the transfer would be flagged and delayed. The report explained,
As part of the background check process, NICS typically responds to a federally licensed gun dealer, otherwise known as a federal firearms licensee (FFL), with a NICS Transaction Number (NTN) and one of three outcomes: (1) “proceed” with transfer or permit/license issuance because no prohibiting record was found; (2) “denied,” indicating that a prohibiting record was found; or (3) “delayed,” indicating that the system produced information suggesting that there could be a prohibiting record.60 In the case of a possible watchlist match, NICS sends a delayed transfer (for up to three business days) response to the querying federally licensed gun dealer or state POC. During a delay, NICS staff contacts immediately the FBI Headquarters’ Counterterrorism Division and FBI Special Agents in the field, and a coordinated effort is made to research possibly unknown prohibiting factors. If no prohibiting factors are uncovered within this three-day period, firearms dealers may proceed with the transaction at their discretion.
Therefore, the FBI delays, as a matter of practice, firearms transactions involving individual for whom they have no information suggesting they are prohibited from possessing firearms. This would be bad enough if it involved a temporary delay, however, the FBI does not clear the delay. Rather, the non-prohibited individual must rely on the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL or gun dealer) to proceed with firearm transfer once three business days have elapsed since the NICS check was initiated, as they are permitted to do by law. Such “default proceed” transfers are at the FFL’s discretion and some FFLs are reluctant to transfer a firearm under these circumstances. If a person delayed in this manner is unable to acquire the firearm from a reluctant FFL after a default proceed, the FBI has denied a non-prohibited individual their right to purchase a firearm.
In Turaani v. Wray, the FBI went a step further.
According to the facts presented in Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s opinion, in 2018 the plaintiff (Turaani) attempted to buy a firearm from an FFL. The requisite NICS check resulted in a delay. Then, as Sutton described,
The next day, FBI agent Jason Chambers went to the dealer’s house, which doubled as his place of business, to speak to him about Turaani. Chambers wanted to see what information Turaani had provided about himself and explained that “we have a problem with the company” Turaani “keeps.” He showed photographs of Turaani with another person of apparent Middle Eastern descent, whom the dealer did not recognize. And Chambers left his contact information with the dealer.
Turaani followed up with the dealer a few days later to purchase the gun. The dealer explained that he had received a visit from the FBI. While he “technically could sell the gun” because the three-day delay had passed without further prohibitions on the sale, the dealer told Turaani that he was “no longer comfortable doing so.
To recap, the FBI delayed the firearm transfer of a non-prohibited individual merely due to “the company” he “keeps.” Then the FBI paid a visit to the FFL that all but assured the firearm transfer would not go forward. Of course, freedom of association is an essential component of the First Amendment right.
Following the FBI’s actions, Turaani then filed suit, claiming that the federal government had impermissibly restricted his rights. However, the Sixth Circuit ruled for the government, claiming that while the FBI did share information with the FFL that made the dealer reluctant to transfer the firearm, they did not force the FFL to halt the transfer.
What the court failed to fully appreciate is that FFLs are licensed by the federal government and subject to its oversight. There is an obvious measure of coercion attendant a visit from the FBI to an individual whose livelihood is directly regulated by another branch of the Department of Justice.
The FBI’s shadow ban regime could be used to target any number of politically disfavored groups and individuals.
Consider the 2009 U.S. Department of Homeland Security report “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” The report explicitly targeted Second Amendment supporters and returned military as potential terrorists, stating,
The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.
Further targeting gun rights supporters for heightened scrutiny, the report went on to explain,
Weapons rights and gun-control legislation are likely to be hotly contested subjects of political debate in light of the 2008 Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller in which the Court reaffirmed an individual’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but left open to debate the precise contours of that right. Because debates over constitutional rights are intense, and parties on all sides have deeply held, sincere, but vastly divergent beliefs, violent extremists may attempt to co-opt the debate and use the controversy as a radicalization tool.
In recent months, rhetoric about using the federal government to target those with divergent political views as “terrorists” has reached a fever pitch. The ACLU and other civil libertarians have warned about attempts to empower the federal government to pursue a new and misguided domestic war on terror. Former CIA Director John Brennan even suggested that the national security apparatus be turned on libertarians.
As bad as the current shadow gun ban regime is, there is legislation moving through Congress to make it even worse. H.R. 1446, would eliminate the three-day default proceed on NICS checks and would empower the FBI to indefinitely block FFLs from transferring firearms.
Under the bill, there would no longer be a set timeframe under which the FFL could proceed with a transfer if the FBI failed to give a definitive answer to a NICS check. An unresolved delay would become a presumptive prohibition on the transfer, even if the FBI never identified a disqualifying record.
Instead, the intended transferee – who already filed the Form 4473 with the FFL – would have to file a second petition with the government making the exact same declarations of eligibility and, once again, asking the FBI to rule on the matter.
But what would happen if the FBI didn’t resolve the follow-up petition?
In that case, the bill would require the FFL to wait at least 10 additional business days from the date the intended recipient filed the petition to consider making a default transfer. How the intended recipient is supposed to prove to the FFL the petition was even filed in the first place is not specified. This onerous and nebulous appeal procedure would only serve to exacerbate the threat posed by FBI’s current abuses.
The prejudices and unproven hunches of federal bureaucrats should never determine the exercise of a Constitutional right. That is why NRA members and other gun rights supporters must continue to work to oppose legislation that would give the federal government further discretion over the exercise of Second Amendment rights or compound the government’s current abuses.
There’s nothing more entertaining in public life these days, especially with Trump in retirement, than Tucker Carlson’s quarterly incitement of leftoid vitriol online. This week it was middle-aged generals acting like middle-school girls, after Carlson suggested on air that perhaps pregnant women are not the ideal candidate for combat roles in the military. To respond, military leaders, in uniform, published selfies on Twitter citing Carlson’s lack of military experience, the supposed unseriousness of his profession in comparison, his age, and many more peripheral, arbitrary, and mostly untrue aspects of his character and tone: anything but the actual merits of his point.
To borrow a jargony phrase from the academics who brought you the woke revolution, there’s a lot to unpack here.
First, Tucker’s broader point about the institutional feminization and relative unseriousness of the military was proven embarrassingly accurate by their own hysterical, social media-based response. How weak are the wokerati’s sacred cows, which can be slaughtered simply by pointing out their absurdity. And how venomous is the NPC vipers’ spittle-lipped “clapback.” It’s almost as if their career is built around toeing the line.
This brings us to another point: how thoroughly and successfully the lackeys of woke ideology have infiltrated the military: a historic institutional touchstone for conservatives. Any long-harbored illusions about the ideological imperviousness of the military, much like the judiciary, should be dashed by this moment. Frankly, it’s a shame that heartland boys keep joining up, imagining that whatever vestige of masculinity that remains will provide a path to honor and brotherhood, considering that the American military’s reigning ideology makes a mockery and an enemy of them. What better fodder for the endless wars than men you’d like to see dead anyway?
Finally, especially as a recently pregnant woman, the thing that strikes hardest about the entire discourse is the degree to which adult men are willing to completely ignore the fact of women and infant’s prenatal vulnerability. I’m not sure a meaningfully large contingent of our military needs a maternity flight suit, but to the extent that a woman requires such a thing, she is a delusional, malignant careerist and in a sane world would never find herself in such a position. That any one would condone the idea that a mother and child in that precarious period of both of their lives (or any part of their lives postpartum) should be anywhere near guns, helicopters, or big boom boom machines of any sort, let alone areas of the world known for rapist enemy combatants, demonstrates that there is something deeply wrong with their understanding of life itself.
We have forgotten why wars are ever fought in the first place. It’s understandable within the broader context of fighting pointless ones endlessly that America has lost the script. Lest we have forgotten completely: war is often about death for the sake of life. War is politics by other means, propelled by fear, honor, and interest, of course, but undergirding any classical definition is the fact that wars are fought so that a people can continue to exist how they please. Women, as conduits of new life in the world, have no place on the front lines of war because they are the thing—the precious, precarious, transcendentally beautiful and powerful channel for the continued existence of the species—that men will go to any lengths to preserve to ensure the honor of his legacy and his progeny. The happy warrior writes himself into the past so that his children may have a future.
Maternity flight suits are symptoms of the spiritually suicidal state. We are a nation of womanly men, mannish women, and disposable children. Those three have everything to do with one another. The culture of death marches on.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaks during a news conference in Sacramento in 2019, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) AP
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office quietly signed a settlement agreement in federal court admitting his agency’s gun-registration website was so poorly designed that potentially thousands of Californians were unable to register their assault weapons and comply with state law.
Under the terms of the settlement filed Wednesday in U.S. Eastern District Court in Sacramento, the state Department of Justice is required to notify each district attorney and law enforcement agency to put on hold “all pending investigations and prosecutions” for those suspected of failing to register their assault weapons.
The settlement agreement is a major setback for one of California’s signature pieces of gun control legislation. It comes 11 months after a federal judge said the state’s newly implemented online ammunition background-check program was so glitchy that tens of thousands of otherwise legal firearms owners were barred from buying ammunition — in violation of their 2nd Amendment rights.
The settlement, which still needs to be approved by a federal judge, was filed the day before the U.S. Senate voted to approve Becerra as the new secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Agency. The Senate approved his nomination 50-49 on Thursday, with only one Republican voting to confirm him.
The problems with California’s gun-registration website didn’t come up during the confirmation hearings, but critics say they should have. Becerra is now running an agency responsible for monitoring the nation’s healthcare system and tracking its healthcare data.
“I think what we learned from this experience in this lawsuit is that failing systems not only are acceptable,” but Becerra allowed inside his Department of Justice “a culture to thrive that doesn’t care about people,” said Brandon Combs, the president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the gun-rights groups that originally sued Becerra’s office.
In an emailed statement, an unnamed state Department of Justice spokesperson said the department “believes the proposed settlement is in the best interest of the people of California, and will ensure that lawfully owned assault weapons are registered with the Bureau of Firearms.”
Under the settlement, the Department of Justice agrees to pay $151,000 for gun rights groups’ legal fees, and it is required after a 120-day public notice period to reopen assault weapon registrations for three months to give those who tried to register before the 2018 deadline to do so free from being penalized.
The settlement also requires the agency to provide gun owners with the option of filling out their registration on paper forms, instead of online.
ASSAULT WEAPON REGISTRATION PROBLEMS
The settlement stems from laws passed in 2016 that reclassified certain guns as assault weapons if they had “bullet buttons,” devices that allow a gun’s ammunition magazine to quickly disengage with the use of a small tool, usually the tip of a bullet.
The legislation banned selling the weapons, but it allowed those who already possessed them to keep them so long as they registered their guns online with the California Department of Justice.
The deadline was initially in 2017, but the state legislature extended it to the following year because of the website problems.
In 2018, three gun owners and 2nd Amendment groups filed a lawsuit in Shasta County Superior Court, alleging that thousands of gun owners tried to register their weapons on the state’s website, but the system kept crashing, and they said they received little help when they called and emailed Becerra’s office trying to get the problem fixed.
The law made no exception for technical errors that prevented someone from properly registering. Possessing an unregistered assault weapon is either a misdemeanor or felony. Transporting an unregistered assault weapon is a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison.
Eventually, the case was transferred to federal court.
It’s not the first time Becerra’s office had problems with its online firearms registration and background check program. The California Attorney General’s office continues to battle legal challenges surrounding its problem-plagued ammunition background check system.
A Sacramento Bee investigation in late 2019 found that of the 345,547 ammunition background checks performed, the system kicked back 62,000 ammunition purchases because the buyer’s personal information hadn’t been entered into the state’s gun registration system.
Often, the information on a person’s identification card didn’t match what officials had entered into the California gun registry database, which retail sellers must review when they do the ammunition background check.
Some ammunition buyers told The Bee that the system was so glitchy that they ended up having to buy a new gun to get ammunition for the guns they already owned. Active duty and retired law enforcement officers told The Bee that the system also blocked them from buying ammunition.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez in San Diego ruled there were so many problems with the system that it violated Californians’ 2nd Amendment rights.
In his ruling, Benitez wrote in the first seven months of implementation the system did stop 188 ammunition purchases because the buyer was a “prohibited person” who can’t legally possess ammunition. But during the same period, the system rejected purchasers who are not “prohibited persons” 16.4 percent of the time, Benitez said.
“If the state objective is to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for its law-abiding citizens to purchase protected ammunition, then this law appears to be well-drafted,” Benitez said.
In a motion arguing for a stay pending appeal, the attorney general said the background check program has been much more successful at stopping people on the state’s prohibited list from buying ammo than what the judge cited in his ruling.
Becerra said 750 such buyers were blocked from acquiring ammunition. Becerra also argued that the problems with eligible ammunition buyers being rejected during the background check process were decreasing as time went on and more made their way into the system.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal stayed Benitez’s ruling, which remains pending on appeal.
BECERRA TO RUN HIGHLY TECHNICAL AGENCY
Both the assault weapon registration and the ammunition background check programs were enacted in 2016 as part of a sweeping series of overlapping gun laws California voters and the state legislature approved that year, including the ballot initiative Proposition 63, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, then the state’s lieutenant governor.
Newsom has yet to name who he’s going to appoint as Becerra’s replacement.
Becerra has taken the helm of one of the most elaborate bureaucracies in the federal government. The Health and Human Services agency comprises 29 offices and divisions, spanning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to benefit programs under the Administration for Children & Families. It is one of the most comprehensive data centers in government.
Its websites are the go-to spot for researchers studying COVID-19 to families vying for health care benefits. Officials have long acknowledged a need to improve how user-friendly the sites are. Still, it’s easy to get lost in the troves of information online — even on pages devoted to helping navigate the maze of web pages.
The agency has published more than 4,500 sets of data from various departments.
“As a department, we believe everyone is accountable and responsible for accessibility conformance,” the website says.
“In the context of unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, the data being generated has changed the business models of entire industries and our collective norms and expectations around the use of data in providing better and more personalized services,” officials wrote in a 2019 report.
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For several years the FBI has been operating a shadow gun ban regime whereby Americans who are not prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law are being denied their Second Amendment rights without due process. This extralegal practice was brought to light again in recent weeks in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit case Turaani v. Wray. The case revealed that the FBI’s current administration of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System amounts to a may-issue gun purchasing scheme that is incompatible with the proper adjudication of a Constitutional right.
For more than a decade, gun control advocates and their allies in Congress have pushed legislation that would prohibit those on one of the federal government’s watch lists from purchasing firearms through the NICS system. As the federal government’s watch lists are oftenerroneous and the procedures for placing an individual on them are nebulous, opaque, and do not comport to any reasonable standard of due process, such legislation would empower the government to extinguish Americans’ Second Amendment rights with nearly unfettered discretion.
Given that such measures are a threat not only to Americans’ Second Amendment rights, but also their First and Fifth Amendment rights, NRA has been joined by the American Civil Liberties Union in opposing this dangerous legislation. NRA is not opposed to prohibiting dangerous individuals from possessing firearms, but the government must be forced to prove that an individual is dangerous by securing a conviction against them in a court of law.
Despite Congress having repeatedly rejected this may-issue scheme for gun ownership, the FBI has pressed forward with their shadow gun ban.
In 2013, the Congressional Research Service published a report titled, “Terrorist Watch List Screening and Background Checks for Firearms.” The document made clear that the FBI was checking the government’s watch lists during NICS background checks. Moreover, if a person came up on a list the transfer would be flagged and delayed. The report explained,
As part of the background check process, NICS typically responds to a federally licensed gun dealer, otherwise known as a federal firearms licensee (FFL), with a NICS Transaction Number (NTN) and one of three outcomes: (1) “proceed” with transfer or permit/license issuance because no prohibiting record was found; (2) “denied,” indicating that a prohibiting record was found; or (3) “delayed,” indicating that the system produced information suggesting that there could be a prohibiting record.60 In the case of a possible watchlist match, NICS sends a delayed transfer (for up to three business days) response to the querying federally licensed gun dealer or state POC. During a delay, NICS staff contacts immediately the FBI Headquarters’ Counterterrorism Division and FBI Special Agents in the field, and a coordinated effort is made to research possibly unknown prohibiting factors. If no prohibiting factors are uncovered within this three-day period, firearms dealers may proceed with the transaction at their discretion.
Therefore, the FBI delays, as a matter of practice, firearms transactions involving individual for whom they have no information suggesting they are prohibited from possessing firearms. This would be bad enough if it involved a temporary delay, however, the FBI does not clear the delay. Rather, the non-prohibited individual must rely on the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL or gun dealer) to proceed with firearm transfer once three business days have elapsed since the NICS check was initiated, as they are permitted to do by law. Such “default proceed” transfers are at the FFL’s discretion and some FFLs are reluctant to transfer a firearm under these circumstances. If a person delayed in this manner is unable to acquire the firearm from a reluctant FFL after a default proceed, the FBI has denied a non-prohibited individual their right to purchase a firearm.
In Turaani v. Wray, the FBI went a step further.
According to the facts presented in Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s opinion, in 2018 the plaintiff (Turaani) attempted to buy a firearm from an FFL. The requisite NICS check resulted in a delay. Then, as Sutton described,
The next day, FBI agent Jason Chambers went to the dealer’s house, which doubled as his place of business, to speak to him about Turaani. Chambers wanted to see what information Turaani had provided about himself and explained that “we have a problem with the company” Turaani “keeps.” He showed photographs of Turaani with another person of apparent Middle Eastern descent, whom the dealer did not recognize. And Chambers left his contact information with the dealer.
Turaani followed up with the dealer a few days later to purchase the gun. The dealer explained that he had received a visit from the FBI. While he “technically could sell the gun” because the three-day delay had passed without further prohibitions on the sale, the dealer told Turaani that he was “no longer comfortable doing so.
To recap, the FBI delayed the firearm transfer of a non-prohibited individual merely due to “the company” he “keeps.” Then the FBI paid a visit to the FFL that all but assured the firearm transfer would not go forward. Of course, freedom of association is an essential component of the First Amendment right.
Following the FBI’s actions, Turaani then filed suit, claiming that the federal government had impermissibly restricted his rights. However, the Sixth Circuit ruled for the government, claiming that while the FBI did share information with the FFL that made the dealer reluctant to transfer the firearm, they did not force the FFL to halt the transfer.
What the court failed to fully appreciate is that FFLs are licensed by the federal government and subject to its oversight. There is an obvious measure of coercion attendant a visit from the FBI to an individual whose livelihood is directly regulated by another branch of the Department of Justice.
The FBI’s shadow ban regime could be used to target any number of politically disfavored groups and individuals.
Consider the 2009 U.S. Department of Homeland Security report “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” The report explicitly targeted Second Amendment supporters and returned military as potential terrorists, stating,
The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.
Further targeting gun rights supporters for heightened scrutiny, the report went on to explain,
Weapons rights and gun-control legislation are likely to be hotly contested subjects of political debate in light of the 2008 Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller in which the Court reaffirmed an individual’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but left open to debate the precise contours of that right. Because debates over constitutional rights are intense, and parties on all sides have deeply held, sincere, but vastly divergent beliefs, violent extremists may attempt to co-opt the debate and use the controversy as a radicalization tool.
In recent months, rhetoric about using the federal government to target those with divergent political views as “terrorists” has reached a fever pitch. The ACLU and other civil libertarians have warned about attempts to empower the federal government to pursue a new and misguided domestic war on terror. Former CIA Director John Brennan even suggested that the national security apparatus be turned on libertarians.
As bad as the current shadow gun ban regime is, there is legislation moving through Congress to make it even worse. H.R. 1446, would eliminate the three-day default proceed on NICS checks and would empower the FBI to indefinitely block FFLs from transferring firearms.
Under the bill, there would no longer be a set timeframe under which the FFL could proceed with a transfer if the FBI failed to give a definitive answer to a NICS check. An unresolved delay would become a presumptive prohibition on the transfer, even if the FBI never identified a disqualifying record.
Instead, the intended transferee – who already filed the Form 4473 with the FFL – would have to file a second petition with the government making the exact same declarations of eligibility and, once again, asking the FBI to rule on the matter.
But what would happen if the FBI didn’t resolve the follow-up petition?
In that case, the bill would require the FFL to wait at least 10 additional business days from the date the intended recipient filed the petition to consider making a default transfer. How the intended recipient is supposed to prove to the FFL the petition was even filed in the first place is not specified. This onerous and nebulous appeal procedure would only serve to exacerbate the threat posed by FBI’s current abuses.
The prejudices and unproven hunches of federal bureaucrats should never determine the exercise of a Constitutional right. That is why NRA members and other gun rights supporters must continue to work to oppose legislation that would give the federal government further discretion over the exercise of Second Amendment rights or compound the government’s current abuses.
Victims’ families sue over ammo sold to accused school shooter by Tennessee company
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FILE PHOTO – People embrace outside the Alamo Gym where students and parents wait to reunite following a shooting at Santa Fe High School Friday, May 18, 2018, in Santa Fe, Texas. ( Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee-based online retailer accused of illegally selling ammunition to a student who fatally shot 10 people at a Texas high school in 2018 won’t be dismissed from a lawsuit filed by families of those killed and injured, a judge has ruled.
Lucky Gunner is accused of not verifying the age of Dimitrios Pagourtzis when he bought more than 100 rounds of ammunition before the May 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School, located about 35 miles (56.33 kilometers) southeast of Houston.
This photo provided by the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office shows Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who law enforcement officials took into custody Friday, May 18, 2018, and identified as the suspect in the deadly school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, near Houston. (Galveston County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
Pagourtzis was a 17-year-old junior at the time of the shooting. Federal law prohibits minors from purchasing handgun ammunition, and bars licensed gun companies from selling handgun or shotgun ammunition to minors.
Lucky Gunner and its owners had argued they were immune from litigation under the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act which prohibits firearms and ammunition manufacturers and dealers from being held liable when their products are used in crimes.
But Judge Jack Ewing in Galveston last week denied the company’s request and ordered it pay for the plaintiffs’ attorney fees related to the company’s efforts to be removed from the case.
The claims against Lucky Gunner are part of a lawsui t against the suspect’s parents, Rose Marie Kosmetatos and Antonios Pagourtzis, who are accused of knowing their son was exhibiting extreme behavior and yet failed to prevent him from accessing their firearms, which authorities believe were used in the shooting.
FILE PHOTO – A man hugs a woman outside the Alamo Gym where parents wait to reunite with their children following a shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, on Friday, May 18, 2018. (Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP)
“This ruling says loud and clear that a company selling ammunition to minors can’t hide behind the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” said Alla Lefkowitz, with Everytown Law, the litigation arm of the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. The group is representing the family of Sabika Aziz Sheikh, a Pakistani exchange student killed in the shooting.
Attorneys for Lucky Gunner did not immediately return emails seeking comment Monday.
Lucky Gunner had faced a similar lawsuit after the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting in Colorado in which 12 people were killed. But a federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in 2015.
Pagourtzis, now 20, has been ruled incompetent to stand trial and has been receiving mental health treatment at a state hospital.
The state of California has agreed in a settlement to provide another 90-day window to allow gun owners to register their legally owned “assault weapons.”
Gun-rights groups argued in a lawsuit that the state’s registration website was down for much of the week prior to the previous deadline, which put thousands of gun owners in legal jeopardy. Gun owners who tried but failed to register their “bullet button” semi-automatic rifles due to technical difficulties will not be prosecuted for missing the previous July 1, 2018, deadline, according to the settlement.
“We’ve always believed that this was about giving gun owners a reasonable opportunity to comply with the law and not be made felons at the stroke of midnight because the State couldn’t operate a website,” noted George M. Lee, an attorney for the pro-gun side. “With the Court’s approval, the injunction will afford significant legal protections for possibly tens of thousands of gun owners.”
The Second Amendment Foundation also celebrated the win.
“It’s fair to say our lawsuit prevented guns from being banned and confiscated, and their owners from being prosecuted,” said Second Amendment Foundation founder and executive vice president Alan M. Gottlieb.
As GunsAmerica reported at the time, hundreds of individuals contacted gun-rights groups in the wake of the July 1st deadline. Some reported constant crashes and errors while using the California Firearms Application Reporting System (CFARS), and others reported being granted access to personal information that did not belong to them.
SEE ALSO: Exclusive: Public Records Prove California Gun Registration Was a Total Disaster
A total of 6,213 individuals successfully registered 13,519 “assault weapons” before the deadline. Franklin Armory’s Jay Jacobson said at the time he was “stunned that the number is so low.”
California has not yet announced when the 90-day window will begin, but they agreed in the settlement to accept online as well as paper registrations.
Now gun-rights groups in California are turning their attention to a much more momentous cause: overturning the “assault weapon” ban entirely.
“With this important agreement to protect the rights, liberty, and property of California gun owners behind us, we now look forward to striking down the State’s ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ and restoring Second Amendment rights through our Miller lawsuit, other actives cases, and future litigation,” said the Firearm Policy Coalition’s Senior Director of Legal Operations, Adam Kraut.
SEE ALSO: Federal Judge Rules California Ammo Background Check Law Unconstitutional
Filed in 2019, Miller v. Becerra would overturn California’s ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez secured the case last year after striking down the state’s “high-capacity” magazine ban and the state’s requirement to pass a background check before purchasing ammunition.
Anti-gun groups were livid when Judge Benitez was assigned the case while gun-rights groups are hopeful that he’ll hand down a favorable ruling.
To read all the terms of the latest settlement, click here.
The majority of an 11-judge en banc Ninth Circuit panel concluded that the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to carry firearms outside the home.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Americans have no right to carry guns in public, a divided en banc Ninth Circuit panel ruled Wednesday, reversing a prior Ninth Circuit decision that struck down a Hawaii firearm restriction as unconstitutional.
“There is no right to carry arms openly in public; nor is any such right within the scope of the Second Amendment,” U.S. Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote for the majority of an 11-judge panel in a 127-page opinion.
Looking back on 700 years of legal history dating back to 14th century England, seven judges in the majority found “overwhelming evidence” that the law has never given people “an unfettered right to carry weapons in public spaces.”
The seven-judge majority traced legal texts and laws back to 1348 when the English parliament enacted the statute of Northampton, which banned carrying weapons in fairs or markets or before the King’s justices. It also cited multiple laws from colonial and pre-Civil War America in which states and colonies restricted the possession of weapons in public places.
“The Second Amendment did not contradict the fundamental principle that the government assumes primary responsibility for defending persons who enter our public spaces,” Bybee wrote. “The states do not violate the Second Amendment by asserting their longstanding English and American rights to prohibit certain weapons from entering those public spaces as means of providing ‘domestic tranquility’ and forestalling ‘domestic violence.’”
Writing for the dissent, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said the majority failed to properly interpret the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columba v. Heller, which overturned Washington D.C.’s total ban on handguns and a requirement that rifles and shotguns be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger-lock device.
“The Second Amendment’s text, history, and structure, and the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Heller, all point squarely to the same conclusion: Armed self-defense in public is at the very core of the Second Amendment right,” O’Scannlain wrote.
Plaintiff George Young sued Hawaii in 2012 for denying his applications for permits to carry a concealed or openly visible handgun. A Hawaii state law requires a license to carry a gun in public.
Under a Hawaii County regulation, the police chief may only grant such licenses to those who need a gun for their job or who show “reason to fear injury” to their “person or property.” No one other than a security guard has ever obtained an open-carry license in Hawaii, lawyers for the county acknowledged during a Ninth Circuit hearing in 2018.
In July 2018, a divided three-judge Ninth Circuit panel ruled that carrying a gun in public is a constitutional right and that Hawaii cannot deny permits to all non-security guard civilians who wish to exercise that right.
On Wednesday, the en banc panel majority reversed that decision, finding the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision is not inconsistent with state laws that restrict the right to carry arms in public.
“Heller found that the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms is not a right to ‘carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,’” Bybee wrote for the majority.
Young had argued that Hawaii’s 169-year-old law impermissibly limited open-carry permits to security guards, as applied in regulations adopted by the County of Hawaii in 1997.
During oral arguments last September, a lawyer representing the Aloha State said the law does not limit open-carry licenses to security guards. He cited the Hawaii Attorney General’s 2018 guidance stating that an applicant can obtain an open-carry permit by demonstrating “a need to carry a firearm for protection that substantially exceeds the need possessed by ordinary law-abiding citizens.”
The state says the attorney general’s 2018 guidance overrides the county’s 1997 regulation that ostensibly limits open-carry licenses to security guards.
Despite that argument, O’Scannlain found the fact that the 1997 regulation remains “on the books” and that Hawaii has never granted permits to a non-security guard civilian shows the state has been unconstitutionally restricting Second Amendment rights.
“In the County of Hawaii, the historical dearth of open-carry permits for private citizens is no mere ‘pattern or practice,’” O’Scannlain wrote. “It is a matter of official policy.”
In a concurring dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson, a Donald Trump appointee, argued the panel should have remanded the case back to district court to determine if Young could plausibly allege Hawaii’s law has been applied in an unconstitutional manner.
The failure to do so could have widespread consequences for people suing to protect their constitutional rights, he said, especially for litigants representing themselves without an attorney. Young originally filed his lawsuit pro se but was represented by lawyers in his appeal.
“It will preclude a host of future as-applied constitutional challenges under the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments previously recognized by this court — especially for pro se civil rights plaintiffs,” Nelson wrote.
By upholding state laws that restrict carrying guns in public, the Ninth Circuit joined three other circuit courts that have issued similar rulings: the Second, Third and Fourth Circuits. Meanwhile, the D.C. Circuit and Seventh Circuit have struck down state laws that ban carrying guns in public. That makes the dispute ripe for Supreme Court review.
Although some circuit courts have upheld restrictions on carrying guns in public, Young’s attorney Alan Beck, of San Diego, argued that no court has gone as far as the Ninth Circuit did in its en banc opinion Wednesday.
“The Ninth Circuit’s opinion, which finds the Second Amendment right does not apply outside the home at all, contradicts the decisions of every federal circuit court in the country that has ruled on this issue,” Beck said in an email. “We will be seeking Supreme Court review in order to overturn the Ninth Circuit’s erroneous decision.”
Bill Clinton appointees William Fletcher, M. Margaret McKeown, Kim McLane Wardlaw, and Chief Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas joined Bybee in the majority. Circuit Judges Richard Clifton, a George W. Bush appointee, and Michelle T. Friedland, a Barack Obama appointee, also sided with the majority.
Circuit Judges Sandra Ikuta and Consuelo Callahan, both George W. Bush appointees, joined O’Scannlain and Nelson in the dissent.
Heretofore ignored by the legacy press and mainstream media, in February, federal authorities invaded a neighborhood in the Flathead Valley with militarized police and terrorized its occupants with what appears to be Waco-level tyrannical overreach
In 1992, a federal siege occurred in Boundary County, Idaho, at a location known as Ruby Ridge. The eleven-day siege lasted from August 21-31 and resulted in the deaths of one U.S. Marshall, and the wife and son of Randy Weaver, the target of the siege. This event captured the attention of the nation. To secure the land around this seven-person home composed of three adults and four children, the federal government saw fit to send in hundreds of federal agents, as well as associated vehicles and air support.
The reasons for the siege are not pertinent here, but the fact is many lessons were learned as a result. Those lessons revolved around Rules of Engagement, the use of force, and other legal concerns. One would have hoped the lessons would be applied in future encounters, but in 1993 the same FBI Hostage Rescue Team commander took part in the siege and raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. After fifty-one days, the compound was breached and seventy-five people were killed, including twenty-five children. Nearly thirty years after Ruby Ridge, it seems that the only real lesson federal agencies applied from Ruby Ridge and Waco is that they needed to do a better job of keeping their activities out of the eyes of the public. Why? Because a similar event occurred in Western Montana on February 2, 2021, and it’s likely you’ve not heard anything about it.
In the early Tuesday morning hours, motion sensors alerted the occupant, hereafter referred to as John Doe (names have been changed to protect the innocent) that there was movement along the driveway to his home. Given the time of day, the location of the home, and some recent history that will be discussed later, Doe knew he needed to react, but in a non-threatening manner. His decision was to put on a pair of pants, remain barefoot and shirtless, and move to the front porch with his hands raised in the air. What appeared in the driveway was the lead vehicle of three BearCat armored personnel carriers – commonly referred to as personnel tanks (pictured left) – in a convoy of over thirty total vehicles.
The BearCats are armed with a rotating turret for housing customer-specific weapon systems. Five gun ports are located on each side of the vehicle, and an additional two on the rear. The vehicle are often equipped with .50 BMG or 7.62mm rifles. It is a military-grade vehicle often used by U.S. Special Forces and the Australian military.
But on this day, they were cruising the Flathead Valley with thirty other police vehicles in tow.
Also surrounding the house were one-hundred-plus federal agents with a helicopter in support. Federal agents immediately took Doe into custody and placed him in loose-fitting flex cuffs into the back of one of the BearCat vehicles. Inside the vehicle, John was placed on the outer wall, and at his feet were loaded weapons. Doe later concluded that this had to be a setup, for if he were to try to free himself, he would likely be killed. Seemingly unbeknownst to the Feds, Doe’s 88-year-old mother (who suffers from dementia) was asleep in the house. The actual homeowner, Jane Doe, was also in the home. This is why Doe wanted to avoid confrontation and the stress of such an event by presenting himself peacefully. What looked to be a quick and peaceful resolution then took a strange turn to the worse.
Why did agents breach the house when Doe was already in custody? Counter to standard practice, the team chose to enter a window next to Doe’s basement door. That window is over three feet off the ground and thus difficult to breach and enter by a team that needs to move fast. There are many windows in the house that would have made a breach entry a lot easier. This window was different, not only in its height above ground and the resulting impact on the tactics used, but it is also right next to Doe’s bed. If Doe had not exited the house and moved to the front porch to peacefully present himself, the concussion grenade employed by the breaching team would have landed on him while he was sleeping. There’s no telling what would have happened in that instance, but John’s death is a possibility.
Federal agents obviously knew the home’s layout and they immediately entered Doe’s storage and security room and disconnected all security cameras while conducting a search. Though not included on the warrant, the federal agents searched John’s gun safes, a detached garage, and vehicles parked around the residence.
What provoked this Montana this raid? Doe’s former girlfriend from North Carolina filed a restraining order (a civil matter, not criminal) against Doe in that state claiming he was homicidal, suicidal, a threat to her, and had bomb-making materials with the intention to cause harm. She also claimed he had booby traps all over the home and the surrounding property. But none of this was true.
Doe does in fact hold a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and is licensed for all weapons, ammunition, and powders on his property. Given this fact, federal agents can request to see all his material at any time, no siege required. Circumstances brought Doe back to Montana and, despite the foregoing, a restraining order secured under false information in North Carolina caused a massive raid in Montana involving federal agents from around the country.
According to the Constitution, federal operators may not engage in law enforcement activities without the permission of the local county sheriff, something that is often overlooked and ignored, which is the case here.
Doe was not read his rights until two hours into the event. He was eventually transported to the Flathead County jail by a Deputy Sheriff who was not aware of the preceding events until well after the fact. Doe was released three days later on his own recognizance. Jane was never read her rights despite being questioned by federal agents. John, Jane, and John’s mother were not the only victims of this raid. John’s neighbor, who shares a long driveway with him, was detained in handcuffs for two hours as he left for work. A close friend of John’s heard what had happened and was detained when he went to the house to check on his well-being.
On March 5, Doe and his neighbor both received mail that contained a list of confiscated weapons, but no ammunition was listed despite it all having been confiscated. The list further contained only about twenty percent of the total number of items taken. The address listed on the paperwork was John’s neighbor’s house and it remains unclear why both homes received the notice.
As of the date of the publication of this article, there continues to be a news blackout of this event. John has not been charged with any federal crimes, gun-related or otherwise. Jane has had to pay over $4,000 in out-of-pocket repairs for property damage to her home caused by the breaching team and the subsequent search. (She has received forms to request reimbursement from the Feds). Doe has had to pay thousands of dollars for legal representation.
The Feds spent thousands of tax dollars to execute this raid with agents from around the country, even as far away as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Virginia. Now that Joe Biden is so focused on removing the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution, these actions could become the norm. Americans will be made criminals as unconstitutional measures such as H.R.8 and H.R.127 pass through the U.S. House, on to the U.S. Senate, and ultimately to Joe Biden’s desk. Let us all hold accountable the government that works for We the People, because what happened to John is not what America is supposed to be.
[Editor’s Note: The Montana Daily Gazette stands by the veracity of this report from a field reporter and we believe the Legacy Press has been intimidated into silence by the federal government. Names have been changed to protect the innocent]