Before the Bruen decision was handed down last June, Santa Clara County, California was home to just a handful of concealed carry holders; in large part because longtime sheriff Laurie Smith turned away most applicants… at least those not willing and able to offer up bribes to the sheriff and her top deputies.
Since Smith resigned just ahead of a guilty verdict on corruption charges in a civil trial and the Supreme Court struck down “may issue” permitting systems like the one in place in the county, things still haven’t appreciably improved, with Second Amendment attorney Kostas Moros reporting earlier this month that the new sheriff has approved almost three dozen applications, while nearly 900 more remain in the pipeline.
While only a handful of Santa Clara County residents have received their carry permits, that hasn’t stopped one community in the county from trying to block concealed carry holders from exercising their right to bear arms in public. Earlier this year the Los Gatos City Council approved a sweeping ordinance establishing a host of new gun-free zones that was set to take effect on September 1st, but thanks to Second Amendment advocates those “sensitive places” are now on hold.
Michel and Associates, law firm representing the California Rifle & Pistol Association and the Second Amendment Foundation, recently sent a letter to the town saying the concealed carry ordinance approved this summer infringes on the constitutional rights of gun owners.
“Specifically, the ordinance makes it so that firearms are prohibited to be carried – even by those with a permit – in town property, public transit and places of worship,” the letter reads.
Town attorney Gabrielle Whelan said the council met in a closed session last week and voted to suspend enforcing the ordinance on those locations until anticipated litigation against the state is resolved.
“We’re taking it seriously,” Whelan said. “The town’s ordinance is modeled on pending state legislation.”
The ordinance was set to go into effect on Sept. 1. While the town is halting enforcement at places of worship, public transportation and some town property, the ordinance will be enforced at schools.
The town already took what Whelan called a conservative approach in defining sensitive places, naming only locations that have already been cited in existing case law to avoid litigation.
A truly conservative approach to the town’s carry laws would mean rejecting the legislature’s proposed prohibitions outright, not adopting them as the city’s own. And if Whelan and the city council were really that confident that these “sensitive places” would withstand a court challenge, suspending enforcement is a funny way of showing it.
The good news is that those few concealed carry holders in Santa Clara County can exercise their right to bear arms relatively unimpeded in Los Gatos, at least in the short term. But with lawmakers in Sacramento set to approve SB 2 and its own laundry list of prohibited places, gun owners across the state are soon going to be subjected to the same infringements that Los Gatos officials tried to implement at the local level.
I expect the first lawsuits challenging SB 2 to be filed almost as soon as Gavin Newsom signs the bill into law and Santa Clara County officials may still end up getting sued over the lengthy delays and the cost of acquiring a carry permit as well; given that it currently costs more than $1,000 dollars between training, a mandatory psychological evaluation, and a load of administrative fees before residents can access their right to bear arms in public.
Even with Sheriff Smith ousted in disgrace, gun owners in Santa Clara County have a long way to go before officials truly take their Second Amendment rights seriously.
The Los Angeles Police Commission has given the police department approval to use a special nonlethal device on Metro trains and buses.
If approved by Metro, officers would carry the BolaWrap, a handheld device that fires a lasso-like cord that wraps around a person’s legs or waist. The wraps are equipped with hooks that are supposed to sink into clothing and restrict a person’s ability to move until police can detain them.
The device was introduced in 2019 as a less than lethal way of dealing with people in mental distress, as a way to avoid hurting people, but being able to restrain them, officials said.
LAPD officers in Hollywood and the Central Division have not used the BolaWrap that much in the last few years, but Chief Michel Moore wants to change that and give the device to officers who patrol the Metro’s buses and trains as part of a year-long pilot program.
Officials with the police department met with Metro Wednesday afternoon in order to discuss the idea. Just a few hours later, Metro released a statement that read in part:
“The LAPD will be scheduling a demonstration of the device for Metro as an alternative to use of force in the system and will share its proposed plans to pilot its use on the Metro system, for Metro’s consideration.”
While it’s unclear when that demonstration might happen, officials say the BolaWrap is most effective when it’s used on targets that are less than 20 feet away. When it’s launched, the Kevlar tether stretches to about 8 feet wide just before impact, which could present problems inside a narrow bus or train that’s crowded with seats and poles.
It may be a tool better suited for use on station platforms and the escalators coming and going, KTLA 5’s Rick Chambers reports.
A look at how the BolaWap when properly deployed would wrap around a person’s waist and arms
The BolaWrap shoots a Kevlar tether meant to wrap around a person’s waist or legs and temporarily restrain them without serious injury
The BolaWrap is reportedly most effective when launched 20-feet from the target.
A look at how the BolaWap when properly deployed would wrap around a person’s waist and arms.
The BolaWrap shoots a Kevlar tether meant to wrap around a person’s waist or legs and temporarily restrain them without serious injury.
The BolaWrap shoots a Kevlar tether meant to wrap around a person’s waist or legs and temporarily restrain them without serious injury.
However, during a 2020 pilot program with the nonlethal device, LAPD data shows that officers only used the device nine times in eight months, and was deemed “effective” in six instances.
The grisly beating of Rodney King ultimately precipitated some of the worst rioting in American history.
Early in the morning of March 3, 1991, Rodney Glen King was driving a 1987 Hyundai Excel along the Foothill Freeway in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. He was accompanied by his friends Freddie Helms and Bryant Allen. King and his buddies had killed the previous evening watching basketball and drinking at a friend’s house. At around 1230 in the morning, King passed Tim and Melanie Singer, a husband/wife California Highway Patrol team. The Singers initiated a pursuit, eventually reaching speeds of 117 mph. King refused to pull over.
Rodney King was a convicted criminal whose beating at the hands of overzealous police sparked widespread anarchy.
King later admitted that he knew a DUI charge would violate his parole and send him back to prison. 2.5 years earlier King had robbed a Korean grocery store while armed with an iron bar. He assaulted the store owner and made off with $200 cash. King was eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted. He served one year of a two-year sentence before being released.
Rodney King was desperate to avoid returning to jail.
King departed the freeway and led the cops on a merry chase through residential neighborhoods at high speeds. The pursuit eventually involved multiple police units from different agencies as well as a police helicopter. After some eight miles the officers finally cornered King and stopped his car.
The arresting officers didn’t realize they were being filmed when they beat King and his buddies.
King’s two companions were removed from the vehicle and arrested albeit with some violence. Freddie Helms was later treated for a laceration to his head. For his part, King purportedly giggled and waved at the orbiting helicopter. The senior LAPD officer onsite took charge and directed the LAPD contingent to swarm King for a takedown.
The four arresting LAPD officers beat the holy crap out of this guy.
Up until this point the cops were clearly in the right. However, everybody involved was energized. The arresting officers beat King mercilessly and tased him at least once. Medical personnel later documented a right ankle fracture, a crushed facial bone, and sundry contusions and lacerations. King’s Blood Alcohol Content indeed showed him to have been legally intoxicated. His tox screen was also positive for marijuana. Without the knowledge of the police, a local plumbing salesman named George Holliday shot a video of the brutal beating. This footage eventually made it into the media.
Rodney King was beaten right across the street from the movie set on the night this iconic scene was filmed .
The story behind the Holliday footage is simply fascinating. The opening biker bar scene from Terminator 2: Judgment Day was being filmed just across the street from where the cops finally stopped King’s Hyundai. Holliday actually had his video camera set up in hopes of catching a glimpse of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
During a subsequent interview he said, “Before the beating, right across the street from where we lived was a biker bar, and they were filming Terminator 2: Judgment Day there. I actually have footage on the original tape of Schwarzenegger getting on the bike and riding off.” Had they not been filming the movie, Holliday would not have had his video camera in position and ready.
Latasha Harlins’ life was a study in urban tragedy.
Thirteen days later, 15-year-old Latasha Harlins entered Empire Liquor in Los Angeles and put a $1.79 bottle of orange juice in her backpack. Soon Ja Du, a Korean-American woman who owned the establishment along with her husband, confronted her about it. Du claimed that Harlins denied having the juice. Two young witnesses disputed that claim, asserting that Harlins had the money for the juice in her hand and was planning to pay for it.
Latasha’s was an unimaginably broken home life.
Latasha Harlins was the product of some of the most sordid stuff. Her father regularly beat her mother until they eventually separated. When Latasha was nine years old her father’s new girlfriend shot and killed her mother in a dispute outside an LA nightclub. The poor girl was subsequently raised by her maternal grandmother.
Soon Ja Du gunned down Latasha Harlins in cold blood.
Harlins and Du got into a shouting and shoving match, and Du ended up on the floor. As Harlins turned to leave, Du retrieved a revolver from behind the counter and shot the girl once in the back of the head, killing her instantly. Though she was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Du was only sentenced to five years’ probation, a ten-year suspended prison sentence, 400 hours of community service, and a $500 fine. The sentencing judge stated that the fact that Du had been robbed multiple times before affected her actions and mitigated her culpability.
The initial acquittal of these four police officers precipitated an epic conflagration.
The four police officers who beat Rodney King were subsequently tried and acquitted. Film director John Singleton was in the crowd outside the courthouse when the news was announced and stated, “By having this verdict, what these people done, they lit the fuse to a bomb.” His words were prescient.
The Riots
There resulted unfettered chaos.
The synergistic combination of Rodney King’s vicious videotaped beating, the acquittal of the officers involved, and Soon Ja Du’s mild sentence in the killing of Latasha Harlins precipitated a hurricane of violence. Riots began the day after the verdict was announced. Soon much of LA was in flames.
During the 1992 riots, much of LA burned. Note that these white people are also taking advantage of the opportunity to loot local businesses.
64 people died in the violence, and another 2,383 were injured. 3,600 fires were set and 1,100 buildings were immolated. Fire calls came into dispatchers at a rate of one per minute for a time. First responders were utterly overwhelmed.
More than 9,000 National Guard troops were deployed.
The government invoked a dusk-to-dawn curfew and mobilized the California National Guard along with Federal Law Enforcement and some active-duty military personnel. The violence continued for six days. Property damage ultimately ran between $800 million and $1 billion.
Soldiers and Marines make lousy cops.
One extraordinary episode demonstrated why military troops should never be used in Law Enforcement roles. When responding to a domestic violence incident a combined force of LAPD officers and US Marines closed on a Compton home. A violent criminal was holding his family hostage inside. Upon their approach, the suspect fired two shotgun rounds through the front door, injuring a police officer. One of the LAPD cops then shouted, “Cover me!”
In stressful circumstances training kicks in.
In keeping with their training, the Marines immediately laid down a withering base of fire to cover the cop’s maneuver. In a matter of moments, they had saturated the house with some 200 rounds. Miraculously the inhabitants were unharmed. A bit shocked, I rather suspect, but nonetheless unhurt.
Rooftop Koreans
The stage for the 1992 LA riots had been set over years.
In general, Koreans were the local shop owners, while African-Americans were their customers. There was a low-grade antipathy percolating between these two ethnic groups that boiled over after the Harlins incident. As a result, rioters targeted Korean-owned businesses for destruction. Police were so overwhelmed as to be unable to respond to calls for help. Countless established family businesses were burned to the ground.
The armed Koreans who defended their businesses during the riots were typically either revered or reviled depending upon the particular political bent of the commentators.
The businesses that survived were those that were adequately defended. In a violent, chaotic, lawless world, some Koreans armed themselves, retreated to their rooftops, and prepared to shoot looters. The resulting iconography created a modern legend among responsible armed Americans. The controversy surrounding those people, their actions, and those images roils even today.
The Guns
Guns were easier to obtain by law-abiding citizens in California back in the 1990s.
I studied all the pictures I could find to see what sorts of weapons these armed Americans were using. In 1991 California gun control laws were not quite so draconian as is the case today. For the most part, these armed Koreans wielded fairly mundane ordnance.
These guys are packing typical combat handguns of the era.
Standard-capacity combat handguns like Beretta 92’s, Glock 17’s, and sundry Smith and Wesson pistols were in evidence. There were numerous bolt-action hunting rifles along with sporting shotguns of various flavors. I spotted a couple of Mini-14 rifles and an AK. The most intriguing weapon I could find was a Daewoo Precision Industries K2.
The Daewoo K2 is an under-appreciated service rifle on this side of the pond. A reliable piston-driven design, the K2 only weighs 7.2 pounds empty.
The K2 is currently the standard service rifle of the South Korean military. Development began in 1972 and spanned a variety of prototypes in two different calibers. The definitive 5.56mm version was first fielded in 1985.
This cheerful-looking guy was rocking a Daewoo K2 during the LA riots.
The resulting weapon reflected the state of the art. A gas piston-driven design based upon the proven Kalashnikov action, the K2 fed from STANAG magazines and featured a 1-in-7.3 inch, 6-groove barrel. GI weapons included safe, semi, 3-round burst, and full auto functions. Small numbers of semiauto variants were briefly imported by Kimber, Stoeger, and B-West in the 1980s. The 1989 import ban via executive order by Bush the First capped the numbers in the country and rendered the gun an instant collector’s item. From what I have seen at least one of these superlative weapons made its way onto the rooftops of these Korean-owned businesses during the LA riots.
The Rest of the Story
Rodney King’s life met a tragic untimely end. When he died he was in a romantic relationship with one of the jurors from his civil trial.
Rodney King was ultimately awarded a $3.8 million civil judgment and became fairly wealthy as a result. He bought a house for his mother as well as another for himself with the proceeds. Tragically, King never mastered his sobriety. In 2012 he fell into his swimming pool and drowned. He had cocaine, marijuana, PCP, and alcohol in his system at the time. He was 47.
Apparently, the four cops involved just wanted to disappear.
Two of the four cops involved in the beating were eventually convicted of violating King’s civil rights and spent 30 months in federal prison. All four left Law Enforcement. None of them remained in California.
Reginald Denny’s skull was fractured in a total of 91 places. His left eye was pushed into his sinus cavity.
Reginald Denny, a passing white truck driver, was dragged from his vehicle by an angry mob and brutally beaten. One rioter struck him in the back of the head with a cinder block, severely fracturing his skull. After extensive surgery and therapy, Denny eventually regained the capacity to walk. I guess that’s something.
Ruminations
Little was safe during the riots. This entire apartment complex was gutted.
Today the uprising is referred to as “Sa-i-gu” within the LA Korean community. This translates as “April 29,” the day the violence began. During those six horrible days, multiple warning shots were fired, but no rioters were injured or killed by the rooftop Koreans. Like all parasitic scavengers, the rioters gravitated toward the areas with the easiest pickings. Businesses bristling with armed Koreans were essentially left alone.
Not all the rioters were black, and not all of the responsible citizens were Korean. This pale-faced guy scored a new sofa.
Modern commentary on the phenomenon of the rooftop Koreans is delightfully biased. Left-wing commentators state that the willingness of these shop owners to arm themselves in defense of their businesses was pure unfettered racism. They further assert that those of us who venerate this behavior are knuckle-dragging neanderthals awash in toxic masculinity and driven by insensate, race-based venom. I must respectfully disagree.
This looks like a fun girl day at the local mall.
Speaking solely for myself, of course, I don’t care one whit what color the people were who were defending their businesses or burning them down. I tend to judge others based on their civic-mindedness and propensity toward responsible behavior. Regardless of ethnicity, I categorize those who burned down their neighborhoods as the Bad Guys and those who prevented them from doing so as the Good Guys. Failure to appreciate that obvious truth seems fairly incomprehensible to me.
Regardless of the hue of their skin, these miscreants are not the heroes in this tragic tale.
There is but a thin veneer of civility that separates human animals from the lesser sort. We never seem to be more than one headline away from violence and carnage. To those who might defend the actions of the rioters, you’re all idiots. Feel free to venerate the criminals if that be your wish, but don’t act surprised when the rest of us find solace in our firearms and sense of community.
The guy busy trashing his neighborhood here is dressed like an off-duty stockbroker. Presuming rioting to be intrinsically racially segregated is itself innately racist.
I don’t minimize the egregious nature of the Rodney King and Latasha Harlin’s tragedies. However, they both had their origins in deep societal brokenness. Until we can repair the basic family structure in these derelict communities nothing will ever get better. Guns, poverty, drugs, and violence are simply symptoms. Dysfunctional families, a dearth of responsible fathers, and a lack of positive role models is the underlying disease. It remains to be seen if anyone has the moral fortitude to stop screaming about the symptoms and conjure an effective cure.
On Friday my colleague John Petrolino reported on some good news from Imperial City, California, where a proposed moratorium on gun shops appears to be off the table and a firearms retailer should soon be able to open her doors to customers. Unfortunately, another southern California community is now adopting its own strategy to keep gun shops out of town.
Monterey Park, California was in the headlines back in January when a man opened fire at a Chinese New Year celebration at a local dance facility, killing 11 people. Now the town is making news again with council members approving an ordinance prohibiting gun sales from taking place within 1,000 feet of “sensitive receptors” like schools and private dwellings; placing most of the community off-limits to lawful firearm transfers.
“I know that as a parent and as a teacher in this community, I think that it is very important to keep our families and our residencies and also our schools safe,” said Mayor Jose Sanchez before casting his vote. “This is one way, I think, for us to try to send a message to not just our community but to our nation as a whole of the necessary measures that we need when it comes to gun control.
The only message that Monterey Park is sending is that its leaders are eager and willing to violate the fundamental civil rights of its residents by making it harder for them to lawfully purchase and possess a firearm. Maybe a near-total prohibition on gun sales is the “necessary measure” that Sanchez thinks is needed, but in taking this step the mayor and city council are basically acknowledging that none of California’s current restrictions, including “universal” background checks and a 10-day waiting period on all gun transfers, are keeping criminals away from guns.
Not that the new ordinance is going to stop those criminals either. They’ll continue to get ahold of guns through the same illicit means they always have; theft, straw purchases, black market sales, and even crafting their own. And for now, at least, a few retailers already operating inside the city limits will still be allowed to conduct business, though it sounds like there are more restrictions on the horizon.
Locally, there are a few retailers already in the area considered not compliant with these 1,000-foot buffer zones, but their existence before the ordinance is considered “legal non-conforming” and are allowed to remain. Neither EuroArms on West Valley Boulevard nor Caps Armory on Monterey Pass Road elected to comment. A call to Big 5 on South Atlantic Boulevard corporate office had not been returned.
Councilmember Thomas Wong proposed an effort to collaborate countywide to expand the buffer zone restrictions to more cities.
“Maybe we can look at efforts to encourage (Los Angeles) to pass it and share this ordinance language and the research with our neighboring cities to encourage them to adopt similar restrictions in their own communities, so that a store doesn’t open up just outside of our borders that otherwise would not be allowed to open up,” he said.
Clearly Wong isn’t just trying to limit gun stores from operating in areas of Monterey Park zoned for commercial use. If he’s talking about getting other communities in Los Angeles County to put similar restrictions in place, he’s hoping to turn the entirety of L.A. County into a “health protection zone” where sales can be banned outright. As it is, L.A. County supervisors have imposed a ban on gun stores in unincorporated areas of the county located within 1,000 feet of schools, daycares, parks, and other FFLs, so Wong is well on his way to getting his wish.
Will this make Monterey Park free of guns or crime? Absolutely not. Chicago and Washington, D.C. are just two examples of major metropolitan areas that have no retail gun stores inside their city limits and more than their share of violent crimes, and if L.A. County officials ever decided to do the same I don’t think the results would be any different.
The senseless murders in Monterey Park were horrifying, but responding to this terrible crime by making it harder for responsible residents to exercise their fundamental right to armed self-defense is an awful approach. Not only does this move violate the fundamental civil liberties of those who live there, but in doing so it makes the community a more inviting target in the future for those violent criminals who prefer their victims be unarmed and defenseless.
If you’ve wondered why homelessness in California seems so much worse than in other states, Siyamak Khorrami’s interview with El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson for California Insider provides some answers:
Some takeaways:
“According to the latest report, California alone has one third of the U.S homeless population today.”
“What we have is you can be arrested or cited did over and over and over and over again, and there’s no consequences. And it’s just getting worse and worse.”
The same transients sprawling unconscious on city streets in LA and San Francisco are now found in San Diego.
“If you look at the people and look in their eyes, you see a lost [soul], almost like a post-apocalyptic look. It’s not somebody who’s lost their job or lost their housing, it’s someone who is addicted to drugs. In large part have fried their brains. They’re suffering from mental illness.”
“Stanford recently looked at it last year, their school of economics looked at it, and they found were over the last 10 years, most of the United States homelessness dropped by roughly 9%. In the same period here in the state of California, it went up by 43%.”
He says that other blue states aren’t having the same problem California is, but that’s slightly misleading. There are blue cities that are starting to see some of the same problems (Seattle, Portland, Austin) that are starting to have the same problems because they follow the same playbook. But they do touch on Seattle at the end of the interview.
“The most notable, unique difference is our decriminalizing hardcore drug use, and decriminalizing large or low-level property crimes.”
You can’t trust crime statistics, because people have just stopped reporting things. Auto thefts are still reported for insurance purposes. “Vehicle thefts here in the state of California have gone up significantly, so much so that on a per capita basis we are double the State of Florida.”
One Target accurately reporting thefts for a month doubled San Francisco theft statistics.
“Employees that don’t want to come to work and be exposed to that, because of being told don’t contact anyone.”
“Shoppers stop coming to stores. You just had Nordstrom’s in San Francisco close after 35 years. They’re one of their hallmark stores. That is a huge store in San Francisco closed because theft.”
“Every year more people leaving than are coming to the state because of poor public policy decisions.”
“The single dividing line between us and everywhere else in that regard is the legalization of hardcore drug use, or the decriminalization of hardcore drug use.”
“Harm reduction centers” just prevent people from dying on that particular day, and do nothing to keep drug users from gradually killing themselves over months and years. Those non-profits are “simply enabling them to continue to that that addiction and to use those drugs, knowing it will kill them.”
Pierson: HUD, uh, in 2015, 2016 decided…”Hey, we’re a housing entity. Why are we spending 60%, 70% percent of our resources on rehab for people? And so let’s get out of that business and go and do this other one.” I think that happened at a time which was critical in for California, to where we were already going down this housing housing first, or type in harm reduction type philosophy.
Khorrami: Then you exacerbate it by giving the homeless housing, and then you give them, let them use the drugs, and then you’re not really thinking about dealing with their addiction, right?
Pierson: Yeah, it’s absurd.
“We have based all of our policy on the slogan called ‘Housing First.’ What it says is, if you provide them housing and you provide this, provide some services to him, the person will stop using drugs.”
New York (which I personally would not point to as a model, it’s simply less of an obvious failure) has a ratio of one social worker to eight homeless people. California has a ratio of one to thirty-two.
“Compassion isn’t enough.”
“Compassion isn’t letting someone die in a ditch somewhere. Compassion isn’t letting someone lay on the street with a needle in their arm. That’s not compassion.”
“Enough is enough. You’ve tried this grand social experiment over the last eight or ten years. It didn’t work. We need a course correction, and we need to do something about it now.”
Seattle is an extreme example of what’s happening here in California. Everybody, the businesses are fleeing. The people who are living there that can leave are leaving. And it is very similar to what we’re doing, where open rampant hardcore drug use, little or no consequence for property crimes, and they also have a horrendous problem with law enforcement staffing. They simply can’t hire law enforcement officers because, frankly, the way they’ve treated them. It is a handful of really bad policy decisions that created this problem.
No one wants to work at Nordstrom’s because they know their car will be broken into while they work.
One flaw with the interview is that they did not discuss the role of the Homeless Industrial Complex in creating the situation. My working theory is that the appalling decisions we see being made on homelessness and crime are because the hard left is actively benefiting from the situation because it provides myriad ways to rake off graft and fraud. Ditto the lunacy of defunding the police.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) — The City of San Jose is calling it a victory in the fight against gun violence a judge upholding the city’s Gun Harm Reduction Ordinance.
In 2022, the city of San Jose passed the first-of-its-kind ordinance requiring gun owners to have liability insurance.
The challenges against it began immediately with the city facing a lawsuit from groups like the National Association for Gun Rights.
Late last week a court dismissed the Second Amendment claims.
In effect since the start of 2023, gun owners have to have liability insurance and pay a fee of $25.
That fee would go to a nonprofit with the money to be used for firearm safety training, suicide prevention and more.
From the time the ordinance was announced it has faced backlash.
In January 2022, Harmeet K. Dhillon who represented the National Association for Gun Rights spoke at a press conference held to announce the lawsuit:
“It’s going to be the law-abiding citizens who actually deter crime by having weapons in their homes who are going to be the ones who bear the burden of this unconstitutional ordinance,” Dhillon said last year.
Along with the National Association for Gun Rights, plaintiffs also included the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Attorney Tamarah Prevost, a partner with Bay Area firm Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy, took on the city’s case pro bono.
“We felt very confident that the ordinance was constitutional,” Prevost said. “The city did a lot of work on the front end to really craft something that it believed would be upheld, because the city is not taking guns away from people. It isn’t banning certain guns.”
The case was being fought as the U.S. Supreme Court came down with the Bruen Decision, one of the most significant cases regarding the Second Amendment.
The decision changed Second Amendment analysis in the courts and in turn, impacted the fight over the San Jose ordinance.
“We had to change gears and the judge had to change gears and apply a different legal standard that came down from the U.S. Supreme Court,” Prevost said. “The ordinance had to be evaluated based on historic precedent, what the framers in the 1800s would have thought of at the time, and whether an ordinance has historic roots as it were.”
With the change, Brady, a nonprofit that pushes for gun safety, was looked to by the court to weigh in.
The federal judge ruled Thursday that the insurance requirement for gun owners does not restrict gun firearm possession or use.
In a statement sent to ABC7 the National Gun Rights Association for Gun Rights said:
“This ruling is what happens when judges rely more on anti-gun groups like Brady than the actual ruling authorities here – namely the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court. This ruling makes a mockery of the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard with the claim that requiring an annual tax just to exercise a Second Amendment right somehow doesn’t actually violate that right.”
The statement goes on to say:
“No one would argue that having to pay $25 a year to petition your government or speak your mind wouldn’t violate those rights – and yet that is exactly what this court has claimed when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms. This is a truly astounding example of bad-faith judicial acrobatics.”
The $25 fee that was also part of the ordinance still hasn’t been completely worked out by the city. As a result, the court said the fee is not ready for judicial review yet allowing the plaintiffs time to file an amended complaint.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association’s, chief counsel Timothy A. Bittle sent ABC7 this statement:
“The ruling last week by the federal District Court on the City’s latest motion to dismiss our Consolidated Amended Complaint in the San Jose gun fee case is nothing new. This is the third time the City has moved for dismissal and the third time its motion has been granted, but with leave for plaintiffs to file an amended complaint.
This revolving door of amended complaints and motions to dismiss is due to the City’s long delay in implementing the gun fee ordinance. The ordinance requires gun owners to annually pay a fee of an unspecified amount to a nonprofit organization that the City will designate. However, the City has yet to fix the final amount of the fee, set a date for payment of the fee to commence, or identify a nonprofit organization to collect the fee.
The City has argued in its motions to dismiss that, until these steps are taken, plaintiffs’ legal challenge is premature. The Court has repeatedly granted the City’s motion, setting a date by which the City is “expected” to take the necessary steps, followed by a specific deadline for plaintiffs to file an amended complaint. When the City fails to take the necessary steps by the expected date, plaintiffs ask the City to stipulate to an extension of time for the filing of their amended complaint. The City refuses. We file an amended complaint. The City files a motion to dismiss, and round and round we go.
Fortunately, in again granting us leave to amend this time, the Judge did not impose a date certain for us to file our amended complaint, but rather gave us an open-ended deadline of 14 days after the City reports that the necessary actions have been taken.”
While it’s still not entirely clear yet whether appeals or amended complaints will be made by the plaintiffs, Prevost says she and the City of San Jose are ready to continue fighting.
“We are going to fight for the constitutionality of this law until the very end,” she said. “It may go up to the U.S. Supreme Court, we’re prepared for that.”
California’s legislative Democrats are jamming a bill through to authorize the killing of Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles and other protected raptors, occurring at wind and solar farms throughout the state, all under the guise of helping enable statewide infrastructure projects.
On behalf of the green agenda, a placeholder spot bill, officially now Senate Bill 147 by Sen. Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento) has prioritized intermittent green energy over wildlife. And it is an “urgency” bill; urgency clause bills go into effect immediately upon their enactment.
What is the “urgency?”
SB 147 will “authorize the Department of Fish and Wildlife to issue a permit under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) that would authorize ‘the take’ of a fully protected species resulting from impacts attributable to the implementation of specified projects if certain conditions are satisfied, including, among others, the conditions required for the issuance of an incidental take permit.”
“Take” includes pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, destroy molest or disturb. Activities that directly or indirectly lead to “taking” are prohibited without a permit, according to the American Eagle Foundation.
But with a permit, one can shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, destroy molest or disturb a Golden Eagle or Bald Eagle apparently.
SB 147 will allow competing environmental factions on the left to kill off eagles in the name of saving the planet. Who spoke on behalf of the eagles?
Last year, the Washington Post reported on eagles being killed at an alarming rate by “clean energy” wind turbines. “An American wind energy company has admitted to killing at least 150 bald and golden eagles, most of which were fatally struck by wind turbine blades, federal prosecutors said,” the Post reported. “ESI Energy pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) after eagles died at three of its facilities in Wyoming and New Mexico, according to a statement from the Justice Department.”
Here is the crux of the legal issue:
“The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits killing, capturing or transporting protected migratory bird species without a permit.”
So what does California’s progressive left do?
They push a bill which “Authorizes the Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) to issue a permit that would authorize the ‘take’ of a fully protected species…” to help enable statewide infrastructure projects.
Specifically, the bill names:
Wind projects, and any appurtenant infrastructure improvements, and associated electric transmission projects carrying electric power from a facility that is located in the state to a point of junction with any California-based balancing authority; and
e) Solar photovoltaic projects, and any appurtenant infrastructure improvements, and associated California-based balancing authority.
Perhaps even worse, there is no opposition to the bill by the hundreds of environmental organizations which lobby lawmakers daily at the Capitol, as this page from the Senate analysis shows.
In the case of ESI Energy, the company will pay $29,623 for each bald or golden eagle killed by its turbine blades in the future. “ESI has since acknowledged that at least 150 bald and golden eagles have died at 50 of its 154 wind farms over the past decade and that 136 of the deaths occurred when the birds flew into a turbine blade, prosecutors said.”
So as long as the wind turbine producers pay $30,000 per dead eagle, the dead bird is “mitigated,” and the government collects the money. Mitigate means to “assuage,” “mollify” or “diminish.”
The Smithsonian reported that ESI must also follow an “Eagle Management Plan,” which “requires up to $27 million for measures to minimize eagle deaths.”
The scheme is in the “mitigation plan.” Where does the permit and fine money go, and why aren’t environmentalists screaming about this? Sierra Club? Nature Conservancy? Audubon Society (they are committed to working on racism)? Anyone? Environment California says it “works for clean air, clean water, clean energy, wildlife and open spaces, and a livable climate.” What about the wildlife?
The American Eagle Foundation gives the background of the Endangered Species Act:
Originally passed in 1940, this law provides for the protection of the bald eagle and the golden eagle (amended in 1962) by prohibiting the take, possession, sale, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export, or import, of any bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest, or egg, unless allowed by permit.
Bald eagles were removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species in 2007, and are no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act. However, bald eagles remain protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
“Wind turbines are a known killer of numerous species of birds, including eagles. At their tips, the blades can spin up to 200 mph,” the Post reported. “Research shows that between 140,000 and 328,000 birds are killed each year at monopole turbines in the United States, with an increase risk of death the higher the turbines.”
That’s a lot of dead birds.
The Globe learned SB 147 will help project developers (primarily Department of Water Resources, Caltrans and other local transportation agencies, as well as a few private wind and solar developers) with the regulatory hurdle of dealing with incidental take of fully protected species.
The scheme:
Renewable energy companies must apply for a permit with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and pay a permit fee to the wildlife agency. “The permit provides for the development and implementation, in cooperation with DFW and applicable federal and state agencies, of a monitoring program and an adaptive management plan that satisfy the conservation standard of the NCCP Act for monitoring the effectiveness of the measures to minimize and fully mitigate the impacts of the authorized take,” Senate bill analysis says.
The environment and wildlife don’t get the same priority treatment when the state wants to approve its own projects, or grease the skids for others.
Feeding on catfish and other various fishes, by John James Audubon. (Photo: public domain)
The Smithsonian reported “there are about 316,708 bald eagles live across lower 48 states. Golden eagles only number to approximately 40,000.”
The State’s Fully Protected Birds Species list currently includes:
American peregrine falcon
Brown pelican
California black rail
California clapper rail
California condor
California least tern
Golden eagle
Greater sandhill crane
Light-footed clapper rail
Southern bald eagle
Trumpeter swan
White-tailed kite
Yuma clapper rail
When major credit card companies announced earlier this year that they would not be implementing new merchant category codes on sales at gun stores, in part because of pending legislation in several states that would prohibit them from doing so, I predicted it wouldn’t be long before anti-gun states like California took the opposite approach and began mandating the use of those codes.
I will say that there was one thing that surprised me in the anti-gunner’s collective statement of outrage: not one of them said anything about blue-states like California responding in kind to the red-state laws that supposedly led to the cold feet on the part of companies like Visa and Mastercard. Maybe they don’t want to tip their hands, but those efforts are almost certainly coming. Gavin Newsom loves to pick culture war fights, and if he’s going after Walgreens over abortion then it probably won’t be long before he demands credit card companies either implement these MCCs or face the wrath of lawmakers in Sacramento.
Here we are just a few months later and sure enough, some of the California legislature’s most vociferous anti-gunners are doing just that. AB 1587 was approved by the Assembly on a 76-0 vote, and is now moving through the Senate. On Thursday the Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee gave it’s preliminary approval, and AB 1587 is scheduled to be heard in Senate Judiciary next Tuesday along with AB 1089, another anti-gun measures that adds three-dimensional printers and CNC milling machines to the definition of firearm-related products; requiring “anybody who uses a three-dimensional printer or CNC milling machine to manufacture a firearm to be a state-licensed manufacturer” while prohibiting “the sale, purchase, possession, or receipt of a three-dimensional printer that has the sole or primary function of manufacturing firearms”.
Ahead of next week’s hearing AB 1587’s primary Senate sponsor is already trying to make the case that the legislation will be able to prevent mass shootings and gun trafficking.
Unsurprisingly, Min’s argument doesn’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. First, the merchant category codes wouldn’t identify specific transactions, only dollar amounts and the date and location of purchases. How are credit card companies supposed to determine if a particular transaction is “suspicious” enough to warrant reporting? These MCCs are supposed to help identify financial crimes like fraud, not serve as some sort of Minority Report-style pre-crime surveillance system, and even some credit card company execs have pointed out that the codes will be of no use in identifying potential killers.
Heck, as the Firearms Policy Coalition pointed out to Min, even the legislative analysis of AB 1587 directly contradicts his assertions.
California already collects more information on gun and ammo buyers than what would be gathered through the use of merchant category codes for firearm retailers, with “universal” background checks run on all purchases of both guns and ammunition. AB 1587 is a culture war tit-for-tat response to laws in Florida, Mississippi, and other states that would fine companies that adopt and utilize the codes. Just as those states provide financial penalties for adopting the codes, AB 1587 would empower California Attorney General Rob Bonta to fine both those companies that don’t start make those codes available for retailers as well as retailers themselves if they don’t start using the codes by March, 2025.
This is yet another blatant attack on gun owners, firearm retailers, and our Second Amendment rights, and I have no doubt that the Senate Judiciary Committee will give it the green light. The bigger questions are how much pushback the legislation will receive from the credit card companies themselves, and who will be the first to sue over the requirement once Gavin Newsom signs the bill into law.
