Category: Stupid Hit
FILE – State Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, listens as lawmakers discuss a bill before the Senate at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., July 10, 2023. A federal appeals court on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, upheld California's ban on gun shows at county fairs and other public properties, deciding the laws do not violate the rights of firearm sellers or buyers. The two measures were both written by Min. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
SOURCE: Rich Pedroncelli
SAN FRANCISCO —
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld California’s ban on gun shows at county fairs and other public properties, deciding the laws do not violate the rights of firearm sellers or buyers.
The 3-0 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a federal judge’s ruling in October that blocked the laws.
The two measures were both written by Democratic state Sen. Dave Min. The first, which went into effect in January 2022, barred gun shows at the Orange County Fair, and the other, which took effect last year, extended the ban to county fairgrounds on state-owned land.
In his decision last fall, U.S. District Judge Mark Holcomb wrote that the state was violating the rights of sellers and would-be buyers by prohibiting transactions for firearms that can be bought at any gun shop. He said lawful gun sales involve commercial speech protected by the First Amendment.
But the appeals court decided the laws prohibit only sales agreements on public property — not discussions, advertisements or other speech about firearms. The bans “do not directly or inevitably restrict any expressive activity,” Judge Richard Clifton wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who defended the laws in court, hailed the decision.
“Guns should not be sold on property owned by the state, it is that simple,” Bonta said in a statement. “This is another victory in the battle against gun violence in our state and country.”
Gun shows attract thousands of prospective buyers to local fairgrounds. Under a separate state law, not challenged in the case, actual purchase of a firearm at a gun show is completed at a licensed gun store after a 10-day waiting period and a background check, Clifton noted.
Gun-control groups have maintained the shows pose dangers, making the weapons attractive to children and enabling “straw purchases” for people ineligible to possess firearms.
The suit was filed by a gun show company, B&L Productions, which also argued that the ban on fairgrounds sales violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The appeals court disagreed, noting that there were six licensed firearms dealers in the same ZIP code as the Orange County Fairgrounds, the subject of Min’s 2022 law.
Min said the restoration of the laws will make Californians safer.
“I hope that in my lifetime, we will return to being a society where people’s lives are valued more than guns, and where gun violence incidents are rare and shocking rather than commonplace as they are today,” Min said in a statement Tuesday.
The ruling will be appealed, said attorney Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
“CRPA will continue to protect the despised gun culture and fight back against an overreaching government that seeks to limit disfavored fundamental rights and discriminate against certain groups of people on state property,” Michel said in a statement provided to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bryan Hagerich with his family. Bryan Hagerich Family PhotoThe months-long saga for at least one American trapped on the island of Turks and Caicos (TCI) after airport security there discovered loose rounds of ammunition in his travel bag seems to be finally coming to end. A TCI judge today issued a suspended 52-month sentence to Bryan Hagerich, a Pennsylvania father of two and former professional baseball player, for possessing the ammunition. Hagerich, who pleaded guilty, was also fined $6,500. According to Fox News, he is expected to be released soon.
Hagerich is one of five Americans arrested in TCI since February for having stray ammunition in their luggage, a crime that can result in up to 12 years in prison under TCI law. The other Americans facing similar charges include Ryan Watson of Oklahoma, Sharitta Grier of Florida, Tyler Wenrich of Virginia, and Michael Lee Evans of Texas. Hagerich had stray rounds in his bag from a previous hunting trip that he wasn’t aware was even in the bag. Nor was it detected by TSA when he flew out of the United States.
“From the day that I was arrested, the end goal was to get off the island and go home to my family. To think that day is potentially tomorrow, it’s every emotion under the sun,” Hagerich told Fox News Digital. He acknowledged the strong defense presented by his attorneys and expressed gratitude for the prayers and support from friends and strangers worldwide.
During their time awaiting their trails on TCI, Hagerich, Watson and Grier have been supporting each other, forming a close bond as they await their fates and several of them even living together in the same condo.
Several U.S. politicians have responded to the judge’s decision. Democratic Senator Bob Casey from Pennsylvania called the suspended sentence “great news,” praising the leniency shown by TCI authorities. Republican Congressman Guy Reschenthaler also welcomed Hagerich’s imminent release but properly criticized the situation that led to the arrests. He emphasized the need for TCI to ensure the safety of U.S. tourists and indicated he would push for measures to protect Americans.
Reschenthaler suggested drastic actions if TCI does not amend its laws or at least its treatment of Americans, including urging the State Department to issue a no-travel order to the islands, which could severely impact their tourism-dependent economy. He pointed out that 86% of TCI’s tourists are Americans and highlighted the potential economic consequences of such an order.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania also expressed relief at the judge’s decision, noting the critical role of the U.S. State Department in advocating for Hagerich. Fetterman voiced hope that the other detained Americans would soon be released and reunited with their families.
The arrests of these Americans, all involving stray ammunition from previous trips, have highlighted the strict enforcement of TCI’s firearms and ammunition laws, as well as the concern Americans should have visiting the country.
Reschenthaler’s proposal includes implementing tariffs on U.S. imports to TCI and issuing no-travel orders from states that frequently send tourists to the islands, such as Texas, Florida, and Virginia. He criticized the law as “draconian” and called for immediate changes to prevent similar situations in the future. The country, which depends on U.S. tourists to keep their economy afloat, would feel the pain should such measures be implemented.
A bipartisan congressional delegation visited TCI to discuss the detentions and advocate for the Americans’ release. However, TCI officials have emphasized the need to uphold their legal processes and maintain strict penalties for firearm and ammunition possession to ensure the safety of residents and visitors alike.
Sorry dude but thats not the best look for you, better luck next time!
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – A 19-year-old is facing six felony charges after he told police he accidentally fired several rounds at a home in his South Memphis neighborhood while he was “test-firing” an AR-15.
According to court documents, at 6:39 p.m. Wednesday, Memphis police responded to a shots-fired call at a home on Gleason Avenue, where the victim told officers that she, her three little sisters, all minors, and her two children were convened in a bedroom when they heard shots being fired and bullets coming through the house.
No one was injured, but officers searched the area to find the source of the gunfire.
Just south of the home, on a parallel street, police found several men sitting on the sidewalk in front of a house, with a black handgun on the ground near one man, and a sedan with the trunk open and an AR-15 rifle clearly visible inside.
Officers spoke with one of the men, later identified as 19-year-old Teric Jones, who said that the AR-15 belonged to his aunt, and he was just recently test-firing the rifle outside.
Officers saw a makeshift target on the east side of the home, near where a cemetery sits. Jones reportedly told officers that he did not know there was a house behind the target, despite it facing opposite the residential neighborhood.
Jones was arrested and charged with six counts of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
Officers also confiscated the AR-15 and black handgun as evidence.
Jones was released on his own recognizance Thursday and is scheduled to appear in court Friday.
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A CH-47 Chinook flight engineer during a training session over Cyprus in 2020.Maj. Robert Fellingham / 12th Combat Aviation Brigade / U.S. Army, file
Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.
The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed.
“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring.
That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty.
For years, the Army allowed some aviation officers to serve those three years concurrently, and not consecutively, along with their roughly contracted seven or eight years of service.
In a phone call with reporters Thursday, Army officials admitted “errors” in the system, which they noticed a few months ago, led to the discrepancy.
“We are fixing those errors, and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, deputy chief of staff of G-1, which is in charge of policy and personnel.
“Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force,” Stitt added.
In letters the Army sent this month to the affected aviators as well as to members of Congress, which were obtained by NBC News, it said it “realized” after conducting a “legal review of this policy” that the three-year BRADSO requirement has to be served separately.
“This is not a new policy, but we are correcting oversights in recordkeeping that led some officers with an applied BRADSO to separate from the U.S. Army before they were eligible,” the letter said.
Thursday’s media roundtable came after more than 140 aviation officers banded together to demand answers after learning one by one that they were being denied discharges due to outstanding BRADSO obligations beginning last fall.
More than 60 of them signed a letter to Congress outlining how they had been misled by the Army for years about the exact length of their service contract.
“It has been this unanimous uprising of emotions and frustrations,” said another Army aviation captain, who is newly married and wanted to begin having children.
He called the reversal of a precedent an “injustice” to an already burnt-out department still regularly deployed despite the end of the longest war in American history.
“Yeah, the war on Afghanistan ended. There’s still a high demand for Army aviation,” he said, while en route to another deployment. “We have units still in constant training or deployment rotations. They’re failing to recognize the human aspect.”
The newlywed said it has been difficult for him and his wife to accept a three-year delay in starting a family.
“That was the big kick in the gonads,” he said. “We wanted to start having kids, and we no longer can. It’s a stressor we didn’t plan to deal with.”
Documents obtained by NBC News show officers were given conflicting information about their service obligations.
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Darwin is amused by this!
