This week there is so much to cover, that I’ve split it into Part I of Legal News, and later this week (on Thursday) we will publish Part II.
Knife-weilding Attacker Shot – Case Closed
First up, news out of Polk County, Iowa. Finally, the Polk County Attorney announced a decision that took far longer than it should have regarding 62-year-old Steven Miller, who shot a knife-wielding attacker who was threatening a group of people. To quote one of the victims:
“He saved our lives. We would have been stabbed if he wouldn’t have kept his line of sight with that man to make sure that we did not get hurt,” said Shelby Meier, the wife of the alleged shooter.…
“Horrific. I am in shock. Like how everything went down. Not something I expected,” said Katelyn Moredock, the wife of the second shooting victim who will survive.
Meier and Moredock allege that Miller was being aggressive from Moredock’s room, attacking Moredock’s husband. That is when Meier said her husband went into the room and that is when Miller grabbed a knife. From there the ladies described being chased with the blade into the apartment hallway, fearing for their lives, saying the shooter had no choice.
“He did have his gun raised and told him ‘stop please, please don’t do this, please stop’, and he just charged at him like a wild animal,” said Meier. “…He just kept coming. He wouldn’t stop even the first shot he still stayed standing.”
The ladies would go on to say that the alleged shooter helped Moredock’s husband by providing first aid until medics arrived.”
This is another of many examples of defensive firearms use that happen every day in the United States. Despite claims to the contrary by the anti-gun dangerous quacks of the left, lawful gun owners are not vigilante wannabees, but are responsible citizens who, for the most part, just want to be left alone.
ATF vs John Corey Fraser
Up next: We have all watched the Department of Justice run out the clock on the Hunter/Joe Biden investigation by slow-walking looking into corruption until the statute of limitations had run out. Another case of trying to slow walk, or time-out a case, is before US Fourth District Circuit Judge Robert E. Payne. The DOJ was trying to moot a claim by then nineteen-year-old Virginian, John Corey Fraser. that as a nineteen-year-old he was prohibited from making a handgun purchase as unconstitutional–by delaying the case until Fraser turned twenty-one.
Thankfully, Judge Payne prevented the DOJ from killing the case, first by adding Fraser’s younger brother as an additional plaintiff and then by granting Class Action status:
“By infringing upon the Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, the challenged statutory and regulatory provisions inflicted an irreparable injury on Plaintiffs. “[I]t is well-established that ‘(t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.’” Legend Night Club v. Miller, 637 F.3d 291, 302 (4th Cir. 2011) (quoting Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976))}. The same holds true for Second Amendment freedoms. After all, the Second Amendment “is not a second-class right.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc., Inc. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111, 2156 (2022) (quotation marks and citation omitted). As the Supreme Court explained in Bruen, because “[t]he Second Amendment is the very product of an interest balancing by the people. . . it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms for self- defense.”
Contrary to the Government’s view,’ it does not matter that, one day, Plaintiffs will age out of the prohibited category. Since they turned 18, and at this moment and this point in their lives, their constitutional rights have been, and continue to be, denied by the Government’s conduct in enforcing the challenged statutory and regulatory regime. That establishes that the Plaintiffs have suffered an “irreparable injury.”
Nor is the irreparability of the constitutional injury eliminated because, as the Government argues, the Plaintiffs and class members “may lawfully obtain handguns as a gift from their parents.” Nothing in the Second Amendment limits the Plaintiffs’ exercise of their constitutional rights to what a third-party, by grace, may choose (or not) to do to help Plaintiffs exercise that right (here the right to purchase that which the Second Amendment entitles them to purchase on their own).”
Although the nationwide injunction was issued in the Fraser case it has been stayed until the DOJ has time to appeal to the Fifth Circuit the ruling. This is an important case from a legal protection perspective. I’ll be watching it closely to keep you informed.
These cases are all illustrations of why the Freedom Amendment in Iowa and the Bruen Case are so important to restoring what our founders saw as an inalienable right, the right to keep and bear arms as enshrined in the 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights.
STAY TUNED FOR PART II OF THIS WEEK’S LEGAL NEWS — CHECK BACK ON THURSDAY!
Stay Ready at All Times and never forget that those gun control dangerous quacks are playing a long game but so are we at IFC. Help us by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
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