SCOTUS and the Federal Circuit Courts’ showdowns are in the making. Anytime the Federal Circuit Courts rule differently on the same legal issues, it can set a precedent, compelling the Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) to intervene and sort out the real Constitutional answer.
“Anyone hoping that the Supreme Court’s Rahimi decision (which I analyzed here) would represent a roll-back in recognition of Second Amendment rights must be in for a surprise with the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Worth v. Jacobson. Authored by Judge Duane Benton, the court affirmed the decision of the district court. It held that Minnesota’s limitation of gun carry permits to persons 21 years or over violates the right to bear arms of persons aged 18-20.”
This ruling affects Iowa as it is in their Jurisdiction.
9th “CIRCUS” STEPS IN IT AGAIN
The recent very Pro-2A Duarte non-violent felon in possession conviction decision out of the 9th Circuit Court ruled as follows as reported by the LawCommentary:
“It shall be unlawful for any person who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year…to…possess…any firearm…” – Unlawful Acts, 18 U.S Code §922 (g) (1).
But should it be? Stuart Duarte, a man with five California criminal convictions, all non-violent and all punishable by more than one year, challenged the Unlawful Acts section of the U.S. Code cited above, arguing that his constitutional rights had been violated. The Ninth Circuit ruled on May 9 that Duarte, even though an ex-felon, is still a person, and thus the application of 18 U.S. Code §922 (g) (1) is unlawful under the Second Amendment.”
This case sets up a court split and opposes portions of the United States v. Rahimi decision I wrote about just a few weeks ago. You can read that here.
We know it’s bad when a Federal Judge calls out his or her fellow Judges. In this example, Judge Lawrence VanDyke did just that recently when his great ruling in a 2A Duarte case was taken up en blanc by the entire 9th Circuit out West, as reported by Newsweek.
“In the Ninth Circuit, if a panel upholds a party’s Second Amendment rights, it follows automatically that the case will be taken en banc. This case bends to that law. I continue to dissent from this court’s Groundhog Day approach to the Second Amendment,”
The last thing we can have is that anyone should have 2A Rights in the 9th Circus! VanDyke further writes:
“In this circuit, you could say that roughly two-fifths of our judges are interested in faithfully applying the totality of the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedent when analyzing new issues that have not yet been directly addressed by the Court. The other 17/29ths of our bench is doing its best to avoid the Court’s guidance and subvert its approach to the Second Amendment. That is patently obvious to anyone paying attention,”
CAN THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT BE DISMANTLED?
Willian Kirk at Washington Gun Law makes a compelling case for how the Biden DOJ has painted itself into a corner on short-barreled rifles and how effectively Federal Public Defenders in the United States v. Robinson, challenged the constitutionality of the NFA’s inclusion of short-barrel rifles. The ATF’s attempt to classify all pistols with attached stabilizing braces as SBRs has trapped the DOJ.
I’ll keep you updated on these cases as they advance in the courts.
As mentioned previously, we don’t have to overcome a bad decision out of SCOTUS, so it’s slightly easier (but not quicker) for the Pro-2A side in America to keep putting up these wins. Like IFC’s incremental approach to recovering our freedoms, the legal battles are also fought incrementally.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Wow, what a week it has been. The Republican National Convention (RNC) wrapped up after the assassination attempt of Former President Trump with Pro-2A JD Vance as the Vice-President nominee on his ticket. Then moments before I sat down to write the first draft of this week’s President’s Message, BOOM! Biden has withdrawn from the Democratic POTUS Nomination race, endorsing his totally incompetent and extremely unlikable V.P. “Heels-up” Harris.
Republican National Convention
Although the extremely shortened Republican Party Platform does not make a strong 2A statement, the pick of Ohio Senator JD Vance, a former enlisted Marine with a strong 2A record does, and that’s far more important. The underlying message of the convention was “Unity”. IFC’s own Richard Rogers was a delegate to the Convention.
Trump Assassination Attempt
Although I briefly covered it last week, there are three things I’d like to mention here.
As a former Pilot’s Union official, I’ve been involved in several airline crash investigations. Many of you have seen me on TV or heard me on the Radio talking about crashes. As I caution when on the air, it’s too early to know the facts, so let’s not rush to judgment. We do not know all of the details yet. Also, it appears the quality of this investigation is being compromised even as we speak.
Sean Davis, the highly respected co-founder of The Federalist, wrote an interesting piece describing the crippling of the Trump USSS detail. I’d suggest you read it here.
Our Senators and Congressmen need to question the following people as identified by a retired USSS contact of mine:
“The Lead Advance Agent and others who conducted the physical security survey need to be heard from, not the USSS Director, who has no direct knowledge of what transpired before or during the assassination attempt”.
Vice President Harris
Well, good old Joe from Scranton has decided not to run for reelection after all. The Democratic Party, already in chaos, has to contend with finding a nominee who stands a chance to beat President Trump. Biden has endorsed Harris (This shiv job has Obama’s hands all over it), Hillary Clinton has said she’s ready, and the others who would like the job realize that this is most likely a lost cause and they don’t want to be branded as losers. Never forget that this is the same group that has lied to America for three-plus years telling us how smart and spry Joe is. Don’t reward their attempted gaslighting of all of us.
It truly saddens me that the days of pro-2A Democrats appear to be dead for now. Hopefully, those days can be resurrected–but not with this crowd of Dangerous Quacks at the helm. My only suggestion is to get your popcorn out and watch the anti-2A Dangerous Quacks devour each other.
I’ll have a follow-up story on important 2A Decisions that have come out of the 9th Circuit, along with others this last week, in a few days.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 do make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
The attempted assassination of President Trump a few days ago has caused me to push back this week’s planned blog. In light of this event, I want to raise a few points for you to consider.
The Actual Event
We have all seen the attack from multiple angles of newsreels, cell phone cameras, and interviews. What shocked me personally is that the Trump campaign has been asking to increase the size of his protective detail. That request has been repeatedly denied, along with the denial of any protective services to RFK Jr’s Campaign. Actions speak louder than words. I believe Biden wants his opponents un-protected.
In fact, some Secret Services resources were diverted to Jill Biden’s event. Consequently, Trump’s event was apparently covered by many supplemental agents from different field offices (not Trump’s regular detail). Additionally, his detail had only two SS counter snipers. While this was in accord with agency protocol for a former President, it did not take into account his current status. President Trump was only two days away from again being the nominee of the Republican Party. Trump is not just a former President. He is the only President in modern history to have run for President again, while being the focus of multiple controversies and prosecutions, which would likely make him even more of a target.
As a close friend and Retired US Secret Service Agent friend pointed out to me in an email the evening after the attack:
“If I had been the USSS Director, I’d have made the Trump Detail the same size as PPD or even larger. I’ve not been impressed with [USSS Director] Cheatle. She is just too tight with Biden and Obama, and pushing DEI. Also, recall when Ronald Reagan was shot and how Jerry pushed him into the car, and it rolled within a couple of seconds. The four or five gals around Trump’s car couldn’t decide what to do, and it showed.”
This is a massive failure on the part of the USSS to ensure the safety of a protectee. Yet Hunter Biden has a full detail?
USSS Rules of Engagement
This is similar to the ridiculous Rules of Engagement (ROE) under President Obama when I was in Afghanistan in 2016. We had to be fired upon by known terrorists before we could engage them. Furthermore, theAmerican force was only to equal what we were being fired upon with. Using any weapon larger than a Hellfire missile essentially had to be approved by the White House.
Regarding the President’s USSS detail: under the current ROEs if a suspected sniper is spotted, response teams are sent to check him out. Meanwhile, the Counter Sniper (CS) teams keep him under surveillance through their rifle scopes. In this situation, the CS team did not shoot him in the head until after he had opened fire on President Trump. Clearly, the ROEs need to be changed. If someone shows up aiming a weapon at the President within the range of a CS team, no order should be required for the response team to take action. The CS people should have a green light to take the attacker(s) out, on the spot.
Think of it this way: you’re minding your own business when someone aims a weapon at you. In the United States, that’s sufficient justification to shoot them immediately. You don’t have to wait until you are fired upon, stabbed, or beaten to death with a baseball bat.
Why did the USSS CS Team not engage the shooter immediately, or at least have President Trump moved to safety while the response team investigated?
Operations like the one that the unsuccessful assassin undertook on July 13th require planning: pre-attack scouting, knowing the timing of the event, and luck. They rarely happen in a vacuum. Who helped this shooter? We need to find out — that is, if the FBI can break away from monitoring school board meetings for a few days.
Shocking / Unsurprised?
Professor Johnathan Turley expressed in a July 14, 2024 article on his website how we are surprisingly unsurprised by this attempt.
The assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump left a nation stunned. But the most shocking aspect was that it was not nearly as surprising as it should have been. For months, politicians, the press, and pundits have escalated reckless rhetoric in this campaign on both sides. That includes claims that Trump was set to kill democracy, unleash “death squads” and make homosexuals and reporters “disappear”.
It’s an interesting article and you should read it in its entirety. I vehemently disagree with the good Professor’s belief that those on the left do not want actual violence. Nothing could be further from the truth. As we know in this dangerous world, words have meaning. When someone says they want you dead, you had better believe them. ANTIFA is the militant arm of the current Democratic Party — just like the Ku Klux Klan was for more than a century, before and throughout the 1960s. Our DOJ has not done anything of significance to rein in ANTIFA and its financial supporters in the Blue States. Even Biden said on July 8th, 2024, “We’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
PRAY FOR AMERICA
As I said in my KCCI-TV interview aired on Sunday, and mentioned at the end of their story, “PRAY FOR AMERICA”.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 do make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Yes, folks, Chevron Deference is dead! What does that mean? Simply put, it means the Supreme Court told Congress to get back to work. They must stop pawning off their power to unelected Executive Branch bureaucratic agencies. These bureaucrats have become lawmakers that control the entire legal process in “administrative courts”.
Last year I wrote this to explain Chevron Deference:
“About forty years ago the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) created what is now known as the Chevron Deference. As the Brookings Institute explains, this allows the courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretation of ambiguous federal statutes. Possibly the greatest legacy of the current SCOTUS may be one of annihilating the administrative state, by ending the doctrine of Chevron Deference.”
There are lots of very complex explanations out there right now, regarding the impact of striking down Chevron Deference in the Loper Bright Enterprises SCOTUS decision just handed down. Most of these explanations are written by lawyers – and for lawyers. Let me break it all down for you, with the help of The Second Amendment Foundation’s Bill Sack from a piece in AmmoLand;
“Chevron was overturned formally based on the Administrative Procedures Act, which sets out the procedures that federal agencies must follow as well as instructions for the courts to review actions by those agencies. The Supreme Court decided that this deference was unlawful. The Supreme Court said federal courts should start from scratch, rather than showing deference to the alphabet agencies.”
The High Court removed their thumb from the scale.
That last statement is mine. We have seen abuses by federal agencies of the rulemaking process, including by the beloved BATFE. Recent reinterpretations of rules regarding pistol braces, the frame & receiver rule, and the bump stock ban have been, and arebeing, struck down. This is occurring at various levels of Federal Courts (up to and including SCOTUS), using the Administrative Procedures Act.
Why This Matters
This decision is a major blow to the 100 years of federal overreach that started in the 1920’s. It will take time to fully reverse the consolidation of power in Washington D.C.We all need to pressure our State Legislatures to press the Federal Government back into its only lawful role under the Enumerated Powers Clause in the US Constitution. I’ll give you the short version: Congress only has the authority to do about eighteen things, despite its overstepping its bounds for over 100 years under the guise of “modern views”. That view is that “our betters” in government know what’s best for us.
I am running the world.
Nothing better illustrates that attitude than when Joe Biden made that statement in his ABC Interview on July 5th. I don’t care if it’s Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama, or George Soros and their minions, we as Americans get to live with the consequences of our own decisions. We should not suffer the consequences of others’ decisions that we have had no say in. After all, how many of “our betters” ever pay a price for their bad decisions?
Joe Biden can barely walk across a stage. He is not running the world.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 do make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
248 years ago our Declaration of Independence was signed. Will America make it to 250 years? I believe so, but like those men and women who threw off King George, every American needs to stand ready to defend our great nation.
Never forget it was armed civilians who defeated the most powerful army in the world at the time, demanding freedom. These were men who understood the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, had studied world history, and understood that all men were born to be free — not oppressed by a dictator in a far-away land. Today that dictator is our own over-reaching Federal Government and the executive branch of our government. They have spent the last 100 years consolidating power in Washington D.C.
Fortunately we have started to turn that ship around. But it won’t be easy! This July 4th, when you’re watching the fireworks, remember what they really stand for.
To help get you in the spirit of independence, watch this short four-minute history channel video. Refresh your memory about what is at stake.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
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