by Katie Howard | Aug 15, 2023
Laws for Me But Not for Thee
The Cat's Away (again) so the mice will play!
Once again, “the Cat’s away, so the mice will play!” Our illustrious President, Dave Funk is burning the candle at both ends working at the Iowa State Fair these days, so I’m on tap for this week’s President’s Message. You’re going to get a veritable stew, if you will — there’s a lot going down these days.
Laws for me but not for thee! Can you think of a current case where this applies? (Can you think of one where it Does NOT Apply?!)
First, in today’s news, Hunter Biden’s attorneys are arguing that the sweet diversion deal on the gun charge (you know, the one that DOESN’T send him to jail?), yeah…Anyway, his attorneys are arguing that even though the entire plea deal fell apart in court under the judge’s scrutiny in late July, the deal on the gun charge is separate and still binding. Really?
Specifically, a Fox News article reports:
Hunter Biden’s legal team said in a Sunday court filing that federal prosecutors reneged on a plea deal reached by both parties in June, and an agreement reached on a felony gun charge against the president’s son still stands.
The article goes on to report:
The filing says “the Defendant intends to abide by the terms of the Diversion Agreement that was executed at the July 26 hearing”…
Of course, this filing came two days after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as special counsel to lead investigations into Hunter Biden. This is the same U.S. Attorney for Delaware who led a very slow and lax prosecution into the tax and gun charges eventually levied against Hunter Biden and who crafted the original “sweetheart deal” on both that came apart in court last month. (Funny, I seem to recall that when the judge clarified with the prosecutors that immunity from additional crimes would not apply to Hunter, HIS attorneys declared – in court – that the entire agreement was “null and void”). Here is a link to the full article, if you care to read it: Hunter Biden’s Attorneys Argue Gun Deal Still Stands
Growing up as a military brat, I learned ALL the acronyms — including RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges)! Indeed.
Nothing to see here folks. Moving on…
School Districts Arming Staff & Employing More Security
In the aftermath of Uvalde, Texas conservative lawmakers have been pushing for more teachers to be armed. Although many teachers have voiced opposition, “the strategy is catching on with more and more isolated school districts, like Harrold, where the nearest officer is miles away”. In this article (now over one-year-old), Harrold Independent School District Arms Half of its Staff, this very remote small rural school district on the Texas/Oklahoma border has armed fully one-half of its staff to thwart any would-be active shooter threats. Cody Patton, Superintendent of Harrold Schools, says:
I have two daughters in this school…But basically every kid who walks in that door is my child, and I’m responsible for their safety and make sure they get home to mom and dad at the end of the day. So we want to give our employees whatever they need to protect our kids.
So how does the general public feel about this idea? In this 26-minute YouTube video from Bearing Arms, Cam & Co. Research Shows Armed Teachers Save Lives, Cam interviews Dr. J. Eric Dietz with the Homeland Security Institute at Purdue University about effective measures to save lives. Dr. Dietz says that “so much of what’s going on, isn’t accomplishing that”. Dr. Dietz says that, based on their research, an on-site school resource officer who responds without delay can reduce casualties by about 70%, but stated that when you add just 5% of teachers with concealed carry, you can have even better casualty reductions. He went on to say that if armed teachers were focused on just protecting the kids in their classrooms, they could further reduce casualties by another 5-10%. The video also discusses the reality of police response time, saying in most places in the country it ranges between 5-10 minutes, and sometimes more.
Public attitudes toward this idea are changing: A poll by the Trafalgar group polled 1,091 general election voters and found that 57.2% of the respondents said they felt a school shooting situation would be more dangerous without armed teachers. The video is worth listening to and the link is above.
Meanwhile, here in Iowa…IFC Educators Academy Begins!
IFC is launching its first-ever Educator Academy beginning this morning. For the next three days, selected scholarship applicants — all of whom are employed by an Iowa school — will be getting intensive training on Active Shooter Response. The premier trainers (Lt. Col. Ed Monk (U.S. Army Ret.) & owner Last Resort Firearms Training) and Adam Winch (Former Law Enforcement and Military Policy Officer with duties including SWAT, Quick Reaction Team, and trainer for Colorado National Guard) and John McLaughlin (Chair of Iowa Firearms Coalition, Active Self Protection and NRA certified firearms trainer) will review the statistics and realities of active shooter events, discuss in-depth what works (and what doesn’t) to counter an active shooter, put the participants through the paces with safe gun handling, dry fire practice, drawing from concealment and then on to live fire drills, then timed live fire drills. Participants must shoot qualifying scores to pass. In addition, there is a trauma medicine segment. This is not for the faint-hearted and I guarantee you the participants will be bone tired when this event concludes. Stay tuned next week for a recap!
Guess I better close. Dave will never turn me loose again! 🙂
Join the fight for our Second Amendment rights. Join IFC. We need every body! The threats are increasing every day.
Second Amendment Matters.
by Dave Funk | Aug 8, 2023
Gun Free Zones are also known as unarmed victim zones (in military speak – “kill zones”). With next week’s IFC Educators Academy, we will showcase a proven solution to protecting Iowa’s kids…arming present, willing, and trained school staff to intervene immediately to stop any threat to our kids.
A highly regarded researcher just published the obvious (to most of us) answer to this question. Allow armed citizens to defend themselves. Here is the Abstract from the study. I suggest you read the entire thing (link below).
Is There a Policy That Reduces Mass Public Shooting Deaths?
Carlisle E. Moody1
1 Department of Economics, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, USA
Received: June 1, 2023 Accepted: June 12, 2023 Online Published: July 21, 2023
doi:10.22158/elp.v6n2p15 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elp.v6n2p15
Abstract
The fact that an individual is willing to commit the most serious crime that carries with it the most serious
punishment means that that person is unlikely to be deterred by laws with less serious consequences. This
situation is compounded by the fact that many multiple victim public shooters are expecting, even
planning, to die in the commission of their crimes. Combining newly developed and traditional
difference-in-differences methodologies, we analyze several policies that have been suggested as
possibly effective in reducing deaths due to mass public shootings. We find that none of the proposed
policies significantly reduce such deaths. However, we find evidence that mass public shooting deaths
are lower in places that allow the carrying of concealed firearms.
Link to full Study: http://www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elp/article/view/31026/7689
But please remember, like our willing school staffers who are attending the IFC Educators Academy to be Ready at All Times, never forget that those anti-freedom 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
by Dave Funk | Aug 1, 2023
IFC’s Educators Academy, our first ever, is just two weeks away. It’s an intensive three-day training event designed to quickly train those school staff members volunteering to be present, trained, and willing to stop any violent attacks on Iowa school kids.
This prototype course has been developed to be easily duplicated across Iowa. There are still a few seats left for the first night of the Academy’s special event IFC Steak Dinner; “An Evening With Ed Monk” on August 15th. You can get tickets here.
One of the best examples of this concept in action comes out of Texas. Here is an important highlight of the Texas Guardian Program and its cost-effectiveness, brought to us by Ammoland.com about the Groesbeck, Texas Independent School District’s implementation of this program.
Groesbeck Independent School District press release:
Two months ago, I sent my monthly superintendent newsletter informing parents of our Guardian Program and new signage (see picture below). Being installed this week, signs will be posted on our campuses which state, “ATTENTION: GISD STAFF ARE ARMED AND TRAINED TO PROTECT OUR STUDENTS. 12”X12” signs will be attached to all building entrances, and larger 3’X3’ signs will be displayed at all parking/drive way entrances.
Last year the Groesbeck ISD school board watched the devastation of schools across the country, being forced to prepare for the unthinkable –the potential of a school shooting, and considered appropriate policies. The Board updated local policy, authorizing a School Safety “Guardian” Program (TX Govt. Code 411.1901). Its purpose is to provide students and faculties an armed self-defense option prior to the arrival of Law Enforcement in the event of an active shooter or “active killer” on campus.
The Guardians are ISD staff members who have passed strict requirements and training. In order to protect them from becoming targets of an intruder, their names are confidential and are not to be released. I ask that names not be guessed at nor rumors passed in an attempt to protect these individuals.
Although the program has been in place for almost a year, the Board of Trustees approved for the district to make the program more visible. By providing the community this information and by placing signs up across the campuses, we are taking additional steps so that people know we are NOT an “easy target” .
The cost of a School Resource Officer is approximately $100,000 per year, but in Texas, Guardians can be trained for about $1000! Yet, believe it or not, it’s the insurance industry here in Iowa that is trying to shut down IFC’s efforts to protect our most loved school children. They are doing that by cutting off insurance protection for any school district that has non-law enforcement armed staffers. This is the same industry that recently engineered a medical malpractice claim in Iowa City to scare our legislatures into limiting medical malpractice non-economic damages in Iowa to protect their profits.
But please remember, like our willing school staffers who are attending the IFC Educators Academy to be Ready at All Times, never forget that those anti-freedom 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
by Dave Funk | Jul 24, 2023
No, I Don’t Have ADD!
No, I don’t have ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder, but you might feel that way after this week’s President’s Message. It’s my observations on just some of the last few weeks’ news, with a few of my remarks mixed in.
My first story is about a case before the US Supreme Court; Rahimi v. U.S., where clearly a bad actor is attempting to overturn the restrictions against convicted domestic abusers (misdemeanors that should actually be felonies but that’s a different issue) from possessing firearms. Back in March the 5th Circuit sided with Rahimi, noting while he’s “hardly a model citizen,” the statute barring him from owning a gun is an “outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.”
The second story is from Guns America and it highlights a study about inner-city gang members and why they are carrying firearms. The study, by The Center for Justice Innovation, highlights four reasons for the carrying of firearms by gang members.
- Carrying for Protection: Those who carry for protection expressed ambivalence about carrying and, even more, firing guns. “I’m not trying to kill nobody. I’m not a killer.” But this ambivalence was trumped by the safety imperative: “It’s not about being cool or being tough or nothing. It’s just more about being safe.”
- Carrying for Image: Those who carry for image might brandish the gun in a group, flash it to intimidate opps, or shoot and intentionally miss. They were also perceived as likely to get into beefs related to false claims or representation.
- Carrying for Street Hustles: Those engaged in street hustles (e.g., drug dealers, scammers) were known to hold large amounts of cash or goods. They carried for protection against being robbed. Others engaged in robbing or breaking-and-entering used guns to acquire the cash or goods sought through intimidation and threat, seldom intending to kill.
- Shooters: Rarer than the other three categories, “shooters” were carriers who regularly went on the offensive, if need be killing those perceived as threats.
Go figure, we all know the first reason above is the same as everyday law-abiding Americans who want to carry defensive firearms, to protect themselves from the latter three groups listed above! How much money was wasted on that study?
My third story is about Brazil, a notably dangerous country that has seen crime and murder rates start to drop under liberalized firearms ownership and carrying laws in the last few years. Go figure. Dr. John Lott is proven right again that more guns equals less crime. Yet criminologist researchers cannot figure out what is going on. My suggestion is they go read Dr. Lott’s seminal book on the subject titled “More Guns Less Crime”; it’s now in its third edition.
We all know how much our mainstream media lies through omissions. I don’t care if it’s our once-trusted Iowa WHO-Radio’s news department or the NY Times. A great example is the recent terrorist attack in of all places, Fargo, ND on July 16th. While you may have heard about the event, what has not been widely reported was that it was brought by a Syrian immigrant with no social media presence, who had spent years in the background of legal society, and had been a student of mass killing events. From local reports of an official release;
July 21 is the first time officials have released a photo of Mohamed Barakat. Officials say he is a Syrian national who came to the United States in 2012. Barakat became a U.S. citizen in 2019. Investigators say it appears Barakat was working off and on at different jobs, and over the years he has been researching mass casualty events and collecting weaponry. His name appeared on what officials call a “Guardian Report,” but they clarified the tip received was not about a threat of violence.
Wrigley says Mohamed Barakat was not on the terrorist watch list and all of the firearms appear to have been purchased legally. Investigators say he appears to have no ties to the local Muslim community. He has family living in the United States, but not in the local area. Wrigley says Barakat’s family has been spoken to, but they do not appear to have had a lot of communication with Barakat.
I have no idea what motivated the Syrian shooter and wanna-be bomber. But please remember to be Ready at All Times and never forget that those anti-freedom 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
by Dave Funk | Jul 18, 2023
Are the Lower Federal Courts Going Rogue?
Are the lower Federal Courts going rogue against SCOTUS’s Bruen decision? To answer that question we have to look at how case law is developed in America. We all know that Congress writes legislation, and the President either vetoes or signs it into law. After that, various administrative agencies write rules and regulations, some with criminal penalties and some with civil penalties.
After a party challenges or enforces that law, and once it’s been to trial, appeals can be brought based upon the outcome of the trial (either civil or criminal). That’s an overly simplified explanation on how to develop case law.
Recently voters in Oregon passed Ballot Measure 114 that outlawed “large capacity magazines” and required gun registration. That law has been challenged in federal court and a bench trial was held by the U.S. District Court. Judge Karin Immergu released her findings on July 14th that the new state law is constitutional.
Judge Immergu “weighed” the evidence she heard and clearly did not follow the guidance SCOTUS set down in Bruen. Her reasoning is clearly flawed, and the best analysis I have seen on the ruling so far was by RedState.com author JimThompson. I’ll quote a large section here because it’s so well written:
“In short, this court admitted some evidence but dismissed other evidence, such as:
“…between 1990 and 2018, there were 304.3 million detachable magazines in circulation in the United States.” Of those, “approximately 160 million had a capacity of eleven rounds or greater.” She found that that evidence “was entitled to little weight” (page 24). Instead, she found the testimony of an expert on self-defense use to be compelling. That evidence was that LCM is rarely used in self-defense and therefore were not in “common use.”
That is a stunning finding. It means that any gun or accessory not typically used in self-defense could be seen as not meeting the “common use” test and therefore could be banned.
This seems in conflict with what Justice Kavanaugh wrote in his Heller dissent (before he was a sitting SCOTUS Justice).
“There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses. Moreover, semi-automatic handguns are used in connection with violent crimes far more than semi-automatic rifles are. It follows from Heller‘s protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that D.C.’s ban on them is unconstitutional.”
And in the remanded matter of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court was not inclined to side with what seemed to be laws restricting the right to keep and bear arms — like Oregon’s Measure 114. Judge Immergu frequently cherry-picked from Bruen to satisfy her conclusions.
Also of note, current LCM owners are “exempt” inasmuch as they can keep what they already own. If there is a compelling “public safety” concern because most mass shooters used LCMs, and they can cause more injury and death, why then are current owners not ordered to turn in their LCMs? If an LCM is “more” dangerous than a 10-round capacity magazine, and is an existential public safety threat by just existing, then it is a danger now, not just in the future. Oregon didn’t attempt to confiscate LCMs because the state knew that such a measure would go down in flames. But that still leaves me wondering — if something is “dangerous,” how can the state justify not asking for all LCMs to be turned in?
Judge Immergu went on to write:
Magazine capacity is highly related to the lethality of a weapon, because capacity is what determines the number of shots that can be fired within a given time without having to pause to reload. Tr. 6/6/2023 513:5–10. State laws banning LCMs reduce the incidents of mass shootings between 48 to 72 percent and decrease the number of fatalities that occur in these mass shootings by 37 to 75 percent. Tr. 6/6/2023 506:14–19. Defendants presented credible evidence at trial demonstrating that the relationship between restrictions on LCMs and reductions in mass shootings is so pronounced that it is a causal relationship, meaning that the restrictions were at least partly responsible for the reductions. Tr. 6/6/2023 507:20–508:1
I am not convinced that Judge Immergu’s reasoning is sound and suspect it will not hold up on appeal. It seems that ignoring that millions of LCMs are owned (and never used in mass shootings) is a fatal flaw in her ruling. Her finding that although they are owned by millions not typically used in self-defense seems like a pre-conceived conclusion in search of facts to support it.
California, Hawaii, Washington, and now Oregon have passed laws restricting LCMs–even though these laws, like Measure 114, will eventually make their way to SCOTUS and, in my opinion, will be found unconstitutional.
Be careful what you ask for, Oregon. It may come back to bite you.
2024 Matters – Vote Thoughtfully!
Jim’s excellent analysis leaves out one important consideration. The left relies on activist judges to interpret our Constitution the way they want it. They do this because they cannot win in the court of public opinion or through the normal legislative process. Oregon is in the 9th Judicial District, the most liberal of all districts. My guess is that this is the first of many “set up” cases needed to strike down Bruen in a future more liberal SCOTUS. This is one reason that Presidential elections are so important. Who controls the White House controls the future of the judiciary. Let’s not fall for the next shiny thing come 2024 and ensure a pro-gun and pro-constitutionalist Presidential nominee comes out of the Iowa Caucus a winner and gets elected next year.
The anti-freedom dangerous quacks are playing a long game but so are we. 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
So how does the general public feel about this idea? In this 26-minute YouTube video from Bearing Arms, Cam & Co. Research Shows Armed Teachers Save Lives, Cam interviews Dr. J. Eric Dietz with the Homeland Security Institute at Purdue University about effective measures to save lives. Dr. Dietz says that “so much of what’s going on, isn’t accomplishing that”. Dr. Dietz says that, based on their research, an on-site school resource officer who responds without delay can reduce casualties by about 70%, but stated that when you add just 5% of teachers with concealed carry, you can have even better casualty reductions. He went on to say that if armed teachers were focused on just protecting the kids in their classrooms, they could further reduce casualties by another 5-10%. The video also discusses the reality of police response time, saying in most places in the country it ranges between 5-10 minutes, and sometimes more.
IFC is launching its first-ever Educator Academy beginning this morning. For the next three days, selected scholarship applicants — all of whom are employed by an Iowa school — will be getting intensive training on Active Shooter Response. The premier trainers (Lt. Col. Ed Monk (U.S. Army Ret.) & owner Last Resort Firearms Training) and Adam Winch (Former Law Enforcement and Military Policy Officer with duties including SWAT, Quick Reaction Team, and trainer for Colorado National Guard) and John McLaughlin (Chair of Iowa Firearms Coalition, Active Self Protection and NRA certified firearms trainer) will review the statistics and realities of active shooter events, discuss in-depth what works (and what doesn’t) to counter an active shooter, put the participants through the paces with safe gun handling, dry fire practice, drawing from concealment and then on to live fire drills, then timed live fire drills. Participants must shoot qualifying scores to pass. In addition, there is a trauma medicine segment. This is not for the faint-hearted and I guarantee you the participants will be bone tired when this event concludes. Stay tuned next week for a recap!
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