Bob – Page 5 – Odd Stuffing

Crime – The Means to Control

Last week I wrote about how crime is up even though our elected officials say it is down. Why the disconnect? Well, this is election season and the folks in charge want you to believe everything they’ve been doing has reduced crime and made you safer. It’s also a sell job to get you to believe more of the same thing will bring crime down even further. Naturally, it’s all a lie. Crime is skyrocketing and people are being victimized like never before. And what’s worse, it’s all part of the plan to implement tighter controls on YOU.

The strategy is playing out across the nation. Activist billionaire funded prosecutors are elected in ultra-liberal enclaves promising to reform the systematically racist and unfair criminal justice system. What they do instead is immediately publish lengthy lists of crimes they will refuse to prosecute, ignoring state and local laws and the will of the people and legislatures who created them.

Police are defunded and new laws and restrictions placed on them so they cannot do their jobs. No bail laws are created because the current system is racist and unfair, and anyone who does happen to get arrested is back out on the street within hours. Those who do make it into the court system are given slap-on-the-wrist sentences and returned to the streets. Those already in the jail/prison system are released early because of new, more lenient sentencing reforms. Prisons are closed and the overall capacity of the system goes down, further justifying the need to release prisoners early.

Is all of this sounding familiar?

What happens in the cities, towns and neighborhoods is not only inevitable, but predictable. Crime surges. Businesses and the local citizenry are understandably angry and frighted. They demand protection from the government. The government responds with the same answer they’ve always given, more government control.

Let’s head back to San Francisco for an example. Rampant crime and unsafe streets have caused an exodus of large and small businesses. The government must look like they’re doing something to fight the influx of retail crime. The solution? 400 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras placed around the city.

Yup, that’s right, the ultra-left population celebrated the introduction of voter approved, government expedited video cameras around the city as a measure to stop the wave of organized retail theft plaguing the city.

Of course, these cameras don’t just capture those involved in retail theft. They vacuum up every single car (and everything else) that passes by them. You going to the store? Logged. You going to work? Logged. You taking the kids to school? Logged. You heading into or out of the city? Logged. 24/7. Retained for as long as the city wants to.

If you’re thinking it’s a little 1984/China Social Credit System, you’re right. Every movement is captured for later analysis. And with artificial intelligence (AI) becoming more common place, it’s even easier.

Perhaps a comment from Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle and sixth richest man in the world, will help to understand where this is heading. He recently shared his thoughts on the future of AI-powered surveillance tools.

“.. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”

What you are witnessing is a problem intentionally created by the government so the people, desperate for safety, would accept the solution they offer, even though it will be used to infringe on their rights and more tightly control them.

For those of us interested in Second Amendment rights, we already know this strategy. I’ve written before that there is no gun control without dead children (Sacrificing Our Children – https://oddstuffing.com/archives/973). As disgusting as this is, anti-gun extremists are more than willing to sacrifice our children to obtain the greater goal of gun control and civilian disarmament.

The tactics are clear. Remove police officers from schools for alleged ‘explicit and implicit racism’ and an imagined ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline. Ban schools from arming teachers and staff. Ban any civilian from carrying a firearm on any school property. This leaves the unarmed and undefended schools as soft and appealing targets for deranged would-be killers. After someone takes advantage of this, they jump on the bandwagon before the children’s bodies are cold and the injured have stopped bleeding and call for the one solution, the ONLY solution they have, more gun control.

Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.

Increasing crime, especially violent crime, only helps to implement more restrictive gun control laws on the victims. None of their so-called “solutions” ever impact the perpetrators, the ones actually committing the crimes. They must be free to commit more crime to help implement more gun control.

Yes, your vote this year matters.

Bob

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Less Reporting = Less Crime?

We’ve been hearing a lot from the President and the Democrat party about how their polices have made us safer and crime is down. They point to the FBI’s latest crime statistics showing just how much crime has fallen. But has it really? Does this match what you see in your neighborhood/town/city, in your local news, or when talking to your friends and neighbors? Unfortunately, the truth is literally the opposite.

Let’s take San Francisco, CA as an example. I wrote about San Francisco crime and the resulting mass business exodus last year (https://oddstuffing.com/archives /1063) and sadly things have only gotten worse.

Nearly every day there is a report of another retailer closing their San Francisco store. And I’m not talking about the multitude of family run, mom & pop shops who have been the lifeblood of their local neighborhoods for decades and nobody in San Francisco politics care about, I’m talking about the big, national brands where the wealthy people shop. These are businesses which have been open in the city for 10, 20, 30 plus years. You’d think that would give the city something to think about, but no.

Why are they closing? Crime. Rampant, uncontrolled crime. Not only are the stores being looted daily thanks to the softer-than-soft on crime state and city policies, but the businesses cannot provide a safe environment for customers or staff. Violent assaults are common as is property damage, drugs and harassment from the city’s homeless and criminal population.

Violence on the street is out of control and getting worse. When city officials do say something about it, usually because a celebrity was robbed, injured or killed, it’s defended as being “an isolated incident”. What’s actually rare is the city’s acknowledgement of the violence. By the way, take note of the agencies NOT reporting to the FBI below.

So why are we being told crime is down?

The latest FBI statistics do show crime is down, but what they don’t tell you is that conclusion is based on incomplete data. In 2021, the FBI went to a new NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System) for compiling and reporting data and would only accept police reports through the new system. Not all departments were able to make the switch and as a result, more than 6,000 law enforcement agencies out of 18,000 total in the United States did NOT submit their data. That’s a full 1/3 of the reporting agencies. And another 24% only reported partial crime data. While a few smaller, rural agencies might not influence the totals much, the non-reporting agencies include the Los Angeles Police and Los Angeles County Sherriff, New York City Police, Phoenix Police and San Francisco Police. For the state of California, only 49% of the law enforcement agencies, covering 48% of the population reported. You can check to see if your agency reported at: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/08/15/see-if-police-in-your-state-reported-crime-data-to-the-fbi

Keep in mind that in 2020, the year before the latest change, 16,000 agencies reported their data. Why the massive drop in reporting? Money and political priorities. Having been in law enforcement and being responsible for the department’s data submissions during a previous FBI reporting shift, a lot of work needs to be done by individual agencies. But it’s also not like these things happen overnight. Changes like this are years in the making.

So based on incomplete data, including no submissions from some of the largest, most crime infested areas of the country, the FBI declares crime is down. Did they include a clarification, a caveat or even an asterisk with an impossibly tiny font footnote explaining this was based on partial data? Of course not! The former premier law enforcement agency of the country, the ones everyone looks to for accurate, unbiased information, is once again purposely withholding the truth for the sake of partisan politics. The FBI and politicians who are saying crime is down are lying.

For a better assessment of what is going on, look at the just released Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The NCVS asks about 240,000 people each year whether they have been victims of crime to measure reported and unreported crime.

Between 2020 and 2023, rape increased by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assaults by 55%. Note the survey does not include homicide as that is most often reported to police.

Since 2020, the NIBRS and NCVS have been moving in opposite directions. The FBI has been finding fewer instances of crime, but people are simultaneously answering in greater numbers that they have been victims of crime.

Other than the massive gap in reporting data, there’s another reason why reported crime can be lower. When the public loses faith in the criminal justice community – the police, prosecutors, courts, and jails/prisons – they are less likely report a crime. If the police don’t show up, don’t make an arrest, or the prosecutors won’t file charges, suspects are released on no bail and take revenge against the victim, courts don’t hold people accountable and prisons let convicts out years to decades early, the public won’t see any advantage to reporting the crime.

The problem of course is the crime isn’t going to go away, it’s only going to continue to get worse and worse. Victims and those who do not wish to become victims, will continue to flee high crime cities and states in search of refuge elsewhere, just as the businesses already have. Those who cannot get out will continue to be victimized.

What will the defund the police, don’t charge the offender, don’t hold the criminal accountable and release anyone who has been ‘justice contacted’ progressive politicians do?

Well guess what, their response is all just part of the plan.

Bob

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9/11

Garland v. Cargill (Bump Stocks) & Why This Is Important

On June 14, 2024, the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in Garland v. Cargill, the bump stock case. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court ruled the ATF exceeded its authority in declaring bump stocks as machine guns. The ruling, which relied on the exact text of the National Firearms Act (NFA), said a bump stock did not qualify as a machine gun since they did not fire more than one round automatically per trigger pull. As such, the ATF could not regulate them through administrative action and only congressional legislation would empower them to do so.

The ruling, concurring and dissent opinions are in the single link listed below. I encourage you to read them and decide for yourself what is based on fact or the filter of politics.

Also note this is not about the June 28, 2024, ruling that abolished the Chevron Deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, however that ruling will undoubtably impact the ATF going forward.

First off, many people, myself included, consider bump stocks a foolish range toy with limited practical use unless you’re shooting at the broad side of a barn. I’ve shot with them on a couple of occasions, and they are finnicky as hell. Sadly, they were used against a barn size target in Las Vegas in 2017 which prompted the ATF ban. Regardless, the point isn’t the type or practicality of the accessory, it’s the ATF’s administrative and systematic banning of more and more firearm and firearm related accessories that is the issue. A bit here, a bit there, and suddenly there’s very little left.

It’s also important to note the ATF previously said bump stocks were NOT machine guns or subject to the NFA on at least 10 separate occasions through several administrations, consistently concluding that semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump stocks cannot “automatically” fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger”. A bump stock equipped rifle cannot operate automatically since just the right amount of forward pressure must be applied with the support hand to the forward handguard. Because the shooter slides the rifle forward in the bump stock, each shot is fired by a single function of the trigger.

The National Firearms Act defined ‘function of the trigger’ to include not only a single pull of the trigger but also any ‘analogous motions’. The ATF contends that one such analogous motion that qualifies as a single function of the trigger is sliding the rifle forward to bump the trigger.

Here is the important part. Had the ATF definition of bump stocks been upheld, then every semiautomatic rifle could be considered a machine gun since it is possible to achieve the same effect using something as simple as a rubber band or a belt loop to ‘bump’ the trigger.

The ruling also took note of the Ithaca Model 37 shotgun, a firearm the ATF has ruled is not a machine gun even though it can fire more than one shot with a single function of the trigger. The Model 37 is famous for its ability to “slam fire” by holding down the trigger and operating the pump action. But since it does not do this “automatically”, requiring the operator to move the slide with the support hand, it is not a machine gun.

The ATF declaring bump stocks as machine guns was a purely political decision made in the aftermath of the horrific 2017 Las Vegas shooting. As we’ve seen over and over again, the sickening mantra of “Never let a good crisis go to waste” was invoked in order to administratively slip in a targeted ban against an ‘evil’ gun accessory, while casting a net that would someday be used to ban every semiautomatic rifle.

This text of the ruling clearly identified what is and is not a fully automatic firearm, as well as specifying the proper course of action to change the NFA must come from Congress. In response to this ruling, a bill entitled Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts (BUMP) Act was introduced.

Pay attention to the language it uses:

“(A) any manual, power-driven, or electronic device primarily designed, or redesigned, so that when the device is attached to a semiautomatic firearm the device—
“(i) materially increases the rate of fire of the firearm; or
“(ii) approximates the action or rate of fire of a machinegun;

“(B) any device, part, or combination of parts, that is designed and functions to materially increase the rate of fire of the firearm, by eliminating the need for the operator of the firearm to make a separate movement for each individual function of the trigger; or
“(i) materially increases the rate of fire of the firearm; or

“(C) a semiautomatic firearm that has been modified in any way that—
“(ii) approximates the action or rate of fire of a machinegun.

Using this definition, any semiautomatic firearm potentially used with a belt loop, rubber band, hell even Jerry Miculek’s finger, could be declared a machine gun, subject to the NFA and banned. And THAT is absolutely the intention.

Fortunately, it was blocked from unanimous consent passage by a single Senator who said, “It’s not really about bump stocks, this bill is about banning as many firearm accessories as possible. It’s an unconstitutional attack on law-abiding gun owners.”

It is highly unlikely this will be the end of this topic. The outcome of the 2024 general elections, control of Congress and the White House could bring new interest in this and other gun control priorities. Any new laws would likely immediately be challenged and again appealed to the United States Supreme Court based on the Bruen ruling.

Yes, your vote matters.

Bob

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-976_e29g.pdf

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POTUS v. SCOTUS (& the Second Amendment)

In case you missed it, following the President of the United States decision not to seek reelection and pass his nomination to the Vice President, he released his plan for reforms to the Supreme Court of the United States. In what can best be described as a Democrat Party temper tantrum, the President laid out three points for his so-called “reform” of the Court. These include reversing the ruling of Presidential Immunity for crimes committed while in office, setting term limits of 18 years for Supreme Court Justices and establishing an enforceable code of conduct against Supreme Court Justices.

The fact that the President has sat on proposing any reforms, even following the final report (link below) from his highly biased Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States until AFTER he stepped away from reelection and became a lame duck President, is indicative of the level of seriousness his so-called “reforms” should be taken as.

One would think any of our former presidents would be deeply concerned with having the presidential immunity ruling reversed. Given the life and death decisions inherent to the job, including those made for the purposes of war, even the current President should be concerned given some of his own actions, including the disastrous and deadly Afghanistan withdrawal. However, he may be relying on the Department of Justice determination of him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, to provide him with a level of prosecutable immunity. Or perhaps those supporting it have faith the Department of Justice would never go after someone they consider an ‘insider’.

The sycophant, extremist legal pundits behind this are now saying this can be accomplished without constitutional amendments by simply imposing the conditions upon the Supreme Court by Congress and the President. In other words, two of the three separate branches of government imposing their partisan demands on the third branch.

If you’re thinking a move like this from Congress and the President would be constitutional, let’s imagine a couple different scenarios.

The President (Executive Branch) decides Congress should have term limits. Remember the President cannot independently create laws, so an Executive Order is created. Congress would justifiably say this is unconstitutional as the Executive Branch cannot impose a condition on the Legislative Branch.

The Congress (Legislative Branch) decides the Vice President is now subject to the Twenty Second Amendment limiting them to two terms in the Executive Branch and passes a law to enforce that. The President and Vice President disagree. In the first place, the President would not sign the law, as it would still be unconstitutional for the Legislative Branch to impose a condition on the Executive Branch.

I suppose the most ironic part of this would be if the President or Congress attempt to impose these changes by executive order or legislation, the opposition to it would be heard in the US federal court system and appealed up to … the United States Supreme Court.

The separation of powers for the three independent branches of government is a critical component of our government and thinking that two branches can just impose a new set of politically biased conditions on the third is ridiculous.

Amending the Constitution is difficult, on purpose, as it changes the very foundation of the country. Article Five of the Constitution describes the process:

Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; or by a convention to propose amendments called by Congress at the request of two-thirds of the state legislatures. To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must then be ratified by either, as determined by Congress, the legislatures of three-quarters of the states or by ratifying conventions conducted in three-quarters of the states.

As with the Democrat party’s proposal to pack the court with five new liberal Justices to ‘eliminate the influence of politics’ in the Court, support from Congress, the state legislatures and the people simply aren’t there. The people are smart enough to know what is going on, an attempted political takeover of Supreme Court, and they won’t support it.

The justification behind this is the 6-3 conservative majority on the Court. In reality, it’s a 5-3 conservative majority, with the Chief Justice, who votes last, now siding with whichever side is winning. This has become evident following his capitulation to the threat of forced reform presented in the Senate Democrat’s “Heal Thyself” memo issued during the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York case.

The rational from the extremist left for packing the Court with five liberal Justices was “We’re not packing the Court. We’re unpacking it.” A critical point to be considered here. If the only way to get what they call “historic, progressive laws” to pass constitutional scrutiny is to pack the Court with far-left liberal Justices who will rule in favor of them, then it’s a safe bet the laws were NEVER constitutional in the first place.

So, why is this important to us from a Second Amendment standpoint? Well, consider that Everytown for Gun Safety and Planned Parenthood have announced their joint support for the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act of 2023 (TERM Act), which would create 18-year term limits for current and future Supreme Court justices.

Everytown states: “One of America’s greatest strengths is our dynamism, which we’ve seen clearly in the growing public support for gun safety — and which is being stymied by a Supreme Court where lifetime appointments promote stagnation and stonewalling.” They cited Garland v. Cargill (the bump stock ban reversal) as a key element in their decision.

Here’s what it boils down to. The extremist left disagrees with the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead of taking it as a hint that the administrative rules, laws and executive actions are unconstitutional and perhaps they should be focusing on other areas if they want to do some good, they are hell bent on changing the makeup of the Court so that they can get a rubber stamp to infringe on the people’s rights.

THIS is why I care and why everyone who votes this year should care. Reforms to the United States Supreme Court for the purposes of passing and sustaining unconstitutional laws should scare the crap out of everyone. An independent United States Supreme Court is pretty much the only thing preventing the systematic elimination of the Second Amendment right now.

Yes, your vote matters.

Bob

http://oddstuffing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SCOTUS-Report-Final-12.8.21-1.pdf

Presidential Election 2024 Ballot Prediction Results (Political Post)

The Democratic National Convention has concluded, and the candidate has officially been nominated. That means it time to pull the mayonnaise jar from where it has wintered since last November in the darkest depths below Funk & Wagnall’s back porch* and see how I did on my predictions. You can see my original prediction post at: https://oddstuffing.com/archives/1128.

The results are mixed. While I was correct as to who WAS NOT going to be the candidate, I missed on who WAS going to be the candidate.

Quick review: Back in November 2023 I predicted the physical and mental health of our current President, Joe Biden, would have declined to the point where he could no longer be a valid candidate. It’s not that his condition in 2020 was that much better, it’s just that by now it is to the point where it can’t be covered up, denied, or explained away anymore. Everyone points to his disastrous performance in the first debate with former President Donald Trump as the reason he stepped aside. I’m sticking with the notion this was planned all along and the performance was not only anticipated, but necessary to make the move.

As to the replacement candidate, I predicted either Gavin Newsom or Hillary Clinton. Yup, I missed on this part, and I can only think of a hundred million reasons why. The money.

The current President’s campaign war chest at the time he stepped away from campaign was more than 100 million dollars and, since the Vice President was on the reelection ticket with him, she gets to use the money. Obviously, there are some MAJOR questions about that from a legal standpoint, but with the Federal Elections Commission, a notoriously pathetic slow to react agency in the first place being part of the Executive Branch of the current government, well guess what… it’s going be ruled as “legal” sometime in the next few years, just in time for the 2024 elections.

The choice of Vice President Kamala Harris is an absolute surprise, not only for me but for the Democrat party. This is someone who when the President announced his reelection bid, even the party loyalists were openly calling for him to replace her on the ticket because she was dragging him down in the polls.

Vice President Harris has consistently ranked as the least popular Vice President in recent history, potentially all of time. Her patented word salad answers, to her maniacal nervous cackle when she doesn’t have an answer, to the fact she hasn’t accomplished anything she has been tasked with, all add up to someone who is in no way, shape or fashion ready to lead the country.

Let’s also recall that in her first presidential run in 2020, she was forced to drop out BEFORE the first primary because her performance couldn’t rally enough support, despite having the funding and connections from the Clinton dynasty. When the current President announced his support for her candidacy, in an all too mysterious fashion, I was skeptical if it was the real thing. But then we started to see key campaign staff from the Clintons, Obamas and Bidens start to migrate to her staff. I had to conclude it was true.

So how is the most unpopular, least productive Vice President going to compete as a candidate? Lots and lots of help.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC): Through all the primaries, the Democrat party ran a candidate they knew was not going to be on the 2024 ballot, as well as viciously kept any potential primary opponent off the primary ballots. When the President stepped aside and endorsed the Vice President, all the President’s delegates magically transformed to Harris delegates. We now have a Presidential candidate who was not primaried in two election cycles as the Democrat Presidential candidate.

If you’re thinking the Democrat party can’t simply select who they want regardless of the primaries, recall Bernie Sanders lawsuit against the DNC for unfairly biasing Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race. His case was ultimately dismissed when the Federal Court ruled the DNC could select their own candidate, period. Primaries mean absolutely NOTHING and your vote in a primary is nothing but a popularity contest so the major parties can evaluate the general election support for whomever they choose.

The media: The media have been repeating the popular myth the Vice President has “grassroots” support across the nation. The LEAST popular Vice President, potentially of all times, whom nobody wanted to stay on the current President’s ticket, suddenly has nationwide grassroots support. Social media, the tech giants as well as traditional television and print media have been effectively erasing inconvenient facts and articles from the internet, as well as substituting complimentary articles. Searches have been altered to show only the side they want you to find.

The polls: Polling from the day the Vice President announced show her leading the former President in all the battleground states. Yet we recall in the days, weeks, months and years leading up to this, the Vice President was polling at the bottom of the list of people who could potentially replace the current President.

The courts: The lawfare against the Republican candidate and those who have supported him continues and we can expect ramped up efforts to muddy them up even further in the coming months.

New voters: Over the past three and a half years, this country has seen a tsunami of unlawful residents flowing into our country, to the tune of an estimated 10 to 20 million, costing our country billions and billions of dollars to provide housing, food, clothing, transportation and medical care. How many of these so-called “asylum seekers” or “migrants” will end up on the voting rolls is unknown, but their being registered as voters is well documented.

The October surprise: We should all expect at least one, likely more, September, October and even first few days of November surprises. It may come in the form of an escalation or US brokered resolution in one of the multiple wars we are financing, a “terrorist” attacks on our own soil, political lawfare accusations, charges or sentences, a new pandemic, or even the current President resigning so the Vice President will be considered the incumbent candidate.

Voting “season”: Our country used to have a single day when people went to the polls to vote, or had to have their absentee ballots in. Votes were tabulated then and there and the results, even if contested, were announced at the end of the night. Just about every other country in the world still does that, but not us. Our highest technology driven “safest and securest elections ever” require days to weeks or longer of extra behind closed doors counting to come up with the ‘right’ number, especially in the battleground states.

The puppet masters: Just as I’m thoroughly convinced someone else was running our government for the past three and half years, I’m convinced a different someone else would be running the country under a President Harris administration. The same forces that originally planned to replace President Biden with Vice President Harris are doing it again. Follow the money to figure out who.

As someone who has witnessed the current Vice President in action in her home state of Kalifornistan as well as her performance in the Senate and as Vice President, I can only shake my head in disbelief. I keep thinking we as a nation can come up with better candidates for office at the local, county, state and federal level, but it just doesn’t seem to happen.

This is OUR fault folks. We allow the political parties to pick our representatives for us and we wind up with people who do nothing but give the public lip service while they do the bidding of those who put them in place.

This election is going to be difficult for a lot of people as the lies and smears are going to try to convince you to make an emotional decision. All I can say is vote for the future you want for your country and godspeed.

Bob

*Okay, it’s really Odd Stuffing’s back deck, but it’s still a valid ceremonial place to let these kinds of things properly age.

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A Model of Bipartisan Efficiency (Side Rant)

For those who don’t believe our elected officials are working hard in the best interests of our nation, I present to you S.4610 – A bill to amend Title 36, United States Code, to designate the bald eagle as the national bird. Yes, you read that correctly. The Senate of the 118^th Congress has brought forth and in a stunning show of bipartisanship, unanimously passed S.4610. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives where it is expected to quickly pass and be sent to the President of the United States for his signature.

S.4610 – A Senate bill officially designating the bald eagle as America’s national bird after more than 200 years of symbolizing the country.

According to one of the co-sponsors, “Today’s bipartisan passage brings us one step closer to solidifying the eagle’s place as an enduring symbol of our freedom, and I look forward to seeing this legislation pass the House and signed into law soon.”

I for one am grateful that during these trying times when runaway inflation is raising the costs of goods and services, forcing many hard working Americans to simply go without, crime in many of our cities is out of control and the streets are no longer safe to walk or drive day or night, our uncontrolled border is pouring millions of “asylum seekers” and “immigrants” (a.k.a. illegals) into our country, to have all of their needs including housing, food, clothing and healthcare paid for with our tax dollars, law abiding citizens are being stripped of their constitutionally protected rights, radical ideologies rule the day and anyone disagreeing with them faces the full weight of our nation’s law enforcement and legal system, all while our country is sponsoring two foreign proxy wars and we are propping up economies of countless nations hostile to our own interests, our Congress is laser focused on the hard issues.

Despite all the trivial distractions, our Congressional representatives, who we pay a minimum of $175,000 per year and enjoy extraordinarily lavish benefits, perks and the advantages of insider information not available to the common US citizen, are able to come together to pass this critical piece of timely legislation.

BRAVO PATRIOTS!

I invite you to go to https://www.congress.gov to see what your Representatives and Senators have been doing on your behalf. Are they working on things that matter to you and your family? Are they addressing what is important to our nation?

Maybe it’s time for some different representation.

Bob

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California’s 1 in 30 Ban Update

In a rare pro Second Amendment ruling last Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a stay issued against an injunction against California’s “1 in 30” ban. The ban prohibits Californian’s from purchasing more than one firearm in a 30-day period. The ruling by a three-judge panel in the case of Nguyen v. Bonta is short and to the point. “The order (Dkt. 9) granting Defendants’ motion for a stay pending appeal (Dkt. 3) is REVERSED.” There was no stay included in the reversal of the stay, so the order was effective immediately.

The original lawsuit against the ban was filed in federal court on December 18, 2020, when the 1 in 30 ban only covered handgun purchases. The ban was expanded on July 1, 2021, to include semiautomatic, centerfire rifles as well. The law was expanded again on January 1, 2024, to include any firearm, completed frames or receivers, or so-called “firearm precursor parts”.

The 1 in 30 ban was struck down on March 11, 2024, by District Court for the Southern District of California by Judge William Q. Hayes. The judgement was stayed in the original order for 30 days to facilitate the State’s appeal. A stay pending the outcome of the appeals was granted on April 24, 2024, by a separate three-judge panel.

The justification for the 1 in 30 ban was explained by the State in the motion for a stay as:

“California law does not limit the total number of firearms that any person may possess, the OGM (one-gun-a-month) law addresses the particular dangers associated with bulk purchases that occur within a relatively brief period of time, such as straw purchases and illegal firearms trafficking. The law makes it more difficult for criminals to acquire firearms by reducing the flow of guns into the black market and thus curtailing the illegal gun market. The law also makes it more difficult for individuals to stockpile firearms for criminal activity.”

During the defense of the stay, the California DOJ attorney claimed that the reason for the gun rationing law was to “disrupt” gun trafficking and straw purchasing. When pressed for evidence the 1 in 30 ban actually does this, the DOJ attorney cited unnamed “some studies” and that other states had adopted one-gun-a-month statutes.

The state also claimed anyone who needed an additional firearm in that 30 days could “borrow” a firearm until they were allowed to purchase another. This of course is against the law in California as it is illegal to loan or otherwise transfer a firearm to another private party, except between immediate family members, without conducting a Private Party Transfer at a federal firearms dealer and waiting the required 10 days. It is also illegal to transfer ammunition to another private party without going through an “ammunition vendor” and paying for a background check, along with any wait imposed by the State for the completion of the background check.

The 1 in 30 ban serves as a prime example of California’s draconian approach to gun control. The basis for the law was conjecture based not on factual evidence, but a desire to systemically reduce the number of firearms a person could lawfully obtain. “Some studies”, while not even cited in this case, are usually result of biased, State funded “research” where they start with the outcome and work to create “facts” and numbers to support the outcome. This law also demonstrates the scope creep commonly found in gun control. What started out as a one-handgun-a-month ban, expanded to include semi-automatic, centerfire rifles, then expanded to ALL firearms, frames, receivers and even so-called “firearm precursor parts”.

The State was very cautious to include in their testimony that they do not limit the number of firearms a person can own, only how quickly they can obtain them. However, if you examine the State’s history of continuously tightening the regulations on lawfully purchasing and the possession of firearms, it is painfully obvious it will only be a matter of time before a hard limit of how many firearms the State will ‘allow’ you to own is imposed.

The State has the option of appealing the reversal to an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Considering one three-judge panel issued the stay and a different three-judge panel reversed it, an appeal by the State is almost guaranteed. The State has also fared far better with their hand selected en banc panels. We should expect nothing different in this case.

The latest news indicates the State is still updating the DROS (Dealer Record of Sale), the registration and background check system, to comply with the reversal of the stay, although there is nothing to say this process won’t be dragged out indefinitely pending their obtaining another stay and reversal of the original court decision.

I’m going to keep saying this, fighting gun control laws after they are passed is a fool’s errand. It is a long shot to even get the right appeal and we the citizens of the United States are not only funding the appeal but the defense of unconstitutional laws. In this game, only the lawyers win and we the people lose our rights in the process.

What does work? Electing representatives at the local, county, state and federal level who will NOT sell our constitutionally protected rights to the gun control zealots. EVERY seat on EVERY board matters. Yes, even in Kalifornistan.

Bob

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Vote Early, Vote Often… A Santa Cruz Story

It’s been five years since I escaped the People’s Republic of Kalifornistan, so imagine my joy at receiving yet another notice from the Santa Cruz County Elections Board to validate my address for my absentee ballot in the upcoming general elections. The notice had my residence address listed as my old Scotts Valley address, with the mailing address of my previous address in New Mexico. The new owners of the property were kind enough to forward it on to Maine for me.

Now keep in mind, in the past five years, I moved to New Mexico, where I obtained a driver’s license, registered to vote and voted while I was there, then moved to Maine, where I obtained a driver’s license, registered to vote and voted since I’ve been here. According to this notice I received, either of these should have triggered them removing me from the voting rolls in California. But apparently not.

An unscrupulous person might say, screw it… if they want to send me a ballot, I’ll vote there too. It wouldn’t be a vote they’ll like, but I could send it anyway. But that’s not only dishonest, but illegal. So, one more time, I returned the notice saying I was no longer at either address.

For a while I thought about sending back a notice saying I had died thinking that might give them the hint to clear me off their list, but then I really didn’t want to join the Democrat party.

Not to be outdone, every year the City of Scotts Valley sends me a reminder that my business license has expired, and I need to renew it promptly to avoid a late renewal penalty. Being the persnickety person I am, I cancelled everything before I escaped the iron grip of Kalifornistan, but again, it doesn’t seem to have taken. Although at this point, I admit to getting a little nostalgic when I read these notices. It’s kind of like getting a Christmas card from an ex. You can appreciate the thought but really wish they’d stop.

Voting integrity is serious problem in this country, as witnessed by the last few general elections. The explosion of mail in ballots (thanks covid), lax to zero validation, purposely signing up unlawful residents or the dearly expired, and unaccountable counting has caused many, myself included, to lose faith in our electoral system.

How can we consider ourselves a first world nation, a leader in technology, economics, trade, law, medical care, morality and living standards, but we can’t manage to accurately tally the votes for a general election on the same day as the election. Just about every other country on the plant can do it, from the biggest and most advanced countries down to the most rural, remote and destitute third world countries.

You have to wonder, is it our highly advanced, saftest and securest voting systems ever that cause us to take days, weeks and months to count votes (but only in the battleground states) and can’t be fully audited or is it the people running them?

While the left leaning of our nation pushes universal mail in voting, the same left leaning companies who support them demand in-person voting for things such as union organizing. Why? Because they don’t have faith the elections will be free from fraud otherwise. Go figure.

Elections are arguably the biggest civic obligation we as United States citizens have, yet we have a dismal voting participation rate of 66% in the last elections – up from 59% in the previous general elections – placing us as 73^rd out of 198 nations.

As for the imaginary barriers to voting that discriminate against otherwise eligible voters, well, those just don’t exist. They make great campaign fodder and news stories, but they simply do not exist in real life. Anyone who wants it is fully capable of obtaining proper identification documents needed to legally cast a ballot anywhere in the country, but saying some can’t and will be disenfranchised is a great way to keep the voting rolls as open and malleable as possible.

So, on Tuesday, November 5^th, 2024, I encourage you to get out and vote early, but vote only once.

Fun side note: I wanted to check the date for the general elections this year, so I typed “what date are the general elections in 2024” into a popular search engine. Along with a list or articles and the date, over on the right side of the results page was the picture and article on the candidacy for the current Vice President, and ONLY the current Vice President. Subtle…

Bob

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Lost Rights (Maine Edition) 72 Hour Waiting Period Begins

Useless gun control begins in Maine as the 72 hour waiting period to purchase a firearm goes into effect August 9^th. This law is a knee jerk reaction by the gun control community who capitalized on the horrific tragedy in Lewiston. The legacy of those who lost their lives because of the absolute failure of the government agencies who swore to protect them and had all the legal means to do so is now a law which may itself cost more innocent lives. Well played Maine gun grabbers.

A post purchase wait, a so-called ‘cooling off’ period, before taking delivery of a firearm is primarily designed as a suicide prevention measure, even though the waiting periods have never been proven to reduce suicide. Some studies have shown it ‘potentially’ reduces suicide by firearms, but none of the studies have ever looked at suicide as a whole. If denied the use of one means, a firearm, did the person simply commit suicide by another means, such as drugs, sharp objects, gravity from falling off a building or any of the myriad ways people have ended their own lives? The blanket claim of having a waiting period for firearm purchases prevent suicide is absolutely false, as is one of the left-wing sponsor’s statement of “It’s going to save lives”.

Advocates of this new gun control restriction admit that this particular bill has been around for years and was never able to get enough traction to be implemented. However, the tragic shooting in Lewiston allowed them to move it forward. While it would have done absolutely NOTHING to stop what happened, the gun control zealots were more than willing to celebrate the passage because of the outrage and sympathy the corpses of dead Mainers brought.

This new law is an example of the sickening mantra of “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.

Just as they have done in other previously free states, they needed to wait for a triggering event to get the gun control ball rolling. According to one sponsor, “There was a greater awareness of the prevalence of gun violence and a greater interest, perhaps, in addressing gun safety.”

Let’s not forget the legislative gamesmanship of the like rarely seen before in the State of Maine practiced to get this law passed. These included such tactics as having vulnerable Democrat members conveniently absent during key votes and an obscure “vote paring” scheme to create the illusion of opposition while passively allowing the measures to pass. The Governor herself allowed this bill to become law without her signature to create the optical illusion of not supporting gun control in a very pro Second Amendment state.

The law summary: “This bill requires a 72-hour waiting period between an agreement for the purchase and sale of a firearm and the delivery of that firearm to the purchaser. Certain exemptions, such as the sale to a federally licensed firearm dealer or a law enforcement officer, are specified.”

The law is horribly written and leaves many questions unanswered. Up until just days before it went into effect, there was zero guidance from the State about how this law would be implemented or enforced. The little direction there is has come in the form of a three page unsigned, undated, FAQ style document titled “Advisory on 72 Hour Waiting Period” with the seals of the Maine Department of Public Safety and Maine Office of the Attorney General at the top. See the attached document below.

What exactly constitutes an “agreement” is still open to interpretation, in other words an ideal law for discriminatory prosecutions. It could be a conversation, a phone call, a text or an actual exchange of money. The State will get to decide what is and isn’t an agreement on a case-by-case basis by making those they target prove they complied with the law, instead of the State proving they didn’t.

The idea that a cooling off period increases public safety is a sick joke. Suicide, while itself heartbreaking, is not so-called “gun violence”. A waiting period is however a hinderance to those who would need to purchase a firearm in an emergency for the protection of their lives or the lives of their family. While the new law gives exemptions for law enforcement, corrections and certain security officers, none is provided for victims or potential victims of violent acts. The State seems to feel they are better left unarmed and dependent on them for protection.

While other gun controlled states around the country with much longer waiting periods, such as California’s 10-day and New Mexico’s recently enacted seven day waiting period might consider Maine’s 3-day wait a dream, all recognize this is only the start and now that Maine has allowed the first gun control laws to come in, the floodgates will open.

What will follow is more small incremental, but absolutely necessary “common sense” steps to close the loopholes written into this law and increase the illusion of public safety. Given the gaping holes built into this starter gun control law, we should expect bills for state and local licensing and inspections retailers/Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL’s) to be introduced in the next legislative session.

Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.

Lawsuits against the new law have been in the works by various Second Amendment supporting organizations since it was passed and will undoubtably be filed on or shortly after August 9^th. Like similar efforts in other states, they will begin a long and expensive trip through the state and federal court systems. The gun control lobby and their paid contract legal resources will be doing everything in their power to draw this out until the makeup of the United States Supreme Court is changed and they are assured it will be adjudicated in their favor.

I’ll say it again, fighting gun control laws after they are passed is a fool’s errand. It is long shot to even get the right appeal and we the citizens of the United States are not only funding the appeal but the defense of an unconstitutional law. In this game, only the lawyers win and we the people lose our rights.

Bob

Advisory On Waiting Period Law.pdf