Well, the obvious answer is yes, but just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean that pinheaded judges get it.

Teixeira has petitioned the Supreme Court to review his case. In this amicus brief, Cato Institute, the Millennial Policy Center, and the Independence Institute seek to persuade the Supreme Court to take it.

The brief goes deeply into the history of ownership and commerce relating to firearms, back to the colonial era. To support its stance, the Ninth Circuit relied on laws from that time that put restrictions on sales of guns and gunpowder to Indians, but the brief argues that such laws were exceptions to “the general right of firearms commerce.” Early Americans and certainly the Founders understood that, with but a few precise limitations, the people were to be as free to buy and sell arms and ammunition as they were to buy and sell anything else.

The notion that the founders would have wanted government control over who could sell guns or anything else, and to whom they could make the sale, is ridiculous on its face.  Anyone who believes that simply doesn’t believe the complaints the founders proffered: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

But then, perhaps they don’t teach American history in schools of law any more.

Politico:

“The president also surveyed Mar-a-Lago Club members about whether he ought to champion gun control measures in the wake of last week’s school massacre in nearby Parkland, telling them that he was closely monitoring the media appearances by some of the surviving students, according to people who spoke with him there.” http://wapo.st/2HuDHxx

David Codrea also links this Towhall piece and takes a swipe at Fairfax.  Hey, I get it, and I like to take swipes at Fairfax too.  And don’t get me wrong, I get that Trump is way better than the alternative.  Way better.  But when you begin from the platform of believing basically nothing, you can end up virtually anywhere.

Or another way of saying it is this.  If you’re not ideologically and incorrigibly committed to God-given rights to personal defense and the amelioration of tyranny – like I am, then you can be talked into virtually anything regarding the tools used thereto.

NYT:

A prominent Republican political donor demanded on Saturday that the party pass legislation to restrict access to guns, and vowed not to contribute to any candidates or electioneering groups that did not support a ban on the sale of military-style firearms to civilians.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

“For how many years now have we been doing this — having these experiences of terrorism, mass killings — and how many years has it been that nothing’s been done?” Mr. Hoffman said in an interview. “It’s the end of the road for me.”

Mr. Hoffman announced his ultimatum in an email to half a dozen Republican leaders, including Jeb Bush and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida. He wrote in the email that he would not give money to Mr. Scott, who is considering a campaign for the Senate in 2018, or other Florida Republicans he has backed in the past, including Representative Brian Mast, if they did not support new gun legislation.

“I will not write another check unless they all support a ban on assault weapons,” he wrote. “Enough is enough!”

Mr. Hoffman, a former ambassador to Portugal, has donated millions to Republican candidates and causes over the years, including more than $1 million to Right to Rise, a “super PAC” that supported Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign in 2016.

A critic of President Trump, Mr. Hoffman has continued to donate heavily to other Republicans.

[ … ]

Peter S. Rummell, a Jacksonville-based donor who gave $125,000 to Jeb Bush’s “super PAC” in 2016, said he was on board with Mr. Hoffman’s plan and would only contribute to candidates supportive of banning assault weapons. He said the Parkland shooting was a turning point: “It has to start somewhere,” Mr. Rummell said, of controlling guns.

Even on its own, Mr. Hoffman’s money will be missed: He contributed heavily to Republican congressional candidates in 2016 and gave $25,000 last spring to the Senate Leadership Fund, a group backed by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, that is focused on defending Republicans’ Senate majority.

I couldn’t give a rat’s ass in hell what this guy says or does.  But I have to admit that in a way I do.  I hope he succeeds.  He’s just doing what comes naturally to him, to wit, bullying people with his purse.

It’s not a lot different than, say, calls to repeal the second amendment, or “journalists” who run with that editorial and claim that if suburban moms just get involved, things will change.  As if suburban moms are ready to go door-to-door and confiscate guns, or are ready for the bloody carnage that would follow upon such an edict.

But it’s no accident and actually quite amusing that this prominent donor was significantly behind Jeb Bush’s campaign.  We know where the heart of the GOP is, and the valuable lesson in all of this is that just as it was necessary to divide the sheep from the goats, identifying and ejecting the impostors and traitors from our midst and making sure that the internecine warfare has ended is a necessary exigency in the campaign for liberty.

This is good.  At one time I argued data, endless numbers and definitions and connections and correlations.  I probably will still do that given my profession, but the important thing here is that the opposition doesn’t care any more about that than I care about whether this donor bullies people with his money.  We’re beyond that now.  We’ve gone many miles in our dance together.

You see, you can change the constitution if you wish, and I won’t change a thing about myself or what I do.  My rights come from God, not the constitution.  I’ve oft repeated that the constitution is a covenant, an agreement, just like in marriage or work.  There are blessings for those who honor that covenant, and curses for those who don’t.  Under the second amendment, the government has covenanted and contracted not to infringe.  The constitution isn’t God and cannot issue rights or duties – it’s an agreement before God and men.  As for infringe, they have many times, of course, and if not for the longsuffering nature of the American people, the curses of covenant breakage would have already obtained.

But the American people are not longsuffering forever, and what must happen will eventually happen, for it must.  So if you want to go full orbed, full on, all out covenant breakage, go right ahead and do that.  It may be the last straw.  All the opinionator is arguing for is a civil war, since he must be presupposing that gun owners will go peacefully into the night as long as enough people vote for it.

This is a dangerous presupposition, and the suburban soccer moms aren’t ready for what ensues.  So queue up your best soccer moms, or even your best SWAT teams.  We know where they live, and there aren’t anywhere nearly enough of them.  Come and get them if that’s what you want.  We’re waiting.

David Codrea:

There is one “gun law” that at least had the potential to make a difference, but it was being infringed by “gun free school zone” edicts.  Broward County Public Schools, of which Stoneman Douglas is part, explains on its website …

As I said, if you must pile your children into state schools of indoctrination rather than home school them, run, hide and fight isn’t a plan.  It’s not even hope, and hope is not a plan.

No one will protect your family but you, or someone who functions en loco parentis.  I would rather just trust myself.

Speaking of the family, some Christian parents in Ohio lost custody of the 17-year old girl because they refused her transgender drugs.  Because in the view of the state, “All your children are belong to us.”

Via David Codrea, this news from Florida is most welcome.

The gun store owners who sold confessed Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz the semiautomatic refile he used to kill 17 people on Wednesday said their devastated the weapon came from them.

Michael and Lisa Morrison said that they are so ‘mortified’ over the event, they shuttered their business, Sunrise Tactical Supply, indefinitely on Friday.

The Morrisons lawyer Douglas Rudman said in a statement that the couple are ‘completely shocked and mortified that anything like this would happen,’ according to The New York Daily News.

[ … ]

The couple also said that they will support new legislation designed to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of people with mental health issues.

From the department of pre-crime, anyone who sports a Gadsden flag must be considered mentally unstable and unfit for firearms ownership.  Or so they must now believe because they want to give the power over the definition of mental health issues to the all-consuming, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent state and their band of witchdoctor psychiatrists.

Good riddance to the vermin.  It’s always nice to see impostors cast out and treated like the traitors they are.  It’s best not to have them in our midst and to be found out before they could do any more damage to the cause of liberty.

Newsbusters:

But there is still an awful lot we don’t know about guns in Minnesota.  For example, we don’t know exactly how many gun owners there are.  We don’t know the number of total guns in Minnesota.  And Frank, we also don’t know how much ammunition is bought every year, and how much is kept by gun owners.

The horror!  The elitists and “journalists” don’t know how much ammunition is being kept by gun owners.  Well get used to it, dick head.  You’re never going to know – we’re going to make sure of that.  You don’t have a right to know how much ammunition I have, any more than I have a right to know what your car payment is.

Robert Verbruggen:

My skepticism of banning assault weapons has always primarily relied on the questionable nature of the distinction. These are not fully automatic military weapons that spray bullets when you hold down the trigger (though “bump stocks” can now make them behave like that, and we should do something about that); they fire once per trigger pull, just like many hunting rifles, and in fact often use smaller-caliber ammunition. Capping magazine size might allow someone to tackle a shooter while he’s reloading, and would apply even if he’s using a handgun instead of a rifle, but it also restricts people’s ability to defend themselves against more typical acts of violence (police do not limit themselves to ten rounds), and extremely high-capacity magazines jam more often.

These data don’t eliminate that skepticism of mine, but they’re worth noting and considering.

Eh, tet-a-tet, tit for tat, this and that, blah blah blah, yammer, yammer, yammer.

This fellow is the Deputy Managing Editor of National Review, and has argued for a bump stock ban and is willing to listen to another “assault weapons” ban based on the fact that the military “sprays” bullets and we do not.

So in addition to being an ignoramus concerning the use of firearms and anything like suppression or directed fire, he cavorts with gun control.

Which is why given the control of the beltway and Northern elitists have over National Review and the apparent desire they have to analyze their way to any conclusion based on what they perceive to be the “data,” the National Review has become irrelevant and meaningless.

You do realize that’s why they hate Trump and the revolution to overthrow the establishment, don’t you?  It upends their own self-appointed role of arbiter of the data and creator of policy that comes from the GOP.  By bashing the establishment in the face you’ve gotten into their stuff, and they don’t like it one damn little bit.

It’s a dangerous thing to offer up initial, unconstructed thoughts since they may all prove to be nonsense because of lack of information.  And yet I do have initial reactions that can serve as an open thread for discussion.

The police were worthless once again.  I had to bring it to my wife’s attention one more time while we were watching SWAT teams outside in safety while children poured out of the building that by procedure, the police would protect themselves first and foremost.  The children come later.  That shocked my wife.

The shooter did his nefarious deeds inside unabated and unmolested.  He then apparently shot at least two more people outside after he was finished, and the police caught him outside, not inside.  The police apparently didn’t prevent a single death or injury.  No one will protect you and your family except you.

Next thought.  Expect yet another push for gun control laws that only affect peaceable men and women.

Final thought.  How sad for the poor children in the school, and how sad for their parents.  This picture is sad too.

This person did exactly what s/he was taught to do: run, hide (and fight, but this last part would have been irrelevant).  This picture is the picture of failure.  It is emblematic of the failure of American society to deal with the concept of self defense.  If this poor student had gotten to the point of fighting, according to DHS instructions, s/he could have only thrown potted plants and chairs.

Again, how sad.

CNN:

A West Virginia city has agreed to pay a former police officer $175,000 to settle a wrongful-termination lawsuit after he was fired following his decision not to shoot a distraught suspect who was holding a gun.

The lawsuit accused the Weirton Police Department of wrongfully terminating officer Stephen Mader after he chose not to shoot a 23-year-old man while responding to a domestic disturbance in 2016.

“At the end of the day, I’m happy to put this chapter of my life to bed,” Mader said in a news release by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.

“The events leading to my termination were unjustified and I’m pleased a joint resolution has been met. My hope is that no other person on either end of a police call has to go through this again.”

The incident occurred May 6, 2016, when Mader responded to a domestic-disturbance call and found Ronald “R.J.” Williams Jr. with an unloaded handgun.

Mader told CNN last year that Williams was “visibly choked up” and told Mader to shoot him. As a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan, Mader told CNN that he concluded Williams wasn’t a threat and so he tried to de-escalate the situation.

As Mader was trying to get Williams to drop his gun, two other Weirton police officers arrived. Mader told CNN that Williams raised his gun and was immediately shot and killed by one of the other officers. A state investigation found the officer’s actions were justified.

On June 7, 2016, the Weirton Police Department fired Mader. The lawsuit, filed in May 2017, claims the department fired him because of “failure to meet probationary standards of an officer” and “apparent difficulties in critical incident reasoning.”

“Failure to meet probationary standards.”  Or in other words, he wasn’t pathological enough for law enforcement work in America.  You see, Marine, there is nothing more important than the costumed clowns going home safely at the end of their shift.  The ability to discern your surroundings and circumstances and make wise judgments isn’t valued in American LEO work.

Unfortunately, the citizens will pay for this settlement.  He should never have been fired.  Instead, the police officer who fired him should have been stripped naked, marched out the public square and publicly flogged.  Then the young Marine should have been put in charge of the department.

But that’s not the America we live in today, now is it?

Via WRSA, this post continues on a theme I’ve worked before here at this web site, to wit, that unfunded liabilities will affect the smallest governments first and worst because small government cannot print fiat money to keep itself afloat.

I’m not sure we learn anything new from the article except for the shear magnitude of the problem, but there is this link in the comments on such a thing happening to a small town in Alabama in 2010.  I’ve also pointed out before that unfunded pensions has led to the inability to keep the police departments in Memphis and Miami-Dade afloat without massive changes.

It’s happening not just with small municipalities and towns, but with medium size and larger cities as well.  That which cannot continue, won’t.