Townhall.

The New York State Supreme Court last week granted a motion ordering the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to turn over the name, zip codes and license category of anyone who was granted a firearm license in 2018.

The New York Daily News made the request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process, which provides public information from government agencies to citizens and journalists.

According to the lawsuit filed against the NYPD, the newspaper makes the argument that they should have access to the information because their reporters “frequently cover gun-related political and policing issues.”

The Daily News argues that the information can be turned over because of a state law – known as the SAFE Act – that declared “that names and addresses of all firearms licenses were public information.”

Under the SAFE Act, gun owners have the ability to opt-out of their information being handed over in FOIA requests but their application has to be approved. It’s the information of those that did not opt-out that the newspaper wants.

“The SAFE act requires disclosure of the names and addresses of gun licensees unless they have applied for and been granted an exemption under the statute,” the lawsuit stated.

The NYPD denied the request on multiple occasions, citing various reasons, like an “invasion of privacy” and “extraordinary effort” would have to be put forth to collect the records.

The licensing department did, however, provide information about the types of permits that were Issued by zip code from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2017. They did not hand over specific names. After an appeal, the licensing department provided a list of 132 names for people who attempted to opt-out but were denied. The newspaper, however, wasn’t happy with the list because it didn’t specify what kind of firearm the licensee possessed.

The court concluded that the department violated the FOIL.

“Absent the SAFE Act exemption, respondent must submit the following information to petitioner: The license category and zip code of ‘Members of Service’ who were licensed during Calendar Year 2018 (either by renewal or for the first time) be submitted to petitioner,” the court ordered. “… respondent may withhold their names. Respondent must also give to petitioner the name, zip code, and license category of those to whom it granted a new or renewal license during Calendar Year 2018. This information covers all licensees who applied prior to Calender Year 2018 but were granted a license during that year.”

There are two problems here: [1] the law itself, which is an invasion of privacy, and [2] the court decision which doesn’t recognize that it’s an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.

I’ll also comment that the law converts a right into a license in that it forces an individual both to know that he must opt out of this abomination, and spend the time and energy to do it.  It’s as bad as a license and fee for the exercise of a God-given right.

Nice job, court.  Now maybe criminals will know to whom they can go to steal weapons and harm people.  Criminals might include thieves or SWAT teams performing raids.

If you’re a gun owner and live in New York, I just have one question.  Why?

PJM.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube deleted livestream videos of the event posted by Breitbart News after they went viral, claiming the videos contained “lies” and disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

Gulag and Fakebook removed it, but guess what?  TCJ readers saw every bit of it if you wanted to.  And more of the conference.

That’s because [1] people have finally learned their lesson and are saving the raw video to other, less communist sources than YouTube and Twitter and Fakebook, and [2] TCJ has great readers who love to spread the truth.

I depend upon you.

Glenn Reynolds.

ABOLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND GIVE THE MONEY TO PARENTS: National teacher union supports strikes over reopening plans.

I agree with Glenn, but would reword it to say “Abolish public schools and return the money from whom you stole it, the American taxpayers.”

Nowhere does the constitution give the FedGov the right to tax for the purpose of education.  This kind of tyranny is what the founders fought against.

Jeff was always a delightful man who chose to do things simply, honestly and sometimes with a bit of humor thrown in.  It sounds as if from the video he knew the Lord, and so he’s in a better place now after suffering so much.

I had wondered why we hadn’t seen much of him lately and suspected that he had health problems.  I’ll always remember him saying “And [manufacturer] has made a dandy gun,” explaining the features he liked but also mentioning from time to time that not every gun is for everybody.  But he and I sure shared a love for 1911s.

He was a regular stop for me, and I’ll miss him very much.

From a reader.

If this embed doesn’t work, go to:

https://videos.utahgunexchange.com/watch/americas-frontline-doctors-capitol-hill-press-conference_sq8Hr6JATDuOeiZ.html

I would suspect that the communists at Google and Fakebook will take this down before long because they won’t be a part of truth-telling.  Watch it while you can.  And I hope that someone has dropped this out on Bitchute where they’re not communists like the folks at Google.

Via Insty, this quote (because I don’t quote information from behind a paywall).

Minneapolis residents in some areas still recovering from rioting and unrest are forming community watch and security groups, some bearing firearms, to fight a surge of crime in the wake of the George Floyd killing in May. At least one neighborhood has put up barricades to keep away outsiders.

The moves come as the city council on Friday approved its first permanent cuts to the police budget, amid calls to defund the department and generally lower tax revenue due to the economic strain caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The $193 million police budget will be cut by $10 million, including making permanent some temporary spending measures—including a hiring freeze—put in place in June. Around $1 million from the police budget is being shifted to a program called Cure Violence that tries to prevent things such as retaliatory shootings through community engagement. . . .

Police say the increase in crime follows a pattern seen in Ferguson, Mo., and other places where there have been high-profile officer-involved deaths and protests. Police say that, while some in the city seem to believe police have given up, officers remain on patrol throughout the city.

As riots played out across the city in late May and early June, a group of Black gun owners responded to a call from the local NAACP and patrolled the mostly African-American West Broadway business district for 10 nights, keeping the area free of looting or arson without firing a shot, said Jamil Jackson, a leader of the group called the Minnesota Freedom Fighters, which advocates for Black gun ownership. . . .

Council member Linea Palmisano said armed neighborhood patrols, or even efforts to just keep unfamiliar people out of a neighborhood, opens a Pandora’s box.

“We are lurching for solutions,” she said, noting she doesn’t support the idea of doing away with the police department but supports the idea of letting residents vote on it.

With the neighborhood patrols, “you could very easily create the same things we rally against,” she said.

In late June, residents near a commercial strip that had been looted, and the 3rd Precinct station that was abandoned and burned, were seeing a surge of shooting and drug-related crime on their block.

“It got to the point where crime had no consequences,” said Tania Rivera, 30, who runs a child-care center with her mother. “It was being done deliberately out in the open. Drive-through drug dealing, drive-through prostitution, everything from gunshots to assaults to sex out in the public. Everything you didn’t want your neighborhood to look like.”

So after a number of community meetings, neighbors began constructing a barrier to close off two blocks of their street, first with trash cans, then debris. For a while, a boat on a trailer protected one intersection. Eventually, a nearby iron maker constructed a permanent gate. Police gave their approval as long as emergency responders could get through if requested by the neighborhood.

Neighborhood men also began an armed patrol, kicking out anyone who didn’t belong on the block after dark.

And thus it will be in the future, everywhere.

If the current communist revolution in America has done nothing else, it seems to have convinced people of the truth concerning police, i.e., [1] they are beholden to and controlled by the local political powers and will do their bidding, and [2] they were never really there to protect people to begin with.

Regular readers already know, based on Castle Rock v. Gonzales and Warren v. D.C., that the police aren’t there to provide protection anyway.

Now, the mask has not just slipped down, but completely off.  Men must protect their families, legally and morally.  It’s the righteous thing to do.

Bear news from Colorado.

Chernosky realized that the bear was now between him and the cell phone in his room, so he couldn’t call for help. But he knew he had to try to coax the bear toward the door where it had walked in unannounced (yes, bears can actually open doors and cars).

Chernosky said he calmly talked to the bear, ushering it away from the stairs to where his kids were sleeping. According to the National Park Service (NPS), once a bear has noticed you, it’s important to talk to it so the bear can identify you as a human. Remember, humans are not their typical food choice. You should also make yourself look as large as possible, and back away sideways.

This method worked for Chernosky—initially. “The bear slowly backed away and opened the garage door. It went into the garage and the door shut behind it. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the problem was solved,” he says. After waiting a few minutes, Chernosky cautiously opened the door to the garage and hit the button to open the garage door so the bear could go outside.

“The garage door spooked it, and it ran back toward where I was standing. I ran down the hall and hid in the corner, and it came back inside,” he continues. “I couldn’t see it because it was so dark, so I came back to the hallway to look, and when I came around, I realized it was standing right in front of me. It was a total shock to the both of us.”

The 400-pound black bear instantly hit Chernosky in the head so hard that it spun him around in a full circle. “It felt like a brick smacking you in the side of the head and instantly tore the skin off my forehead, my right eye, and sliced my ear in half. I was bleeding immediately and crawled back behind the counter thinking, ‘This thing’s about to have me for lunch,'” he says.

I guess the thing I don’t get is this.  Why would you hear someone or something trashing your home, and go out to meet that someone or something without a gun?

It sounds pretty good, right up until the last part.

It shall be the duty of the Sheriff of Anderson County to determine whether or any federal or state regulation of firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition violates section (a) herein; provided, however, that nothing contained herein prevents the Anderson County Sheriff from enforcing any federal or state law found to be constitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction.

You see, there’s the rub.  The .gov will always be able to find a corrupt judge who will say just about anything is constitutional and righteous when it is neither.

Therefore, the resolution is toothless.  The good people of Anderson County should remedy this situation by [1] throwing the bums out, and [2] crafting a resolution that is not obviously written by the county attorney.

Reader and friend Joefour sends this think-piece from a Navy author about the MAGTF being the downfall of the USMC.

The MAGTF took the Marines from a specialized force (amphibious operations) and attempted to turn them into an all-purpose, do everything, force.  It’s not hard to imagine that the genesis of the concept was budget driven with the idea being that the more versatile the Corps, the more it would be called on and, therefore, the more it would be funded.

Unfortunately, the lack of focus led to the Marines being employed in all manner of situations for which they were not specialized.  They became just another army unit.

There was also an enormous opportunity cost associated with generalization.  The generalization and loss of focus on the core amphibious mission cost the Marines their institutional knowledge about amphibious assaults as they embarked on a decades long turn towards purely land warfare.  In recent years, Marine generals have proudly announced that the Marines are taking the first steps towards relearning amphibious assault.

Relearning?!!!?  It was your core mission.  How could you have lost it?  This is a sad commentary on Marine Corps leadership over the last couple of decades.

The loss of focus also meant that the technology, doctrine, and tactics of amphibious assault languished or was lost.  We wound up with doctrine calling for 25-50+ mile stand off assaults coupled with AAV/ACV landing craft that only had an effective range of a few miles – a mismatch of colossal proportions, to say the least.  By not maintaining focus on the core mission, the mission atrophied and was lost.

MAGTF also began the myopic focus on the aviation side of the Corps to the great detriment of the ground side.  Huge, questionable investments were made in the MV-22 and the F-35 with little or no supporting doctrinal or operational underpinning.  Again, it was a budget grab, pure and simple – an attempt to be all things in all situations instead being proudly specialized.

The Marines were once something special and respected.  Now, they’re just a poor, small copy of the Air Force and Army.  MAGTF destroyed the Marine Corps.

Or I should have said, “purported” think piece.  There is a lot of confusion in this analysis.

First of all, saying that the USMC is a poor copy of the Air Force and Army is beyond stupid, and could only be said by someone who has never been in ground combat with the Marines, Army or Air Force.

Second, I don’t think the author understands the concept of the MAGTF.  It isn’t, and was never intended to be, a tool to turn them into another massive ground force, if you will, the “big army.”

The MAGTF was always intended to keep control of all assets – Force Recon, infantry, armor, artillery, air support, other spec ops – under the complete control of a single chain of command, all reporting to a Colonel or Lt. General.  What the Marine Corps doesn’t like to do is rely on assets NOT under their immediate control to achieve the mission.  The MAGTF remedies that weakness.

That can even be true of assets not assigned to but not formally part of the USMC.  When the Marine Corps launched their operations into Helmand in earnest, army spec ops also participated, but it was made clear to them that they didn’t report to JSOC or SOCOM.  They reported to a Marine Corps general.  As long as they were fine with that, they could participate.  They were, and they did, and they reported only to the Marine Corps chain of command while assigned to that operation.

When the author says that the MAGTF caused this or caused that, he’s just making things up.  With all of that said, the author does hit on the major tingling nerve in the Marine Corps today, i.e., mission statement.

The Marine Corps Commandant has just recently stood down the Marine Corps tank battalions – completely.  They are no more.  I have no particular commitment to Marine Corps tank battalions, so I won’t comment in the positive or negative about this.

But he does indicate that he intends to go back to the amphibious roots.  But this, he means heavy-laden, large scale, and foolish beach assaults.  The author we cited also apparently wants the Marines to return to such a paradigm.

I’ve argued for years that the Marine Corps has never been able to get past their silly romance with Pacific beach landings in WWII, a romance that would prove deadly and ineffective in modern warfare.  It would be deadly for the Marines, and would be effective for nothing more than sending LCACs to the bottom of the ocean.

But they are “solders of the sea,” don’t you see, so for years they tried to push their ridiculous notions of the EFV (Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle) on Congress, after they had blown a wad of cash finally getting the Osprey off the ground and somewhat reliable.  Congress (correctly) refused to fund such a concept.

The idea was that they would use  Amphibious Transport Ships carrying F35s, LCACs, Ospreys, and a battalion of infantry, and be able to land anywhere within reach at the president’s order.  But why this concept?  That’s never explained.  Near peer states would easily be able to manage such a threat, and with drones, surface to ship missiles and air assets, the ships would be sunk before ever getting within reach.  The LCACs could be taken out with nearly commercial grade equipment, and if the EFVs ever did make it ashore, they would be alone.

If not a near peer actor, then who?  A troubled or failed state?  A place like Somolia?  Why would they outfit the Marines with such a heavy footprint (like they’re going to battle against Japanese in the South Pacific) for a failed state?

Specialized operators, UAVs, MilStar uplinks, and a whole host of other developments have made the sort of battle fought in the South Pacific irrelevant today.  Such a strategy would involve deaths on a scale not seen since then, and it’s improbable that the public would support such an adventure, likely seeing it as a misadventure instead.

To date, MEUs have been used primarily (or perhaps exclusively) for training and medical relief on humanitarian missions.  The claim is that they stand in ready should the president ever call.  The reality is that they have turned into a gigantic waste of money, resources and talent.

How did we get here?  As the demands of modern warfare caused development in training, equipment, TTPs, electronics, weapons systems and small arms, the Marine Corps got stuck in the South Pacific battling imaginary enemies.  And no, they aren’t going to engage in massive landings on or near China in disputed territory.  The public will not support something like that.

A half century ago, the Marine Corps could have seen this coming and jettisoned their romantic notions of massive beach landings.  They could have shrunk the size of the Corps and focused on more specialized missions.  Posted at TFB, “The Marine Corps Scout Sniper Schools are the best combined precision marksmanship and observation packages in the United States Military, Period.”

Every branch of the military has a combat diver course and qualification, and the Marine Corps Recon school is storied.  My own son took Scout Sniper training, as well as months of shoothouse and CQB training before deployment to Iraq.  Airborne school is still an option, and at least MARSOC is getting assigned to specialized schools like high altitude shooting in Nevada.

Four year enlistments could have been jettisoned in favor of six years or more, and specialized schools could have been pursued and developed in lieu of the idiotic EFV, Osprey and F35.  Insertion of troops could have been designed around improved air assets and HALO or LALO jumps.

Finally, the Marine Corps Commandant could have gotten his panties out of a wad over Marines being deployed in groups of under company size units (You see, they don’t trust their people without the proper chain of command, and don’t like mission failure, and so Marine Corps doctrine has always been opposed to distributed operations of fire team or squad size).

Instead of this, the country has turned to the Navy, and more specifically, the SEALs and then DEVGRU to perform air insertions, specialized operations and other highly secretive distributed operations across the globe.  There is no logical reason that it had to be the Navy – it could have been the Marine Corps who chose to pursue this path.  Frogmen will always be needed in the Navy.  But there is no logical reason that Frogmen had to become land operators.  This only happened because they saw the opportunity.

The Marine Corps didn’t because of their love affair with massive beach assaults and, apparently, death on a large scale.  No return to their core amphibious roots will save the Marine Corps from becoming irrelevant.

It doesn’t really matter at this point anyway.  The DoD’s focus on women in combat billets, race relations, LGBT parades, and sensitivity training will ruin what’s left anyway.  My son believes with the current state of affairs, there is no way America could fight and win against a near peer state if the majority of the fighting is on the ground.

The Marine Corps made him and other Iraq veterans feel unwelcome and let them go.  Big army is too slow and infected with political correctness to respond quickly or effectively (Have you seen basic training at Fort Jackson?  And did they ever call the shooting at Fort Hood anything other than “workplace violence?”).

The Navy is crashing ships into other ships and letting fires ruin their assets.  The Air Force is too taken with their love affair with 5GW to think about support for ground combat troops (oh, wait, is the proper term now Mosaic Warfare?).  I want to make sure I get the terms correct.  Otherwise, it won’t sound smart and informed to the brass.

In my opinion, it’s really a sad state of affairs.  It’s not the fault of the DoD.  It’s the fault of America, a country coming apart at the seams.  The DoD is just a reflection of the country.