Visa and Mastercard paused their decision to start categorizing purchases at gun shops, a significant win for conservative groups and Second Amendment advocates who felt that tracking gun shop purchases would inadvertently discriminate against legal firearms purchases.
The decision is, at the same time, also a defeat for gun control groups. There had been hope that categorizing credit and debit card purchases would allow authorities to potentially see red flags — like significant ammunition purchases — before a mass shooting could happen.
After Visa and Mastercard announced their plans to implement a separate merchant category code for gun shop purchases, the payment networks got significant pushback from the gun lobby as well as conservative politicians. A group of 24 GOP state attorneys general wrote a letter to the payment networks threatening legal action against Visa and Mastercard if they moved forward with their plan.
There are also bills pending in several state legislatures that would ban the tracking of purchases at gun shops, which would have made it even more difficult for Visa and Mastercard to implement the categorization.
Washington Examiner (via MSN) is also reporting on this story, along with Bloomberg.
Oh, I suppose this isn’t a win for us and loss for the controllers. I suspect it’s a strategic retreat. They are retreating for some period of time. The controllers never sleep and won’t let up their efforts.
Given the Fascist nature of the coupling of large corporations with the FedGov, I suspect we’ll see attempted action at the federal level to push this forward. They’re just handing the football off to a different runner.
Breaking News!!! District Judge Ezra declares Cargill the winner in the Cargill v Garland bump stock case, tosses a judicial middle finger at the 5th circuit, takes his toys home and closes the case. We requested bump stocks to be legal in all 50 states. So are they @ATFHQ ? #2Apic.twitter.com/P7xvkfj6rw
We’ve covered this before. Softer metals can wear down harder metals if they make contact long and vigorously enough. And he tells you so again in the video.
A Missouri law banning local police from enforcing federal gun laws is unconstitutional and void, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes ruled the 2021 law is preempted by the federal government under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause.
“At best, this statute causes confusion among state law enforcement officials who are deputized for federal task force operations, and at worst, is unconstitutional on its face,” Wimes wrote.
Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey in a statement said he will appeal the ruling.
“As Attorney General, I will protect the Constitution, which includes defending Missourians’ fundamental right to bear arms,” Bailey said. “We are prepared to defend this statute to the highest court, and we anticipate a better result at the Eighth Circuit.”
The Missouri law had subjected law enforcement agencies with officers who knowingly enforced federal gun laws without equivalent state laws to a fine of $50,000 per violating officer.
Federal laws without similar Missouri laws include statutes covering weapons registration and tracking, and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.
Well then. I expect we’ll see all city, county and state LEOs enforcing immigration laws and arresting illegals now, right?
Oh, wait.
Consider the irony. States like NY, NJ, California and Illinois get to infringe upon rights outlined in the 2A despite what the Bruen decision said, but when states don’t have these corresponding laws to the FedGov, they have to enforce them anyway.
It’s almost like the scales are always tilted toward infringement, yes?
Gun Owners of America has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against the ATF concerning the pistol brace rule. The motion can be found in its entirety here. The motion concludes as follows.
The fact that the Final Rule technically presents a (forced) choice does not absolve it of its unconstitutional sins. As the Fifth Circuit observed in BST Holdings v. OSHA, “the loss of constitutional freedoms ‘for even minimal periods of time … unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.’” 17 F.4th 604, 618 (5th Cir. 2021) (burden on liberty interests posed by vaccination mandate was irreparable harm) (quoting Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976)). The vaccination mandate in BST Holdings “threaten[ed] to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individual recipients put to a choice between their job(s) and their jab(s).” Id. Here, the Final Rule imposes a similar choice, forcing individuals to choose between destroying their property or prosecution.
When the government is a party, the balance-of-equities and public-interest factors merge. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 435 (2009); Texas v. United States, 809 F.3d 134, 187 (5th Cir. 2016) (same). A court therefore must weigh whether “the threatened injury outweighs any harm that may result from the injunction to the non-movant” and whether “the injunction will not undermine the public interest.” Valley v. Rapides Parish Sch. Bd., 118 F.3d 1047, 1051, 1056 (5th Cir. 1997). There is no harm to ATF from pausing enforcement of the Final Rule and maintaining the status quo. The Final Rule claims to “enhance[] public safety,” 88 Fed. Reg. at 6481, yet ATF is able to point to only two handgun braces (out of millions) that have been criminally misused, see 88 Fed. Reg. at 6495. Even then, there is no evidence that those crimes could not have been committed using a different firearm. Weighing against this are the very real and ongoing irreparable harms to Plaintiffs discussed above. Indeed, the public is served when the law is followed, and “there is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action.” Wages & White Lion Invs., LLC, v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin., 16 F.4th 528, 560 (5th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). The balance of equities and public interest weigh heavily in favor of an injunction.
GOA and GOF have members and supporters nationwide. Exhibit 13 at ¶ 6. The geographic scope of interests presented, as well as the complications inherent to a piecemeal implementation or injunction of the Final Rule, which impacts criminal prosecutions and fundamental rights, support this Court granting nationwide relief.
For the foregoing reasons, this Court should preliminarily enjoin Defendants from enforcing the Final Rule.
Our friend Stephen Stamboulieh is one of the attorneys in this case.
Here we discussed Dan Becker’s experience trying to do a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon in bad conditions (use of snow shoes) while climbing the North Rim. I was fairly hard on his team mates – they let him down by not stopping him and doing the things they needed to do (hydrate him, get food energy into him, get him rest, and most of all, stopping the physical exertion).
I feel that I was justified to be so hard on his team mates. Here is another video of the same trip told by Dan himself. Pay close attention to the 10:57 and 11:46 marks. He says, “I was having severe chest pains,” and when asked if he was okay, he said an unequivocal “no.” The rest of the team should have been with him the whole way. The first sign of a little bit of chest pain should have stopped the entire group.
That’s it for me. You don’t split up on the trail. You just don’t. Medical conditions of team members remain unknown to the rest of the team, you have less protection against predators, and so many other reasons. Don’t … split … up. If you’re going slower than you wanted to, tough. That’s all part of the being on a team. Deal with it.
Rather than picking up Dan’s backpack, the team should have stopped right then and there to assist Dan and get him healthy again. I’m willing to bet there would have been no need for rescue if they had done that.
This is a captivating tale, and a true one, told by the apparent leader of the group. There are a number of good lessons in it, most or all of which we’ve discussed before in painful detail. But let’s cover them again for the sake of education.
When the party crossed into the climb of the North Rim, I knew that one or both of them were going to suffer from Rhabdomylosis. I knew that without being told, without having to watch the rest of the video (I did watch the rest of it to confirm by thoughts), and without reading the video description. I knew it with certainty.
Do you recall journalist Sebastian Junger’s hard work at Restrepo? The soldiers would come back smelling of ammonia. It was in their sweat, and it was indicative of hydration and kidney problems. More to the point, hydration is only one part of the story.
In Rhabdomylosis, the body no longer has energy stores to power the physical exertion and must burn muscle to propel itself. The kidneys then have to remove that protein from the system. This will cause kidney failure if not addressed quickly.
One method to address it is hydration. The most important method is to stop the exertion. The leader of the group wasn’t very wise. He continued the climb forward for several reasons, one legitimate, and one not. The only legitimate reason to have continued the climb was that rescue would have been nearly impossible if they didn’t reach the rim. The irony is that the only reason this is a legitimate concern is because they didn’t stop when they should have, and this brings up the illegitimate reason to have continued: panic. He even says so in the video. They panicked.
We’ve discussed this before. Panic is a killer in the bush. It’s deadly. The best option would have been to suspect what was about to happen, and find a place to make camp, get Mr. Becker warm, hydrate him, and get him food energy and rest. As it was, they pushed until he vomited, only dehydrating him more.
Sure enough, according to the medical professionals, Mr. Becker was suffering from Rhabdomylosis. He said in the video that this was a “rare” occurrence. That’s not true. It’s not rare among people who undergo extreme physical exertion. It also may happen to people whose body has undergone extreme exertion for reasons other than climbing from rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. I’m imagining a “fictitious” conversion between a certain NP and a patient: “How long have you been on this meth bender?” “Oh, three days.” “Well congratulations, you’re now in Rhabdo and I need to push fluids to try to save your kidneys.”
I also don’t believe that this necessarily happens to the weaker among a group. It may happen just because it happens, for whatever reason: genetics, what a person ate several days ago, whether a person hydrated enough before the exertion, or for no particular reason that can be pinpointed.
The point is that a leader needs to be wise enough to recognize that this is a possibility and stop before it happens. Waiting until it happens is too late.
Make the decision early enough to prevent injury and death. Find a decent place to camp for the night. Find firewood, and if there is no firewood, get people inside tents or a tarp and start isobutane stoves. If there is no tent or tarp, know how to fabricate a shelter in the bush, or some sort of debris hut. Find a source of hydration, and if you didn’t carry enough water with you, make sure you brought filtration. Get food energy into your body. Rest. But most of all, just stop the physical exertion. That’s imperative if you want to survive. One warning sign is that your piss will be colored brown, but if it’s gone that far, you’re probably too late. Stop before that happens.
Via WiscoDave, this raid is simply horrendous, both in its justification and execution. First, for all we know there was never a warrant. Following the constitution isn’t an option – it wasn’t a justification for the SWAT team member to point into the sky and tell the home owners that a warrant existed somewhere with somebody else. Without presenting a warrant, they had no right to be there at all. You can tell that the team knows this and sort of stood around looking all confused in the middle of rolling up, right after they unnecessarily busted down doors to the property.
Next up, observe their equipment. One has NODs and a battering ram. The next one has a grenade launcher (presumably for gas) + NODs, combined with an EOTech sitting on top of his weapon (and if I’m not mistaken, no Peq15). Finally, the third one has NODs, but I can’t tell if he has a Peq15 on that gun.
This is in the middle of the day. They have NODs. In the middle of the day. And if the raid was so dangerous that they needed a SWAT team to pull it off, why do they have the time to stand around jawing with the victims of this absurdity?
Police everywhere have proven over and over again that they can’t be trusted. They should be disarmed for the safety of the American people. Only the responsible ones should have weapons, and they should go back to the .38 Spl wheel guns. Police everywhere ought to be required to wear a uniform, tie and head cover at all times, and carry warrants with them if they presume to enter private property.
Finally, he’s muzzle flagging the victims of the raid. They have poor muzzle discipline. I’ve said many times before that you’re never in more danger than when the police are around. Get away from them absolutely as soon as possible.
For those who don’t notice, this raid was perpetrated under the authority of the Sheriff of Mercer County, Illinois. One might suppose that they didn’t feel comfortable with knocking on doors and chatting with the homeowners, so they requested the state police to drive up and bust down gates and batter through doors with equipment they don’t know how to use, all given to them by unnecessary FedGov spending after too many foreign misadventures that went on for far too long. With such fear, how does one function every day in life? If you follow the links to their web site, you get a WordPress platform ready to be built. I don’t know how anybody even reaches this office when needed. This has to be one of the goofiest, most unprofessional operations I’ve ever seen, the Sheriff + the Illinois State Police both considered. They appear to be a bunch of goobers.
Apparently, the Sheriff does have an email address: dustin.terrill@leo.gov.
This perfectly encapsulates why the entire system needs to be abolished. There's no reforming a literal military invasion force made specifically for our homes. If it is this bad while we are armed how much worse will it get if they get their way? 1/Xhttps://t.co/5RTcNFgdyB
— Oldmin the Elder ️⚧️️ (@Defn8lyOldmin) March 3, 2023
There have been a lot of developments of late concerning the various lawsuits which have been brought against the FedGov. This first one concerns cases in Illinois, where Mark analyzes the strength of the state’s case to ban semi-automatic firearms. Here’s a hint. It’s a very weak case, so weak in fact that they will not prevail on the merits.
In this case, Mark analyzes a revised decision out of the 5th circuit concerning the RKBA when a court order has been issued against you. Listen to the whole video. The ramifications of this case go far beyond what you think.
Finally, this case concerns so-called “Ghost Guns.” A injunction has been issued against Garland, effective immediately
We’re winning in court everywhere. Whether this redounds to increased recognition of liberty is anyone’s guess.
1 year, 8 months ago
