Dave Kopel.

Two weeks ago, I filed an amicus brief in U.S. District Court in Colorado, in Gates v. Polis, a case challenging the Colorado legislature’s 2013 ban on magazines over 15 rounds. The brief was on behalf of Sheriffs and law enforcement training organizations: the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Colorado Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association, the Western States Sheriffs Association, 10 elected Colorado County Sheriffs, and the Independence Institute (where I work).

Some of the brief explains the practical mechanics of armed self-defense, and why bans on standard magazines do not impair mass shooters, but do endanger ordinary citizens, especially when attacked by multiple criminals. Another part of the brief shows that the key data created by some of the Colorado Attorney General’s expert witnesses is obviously false.

But in this post, I will focus on a more fundamental argument in the brief. The law enforcement amici reject the claim that arms universally recognized as appropriate for ordinary law enforcement officers should be banned for ordinary citizens. The claim is based on the pernicious idea that law enforcement officers are above the people, rather than part of the people. Here are some excerpts from the brief:

The magazine ban attempts to divorce today’s common arms of law-abiding citizens from today’s common arms of law enforcement officers, including sheriffs and their deputies. The divorce, contrary to the wishes of both parties, endangers citizens and officers alike.

The arms of ordinary law enforcement officers are carefully selected for only one purpose: lawful defense of innocents in civil society. Throughout American history, many citizens have looked to law enforcement for guidance in choosing arms for the same purpose. Denying those arms to citizens and to retired law enforcement officers  endangers them for the same reasons that denying these arms to active law enforcement officers would endanger them. The most important reason is the necessity of reserve capacity, as detailed in Part II.

More fundamentally, the magazine ban violates the principles of our Constitution and of American law enforcement. Policing by consent is the American value, not militarized occupation from above.

Well, that’s of course true (and you can read the rest of what he said at the link), but I think he gets the issue of people depending on LEOs for defense of society all wrong.  As he knows, based on:

Castle Rock v. Gonzalez

Warren v. District of Columbia

DeShaney v. Winnebago County

There is no duty to defend the society or anyone in it, and no expectation for them to do so.  In fact, in society today the police are more likely to harm society than help it.  As I’ve said before, there is no situation so bad and dangerous that it cannot be made worse by the presence of the police.  Furthermore, the modern judicial (and wrong) notion of qualified immunity has made them reckless, and the supreme court telling them that they can lie has made matters even worse.

Folks, the supreme court may have said LEOs can lie with impunity, but it’s still a sin and anyone who willfully lies to someone they have brought in by the power of a badge and gun will face a mighty maker one day and answer for his sins – all of them, including lying to people.  I don’t care what the supreme court said.

But if it’s true that police are part of “the people,” then that goes more to my point that they shouldn’t have qualified immunity, they shouldn’t be allowed machine guns and other NFA items while we’re prohibited from ownership of them, they shouldn’t be allowed to knock down doors and invade homes if I can’t, and they shouldn’t be allowed to muzzle flag innocent people because of “officer safety” when I would be thrown in prison for assault with a deadly weapon for doing the same thing.

I’d like to see Kopel go there in his brief to other cases.

By the way, the comments at this Reason article are as awful and beggarly as they always are at Reason.  Consider this one.

Assuming, he says.  He purports to set up a syllogism, or an immediate inference, and then does nothing of the sort.  The whole thing is a non sequitur.  Stephen Lathop is an idiot, but he is also a communist.  He sees police as the “People’s Special Constraint.”

You need to be constrained, and Stephen says that’s what the police are for.

When you read articles at Reason, just ignore the comments.  You will be dumber for having read them if you take a deep dive into the minds of children who are throwing tantrums and pretending like it means anything.

Source.

Man has killed off much of the Earth’s existing wildlife, and some scientists argue that human activity has set off the world’s sixth mass extinction event. New research now shows global animal populations are declining more rapidly than earlier believed.

[ … ]

Animal populations disappear all the time to make way for new species, but the new study highlights the extent of “real” biodiversity loss as the species with declining populations far outnumber those with increasing numbers, says research co-author Daniel Pincheira-Donoso. “The issue with this mass extinction in particular is that it is happening too quickly,” he tells TIME. “Species do not have enough time to evolve to take [over] those [other] species. So we lose and lose and lose, and we don’t see our turnover.”

Whew!  Sounds terrible. But maybe somebody didn’t get the memo.

A nationwide bird hunt soon could be underway. Knewz.com has learned a federal agency wants to eliminate one kind of owl to save two other ones.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is holding public meetings online on a plan to kill more than 500,000 barred owls over the next 30 years.

We need to let nature take its course and get out of the way.  But maybe not.  Maybe we really are god and worthy of managing everything.

There’s a movement to give nature the same rights as humans.  But maybe we need to help it along instead of just standing back.  We need to “rewild” the planet.  After all, the climate is erupting into a cataclysmic catastrophe and we must do something.  Bill Gates says so.

That means things like starting new wolf populations.  But in Massachusetts deer are ruining the environment.  If there are less humans like Bill Gates wants, that shouldn’t be a problem for the farmers because there will be fewer people to have to feed. But what of that whole issue of carbon footprint?  Deer harvests are down in WV and all over the country, and bear harvests are down in Pennsylvania.

We want to rewild the planet – but wait, there’s too many deer!  We need to introduce more wolves – but wait, they have a carbon footprint too and after all so do bears and we haven’t killed enough of them!

Oh, oh, oh, it’s so confusing to worship Gaia.  She is a confused god, hasn’t spoken infallibly, doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and her worshipers are equally confused.

Or … you could just worship the Lord of all creation who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and gave man dominion over all of them.

So here is Mark Smith. He takes a fairly realistic view of things.

Here is Washington Gun Law, where he takes a slightly better view of what’s possible, perhaps too rosy.

Here is Jared in an inexplicably optimistic view of things.

So I set each up with the little preview because I think Jared may miss the point.  This was a case seeking a preliminary injunction, and no final ruling has been made.  I think the other two analyses are a bit closer to the truth.

I think it will be hard to get SCOTUS review of this because they are just that stolid and slow to react – and also because of the chief justice.  To be sure, this was seeking a preliminary injunction, but it must be remembered that the decisions already written on this assesses the probability of success before these courts.

They may delay the final rulings for another two or three years, or more, but there won’t be another outcome than the one you’ve already witnessed.  So even if they don’t, it makes perfect sense for the SCOTUS to take this up now.  One wonders what they’re waiting for – perhaps another supreme court justice to die with a pillow over his face like Scalia?

Judge Frank Easterbrook is a so-called “law and order conservative.”  Let me translate for you.  That’s the same thing as the communists on the alleged other side of the isle.  Just like AG Barr, who argued in defense of Lon Horiuchi.

In America, it’s always easy to detect a communist.  Just look at his position on the second amendment.

The only explanation for allowing this sort of thing to continue is having sympathy for these actions.  Piracy isn’t some sort of movie – it’s reckless endangerment, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and thievery.  The Biblical punishments for these actions is death.  Cutting the heads off of pirates and running them up the flag pole might put an end to piracy right quickly.

However, in spite of the wishes of the founders, we have a standing army for purposes of foreign misadventures, and another standing army (police of all sorts) for purposes of violation of foundational constitutional rights at home. The one thing the federal government is tasked with, i.e., protection of the border, it routinely ignores and even laughs at.

And the one reason for a standing army for foreign wars was piracy.  Jefferson commissioned the U.S. Marines for such things, but rather than sending a couple of MEUs to handle this problems, we would rather send MEUs out on humanitarian missions across the globe.

Black is white, up is down, and darkness is light.

Houthis to world. Our Red Sea maritime interdiction has worked so well that we’ll expand it.https://t.co/oZ4S8JNTcz

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) December 9, 2023

I already told you I have about as much respect and use for the Fourth Circuit as toe jam.  Remember they are the ones who found against the carry of weapons in the parking lots of national parks in U.S. versus Masciandaro, and this was even after the law had been changed in 2010 allowing guns in national parks.  Yes, that’s right. They found it illegal even though it was expressly legal and had been declared a year before.

Oh, I don’t think they’re insane.  They’re just communists and this is what communists do.  And lest you think that there must be some good people left in FedGov law enforcement, no, they’re all for this.  They will enforce this without so much as one ounce of remorse, as well as any other law, rule or regulation their superiors tell them to.  They have already sold their souls.

News you can use.

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From a reader, source.

Concealed carry gun owners in our state are now allowed to have their firearms in places of worship; even if they are held on school grounds. They can also now carry guns on some school properties, during specific times. The new law also launches a two-year statewide awareness initiative for safe gun storage and gun lock distribution programs.

This is referring to Senate Bill 41.  It doesn’t require that the weapon holder get permission from the church to carry.  It requires that the church conspicuously post that no weapons are allowed before prohibiting the carry of weapons, as it should.

They had to override a veto by the Goobernator of NC, Roy Cooper.

Source.

Liberal activists are preparing to file a lawsuit against the board of one of the largest gun manufacturers in the United States, alleging that the company exposed shareholders to unnecessary liability by selling and promoting AR-15 rifles and thus violating their fiduciary duty.

In a draft of a lawsuit viewed by Fox News Digital expected to be filed this week, liberal activist shareholder plantiffs alleged that the board of Smith & Wesson “knowingly allowed the Company to become exposed to significant liability for intentionally violating federal, state, and local laws through its manufacturing, marketing, and sales of AR-15 style rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms.”

The draft explains that the company’s board has expressed “unwillingness to exercise any oversight whatsoever” when it comes to manufacturing and marketing AR-15s, which the shareholders say has exposed the company to unnecessary liability.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of moves made by liberal activists across the country using the legal system to go after gun manufacturers as a part of a larger movement known as environmental, social, and governance (ESG), which puts pressure on investors to be more “socially conscious.”

[ … ]

Two of the plaintiffs in the case are led by Sister Judy Byron, an anti-gun activist who recently participated in drafting a statement from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, where “investors representing $634 billion in assets” called for pressure on gun manufacturers and companies associated with them “to review their operations, supply chains and policies and take meaningful action on this public safety concern.”

Sisten Judy Byron.  Part of a false and anti-Christian church, pushing a false agenda, destroying the hard work of good men, and ruining the lives of millions.

Here is Jared Yanis on the subject.

S&W will need to play rough in order to turn this threat out before it takes roots or they’ll end up another Remington.  Kill this movement in its infancy inside your group of shareholders.  Hire the best lawyers.  Buy them out.  Boot them out of meetings.  Boot them out of stock ownership if possible.  Amend the rules if needed.

Play rough.  They already are.

One of the all time dumbest clown moments courtesy of @RepDianaDeGette.

P.S. You’ll ban nothing and enjoy it. https://t.co/1KbYY4zDk4 pic.twitter.com/ljkydYRXTM

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) December 4, 2023