Tag: gun control

Gov. Tim Walz: America Has ‘More Guns’ and ‘The Wrong Types of Guns’

During a presser outside Eagan, Minnesota’s Deerwood Elementary Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz (D) confirmed he will call an emergency gun control session and criticized the number of guns and “type of guns” in circulation in America.

FOX 9 quoted Walz saying, “The thing that makes America unique in terms of shootings is we just have more guns and the wrong types of guns are on the streets.”

He went on to admit that he is going to need some Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with Democrats in order to secure his gun control package.

Walz added, “If Minnesota lets this moment slide and we determine it’s OK for little ones to not be safe in a school or church environment, then shame on us.”

He did not mention that the man who shot and killed two children and wounded many more in Wednesday’s attack was a transgender who changed his name from “Robert” to “Robin” at aged 17. Nor did he mention that the man identified as a female after the name change.

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Democrats Demand “Assault Weapons” Ban After Trans Mass Shooting In Minneapolis

In the US, gun deaths are often the focus of progressive and international criticism, with claims that the nation is a wellspring of violence and murder that could be solved simply by banning firearms.  The disdain of the political left for the 2nd Amendment is no secret and their efforts to erase gun rights from the Constitution is a constant point of contention within American society.  

Of course, this means that Democrats are required to ignore every other contributing factor to any shooting and deflect when they are confronted with inconvenient truths.  Leftists are, once again, attempting to redirect public discourse as yet another trans shooter has hit the news feeds.  The Minneapolis killer is one of at least five active shooters since 2018 that were confirmed as transgender. 

Multiple other active shooter events have taken place in which the trans status of the killers was suspected but never revealed by authorities (authorities tried to hide Audrey Hale’s trans status and her manifesto, for example).

In the case of the Robert Westman, a male posing as a female, notes from a manifesto and other evidence indicates that the trans ideology was central to his decision to murder two children and injure 17 others at a Christian school.  It was the direct inspiration for the attack.

However, Democrat leaders and media figures like former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki argue otherwise.  They claim that the availability of “assault rifles” is the real cause, not the insane political philosophy that ruled over Westman’s every waking moment.  Psaki shed alligator tears for the children of the Church of the Annunciation, while simultaneously denying that the trans ideology had anything to do with it and blaming conservatives for not supporting a firearms ban.

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MSNBC Panel Talks Banning All Firearms After Trans Shooter Targets Catholic School: ‘Do What Australia Did’

When modern liberals casually reveal their true authoritarian natures, believe them.

They did it during the COVID scare, when they embraced lockdowns, masks, and vaccine mandates. And they do it in the wake of every mass shooting.

Rarely, however, do they go as far as journalist Mike Spies of the anti-gun outlet The Trace.

Wednesday on MSNBC, Spies appeared in a round table discussion with host Katy Tur and others. Earlier in the day, a transgender murderer had opened fire at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing two children and injuring 17.

Thus, the panelists discussed the shooting and how to prevent such violence moving forward. Naturally — this being MSNBC — they focused on the weapons and not the mental-health crisis at the root of transgender ideology.

“You have to be honest and say what will actually work, which is what nobody wants to hear, which is that there are just simply way too many firearms, and they are way too accessible,” Spies said.

“And they’re too powerful?” Tur asked.

“And they’re too powerful,” Spies replied, “even handguns too. Again, that’s why in Australia — it doesn’t matter if it’s not politically acceptable to say it. I’m not here as a politician or anyone who works in politics. I’m a journalist — whether or not you like it, the only thing that really works, if you really wanted to bring down gun violence, was to do what Australia did and to do what many other countries in Europe do.”

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The Left Doesn’t Care About Gun Violence — Only Exploiting It

On Wednesday, two young children were murdered and more than a dozen others injured when a mentally ill man cosplaying as a woman opened fire during morning Mass at a Catholic elementary school. The tragedy has sparked national conversation — but really, two different conversations.

On the right, the focus is on why the shooter committed such a heinous act. The shooter, Robert Westman (later legally known as Robin) was deeply disturbed, believed he was a female, and had those delusions affirmed by those closest to him. Notably, his mother signed off on his legal name change in 2020 because he was still a minor, as reported by the New York Post. A manifesto purportedly from Westman reveals anti-Trump and anti-Catholic animus, intertwined with other extremist ideologies.

The right recognizes the true root cause of this tragedy. This wasn’t about “gun violence.” It was about a mentally ill leftist, propped up by an ideology that tells men they can become women, acting out his hatred toward Trump and Christians.

The left, predictably, has taken the opposite approach. For them, it doesn’t matter that the shooter was delusional about his gender, or that his anti-Catholic and anti-Trump bigotry were central to his motive. None of the why matters — only that a gun was involved. And because a gun was involved, they insist, the gun must be the problem. This reflexive blame-shifting reveals the left’s true motive in covering the story: exploitation. They’re not interested in stopping violence at its roots, only in exploiting a tragedy to advance their political goals.

And how do we know this to be true?

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The 10th Circuit Agrees That Prosecuting Cannabis Consumers for Gun Possession May Be Unconstitutional

On a Friday in May 2022, Jared Harrison was on his way to work at an Oklahoma medical marijuana dispensary when a police officer stopped him for running a red light. When Harrison rolled down his window, the officer smelled marijuana. A search of the car discovered a loaded revolver, a pill bottle containing a few partially smoked joints, another joint in a console tray, and a backpack containing marijuana, THC gummies, and two THC vape cartridges.

Because Harrison did not have a state-issued medical marijuana card, he was charged with illegal possession of cannabis under state law, a misdemeanor. But he also faced a felony charge under 18 USC 922(g)(3), the federal law that bars illegal drug users from possessing firearms. That charge, he argued, violated the Second Amendment. A federal judge agreed, ruling in February 2023 that the government had failed to show Harrison’s prosecution was “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed that ruling and remanded the case for further consideration. The 10th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Harrison, because it endorsed U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick’s reasoning in nearly all respects, nevertheless represents another in a series of blows to a policy that affects millions of peaceful Americans, depriving them of the constitutional right to armed self-defense for no good reason.

As it has in other Section 922(g)(3) cases, the government argued that cannabis consumers are not part of “the people” whose “right to keep and bear arms” is guaranteed by the Second Amendment because they are not “law-abiding.” Wyrick made short work of that claim, noting that the Supreme Court has said “the people,” as used in the Bill of Rights, “unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.”

The government’s argument amounted to “an outright declaration of the federal government’s belief that it can deprive practically anyone of their Second Amendment right,” Wyrick added. “Who among us, after all, isn’t a ‘lawbreaker’? For sure, there
may well exist some adult[s] who [have] never exceeded the speed limit, changed lanes without signaling, or failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, but they are few and far between.”

The three-judge 10th Circuit panel unanimously agreed with Wyrick on this point. “A contrary conclusion would defy law and logic,” Judge Veronica Rossman, a Joe Biden appointee, writes in the majority opinion, which was joined in full by Judge Michael R. Murphy, who was nominated by Bill Clinton, and in part by Judge Paul J. Kelly Jr., who was appointed by George H.W. Bush. “The First and Fourth Amendments also refer to the ‘people,’ and nobody contends only ‘law-abiding citizens’ enjoy the rights protected by these constitutional guarantees….Restricting the Second Amendment to ‘law-abiding’ citizens—as the government urges us to do—would make it harder to administer and would risk turning it into ‘a second-class right.'”

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Federal Appeals Court Says Government Must Prove Marijuana Users ‘Pose A Risk’ Of Danger To Justify Gun Ban

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government must prove that people who use marijuana “pose a risk of future danger” if it wants to justify applying a law banning cannabis consumers from owning firearms.

In its opinion on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms, known as 922(g)(3), violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The Justice Department appealed that ruling in 2023, sending it to the Tenth Circuit. That three-judge panel said they “agree with much of the district court’s analysis” of the legal considerations, including its challenge to the federal government’s claims that there is historically analogous precedent substantiating the firearm ban for cannabis consumers.

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Pirro: Those carrying rifles or shotguns in D.C. will no longer face felony charges

United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has announced that federal prosecutors will no longer pursue felony charges for mere possession of rifles or shotguns in Washington, D.C.

This change means that, except in certain cases, felony charges will no longer be implemented under a D.C. law that made it illegal to carry rifles or shotguns within its boundaries.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office will, however, continue to seek charges whenever a person is accused of committing a violent crime with a shotgun or rifle, or if the individual has a criminal record that prohibits them from possessing a firearm. The new policy also includes large-capacity magazines, but excludes handguns. Officials are also able to prosecute individuals in possession of unregistered rifles and shotguns in the district.

Pirro made a statement explaining that the policy change is in alignment with Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rulings protecting gun rights, and was enacted under the guidance of the Justice Department and the Office of Solicitor General.

The first SCOTUS ruling the former Fox News host referenced overturned a New York gun law in 2022 and held that Americans have a right to carry firearms I public for self-defense. She asserted that a blanket ban on the possession of shotguns and rifles violates this opinion. The second ruling cited was from 2008, where the court blocked D.C.’s ban on handguns within the home.

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Federal Appeals Court Gives Medical Marijuana Patients Who Want To Own Guns A Win

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers a series of cases challenging the current ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana, another federal appeals court has ruled in favor of medical cannabis patients who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights to possess firearms.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District, in a opinion authored by Judge Elizabeth Branch, departed from the ruling of a district could that upheld the federal statute, Section 922(g)(3), that precludes any “unlawful users” of controlled substances from owning or purchasing firearms.

While the Justice Department has repeatedly argued that people who use cannabis, in compliance with state law, are uniquely dangerous—and that there are historical analogues in U.S. gun laws that justify the ban—the appeals court disagreed, vacated the prior ruling and remanded the case back to a lower court.

The federal government’s “allegations in the operative complaint do not lead to the inference that the plaintiffs are comparatively similar to either felons or dangerous individuals.”

The plaintiffs in the years-long case are Vera Cooper and Nicole Hansell, who are registered medical cannabis patients denied gun purchases over their admission to participating in the program, and Neill Franklin, a former police officer who wants to access medical marijuana without jeopardizing his right to own a firearm.

Former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) initially led the suit against the federal government, but she was removed from the case after leaving her state office. The Republican commissioner who replaced her declined to become involved in the legal proceedings.

One of the most controversial aspects of the many active firearms and marijuana cases deals with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 where justices generally created a higher standard for policies that seek to impose restrictions on gun rights. The ruling states that any such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the Second Amendment’s original 1791 ratification.

To that end, the Justice Department has argued that the two medical cannabis patients in the Florida case should be deprived of their gun rights due to their alleged felonious activity and dangerousness.

After reviewing the district court ruling on appeal, the Eleventh Circuit said “nothing in the [complaint] indicates that [plaintiffs] have committed any felony or been convicted of any crime (felony or misdemeanor), let alone that their medical marijuana use makes them dangerous.”

“Thus, the government failed to meet its burden—at the motion to dismiss stage—to establish that disarming medical marijuana users is consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation,” the opinion says.

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Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Revives Case Challenging Gun Ban for Florida Medical Marijuana Patients

In a decision issued Wednesday, a three-judge panel said the government had not met its burden of showing that disarming state-legal medical marijuana patients aligns with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The case was brought by several Florida medical marijuana patients, joined initially by former Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who argued the restriction is unconstitutional given their lawful conduct under state law.

The court’s ruling nullifies a district court decision from November 2022 that threw out the challenge

The court noted that the individuals involved had not been convicted of crimes or shown to pose a danger that would warrant taking away their gun rights. Under federal law, marijuana use remains a misdemeanor offense, but Florida voters legalized medical marijuana in 2016. The panel ruled that this conflict was enough to allow the case to move forward.

U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch, writing on behalf of the panel, noted that at most the plaintiffs were guilty of a federal misdemeanor for marijuana use. She emphasized that they had not been convicted of a crime and there was no showing at this stage that their drug use made them dangerous enough to justify stripping them of gun rights.

“Accordingly, the Federal Government has failed, at the motion to dismiss stage, to establish that disarming Appellants is consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation,” she wrote.

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Woman Sues Chicago After Being Shot by Gun from Buyback Program

Twanda Willingham is suing the city of Chicago after being shot with a pistol that had been “relinquished to Chicago police at a gun turn-in event,” according to the NRA-ILA.

FOX 32 reported Willingham was shot in August 2023 with a Glock 21 “surrendered months earlier at a Chicago Police Department gun buyback.”

Willingham subsequently filed suit against Chicago, after it was discovered the gun had allegedly “disappeared while in transit between the [location of the buy back event] and a nearby police station—just blocks apart.”

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