Tag: police state

Protecting Yourself from Bullets is Now Illegal in NY as State Outlaws Body Armor

The state of New York, who has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, just stepped it up another notch — this time outlawing the ability of citizens to protect themselves from bullets with body armor. This move proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that lawmakers were never concerned with your safety — only control.

Legislation S.9407-B/A.10497 — written into law on Tuesday — makes it illegal to purchase and sell body vests for anyone who is not engaged in an eligible profession. “Eligible professions include law enforcement officers and other professions, which will be designated by the Department of State in consultation with other agencies,” according to the legislation.

“Gun violence is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart. Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will,” NY Gov. Kathy Hochul said as she took away the right of citizens to passively protect themselves. “In New York, we’re taking bold steps to protect the people of our state. I am proud to sign a comprehensive bill package that prohibits the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under 21, bans body armor sales outside of people in select professions, closes critical gun law loopholes and strengthens our Red Flag Law to keep guns away from dangerous people—new measures that I believe will save lives.”

Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado weighed in after Hochul and completely dismantled their own argument that this law will do anything — by acknowledging that the pervasiveness of “illegal” firearms is leading to an increase in violent crime — not legal guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.

“There is a scourge of gun violence in our country due to the pervasiveness of illegal firearms. Year after year, our neighborhoods are flooded with illegal guns and ghost guns, tormenting families and law-abiding citizens every day, but yet the national response does not change,” Delgado said.

In other words, “illegal guns in the hands of criminals are killing people, so we need to disarm law abiding citizens.” Makes sense…

According to the body armor ban legislation, it also vaguely outlaws the possession of body vests; meaning those who currently possess it, could potentially be penalized.

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FBI Raids Home Of Michigan GOP Gubernatorial Candidate And Whitmer Challenger, Takes Him Into Custody

The FBI raided the home of Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley Thursday morning and reportedly took him into custody. 

Video reviewed by news outlet Bridge Michigan showed a man resembling Kelley being taken into a gray SUV, according to a report. 

“Chris Kelley, a relative and campaign treasurer for the Kelley campaign, said he was ‘aware’ of the Thursday morning law enforcement raid but declined further comment,” Bridge News reported. 

Reporter David Eggert of Crain’s Detroit Business also reported that Kelley had been arrested at his home.

Bridge News reporter Jonathan Oosting provided an update to the reported raid and arrest, writing, “Ryan Kelley is facing multiple charges related to January 6, 2021. He has admitted he was at the riots but claims he did not go inside the U.S. Capitol.”

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Says People Charged With Violent Crimes Are Guilty Because Prosecutors Say So

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has repeatedly blamed bail reforms and local judges for exacerbating gun violence by releasing defendants back onto the streets, but on Monday she took her rhetoric a step further, saying that people charged with violent crime should be kept in jail because only guilty people get charged with violent crimes.

The comments, first reported by the Chicago Tribune, were part of a longer harangue against the Cook County courts and bail reform efforts.

“We shouldn’t be locking up nonviolent individuals just because they can’t afford to pay bail. But, given the exacting standards that the state’s attorney has for charging a case, which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, when those charges are brought, these people are guilty,” Lightfoot said. “Of course they’re entitled to a presumption of innocence. Of course they’re entitled to their day in court. But residents in our community are also entitled to safety from dangerous people, so we need to keep pressing the criminal courts to lock up violent dangerous people and not put them out on bail or electronic monitoring back into the very same communities where brave souls are mustering the courage to come forward and say, ‘this is the person who is responsible.'”

The comments outraged civil liberties advocates and public defenders in Chicago, and rightly so. They should offend anyone familiar with the American criminal justice system and why it places such an emphasis on the presumption of innocence: to force the government to prove its case and shield defendants from prejudice and demagoguery. Lightfoot’s statements are particularly absurd, given the enormous amount of taxpayer money Chicago has spent settling wrongful conviction lawsuits.

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New York enacts sweeping new gun ownership restrictions

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a sweeping package of gun control bills into law Monday, calling gun violence “a disease that is tearing our nation apart.”

The state legislature passed and Hochul signed into law 10 bills that will implement new restrictions on gun ownership, including raising the age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle in New York from 18 to 21 years old. Democratic lawmakers claim the new gun control measures will close “loopholes” in existing laws that were exposed by the deadly mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas last month.

In addition to raising the age to purchase a rifle, lawmakers banned the sale of bulletproof armor for anyone not in law enforcement, strengthened the state’s red flag law to take guns away from mentally unstable people, and introduced new requirements for social media companies to monitor and report “hateful conduct” on their platforms.

“Gun violence is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart. Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will,” Hochul said in a statement.

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NY Governor Kathy Hochul announces law forcing online platforms to report “hateful” content

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has reacted to a recent mass shooting in Buffalo by signing as many as ten new laws, including one that concerns social media. From the wording of the bills, the focus is not so much on content, as on online conduct.

The new legislation is supposed to prevent future incidents of this type, and cover limiting availability of guns and bulletproof vests, but also ordering social media companies to come up with new rules that would be used to “respond to potential threats.”

Reports say that the Buffalo shooter, an 18-year-old who was previously hospitalized after making threats against a school, also took these threats online in a number of posts a short time before the Buffalo massacre, and that he was also live streaming the deadly event.

One of the bills Hochul signed relates to “online hate” and wants companies behind social platforms to further tighten their policies around content flagged as such.

Hochul said that New York will require social media companies to report “hateful” content.

“And in the state of New York, we’re now requiring social media networks to monitor and report hateful conduct on their platforms,” Hochul announced.

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THE FBI TRIED TO AMBUSH MY SOURCE. NOW I’M TELLING THE WHOLE STORY.

FBI AGENT GRAYDEN RIDD had a confidential message for his informant. An FBI team had been given the green light by the Justice Department to ambush and derail a planned meeting between a reporter and a source, and the informant’s job was to let the FBI know when and where the meeting would take place.

The reporter whose meeting they planned to target was me.

It was January 2014, and I was an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times focusing on national security. The FBI wanted to stop me from obtaining documents that I’d been told would reveal the details of massive spying operations by the National Security Agency. The FBI was convinced that I was in contact with someone they had secretly nicknamed the “second Snowden,” who was about to give me an archive that they feared could go far beyond what former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had leaked about the agency’s spying operations the year before.

The FBI’s plan to grab my source at our scheduled meeting was approved by top officials at the FBI and the Justice Department during the Obama administration, according to audio recordings I obtained of several phone conversations between Ridd and his informant. At the time, Eric Holder was U.S. attorney general and James Comey was FBI director.

“Right now, they are on board,” Ridd said in one phone conversation to plan the ambush operation, referring to top Justice Department and FBI officials. “I have to periodically go up to the throne room and recommit them. … We actually have a lot of buy-in and a lot of support, but I do need to feed the beast.”

The FBI declined to comment and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. Holder did not answer a request for comment left with his office; Comey did not respond to a request for comment conveyed through his lawyer. Ridd did not respond to a request for comment placed with a relative or to a knock at the door of his home in Washington, D.C.

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