Trump Declares Churches Are Essential

President Trump on Friday announced that new CDC guidance will classify houses of worship as “essential,” as he called on governors to allow them to open “right now.” Trump announced the policy for churches, synagogues and mosques, during a briefing at the White House.

“If they don’t do it, I will override the governors. In America, we need more prayer, not less,” he warned.

Slate: Kavanaugh's "Expansive View of the 2A" Signals a "Constitutional Revolution"

Slate: Kavanaugh's " Expansive View of the 2A" Signals a "Constitutional Revolution"

By Staff Writer. January 24, 2019
Article Original

Naturally, the comedy far-left politics e-magazine Slate has taken interest in the first Second Amendment case SCOTUS has agreed to hear in a decade. The case challenges the city's prohibition on transporting licensed, locked and unloaded handguns outside the city, and the Court's decision could have far-reaching effects, as we discuss further here.

Slate's take on this whole affair is eminently quotable comedic gold.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh [is] a gun-rights enthusiast who takes a breathtakingly expansive view of the Second Amendment.

What constitutes such a "breathtakingly expansive" view? Slate's Jurisprudence columnist Mark Joseph Stern explains:

If Americans have a constitutional right to take their guns to and from a firing range of their choice, after all, why shouldn't they be allowed to transport them while traveling elsewhere? If the Constitution safeguards their ability to bring a firearm to and from their second home, why shouldn't it also protect their right to carry a gun while running errands or visiting friends?

Notice how he calls the gun range your second home? Maybe those lefties aren't so out of touch, after all. Mind you, this whole line of reasoning refers to transporting a gun unlocked and unloaded, not carrying it on one's person - a distinction Stern repeatedly struggles with throughout his article.

As icing on the cake, Stern describes the apocalypse that will befall us if this breathtakingly expansive view of the Second Amendment is honored:

Once the Second Amendment is extended beyond the home, public-carry bans generally will be the next to fall. Lower courts, now packed with pro-gun Trump nominees, will swiftly tear down restrictions on concealed and open carry. A central premise of Heller/ and McDonald--that the Second Amendment protects handguns "in the home"--will be cast aside. New York State Rifle will be the first shot in a coming constitutional revolution.

Let freedom ring.

Excerpts from "The Supreme Court is Preparing to Make Every State's Gun Laws Look Like Texas'" via Slate

The original article, from which some quotes were taken, comprises a mix of both seeming cynicism as well as observations towards potential excesses with rulings on Second Amendment matters in the future. There is certainly a possibility of more favorable judgements with Kavanaugh in the court as well as an increase in lower court Trump appointees but time will tell yet whether there will be some real changes for the better.

"You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side."
You just have to love freedom.

© 2019 JPFO All rights reserved.

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1-800-869-1884

Celebrating Bill of Rights Day, Dec 15th

 

Celebrating Bill of Rights Day, Dec 15th Aaron Zelman, JPFO's late founder, made it one of his many missions to celebrate Bill of Rights Day, ratified December 15, 1791.    The Bill of Rights, seemingly more and more under attack, defines America. We should celebrate and nurture it.   The Constitution of the United States would never have become the law of the land without the Bill of Rights. Several states refused to join the Union unless there was a Bill of Rights to limit the federal power and protect individual rights. We should celebrate and nurture it.   The Bill of Rights guarantees fundamental civil and human rights: the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion; protections against unreasonable searches and coerced confessions; rights to counsel and a jury trial. For these rights and freedoms people have struggled for centuries. The Bill of Rights remains a beacon to freedom-loving people worldwide. We should celebrate and nurture it.   The Bill of Rights does more: it defines the limits of government power. More directly than any other single document of law, the Bill of Rights stands between tyranny and liberty. Refugees flee to the United States, not for its "three separate branches of government," not for its arrangement of senators and representatives, but for its liberty. The foundation of that liberty is the Bill of Rights. We should celebrate and nurture it.   We have special days for the birthdays of great leaders, to remember special events, and to honor our military services. But all of these remarkable people and events aimed to advance the cause of liberty -- the cause of the Bill of Rights.   Just one day per year, let us fly the flag, put up a poster, and most important of all: read the Bill of Rights. Also read it, to our children, in libraries, in schools, in homes, as well as reminding our representatives in congress of their oath of office.   Aaron Zelman, in collaboration with Claire Wolfe and Richard Stevens, wrote nine years ago "You'll be Freer and Richer in the Bill of Rights Culture" -- a two part treatise on the subject. There is much food for thought contained within which is valuable reading.   Read also some sage words by L. Neil Smith "Being Necessary ...", which does not mince words when it comes to defining the true meaning of our Bill of Rights. JPFO has a useful index page of Bill of Rights material. "You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side." © 2016 JPFO All rights reserved. jpfo@jpfo.org 1-800-869-1884 Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership America's most aggressive civil rights organization We make the NRA look like moderates Join JPFO Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser on JPFO.

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Yes, Virginia, There Is a Gun Rights Movement. And It's Winning.

Excerpt:

 Over the last few months, an important drama has played out in the state of Virginia. As leaders of the gun-control movement looked to prove to Democrats that their issue can move voters, they settled on Virginia as their guinea pig. After a failed election and a relatively inconsequential executive action on guns from Clintonite governor Terry McAuliffe, their experiments culminated in a bold move: unilateral action from the Democratic attorney general that broke the state’s concealed-carry reciprocity agreement (in this agreement, Virginia’s concealed-carry permits were honored by 25 other states).Then, on Friday, that action was undone by a deal between McAuliffe and Republicans. 

More embarrassingly for the gun-control advocates, new details Friday revealed that the McAuliffe–Republican deal was more expansive than was first reported. Not only did the deal reverse the Democrats’ unilateral action and restore all 25 of the reciprocity deals; it also mandated that Virginia recognize permits from all states and create reciprocity agreements with every state that wants one.

The deal is a leap forward for gun-rights activists. It also undermines Democrats’ effort to present gun control as a winning issue in the state and nationally. As a movement, gun control never made much sense — it has faced one setback after another over many decades. But it nonetheless carried on full-steam ahead, and gun-control activists believed that 2016 would be the year they finally turned things around.

Their belief is proving misplaced, as polls are showing a sharp turnaround in Americans’ attitudes on guns. Up to this point, most Americans believed that guns were “too easy” to get. Up to this point, most Americans wanted to ban so-called assault weapons. The opposite is true now, and even a historic front-page New York Times anti-gun editorial hasn’t changed that. Today, most Americans are on board with concealed carry. If that’s not enough, we’re also seeing record levels of gun sales across the country.
 

Read the rest here.

Their REAL Agenda

h/t Sandi-with-an-i, from the Book of Face

The Dangerous "Background Check" Lie

By Alan Korwin, American Handgunner

A Gun-Transfer Ban For Everytown Means Death To Liberty.

Half the media doesn’t even know it’s deceiving you when it talks about so-called “universal background check” bills. The other half knows it’s lying.

They know this code phrase means a national gun-transfer ban, plus universal gun registration — total government control over all guns held privately in America.

Without total registration, universal background checks don’t work. A comprehensive gun-owner list is the whole point of getting falsely reported “background bills” passed. One man — multi-billionaire former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg — is pushing the bills and funding operations, with shell corporations, hired hands, advertising, federal cooperation and mountains of his cash.

His goal is to make you subject to arrest if you hold someone else’s gun — a “gun transfer” — with or without a sale, like he just snuck through in Washington State. Sounds impossible but it’s stone-cold true. He did that by deceiving the public with a $10 million false advertising campaign. He told the public one thing, for a law that did something else. When people found out, after they passed it, they were furious. Too late. Let’s do this by example, so you understand what we’re talking about.
Let’s say you buy a Colt Python from some regular Joe at a gun show, or my next-door neighbor, or in a class, it doesn’t matter where. Gun-show loophole is just a buzz phrase the media uses to bamboozle — the proposed bills always cover every inch of the nation.

Loophole is a synonym for liberty. Never forget that. Gun-show liberty. Bloomberg, an anti-freedom bigot of the worst kind, hides behind a privately armed army, assaulting your right to arms, while exercising his. He wants to kill a liberty you currently have, willing to blatantly lie to get his way, spending obscene fortunes to bully us.

But I digress.

Joe says he’s the Python’s original owner, bought it at retail from Tony’s Gun Store (where you shop sometimes) and you believe him. You’ve known Joe for years and he’s always seemed like a right guy. That might all be true, or not, you have no way of knowing. You now have the Python, it’s sweet, no paperwork, cash and carry. That’s got a name. It’s called freedom. Two free people doing business. You don’t even have to buy it — if Joe just hands it to you you’re both guilty under Bloomberg’s bill.

That handoff scares the crap out of the left and gun scaredy cats because both of you might be criminals! And there’s no controls! Joe the criminal could have just sold (or handed) you, the criminal, a stolen gun and the police won’t even know! Everyone in the world might be criminals, selling each other g- g- g- guns!

What they miss of course is if new background checks were required and everyone was a criminal, the exact same deal could take place anyway, without the check, like it does now. Laws stop nothing. Law enforcement does. That’s what’s missing, insiders understand this and the “news” omits it (too conveniently), leaving voters misled. We’ve already made all of those actions illegal — the criminals, the transfer, the sale and the stolen gun. But I digress again.

Perfectly Legal

I’ve just described the private transfer of property between two free citizens in a free country, the same as the transfer of a Bible, gold coins, this publication or any legal property. In most states nationwide this is 100 percent legal. There’s no victim, no one is harmed and no crime is committed. Laws against it would ban liberties most of us currently enjoy, without affecting criminals who do all that now — even though it’s banned. All Bloomie’s new law would do is outlaw you. Anti-rights bigots and ignorami are hell-bent to outlaw these transfers for you.

Getting back to your shiny new Python, since you really have no idea where it’s been, let’s suppose several possibilities.

First, Joe is telling the truth, second Joe got the gun like you just did, from someone he knows (so he really doesn’t know its background), and third Joe stole the gun or it’s tainted in some other way (smuggled, traded for outlawed drugs, used in a crime, etc.) all of which are already highly illegal with harsh penalties. What does all this mean for you, background checks and gun registration? Will new laws requiring more government interference make anyone safer or help stop crime?

Loophole is a synonym for liberty.

Never forget that. Gun-show liberty.

If Joe, the gun and you’re all legal, which is typically the case, no amount of extra government helps
anything, but it does raise everyone’s costs, diverts resources away from policing and into record keeping, and eats up time. As long as you use your sidearm righteously, no blood, no foul.

If some new private-transfer ban gets enacted, Joe and you can obey and travel somewhere during business hours, go through the red tape, pay the fees, fill out the papers, clerks in West Virginia (where the sprawling FBI campus for this has been built) enter the records, and nothing changes except — you have the Python, owned or borrowed, and now the government knows it.

There’s only one thing the government can actually do with that information besides store it. They can decide to come and take your Python, now that they know you have it, should they decide to do so. They would have to ban Pythons first though, to make the confiscations “legal.” Sorta.

But if Joe and you decide not to go through the rigmarole and just transact the property, who’s to know? Without a universal gun-registration system in place, the private-transfer background check accomplishes nothing — because there is no way to tell who owned what beforehand. The government obviously needs a list of where America’s 300 million guns are today before the system really works — they even said this themselves. And then, it just identifies innocent people who own property, with no connection to any crimes committed. How does writing everyone’s name on a government list help stop crime? (Hint: It doesn’t.)

How accurate do you think a government record of 300 million guns will be? Guns that look alike, distinguished by tiny characteristics, owned by Americans who want nothing to do with the system, with easily bollixed serial numbers in an obese inventory that’s constantly in flux, run by low-wage dead-end clerks who are tired and waiting for the Friday bell, just like any work force.

In this database — errors are felonies. If the system says Joe owns a Python and he can’t produce it with federal jackboots at his door, that’s a potential crime, and he has some jawing to do. If Joe sends anyone to your door you may admit to having it or deny it or clam up and demand an attorney.

Don’t forget, nobody here harmed anyone; this is a database problem. And I haven’t even gotten up to the part where criminals with guns cannot be part of the system — because they would have to self-incriminate to register. That’s prohibited, since they can’t have frickin’ guns in the first place.

No, the universal-background-check scam has one purpose — to control all of America’s privately owned guns. It has nothing to do with crime, blatantly violates the Second Amendment, is completely beyond any power delegated to government and should be rejected outright as an illegitimate public policy choice in this country.

A Final Thought

Bloomberg, and the leftist approach he represents, is misguided. To prevent criminals from potentially buying guns outside civil controls, they would subject everyone who isn’t criminal to submit to control, drastically reducing freedom. This is unacceptable from the perspective of liberty. Liberty is the higher requirement.

The public is guilty of nothing and cannot legitimately be subjected to such demeaning treatment. To prevent criminals from obtaining guns, they must be caught in possession, as hard as that is, which is why they are — and remain armed — historically, and possessed of other contraband despite laws to the contrary. Burdening the innocent, and drastically curtailing currently enjoyed freedoms will not improve the situation and are intolerable acts.

The Second Amendment Isn't for Playing

The Second Amendment Isn't for Playing


Excerpt:

Some variation of the words "for sporting purposes" can be found repeated over and over again in the interminable list of "gun control" laws burdening the American people. Given the history of those words, used that way, JPFO readers have plenty of reason to want to see them excised from American legal code, like the cancerous tumors they are.


But it's more than "merely" the fact that the "sporting purposes" requirement for firearms and ammunition appears to have been lifted directly from the gun laws of Nazi Germany, but the fact of why a government would want to limit the people's access to firearms to those that are better for recreation than for the deadly serious business of defending one's family, liberty, and life. There can be only one reason for that: the government does not wish the people to possess the means to effectively defend those things.

Go. Read the whole thing.

What Is The Constitution?

(A re-post, by request.)

by Orrin Hatch

On this day, [228] years ago, 12 state delegations approved the new Constitution of the United States and 39 of the 42 convention delegates signed it. They sent it to the states for ratification, the act that would make it the supreme law of the land. It is worth focusing on just what the Constitution actually is.

The Constitution opens by saying: “We the people . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.” Nearly all Americans say the Constitution is very important to them and it requires that virtually all legislative, executive, and judicial officers, both state and federal, “shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” But what is this thing called the Constitution that the people established, that Americans say is so important, and that public officials swear to support?

The Constitution is the oldest written charter of government in use in the world today. Anyone who can read knows what the Constitution says. But words alone are just inkblots, and ordaining and establishing the Constitution was much more than simply putting some words on a page. Constitution Day would hardly be worth the name if it celebrated nothing more than a collection of words with no meaning. The Constitution we recognize today is more than an empty shell, it is more than what it says. The Constitution is what it means.

Think about judicial review, perhaps the most powerful thing that federal judges do in our system of self-government. In an appropriate case, judges must determine whether a statute is consistent with the Constitution. If they conflict, the Constitution wins. As Alexander Hamilton put it in The Federalist No.78, it is the duty of judges “to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.” But here we are back to the same question — what is “the Constitution” that judges use to conduct judicial review? What is “the Constitution” to which statutes must yield?

Charles Evans Hughes, who would later become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, famously said about a century ago that the Constitution is “what the judges say it is.” Since judges cannot change the words of the Constitution, Hughes was really saying what today seems to be widely accepted, that the Constitution means whatever judges say it means. But if Hughes was right, then judges in effect become the Constitution and judicial review means that statutes must yield to judges.

But Hughes was wrong. The Constitution does not mean, it cannot mean, whatever judges say it means. If it does, then Hamilton’s reference to its “manifest tenor” makes no sense. A century before Hughes, Chief Justice John Marshall offered the opposite view in Marbury v. Madison, the case often credited with establishing judicial review. Marshall wrote that we have a written Constitution so that the limits on government power “may not be mistaken, or forgotten” and that the Constitution is “a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the legislature.” Judges are part of the government. If the Constitution means whatever government says it means, then government determines the limits on its own power. That would render the Constitution impotent and hardly worth the effort expended at the Constitutional Convention.

Marshall wrote that the Constitution represents “the intention of the people.” Intention is expressed through the meaning, not merely the form, of words. The Constitution cannot be the intention of the people if all the people did was choose some words without meaning. The Constitution could not continue to be the intention of the people if its meaning could be changed by anyone but the people. Quoting George Washington, the Rhode Island Constitution declares that “the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.” Empty words oblige no one. To be the Constitution, it must not only say what they said but it must mean what they meant.

The Constitution – its words and their meaning – was established by the people, can only be changed by the people, and is sacredly obligatory upon all of government, including judges. This is why the debate over judicial selection is really a debate over judicial power. It is a debate over whether the Constitution controls judges or judges control the Constitution, over what the Constitution really is, with nothing less than liberty itself at stake.

— Sen. Orrin G. Hatch is a former chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Constitution.

Quote of the Day: Second Amendment vs. Second Chances

"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed--where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

Alan Gura
Robert A. Levy
Clark M. Neily III
February 24, 2008
RESPONDENT’S BRIEF On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit.

Firearms and the State of Alaska

I've been asked to elaborate on the firearms freedom here in Alaska.

Simply put, there is no permit required for concealed carry. Open carry is okay, too; it's up to the individual's discretion. I was reading comments in one of the 1911 forums, last year, and saw a comment by a California Highway Patrolman who said he grew up in Alaska. His comment was, "Guns in Alaska are like drugs in California: everyone's got some."

That's true. It's also true that nearly everyone carries, most of the time. (Maybe not as many in Anchorage as elsewhere, but still ...) Some folks choose not to bring them to work; and some employers have banned them inside their buildings. This, of course, varies widely by employer and work conditions. State law does permit the owner of any building to post a specifically-worded sign, prohibiting firearms inside.

I've written that we can carry in City Hall. That was true when the State enacted its preemption law a couple of years ago, but the State and the courts have made it clear that they can't prohibit guns in a public building. They can (and have) posted areas within City Hall where guns cannot pass ... such as the Mayor's chambers.

Anyone who is 21 years of age and otherwise legally able to purchase a firearm can also carry concealed. We cannot carry:

1. While intoxicated or under the influence of drugs.
2. On or in any school property or grounds, posted areas within government buildings, or any court building.
3. In any place or premise where alcohol is sold for consumption. It is an affirmative defense, however, if possession occurred at a place designated as a restaurant and the person did not consume intoxicating liquor.
4. In any place where signs are posted indicating the prohibition of firearms.
5. In any private residence without the permission of the owner/resident.

In addition, the latest change to the self-defense statute is that there is no obligation to retreat; one can defend one's self "anywhere that person has a right to be."

Other than that, carry is practically encouraged. Since there are bears in many of the city parks (they tend to be near streams) and many moose, it's amazing how common concealed carry is. I've seen some guys packing so much concealed hardware that it makes the anti-shoplifting devices at stores flicker a few times as they enter.

Another example: at our church, we discussed this topic and asked how many people had - right then - knives with blades longer than three inches. Almost every hand in the congregation went up. Then we asked how many people were also carrying firearms. About three-quarters of the hands stayed up. In that group of about 120, that represented around 90 firearms in the room.

The sound man, a rather large fellow, showed me his knife after church; he was carrying a 12" bowie under his sweatshirt. I jokingly asked where his pistol was; he said he had a .454 in his truck. Okay then.

And yet no one was injured or killed. No weapons were brandished; no shots were fired. I know the anti-gunners would probably get the vapors by the sheer volume of shootin' irons ... so here we have a city of 300,000 people, with many more firearms than that. And none of us shot anyone on the way to work this morning.

To sum it up, I was standing in line at the local coffee shop the other day, and a good friend came up from behind and put her arm around my waist. I had a brief moment of anxiety as I knew she could tell my 1911 was there. She looked up at me and said, "I love men with guns."

Eat your hearts out, guys. :)

Quote of the Week

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, he was marrying the nation at its birth to the ancient principles of the natural law that have animated the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West. Those principles have operated as a break on all governments that recognize them by enunciating the concept of natural rights.

As we have been created in the image and likeness of God the Father, we are perfectly free just as He is. Thus, the natural law teaches that our freedoms are pre-political and come from our humanity and not from the government, and as our humanity is ultimately divine in origin, the government, even by majority vote, cannot morally take natural rights away from us. A natural right is an area of individual human behavior -- like thought, speech, worship, travel, self-defense, privacy, ownership and use of property, consensual personal intimacy -- immune from government interference and for the exercise of which we don't need the government's permission.

The essence of humanity is freedom. 

~ Judge Andrew Napolitano

Click the link to read the whole article; it's worth your time.