Vigilante thugs, a gang of far right thugs deciding who they think get to vote or not get to vote based on looks. This is what maga means when they say they want to safeguard the polls and other parts of voting. What they really mean is stopping anyone that is black, foreign, or looks anti-maga from voting. Intimidate as many non-republicans as possible. It is like the voter suppression laws and gerrymandering, republicans cannot win on ideas nor on policy, so they resort to cheating. Because how they win doesn’t matter to them, winning itself is the only important thing. The 2000 Mules is a conspiracy theory of the right, it is a debunked film by GOP political operative Dinesh D’Souza that falsely claims there was significant voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. Hugs
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office told The Daily Beast it “talked to the voter” involved, and escalated their complaint to the DOJ.
Justin Rohrlich
Reporter
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Allegations of possible voter intimidation in a highly politicized Arizona county have been escalated to state and federal law enforcement authorities for potential prosecution, The Daily Beast has confirmed.
In an email, Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for Arizona Secretary of State (SOS) Katie Hobbs, said Thursday that Hobbs’ office “has referred to the DOJ and AG a report from a voter that the voter was approached and followed by a group of individuals when the voter was trying to drop off their ballot at an early voting drop box on Monday.”
“The location was at the Juvenile Justice Court drop box location in Maricopa County,” the email added. “The SOS has talked to the voter, informed Maricopa County, and referred the report to the DOJ and AG’s offices for further investigation.”
“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the complaint stated. “They took a photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film.”
Arizona Secretary of State
Meanwhile, the QAnon-linked founder of an organization recently seen staking out drop boxes in Maricopa is distancing herself from the suspect, claiming she doesn’t “know who he is.”
Early voting for the 2022 midterm elections is underway in Arizona, where ballot drop boxes have been in use since 2020, when they were introduced by 40 U.S. states as a way to help people vote safely for president as the COVID pandemic raged. There have been no reported cases of fraud, vandalism, or anything else that could have affected the outcome of the election that elevated Joe Biden to the Oval Office two years ago, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials on both sides of the aisle.
However, the right-wing continues to allege widespread election fraud due to drop boxes, a debunked claim first floated publicly by former President Donald Trump and amplified by people like conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza, whose discredited documentary 2,000 Mules put forth bogus claims that Democratic operatives had stuffed unmonitored ballot boxes with phony votes.
Since then, conservative extremist groups—as well as Trump-endorsed politicians running for elected office—have called on members and supporters to stake out drop boxes around the country, with Arizona having become a particular hotspot. Officials have raised concerns about the potential for voter intimidation, as box-watchers fan out nationwide.
@TrumperMel via Truth Social
Last Saturday, Clean Elections USA founder Melody Jennings, a minister who has namechecked QAnon during appearances on indicted Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s webcast, said she had volunteers “ready to go” not just in Arizona, but in 17 other states, as well.
“We’ve got people out there, on the ground and doing the work,” Jennings told Bannon, explaining that her “people” were stationed “around the box with iPhones, with, you know, Androids, with your own cameras, which is legal, by the way, we can video and we can take pictures.”
Clean Elections USA began watching drop boxes during the primaries this past summer, which Jennings, who goes by “TrumperMel” online, trumpeted on Truth Social, the floundering social network Trump backed after being banned from Twitter. This served as a sort of “dry run” for the midterms, Jennings said.
Clean Elections USA via Truth Social
Jennings, in social media posts, has asked for “10 people in groups around every drop box! Not 2 people. That’s not a deterrent. Bring lights, food, lawn chairs, play cards, (no music) Video, take pics. Don’t talk to them. Abide by the laws.”
On Monday, Jennings took to Truth Social with an urgent request.
“All Arizona patriots get to either the Mesa box or the Phoenix box …the only 2 that are outdoors… Right now,” she wrote. “There are mules getting there and doing their thing even with my people there.”
The next evening, Jennings posted a blurry photo of what she claimed was a “mule” caught in the act at a drop box in Mesa, which is part of Maricopa County.
“This guy. Drove in backwards to avoid plate detection,” she alleged. Got out showing his back. Pulled ballots out of his shirt. I need people there tonight to help my people. Lots of you!”
@TrumperMel via Truth Social
But Jennings insists that the drop box-watcher referred by Katie Hobbs to law enforcement authorities has nothing to do with her.
“The individual they speak of is not associated with Clean Elections USA in any way,” Jennings told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “Never was a member of Clean Elections USA. I don’t know who he is.”
Other drop box-watching groups in Arizona have reportedly changed their minds about the idea, such as the Lions of Liberty, a self-described “resolute nucleus of concerned, passionate conservative patriots who are determined to correct the course of our country which has been hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats, and fake news.”
They had dozens of observers in Yavapai County ready to mobilize last week for their “Operation Drop Box” initiative, but reportedly called things off after receiving a cease and desist letter from the nonprofit Protect Democracy, which alleged voter intimidation.
“We’re moving forward with it, in name and slight practice,” Lions of Liberty leader Luke Cilano told 3TV/CBS 5. “When I’m out and about driving around, I swing by and watch a box from a distance.”
Reports of potential voter intimidation by drop box-watchers in Arizona were first brought up at an Oct. 13 news conference by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. There are cameras monitoring Maricopa’s two drop boxes, according to Richer, who did not identify the offending group by name.
“Any attempt to deter, intimidate a lawful voter is unlawful, should be immediately reported, please to us, but also law enforcement,” Richer said.
Richer, a Republican, has received death threats for not going along with Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.” In August, a Missouri public school employee was indicted on federal charges for telling Richer in a 2021 voicemail, in part, “You need to do your fucking job right because other people from other states are watching your ass. You fucking renege on this deal or give them any more troubles, your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting.”
Imagine how scary it would be for anyone to be boxed in by cars with their little sister / family member with them, unable to leave and threatened by a group of angry people. People this is what the right wants, their enforcer thugs to threaten and terrorize the gays and the family of gay peoples. This is right out of the Russian playbook. My god, not only did the teachers and school let the kid be harassed at school which begs the question of how can a gay / lesbian / trans person get a quality education if they are worried about their safety. Hard to concentrate on the lesson if you are worried about being attacked and hurt. This is why LGBTQ+ kids need to see rainbow flags and to have teachers with rooms they can feel safe in or got to if they are feeling threatened. Seriously one respected person who reads the blog asked why rainbow pride stickers need to be on classroom doors or up in the classrooms. This is why. The point of the republican / right wing media attacks is to drive hate and anger at the LGBTQ+ community. They want this response. Remember the Florida legislator who wrote the don’t say gay bill said he did it because he was angered that gay / trans kids were being accepted by other kids and not targeted for abuse / harm. He wanted to see these LGBTQ+ kids beaten up, abused / hurt. demonized because it turns out he is a highly religious Christian. Son of a bitch! His gods feelings come before the feelings of living kids. Bastard! The longer the Republicans in office and the right-wing media push the evils of the LGBTQ+ kids the more abuse the kids thought to be gay are going to face. Which again is what the republicans / right wing wants. Do you know what would have happened to me if someone had come up to my father and told him I was a faggot? More bruises, broken bones, pain, and rapes. This shit is serious. Religious families will grill the kids and the kids will face going to conversion therapy or being thrown out of their homes. Again these attack were on the decline before trump and DeathSantis. Hugs
“I’m sick of being silent about it, so I finally spoke up.”
A California high school student’s TikTok post exposing the anti-LGBTQ bullying he’s been subjected to has gone viral.
Earlier this month, 18-year-old Landon Jones posted the video, which shows two separate instances of anti-gay bullying caught on camera. One incident, recorded by Jones in August, shows a group of young men surrounding his car in the parking lot of a Starbucks.
“This f**king fa***t,” one of the young men says.
In the video, Jones says the group apparently followed him and his sister to the Starbucks, surrounding his car so that he could not leave, while yelling slurs and threats.
The second incident was captured on Jones’s family’s home surveillance camera, shows a young man approach the front door of his house in the dead of night.
“Does Landon live here,” the teen asks when Jones’s father answers the door.
“Yeah, why?” Jones’s father says.
“Someone said to come up here because he’s a fa***t!” the young man shouts as he runs off.
“I remember being up in my room, hearing it, and I heard what he said. I immediately jumped out of bed and walked outside to see what was happening,” Jones told NBC News. “I had no sleep that night. I was honestly really upset. I was crying.”
“I have been called ‘fa***t’ countless times at school, and it literally doesn’t bother me at all,” Jones says in the TikTok video. “But the fact that they came to my house does.”
Jones said that was a turning point. On October 1, he shared the post on TikTok. The clip has received 1.4 million views and over 12,000 primarily supportive comments.
“I’m sick of being silent about it, so I spoke up finally,” Jones said.
He said that at least two of the young men involved in both incidents attend El Toro High School in Lake Forest, California where Jones is a senior. His parents told NBC News that they are unaware of any action the school has taken in response to the harassment.
But a spokesperson for the school district provided a statement saying that Saddleback Valley Unified School District and El Toro High School “together with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD), immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to uncover the facts of the incidents.”
“We can confirm that the person seen in the surveillance video of the incident that took place at a private home is not a student in SVUSD,” said Wendie Hauschild, the school district’s director of communications and administrative services. “Due to the confidentiality that we are required by law to uphold for our students, as well as other minors, SVUSD is unable to share further information regarding the results of the investigation. SVUSD remains steadfast in its commitment to create inclusive, supportive, and safe environments for all students on our campuses.”
An Orange County sheriff’s spokesperson said that a school resource officer has spoken to “individuals that may or may not have been involved in this incident” or “possibly have knowledge of the incident.” While the young man who approached Jones’s home has not been identified, the officer said that the investigation remains ongoing.
Jones, meanwhile, has transitioned to virtual schooling as a result of bullying at El Toro High School.
The important part of this article is not what Marge Greene says about Alex Jones. It is what her intern says about trashing the Bill of Rights and getting rid of the 1st amendment to create a theocracy. He wants only Christians to be able to hold office, to have guns, and to be able to publish online. Hugs
She defended Alex Jones while her intern called for “meaningful penalties for insulting, irreverent or contemptuous language about Our Lord.”
Milo Yiannopoulos (l)/Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Screenshots
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is defending Infowars host Alex Jones in the wake of the nearly one billion dollar civil judgment against him for defamatory claims he made on his radio show about the parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, arguing that he is facing “political persecution.”
But while she argues that “freedom of speech” should allow Jones to avoid the consequences of defaming those kids’ parents – even as it inspired his followers to harass them and allegedly pee on the child victims’ graves – her most famous intern, Milo Yiannopoulos, is telling his followers on Telegram that the U.S. should ban blasphemy and “institute meaningful penalties for insulting, irreverent or contemptuous language about Our Lord.”
Yesterday a jury in Connecticut awarded $965 million to the parents of some of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting after Jones repeatedly claimed that the shooting was a hoax staged by actors.
One father of a six-year-old boy who was killed in the shooting said that Jones made his life a “living hell,” that his fans harassed him in the street, shot at his home and car, and made threats against him for years.
“As time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was,” the father said during the civil trial. “My life has been threatened. I fear for my life, I fear for my safety.”
Greene was enraged that the jury would order Jones to pay damages in the defamation case.
“No matter what you think of Alex Jones all he did was speak words,” she tweeted yesterday after the verdict was announced. “He was not the one who pulled the trigger. Were his words wrong and did he apologize? Yes. That’s what freedom of speech is. Freedom to speak words. Political persecution must end.”
“I legitimately thought it might have been staged, and I stand by that, and I don’t apologize for it,” Jones said during the trial.
While Greene was arguing for such an expansive definition of free speech that includes immunity for deliberate defamation, someone from her office was saying that the U.S. should ban free speech when it comes to criticism of religion and God.
“Christian nationalism will succeed only if we are honest about the profound structural failures in the American system, and are prepared to do something about them,” Greene’s intern, Yiannopoulos – who identifies as ex-gay – wrote on the rightwing social media platform Telegram. “This will involve the commission of some pretty gigantic offenses against ‘American conservatism.’ For a start, we must be prepared to say that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are hopelessly broken, because of course they are.”
“You will know America is serious about saving itself, and that it has absorbed the scale of the undertaking, when you see a president adding his signature to revivified blasphemy laws, which will prevent the open promotion of sedition, institute meaningful penalties for insulting, irreverent or contemptuous language about Our Lord, and moreover restore to general society an understanding that words matter, they carry consequences, and they may not be capriciously and arbitrarily redefined by mentally unstable graffiti artists with PhDs,” he wrote.
“The wide disputational berth granted by the First Amendment and the destructive potentialities of the Second are privileges that can only be granted to Christians…. No other belief system produces individuals capable of responsibly wielding such daunting, awesome freedoms.”
“You cannot grant these powers to the citizenry without also requiring that every elected official and federal employee is a churchgoing Christian and that the nation explicitly identifies itself with Jesus Christ and governs in a manner informed by the Church,” he wrote.
“I ruined my knees in my 20s. Not through prayer, as if you had to ask. I think about this every day when I pray now, and I am disgusted by it.”
While Greene has not made such an extreme statement against freedom of speech for non-Christians, she, like Yiannopoulos, has vocally defended Christian nationalism, the idea that the U.S. should be a Christian nation and that the government should give Christianity a privileged position in politics.
“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” Greene said last month.
This statement says it all, clearly and you have to ask why politicians and religious leaders are allowed to do this? The local LGBTQ group called the attack “the result of a long and systematic campaign against them by state officials, churches, and extremist groups.” “A heinous act of a radicalized individual can happen at any time, but it is a testament to the time and society who he chooses to target his attack,” the group wrote. “The fact that he has chosen LGBTI people is the result of a long and systematic campaign against them by state officials, churches, and extremist groups.” Hugs
The local LGBTQ group called the attack “the result of a long and systematic campaign against them by state officials, churches, and extremist groups.”
Two people died and one was injured in a Wednesday night shooting at a gay bar called Teplaren in Slovakia’s capital city of Bratislava.
The suspected shooter was found dead the following morning. While police haven’t released details about the shooter’s identity or suspected motive, Slovakian media said that he had posted messages on Twitter using the phrases “hate crime,” “gay bar,” and aired anti-Semitic views, Express reported.
On Facebook, local LGBTQ Pride group Dúhový Pride Bratislava named the victims who died (two young people named Matus and Juraj) as well as the injured person (Radka). The group also expressed shock about the shooting, calling it “unprecedented in the history of our community.”
“A heinous act of a radicalized individual can happen at any time, but it is a testament to the time and society who he chooses to target his attack,” the group wrote. “The fact that he has chosen LGBTI people is the result of a long and systematic campaign against them by state officials, churches, and extremist groups.”
The group called on the government to take steps to condemn and make systemic reform to prevent such violence in the future. It has also organized a “march to condemn hatred against the LGBTI community” with four other allied organizations. Local police will provide security for the event.
In a public statement, Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger said, “I strongly condemn yesterday’s attack in which two people died… It is unacceptable that anyone should fear for their life because of the way they live.”
Slovakia has anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, allows queer citizens to serve in its military, allows people to change the gender on their government documents, and recognizes same-sex marriages that occur elsewhere in the European Union (EU). However, the nation has no hate crime laws, does not recognize same-sex marriages that occur within its borders, nor does it allow adoption or surrogate births for same-sex couples.
According to a 2019 study by the Pew Research Center, only 44 percent of Slovaks consider homosexuality to be acceptable in society. This places Slovakia well below the EU average in terms of social acceptance of LGBTQ people. These attitudes have been influenced by neighboring anti-LGBTQ nations like Poland as well as by the influential Slovakian Catholic church.
I hope this shows everyone how these anti-drag queen haters are not doing this to protect kids, they are doing this to enforce a mistaken idea of what gender roles they feel must be enforced regardless of how others do not agree. We have progressed as a society enough to know that the stereotype of gender roles is not only stupid but based only on the idea that men should control women. Seriously there are religious preachers getting furious that women might wear pants or other things considered men’s clothing. Why? Also these same preachers / people go crazy over men / boys wearing what they think are women’s clothing. Yet that ignores that until the 20th century boys and girls both wore dresses until about 10 or 11 years old. Until the boys started to go through puberty. It was done for a lot of reasons, and it was seen as a boy growing up and becoming a man to graduate to knee length shorts. I wonder how many boys would rather have kept the freedom and ease of wearing dresses. I also think that these people stuck on what each gender should be allowed to wear forget history where men wore wigs and before that togas and other non-pants dress. Frankly clothing has no sex / gender. Clothing is just fabric and it is simply stupid to get upset by the idea that one piece of fabric can be worn only by one sex / gender. The real discussion to have is in a civilized society how much modesty should be required by each sex / gender. For example why are men allowed to go shirtless in society and women are not just because their breasts are bigger, well sometimes bigger. I live in a Florida trailer park and there are retired large old men whose breasts are larger than a lot of women’s. Really that is simply sexist and makes no sense. If a woman wants to walk around topless why shouldn’t see be allowed to do so. it is not her responsibility to control others, they have a duty to control themselves. And don’t say that kids shouldn’t see her breasts. Why? They see men’s breasts all the time. It is a social convention that needs to go bye bye. Breasts exist, kids know people have them, they are not dirty or harmful, but we tell kids they shouldn’t ever see them. Why. See how some sexist old fashion out of date stereotypes of male and female dressing makes no sense? This is nothing more than the Christian Taliban mentality. Are women in the US going to be required to wear burkas? Think of the dress code for Amish women and ask, does it make them a better person or does it simply make their daily lives harder. The fact is these thugs are attempting to use lies along with threats of violence to shut down a legal completely non-sexual event because they want to rule what is allowed in society and what is banned. If you don’t do what these people want they will hurt you. That is the message they are delivering. Well is that a democracy? Is that a civilized civil society for the 21st century? This is what the right wing media and republican governors like DeathSantis are promoting and inspiring. “You guys are total f**king scumbags … You sick f**ks secretly WANT to sexualize little kids because deep down you’re twisted and demented pedos who really really want to f**k kids,” one message said. “I seriously hope that the next workplace shooting occurs at our organization and snuffs out everyone who approved of this. Maybe then our children will be safe from predators like you.” For reading stories to dogs by a man dressed in a costume. Have they seen the outfits that clergy dress in? Hugs
“I seriously hope that the next workplace shooting occurs at our organization and snuffs out everyone who approved of this,” one threat read.
A dog shelter is receiving death threats because it had a drag queen read books to dogs.
On September 24, the Hard Knocks Rescue & Training facility of Huntsville, Alabama had a drag queen named Miss Majesty Divine read to the dogs in its care.
Chaya Raichik, who goes by LibsofTikTok on social media, posted an article that sought to generate outrage about the event. Video of the live-streamed event — which had only one child in its in-person crowd — showed the drag queen reading Walter the Farting Dog: Banned from the Beach and making innuendo comments about men liking “meat” and “big bones.”
After Raichik published her article, the dog shelter began receiving violent threats. Her posts, which regularly accuse LGBTQ people of “grooming” children for sexual abuse, have inspired death threats against drag performers, educators, and healthcare providers.
James Miller, the drag performer who read to the dogs, has since been put on paid leave from his job as a teacher in the Huntsville School District after Raichik’s post. He has said the jokes he made weren’t any worse than the innuendo that has appeared in children’s cartoons.
“You guys are total f**king scumbags … You sick f**ks secretly WANT to sexualize little kids because deep down you’re twisted and demented pedos who really really want to f**k kids,” one message said. “I seriously hope that the next workplace shooting occurs at our organization and snuffs out everyone who approved of this. Maybe then our children will be safe from predators like you.”
The shelter also began getting bad reviews on its Google and Facebook pages.
In a video responding to the threats, the shelter owners said, “We’re not backing down on what we do…. We know this is a risk, but it is the right side of things to be on.”
They also said they had reported the threats to the police and FBI but would continue to operate as they usually do.
“We are being very careful about security,” they continued. “We understand that this is a scary situation. It’s a scary situation. For us. It’s a scary situation for our volunteers, and it’s probably going to make a lot of our clients uncomfortable as well.”
They also noted that Miss Majesty Divine had helped them fundraise and host story hour events at their shelter in the past. The books read during the event focus on “inclusion, acceptance, being authentic, being comfortable in your own skin,” they added.
“Our mission is to focus on the outcast dogs, the underdogs, the dogs that nobody wants to work with,” they said. “The people that we kind of gravitate to and pull into our circle are the people who have always felt pushed out.”
One of the owners also said that they knew what it was like to feel marginalized because they grew up with a gay father during the 1980s.
“To have had a place to go and activities that we could have gone to together as a family that also encompassed other things that we liked, would have been life-changing for me,” one owner said.
The shelter also said it wants to begin a program to help at-risk LGBTQ youth work with dogs so they can both “heal together.”
“We would rather be excluded for those we include that included for those we exclude,” the nonprofit’s CEO Lisa Maasen said.
If the court used the reasoning that no guns made in 1791 had serial numbers does that mean your second amendment rights to own guns is limited to the guns in the public back then. Turn in your Ar-15 and other semi auto weapons and pick up a musket or flint lock. The other thing is activist courts and finding new rights. The right to private gun ownership was not what the second amendment provided until 2008. Before that states could enact many laws restricting gun ownership and carry. But Anthony Scalia created a right to own guns by simply ignoring the part of the second amendment that mentions a well-regulated militia. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Hugs
Ghost guns, which feature no serial number.Spencer Platt/Getty Images
For decades, federal law has forbidden gun owners from scratching out the serial numbers that manufacturers are legally required to place on firearms. The reason is obvious: These serial numbers help state and federal law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and identify suspected shooters. Indeed, the only apparent reason anyone would remove a serial number is to avoid becoming a suspect after their gun is used illegally. On Wednesday, however, a federal judge ruled that the law prohibiting alteration of serial numbers violates the Second Amendment. Why? Because serial numbers were virtually nonexistent when the amendment was ratified in 1791, so the government has no power to mandate them today.
This decision in United States v. Price by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, a Bill Clinton appointee, may sound shocking. But it is a perfectly plausible application of the Supreme Court’s June ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, Justice Clarence Thomas declared all gun restrictions presumptively unconstitutional if they infringe on “the individual right to armed self-defense.” (The Constitution says nothing about “self-defense,” but Thomas gleaned this right from its penumbra.) A gun restriction may only survive legal scrutiny, the justice declared, if it had an “analogue” in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed on the states. The burden falls on the government to prove the existence of a historical analogue.
Thomas’ test has already wreaked havoc in the lower courts. One judge has struck down a Texas law that prohibits 18 to 20-year-olds from carrying a handgun outside the home. People under 21 are significantly more likelyto commit gun homicides—but in Bruen, Thomas announced that courts may never consider the real-world, life-saving impact of gun safety laws when gauging their constitutionality. A different Texas judge invalidated a federal law barring individuals from purchasing a handgun while they’re under indictment, even for a violent felony offense. Just last week, another judge struck down New York’s ban on concealed carry in airports, train stations, domestic violence shelters, summer camps, the subway, and other “sensitive locations.” Now Goodwin, who sits in West Virginia, has joined the chorus of lower court judges who feel that Bruen obliges them to strike down longstanding, widely accepted firearm laws.
Goodwin’s conclusion might sound bizarre, but his analysis closely follows Thomas’ test. First, he asked whether the federal ban on possession of a gun with an “obliterated” serial number infringes on the right to self-defense. He found that it does, presenting the hypothetical example of a father who buys a gun, removes the serial number, dies, and leaves it to her daughter. Both father and daughter’s ownership of the firearm would be a federal crime. And that, Goodwin wrote, “is the definition of an infringement on one’s right to possess a firearm.”
The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War. Federal law did not compel any manufacturers to use them until 1934. And Congress did not require almost all guns to include a serial number until 1968, when it determined (correctly) that they would facilitate the investigation of violent crime. These laws proved helpful in the government’s mission “to attack the black market in firearms” and track down individuals who used firearms to commit crimes. Yet serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons.
Goodwin acknowledged the “argument” that “firearms with an obliterated serial number are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable.” But he explained that this argument “is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering.” Even if the serial number law demonstrably saved tens of thousands of lives each year, that fact would be totally irrelevant to the constitutional analysis.
These laws almost certainly do save lives. When law enforcement officers recover a weapon from a crime, they check its serial number against a federal database. The results can help them track down the last known seller and buyer of the firearm, who may provide information that’s critical to the investigation. It might lead them straight to the suspect if he bought the gun legally. If not—if he stole the weapon, for instance—the serial number will lead law enforcement to the last known owner, who can provide information about the theft that could lead to the suspect’s eventual arrest. The lack of a serial number is a major reason why ghost guns are so dangerous, and why they are becoming a ubiquitous tool in violent crimes: Criminals exploittheir untraceability to elude detection.
Under Bruen, though, none of this matters. All that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test. Lower courts, of course, must adhere to the Supreme Court’s decisions, and Goodwin did so respectfully and comprehensively. In the process, though, he repeatedly reminded readers that he had no choice but to follow Bruen to its outrageous logical endpoint. His decision thus doubled as a warning: The Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime.
In other words, Goodwin has teed up a perfect test case to see whether the conservative justices are truly ready to embrace the deadly and devastating consequences of their own revolutionary ruling.
Democratic strategist Maria Cardona just put on a masterclass on how to respond to Republican lies while debating Republican commentator Scott Jennings on the subject of immigration and Republicans cruelly sending asylum seekers to other states against their will. MeidasTouch co-founder Jordy Meiselas breaks it down.
The DOJ just submitted an updated evidence log with Special Master Federal Judge Raymond Dearie pursuant to his prior court order. Judge Dearie has ordered Donald Trump to submit a sworn affidavit in response to this evidence log by no later than September 30.
Scottie's Playtime 