BLUF: Would Senator Roberts be upset if drag queens were teaching firearm safety or prepping, instead of reading to kids?

SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 7-51-1401, is amended by adding
the following language as a new subdivision:
“Adult cabaret performance” means a performance in a location other than an
adult cabaret that features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers,
male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient
interest, or similar entertainers, regardless of whether or not performed for consideration;
SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 7-51-1407, is amended by adding
the following language as a new subsection:
(c)
(1) It is an offense for a person to engage in an adult cabaret
performance:
(A) On public property; or
(B) In a location where the adult cabaret performance could be
viewed by a person who is not an adult.

Awa has talked about the law of unintended consequences on several occasions. We all understand, too clearly, just how laws can “drift” unless thoroughly vetted for good language. The above is an example of a law which is horrific in its language. When you go to read the entire section of this law (Tennessee Senate Bill 3), as this now reads, it drips unintended consequences.

I understand what the purpose of the law was. They wanted to stop the whole “drag queens reading to kids” thing. I’m going to admit, I really don’t know why. Senator Roberts says it’s to stop kids seeing obscene things. Until Senator Roberts is also going after most of evening television and pretty much all movies these days, I don’t see that it has much reality to it. To make a law to stop only one specific type of performance, without addressing obscenity at all, seems disingenuous.

If the problem is that men in women’s clothing doing non-sexual things is in and of itself overly provocative, then we’ve got to outlaw judges’ robes, graduation robes, kilts, sarongs, and any number of other items which I’m morally certain were not intended to be included in this. Why, you ask? Because you can’t find a legal definition that draws a difference between a man in a dress, and a man in a kilt, without getting into legal messes like “well it’s cultural”.

If the problem is people doing sexual things in front of kids, we already have laws to stop that. If there are people in outlandish clothing doing sexual things in front of kids (and cameras, and parents, and librarians), then why hasn’t someone reported it? I’ve heard of men dressed as women reading to kids, but nothing sexual or perverted (even by my own obscenely low standards). Now, I have heard of so-called trans kids abusing and allegedly raping girls in the school bathroom, and that’s definitely Not Right by any means, but it’s not the same thing, and that’s not what the law appears to be about.

The thing is, the above is NOT the problem. The problem is that some people have gotten their panties in a wad over the idea of men dressing up in women’s clothing to entertain kids under some VERY specific circumstances. Since they can’t figure out how to make a law that stops that type of entertainment, they’re creating bad laws that have unintended consequences galore.

Under the current law, Klinger from MASH would be outlawed. The movies Tootsie, Dumplin’, Some Like It Hot, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Victor Victoria, Mrs. Doubtfire, half of Shakespeare’s plays (if done with gender roles as they “should be today”… ALL of Shakespeare’s plays if done as they were done at the time), Yankee Doodle in Berlin, Bringing Up Baby, I Was A Male War Bride, La Cage Aux Folles, Yentl, To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, and dozens (if not hundreds) more can’t be played in a public theater or performed as plays. Most of British comedy shows are right out. Half the cosplays (female Malcolm Reynolds, for instance) are gone. Bob Hope must be rolling in his grave.

Let me be clear. If someone is grooming or diddling little girls and boys, that person should be shot, drawn and quartered, covered in honey, and left on a hill of fire ants. Every single groomer and diddler I’ve met so far has purported to be a straight male and has been vehemently against all things not “hetero normative”, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some drag performers out there who are perverts. And if they are, they should be prosecuted. Or handed over to the parents, cousins, uncles and aunts, etc. I’m good with either.

But that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a group of politicos getting upset because people in more swag and satin than most women can handle are managing to entertain kids. I’m not sure how they got from that, to “every drag performer is a groomer”, but that’s happened somewhere. It smacks of the same stuff I heard in the 80s, about how “every gay man was after young boys”, and “Dungeons and Dragons will make your kids into immoral wretches who do drugs and cause destruction and rapine”, and we all know those were outright lies.

So what is the point of the law? The purpose is to restrict performances and free speech. Admittedly, it’s speech and performance art that the senators in question find offensive, but we’ve established time and time again on GFZ that personal offense is NOT a good enough reason to enact a law.

Since you can’t enact the law as currently written, without interfering with the art above, without inadvertently making it illegal for women to wear pants and men to wear kilts, I think I can safely say that this is a bad law. The attempt to stop the behavior that some senators dislike MUST be centered in Constitutionally correct mindset, or it is bad. This law is not Constitutional.

The First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The above law specifically abridges (infringes) upon the freedom of speech. Worse, it attempts to make a certain class of people illegal. It’s okay to not LIKE them. But they do have the right to exist.

Let’s not forget the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And of course the Fourteenth:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Everyone knows the Second. A lot know the First (or think they do). But these others seem to be forgotten, at times. In what way is this Tennessee law not abridging (infringing) upon the privileges of citizens? Is it not indeed depriving an entire class of people of life and liberty?

I don’t have to like men (or women, though the senators seem to have little or no problem with THAT) in drag. Whether I do or not doesn’t bear on this at all. It is the law itself that is unconstitutional, by its very nature. I get that a bunch of people really don’t like drag story time. By all means, don’t let your kids and grandkids go. Keep them home, and read to them yourselves! Frankly, if enough of us were reading to our kids at home, it probably wouldn’t have become an issue to begin with.

But don’t make up laws that pretend to protect children when that is not the result, intended or otherwise. That’s just not cool. It’s just as “not cool” as playing word games to restrict (infringe) upon the right to keep and bear arms.

I believe in keeping people I don’t like out in clear sight. Let’s take Nazis and people claiming to be such. I don’t want to ban them. Beyond being unconstitutional to do so, it also doesn’t actually achieve anything. It simply pushes them underground, where I can’t keep an eye on them. I want them to feel comfortable enough that they make mistakes that they CAN be prosecuted for, thank you very much.

Hagar

Having finished Soukaneh v. Andrzejewski: CT Is a Gun Probable Cause for a Search? I had a long think as to what the Second Amendment implications were. It doesn’t seem to directly relate to Second Amendment issues.

First we have a situation where a cops qualified immunity was stripped from him at the district court level. This is huge. It happens so seldom as to make the news almost every time it happens. Second it is a balancing question regarding “officer safety” v. our right to be left alone.

The controlling case law seems to be Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1 – Supreme Court 1968.

The gist of a “Terry Stop” is that upon reasonable suspicion(Note that this might not be the correct term, IANAL) an officer of the law can stop and briefly detain and frisk a person looking for weapons, “for officer safety”.

The courts, over time, have established pretty good case law in regards to Terry Stops. It is clear that the “frisk” can not be intrusive. For example, an officer can not remove your wallet from you and remove your ID from that wallet during a “frisk”. If the officer does detect a weapon during the frisk they can do other things for officer safety.

The question in this case was would a reasonably prudent man have been warranted in believing that the plaintiff (good guy) was armed and presented a threat to the officer’s safety. Id. quoting Terry

In my state and most reasonable states a person who is friendly and present a permit to carry is assumed to be on the “right side of the law.” The possession of the firearm is a normal thing. If there is no other interaction that should be enough to remove presented a threat to the officer’s safety Id. from the equation.

In this case the officer admits he went past the bounds of a Terry Stop. He argues that because he hadn’t verified the permit that he was justified in assuming that the firearm was illegally possessed in a car and that allowed him to continue his warrantless search.

Post Bruen we should be seeing more permits issued and more people legally carrying firearms. It then becomes a cultural issue of teaching the public and officers to not over react when they see a firearm. In places like NY, CT, NJ, and CT that is going to take a long time.

There is no doubt that to be a dedicated resident of a large, Left leaning, urban metropolis, a person must be mentally ill.

An individual in the San Francisco Bay area recounded the reality of some coworkers having their property stolen out of their vehicle.

“Laptop bags were in the trunk, nothing visible from the street”, a typical description of a smash & grab, yet thieves were able to find the specific car and knew to pull the rear seat down and reach into the trunk… how?

— Snehal Antani (@snehalantani) March 17, 2023

“And let me guess, it was the rear window facing the street, because thieves drive up to the car, open their door, then smash+grab. A witness must be directly behind the thieves RJ see anything, all other views are blocked”

— Snehal Antani (@snehalantani) March 17, 2023

And my teammates will be scarred forever, being robbed hits you at your core, especially when it’s thousands of dollars of loss. There is no downtown recovery without an aggressive push for safety @LondonBreed

— Snehal Antani (@snehalantani) March 17, 2023

This is factually accurate.

Car break-ins are an epidemic in San Francisco.

The police do nothing to stop them and the people who do it are not prosecuted.

The law is so ridiculous that a smashed window and broken glass on the ground is insufficient evidence that a car was broken into.  The owner of the vehicle has to testify in court that they locked the car.

This, like retail theft, has turned car break-ins into organized crime.

There are open air bazaars where stolen items are sold or they are sold on eBay and Amazon.

It’s big business.

It needs to be stopped.

How did one San Francisco lawyer and former San Francisco public defender respond to this?

Interesting. Would getting your car window broken and some stuff stolen leave you “scarred forever”?

Is this what the suburbs do to you? Shelter you from basic city life experiences so that when they happen you are broken to the core? https://t.co/OcHD4qJwtm

— John Hamasaki (@HamasakiLaw) March 19, 2023

Again, not to say it doesn’t suck. But maybe city life just isn’t for you. It’s not the suburbs. There is crime.

I’m grateful most of it is property crime instead of violent crime. But I’ve always felt safe in San Francisco, even after being on the wrong side of violent crime.

— John Hamasaki (@HamasakiLaw) March 19, 2023

He belittles the victims of crime as weak and overly sensitive while asserting that being the victim of crime is just the sort of normal thing that happens to city dwellers and that they just need to get over it.

Worrying about crime that costs people tens of thousands of dollars in single incidents is exactly why people fled to the suburbs.

The ones who stayed in the cities have to be mentally ill to think that is normal, let alone a sign on toughness and resolve.

I’m reminded of this scene:

This description of New York City as a prison applies to every metropolis.  These people are institutionalized to love the city that abuses them.

Clearly these places are too far gone to be saved.

I think we should just bring the prison to a close and wall the cities off so the inmates can’t escape to ruin everywhere else.

B.L.U.F. Weird 2A case analysis. The Plaintiff(good guy?) charges that the cops removed him from his car, detained him, did a warrantless search of his vehicle, stole some cash. The Defendant(the state) claims that the presence of a legally carried firearm was justification for the search. Currently in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals waiting judgement.

History

Around 2043 on 2018-11-12 Basel Soukaneh was pulled over to the side of the road with the motor running. He was looking up a GPS location of a property he was considering buying.

He was in a bad part of town where bad things happen so when Officer Andrzejewski noticed the car pulled over to the side with the engine running he performed a “traffic stop”.

When he started his investigation Mr. Soukaneh announced that he had a permit to carry and that he did have a firearm with him in the car. At this point Officer Andrzejewski removed Mr Soukaneh from the car, put him on the ground, handcuffed him and then locked him in the back of his squad car.

Officer Andrzejewski then proceeded to search the car, including the trunk of the car. At the end of the search he wrote a traffic citation for “parking in a driveway” and released Mr. Soukaneh.

The Arguments

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Often times the police are looking for evidence of a crime of significance. The bigger the crime the bigger the charges. This leads to an escalation process. The process of escalating a search warrant to cover what you are actually looking for.

Consider a search warrant to locate stolen property. The property you are looking for is a workbench taken from the local school.

Since the search warrant lists what the specifics are that the search are searching for it limits where they can search. The would not be allowed to look in your wife’s intimates drawer. There is no way a “desk” could fit in a drawer. They would be allowed to open closet doors to make sure the desk wasn’t in a large closet.

That doesn’t actually mean that it has to be logical. Our linen closet is not deep enough for a desk. If you look at the rooms around it and visualize the amount of space for that closet there is no way that it could hide a desk. But you could “hide a desk in a closet” so they warrant would allow the police to look in the closet. It would not allow them to look in containers in that closet.

Now say the police are executing a search for that desk and sitting on your coffee table in front of the sofa is a crack pipe that looks like it was used.

That cop now has new evidence in “plain view” of a potential crime. They still can’t go looking for the crack to go with that pipe. Or other drugs. They can only search where the warrant allows them.

At this point the cop contacts the Judge or magistrate and says “look, we were executing the search of this scums house looking for stolen property and we found drug paraphernalia along with a drug scale. We need a search warrant to extend to looking for drugs.”

The Judge or Magistrate issues the warrant and when that warrant is in hand the cops now can tear the house apart looking for “drugs”. They are no longer limited to searching place where a desk could be hidden, they are looking for places where drugs could be hidden.

If in the process of looking for drugs they find evidence of other illegal activities they can act on that evidence. So finding a “rape kit” could be used as evidence because during a search for drugs that kit, hidden in the back of a closet, under the floor, in a box could have held drugs. When it was opened to check for drugs the “rape kit” was in plain sight.

In the case listed the teacher was suspected of stealing from the local school. Some of the things he was suspected of stealing were tools belonging to the school. This could have meant things like table saws and milling machines but it could, and more likely was, small hand tools. For example a Fluke meter.

That would have given the cops the ability to check anywhere something the size of a Fluke multi-meter could be hidden. That would include anyplace large enough to hide a firearm.

Now that they are able to look in places that could hide firearms they find the dudes firearms. In New York state there are such things as “illegal guns” and “illegal magazines”. There doesn’t seem to be any laws requiring guns to be stored unloaded to the “loaded magazines” in the original article is not meaningful.

Regardless, if the cops found an AR-15 style weapon they would be allowed to determine if it was an “illegal gun” and the same with the magazines. Once a gun was determined to be “illegal” under NY law, the dude could be charged with violating gun regulations.

This case might end up in court and it might be that the defendant(dude in question) argues that the law making the guns and magazines “illegal” is unconstitutional and he might be able to get those charges dropped.

A number of lawyers tell you to not talk to the cops. You have to understand exactly how much you should say and then you need to know to shut up and keep your mouth shut. The cop is looking for you to give him the probable cause to do more.

Pulled from a number of advise articles: Why does a cop start his interaction with you at a traffic stop with “Do you know why I pulled you over?” If you tell answer him his job just got so much easier. If you reply with a polite “Why did you pull me over, Officer?” you haven’t admitted to anything.

It is very unlikely that you will escape a well-executed ambush.

Targeted murder in Miami Beach. The Spring Break shithole of Florida.

Disturbing ⚠️ Video shows shooting from this morning at 3am on Ocean Drive and 11th Street ? | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/RhCnaYQmYS

— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) March 19, 2023

I just showed the video the missus making the comment that in 25 years, we may have gone down there three times altogether, and she made the notation we went in and out never got out the car.

You can’t lose if you don’t go to stupid places and play stupid games with stupid people.