Month: June 2023

United States v. Rahimi Petition for writ of certiorari

Recap

Prior to the Bruen opinion, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of United States V. Rahimi.
On June 8, 2022, just a few weeks before the Bruen opinion, the Circuit court affirmed Mr. Rahimi’s convection.

A federal grand jury indicted Rahimi for possession of firearms in violation of sections 922(g)(8) and 924(a)(2).1 Later, Rahimi pleaded guilty. At sentencing, the presentence investigation report (“PSR”) detailed Rahimi’s lengthy criminal history. Relevant to this appeal are the state charges that were pending against him for offenses that occurred from December 2019 to November 2020. Three pending state charges resulted from Rahimi’s use of a firearm in the physical assault of his girlfriend in December 2019,2 and another state charge arose from an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon of a different woman in November 2020. Rahimi objected to the PSR, arguing that the pending charges described relevant conduct to the instant offense such that the sentence for the instant federal offense should be ordered to run concurrently to the state sentences. The district court overruled the objection, adopted the PSR, and ordered the federal sentence to run consecutively to the pending charges because they were not relevant conduct. Rahimi appeals, arguing that the district court clearly erred by concluding the pending charges were not relevant conduct.

1) Rahimi moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that section 922(g)(8) on its face violates the Second Amendment and the district court denied the motion. Rahimi appeals this decision but acknowledges that it is foreclosed by our finding precedent. United States v. McGinnis, 956 F.3d 747 (5th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 1397 (2021).
United States V. Rahimi, No. 21-11001, slip op. at 2 (5th Cir. Jun. 8, 2022)

Briefly, Rahimi was a bad dude, doing bad things. When he was arrested, he had a firearm. He had not been convicted of a crime. Along with all the state level charges brought against him, he was also charged as a prohibited person in possession of a firearm under §922(g)(8) and §924(a)(2).

The Circuit court had already ruled in 2020 on the exact question.

We again confront a Second Amendment challenge to a federal law prohibiting individuals subject to certain domestic violence protective orders from possessing firearms or ammunition for any purpose. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8). Appellant Eric McGinnis, convicted by a jury of violating § 922(g)(8), claims the statute is a facially unconstitutional restriction on his right to keep and bear arms. This court rejected a virtually identical challenge two decades ago in Judge Garwood’s landmark decision in United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001). Much has changed in Second Amendment jurisprudence since then, and so we consider whether § 922(g)(8) still passes muster under our contemporary framework. It does.

Separately, McGinnis argues his conviction should be vacated because his protective order does not track the requirements of § 922(g)(8). He also asserts the district court abused its discretion by imposing a written special condition of supervised release not orally pronounced at sentencing. We affirm the conviction but remand for the limited purpose of conforming McGinnis’s written judgment to the district court’s oral pronouncement.
US v. McGinnis, 956 F. 3d 747, 750 (Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit 2020)

Because of this earlier case, Rahimi’s case wasn’t a foregone conclusion.

And then there was Bruen

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Lock up your fucking guns, people

Ohio boy, 2, shoots his pregnant mother, 31, in the back with pistol he found in nightstand: Mom and baby both died after emergency C-section

A two-year-old boy shot his pregnant mother in the back with a pistol he found in her nightstand, killing her and her unborn child.

Police in Norwalk, Ohio rushed to the scene on June 16 after receiving a frantic call from the mother, Laura Ilg, 31, moments after she was shot in the back.

Her Marine husband Alek, 28, who was at work at the time, also called dispatchers, telling them he ‘received a phone call from his wife “screaming something about my son and needing to call 911″‘, cops said.

Ilg was rushed to nearby Fisher-Titus Medical Center, where surgeons performed an emergency cesarean section but they were unable to save the baby. Ilg was tragically declared dead around three hours later.

This is a fucking tragedy.

That’s what this is.

A boy lost his mom and will have to deal with the emotional fallout of that when he’s old enough to understand what he did.

A husband lost his wife and unborn child.

The gun was left unsecured in a drawer.

This could have been prevented with the purchase of a cheap lock box.

But now a family is destroyed.

I have two kids.

My nightstand gun is in a Liberty biometric safe for this exact reason.

All of my guns are behind steel if not on my body.

Lock up your guns.

 

Friday Feedback

There are times when entering the LGS is a danger to your wallet. This happened to me.

I need reloading supplies, LGS has them, Blue-Haired Faerie gave me a gift certificate to LGS.

As I was going to LGS, I was considering if I needed anything. I decided that what I wanted to start looking for was something in 7.62×51 NATO or 30-06. I have one rifle in each of those. Two is one, one is none.

When I walk in, there on the wall is an older rifle. Looks to be from around the early ’50s. And it is in “.308”. I.e. 7.62×51. It looks very nice.

Turns out it is a CETME Sporter. Now, these rifles are not original. They were built on American made receivers from parts kits brought in from overseas. Regardless, it looks nice. It looks like sort of like an H&K G3A3. The front hand guard is different. The selector switch is the same. The magazine release is different, the rear sight is different.

But it has the same charging handle, and it still has the famous MP5 slap to drop the bolt carrier and bolt.

There is something really fun about that “slap”.

It followed me home… Along with 125 8 mm Mauser shell casings, ready for boxer primers. Oh, and some 156gr 0.357 bullets.

I did a test firing. A few things.

It is freaking loud. With ear protection on, it still made my ears ring. It is a double ear pro sort of gun.

The rifle sights don’t work well for me. I need to put a little white spot on the front post. I just can’t pick up the dark post inside the dark ring across the dark 100yard notched rear sight. It all just blended. And still, it hit target with ever press of the trigger.

It is extremely loud.

It was a boat load of fun to shoot. The felt recoil wasn’t bad. I could double tap my target without too much problem.

It is louder than expected.

It THROWS brass. The brass landed “over there” about 30 ft from where I was standing. I’ll have to go back with the metal detector to recover all the brass. It also had a wide spread.


What firearm(s) did you spot in a gun store or show that followed you home. Even though you were not intending on buying?


The last couple of case articles felt a little bit unbalanced to me. More of their words and less of mine. Do you prefer the “mostly their words” or do you prefer more analysis by me?

Have a great weekend, all of you.

Tennessee: Gun Control keeps banging the Red Flag drum.

But gun control advocates hope a new push for reform in the wake of the Covenant School mass shooting this year will help to close what they say is a dangerous loophole in domestic violence cases that allows offenders to keep their guns.
Tennessee is one of several states that require accused domestic abusers to temporarily surrender their guns under a protective order. But while some states require the guns to be surrendered to law enforcement, Tennessee, along with other states like Texas and Florida, allow what is known as third party dispossession, meaning the
person can transfer ownership to a friend or family member. Advocates say that’s where the problems start.

Advocates hope new laws could help close gun loophole

Notice how the quote begins with a statement they contradict almost immediately: “Domestic abusers” do not get to keep their guns but must relinquish to a third party, but since it is not the police, for the “advocates” it is the same as if they never did it in the first place.

Now, before going any further, I want to make clear that any person who clearly physically abuses a partner or is a proven danger of future violence against wife/husband and kids, should not have access to firearms. But this has to be done properly which means we do not restrict civil rights by taking the “word” of a divorce lawyer or the next-door neighbor mad at the guy because the family dog pooped in his front yard and had words about it. I know of friends going through what was supposed to be friendly divorces, being hit by a false accusation of spousal abuse because the opposing shyster told the wife she would get more leverage and monies for the kiddies that way.

So, how do we balance civil rights with security? By eliminating the punishment imbalance within the Red Flag laws. And that is only accomplished if those involved pay dearly if they are rushing or bullshitting the courts. Make depriving gun ownership without a cause or by deception a Class D felony which comes with 2-12 years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. And that should cover anybody involved in the violation: Spouse, lawyers, “witnesses,” LEO’s and even sawbones for hire who lend their credentials to be used as legal abuse. Oh yes, for government types, the fines do not come out of the taxpayer’s pocket but their own and they can be paid at once, deducted from their salaries and/or deducted from their pensions.

As for safekeeping of the weapons by the police, once the judge orders the property to be returned, the local fuzz has 24 hours to return the items in the conditions they were taken or be subjected to penalties.  Any damage or loss of property is to be replaced, repaired or refunded at retail value within 30 days and the officers or personnel assigned to their safekeeping be penalized for failing to properly secure private property entrusted to them.

This is just some ideas a top of my head. Of course the Opposition will call it “poison pills” which would ruin their intentions which had nothing to do with keeping people alive and more to try and disarm us.

 

 

The OceanGate disaster: My not-so-nice thoughts.

Over in Facebook, some people in my timeline have taken slight offense about some of the memes I posted about this event. I can have a bit of a dark sense of humor and they should not be surprised about it. But the deaths of these people were a tragedy that could have been avoided and I believe J.Kb. may post something about it from the engineering standpoint, so I won’t go into it other than to say the designers tried to reinvent the wheel and came up with paper picnic plates. The info that has come out so far indicates that the submersible was built around the principles of social politics rather than the laws of physics.

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned and operated the submersible, said in a statement that all five people in the vessel, including CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, “have sadly been lost.”

The others on board were two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”

5 people on Titanic submersible killed after implosion, Coast Guard says (wpbf.com)

This is absolute PR bullshit, sorry. This was nothing more than a very expensive carnival ride that went catastrophically bad because the simple tenets of safety and preventive maintenance were not followed. And I bet the passengers were assured (and believed) that the sub was super-duper-safe even though they signed paperwork stating they knew they could die. Emotion for having a “cool” experience overrode due diligence and as the saying goes, you pay your monies, you take your chances.

And that is my opinion.

Carry on.

Yes, I am alive.

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I have been both uninspired and busy with some other stuff. Truthfully, sometimes you feel like you are repeating yourself because gun control bullshit cycles over and over and you get tired of hosing it down. And that some cyclical BS also comes from our side, makes you wonder if you have actually made any inroads at all.

And just to add something pretty, a pic taken by Oleg of me trying to rein in a dangerous redhead… (I know, it is repetitive).

Abby is a delightful and funny young lady with the ability to brighten a day just by being around.

OK, I will try to come up with some blogging material soon.