Month: September 2023

Friday Feedback

It has been an exciting week out on the West Coast. In California, they got a win in the magazine ban. There are some really crazy things happening at the Ninth Circuit, which I’ll cover tomorrow.

Up in Washington state, a different judge decided that she just didn’t know if magazines were arms protected by the Second Amendment and will have to wait until briefed on the merits.

The Rahimi case is at the Supreme Court. Final briefings by the defendant are due early next week. There are no “good guys” in this case. There is only the “state” and the defendant.

J.Kb. is on a pilgrimage to mecca. He’ll have to pass through enemy held territory before he reaches his destination. I think we are all hoping that he will bring back great stories of his time there.

Please let us know what’s on your mind. Ask questions. Suggest articles.

Inside the Darién Gap

Reader Merlin sent this video:

Besides the organizations shown helping the illegals, you know there are other economic interests, both political and criminal in our country, helping the insertion of the invasion.

Some people are stupid enough to believe they are able to control the flow of lava. They are in for a big surprise.

I do believe Texas and Florida should start dropping illegals in front of the White House and Congress.

Brumback v. Ferguson (E.D. Wash., 22-cv-03093)

The Judge Said What?
B.L.U.F.
A gag inducing opinion from a rogue court.
(2900 words)


Who is Dimke

Dimke graduated from Pepperdine University in 1999 before entering Vanderbilt University School of Law, where she graduated with a J.D. in 2002. From there she went to clerk for Alan B. Johnson, a Reagan appointee. Likely because he did his undergraduate work at Vanderbilt. From there, she moved on to clerk for Richard C. Tallman on the Ninth Circuit.

Tallman is a Bill Clinton appointee. His professional career starts in the government. He was a DoJ lawyer and then Assistant United States Attorney in Seattle. From there, he went into private practice, focusing on white-collar criminal defense.

According to Wikipedia, his notable opinion was:

Bull v. City and County of San Francisco, August 22, 2008. Tallman dissented on the issue of whether San Francisco jails could strip search those detained for minor, non-violent offenses, contending that they should be able to do so due to security needs: “When people are dying as a result of our errant jurisprudence, it is time to correct the course of our law.”

After clerking for Tallman, Dimke became a DoJ Trial Attorney, then an Assistant U.S. Attorney. From 2012 through 2016 she was the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington.

In 2021, Biden nominated her as a Judge for the Eastern District of Washington.

This is a person who has spent her entire career working for the government. As a government lawyer, she gets to choose what cases she prosecutes. If she doesn’t think she can win in court, she can plead the charges down or get some other “win” without having to go to trial.

Her job for all those years was to get wins for the state.

Steps To a Win

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I hope he gets acquitted

YouTube prankster says he had no idea he was scaring man who shot him

A YouTube prankster who was shot by one his targets told jurors Tuesday he had no inkling he had scared or angered the man who fired on him as the prank was recorded.

Tanner Cook, whose “Classified Goons” channel on YouTube has more than 55,000 subscribers, testified nonchalantly about the shooting at start of the trial for 31-year-old Alan Colie, who’s charged with aggravated malicious wounding and two firearms counts.

Jurors also saw video of the shooting, recorded by Cook’s associates. The two interacted for less than 30 seconds. Video shows Cook approaching Colie, a DoorDash driver, as he picked up an order. The 6-foot-5 (1.95-meter-tall) Cook looms over Colie while holding a cellphone about 6 inches (15 centimeters) from Colie’s face. The phone broadcasts the phrase “Hey dips—-, quit thinking about my twinkle” multiple times through a Google Translate app.

On the video, Colie says “stop” three different times and tries to back away from Cook, who continues to advance. Colie tries to knock the phone away from his face before pulling out a gun and shooting Cook in the lower left chest.

Cook, 21, testified Tuesday that he tries to confuse the targets of his pranks for the amusement of his online audience. He said he doesn’t seek to elicit fear or anger, but acknowledged his targets often react that way.

Asked why he didn’t stop the prank despite Colie’s repeated requests, Cook said he “almost did” but not because he sensed fear or anger from Colie. He said Colie simply wasn’t exhibiting the type of reaction Cook was looking for.

So a very large young man, harassed and intimidated another man, shoving something in his face using profanity.  Pursuing him and advancing on him after the smaller man told him to stop repeatedly.

Given that, I’d not vote to convict.

The prankster probably deserved that bullet.  I hope it hurt a lot.  Maybe he won’t do it again.

 

Bon Voyage

Tomorrow at very dark thirty in the morning, I will begin my pilgrimage to one of the holiest sites in Shootingdom to study under the High Priest of Blasting.

I bring with me two guns, ten mags, three days worth of redundant gear, and I have two thousand rounds waiting for me at my destination.

 

Like many a pilgrim on a holy journey, I will pass through strange and dangerous lands.

Next stop, Portland, Oregon.

 

The Games People Play, Duncan v. Bonta (9th Cir., 23-55805)

B.L.U.F.
On September 22nd, Judge Benitez entered his decisions, finding that California’s ban on magazines was unconstitutional. Later that afternoon, the state gave notice of its appeal to the Ninth Circuit. On October 2nd, the temporary stay issued by Judge Benitez will expire. If the Ninth Circuit does not issue a stay before then, California will have its second freedom week in four years.

If there is such a tight schedule, why did the state delay until Tuesday the 26th to file for an Emergency Stay?
(1800 words)


The state is arguing that they need the stay because having magazines “flood into the state” will cause death in the street and more mass shootings. Emotional blackmail.

What is their reason for an appeal?

The district court’s application of the standard announced in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), is deeply flawed, and the Attorney General is likely to succeed on the merits of his appeal. Since Bruen, ten other federal district courts have considered Second Amendment challenges to similar restrictions on large-capacity magazines. All but one of those courts has rejected the challenge (or found it unlikely to succeed), concluding that the text of the Second Amendment does not protect the plaintiff’s conduct, or that the challenged law is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, or both. See infra pp. 10-12. In reaching a different conclusion, the district court here distorted Bruen’s methodology, discounted or ignored relevant historical analogues, and relied on untenable and unsupported premises. At a minimum, this appeal raises serious and substantial legal questions justifying a stay pending appeal.
ECF No. 2, Virginia Duncan v. Rob Bonta, No. 23-55805, slip op. at 2–3 (9th Cir.)
I am going to go back to the 2017 case of Duncan v. Becerra because Judge Benitez got it right, but only by ignoring the rules. The Ninth Circuit had precedence saying that Second Amendment challenges were determined by means-end analysis. The Ninth claimed that was the correct reading of Heller. Judge Benitez was in an inferior court. The Ninth Circuit court was his boss. He disobeyed them in granting the injunction.

This is worth reviewing. His analysis was part of the basis of Bruen. He got it right, but when we get upset when the inferior courts fail to follow the Supreme Court’s clear rulings, we should see that this inferior court failed to follow the Ninth’s clear rulings.

Lower courts would rather not be first in any major decision. This is likely why the Fourth and Second Circuit haven’t released their opinions. They would prefer those first cases to come from some other circuit, so they don’t get slapped down.

When arguing a case, the parties want to be able to reach for the highest authority they can. Citing legislation, legislative history, doesn’t work very well. What works is when the party can point to a superior court’s ruling on the legislation.

Some kid says, “I don’t have to identify because the law says I only have to identify if I have been lawfully arrested. I’m not under arrest, I don’t have to ID.” This might be true. It doesn’t mean much. If that same kid points to a district court ruling that says the same thing, that might mean something, but only if that district court oversees this area.

If the circuit court overseeing the area has said the same thing, that holds still more weight.

Strangely enough, a Supreme Court ruling does not. That’s because the Supreme Court’s rulings have to be “interpreted” by the appeals court.
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