The short version: A three judge panel of the Third Circuit court found that 18, 19, and 20 year olds are part of the people.

One judge doesn’t think so.

Circuit Judge Restrepo does not believe that infringing on the right of adults to keep and bear arms is unconstitutional.

His argument focuses on the phrase “The People”. However, there is no dispute that there is some age threshold before which the protection of the Second Amendment does not apply. I’m not sure if this is true.

I’m not double-checking his citations. That could be an error on my part.

The public in 1791 did not understand those under 21 to be part of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment.

This is a strong statement, his argument:

The Majority said, The words “the people” in the Second Amendment presumptively encompass all adult Americans, including 18-to-20-year-olds,….

From this, it follows that there are some people who are not adults and thus are not part of The People. Since those that were under the age of 21 were considered minors from before the founding and through Reconstruction were considered minors, they were not adults and thus not part of The People.

Restrepo: there is evidence that the Founding-era public would not have understood the text of the Second Amendment to extend its protection to those under 21.

At the time of the founding, a person under the age of 21 was considered an infant under the law, and a minor in common speech. Multiple citations to legal definitions from the Founding.

Ok, it took a bit to get here, but the Majority does provide the clues to get there.

Under Heller, as affirmed in Bruen, we first consider if the proposed conduct implicates the plain text of the Second Amendment. If it does, then the government carries the burden of providing a history and tradition of regulations matching the current infringement.

Those two steps, “plain text” and “historical analysis” are very distinct.

Under the plain text of the Second Amendment, every American’s right to keep and bear arms is protected. Be that a felon, a law-abiding citizen, a drunkard, or a newborn infant. That is the plain text.

Since the plaintiffs (good guys), are a member of The People, and their proposed conduct implicates the Second Amendment, they have satisfied the first step in Heller.

The dissent argues that are not part of the people. Since they are not part of the people, the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to them. Since the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to them, there is no need for the government to prove a history or tradition.

This is moronic circular reasoning.

The plain text is implicated. The government now has the burden to prove, by us of regulations from the founding era, that there is a history and tradition of denying those under 21 the right to keep and bear arms.

The reasons our founding fathers use might be that those under 21 are not part of the people. Or it could be some other reason, but the state still bears the burden of providing those historical regulations.

Judge Restrepo’s argument reminds me of the “you ain’t the militia, the Second only applies to the militia” reasoning of the late twentieth century through 2008 courts.

It is difficult not to get caught in that sort of reasoning. The founding fathers might have considered those under 21 to be minors or infants. But that doesn’t matter. It only matters if there are regulations denying them rights.

In addition, we have amendments after the founding that changed that definition. Regardless of what the founding fathers considered a minor, we modified our constitution to make 18 year-olds adults in the eyes of the law. To deny that truism is to say that only white, landed, men are protected under the Constitution.

I hope you enjoy this short one.

From the NY Post:

Pickle juice and cooking spray: Which snow and ice hacks actually work — and which ones don’t

Don’t freeze up when it comes to snow removal this winter.

Fortunately, experts have recently sounded off on the tips and tricks that will make deicing and shoveling a little less burdensome when the temperatures dip below freezing.

Here’s which hacks to try and which to avoid this winter when frozen precipitation piles up.

Juice it up

Believe it or not, one way to quickly de-ice objects like a windshield is the application of pickle juice.

Pickle juice is a salt brine. That alone will melt ice. But it also contains sugar, lactic acid, and acetic acid, which will rust your car, destroy your paint, and leave a sticky mess.

Not a pickle fan? Try rubbing alcohol
Numerous news outlets suggest mixing hot or boiling water, dish soap and rubbing alcohol to clear icy steps and sidewalks, with the alcohol being the magic portion of the elixir since it has a lower freezing point than water.

Be warned, though: While some hack testers claim their treated surfaces did not refreeze, others did not have the same luck.

The rubbing alcohol is the only part of that recipe that keeps the ice from forming.

First aid grade alcohol is expensive.

Why not do what normal people do and make sure you have a bag of deicing salt and a bottle of windshield defroster spray on hand?

Total cost, maybe $10.

And that stuff is engineered to do the job properly without destroying your paint.

But apparently being prepared in advance for winter weather, instead of trying to hack it with what you have in your kitchen, is an alien concept to New Yorkers.

I thank God I’m a Florida boy.

I was raised on hurricanes.

Being prepared for extreme weather is just a way of life for me.

Just adding to my list of reasons New Yorkers suck.

This is a lawyer.

Forget the Second Amendment and anything else: He is plainly stating that there is no right to possess an item. Anything you may “own” is only by the grace of almighty Government to give you that privilege and that can be removed at any time.

And that is why we have a Second Amendment.

NYC (Fulton stop) – “Every Zionist Shot” and “Every Cop Shot”.

We have no words @NYCMayor @NYPDTips @NYPDHateCrimes @MTA pic.twitter.com/5MNFwMvh9M

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) January 16, 2024

“Every Zionist shot.”

Some piece of shit said the quiet part out loud. He forgot they are only supposed to call for the genocide of the Jews in semi-coded ways that gives them plausible deniability with the media.

This is what they want.

I will never give up my guns.

I will remain armed and vigilant.

If they want to choose violence, I will make sure I am better at it than they are.

Thank you for the replies to “The Argument”. The person I was speaking with was listening. He wasn’t anti-gun, nor was he regurgitating anti-gun talking points.

This is different from some of the people who stuck their oar in. The people who said things like, “We need to ban assault weapons, those large bullets are too dangerous.” or something like that. Another was, “There is no reason for large capacity magazines.” Those people aren’t listening nor are they open to learning. They might be, but that is a different discussion.

I don’t do the car ban thing. The response argument is always, “But we NEED cars. You don’t need a gun.”

My wife loves me dearly. She reads my articles. Her eyes glaze over when I quote too much from a case document. Trying to explain to somebody without the papers in hand how the Second, Seventh, and Ninth twist words is futile, in my opinion.

My “Why are you advocating for breaking the law?” is my attempt to address this.

The “slippery slope” argument is difficult to make. In my opinion, the better way of addressing it is to ask, “What is your exit plan if your proposal doesn’t work as you think it will?”

I have had luck in changing people’s feelings. I handed a NYC boy a magazine with more than the allowed number of bullets. He took it, I grabbed it back. “You can’t have that! Your state says that having that will turn you into a mass murder.” I took one round out, handed it back. “Ok, now we are safe.”

The absurdity of that was enough for him to open his mind and actually think.

Sometimes facts are not about accepting or disregarding, sometimes it is about interpretation. The problem with that is exactly the same as with “We’ve never tried real Communism with me in charge. If I’m in charge, it will be a utopia on earth.”

We have had an excellent opinion out of the Third Circuit court. You can go listen to Mark Smith talk about it, or I’ll give you a write-up tomorrow.

I’m eagerly awaiting this week’s comments. Please comment.

Dancing with the tacticool stars?

We are living in a great era for training. Unfortunately, we are also plagued with tactical gimmick BS.

Besides the usual and highly organized election cheating schemes being prepared, there is the self-destruction pattern we are seeing.

I have already stated that I was not planning to vote for Trump. Very early on, I felt that he was directing more (and unnecessarily) attacks to DeSantis than to any Democrat including Biden. If you do not live in Florida, you may be swayed to think by what the MAGA train said that DeSantis is some sort of camouflaged RINO, but I believe Trump felt out staged by how well DeSantis did during COVID and how he had the guts to stand and do the right thing rather than follow what D.C. was telling him to do. Trump hates being out-staged and outsmarted.

But what I am seeing now is that the MAGA Inner Party, or at least they official war dogs are in full fledge attack mode against anybody who did not support Trump from the get-go or has any criticism of him, valid or not. They are basically imposing some sort of purity test for Republicans and those who fail shall be branded Enemies of MAGA and treated accordingly.  Just peruse Laura Loomer’s X/Twitter account and the bile she is spewing. Her friends and acolytes may even be worse.

They are not interested in getting everybody under one political tent, but rather to build a moat for the selected ones. And this is making people rethink their choices when it comes to pressing the lever come November. Will they vote for Biden or whatever last-minute candidate the Dems select? No, but I already know some who simply will not give their vote to Trump either or anybody else. And they do not have to be millions of people overall, but enough thousands in particular locations to ensure losing an electoral vote.

And I believe that is happening.

Fucking great day when you realize you are hated by the Left in general and also by some of those who are supposed to be on your side of the Constitution.

But if nobody hates you, then you are not doing your duty.