How does this case affect anybody else? It doesn’t. This is an as applied challenge to the 18 U.S.C. §930(a), possessing a firearm in a Federal Facility.

Mr. Emmanuel Ayala was a truck driver hauling mail for the U.S. Postal Service. He had a concealed carry permit from the state of Florida. It appears he was somebody that always carried.

On September 14, 2022, he was carrying as he walked from the employee parking lot and into the post office. Shortly after clocking in, two Post Office cops stopped him and attempted to detain him.

He took off. He was later arrested by the Tampa Police Department.

He was indicted for knowingly bringing a firearm into a Federal facility and for forcibly resisting arrest.

Unfortunately for Mr. Ayala, he is going to get screwed by the state in the end. Not for carrying a firearm, but for resisting arrest. When the cops say they are arresting you, just about any action that isn’t “yes sir, three bags full sir.” and full compliance can get a “resisting arrest” charge piled on.

In some jurisdictions, it is a defense that the arrest was unlawful. In other jurisdictions, Texas for example, it is not.

Once, Mr. Ayala made a motion to dismiss the charges based on a Second Amendment challenge, the court ordered the state to reply.

The state’s reply can be summarized as “The law is constitutional because the Supreme Court said that we can ban guns in government buildings! Besides, we did all the paperwork right!”.

The court was not satisfied with this response.

From our side, once the text of the Second Amendment is implicated in a gun ban case, we only need to look to the Heller methodology and the dicta which says you cannot ban an arm in common use, today.

In other words, we can say that Heller shortcuts the court’s command to do a historical analysis looking for analogous regulations. The Supreme Court says there are none.

The state is arguing, in this case, that they have that shortcut in banning guns in government buildings. The difference is that Heller, McDonald, and Bruen all had as their holdings that gun bans are unconstitutional and that the people have the right to bear arms.

The dicta said how they reached that conclusion and how the inferior courts should do so in the future. A passing reference to not striking down other laws does not mean that those other laws are constitutional.

The Judge had this to say about the state’s first response to the motion to dismiss: … the United States’ response to Ayala’s Second Amendment challenge was “unhelpful in this task.” App. B at 3. That two-paragraph response lacked any “searching analysis into the historical record to determine whether § 930 as applied to Ayala” complies with the Second Amendment.—Order, United States v. Ayala, 8:22-cr-00369, (M.D. Fla.), No. 22-cr-00369 (M.D. Fla.)

The state constantly attempts to bring experts into the equation. The judge was having none of that:

She is correct. There are no facts in dispute. He carried the gun into a post office. He says that it is constitutional protected. The plain text of the Second Amendment covers his conduct. The state must present a history and tradition of regulations to support the modern infringement.

The state has failed to provide that history. The experts in questions of law are the lawyers and the judge. “Experts” are not allowed to give legal opinions in court, that is reserved for the lawyers and the judge. The lawyers present the regulations and case law, the judge determines the outcome.

The judge says there are no distinctly similar historical regulations addressing regulating firearms in post offices. Even if the lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation was not dispositive, the United States has offered no relevant historical analogues—id.

She goes on:

In other words, I must determine “whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense and whether that burden is comparably justified.” —id. quoting Bruen

Much of the rest of the judge’s order is her doing the work of the state. She repeatedly states that the United States did not show a history nor a tradition of banning firearms in post offices, or government buildings in general.

She is doing this to provide backing for other Second Amendment challenges.

Her words strongly imply that she expects this case to be appealed.

I’m not sure that it will be. The defendant (good guy) got his win. But that win is an “as applies”, which limits it to just him. This is a district court ruling. This limits this to just the Middle District of Florida.

If the state were to appeal this case, it would go to the Eleventh Circuit court, which is highly likely to rule for The People.

If the Circuit Court rules in favor of The People, then that affects everybody in the Eleventh Circuit. The Eleventh Circuit could easily extend this from an “as applied” to a “facial challenge”. If they do make it a facial challenge, then 18 U.S.C. §930 could be found unconstitutional.

No matter how you slice it, this is a great win for The People.

TWO OF THE REASONS I WON’T BE AT THE SHOT SHOW THIS YEAR | (backwoodshome.com)

Hotels are being openly hostile to Gun People and for some reason (contract?) NSSF still insists on doing business with them.

I believe you can have 2 SHOT shows a year (Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, etc) and make it productive for the companies. Hell, they can actually sell tickets and people would buy them.

Or they can simply go very big and share the same locations with the NRA Annual Meeting: One weekend NSSF and then open up for NRA members and visitors.

And I have the feeling Las Vegas will become a San Francisco within a decade as online gambling is now a thing.  Might as well leave now.

Waking up to this. About 2 inches and expected 3 more later today. I checked the road and there is a pretty later of frigging ice under the snow.

Work already cancelled us for the day. And I believe tomorrow won’t be any better.

In other news, I believe J Kb, Hagar and AWA are recreating the Ice Age in their respective zip codes.

Everybody stay safe! And that include my Floridians… you warm bastards!

The state can request a warrant upon presenting, to an authorized judicial authority, the proper reasons for a warrant to issue. Once a warrant has been issued, the state can then search in the named locations for the named items, and seize those items.

For example, the state can claim that Bobby-Joe is operating a house of ill repute. They go to the judge and tell the judge, in writing, what evidence they have that Bobby-Joe is operating a house of ill repute. They tell the judge where they want to search, and what they are looking for.

Judge, we believe that Bobby-Joe is operating a house of ill repute because 3 to 5 women go to the house every evening and don’t leave until 0330, see provided photographs. That she is living beyond her documented means, see the two new homes she’s purchased with cash, the fancy cars, and the expensive jewelry.

We want to search the premises to locate her contacts and her books. We believe that these might be electronic. We wish to seize all electronic devices, any business related communications, any and all calendars, and any payment agreements.

The judge signs his X on the dotted line, then goes back to “snuggling” with one of Bobby-Joe’s employees.

The raid happens. During the search, the state finds drugs, firearms, and cash. They seize all the computers, phones, and digital storage devices and all the documents they can find. They seize the drugs and guns and cash.

It is all legal because the Judge signed the warrant.

This only works in a criminal investigation. In a civil investigation, the state is not involved in an authoritative stance. By this, I mean that the state can’t just get warrants issued because there are no crimes being alleged in the civil suit.

I am NOT a lawyer. I’m sure there are exceptions to this. But in general, when the state is a defendant in a civil case, they can just get a warrant to search for information they believe the plaintiffs hold.

Instead, the parties engage in discovery. In my opinion, discovery in Second Amendment Challenges is a waste of time, money, and resources.

If the argument is about the law, then there is no need for experts. The only experts in the courtroom are the lawyers and the judge. The lawyers present their arguments on why the judge should rule in their favor, the judge evaluates the arguments and then issues his judgement regarding the argument.

If the case is an as applied, then evidence might need to be presented.

Let’s consider the situation where a few individuals challenge a law for Second Amendment reasons. The FPC joins the suit as an organizational entity.

The FPC has to prove that the individuals are members of the FPC when the FPC joins the case.

It does not matter if they are life members, if they were gifted the membership, if they joined 20 years ago, 5 years ago, or 5 hours ago. The only thing that matters is that they are members.

The state can subpoena the plaintiffs for information that proves or disproves the membership. If that information has already been presented by the plaintiffs, then they can not.

The problem sometimes arises that the parties want formal proof. That might be a statement taken under oath or a notarized copy of the document proving membership.

When the court grants discovery, this means that the parties can start asking questions of the other party and of third-parties that can reveal evidence.

Which takes us to the real issue with discovery, it can be abused. Occasionally, a case exists purely to be able to do discovery. The plaintiffs don’t think they will win, but they want to be able to have a look behind the veil. The discovery process can be very intrusive.

There have been several cases where information gathered during discovery has “leaked”.

If I were to be subpoenaed regarding an article I had written, they would likely ask for all of my sources. For the most part, that is not an issue. I have the citations. But what if they asked me to produce all my communications with other pro-2A bloggers?

That gets a bit more difficult and it becomes intrusive. They might be claiming that I was coordinating with other bloggers. It certainly looks like that sometimes.

I don’t know how many times I’ve written an article and then the next day watched videos from people I respect covering the same subject and answering the questions I posed in my article. Did they read my article and let their muse loose? Did I read the same primary sources that they did?

There have been many instances where I watched the first part of a video to get the identification of a case, then did my research with the primary sources, wrote my article, then finished watching their video.

Back to subpoenas.

A subpoena may:

That is very broad. They may also command somebody to attend a deposition.

Once a subpoena has been created, it must be served. Any person who is at least 18 years old and not a party may serve a subpoena. Serving a subpoena requires delivering a copy to the named person —id.. A subpoena cannot be served directly be either party. It must be a third person.

You might know that a subpoena has been issued against you, you do not have to make yourself available to be officially served. Just because they claim you were served, this is not enough.

When a process server serves a subpoena, they will certify that they have done so. When you send a letter by certified mail, requiring a signature, that might not be proof.

I have signed for certified mail for myself, for my wife, for my business, and for companies I was working for. If I signed for it, that does not mean it got to any third party.

The same is true for FedEx and UPS. Even if it says, “signature required”, that does not mean that it was actually delivered to the named person.

Why? Because it isn’t certified.

The person subpoenaed can object. There is a tight window for this of 14 days, or the time set forth in the subpoena. This means that the person would have to get a lawyer, explain to the lawyer why they don’t want to produce the commanded documents or things, and have it all filed in that time window.

One of the big things in the process is the order must protect a person who is neither a party nor a party’s officer from significant expense resulting from compliance.—id. Who gets to determine “significant expense?” If it takes me 30 hours to comply, that’s 30 hours of lost earnings. Is that enough to trigger “significant expense”?

The court may quash or modify a subpoena.

Formatting cleaned.

This is where the subpoena of Professor English is so hinky, why do they need all that information from him? Much of what is requested appears to me to be protected materials. It is not privileged, as that refers to attorney-client privilege.

Since I don’t see any filings from Professor English, the court can’t quash the subpoena for “may quash” reasons.

JUST IN: Pro-Palestine protester gets pummeled by Texans after disrupting Texas governor Greg Abbott’s speech.

Gotta love Texas.

The incident happened at a campaign event in Collin County.

The incident happened on the same day as pro-Palestine protesters tried breaching the… pic.twitter.com/QBsHADHgAd

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 14, 2024

I will confess there is a bit of schadenfreude.

Time to wake up.

Oakland County Sheriff’s detectives are seeking a first-degree murder charge against a Pontiac man following the death of a homeless man he allegedly beat to unconsciousness.

Rashaan Denee Redmond, 37, is currently held without bond in the Oakland County Jail, charged with assault with intent to murder for the Aug. 21 assault on Blake Louis Sanders, 36. The enhanced charge is being sought after Sanders died Wednesday morning while in hospice care at a relative’s home.

It’s believed he never regained consciousness after the beating, the sheriff’s office said.
…
According to the sheriff’s office, surveillance video from the gas station shows Sanders was sitting in front of the building when a man, later identified as Redmond, pulled up in a gold/beige GMC Suburban with no license plate. Redmond offered the victim a dollar to put air in his tire and, as Sanders is hunched over by the right front tire, Redmond became agitated and sucker punched him in the head, knocking him to the ground. The brutal attack then continued for another minute or so.

As stated in an earlier news release, “Redmond kicked and stomped (Sanders) in the head and face a dozen times before walking away. He then can be seen in the video returning, slapping the unconscious man before spitting on him and tossing his belongings in the air. Redmond soon drives away from the station, leaving the man lying limp on the ground.”

Victim of savage beating at gas station dies, murder charge sought – The Oakland Press

Our biggest failure of training in a defensive mindset is to accept that this level of violence is common out there. Our civilized minds have a tough time understanding that for some, this behavior is acceptable and can and will be used upon us.

And we must understand that our immediate response to this violence must be deadly force.

The “moral superiority” of non-violence and “peaceful conflict resolution” flatlined alongside the victim.