B.L.U.F.
This case is quoted in Heller as the Court’s understanding of the meaning of “The People”. In reading the opinion, it becomes crystal clear that the Supreme Court has been using text, history, and tradition for a long time.

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Introduction

There are numerous terms we use to describe the courts and judges of the United States. The first term is “inferior”. This is a technical term. The Constitution establishes the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as congress might authorize.

All courts are inferior to the Supreme Court.

Below the Supreme Court are the Circuit Courts and state Supreme Courts. Under the Circuit courts are the district courts.

The states also have hierarchies of courts.

Inferior courts are supposed to follow the guidance given to them by their superiors. When they do not, they are “rogue” courts or justices.

I use the term “agenda driven” to describe those courts, judges, and justices that are so driving by their agenda that they can twist the plain text to mean whatever they want it to mean.

Listening to some questions and comments from circuit judges, it is often easy to identify those agenda-driven judges. When a judge says, “It can’t mean shall not infringe because that would mean we can’t regulate guns!”. It is pretty clear that their agenda is more important than the law.

Text, history, and tradition

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A beautiful video with details of the artists, you’ll have to click through to YouTube to watch.

The short version, from TV as a child:

The long version

My lady has been off and on the book of face for the last 30 hours or so. She has been reporting on all the horrible, rotten things that have been happening to all of her friends and people of the town.

Did we notice that the electricity was out? Yes, we did.

What did it mean to us? Our movie night was interrupted.

That was it.

We were already running the wood stove, it kept right on running. We use heat powered fans to move the air off the wood stove. Those kept right on running.

I lit the oil lamp and there was plenty of light. She wanted more, so I lit the camp light, and she was able to continue to do her craft work.

We went to bed a little early.

The biggest issue? All the people who were stealing my bandwidth! Dirty thieves.

On a normal day, switching to a hot spot slows things down, but everything continues to function. When everybody is trying to hit the same cell tower to keep up with the book of face and Candy Crush, there is no bandwidth left for me to do actual work.

Last night we had steak, potatoes, onions, and mushrooms. No issues. This morning I had my normal Sunday meal, an omelette. The only difference was that I got home fries instead of toasted homemade bread.

Lunch was normal. Everything was normal except for streaming services being down.

Oh, that included hot showers for everybody. While we have an electric water heater, it isn’t required to take a hot shower. We have a rechargeable, battery-powered shower head. We boiled some water on the stove, added cold water from the taps into a 5 gal bucket. That gave us warm water and a “hot” shower.

Being without electric for a couple of days shouldn’t be an impossible thing.

Relax, read a book, do some hand crafts.

I hope everybody in the New England area is warm, safe and happy.

I laughed when I watched this because she started her video the same way I did, but better.

Liberty Doll, of you are reading our blog, thank you.

One of the things I keep reading, and I want to clarify:

No attribution because this, or versions of it, have been seen throughout the Internet.

Judge Coleman’s ruling does not apply to “illegal Immigrants”, “illegal aliens”, “green card holders”, “permanent residents”, or “citizens”. It ONLY applies to Mr. Carbajal-Flores.

But let’s compare this to the Rahimi case. Mr. Rahimi is a nasty, evil, no good, piece of shit. He is a bad guy.

His case is before the Supreme Court. They will be issuing an opinion on §922(g)(8).

The Fifth Circuit says that it does violate the Constitution, The state disagrees.

Do I want bad guys with violent tendencies running around with guns? No!

Will Rahimi get out of jail and be free to roam the streets with firearms if the Supreme Court rules in his favor?

No. He will not.

Mr. Rahimi is in jail for the things he did, outside possessing a firearm, while under a domestic-violence restraining order.

The federal count of §922(g)(8) was one of many counts brought against Mr. Rahimi. He is not getting out of jail anytime soon.

Mr. Carbajal-Flores is in the same situation. He is an illegal alien, in Chicago, doing bad things.

Mr. Carbajal-Flores entered the United States, illegally, in or before 2002. In June 2020, he was hanging around the front of a business when he claims he was handed a firearm by a 3rd party. The group of men loitering in front of the business claim to be an “impromptu neighborhood watch”.

He claims that he witnessed four vehicles drive past the business yelling threats and pointing guns at the “neighborhood watch”.

Then, at 2306, he pulled the gun and fired seven rounds at a car which he claimed had swerved to strike one of the members of the “watch”. At 2340, he pulled the gun again, fired repeatedly at a different vehicle, but the gun had malfunctioned and no rounds were actually fired.

Shortly after that, he was arrested by the police.

After arrest, he was found to be an illegal alien.

He was handed over to ICE. An indictment was issued via grand jury. The court issued a warrant for his arrest. He “self-surrendered”. Bail was set at $4,500 and he was released on house arrest. That was later modified to allow him to continue to go to work.

After Bruen issued, he filed a motion to dismiss on an as applied Second Amendment Challenge to §922(g)5.

When Judge Coleman issued her memorandum and order in December 2022, she faithfully followed —United States V. Mariano a. Meza-Rodriguez, 798 F.3d 664 (7th Cir. 2015) which is Seventh Circuit court case law extending Second Amendment protections to illegal aliens as part of The People.

The Seventh Circuit then said that under means-end, the state could deny Second Amendment protected rights to illegal aliens.

Judge Coleman just followed along.

In 2024, she reheard the request for dismissal. Using text, history, and tradition, found that the Second Amendment did protect the rights of illegal aliens to possess arms, AS APPLIED TO MR. CARBAJAL-FLORES

This case was never about whether he was a member of “The People”. It was always about means-end balancing.

Regardless, Mr. Carbajal-Flores violated multiple statutes. Having a gun was the easy one to prove. They have video evidence of him shooting at a car. They have video evidence of him trying to shoot a different car. Both of those are crimes.

He should be in jail for attempted murder. I don’t care if he thought the car was swerving to strike somebody, at the time he was shooting, the car was already leaving.

After he gets out of jail for attempted murder, his ass should be deported.

§922(g) is an evil statute. It should be removed.

If you are not moral enough to be carrying arms, you are not moral enough to be free of incarceration.

If you are locked up, you still have the right to keep and bear arms. You are being denied that right.

Once you are released, you still have the right to keep and bear arms.

If the state things that after being released you should still be denied your rights, then they should have kept you incarcerated.

Off the sandbox.

THANK YOU to everybody who joined in yesterday’s discussion.

Well, we made it through another week. Nothing destroyed the world, as we know it.

During WWI, WWII, through the end of the draft, in America, there was a core of people called “conscientious objectors”. These were people who were unwilling to kill for any reason.

This became “the thing” to do when you wanted to avoid the draft during Vietnam. Most so-called conscientious objectors were culled during the interview process. The question asked were of the sort: Would you use violence to defend yourself? What would you do if your wife/girlfriend was being raped?

If you answered any of the questions with some sort of violence, you lost your conscientious objector status.

I consider myself to be a constitutional absolutist. The constitution means what it was understood by its plain text at the time it was adopted, with the amendments meaning what the plain text meant when the amendment was ratified.

Text, history, and tradition is the correct method to interpret The Constitution.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This is the plain text of the Second Amendment.

I’ve always considered “The People” to include more than just citizens. The Bill of Rights does not mention citizens. It uses “the people”, “the accused”, “him”, “his”, “person”, “himself”, “owner”. These are terms that encompass more than just citizens.

So I am torn when I learn of a case where a bad person is found to be part of The People. I don’t want bad people to be a part of The People.

This leads to the following for me: It is possible for somebody to be a part of The People and have certain inalienable rights, and still be deported or incarcerated. When they are released, they should have access to their rights returned. If they are deported and return, they still have inalienable rights. We can incarcerate them or deport them again.

Add your thoughts in the comments.

In June 2020, Heriberto Carbajal-Flores was found in possession of a handgun in Little Village, a neighborhood of Chicago.

As an illegal alien, he was charged under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(5), possession of a firearm by an alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the United States.

In her December 2022 order, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman but it this way:

In her order, she talks about citizenship status and noncitizen. This is a strange way of putting it, but acceptable.

She then goes on to state the Heller methodology, as affirmed by Bruen correctly. Text, History, and Tradition.

The state argued that Carbajal-Flores was not part of The People because he was not a “law-abiding” resident of the United States. In turn, Carbajal-Flores argued that because the Seventh Circuit held that the Second Amendment protects an illegal alien’s right to keep and bear arms.

That rabbit hole leads to US v. Meza-Rodrigues. This is an opinion issued by a three judge merits panel for the Seventh Circuit court. That panel included the infamous judge Easterbrook and Judge Wood. They are infamous for finding that some firearms aren’t really arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment.

But as this case was about an illegal alien, or as Judge Wood put it whom we will call “unauthorized aliens”Missing citations for V5XRKILK, they had to twist differently than when it is actual law-abiding citizens.

Judge Wood expressed her grave concerns: The consequences of Meza-Rodriguez’s conviction are not theoretical; his right ever to reenter the United States hangs in the balance. Missing citations for V5XRKILK.

Yeah, you or me having our rights denied, no big deal, having an illegal alien have to stay in Mexico? That’s a gigantic deal.

Judge Flaum, concurred, saying:

I don’t understand why Carbajal-Flores would cite to the concurring opinion, it doesn’t feel as strong as what Judge Wood wrote. Regardless, in Meza-Rodriguez the Seventh Circuit found that illegal aliens are part of “The People”.

What did Heller actually say?

The Seventh Circuit got it right in Meza-Rodriguez when they found that he was a person[s] who [is] part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.Missing citations for LPGQXCDT. He was smuggled into the US by his parents when he was less than 5 years of age. He had been a part of the community for an extend period of time.

I do not know enough about him to know if he was a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. Regardless, he met the criteria.

On the other hand, Carbajal-Flores does not meet that criteria. He was a bad person, doing bad things, got caught doing it, was deported and should stay deported.

The state argued that he was not part of The People because he was not “law-abiding”. This is a losing argument. It should be a losing argument every time.

I don’t lose my Fifth Amendment protected rights because I did something considered “unlawful.” Nor do I lose my Fourth Amendment protected rights to be secure in my person and papers, just because the state says I am not “law-abiding”.

In 2022, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman found that Carbajal-Flores was not part of “The People” and thus was not protected under the plain text of the Second Amendment. Carbajal-Flores filed a motion for reconsideration. This time, Judge Coleman found that he was a member of The People and entitled to Second Amendment Protections.

Having found that the plain text was implicated, the state bore the burden of proof to prove that there were regulations from the founding era banning the possession of arms to “non-citizens”.

The state failed. Judge Coleman found The noncitizen possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores. Thus, the Court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismissMissing citations for PF898CI7

Of note, this is an “as applied” finding. It does not extend to any other illegal alien. It only applies to Carbajal-Flores. The order can be cited in other cases but is not binding on any other court, nor does it affect §922(g).

Whether Judge Coleman was playing games, she was just about locked into this finding. As an inferior court to the Seventh, she should be following their rules, no matter how bad.

Nothing in this case screams that it is a violation of Heller or Seventh Circuit case law.

As an absolutist regarding the Constitution, I have to say anything that chips away at §922 or the NFA is a positive outcome.

So it stands like this, to me:

18 U.S.C. §922 is unconstitutional. Being an illegal alien is grounds for deportation.