In the case now known as “Antonyuk III” we have a number of New York residents that have challenged the New York State Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA). They are joined by a number of second amendment advocate groups, Gun Owners of America (GOA) and, IIRC, the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC).

The groups are providing the backing needed to actually carry out the lawsuit in terms of funding and lawyers. The residents are the people that are actually suing.

Ivan Antonyuk first filed suit shortly after the CCIA was signed into law. He and is fellow plaintiffs (good guys) filed their case in the Northern District of NYS where the case was assigned to Judge Suddaby. Judge Suddaby looked at the case and decided that the plaintiffs did not have standing.

From the Respondents (Defendants, bad guys) response to the Supreme Court:

But despite the absence of a live controversy, the court proceeded to render an advisory opinion describing what “would constitute the Court’s holding” on the merits if the plaintiffs were “found to, in fact, possess standing.”2 Id. at *25; see id. at *26-37. Specifically, the court stated that the CCIA was “an unconstitutional statute,” and indicated that it would have enjoined the enforcement of nearly every challenged provision of the law—including most of the licensing requirements, each of the codified sensitive locations (including schools and government buildings), and the restricted-location provision in its entirety. Id. at *26

New York state is attempting to say that they didn’t get a fair shake with Judge Suddaby because he told the plaintiffs that they would have won on the merits if they had proper standing.

The plaintiffs regrouped, add some more people and filed again. Judge Suddaby took the case back. The state argued that he should not have gotten the case back because it was a new case. Judge Suddaby told the state to suck eggs, it was the same case but with different plaintiffs who did have standing.

Having established standing, Judge Suddaby started spanking New York state. Every time he spanked them, they ran to the second circuit court to get his injunctions stayed.

In the last go round the second circuit court granted a stay pending appeal. According to the state the appeal will be heard soon but there is no promise of that and the state and circuit court can drag this out for months if not years.

The circuit court’s stated reasoning for the stay was only a few words. A sentence or two.

Having run into the stall tactics, GOA did an end run and went to the Supreme Court and asked them for an “EMERGENCY APPLICATION FOR IMMEDIATE ADMINISTRATIVE RELIEF AND TO VACATE STAY OF PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION ISSUED BY THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT”

This was filed on December 21st, 2022. Justice Sotomayor ordered “Response to application (22A557) requested by Justice Sotomayor, due by 4 p.m. (EST), Tuesday, January 3, 2023.” This was on December 27th. This is only three days after the request for emergency relief was filed, including Christmas. Very very fast.

On January 3rd the response was filed by New York state. It runs to 43 pages. It was posted to the website after 1600.

Summary of Response

New York state is very few arguments. The first is that Judge Suddaby stepped outside of the question presented and made rulings on parts of the CCIA that were not being challenged.

The second was that Judge Suddaby granted standing when he should not. One of the plaintiffs said that he had standing because he wanted to apply for a CCW but was unwilling to supply all the invasive social information the CCIA demands. Things like social media accounts, people that live with him, multiple non family references and so forth.

Because he was unwilling to give up this information, per the CCIA, he would be denied a CCW. The state argues that because he didn’t actually apply for a CCW he doesn’t have standing. Never mind that the CCIA training requirements are so out of whack with reality that nobody is getting CCWs at this time and non are expected to be granted until sometime later this year (2023).

They claim that other parts of the CCIA can’t be challenged because of lack of standing because these CCW holders haven’t actually violated the CCIA by entering the CCIA defined gun free zones.

There is somewhere case law that says that you don’t actually have to be arrested to challenge a law. The state has turned this upside down and said the plaintiffs must break the law before they have standing. I also believe that the states says that the state must take notice of the plaintiffs breaking the law before it counts.

The state argues that the time is not ripe for the Supreme Court to take up any 2A case. They say the Supreme Court has to let the cases “percolate” so that there is a history and fact finding prior to taking up a case.

The state actually spends a fair bit of e-ink telling the court that the court won’t take up the case.

Finally, for this summary, the state argues that since the state has had a requirement for good moral character since 1913 and Bruen didn’t say anything about “good moral character” that anything the state does to determine the moral character of an applicant is allowable.

SCOTUS Docket: No. 22A557
Application for Emergency Relief
New York State’s Response

Elon Musk bans a couple of assholes from Twitter, and it is the end of Journalism as we know it according to the new journalistic breed.

Back in the day….

And I am willing to be that the new breed, same as the old breed, would have supported the psychopaths of Shining Path who made peasants mad enough to bring machetes to a greeting party.

BRASÍLIA—In his first hours as Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued sweeping changes to tighten the country’s firearms laws and reverse looser rules imposed by his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, that prompted a million new gun registrations since 2019.

A presidential decree, which took effect Monday, suspends new registrations of guns for hunting and sport as the leftist government works to rewrite the country’s 20-year-old gun laws. The decree forbids owners from transporting loaded weapons, suspends new applications for gun clubs and reduces the number of firearms permitted per individual from six to three.
“Brazil does not want more guns: we want peace and security for our people,” said Mr. da Silva, 77, shortly after being sworn in as head of Latin America’s biggest nation, two decades after he first took office in 2003.

Brazil’s New President Reverses His Predecessor’s Loosened Gun Laws – WSJ

And DaSilva is smart doing this. Part of his success was the support he promised to give to the common criminal element who does not want to be shot by civilians for their efforts. And, of course, having a seriously contested election and the dislike of a huge swath of the population, makes keeping them unarmed a priority.

I would not be surprised if confiscation is in the works. So far this looks like a duplicate of what Chavez did when he got elected and we all know what kind of Socialist happy ending that brought about.

Hat Tip Paul K.

An investigation revealed the gun Konkol used to fire at officers was stolen nearly an hour prior to the incident. Seebock said Konkol pulled up to a motorcyclist, who was stopped at a light, and pulled the gun from the rider’s hip holster. Konkol then hit the rider’s motorcycle with his vehicle before driving off. Seebock said the motorcycle rider was not injured.

Man killed by police after firing stolen gun at Las Vegas officers (8newsnow.com)

This is just another variation of carrying a $1,000 gun in a $25 nylon holster. If you going to Open Carry, make sure you have a decent retention holster. Are they cheap? No, but beats the cluster flock you saw in the video.

First of all, there is Law. The Law is passed by the legislature, and it directs some government agency to do something. Which leads to…
Regulations. Regulations are what the tasked agency writes to tell the public exactly how they will do something. Which leads to Policy/Procedure which is how the worker bee in that agency performs their tasks.
.
But, the thing that really counts is Case Law. (IANAL warning in full effect here.) Because laws/regulations/policies are written by humans, there will always be some ambiguous parts. Which generally leads to lawsuits.
When the Judge rules in the case, it can forever alter the way the law is implemented. A judge might write an opinion that includes a legal definition of a term of art that was not part of the Law or Regulation. Or, they may declare the law does not mean _______ as the Agency interpreted it, but instead means ________. Could be anything.
.
The lesson here is reading the law is one thing, reading the regulations is another, but the thing that really makes a difference is the rulings on suits brought against the law. That tends to be the final word.
— CBMTTek

US law is based on the Constitution, everything flows from it, or should. Any law, regulation, or procedure should be consistent with the Constitution.

In the best of worlds before a bill was even presented to the legislature it would be vetted by people that actually care about the constitution(s) of the US and the State. Unfortunately this is not the case. Or if it is done it is such a poort analysis as to make no nevermind.

“We read the Constitution and our bill is Constitutional” does not mean that it is Constitutional. Just that the legislator wants it to be.

The next stop for checking if a bill is Constitutional is when the bill moves to the next chamber of the legislature. Again we have the issue of the situation where the people that want the bill to pass will just claim it is Constitutional.

Finally, the President or the Governor should check it for Constitutionality. This very seldom happens.

So now Bill has become a law. It is up to the executive branch to enact that law. AS CBMTTek says, that requires interpretation. If a word or phrase is not defined by the Law, it must be defined by regulation.

Even if the word is well defined, “of the People”, the regulators might decide to twist the words. So we end up with “of the Militia/State” where the clear meaning is “People”.

The regulators are not responsible for deciding if a law or regulation is constitutional, they are only responsible for making sure that the regulation is supported by law. Or that they can twist the words to match what is supported by law.

Thus we end up with everybody knowing what a frame or receiver is. But the ATF gets to say that something that is not a receiver becomes one if you drill a hole in it, or make a dimple in the right place. An object becomes a firearm, underlaw, when it is a frame or receiver, not when it is one hole away.

Consider an AR-15 receiver v. an M16/4 receiver. That AR-15 receiver is not a machine gun. It only becomes a machine gun after that hole is drilled. Only when it is capable of receiving all of the fire control group that complete it as a machine gun.

If that AR-15 doesn’t have the space to hold an auto-sear, even if the fourth hole is drilled, it still isn’t a machine gun, even if the ATF says it is.

Once the regulations are written, somebody has to write the procedures used to follow the regulations. The law says that the FFL has to maintain a record of all firearms sold. The GCA of 1968 doesn’t say anything about having to keep a record of all firearms received. It is the regulations that describe what information has to be kept, how it has to be kept, and how the ATF (regulatory agency) gets to verify that information.

There is no Constitutional authority for the ATF to inspect an FFLs books. That would require probable cause. What has happened is that the state has made it a condition on holding an FFL to give up your fourth amendment rights. Sort of like there is no federal authority to set speed limits. It is just that the federal government will withhold funding if the state doesn’t set the speed limits the federal government wants.

When a government agent goes to do something, they are suppose to follow the procedures laid out for them by their superior. This tells them how to discover issues that can lead to enforcement actions. When the ATF agent shows up at the FFL and asks to see their records, they are suppose to follow a procedure.

Once they start the examination, they are suppose to be following the procedures and guidelines that were given to them. When we see multiple ATF agents using digital cameras to capture information from 4473s, that strongly suggests that it is a procedure they were told to follow.

As an example of procedures being followed, consider a YouTube video of CPS “visiting” a household. CPS had been told to leave the property when they first showed up. So they got the local police involved. The police arrived and found a gate across the drive and the property was properly posted “No Trespassing”.

CPS got out of their car and the cops got out of theirs. They started walking up the drive. When they got to the gate CPS went over and the cops stopped.

The procedures that the cops were following said that they needed probable cause to enter the property. Having some government agent tell them to intimidate the household wasn’t. CPS on the other hand had a procedure which was to force their way into the house via verbal and then intimidation and threats.

These laws, regulations, and procedures lead to conflict between individuals and the government. Individuals in a legal sense so it includes corporations and other such legal entities.

When there is conflict the issue goes before a court. If there are facts to be determined (Did Bob put his hands on Jill?) then either a jury or a judge will make those determination. So a jury might be asked to decide if the accused willfully did something or was it an accident (was she pushed or did she fall?)

Part of the trial/argument stage is to decide what facts are allowed into the case.

Another part of the legal process is when the actual law is challenged. The city says that you are not permitted have a gathering in the city park of more than 25 people without city permission. You stood up on a rock in the city park and started giving a speech. Suddenly there were a few hundred people there listening. The cops arrest you for having a gathering of more than 25 people without permission.

In court the facts are clear. There was a gathering of more than 25 people. It is to be determined if you are legally responsible for causing that gathering. If you are, then you will be found guilty and a punishment applied. On the other hand, you could challenge the law as a violation of your right to free speech.

It is also possible for a person to challenge a law directly. To file a lawsuit alleging that some law, regulation, or procedure is in violation of a higher law. This is where we see most of the second amendment cases coming.

Now the Constitution sets up the Supreme court and such inferior courts as are needed. (I didn’t lookup the exact wording). The reason is that under common law, decisions made by the higher courts set precedent for the inferior courts. This is “case law”

If the Second Circuit court says that the second amendment only applies to the right of the state militia to keep and bear arms, all inferior courts to the second circuit must follow that opinion. If the Supreme court says that the second amendment applies to all the people, regardless of their membership in the organized militia, then all the circuit courts and all the district courts and all the state supreme courts and all the courts inferior to the state supreme court must follow that opinion.

This is how we create case law.

When a district court makes a decision it is not case law. It can be used by other district courts but it is not precedent. In addition, decisions/opinions for district courts in different circuits count for even less. It is only courts that are superior to a court that create precedent for the inferior court.

As the courts make their decisions/opinions they are creating case law for themselves and inferior courts. Those opinions should describe what the question is, it should define all the terms within that question, and it should then support those definitions. Finally the court says why the made the the decision they made.

Unfortunately, there are people that conflate the different parts of court decisions. When the court says “this is an example” it doesn’t mean that it is the only or that it is the common, or that it is everything except that single example. But there are people that will take it that way.

We hear that when some moron argues that the second amendment only applies to muskets or only to the militia or any of the other stupid arguments.

The supreme court works hard at defining terms. Legislators, not so much.

A lawyer once looked over a contract I had written. He told me that it was good but that it was too clear. As he put it, lawyers like terms in contracts that can lead to conflict, because that’s when they make money. While to us a good contract is a way of making sure there is not conflict later.

It is this case law that creates the legal definitions of terms. It is this case law that tells us how to apply the different terms. It is case law that tells us what the actual law says or does.

ObamaCare doesn’t penalize you for not having health insurance, it just increases your taxes. This is case law, even though the legislature said it was a penality.

The legislature said that a firearm is anything that expels a projectile by means of an explosive. It also includes those things that can be “readily” converted to expel a projectile by means of an explosive.

No court has defined what “readily” means. Since there is no case law the regulatory agency can set the definitions. As soon as they set those definitions then it can be challenged and we can create case law.

The ATF is also trying to change the definition of a frame or receiver. They are perfectly within the scope of the law to say that something is or is not a receiver. They can even say that something can be converted into a frame or receiver. What they can’t do is change the law to claim that something that is not a frame or receiver should be treated as if it is a frame or receiver.

If something can be readily converted into a frame or receiver then it is not a frame or receiver. If it is not a frame or receiver then it is not a firearm per the GCA of 1968.

That was a week ago.

And I just saw this:

“The President does not control the prices.”

And we are supposed to head back to $4 a gallon in May.

Meet the New Year, same as the Old Year.

The water rushed out of the mouth of the pitcher at a steep angle, missing the glass only a handspan below, and spread across the Commander’s desk.

“Oh shit!  I’m sorry Commander.”

The Cadet put down the pitcher and glass and started looking around for something to sop up the water.  Finding nothing, he attempted to corral the spreading puddle with his hands.

The Commander opened a drawer and pulled out a standard PVA zero-gravity hygiene towel.  He handed it to the younger officer.

“Thank you, sir,” the Cadet said.

He ripped oven the plastic bag, unfolded the towel, and began mopping up the mess.

“Coriolis forces will get you every time” the Commander said, with no hint of annoyance in his voice.

“What sir?”  The Cadet said, while continuing to deal with the spill.

The Commander continued affably.

“Coriolis forces.  It an inertial force that affects objects in reference to rotating bodies.  They are why, on Earth, hurricanes spin counterclockwise and southern hemisphere cyclones spin clockwise.”

“Yes sir.”  The Cadet sounded as nervous as he looked, clearly shaken by the faux pas of not being able to handle the normally pedestrian task of pouring a glass of water in front of his new commanding officer.

“Cadet,” the Commander continued in an avuncular manner.  “What do you know about this station?”

“I read what as provided in the assignment brief, sir.”

The Commander made a noise, somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle and continued.

“This station is located on one of the most extreme places in the galaxy that we can put living beings.  This station floats on the surface of a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are often called ‘failed stars’ and are technically classified as ‘sub stellar objects.’  They are between a gas giant planet, like Jupiter, and a star, like our sun.  They have more mass than gas giant, and consequently more gravity, but not enough to sustain nuclear fusion like a star. The brown dwarf we are on now has a mass roughly forty times that of Jupiter but only twelve-percent larger in diameter.”

The Cadet ’s eyes widened at this, the implications of what he just learned dawning on him.

“Then sir, how can we be here?  The gravity should crush us.”

“Yes, it should, but this is a fast-spinning brown dwarf.  This station is neutrally buoyant in the upper atmosphere of the dwarf were the rotational period is seventy-five minutes.  We are experiencing enormous centripetal forces; so much so, that if the star rotated any faster, it might actually come apart.  Those forces balance against the gravitational forces so that at the equator, you will experience one-point-one to one-point-two G’s.  That’s well within a healthy human’s ability to handle.”

“But how does that explain” the Cadet paused and looked sheepish for a moment, “this.”  He finished by waiving his hand over the damp spot on the desk in front of him.

“Like I said, Cadet, Coriolis forces.  If we were exactly at the equator, they would not exist.  Depending on the sub-stellar currents, there are perturbations in our equatorial path.  We vary our position a little bit north or south of the equator.  As we do, the Coriolis forces become more intense. The apparent gravity doesn’t always pull straight down.”

“Is that why I had trouble walking earlier?” Asked the Cadet.

“Precisely, but don’t worry you will acclimate to that as well in time.  In the ancient days of an exclusively seafaring navy, sailors would have to get used to the constant rocking motions of the ships they served on.  It was called ‘getting their sea legs’.  Soon enough you will get your dwarf legs.”

The Cadet let out a brief coughing laugh.

“I think you need a better name for that, sir.”

The Commander grinned.

“You’re probably right.  Let me give you some friendly advice Cadet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Until you start to get a feel for the gravity variations, sit down to pee.  My first day aboard station I was standing at the head and pissed entirely down my left leg.”

“This,” the Commander continued, addressing the wet towel and desktop.  “Pales in comparison to having to report to attention soaked in piss from thigh to ankle.”

The Cadet’s face went pink as he tried to suppress a laugh.  Such commanding officers who would try to ease in a Cadet on training assignments were rare.  Cadets often told horror stories, passed down from generations of graduating classes and rumors traded at reunions, of senior officers who treated the young men and women with a single pip like little more than dirt.  For a commanding officer to share both such valuable advice and a self-debasing anecdote was a refreshing change from what he was prepared to experience.

“Commander, if I may, why station people here at all?”

“Because, Cadet, this is a location of strategic importance.”

“But that’s what I don’t understand sir.  This station is lightyears from any habitable system in the middle of a galactic dead spot.”

The Commander leaned back in his seat, put his elbows on the armrests, interlaced his fingers, and rested his hands on his belly.  He took a moment to size up the young officer sitting across the desk from him.

“You are familiar with the Alcubierre drive, are you not, Cadet?”

“Yes sir, it’s what drives faster-than-light ships.”

“Not exactly,” the Commander said.

“Faster-than-light travel is not possible in the strictest sense.  All ships are still bound by relativistic physics.  The Alcubierre drive distorts space-time around the ship so that the ship itself is traveling sub-light speed relative to the space that it is in.  The ship, however, is traveling at super-luminal velocity relative to a stationary point of reference.”

“The net effect is faster-than-light travel between two points,” the Cadet replied.

“It’s often referred to as faster-than-light, and yes, for practical purposes it is, but understanding the functionality is important to understanding why this station, and the stations like it are of strategic importance.”

“How so, sir?”

“Tell me, Cadet, what do you know about how A-drives work?”  The Commander believed deeply in the Socratic method.  To do well, a man must be able to apply logic and think is way through any problem before him.  This conversation presented a prime opportunity to see if the young officer before him could measure up to the challenge. The Commander began to take on a professorial demeanor.

The Cadet sat up straight in his chair, the perfect picture of the attentive student.

“Well sir, a ship contains a deuterium fueled high pressure laser fusion reactor.  That reactor powers the sub-light drive and a supercollider.  The supercollider creates strange matter, and that strange matter makes the ship go faster than light.”  The Cadet quickly corrected himself.  “The strange matter distorts space-time for an FTL jump.”

“Correct,” acknowledged the Commander.  “What is the most important regulation when plotting a course using an A-drive?”  The commander asked.

“An Alcubierre drive jump is not to be performed inside the heliopause of a star system.”

“Verbatim from the field manual,” the Commander said.  “But can you tell me why.”

“Ummmm….”  the Cadet droned.  He was puzzled.  He had been diligently trained to follow protocols, not question them.

“Think about what you are doing during a jump,” prompted the Commander.

“You are folding space time.”

“Using what?”

“Strange matter.”

“And that is doing what.”

“Creating gravitational bubble around the ship.”  That last point sounded more like a question than a statement to the Commander.

“And…” the Commander’s voice dragged on the enunciation of the word.

“And if you create a space-time gravitational distortion in the orbital path of a planet you could disrupt the orbit of that planet.”

“Correct.”  The Commander gave the word an approving tone.  “That is why A-drive jumps are only allowed between systems, not within them.  But between star system, how car can a ship jump?”

The Cadet thought for a second.

“To the next system, usually, never more than a few lightyears at a time.”

“Yes,” the Commander said.  “But again, why?”

“Fuel capacity.  It takes an enormous amount of fuel to power the A-drive supercollider.”  The Cadet practically spat out the answer.

“Yes, it does take a lot of fuel, and yes, that is a limitation, but theoretically a ship could carry more fuel and travel further.”

The Cadet was dismayed, he thought his second answer would be correct.

“When your ship is in a jump, what do your forward sensors display?”

“Nothing,” the Cadet said quickly.

“Why?”

The Cadet sat there with a glazed look on his face, staring at the Commander.

“Tell me about long range sensor systems.”  The Commander wanted to give the young man a chance to figure this one out.

“Well sir, there is radar and lidar.”

The Commander looked like he was about to say something.  The Cadet wanted to prove to the Commander that he wasn’t stupid and rushed to finish his thought before the Commander had to give him another hint.

“Radar and lidar both use electromagnetic or light waves.  If you are traveling faster than light, you are traveling faster than your sensors.  You are flying blind.”

“You are flying blind,” repeated the Commander.  “Exactly.  So how do you know where you are going.”

“The ship’s course is determined before the jump from telemetry data provided by jump stations.”

“And welcome to a jump station, Cadet.”  The Commander said beaming.

“Cadet, did you ever do one of those trust building exercises where one person wears a blindfold and has to negotiate an obstacle course using directions provided by a partner who can see?”

“Yes sir, that’s a frequent exercise when assigned to a new practice squad.”

“That, Cadet, is essentially the way interstellar navigation is conducted.  Inside of its space-time bubble, a ship is blind.  It navigates in short jumps through mostly empty interstellar space using telemetry data provided by jump stations that have highly accurate maps of local regions of space, only a few cubic lightyears in size.”

The Cadet felt like he should be taking notes.  He was supposed to be reporting for his first training assignment but his it was more like the classroom time he had as a cadet.  The Cadet noted the irony that the Commander’s causal lesson was far more informative the many of the formal lessons he had from his instructors

“Tell me, what do you know of the history of the Mississippi River?”  The commander’s question was such as shift in topic from the field of interstellar navigation that it caught the Cadet off guard.

“Nothing, sir,” the Cadet replied quizzically.

The Commander shifted his weight and continued in a tone as though he were reminiscing.

“During the heyday of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi River, the river changed so much due to local weather conditions that one navigator could not know the entire river.  Steamboat captains would bring aboard a navigator who knew the river between two ports to chart the course of the steamboat.  At the next port, that navigator would disembark, and a new navigator would come aboard for the next length of river.”

The Cadet began to understand where this anecdote was going.

The Commander continued.

“Times have changed, the ships have changed, and this is not the Mighty Mississip, but the principle is similar.  Each jump station maintains a careful watch of the objects in its region of space and can predict their trajectory with great accuracy.  We plot courses through our region of space, provide that information to the ships that pass through our region of space, navigating them during their jump, and handing them off safely to the next jump station.”

“That makes sense, Sir, but why is this station of such strategic importance?”

“What is the regulation about A-drives in star systems?  You said it earlier.”

“An A-drive jump is not to be performed inside the heliopause of a star system.”

“So, what is the best location to place a jump station to plot interstellar courses?”

“In interstellar space.”

The Commander and Cadet settled into an informal, conversational tone.  This was not a commanding officer grilling a subordinate but experienced man, a mentor, passing on his knowledge and wisdom to the next generation.

“Rogue brown dwarfs are one class of interstellar object.  They have no natural satellites and do not constitute part of a star system.  They, along with rouge planets provide a location with natural gravity to establish a jump station in the interstellar medium.  It is precisely because we are, how did you put it? ‘lightyears from any habitable system in the middle of a galactic dead spot’ that this station is strategically important.  What is the average distance between stars?”

Once again, the Commander had a unique way of ending a thought with a question that seemed to be a non sequitur.  The Cadet made a mental note to be prepared for these sudden shifts in conversation.

“I believe, sir, about five light years.”

“That’s the general answer given, but the more accurate answer, considering space in three dimensions, is roughly one star per cubic parsec.  Jump stations placed in the interstellar medium between stars optimize our ability to navigate between systems.  The number of interstellar rogue objects that have the right conditions to put a jump station on are rare enough that when we find one it is worth the risk of placing one there.”