Visa and Mastercard came to the correct conclusion. However, they shouldn’t just ‘pause’ their implementation of this plan—they should end it definitively.
Austin Knudsen
Montana Attorney General
March 9, 2023
Visa, Mastercard pause decision to track gun shop purchases
We are on a roll, but I hope you aren’t tired of winning yet because there is a LOT more to do.
If we were making a list of criminals infringing upon the rights of gun owners this police department would be in the top 10 on my list:
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has quietly tested every single recovered firearm – even those not used in the commission of crimes – without probable cause or a search warrant for as long as anyone at the department can recall, according to a story published recently by WISHTV.com.
Once the firearms were tested at the police department’s crime lab, the data was then sent to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which used it to create an illegal gun registry.
Police admit they never obtained search warrants to test the firearms. The testing was done as a matter of policy, whether the guns were used in crimes, held for safekeeping or recovered through other means.
…
IMPD Assistant Police Chief Chris Bailey told reporters the practice started decades ago, and he confirmed that officers did not have probable cause or search warrants to conduct the tests.
“Not that we know of. We went back and checked how long this has been going on. A former employee who came on in 1973, and it was happening then in the 1970s, and she worked another 30 years here and retired a couple years ago,” Bailey told WISHTV.com. He added there are currently more than 21,000 firearms in IMPD’s property room.
…
“Let’s say you’re in a crash and knocked out. There’s a gun in your console. The officer can’t send the gun on the gurney with you to the hospital, so they take your gun, your wallet and your cellphone and put it in a bag marked ‘safe’ for safekeeping. Once you’re released from the hospital, you can get your cell and your wallet, but not your gun. You’ll be told IMPD has to ‘process’ it. Keep in mind they would need a search warrant to search your cellphone. Once the gun is tested, ATF now has a ‘fingerprint’ of your gun. Then, ATF will conduct a trace of your firearm and they’ll get the 4473. Six months later, IMPD will tell you that you need to provide proof of ownership, so you’ll need to go to the gun store where you bought it. It can take us several days to dig out the paper receipt. Now, IMPD has three things that identify you as the owner of the firearm, but you still can’t get your gun. You need to make an appointment with the department, get
fingerprinted and they’ll run a background check. If you’re lucky, in a year or two they will hand your firearm back,” Burge said.
Burge said he asked department officials numerous times to justify the process.
“If a laptop comes in, we can’t just turn it on without a search warrant. What gives them the right to ‘turn on’ a firearm?” he asked. “The average handgun people carry costs around $500. When they get the runaround from the city and go talk to an attorney for help – and attorneys don’t work for free – they’ll find out it could cost them around $10,000 to get back a $500 handgun. Most don’t. We’re talking about thousands of people who have been victimized.”
Someday I hope to enjoy their trial.
See also Indianapolis Police have secretly funneled firearm data to ATF for more than 50 years.
In January the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ATF’s Trump-mandated bump stock ban was unconstitutional. Today, in a 13-3 ruling, the Court of Appeals finalized its ruling, mandating that the case — Cargill v. Garland — be remanded to the lower court to reverse its decision [that upheld the ban] and enter a judgement in favor of the plaintiff, Michael Cargill.
Dan Zimmerman
February 28, 2023
Fifth Circuit Finalizes Ruling In Favor of Plaintiff in Cargill v. Garland, Legalizes Bump Stocks in Three States
This is a good first step. Only about 100k steps to go.
There is a non-zero chance my grandchildren will have the opportunity to participate in machine gun sporting events in high school.
It appears things are moving along toward several East Oregon counties joining Idaho:
Greater Idaho told DailyMail.com they are confident that as more western Oregonians hear about the measures they will support letting the eastern part of the state go, and cited a 2022 poll which supported their prediction.
‘The poll showed that voters don’t want to hold counties captive that don’t consent to Oregon government. It showed that only 3% of the voters of northwestern Oregon think that keeping these counties captive is worth the annual cost to the state budget.’
‘And it showed that many would welcome the chance for western Oregon to make its own decisions without interference and obstruction from eastern Oregon. Already, 68% of voters want their state government to look into moving the state line.’
Only 3% of the people in the progressive area want to keep the rebel counties! 68% of the entire state are fine with it. There is not much more that I can envision being a serious blockage to the change. In my mind, it was always going to boil down to the socialists and communists in the large population centers wanting to retain power over the uneducated, in-bred, country bumpkins. If the report is true then I was very mistaken.
Good to know.
If a nuclear bomb were dropped in your city tomorrow, would you know where to take cover? Nuclear war is a terrifying thought, but for a team of researchers at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, it’s top of mind.
In a recent study, the researchers calculated how the blast from a nuclear explosion could affect people sheltering indoors, and found that even if you’re at a safe distance from the explosion to survive the blast, you may still be in immediate peril.
“It is important to understand the impact on humans indoors to provide recommendations for protecting people and assets,” said co-author Dimitri Drikakis. “For example, we can design structures that offer more protection.”
…
They reported that narrow pockets inside buildings like doorways and hallways could act like a windtunnel, accelerating the shockwave to dangerous pressures of up to 18 times a human’s body weight — easily enough to crush bones.
“The most dangerous critical indoor locations to avoid are the windows, the corridors, and the doors,” said co-author Ioannis William Kokkinakis.
The best location is in the half of the building farthest from the blast, in a room with no windows. But, “even in the front room facing the explosion, one can be safe from the high airspeeds if positioned at the corners of the wall facing the blast,” Kokkinakis told Insider.
It’s also worth noting that the building itself is important. You don’t want to take cover in a log cabin, for example.
I want my underground bunker in Idaho.
As of today, Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.
Vladimir Putin
President of Russia
February 21, 2023
Russia Suspends Participation in Last Nuclear Arms Treaty With US
I’m not sure this amounts to much more than “sabre rattling”, but you should prepare appropriately.
This doesn’t make sense to me:
Exclusive-Discover to enable tracking of purchases at gun retailers from April
Discover Financial Services, a provider of credit cards, told Reuters it will allow its network to track purchases at gun retailers come April, making it the first among its peers to move ahead with the initiative aimed at helping authorities probe gun-related crimes.
…
“We remain focused on continuing to protect and support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy of cardholders,” Discover said in its statement to Reuters.
How can they track purchases while protecting cardholders? My primary hypothesis is they are counting on gun owners to believe a lie.
Pay cash when you can and use Virtual Cards when you can’t.
Appeals court upholds restraining order on Illinois gun ban
An Illinois appellate court on Tuesday upheld a temporary restraining order on enforcement of the state’s three-week-old law banning semiautomatic weapons, enacted largely in response to the mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
A three-judge panel for the 5th District Appellate Court affirmed the restraining order issued Jan. 20 by a circuit judge in Effingham County.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, a Democrat, plans to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
The Protect Illinois Communities Act prohibits the manufacture or possession of semiautomatic handguns and rifles. Those who owned them before the Jan. 10 effective date of the law must register them with the Illinois State Police by Jan. 1, 2024.
You would think the Heller Decision would be sufficient information for these people to know a ban on all semi-automatic handguns would fail to pass constitutional muster. But no, either they are doubling down on their failure to connect with reality, or they believe they are above the law.
That the courts are imposing restraining orders on them only shortly after the ink is dry on their legislative turds should give them a clue. But I don’t think they will respond in a rational manner. I believe they will continue insisting 2 + 2 = 5 until law enforcement is approaching to put the cuffs on them and haul them away for contempt of court.
They are just that delusional and/or evil.
3rd Avenue between Pike and Pine is ground zero of Mugme Street. This happened near 4th and Pike on a Friday afternoon about 2:15 PM:
According to court documents, officers with the SPD were in the area conducting a narcotics surveillance operation when an officer saw Martin near a bus stop with a hammer in his hand. Martin’s actions concerned the officer, so they took a cellphone photo of Martin and sent it to the other officers in the area working the operation.
A plain-clothes officer also saw Martin in the area waving the hammer and having verbal altercations with other people in the area, court documents said.
Before the attack, the plain-clothes officer saw the 53-year-old who was killed “attempting to cut the lock off of a bike using an orbital grinder which was sending sparks into the air,” according to court documents.
Martin approached the man, documents said, and when the 53-year-old walked away, Martin followed.
Witnesses told police they saw Martin hit the 53-year-old in the head with the hammer. Court documents state the 53-year-old took “a hammer strike to the right temple area of the head,” resulting in a skull fracture.
Surveillance cameras in the area captured Martin “raising the hammer above his shoulder, swinging it at the victim’s head, and the victim collapsing to the ground,” according to court documents. The documents said Martin then stood over the 53-year-old, grabbed his backpack and walked away.
There are multiple clues in the quoted material to guide your plans for visiting Seattle.
The entrance to a building I used work in is within a couple hundred feet of the attack location.
See also this article. People are not shocked or even surprised this happened.
Here are a sample of the stories.
The new information is essentially the same in all articles:
A 28-year-old man, Bryan Kohberger, was arrested Friday morning in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains in connection with the murders of four University of Idaho students, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Sources said that authorities knew who they were looking for and had tracked Kohberger down to Pennsylvania.
A SWAT team entered the location where he was staying in order to take him into custody Friday. Kohberger appeared before a judge Friday morning.
Moscow police officers, members of Idaho State Police, Moscow city leaders and University of Idaho officials will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. local time Friday.
It will be interesting to find out how they came to suspect and track him to Pennsylvania. One of the stories suggest it was the white car:
But the case broke open after law enforcement asked the public for help finding a white sedan seen near the home around the time of the killings. The Moscow Police Department made the request Dec. 7, and by the next day had to direct tips to a special FBI call center because so many were coming in.
I wonder if I was close to the target with my suggestions.
A Ph.D. student by the same name is listed in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, which is a short drive across the state line from the University of Idaho. Messages seeking more information were left for officials at WSU.
As the Supreme Court assesses the emergency brief, it is increasingly likely that Second Amendment jurisprudence will take center stage in this term.
Matthew Rice
December 27, 2022
Gun Rights Advocates Seek Supreme Court Intervention to Block New York Restrictions
[Since Heller was nearly 15 years ago, I expect SCOTUS will be hearing appellate court rulings regarding the 2nd Amendment for at least another 15 years.—Joe]
“We applaud Texas for doing the right thing and accepting the district court’s ruling against its law prohibiting 18-to-20-year-old adults from carrying firearms in public,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s senior attorney for constitutional litigation. “Not only do young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults, they are also among the reasons we have a Second Amendment, Constitution, and Country in the first place.”
…
Pittman noted the Second Amendment does not contain any mention of age as a restriction, unlike other portions of the Constitution.
“To start, the Second Amendment does not mention any sort of age restriction,” he wrote. “This absence is notable—when the Framers meant to impose age restrictions, they did so expressly.”
This only the Fifth Circuit. I would not be surprised to see the Ninth Circuit tap dance their way into believing they can set the age as 65 and over. Then the next day saying “Red Flags” laws allow confiscation for people over 60 because they are of unfirm mind.
It’s difficult to see the future as anything other than more closely surveilled, and in a more coordinated way. Law enforcement agencies are likely to coordinate their efforts through multi-jurisdictional efforts such as the U.S. Department of Justice’s Regional Information Sharing Systems which increase reach while reducing costs and technical challenges. They can also sign up as subscribers to one or more privately developed plug-and-play surveillance networks.
Those of us who are especially surveillance-averse will still take active measures to obscure our trail, through purchases made in cash, face masks, clothing that confuses algorithms, and leaving our cellphones at home. But we will still be watched, and chances are that making efforts to preserve anonymity will itself come to be seen by the powers that be as suspicious.
J.D. Tuccille
November 21, 2022
See the Surveillance State at Work in Your Own Community: The Atlas of Surveillance lets us monitor the agencies that snoop on the public.
[Via a message from Stephanie.
The Atlas of Surveillance gives you some clues as to how thoroughly you are surveilled. It’s not complete so just because your area of operation shows as relatively clean doesn’t mean it actually is. Bellevue, where Barb and I live, doesn’t show anything at all. Yet, I can show you cameras on traffic lights and know people who have received automated tickets from those type of cameras in Bellevue.
I have to agree with Tuccille. It is only going to get worse.
I was talking with Mike B. last night night about cellphone location data and how it might apply to the mass murders in Moscow a few days ago. And, as suggested by Tuccille in the last sentence quoted above, I suggested surveillance cameras in Moscow could be used to identity time and place of vehicle activity. Combine data around the time of the murders with cellphone location data. If a camera visible car did not have a cellphone, then it is suspicious and should be investigated.
Other suggestions included:
We live in interesting times.—Joe]
You’ve head that politicians never let a crisis go to waste. Now we apparently can add never waste a crisis:
President Joe Biden would veto a proposed U.S. Senate resolution that would terminate a national emergency declared in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said on Tuesday.
More information on the tragic mass murder in Moscow Idaho last Sunday as been slowing dribbling out. It seems that the information raises as many questions as it answers.
Here are the points of interest I have found:
University of Idaho victim’s friend says dorm door-lock code wasn’t usually activated. I’m not too surprised. When my family lived in Moscow we always locked our doors. But I know people that leave the keys in the ignition of their vehicles when at home.
Over the last few days, police officers have come knocking at a local home improvement store to inquire about potential sales of a Ka-Bar knife – as they continue to try to locate the murder weapon. They appear to be specifically looking for a knife “with a smooth edge on one side and a serrated edge on the other.” But the picture they provide is of a knife without any serrations. My reading on Ka-Bar knives seems to indicate that Ka-Bar’s an not typically serrated.
Autopsies were conducted on November 17th. The Latah County Coroner confirmed the identity of the four murdered individuals and their cause and manner of death as homicide by stabbing. The coroner stated that the four victims were likely asleep, some had defensive wounds, and each was stabbed multiple times. There was no sign of sexual assault. This same posting tells us, “At this time in the investigation, detectives do not believe the two surviving roommates … are involved in the crime.” Also, there are over 128 people in law enforcement involved in the investigation. This includes the Moscow Police, Latah County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho State Patrol, and the FBI.
The 911 call that led to the discovery of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle’s bodies was not made by their roommates, I don’t really trust parts of this report. It could just be former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman wanted another 15 minutes of fame and speculated on things for the camera.
One of the University of Idaho murder victims called the same person seven times shortly before she was killed, her sister claims… “Kaylee calls [the man] six times between 2.26am and 2.44am. From 2.44 to 2.52 Maddie calls [the man] three times, then Kaylee makes a final call to him at 2.52am,” Alivea said. If this was after the attack started, why didn’t they call the police? See also this report which identifies the person the victims called as “Jack”.
This hits harder than it would have had it happened in some distant city, I drove through Moscow on Monday night on my way to Boomershoot territory. I graduated from the University of Idaho as did my ex-wife, one of her sisters, and her mother. My brother and his three children all attended the U of I. My three children, my father, and numerous cousins and high school friends attended the U of I as well. I owned a home and lived in Moscow, at least part time, from about 1990 to 2012. One of my daughters and my ex still live less than 20 minutes away.
It got even more disturbing with this:
Fry said investigators believe two other roommates were home during the attack, but they were “not injured.” When asked if they had been involved in a hostage situation, Fry said no. He did not speculate on why the crime was not reported until noon when uninjured, living people remained in the home, and, to protect the “integrity of the investigation,” would not confirm if the surviving roommates were the ones who called 911. Fry did say that the roommates were still at the house when police arrived.
“We don’t know why that call came in at noon and not in the middle of the night. … We’re investigating everything still to try to pull all the pieces together,” Fry said.
I found out about the murders via a text message from Mike B. Mike played a big role in getting “campus carry” through the Idaho legislature. It didn’t help these students but it might give a number of students comfort and safety in the coming weeks.
One has to wonder… Since this is getting so much attention, and the murderer(s) have got away with something like a nine or ten hour head start on the police, if there will be copycats. Knives are almost completely silent, never need to be reloaded, unrestricted sales, no serial numbers, easy to make, found in every home, etc..
If the murders had been with a gun it would have been called a “mass shooting” and more calls for gun control would have been in the headlines before the bodies were cold. So what will the gun control advocates have to say if “mass stabbing” becomes a trend here? “Common sense knife control”?
What I will say about the potential for copycats is, “People, show any copycats why you don’t bring a knife to gunfight.”
A top-of-the-line Russian nuclear-powered submarine has gone missing from its harbor in the Arctic along with its rumored “doomsday weapon,” according to multiple reports.
NATO has reportedly warned members that Russia’s Belgorod submarine no longer appeared to be operating out of its White Sea base, where it has been active since July. Officials warned that Russia may plan to test Belgorod’s “Poseidon” weapons system, a drone equipped with a nuclear bomb that Russia has claimed is capable of creating a “radioactive tsunami,” according to Italian media.
The drone can be deployed from the submarine at any time and detonated at a depth of 1 kilometer near a coastal city. Russian state media has claimed the device can create a 1,600-ft. wave that smashes into the coast and irradiates it.
Anders Hagstrom
October 3, 2022
Russian nuclear submarine armed with ‘doomsday’ weapon disappears from Arctic harbor: report
[A fallout shelter in Idaho is looking very good to me right now.—Joe]
The fear of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia against Ukraine looms over the current crisis, but some Ukrainians have found a… creative solution.
A large group of Ukrainians has decided to organize a mass orgy to take place on a hill outside of Kyiv in case Putin does launch a nuclear bomb.
More than 15,000 have already registered on Telegram for the sex party. The mass orgy will take place on a hill outside the city where the participants would be asked to decorate their hands with colored stripes, symbolizing their sexual interests. If you are considering participating – three stripes are for anal sex lovers and four stripes are for oral sex lovers.
That’s pretty messed up as far as I’m concerned. You should stay in your bunkers.
The orgy is after you know you have survived all the firestorms and fallout.
New York’s most recent infringement upon gun owner rights just got kneecapped:
A federal judge in New York temporarily blocked parts of the state’s revised concealed-carry gun law on Thursday, finding that it is too strict and should not have barred weapons from being carried in areas such as public playgrounds and health care facilities.
…
A group of gun owners filed suit in federal court in Syracuse, charging the new law violated their Second Amendment rights. In his ruling Thursday, Suddaby agreed some of its restrictions are unconstitutional.
“Simply stated, instead of moving toward becoming a shall-issue jurisdiction, New York State has further entrenched itself as a shall-not-issue jurisdiction. And, by doing so, it has further reduced a first-class constitutional right to bear arms in public for self defense … into a mere request,” Suddaby wrote.
I look forward to the day judges get fed up with the defiance and start levying fines of $100K/day to be paid to the plaintiffs for contempt of court while the politicians are being prosecuted.
If Putin uses a nuke, the network swarm with corporate and government support, will conduct a global witch hunt for Putin apologists.
John Robb @johnrobb
Tweeted on October 2, 2022
[Good point I hadn’t thought of that. That’s why he gets the big bucks.
Prepare appropriately.—Joe]