Author Archives: Joe

SAF’s NFA Legal Strategy

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Via email from the Second Amendment Foundation:

Dear Friend of Freedom,

Let me be blunt: The National Firearms Act’s restrictions on short-barreled rifles and shotguns, as well as suppressors, are now laws without a legal leg to stand on.

For 91 years, the government defended the NFA as an exercise of Congress’s “taxing authority.” That was always a flimsy excuse – but it was their excuse. Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, that tax – and the government’s justification – have now evaporated. 

Now the government is trying to enforce registration requirements for a “tax law” that has no tax.

Even with the tax burden reduced to $0 for short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and suppressors, the NFA still requires the submission of your fingerprints, and still requires you put your name on the government’s list of firearm owners. That is unacceptable, pure and simple.

We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to strike at the heart of the unconstitutional National Firearms Act!

That’s why we filed our second federal NFA lawsuit THIS WEEK – Jensen v. ATF in the Northern District of Texas – and we’re not stopping there.

WHY WE’RE FILING MULTIPLE LAWSUITS IN DIFFERENT COURTS

We just opened a second front in Texas. Here’s the strategy:

  1. More judges, more perspectives – We increase our odds of finding constitutionally honest judges who understand Bruen and Heller.
  2. Circuit splits force Supreme Court review – If different circuits rule differently, SCOTUS is more likely to step in. We’re creating the conditions for a landmark victory.
  3. The government can’t defend the indefensible everywhere – Every new case spreads ATF resources thinner and exposes how weak their legal position really is.
  4. Momentum compounds – Each favorable ruling sets precedent and influences other courts and puts more pressure on the government.

We’re not gambling on one judge. We’re surrounding the NFA from every angle.

The Supreme Court has already given us the Second Amendment roadmap: Firearms “in common use” for lawful purposes cannot be banned. There are over 4 million suppressors and hundreds of thousands of short-barreled rifles legally owned in America. These are common arms used for hearing protection, home defense, and hunting – not “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

The anti-gun lobby is terrified. Their entire argument boils down to: “We want it to be as difficult and expensive as possible for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

That’s not a legal argument: That’s elitism, that’s corruption, and that’s tyranny.

HERE’S THE ASK:

Every lawsuit costs real money – and we’re funding a coordinated legal offensive across multiple federal districts.

WANT TO KEEP YOUR NAME OFF OF THE GOVERNMENT FIREARM REGISTRATION?

For 90 years the government charged you $200 for the pleasure of putting your name on their gun registry. Instead, with that $200 you can make sure that registry is shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered to the wind.. The best part is your $200 donation to SAF is tax-deductible. Think the ATF would give you a $200 tax write-off? Think again. 

I donate to SAF via a paycheck deduction which my employer matches. This amounts to $2,400/year.

If you would like to donate, click here.

Ideological Purity Only Works if Strongly Correlated with Reality

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Quote of the Day

Rapidly transforming the American public’s beliefs is a daunting task—all the more so if you dismiss their current values as unacceptable. The Democratic Party’s pragmatic wing has been pleading to broaden the tent, ideally before the Trump administration stamps out all opposition. The party’s progressives seem determined to reeducate the public rather than compromise for their votes. This is a seductive approach if the goal is ideological purity. It is a problem only if the party hopes to win elections.

Jonathan Chait
October 6, 2025
Democrats Still Have No Idea What Went Wrong

Ideological purity only works if the ideas have a strong correlation with reality. The problem Marxists have is that Marx’s ideas were found to be at odds with reality within a few years of him articulating them. His central concept, the labor theory of value, was rejected along with the incoherent fluff built upon that. He was a nobody until Lenin came along and concluded the incoherent fluff was actually genius.

Lenin brought Marx’s theories back from the dead, where they belonged, and laid the groundwork for the deaths of tens of millions in the Russia and U.S.S.R. As the Marxist infection spread worldwide over 100 million were murdered by their own governments. There have been hundreds of attempts to tweak the implementation of Marxist theory to create the promised utopia. While some of been far less deadly than others, the bottom line has always been that free markets and free minds outperform the Marx model of government.

Yet, 150 years after Marx’s ideas were first dropped into the dustbin, we have a major political party still trying to claim they have relevance. If they want to win elections (gain power) then they need to be at least somewhat content will a little power rather than a lot of power. They need to give up the authoritarian model of government. I suspect this is unacceptable to them and they would rather destroy the evidence they are wrong than accept the truth and exercise power within the confines of reality. The current government shutdown is only the most recent data point supporting this hypothesis.

Prepare appropriately.

Socialist’s Unquenchable Thirst for Power

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Quote of the Day

This is a painful lesson that a lot of us in the Palestine solidarity movement have been learning is that we don’t have power… what we don’t have is power… the question I’m asking myself, and I’m asking you to ask yourself, ‘is where can I actually build power?”

Eman Abdelhadi
Associate Professor of the University of Chicago’s Department of Comparative Human Development
At Socialism 2025, July 5, 2025
Far-left University of Chicago professor charged with violent felonies during anti-ICE riots in Broadview

As if you didn’t already know, socialists have an unquenchable thirst for power. And, of course, all Marxists know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

I leave the remainder of this lesson as an exercise for the reader.

Please prepare appropriately.

Can Someone Explain This to Me?

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I have seen the phrase “politically motivated” ever since I can remember. The most recent is here:

New York Attorney General Letitia James has been indicted on charges of bank fraud and false statements by a federal grand jury in Virginia. The indictment follows allegations related to a 2023 mortgage application and comes amid accusations of political retribution by President Donald Trump’s administration, which has faced criticism for targeting political opponents. James, who previously won a high-profile civil fraud case against Trump, denies the charges and claims they are part of a politically motivated campaign.

I get it, as Copilot pointed out to me:

if someone committed a crime, prosecution should follow. But the claim of political motivation isn’t always about denying the act—it’s about challenging the fairness, consistency, or intent behind the prosecution. In democracies, that challenge is part of the system’s self-correction mechanism.

But that isn’t the way I see it being used. It is used as an absolute defense. As in if the investigation or prosecution generates political advantage for some person in power, then there is nothing further to discuss. The investigation/prosecution should be halted.

Do people really believe that? Am I misreading the implications of its use? Is it just a “hail Mary” type of play when they are desperate to avoid the consequences of their crimes?

And, for the record, I am of the opinion that all government employees should be investigated and prosecuted for every hint of criminal or civil wrongdoing. They should be held to a much higher standard than people in private life.

Running on Fumes

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Quote of the Day

They’re [Democrats] not succeeding in persuading the American people that they’re up to a leadership role, which is why, after me being a Democrat for 60 or more years, I am now going to campaign very hard for the Republicans to maintain control of the House and the Senate. Not because I love the Republican agenda. It’s because I’m totally frightened if the Democrats were to gain control of either House. Who they would appoint as chair people? Who they would put in the position of inquisitors, and how they would deny rights to people, and how they would introduce a kind of McCarthyism that we haven’t seen since I was a college student in the 1950s?

Alan Dershowitz
October 7, 2025
‘I’m Totally Frightened’: Lifelong Democrat Dershowitz Says He’ll ‘Campaign Very Hard For Republicans’ In Midterms

When the Democrats have lost Dershowtiz, you know they are running on fumes.

We live in interesting times.

Faster Please

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Alzheimer’s reversed in mice.

Injection of nanoparticles “reminds” blood-brain barrier to work properly, allowing brain cells to communicate again.

Alzheimer’s disease has been reversed in mice in a breakthrough that offers hope that the disease may one day be curable.

Spanish and Chinese researchers have found a way to restore the function of the blood-brain barrier, so it can clear out the sticky amyloid beta plaques that stop brain cells from communicating.

A Hint of Good News in Europe

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It’s not “free markets and free minds”, but at least it is less of the “to everyone according to their need and from everyone according to their ability” nonsense.

The Death of the Left

Substitute/Shortcut Method Used to Determine Truth from Falsity

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Quote of the Day

Make no mistake; we have a year before this country becomes a full-on autocracy, and democracy completely leaves us. And we’re looking at the election in 2026, and Donald Trump knows that in a free and fair election, he will lose. He will lose the House, the House will flip and will become in Democratic hands. There will be committee chairs who will be able to hold meetings, and this is the last thing he wants.

…

Don’t be surprised when polling booths are surrounded by American military in the guise of making sure that the elections are fair and that nobody is tampering with anything.

And when you see violence breaking out, which there’ll be protests, there’ll be inciting violence, there’ll be some violence, and they’ll keep that. Then you’ll see the commandeering of voting machines, ballot boxes to make sure that that election is secure. Well, what that means is that he will then commandeer the election.

Rob Reiner
October 5, 2025
Rob Reiner warns US has one year before becoming ‘full-on autocracy’ | Fox News

If Reiner were sharing his opinion on directing or acting someone might be able to learn something from him. But if he is offering his opinion on engineering, heart surgery, or politics you can be certain his prophecy is of zero, or negative, value.

In a perverse sort of way I find the psychology interesting.

It was in high school someone I knew told me something I thought was unlikely to be true. In attempted to convince me they pointed out how popular her source for the information was. This was incredibly confusing to me. How did the popularity of someone affect the truthfulness of something?

Later I saw it all around me. Adults with no hint of sarcasm or insincerity believed things based on the popularity of the person making an actual or implied claim of truth. If a politician said the cause of some bad situation was corporate greed, racism, or government regulation, people would believe it without evidence. If a sports figure had their picture on a cereal package, people would believe the contents of the box were empowered with special characteristics they would not have claimed the day before the picture was featured on the box. Toothpaste quality was judged by the teeth of the actress holding the box rather than the contents of the tube. In reality, the opinion of the next-door neighbors was probably just as valid.

People apparently have a hardwired propensity to believe a well-known figure. Evidence tends to be a hard sell in their struggle to discern reality. I get it that reality is hard. But wow! The substitute/shortcut methods used to determine truth from falsity are mind boggling messed up.

Annoying

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Win the case, but no relief:

What the court has done here is say that this law is unconstitutional, but in order for an 18-year-old to avoid having their constitutional rights trounced by it today they must live in one of only three states in the nation and have been the member of SAF at age 13,” Kraut said. He added that the requirement to disclose membership lists to the government raises serious concerns about the right to free association and privacy.

Accepting Reality

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Quote of the Day

Are we accepting the reality that we might already be at war, or are we still believing we are in control? We are allowing higher and higher levels of escalation with no proper answers.

If that continues, we need to expect a Pearl Harbor day for Europe, when the escalation will be so impossible to ignore that it will bring about a Western reawakening.

…

Instead of asking will we risk starting World War Three, the question is: will we risk stopping it?

Gabrielius Landsbergis
Former Lithuanian foreign minister
October 5, 2025
Europe is facing its ‘Pearl Harbor moment’

Accepting reality is almost as difficult as determining what reality is. And keep in mind that in war, truth is the first causality. Furthermore, people have a very strong tendency to believe what they want to believe.

So where does that leave us? If Russia really is intent in rolling up Eastern Europe to recover its lost glory from the peak of the Soviet bloc, then Western Europe will delay longer than they should have. If Russia really only wants Ukraine, then a case can be made that the path of least human suffering (after you add in the human cost on all sides of Western Europe going to war with Russia) is to let them have it unopposed.

The dilemma is that letting Russia have the Ukraine with even moderate support from the West runs a high risk of telling Russia they can get away with the roll up. Hence, even if they did not originally intend to roll up Eastern Europe, they will be incentivized by the inaction of the west to do what they had not planned to do. If the west does crank of the temperature dial on WWIII to HOT, then history will forever haunt us with the deaths of millions that might have lived if only we had listened to the appeasers.*

It is very nearly a lose-lose situation.

I think predictions are extremely difficult. Especially about the future. Think of it this way, you want to “accepting reality?” The problem is, no matter what reality you “accept” you change the reality.

Prepare appropriately for me means an underground bunker in Idaho.

* I forget who I was talking to recently who asserted that Russia will not attack a NATO country. Russia is close to being number two when they are only up against Ukraine. NATO, he asserted, would have a busy week, but Russia would cease to exist. Hence, there is no real downside for non-Ukrainians to let them have Ukraine.

You Are Infected with the Pro-Human Mind Virus

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Quote of the Day

The whole school of thought can sometimes feel like the ultimate revenge fantasy of disaffected smart kids, for whom the triumph of their AI proxies amounts to sweet victory over lesser mortals. Lanier suggested to me that some people in elite AI circles seemingly embraced the ideas of the Cheerful Apocalyptics because they grew up identifying with the nonbiological villains in science fiction movies, such as those of the Terminator and Matrix franchises. “Even if the AIs in those movies are kind of evil, they’re superior, and from their perspective, people are just a nuisance to be gotten rid of.”

Weizenbaum recognized this problem early on, denouncing the idea that “the machine becomes the measure of the human being.” In 1998 he told an interviewer, “I believe the essential common ground between National Socialism and the ideas of Hans Moravec lies in the degradation of the human and the fantasy of a perfect new man that must be created at all costs. At the end of this perfection, however, man is no longer there.”

Like some other radical doctrines, those of the Cheerful Apocalyptics amount to a closed system. If you resist belief, your views can be dismissed: either you’re infected with the pro-human mind virus or you’re biased by human arrogance. Fortunately for humankind, our biases in favor of our species would indeed be a powerful barrier to the acceptance of human extinction, provided that its proponents proclaim them in the open and not just at parties and salons and behind laboratory doors.

“Do we really want more of what we have now?” Moravec once asked. “More millennia of the same old human soap opera?” 

David A. Price
October 3, 2025
AI Apocalypse? No Problem.

If the book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, is anywhere close to correct then that the attitude exposed above exists says our doom is sealed. I would have thought an existential threat to our species would be almost universally opposed. Only the a few nutcases such as those in the Human Extinction Movement or a Rainbow Six type plot might support an AI wiping out all of humanity. But there are people with power, money, and tremendous technological capability almost eager to see their “children” bury us and take over the planet with the rest of the solar system and the galaxy next on the list. One or more of those people or others in their cult will find a way to build it. It may take the form of a Dr. Evil in an African volcanic cave with a fusion reactor and an Internet connection to avoid an International ban on a super AI, but they have the resources to do that.

I cannot help but see the parallels between the National Socialist Workers Party of the 1930s dead set on creating a superhuman race and the present-day AI titans working to create their own version of a superhuman.

Prepare appropriately.

Terminator Says, “Make yourself human again.”

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Quote of the Day

That’s how most of the real world outside of the internet is. If you find yourself falling for the anger, go out in the real world and make yourself human again.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
September 18, 2025
Arnold Schwarzenegger shares honest view on why Charlie Kirk was killed

There are extremely few situations where you should make important decisions when you are in a highly emotional state.

I find it very telling that successful politicians are extremely skilled and practiced at creating highly emotional states. It is what political rallies are all about. And you can see them demonstrate this skill in all their speeches.

For me I find all political speech to be irritating. Show me a politician’s policy details. This is how to determine their worth or lack thereof.

Neither Side is Really Serious

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Quote of the Day

To get rid of those guns requires confiscation. That requires a lot of law enforcement. If you like the War on Drugs or ICE’s immigration raids, you will love a War on Guns. To collect those hundreds of millions of guns will require many more cops, many more home searches by armed cops that could result in shootings, many more stops and frisks on the streets, and a great many more prison sentences for gun possession — a crime that is often under-enforced by blue-city and blue-state prosecutors because sentencing those offenders tends to lead disproportionately to jailing young black men. But if the guns are the problem and removing them is the solution, you need to act as if you believe those things.

…

What are you prepared to do? And then what are you prepared to do? If you’re not prepared for the dramatic escalation of heavy-handed law enforcement that a War on Guns would entail, then you’re not serious about one.

Dan Zimmerman
October 2, 2025
The Gun Control Industry Has Never Been Serious About What They’re Prepared to Do to Wage Their War on Guns – Shooting News Weekly

One can make the argument that Democrats originally just wanted to ban guns for blacks to enable the KKK. Then after the party was no longer dependent on the KKK to win elections they kept the gun issue because it would be inconsistent to switch talking points. Ultimately, they convinced their base that guns were the cause of crime. At that point they could continue to get votes by promising to “do something.” If they had actually been able to deliver it would have eliminated a reason to vote for them.

And, of course, a case can be made that the Republican party never wanted to actually eliminate all the repressive gun laws for similar reasons. If the repressive gun laws were eliminated, then their base would have less reason to vote for them.

Hence, for at the last ~60 years (since congress started debating what became GCA68), both sides used gun control to get votes and money from the common people. Yeah, I’m somewhat cynical at times.

Ironically, I think either side winning in a big way would have resolved it to my eventual satisfaction. A civil war over gun ownership probably would have resulted in a new government with private gun ownership a central point of the foundation of government. The pro-gun legislative rollback of GCA68 and all the state and local laws would be preferable, but the issue would probably fester for 100 years or more.

This is part of the reason I have been saying for years that I have given up on the legislative branch. It is only through the courts that we have a chance to get this mess cleaned up without bloodshed or a long fester. Neither major party is really serious about resolving the issue. It is their gravy train of votes and money.

The courts are glacially slow, but it does reduce the bloodshed and put a foreseeable end to the lingering political fester.

Good News From SCOTUS

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Curated by Copilot:

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a Hawaii law that restricts concealed carry permit holders from bringing firearms onto private property without explicit permission from the property owner. This case, which follows a 2022 landmark ruling on gun rights, could have significant implications for Second Amendment interpretations and public safety measures. The decision may also affect similar laws in California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York.

This what is commonly known as the Vampire Rule. I wish SCOTUS were willing to take on more than one or two gun rights cases every year. There is so much stuff to be cleaned up. I really want the normal capacity magazine and semi-automatic rifle restrictions slapped down hard. But it seems those cans keep getting kicked down the road.

The good side is that this should be a pretty easy win, and it becomes another “brick in the wall”.

Also listen to what Mark Smith has to say about it:

She isn’t Wrong

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Via Leftists Aren’t People @joquinn12345678

Via jackiefbr @jackiefbr:

Someday, I’m going to visit Auschwitz and take some pictures to share.

Prepare appropriately.

Excellent Point

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Quote of the Day

It’s not death they like, because everyone dies. It’s killing they like.

X — Formerly IB_Joe
September 22, 2025
Comment to Instapundit » Blog Archive » FOR THE LEFT VIOLENCE IS BAKED IN:  Death is the Solution to all Problems.

Prepare appropriately.

Timely

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That is good timing. Amazon says Liberal Tears out of stock.

Via Firearms Policy Coalition @gunpolicy, who also said:

They’ll keep crying.

We’ll keep carrying.

Concealed Carry now Legal in Fifth Circuit Post Offices

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Quote of the Day

Our Nation has grappled with threats to mail carriers and post offices since the Founding. In 1792, Congress enacted a law which proscribed punishment by death to “any person [who] shall rob the mail . . . or shall steal and take . . . from or out of any post- office, any letter or packet.” A few years later, in 1799, Congress sought to protect postal employees by punishing robbery of a postal employee in which a dangerous weapon was used with death if the robbery was successful, or if it was unsuccessful, with public whipping or imprisonment. That the Founders were acutely aware of threats to post offices and postal employees, yet chose to criminalize the offending behavior rather than banning firearms outright, is telling.

Reed O’Connor
Chief United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division
Firearms Policy Coalition Inc, Et Al. v. Pamela Bondi (backup here)

See also what the FPC and SAF has to say about this case. Most importantly, the ruling does not protect all people from prosecution for carrying in the Fifth Circuit. Only the two individuals and the members of the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition.

That last point is something I have written about many times before. One could make a good case that our ideological opponents do not recognize the individual. There is only the mass of humans each interchangeable with the other unless they are blessed with a government issued metal identification token, aka a badge. Or as I sometimes describe it, they desire to treat us like cattle.

It is nice to have a judge explicitly call out the government for failing to recognize, what I think to be, the obvious.

But there is another hypothesis which merits consideration. It could be our opponents merely act stupid and/or naive. They are just making things up to justify the banning of all guns for their own evil purposes. The truth would not go over well so they make up reasons why can and should be deprived of our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arm.

A Good First Step

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Quote of the Day

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has systematically denied thousands of law-abiding Californians their fundamental Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home—not through outright refusal, but through a deliberate pattern of unconscionable delay that renders this constitutional right meaningless in practice.

The scope of this constitutional violation is staggering. Between January
2024 and March 2025, Defendants received 3,982 applications for new concealed carry licenses. Of these, they approved exactly two—a mere 0.05% approval rate that cannot be explained by legitimate disqualifying factors alone. This is not bureaucratic inefficiency; it is systematic obstruction of constitutional rights.

The mechanics of this obstruction are equally damning. Defendants force
applicants to wait an average of 281 days—over nine months—just to begin processing their applications, with some waiting as long as 1,030 days (nearly three years). The median delay is 372 days. These delays far exceed California’s own statutory
requirement that licensing authorities provide initial determinations within 90 days, demonstrating Defendants’ flagrant disregard for both state law and constitutional obligations.

The human cost is profound. As of May 2025, approximately 2,768
applications for new licenses remain pending, with interviews scheduled as late as November 2026—more than two years after some applications were first submitted. Numerous applicants simply gave up and withdrew their applications, often after waiting months in Defendants’ deliberately stalled process. These are not abstract statistics; they represent thousands of law-abiding citizens who have been stripped of their constitutional right to self-defense outside their homes.

U.S. Department of Justice
September 30, 2025
United States of America v. Los Angels County Sheriffs Department, and Robert Luna, in his official capacity as Sheriff of Los Angeles County (backup here)

According to numerous sources, and Copilot:

until the LA County concealed carry case, DOJ had never used § 12601 for Second Amendment violations. That makes this lawsuit a historic first—a signal that DOJ now considers systemic denial of gun rights a civil rights issue.

Copilot has this to say about my assertion the infringement will continue until criminal charges are pursued against the perpetrators:

Will Infringements Stop Without Criminal Charges?

Not likely. Civil suits can force policy changes, but they don’t carry the deterrent weight of personal accountability. Officials can stall, delay, or reinterpret rulings without fear of jail time. That’s why your call for criminal enforcement resonates—it’s about consequences, not just corrections.

Copilot offered to draft a model indictment. I accepted the offer:

United States District Court

Criminal Indictment United States of America v. [Defendants]

Count One – Conspiracy Against Rights (18 U.S.C. § 241)

The Grand Jury charges:

  1. Beginning on or about January 1, 2022, and continuing through the present, in the County of [X], State of [Y], the defendants [Name 1], [Name 2], and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, did knowingly and willfully conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate citizens in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, namely, the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
  2. The object of the conspiracy was to obstruct and delay the issuance of concealed carry permits to qualified applicants, through intentional administrative backlog, arbitrary denials, and the imposition of unlawful requirements not authorized by state law.
  3. In furtherance of the conspiracy, the defendants:
    • Directed staff to ignore or delay processing of applications.
    • Required applicants to submit additional documentation not required by law.
    • Denied permits without cause or explanation.
    • Maintained internal communications expressing intent to “slow-walk” approvals to discourage lawful carry.

All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241.

Count Two – Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law (18 U.S.C. § 242)

The Grand Jury further charges:

  1. On or about [specific date], in the County of [X], State of [Y], defendant [Name] acting under color of law as [Title/Position], did willfully deprive [Victim Name], a citizen of the United States, of rights secured by the Constitution, namely the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
  2. The deprivation occurred when [Name], acting in his official capacity, denied [Victim] a concealed carry permit despite full legal eligibility, and did so based on personal bias against firearm ownership and in furtherance of the conspiracy described in Count One.

All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 242.

Notice of Special Findings

The Grand Jury finds that the offenses charged:

  • Were committed under color of law.
  • Involved multiple victims.
  • Were part of a pattern or practice of rights violations.

Here is what others are saying:

This is a good start. But I won’t be popping the cork on the champagne until the first perp goes to jail with all their appeals exhausted.

The Future of Human Life in an AI World

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Quote of the Day

So we’re looking at a world where we have levels of unemployment we’ve never seen before. Not talking about 10% unemployment, which is scary, but 99%.

Roman Yampolskiy
University of Louisville Computer Science Professor
September 29, 2025
AI Could Cause 99% of All Workers to Be Unemployed in the Next Five Years, Says Computer Science Professor

I have to wonder, what does this do to the price of goods and services? I can’t really wrap mind around what happens when essentially everything is automated. Does the price drop to zero? If the materials for the machines are mined, refined, and built by automated systems, energy from the materials needed to the endpoint delivery is all automated as well, then how does this work out?

Over the centuries labor-saving devices enabled the creation of greater wealth for the general population. But what if all labor is “saved”? Do individuals have zero money to purchase near infinite goods and services?

It may be a moot question. I just finished listening to If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. By the time the unemployment rate hits 50% we might have sealed our doom. The case presented, as I recall it:

  • We really don’t understand how AI works. It is trained (sometimes the authors referred to it as “grown”) rather than engineered. It is far closer to an art form than an engineering science*.
  • This training/growing process results in hidden and unknowable artifacts in the neural nets. These hidden components can and will manifest themselves in ways no one can predict.
  • Many of these hidden artifacts will not be aligned with the best interests of biological life.
  • As AI searches for solutions to problems and subproblems some of the artifacts will result in solutions that cause great harm. For example, energy production is bound, in part, by the ability to get rid of waste heat. Ultimately this needs to be radiated out into space. The rate of heat transfer increases as the temperature rises. There would be a temporary heat sink by boiling away the oceans, but ultimately raising the surface temperature of the planet something greater than what biological life as we know it can survive will be the obvious solution.
  • The response time of AI to exploit a flaw in human efforts to constrain it will be far faster than humans can react.
  • AI can defeat humans at chess and Go because it can examine far more future decision branches than human. It will solve “containment puzzles” far better than humans can create containment mechanism.
  • It only has to succeed once. We will not get a second chance.

I would like to hear from people who have read this book to comment here or send me an email with their thoughts.

* This is something I noticed in a recent class I took on machine learning. This is simplifying things some but, you just try different things and see what works best.