This important judgment means that people must maintain their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms when they cross California’s border. Just as people are free to speak or worship in states they don’t reside in, this win makes clear they are likewise free to bear arms for lawful purposes throughout the United States. Unlike Louisiana, which recently repealed their unconstitutional residency requirement following an FPC legal challenge, California’s commitment to tyranny forced us to take this case to a final judgment. FPC will continue to eliminate unconstitutional residency requirements and other bans so that people can exercise their rights when, where, and how they choose.
At the end of April, I posted about the preliminary injunction in the case. This is the final judgement. Of course, the state may appeal it. Historically, the odds of the 9th circuit siding with the 2nd Amendment are almost exactly zero.
California has 14 days to file a notice of appeal in the case. Today is the 14th day. Check here to see what they decide.
T-Mobile has announced it is the latest company to scrap its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as it seeks regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for two new business deals that could significantly expand its customer base.
My contacts at T-Mobile say that nearly everyone they knew with significant DEI involvement was laid off last year. To be clear, there was no official statement that DEI was being targeted—and plenty of others were laid off too.
Then, at a company-wide meeting earlier this year, the CEO announced the cancellation of policies and programs favoring special interest groups. He reassured employees that everyone—even old white guys like himself—would be treated equally. Access to training programs, bonus criteria, raises, and advancement would be based on uniform standards.
The impression internally was that DEI had quietly run its course well before Trump’s election victory. His win merely confirmed a cultural shift already underway.
As Andrew Breitbart put it, “Politics is downstream from culture.”
I am still undecided, but I am leaning towards abolishing them one at a time rather than combining them then trying to abolish the conglomerate. The reason being that while there are votes to be had from across the aisle for the abolishment of the DEA, I think there are more votes to be lost by people strongly opposed to legalized recreational drugs. Abolish what we can, when we can, then look for an opportunity to get rid of other agencies when the time is right.
Gun Owners of America is alarmed, warning such a merger would enable even greater anti-liberty/gun mischief, such as:
*The combined agency would have three times the ATF budget *Four times current ATF tactical (SWAT-like) units *More than 10,000 new employees *Reduced oversight and accountability
The DOJ’s dangerous proposal would consolidate the ATF and DEA into an authoritarian “super-agency” with the combined powers to wage the failed war on drugs and enforce unconstitutional federal gun control laws against all Americans, not just violent criminals and drug cartels. By merging the ATF’s firearms enforcement authority into the DEA, the DOJ is effectively equating peaceable American gun owners with drug cartels, turning millions of law-abiding citizens—as well as their constitutionally protected weapons—into co-equal targets of a militarized federal enforcement regime.
It’s hard to know who is right in this case. There’s no question the ATF has all too often abused its power, serving as an anti-gun enforcer for anti-liberty/gunners rather than a professional, non-partisan law enforcement agency. Too often their enforcement targets have been gun dealers who made innocent paperwork errors, or Americans with no criminal intent charged with made-up crimes. Some in Congress continue to want to entirely abolish the ATF, an idea that could arguably strengthen individual liberty.
It’s also hard to imagine how the legally mandated tasks of both agencies might be combined in a way that would make either more efficient or less costly.
Guns being stolen from cars is a problem…one created by failed government policies and anti-gun corporate rules that coerce responsible gun owners into leaving firearms in vehicles.
The government creates the problem, complains about it, then demands more control.
The framed picture below was given to me a long time ago. I don’t even remember who gave it to me. It probably was one of my children. The packaging has suffered some damage, but the idea is still valid:
Several House Democrats are warning that the Democrat base has become increasingly radicalized in its resistance to the Trump administration. Democrat politicians are frightened by many of their leftist constituents whose growing anger has “morphed into a disregard for American institutions, political traditions and even the rule of law,” according to a new report from Axios.
In the eyes of some liberal voters, Democrats aren’t doing enough to counter the president’s agenda. One House representative said, “Our own base is telling us that what we’re doing is not good enough … [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public.” Some have suggested that they need to “be willing to get shot” visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies.
Data confirms that the Left has become increasingly warm to the idea of violence. One recent report found that 55 percent of left-leaning Americans thought political violence could be acceptable, responding that “it would be at least somewhat justified” to murder Trump.
Fifty five percent of left-leaning think political violence could be acceptable! Not, 55% of the most radical, that is 55 percent of the left-leaning. What would the polling numbers be if you asked the committed leftists? Would it be 90 percent?
There is a reason for the calls for violence. It is in their nature:
I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged about my Freshman year of high school. With that one book, second only to Robert Heinlein, she made a very deep, life-long impression on me.
It was between my Junior and Senior years of high school I read my first Heinlein book, Stranger in a Strange Land. During college I read most of Heinlein’s books and many of his short stories. I still remember the vehicle I was driving and where on 116th NE in Bellevue I was when I heard on the radio that Robert Heinlein had died.
It was later when I was in my late 20’s through mid 30’s that I read more of Rand. I didn’t know her other works existed until they were pointed out to me by Susan K. I am still grateful for Susan’s guidance with Rand and George H. Smith’s Atheism: The Case Against God.
Over the years I have read all Rand’s books and some of her essays and scholarly papers. Her works still resonate with me. My one big quibble with her is what she apparently believed is the perfect sexual relationship between women and men is repugnant to me. I see it as something closer to rape than a respectful relationship between equals.
I hope her works continue to be an inspiration and philosophical guideposts for people everywhere.
There has been talk of combining the ATF into the DEA. Gun rights groups are opposed to this (see also here). I’m not entirely convinced it is a bad idea. But that could be a bias of mine.
You see, I am of the opinion that the DEA should be abolished. Where in the constitution does it say the Feds have the authority to regulate recreational drugs? How many billions have they spend on the failed war on drugs? And if you don’t think it has actually failed, here are some things to consider:
The DEA was established in 1973, and tracking heroin street prices over the decades reveals some fascinating—and troubling—trends. Here’s a summary of the data I found:
📈 Heroin Street Price Trends (1973–2011)
The DEA’s Heroin Domestic Monitor Program began collecting consistent data in 1979, focusing on price per milligram of pure heroin. Here’s a snapshot of key years:
Year
Avg. Price per mg Pure Heroin
Notes
1982
~$3.90
Very low purity (~7%)
1992
~$1.50
Purity increased to ~28%
2007
~$0.81
Mexican heroin purity ~33%
2011
~$1.35
Mexican heroin purity dropped to ~17%
These prices reflect retail-level purchases made by DEA agents in major U.S. cities.
🧪 Purity vs. Price
As purity increased, price per mg of pure heroin dropped—making heroin more potent and affordable.
By the 2000s, heroin from Mexico and South America dominated the U.S. market, with regional differences in purity and price.
📉 Long-Term Trend
From the early 1980s to the early 2000s:
Price per pure mg dropped significantly
Purity rose, peaking in some cities at over 60%
This made heroin more dangerous and accessible, contributing to rising overdose rates
Since its founding in 1973, the DEA’s budget has grown dramatically—from $75 million in its first year to over $3.4 billion in recent years2.
💰 Estimated Total DEA Spending (1973–2023)
Using historical budget data from DEA.gov, here’s a rough cumulative estimate:
1973–1980: ~$1.4 billion
1981–1990: ~$2.7 billion
1991–2000: ~$13.2 billion
2001–2010: ~$22.6 billion
2011–2020: ~$28.6 billion
2021–2023: ~$9.5 billion
🧮 Grand Total Estimate: ~$78 billion
These figures are approximations based on annual appropriations and may not include all supplemental or off-budget expenditures.
📊 Spending Highlights
The DEA’s budget has consistently increased, especially during periods of heightened drug enforcement focus (e.g., crack epidemic, opioid crisis).
In 2023, the DEA requested $3.1 billion, a 6.3% increase over the previous year.
The agency now operates in 93 foreign offices across 69 countries, reflecting its global reach.
So… if the war on drugs was effective you would think the price would go up and the purity would go down. That is pretty much a well-known economic law, right? But that is not what happened. It seems to me that either the war on drugs was ineffective and the price and purity changes were unrelated, or the DEA somehow contributed to the lower prices and increased purity.
Either way we are faced with the fact that the war on drugs has either failed or it is not about making it more difficult for people to obtain recreational drugs. Perhaps it is more about acquiring power as in the famous Ayn Rand quote from Atlas Shrugged.
In my mind, combing the ATF and DEA sort of makes sense because we might be able to get more support from those opposed to the war on drugs who might be opposed to reducing gun regulations.
The NFA is nothing more than a tax scheme which has imposed an unconstitutional burden on Americans since 1934. The registration of these items was only justified as the means to ensure taxes on them had been paid. With the One Big, Beautiful Bill zeroing out the tax for silencers and short barreled firearms, the registration scheme serves no other purpose than to create an unlawful barrier to keep people from exercising their Second Amendment rights. Our intention with this new lawsuit is to completely remove these barriers.
SAF has been fighting for more than 50 years to remove unnecessary burdens to our constitutional freedoms, and we welcome the opportunity to fight for the further dismantling of the NFA in court. The reforms in the One Big, Beautiful Bill represent the biggest blow to the NFA since its inception, and we fully support its complete repeal. Just like we’ve done for more than five decades, SAF will continue to fight so all Americans can have the freedom to exercise their Second Amendment rights for generations to come.
Celebrate and then do what you can to continue the fight for the freedom promised by the 2nd Amendment. I, with the help of my employer, donate thousands of dollars each year to FPC and SAF.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dismantle one of the most abusive federal gun control laws on the books. With the tax struck down by Congress, the rest of the NFA is standing on air.
It was appropriate that the bill was signed on July 4th.
Once we get rid of the registration, fingerprints, and extended background check aspects for the suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns we will have created a very powerful legal weapon. The precedents established will make the elimination of restrictions on machine guns obvious and achievable.
Thanks to a clip surfacing on social media today, we see that Mamdani is not hiding this. In fact, he has been strikingly open about what he believes and what he plans to do. You can listen to his comments for yourself here.
Speaking in 2021 at the Young Democratic Socialists of America Organizing Conference, Mamdani said his goal is to “continue to elect more socialists” and to be “unapologetic about our socialism.”
He followed that with two key objectives: boycotting Israel and “seizing the means of production.”
The phrase “seizing the means of production” is not some vague slogan—it is the core tenet of Marxist revolutionary ideology. It means that private property, businesses, and industries are taken from their owners and turned over to collective or state control.
Historically, this has been done not through elections or peaceful reform, but through authoritarian rule, state violence, and mass suppression.
Part of me wants to say, “Go for it! You can be a bad example for the current generation.” But that would be like rooting for cancer in your foot. It is already stinky, and it is not something you show off to your friends, but cancer is still a really bad thing.
According to a Gallup poll taken the year after NCCH’s founding (1975), when asked “Do you think there should or should not be a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police and other authorized persons?,” 41 percent of Americans stated that there should be. Asking the same question in 2018, only 28 percent of those polled supported such a measure.
After 45 years of failure to achieve their goal, a more introspective group might consider that there may be a defect in their ideas rather than their marketing. However, history suggests that it is only a matter of time before “Brady” undergoes yet another name change. They should spare themselves the consulting fees. Continuing the trend of creating ever more concise names, the group should further truncate “Brady” to just “Y.” As in: Why does this decrepit handgun prohibition organization still exist?
Y indeed? That was in 2019. It has now been over 50 years of mostly failure, lies, and more lies.
Their founding goal was to ban all handgun possession except for a few exceptions. They have failed after trying for over fifty years. And they have even lost ground with public carry now being (mostly) acknowledged as a constitutionally protected right in all 50 states.
The dynamic that leads to collapse is as invisible as the extremes. Once the organization–household, institution, corporation or nation-state, the dynamic is scale-invariant–has hardened into a brittle state of stasis, it’s impossible to shrink the budget without collapsing the entire structure.
I call this the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown: as expenses, self-interest and debt all expand, it becomes increasingly difficult to slash expenses without triggering the implosion of the organization.
Under the guise of cutting the fat to save the muscle, what actually happens is the muscle is cut to save the fat. This is a complex process, but in summary, the most competent realize the organization is dysfunctional and cannot be salvaged in its current bloated state of denial, and so they immediately jump ship.
The naive who believe they can turn the situation around give it their best effort but the resistance to any meaningful sacrifices is so tenacious that they burn out and quit.
That leaves the delusionally incompetent who reckon they’re finally getting the power they long deserved. This leads to the substitution of PR and artifice for actually reducing the organization to a sustainable level, for what’s required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system.
…
The story of the next decade is the playing out of the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown / The Ratchet Effect throughout the entire status quo: households, institutions, corporations and nation-states will all hasten to cut muscle to save the fat and then wonder why everything is imploding under the weight of delusion and denial.
As noted previously, what’s required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system. Without that, we get zip, zero, nada in meaningful adaptation to new realities.
In the National Instant background Check System (NICS) data, it appears most of the denials are false positives. Hard data on the errors found in the NICS system are not available. John has pointed out there are very few prosecutions of people who have been denied by the NICS system compared to the number of those denied. John stated NICS denials are often based on the phonetic spelling of the last name. The denials are not done with high levels of certainty. Because many people in the same ethnic group have similar sounding names, and because Blacks and Hispanics have much higher rates of felony convictions than Whites or Asians, it is likely Black and Hispanic people are denied from purchasing firearms in the NICS system at a much higher rates than people who are not Black or Hispanic.
In October of 2020, John Lott was appointed as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs. This was the second time he had worked for the government in D.C. When John got to DC, John went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and proposed a study of the NICS denials including data on race and sex. The BJS thought it was a great idea.
The the BJS sent the request for data to the FBI. went through the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS thought the idea of analyzing the NICS data was very good. When the Bureau of Justice Statistics contacted the FBI, The FBI responded, claiming there was no way we can get this done before January 20th. In any case, we are sure the Biden Administration will not be interested. After more emails and calls, the FBI response was: we just can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to break down this data by race and sex.
John responded: You guys break down everything by race and sex. What’s the big deal with this?
The BJS tells the FBI, it is not your decision to make. We decide what to look at and study. Your job is to collect and give us the data. The FBI refuses and the BJS persists. Finally, the FBI says the BJS will have to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
…
The AG, Bill Barr, orders the FBI to stop mucking around and send the data to the BJS.
…
The FBI dithers and delays. After a couple of weeks, the BJS receives the data, but something is wrong with it. It does not make any sense. The BJS complains, and the FBI apologizes, says they do not understand what went wrong. There are more delays, then the FBI sends another batch of data, which still doesn’t make an sense. This sequence happens a couple more times. The last time the FBI sends data which does not make sense is on January 19, 2021. Then the Biden administration takes power.
We have a lot of dollars sloshing around the world thanks to years and years of artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing, and more of those dollars are going to be coming home as foreigners get out of U.S. financial asset.
You’re seeing a global exodus out of U.S. stocks, out of U.S. bonds, and all that cash is going to come back home, bidding up prices.
The solution involves much higher interest rates. Now, I understand that’s going to be very painful, given the economy that we’ve created, built on a foundation of cheap money.
It means stock prices come down, real estate prices go down, companies fail. There’s going to be bankruptcies. There’s going to be defaults. There’s going to be a protracted recession, probably a much worse financial crisis than 2008, but all that has to happen because the alternative to that is even worse.
The U.S. is on the path to “runaway inflation” that could become “hyperinflation.”
Is this true? It does resonate with me. Hyperinflation is one of my big concerns in life. And because of this I have socked away $100 Trillion for a rainy day. But I have never even taken a class in economics. Perhaps I should invest/prepare differently.
For me the big wildcard in all this is that economists can’t really accurately model the economy. The math does not exist to account for the emotional reactions of what people do with their money and other assets. It could be a one sentence post on social media by the U.S. President or Elon Musk changes the entire dynamic.
One could argue that short term blips are unpredictable, but the long-term averages adhere to some math model(s). But then, how do you explain economic Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman having such an uncanny knack for getting nearly everything wrong? Economically blinded by TDS?
If so, then how do we know most other economists are not also economically impaired by the same or similar syndromes?
Oh, by the way, I ran out of Markley’s Law posts. The sources dried up early this year.
