Underpaid prosecutors overwhelmed by a mammoth backlog of cases are quitting in droves when their work is needed more than ever, the city’s district attorneys told the City Council on Friday.

“Former staffers cited the responsibilities of discovery, managing the backlog of cases, and increased night and weekend shifts among the reasons why they leave,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark told the council’s Public Safety Committee at a virtual budget hearing.

“People are in tears when they leave because they love the work they do for the Bronx community, but the job is now overwhelming.”

Clark said 104 attorneys and 90 professional staff had quit her office by the end of February, surpassing the 96 attorneys and 51 professional staff who left in all of 2021.

Clark said the departures come as the Bronx DA faces 1,270 open gun cases.

Molly Crane-Newman
March 18, 2022
Overwhelmed prosecutors quitting ‘in tears’ amid staffing crisis, NYC district attorneys say
[The answer is right in front of them and they refuse to see it. Stop prosecuting people for having open guns! Or is it that nearly 1,300 people have shown the Bronx DA their open gun cases and the DA is paralyzed with fright?

Regardless, this is an indicator of things to come and the opportunities opening up. If the anti-gun laws are not quickly struck down or repealed people will ignore them and start normalizing gun ownership in self defense.

We live in interesting times. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

During her Senate confirmation hearings, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked, “Do you believe the individual right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right?”

Judge Jackson’s response is telling: “Senator, the Supreme Court has established that the individual right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right.”

She did not say the right to keep and bear arms was enshrined in the Constitution. Nor did she say it’s part of our God-given right to self-defense. Instead, she believes the RKBA was “established” by the Supreme Court. That, friends, is a judicial philosophy taken straight from the pages of Gun Banning 101.

Lee Williams
March 28, 2022
Come on, man. Of course, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is anti-gun
[I also was struck by the odd wording when Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras tweeted Judge Jackson’s response to me. And, I’m nearly certain, she wasn’t referring to this SCOTUS declaration:

This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.

That said, I’m not sure any Senators are going to expend the political capital to make a big deal out of opposing her nomination. Those in tight elections might well see opponents shriek, “Senator Racist voted against confirming the first black woman to the Supreme Court!”. It is probably better that they save their ammo for legislative votes with less baggage and more immediate and direct consequences.—Joe]

Rights are not gifts from government.

They don’t come from documents, or courts, or legislation – or anything of the like.

Thomas Paine called them “imprescriptible rights.” Richard Henry Lee said they came from the “law of nature.”

And as John Dickinson put it in 1776, “Our liberties do not come from charters, for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights.”

Paine agreed when he wrote that “it is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights.”

But this essential principle is increasingly lost on a general public more concerned with the political soap opera of the day rather than the fact that both major parties have aggressively attacked the Constitution and liberty for decades.

And what they’ve left behind, they treat as government-granted privileges – not rights.

Michael Boldin
November 26, 2021
Rights are Not Gifts from Government
[Something lost on nearly all anti-gun people is that amending the 2nd Amendment out of existence, if they could accomplish that, would still leave the matter of the SCOTUS decision in U S v Cruikshank:

The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.

When those people tell you there was no individual right to keep and bear arms before DC v Heller, or that they will amend the constitution to eliminate the right, you have something to tell them. Tell them they are wrong. Tell them SCOTUS settled those claims nearly 150 years ago. And the people have the legal authority, moral authority, and the power to back up that decision.—Joe]

24 NRA CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY STATES DOWN, 26 TO GO! #winning

NRA @NRA
Tweeted on March 21, 2022
[I remember when it was called Vermont carry. And many people held those pushing for shall issue carry in contempt. The thought was that granting the opposition the toehold that the state had the authority to license what should be an unrestricted right was a dead end. It was, they claimed, Vermont carry or nothing. No compromise. Once the state was licensing our rights it was a slippery slope to no right to carry.

I was torn. I didn’t see a direct path to unlicensed concealed carry from many anti-gun leaning states. But there might be a path to licensed concealed carry. Wasn’t the possibility of progress better than the faint hope of utopia?

Even now people claim, “Liberty isn’t on the ballot. I don’t see the point of voting.” But the progress of constitutional carry shows that you don’t need to reach perfection with your next step. You just need to make progress or even just hold the ground you currently have until the next time you take a step.—Joe]

You’re just completely redefining “gun control” to pretend your ideology isnt completely incoherent.

The reality of “gun control” is dark money orgs run by wine moms, distributing $ to ghoul pols, who then have the cops kick down ur door, shoot ur doggo, & throw u in a cage.

BlueCollarPew @BlueCollarPew
Tweeted on March 8, 2022
[While not complete, it is certainly not wrong.—Joe]

Dear Gabby, Shannon and Mike,

The instant the first Russian T-80 crossed the Ukrainian border, the whole world could see the uselessness of everything you’ve ever said and everything you’ve ever done. You’ve been overtaken by events – mooted and muted in one fell swoop, so scram. Leave the field. It is time for you and your gun-ban groups to go.

There’s a madman with nukes on the loose who’s just 50 miles off Alaska’s port bow. No one knows how far he’s willing to go, so you’re out. The adults are taking charge. Your services are no longer required. Please take the Demanding Moms and their creepy husbands with you, open a box of wine and have yourselves a good cry. Ukraine learned nearly too late that the right to keep and bear arms saves lives, while the civilian disarmament pipedream you’ve been peddling for decades costs lives.

Lee Williams
March 2022
An open letter to Gabby Giffords, Shannon Watts and Michael Bloomberg
[There’s more but I found this the best part.—Joe]