Last Call For Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

 You live in the Wild West now.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Constitution provides a right to carry a gun outside the home, issuing a major decision on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

The 6-3 ruling was the court’s second important decision on the right to “keep and bear arms.” In a landmark 2008 decision, the court had said for the first time that the amendment safeguards a person’s right to possess firearms, although the decision was limited to keeping guns at home for self-defense.

The court has now taken that ruling to the next step after years of ducking the issue and applied the Second Amendment beyond the limits of homeowners’ property in a decision that could affect the ability of state and local governments to impose a wide variety of firearms regulations.

The decision, which came as Congress advanced the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in almost 30 years, involved a New York law that required showing a special need to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public. The state bans carrying handguns openly, but it allows residents to apply for licenses to carry them concealed.

The law at issue said, however, that permits could be granted only to applicants who demonstrated some special need — a requirement that went beyond a general desire for self-protection.

Gun owners in the state sued, contending that the requirement made it virtually impossible for ordinary citizens to get the necessary license. They argued that the law turned the Second Amendment into a limited privilege, not a constitutional right.

The court agreed with the challengers and struck down the heightened requirement, but it left the door open to allowing states to impose limits on the carrying of guns.

"The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not 'a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,'” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. "We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need."

 

This is the end of any attempt at gun control, as laws will be sued under this precedent for years to come.

 

Get used to your neighbors carrying heat.

 

Act accordingly, I guess. 

Just Another Day In Gunmerica.

The Supreme Death Watch

As of today's SCOTUS decisions, your Miranda rights are now meaningless as you have no Constitutional remedy in the courts to force accountability for violations of your Miranda rights.

 

The Supreme Court limited the ability to enforce Miranda rights in a ruling Thursday that said that suspects who are not warned about their right to remain silent cannot sue a police officer for damages under federal civil rights law even if the evidence was ultimately used against them in their criminal trial. 

The court's ruling will cut back on an individual's protections against self-incrimination by barring the potential to obtain damages. It also means that the failure to administer the warning will not expose a law enforcement officer to potential damages in a civil lawsuit. It will not impact, however, the exclusion of such evidence at a criminal trial. 

The court clarified that while the Miranda warning protects a constitutional right, the warning itself is not a right that would trigger the ability to bring a civil lawsuit. 

"Today's ruling doesn't get rid of the Miranda right," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "But it does make it far harder to enforce. Under this ruling, the only remedy for a violation of Miranda is to suppress statements obtained from a suspect who's not properly advised of his right to remain silent. But if the case never goes to trial, or if the government never seeks to use the statement, or if the statement is admitted notwithstanding the Miranda violation, there's no remedy at all for the government's misconduct."

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by the five other Republican-appointed justices, said that a violation of the Miranda right "is not itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment," and that "we see no justification for expanding Miranda to confer a right to sue," under the relevant statute.

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by the other liberal justices, said that the court's ruling was stripping "individuals of the ability to seek a remedy for violations of the right recognized in Miranda."

 

So yes, in cases that never go to trial, where suspects are coerced into a plea bargain (and that makes up the vast majority of criminal cases) there's no penalty for violating your Miranda rights. None.

Every cop in America is going to take advantage of that.

Watch.

Election Insurrection, Con't

The evidence revealed by the January 6th Committee hearings, continuing today, has now coincided with the Justice Department issuing multiple subpoenas in multiple states for election officials involved in Trump's fraudulent elector slate scam.

 

Federal agents investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday dropped subpoenas on people in multiple locations, widening the probe of how political activists supporting President Donald Trump tried to use invalid electors to thwart Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

Agents conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity Wednesday morning at different locations, FBI officials confirmed to The Washington Post. One was the home of Brad Carver, a Georgia lawyer who allegedly signed a document claiming to be a Trump elector. The other was the Virginia home of Thomas Lane, who worked on the Trump campaign’s efforts in Arizona and New Mexico. The FBI officials did not identify the people associated with those addresses, but public records list each of the locations as the home addresses of the men.

Among those who received a subpoena Wednesday was David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, who served as a Trump elector in that state, people familiar with the investigation said. Shafer’s lawyer declined to comment.

Separately, at least some of the would-be Trump electors in Michigan received subpoenas, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. But it was not immediately clear whether that activity was related to a federal probe or a state-level criminal inquiry.

The precise nature of the information being sought by the Justice Department at the homes of Carver and Lane was not immediately clear.

Officials have previously said that the Justice Department and the FBI were examining the issue of false electors, whom Trump and others hoped might be approved by state legislators in a last-ditch bid to keep Trump in the White House. Until now, however, those investigative efforts seemed to primarily involve talking to people in Republican circles who knew of the scheme and objected; the subpoenas issued Wednesday suggest the Justice Department is now moving to question at least some of those who allegedly agreed to pursue the effort.

FBI agents delivered a subpoena to Lane on Wednesday morning at his home in Virginia, according to the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. After leaving the Trump campaign, Lane has worked for the Republican National Committee’s election efforts in Virginia, this person said.

A video posted online in 2020 appears to show Lane handing out paperwork for electors at the Arizona Republican Party’s Dec. 14 alternate elector signing ceremony in Phoenix.

Phone messages left for Lane were not immediately returned. Carver, the Georgia lawyer, also did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Public records list an address for Lane in south Arlington, and an FBI spokeswoman confirmed agents conducted “court-authorized law enforcement activity” at that address on Wednesday morning.

The new investigative moves by the Justice Department come amid a series of high-profile congressional hearings examining not just the riot at the Capitol, but also Trump’s efforts to undo Biden’s electoral victory through fake electors, lobbying the Justice Department and false claims of massive voter fraud.

 

Repeat after me: Conspiracy to defraud the United States of America.

 

Merrick Garland and the DoJ are moving deliberately now towards prosecution and have been for months. We've known about the fake elector scam for 18 months almost. The only question is if they will go all the way up the ladder and charge Trump. The DoJ has been on this investigation since January of this year.

 

Granted, that's the biggest decision of them all, but I guarantee you federal charges are coming for a hell of a lot of Trump's inner circle on this.