Third Circuit Ruling in NJ 'Assault Weapon' and Large Capacity Magazine Case a Huge Win for the 2A

 Yes, I am late to the party, but I have now three articles to highlight concerning the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that New Jersey's so-called "Assault Weapon" ban and large capacity magazine ban  violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution. To say this was a huge win for the Second Amendment is an understatement.

First up is an article at Ammoland entitled Major 2A Victory: Third Circuit Strikes Down New Jersey's AR-25 and Magazine Bans Note that the court sitting en banc had 10 of the 15 judges concurring in the majority opinion.

New Jersey’s AR-15 ban and 10-round magazine limit have suffered a major federal appellate defeat.

Sitting en banc, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled July 17 that New Jersey’s so-called “assault firearm” ban violates the Second Amendment as applied to every semiautomatic rifle covered by the law. The court also struck down the state’s prohibition on magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds.

Ten of the court’s 15 judges joined the judgment invalidating the rifle and magazine provisions in the consolidated challenges brought by the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, individual gun owners, and the Firearms Policy Coalition. Judge Arianna Freeman wrote the opinion of the court.

The decision goes substantially further than the lower court’s 2024 ruling. U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan had limited his decision against the rifle ban to Colt-manufactured AR-15s while upholding New Jersey’s magazine restriction. The Third Circuit expanded that judgment to all semiautomatic rifles regulated by the challenged provisions and reversed the ruling on magazines.

Of course, there is a catch.

The Third Circuit remanded the challenges involving semiautomatic pistols, semiautomatic shotguns, and other weapons covered by New Jersey’s definition because the record was less developed regarding those firearms. Bump stocks were not part of the challenge. The court also did not decide the separate Takings Clause claim because the Second Amendment ruling resolved the magazine dispute.

New Jersey gun owners should not treat the publication of the opinion as an immediate green light to disregard existing statutes. The appellate mandate, further district-court proceedings, and any request by the state for a stay must still be watched closely.

Meanwhile, over at Bearing Arms, Cam Edwards has two articles on the Third Circuit ruling, with one more to follow. The first announces the win at Breaking: Third Circuit Says Ban on 'Assault Weapons' and 'Large Capacity Magazines' Is Unconstitutional. The second at 'Catchy Slogans' Versus 'The Rights of Our Republic:' Concurring Opinions in NJ Gun Ban Case.

I urge gentle readers to read all three articles, and of course check back for Cam Edwards analysis of dissenting opinions.

Pipe Meditations

 Today I was smoking a 58-year-old billiard style pipe, probably a Dunhill second by the looks of it.  The markings on it, barely legible now say "Made in England" and "Savory."  I bought this pipe during my first quarter at college, and the smoking of it brought back a flood of long forgotten memories.

I was already smoking a pipe, a nondescript Dr. Grabow that, while relatively inexpensive, nonetheless provided a good smoke.  At that time, I was smoking Sutliff's "Mixture 79," a very fragrant pipe tobacco that tasted like soap.  (Good riddance.)  I didn't really know any better. Then I met a fellow pipe smoker who introduced me to more sophisticated smoking.  At the Tech Book Store, with this acquaintance, I managed to find this billiard pipe and a mixture from the Dutch firm of Dowe Egbert called "Amphora Aromatic."  Now, my dad smoked a pipe with "Sir Walter Raleigh" pipe tobacco, a blend they now call a codger blend or more kindly, an over-the-counter blend.  But I was too sophisticated for old codger blends!  The arrogance of youth.

Back then, you could find pipe displays in every drug store and supermarket.  They had brands like Dr. Grabow, Kaywoodie, Medico, and of course Missouri Meerschaum Corn Cob pipes.  They also carried pipe tobaccos in these stores; Prince Albert, Sir Walter Raleigh, Granger, Carter Hall, Revelation, Cherry Blend, and many others.  These were typically burley blends, some with various casings and toppings to provide a pleasant flavor and room note. A lot of blue-collar working men smoked one of these because they were inexpensive and convenient. They did not look on pipe smoking as a hobby, but a part of life.  One could smoke a 2-ounce pouch of pipe tobacco that lasted a week.  Cigarettes on the other hand typically were consumed at a pack a day and each pack cost as much as a pouch of pipe tobacco. There was no internet, no on-line stores.  I have even seen a motorcycle rider going down the highway smoking a pipe.

When I graduated college, Amphora was no longer available to me, so I too switched to Sir Walter Raleigh Aromatic.  But I still smoked my billiard.  Although I collected other pipes as time went on, I still have this old billiard, well-worn and well used.  It brings back both fond memories and things I would rather forget when I smoke it.  So now I have become an old codger, smoking codger blends and dredging up old memories.             

Pipe Smoking Has Gone Underground

 I used to smoke a pipe.  I did so for around 27 years until 1997 when President Clinton wrote the executive order making smoking in Federal buildings illegal.  Of course, many businesses suddenly restricted smoking, as well as restaurants, airplanes and...well, you get the idea.  Even my lovely bride, Mrs. PolyKahr complained about tobacco smoke.  Part of the reason was state laws banning smoking.  Some states took it to the extreme, and you couldn't even smoke in your apartment.

Now, most of the uproar was driven by cigarettes, which are more addictive than even heroine, and since cigarette smokers inhale the smoke, over many years in may cause lung cancer.  I say "may" because cigarettes only cause you to have an increased risk of lung cancer by around 15%.  Ordinary people who never smoke have a 7% risk of lung cancer.

As long as cigarette smokers were only harming themselves, the government couldn't do much about it.  But then, the busybody community came up with a new theory that they too were being harmed by so-called "second hand smoke."  They then went about doing various studies which I don't think ever showed a statistically significant harm, and these were epidemiologic studies not controlled studies.  In any case, they pressed on and eventually made most places no smoking zones.

In the no smoking bans, pipes and cigars were caught up with cigarettes.  The busybody community did not see a distinction, and since they operated from ignorance, why would they?  Pipes and cigars are not typically inhaled.  Indeed, the many pipe blends on the market are there because flavor is the main thing.  One takes smoke into the mouth and then releases it.  One can detect many flavors in pipe tobacco including nuttiness, earthiness and the flavor of the casings that make various tobaccos taste different.  Then there is the smell.  Interestingly, one of the things being evaluated when reviewing pipe tobaccos is what is termed "room note," the smell of the room after one has smoked a bit.  Many aromatic tobacco blends really do smell quite pleasant.

Today, I ran across a Youtube video entitled A Little Essay on Pipe Smoking. Malcom Guite has captured the essence of pipe smoking. It is relaxing. He does these little things at last to do nothing. Unlike the cigarette, which can be smoked in a few minutes, enough to get that nicotine hit, a pipe is going to be smoked for a while, perhaps 45 minutes to an hour. A pipe requires fiddling and figeting with it. You carefully pack it with tobacco, not too tight or too loose. There is an art to lighting it. Then you have to tamp it down (with a special tool) several times. When you are done, there is cleaning it and putting it up. All that allows you to contemplate, to just be. You can read a book. I know I don't do that enough anymore or enjoy music.

There is a song by the group Alabama entitled I'm in a Hurry which describes the current state of America rather well. We are all in a hurry to get things done and go onto the next. Kids have little non-structured time.  If not is school, they are doing homework of playing various sports.  Their parents are busy making sure their children can fill out the requirements to get into that Ivy League college.  If that is you, perhaps you need to take time out of your day, join the Brotherhood of the Briar and just contemplate and be for a little while.

Another Plandemic? Just In Time for Another Election

 There is growing concern in the conservative media that the Democrats are preparing to run the Covid playbook again.  First, we get articles attempting to hype up the Hantavirus and scare people, and then the World Health Organization (WHO) declares Ebola a worldwide threat.  You should know by now that Covid was not going to kill healthy individuals at any age.  But if your immune system was compromised you needed to stay away from other people.  But no, the Left and the media (but I repeat myself) used it to panic the people and then as an excuse to justify the rigging of the election.  It worked so well, there is every reason to believe they will try it again.

But before we get into today's article, let us note that NIH top Ebola researcher Vincent Munster (Fauci collaborator) caught smuggling undeclared pathogen samples from the Congo,   And what would those samples be? Why of course, Ebola. Now, why would the NIH have to smuggle these samples in. As an Ebola researcher, he would have reason to bring them in the legal way. Or he could study them in the Congo if he were not allowed to bring them into the United States. This coupled with the WHO declaration raises suspicion among those of us who remember how the people ran a tabletop version of the Covid plandemic before running it in real life.

Putting it altogether is Matthew G. Andersson at the American Thinker today in an article entitled How to distract a wartime president and undermine a nation.

The one card it (the Democrat party)can play in the upcoming midterms where it seeks congressional majorities, is to revert to what it did previously to undermine elections: turn to emergency authority and compliance, including claims of severe threats to public safety coming from the “dangerous voices” of conservatives.

The prior COVID program was used as just such a social and political control tool. It justified widespread mail ballot abuse to avoid in-person “infection risk,” and it was used to directly appeal to state courts to illegally change election rules, bypassing legislation. It also served to turn anyone questioning their plans into dangers to public safety. The COVID program also created a government spending orgy, with taxpayer money flying out the door including to favored DNC allies like the teachers union: almost $2 trillion was dispersed under Biden as COVID “relief aid.” It is still largely unaccounted for.

A new fear campaign based on “hantavirus,” coupled with a W.H.O. announcement of a global ebola virus risk, has the hallmarks of another “COVID” political project.

Gentle readers can read the entire article. It isn't that long. And remember, with Covid, the virus itself wasn't a hoax, but it's so-called methods of control were. Remember that stopping a virus with a mask is like trying to stop mosquitos with a chain link fence. They pass right through. But a panicked public will try anything. It will be the same here. Hantavirus is real, but the things the Democrats want to do to our voting systems is all a hoax, and probably illegal.

The True Purpose of Gun Control Laws

 We have two articles to highlight today on the subject of the failed Minnesota gun ban. The first comes from Mike McDaniel at the American Thinker entitled Minnesota fails to ban (assault weapons (sic)). McDaniel points out that:

...Suffice it to say, no government that disarmed its people ever did so for altruistic and benevolent reasons. Just ask the Iranians or Cubans.

McDaniel starts off his post with:

There are several blue states that have extinguished themselves by going full Communist/Islamist. Never go full Communist/Islamist. The big three are California, Illinois and New York, but Minnesota, under soon to be ex-governor Tampon Tim Walz, is vying for the number one spot in that pantheon of lunatic anti-Americanism.

The Minnesota Senate is barely in the hands of Democrats while the House is evenly split, with the Speaker of the House a Republican largely due to Democrats getting caught cheating in the 2024 election. As with the big three and every other blue state, there are certain articles of faith. Arguably the most important among them is that Normal Americans—largely but not exclusively Republicans—must be disarmed, not only within their Communist/Islamist states, but everywhere. They understand that unless and until they can disarm Normal Americans, their utopian state, a tyranny of the majority, can never be realized.

That is what all the fuss is about. The so-called "Democrats" don't care about criminals with guns, or they wouldn't routinely let them out to rob and murder again. No, what they care about is YOU, the law-abiding gun owner. You scare them because they want, indeed they can almost taste it, complete power over you and how you live. It has been tried and failed before, most notably in the old Soviet Union. There the "citizens" were told where to work, where to live, what they could buy right down to what foods they could buy. Anyone who understands human nature knows this kind of control will fail.

A similar article, though more passionate, is After Failing to Pass a Radical Gun Control Bill, a Minnesota Democrat Responded With Violence at Townhall.com by Amy Curtis. Curtis points out that no matter how many gun control bills are already on the books, Democrats believe that one more will magically make us safer. But the fact that Democrat prosecutors and judges seem not to throw the book at felons in possession, even they don't believe it. This makes you wonder what these Democrats really want.

Democrats will never cease in their efforts to strip us of our Second Amendment rights. Any time there is a mass shooting, they trip over themselves to get in front of a microphone to demand more gun control laws. It doesn't matter that there are countless gun control laws on the books already — laws Democrats refuse to enforce — they insist more gun laws will magically make us 'safer.'

The reality is they won't. Last month, former Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax killed his estranged wife and himself in a murder-suicide. Fairfax was a proponent of gun control, including red flag laws that weren't followed as Fairfax's marriage fell apart and reports of increased drinking were apparently known. In Massachusetts, Judge Janet Sanders gave Boston career criminal Tyler Brown only five years after Brown — a man with a 20-year history of crimes, including firearms charges — tried to shoot two Boston police officers. Sanders admitted she was 'taking a risk' on Brown because law enforcement told her he was dangerous. Last week, Brown used a rifle to open fire on a Massachusetts road, critically wounding two commuters. And in Fairfax County, VA, Prosecutor Steve Descano released illegal alien Marvin Morales Ortez, dropping gun charges against him.

This reality doesn't matter to Democrats, because their goal is to take guns away not from criminals, but from law-abiding citizens. And when they don't get their way, they get nasty and violent, as Minnesota State Rep. Aisha Gomez did after a radical gun control bill failed to pass.

...snip...

Democrats accuse gun owners and Republicans of fomenting gun violence, but the reality is far different. At the drop of a hat, Democrats are willing to engage in violence when they do not get their way politically. Their accusations are really confessions, as Gomez once again demonstrated here. They know their Republican opponents are not violent; they wouldn't say such abhorrent things if we were.

Please go and read both articles. Understand that they could care less about the criminal element. The real target of these gun control laws is the law-abiding citizen.

Worshipping the Creation Instead of the Creator

 J.B. Shurk, over at the American Thinker yesterday had an article that gentled readers should read entitled Leftism: A Religious Cult for Psychopaths and Crazies. In it, Shurk describes the many ways the Left seeks to indoctrinate you, including finally murdering you if you still don't believe. In that, it is not unlike Islam, so it makes sense that the two "religions" have temporarily sought common cause against Christianity.

The efforts in Wales to indoctrinate toddlers to become little racists is despicable enough. But the proposal in Denmark to deny old folks in state run nursing homes meat should be thought of as genocide. The "crime" the elderly did? Why they destroyed the climate, of course. No wonder St. Greta Thunberg thinks the world will end in 12 years.

In its essence, leftist-globalism is a psychopathic religion. It cannot countenance argument or dissent. Everyone must be forced to believe in the exact same things. In Wales, leftist-globalists indoctrinate toddlers to fear “white supremacy” and to love Islam, “multiculturalism,” and “diversity.” In Denmark, leftist-globalists indoctrinate citizens to fear “climate change” and to hate older citizens for their “climate crimes.”

These are cult-like conditioning programs meant to trap human minds in a permanent state of suicidal self-delusion. Instead of “drinking the Kool-Aid,” toddlers are given daily diets of everything is racist! Instead of cutting out the hearts of human sacrifices to appease certain Aztec gods, today’s leftist-globalists sacrifice people over a certain age by denying them meat. It’s crazy, irrational dogma used to indoctrinate people from cradle to grave. Neither Jim Jones nor Aztec priests, however, are leading this lunacy. Instead, leftist-globalist governments are spreading this madness.

Now, the God of the Bible unlike Islam's god, or these crazy people's god, calls everyone to Him. But he leaves the choice to you. You can accept Him or reject Him. Those who actively reject the invitation, He lets them go their own way, now and in the afterlife. Hell, you see is not a prison designed to torture people. It is being as far from God as that person wants to be. The gates of heaven are always open, the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

Go read Shurk's article highlighted above and see if it makes sense to you as well.

Count Me Among Those Who are Fed Up

Mike McDaniel had a post yesterday at the American Thinker entitled When it comes to leftists and law-abiding gun owners, they really hate us. McDaniel starts out with a typical leftist approach:

After any notorious shooting, anti-liberty/gun cracktivists inevitably—after demanding: “what will it take before we do something about gun violence?”—call for a “national conversation about gun violence.” When Normal Americans reply, “OK, let’s talk,” they scream, “shut up, you racist, red neck, domestic terrorists!” Every. Single. Time.

I have encountered these "let's have a national conversation" types. My response, because I have around so long has been: "We have already had that conversation. You lost." They are not going to change my mind now, after all I have seen and heard, and I am certainly not going to change theirs. Second of all, as McDaniel points out, there is no such thing as "gun violence." Guns are tools, relatively simple inanimate objects. People are the once who commit violence, and that violence depends on whether they are assaulting innocent people, or they are defending themselves from such an assault. Guns may be used in both cases, but one of them is justified, the other is not.

It’s like Lucy pulling the football away from poor Charlie Brown. Normal, honest Americans are willing to talk with just about anybody about just about anything, even though they know there’s no such thing as “gun violence.” People commit violence, not inanimate objects. Guns are nothing more than tools that propel projectiles. They have no consciousness, no emotions, no malice. They are neither good nor evil, and they’re only one of many tools capable of being used by human beings to harm other human beings, tools like motor vehicles, which in the warped sense that guns are responsible for violence, are responsible for far more deaths and injuries than guns.

Normal Americans are the people who built, build, and maintain America. They’re not the people who are protesting law enforcement in particular and our representative, constitutional republic in general. Recognizing “our democracy” is a tyranny of the majority, they support the rule of law by voting and politely telling their representatives when they’re displeased.

Yes, I think our Constitutional, representative republic was inspired. But knowing that men are not angels I keep an eye on it. The right to keep and bear arms keeps the government from taking all of my other rights. I certainly believe that those who have rigged our elections need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And we need to go back to watermarked paper ballots and holding elections on one day. But I depend on the corrective power of the Constitutional representative republic to fix it.

True, many Normal Americans, knowing all that, are fed up. Many won’t bother to have a “conversation” that will produce little more than angry, spittle-slinging rage, obscenities and insults. Still, some will try in the hope that logic, reason, objective facts and the lessons of history might somehow prevail, that those foundations of western civilization might somehow reach those likely too far gone on the path to a communist utopia might pause, think and embrace sanity.

So sure, they’ll have that conversation, because they’re decent people and they’re willing to be pleasantly surprised. But they’re not willing to bargain away the Constitution or the rule of law to people who want them dead.

Count me among those who are fed up. I have had the conversation with many people, and at my age don't need to have another "angry, spittle-slinging" conversation filled with "rage, obscentities and insults." But if McDaniel is willing to put up with it, more power to him.