Fairfax, Virginia, police responded to reports of a shooting at a home in Oakton, and when they arrived they found a man dead at the scene who allegedly had broken into the residence.
Fairfax County Police sent out a tweet at about 6:50 p.m. saying that officers were at the scene of a fatal shooting at a home on Waples Mill Road in Oakton, Virginia.
Iowa was one of only six states without a provision in the state constitution to offer protection of the right to keep and bear arms.
In the last part of a long, complicated process to amend the Iowa State Constitution, Iowa voters approved of Iowa Amendment 1, Right to Keep and Bear Arms (2022) by nearly a 2-1 margin. From ballotpedia:
A "yes" vote supported adding
a right to own and bear firearms to the Iowa Constitution and require
strict scrutiny for any alleged violations of the right brought before a
court.A "no" vote opposed adding
a right to own and bear firearms to the Iowa Constitution and require
strict scrutiny for any alleged violations of the right brought before a
court.
With 98.55% of the vote counted, the election result makes clear the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has passed. From the desmoinesregister.com:
Yes votes 65.1%
No votes 34.9%
The percentage of victory for the amendment is several percentage point higher than was predicted in a poll done a few days before the election. In that poll, 58% of Iowa likely voters planned to vote for the amendment, 37% planned to vote against the amendment, and 6% were not sure.
When the votes were counted, all those predicted by the poll voted for the amendment, including all those who were undecided, and about two percent of those who said they would vote against the amendment.
Iowa continues the trend of large percentages of state voters approving of constitutional amendments protecting the right to keep and bear arms. The actual wording of the Iowa amendment is this:
Right to keep and bear arms. Sec. 1A. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.
Several previous states have added right to keep and bear arms amendments to their state constitutions, or strengthened existing protections of the right to keep and bear arms.
1998 Wisconsin: 74% voted in favor of a right to keep and bear arms amendment
2010 Kansas: 88% voted in favor of a right to keep and bear arms amendment
2012 Louisiana: 74% voted in favor of a right to keep and bear arms amendment
2014 Alabama: 72% voted in favor of a right to keep and bear arms amendment
2014 Missouri: 61% voted in favor of a strengthened right to keep and bear arms amendment
The Iowa process was long and difficult. In Iowa, a constitutional amendment has to pass both chambers of the legislature.
Then, a scheduled election has to take place.
Then the constitutional amendment has to pass both chambers of the legislature, again.
Then, the amendment has to be passed in a general referendum, which is what happened in this election.
In Iowa, the process was delayed because the Secretary of State forgot to publish the amendment as required by law. Because of this, the amendment had to be passed by both chambers of the legislature a third time, in 2021.
Now that the measure has passed, Iowans are protected by both the Second Amendment at the national level and by the recently passed measure.
In the Bruen decision by the United States Supreme Court, the "levels of scrutiny" were struck down as irrelevant.
Thus the Second Amendment provides a higher level of protection than even the Iowa measure, which holds the courts to "strict scrutiny".
When given a choice, voters consistently vote to protect their right to keep and bear arms.
The five states which do not have a state constitutional protection for the right to keep and bear arms are: California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
A man who shot and killed another man during a parking dispute in downtown St. Petersburg was acquitted of a murder charge Wednesday after his attorney argued he was acting in self defense.
Donovan Elmalik Gamel Shabazz, 49, initially faced a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the Sept. 28, 2021, death of Shane Tyler Boyd, 26, near the intersection of Central Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — One person was killed and another was injured in a shooting on Sycamore Road early Tuesday.
Police said 49-year-old Dontrell Booker was killed and 20-year-old Zion Lacy was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries to his leg.
According to police investigations, Booker, the boyfriend of Lacy's mom, allegedly got into a fight with Lacy. Investigations show that Booker shot Lacy first, then Lacy retrieved a second gun and shot back.
The City of Columbus, Ohio, sued a Franklin County court of Common Pleas judge in Columbus, in the Supreme Court of Ohio, to obtain an injunction against Ohio preemption law, claiming the law violates the Ohio Constitution.
The preemption law was passed in December of 2018, overriding a veto by the Ohio Governor Kasich.
Here is a link to the law in question, Ohio R.C. 9.68(A). Here is the part of the law dealing with commercial purposes:
(D) This section does not apply to either of the following:
(1) A zoning ordinance that regulates or prohibits the commercial sale of knives, firearms, firearm components, or ammunition for firearms in areas zoned for residential or agricultural uses;
(2) A zoning ordinance that specifies the hours of operation or the geographic areas where the commercial sale of knives, firearms, firearm components, or ammunition for firearms may occur, provided that the zoning ordinance is consistent with zoning ordinances for other retail establishments in the same geographic area and does not result in a de facto prohibition of the commercial sale of knives, firearms, firearm components, or ammunition for firearms in areas zoned for commercial, retail, or industrial uses.
The City of Columbus filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2019.
Both parties asked to vacate the case schedule on December 2, 2019.
On October 24, 2022, the City of Columbus fired a lawsuit to force Judge McIntosh to rule on a motion for a preliminary injunction, claiming the judge had failed to follow proper procedure.
Under pressure of lawsuit, Judge Stephen L. McIntosh granted the injunction on November 2, 2022.
The argument is the statute prevents the city from regulating the commercial manufacture of firearms. From the injunction
In its Motion for Preliminary Injunction, the City argues that Am. Sub. H.B. 228 and R.C. 9.68 are unconstitutional because they infringe on the City’s right to exercise its zoning powers, under C.C.C. 3332.02, to prohibit a firearms manufacturing plant from locating in a residential neighborhood. The City asserts that the General Assembly has expressly prohibited the City from passing any zoning regulations related to firearms, including where a firearms manufacturer might locate.
The state contends zoning laws which apply to all manufacturing plants are not prohibited, only laws which specifically apply to firearms.
The city contends they are prohibited from zoning firearms manufacturers.
No commercial firearms manufacturers exist in Columbus, it appears. None are mentioned in the injunction.
The City argues that the public interest would be served by the prevention of firearm manufacturers from setting up a plant in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Because the statute does not expressly prohibit such action. Paragraph (D) prohibits the commercial sale of firearms in certain zoned areas but does not speak to manufacturing plants.
The City argues they would be harmed if a person started to commercially manufacture firearms in their jurisdiction, and they would be required to sue to prevent such an occurrence.
Several previous lawsuits by cities in Ohio against firearms pre-emption laws have lost at the Supreme Court level.
It appears to be an ingenious bit of lawfare. The only part of the pre-emption law which is being challenged is the potentially ambiguous exemption of zoning of manufacturing plants for firearms.
On this thread, Columbus hopes to strike down the entire law.
Buckeye Firearms Association believes the injunction properly only applies to the commercial manufacture of firearms in residential areas. From buckeyefireams.org:
"The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled specifically that Ohio's preemption statute is valid law and a lower court judge cannot simply sweep that away. There may be a case concerning the narrow issue of whether cities can zone to prevent firearm manufacturers from locating in residential neighborhoods, but that is all."
Buckeye Firearms Association urges Columbus to stop playing politics with settled law and stop misleading the public about their authority on gun regulation.
Columbus and other cities must continue to abide by state law.
"Any city that attempts to ignore Ohio's preemption law will be challenged in court," warned Rieck. "We will not sit by idly and watch Ohio devolve into a patchwork of conflicting gun laws as we had two decades ago.
Opinion:
It seems the city lacks standing here, because the harm is entirely speculative. Cities do not have rights. They have powers. This is a general law, applying to the entire state, not any city in particular.
There is no actual harm at this time.
The injunction is near certain to be appealed. One contention is if the injunction applies to the entire law and to the entire state of Ohio.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
It happened around 4:20 a.m. in the area of Second Avenue and Dixie Street. Police say a person reported he had just shot a man in self-defense.
"When officers arrived, contact was made with two men, one who had been shot in the hand, and a second who advised he had shot the man in self-defense during a disturbance between the two of them," a release from Crestview Police states.
A 29-year-old man was killed when police say he was shot while trying to break into a west Birmingham home.
The burglary call went out at 12:45 a.m. Tuesday at a house on Avenue O.
The homeowner told police the intruder was trying to crawl through the window of her house. She grabbed her gun and fired a couple of shots, striking the burglary suspect once in the chest.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the homeowner knew the man.
Publilshed in AmmoLand on 7 November
In the long struggle to restore the United States Constitution, the battle to restore the rights protected by the Second Amendment has been pivotal.
The desire to infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment is one of the clearest indicators of whether a politician supports limits on government or does not.
At the minimum, support for the right to keep and bear arms shows the politician feels
pressure to support limits on government.
One of greatest benefits of the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution, is its ease of understanding. Much has been written to attempt to obfuscate the clear meaning of the Amendment. That effort has failed.
About 70% to 80% of Americans believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, from various polls over the last two decades.
One in five Americans wants the Second Amendment repealed, according to a poll done by the Economist and YouGov, both notoriously in favor of greater restrictions on gun ownership and use in the United States.
The desire to repeal the Amendment shows those who want a disarmed population understand the Second Amendment's substantial effect.
This correspondent is reluctant to recommend party line voting. The Left has changed the playing field.
Support for Second Amendment protections used to be bipartisan. As the Democrat party moved further toward totalitarian policies, pushing for infringements on Second Amendment rights, restricting freedom of speech through collaboration with Big Tech, violating the right to have and control property, a clear split has occurred.
Virtually all Democrat politicians support more restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
There are Republicans (In Name Only) who support restrictions.
RINOs are a minority in the party. The Republican Party has been reshaped by President Trump and by partisan support for Democrats by the major media.
The totalitarian proclivities of the Democrats have been revealed.
We have reached a pivotal point in politics in the United States. The last two years, the country barely escaped descending into a totalitarian state, where the far left party would control all federal elections nationally, would eliminate safeguards of election integrity; and would prevent any accountability for election fraud and rigging.
Only two Democrats, who risked their status to buck the Democratic Party, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, prevented the bill from passing. Enormous pressure was exerted against them, but they held.
The Democratic party was similarly close to adding two new states to the Union to make far left control of the Senate permanent for the foreseeable future; and to pack the Supreme Court with several new justices in order to rewrite the Constitution through leftist judges, reversing recent decisions on the Second Amendment, abortion, and the ability of bureaucrats to rule the United States without any representation.
These attempts to fundamentally change the United State came far, far too close to success. If they had succeeded, it is difficult to see how the changes could be reversed with voting.
Those responsible must be punished.
The easiest and best way to punish them is to remove them from power. The easiest way to remove them from power is to vote against all Democrats in the 2022 mid-terms.
A vote for a third party candidate, is, essentially a vote for the Democrat.
Libertarians, particularly, have been used to split the limited government vote and elect Democrats.
Marc Victor, the Libertarian Candidate for the Senate in Arizona, recognized this fact. He dropped out of the Senate race and urged his supporters to vote for Blake Masters, the Republican candidate. In a close race in Arizona, it may make the difference.
This correspondent would prefer bi-partisan support for the rights protected by the Second Amendment.
If Democrats are beaten badly enough in the 2022 election, perhaps the Democratic Party will return to sanity.
The trend has been in the opposite direction.
In the mid-terms, the Left must be removed from power.
The ballot box is far preferable to the cartridge box.
If a person is not willing to vote, when that is easy, it is difficult to believe they will be willing to resist a tyrannical state with force, as that is very hard.
I pray we can avoid a shooting war.
The last best way, to avoid conflict with force, is to vote.
You may not be interested in government, but the government is very interested in you.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
CENTER TWP. − Beaver County prosecutors announced Monday they are dropping manslaughter charges filed against a Pittsburgh man in August.
District Attorney David Lozier said they have withdrawn all charges against Wesley Dean Deaderick, 29, after investigators say they determined he acted in self-defense in the shooting death of 32-year-old William Dawkins of Aliquippa.
On October 6, 2022, Judge Glenn T. Suddaby issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO)to prevent New York State from enforcing the new infringements on the exercis of Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
The restraining order was issued after a first lawsuit by the Plaintiff failed on August 1, for lack of standing. A new lawsuit remedying that condition was filed on September 22 of 2022. The new lawsuit contained the proper conditions for standing.
Judge Suddaby found New York State substituted one unconstitutional infringement for another. From the opinion:
However, instead, the 21 CCIA expressly prohibits the issuance of a license unless the licensing officer finds (meaning unless the applicant persuades him or her through providing much information, including “such other information required by review of the licensing application that is reasonably necessary and related to the review of the licensing application”) that the applicant is of “good moral character,” which involves undefined assessments of “temperament,” “judgment” and “[]trust[].” Setting aside the subjective nature of these assessments, shouldering an applicant with the burden of showing that he or she is of such “good moral character” (in the face of a de facto presumption that he or she isnot) is akin to shouldering an applicant with the burden of showing that he or she has a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community, which is prohibited under NYSRPA. In essence, New York State has replaced its requirement that an applicant show a special need for self-protection with its requirement that the applicant rebut the presumption that he or she is a danger to himself or herself, while retaining (and even expanding) the open-ended discretion afforded to its licensing officers.
The Judge expanded on how the State of New York failed to show its new infringements met historical standards, by showing how the requirement for character references law lack historical analogues. Judge Suddaby mentioned, in passing, there are no historical analogues requiring a responsible, law-abiding citizen to apply for a permit to carry a gun. From the opinion:
The Court begins its analysis of this provision by acknowledging the apparent dearth of historical analogues requiring a responsible, law-abiding citizen to provide character references in order to be permitted to carry a gun.22 However, just as lacking, it appears, are historical analogues requiring a responsible, law-abiding citizen to even apply to be able to carry a gun.
The Judge allowed, for now, pending the actual arguments, these requirements to temporarily apply:
Places summarily rejected as sensitive include:
Judge Suddaby rejected the concept the State of New York could require private property owners to ban firearms on their property *unless* they put up a sign saying "firearms are allowed". He noted the State of New York was making their decision for the private property owners, and rejected that provision in the new law. He wrote it appeared to be a First Amendment violation.
The Judge found the balance of equities favored the plantiffs, against the State of New York, and there would be irreparable harm if no restraining order were put in place. He found the public interest was not disserved by the temporary restraining order.
With three business days to file an appeal, the State of New York is expected to appeal the temporary restraining order on Monday, October 10, 2022, to the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
One person was shot. An ambulance took the victim to the North Mississippi Medical Center in West Point.
According to Sheriff Scott, the suspect said he was assaulted and claimed the shooting was in self-defense.
On October 26, the New York Times published an article focusing on allegations of increased violence after the state moved to Constitutional Carry in September of 2021.
The author, David Goodman, is fairly careful in his allegations, which consist of one incident where an innocent 9 year old was killed during a defensive shooting, and anecdotes from city sheriffs, police leaders, and district attorneys.
However, many read only the headline, and a few lines. The headline implies large problems with permitless (Constitutional) carry. The first incident is an extremely rare occurrence: the death of an innocent during a justified shooting.
Consider the headline and sub-headline from the article. From the nytimes.com:
The headline:
Texas Goes Permitless on Guns, and Police Face an Armed Public
Most Second Amendment supporters and, indeed, most police believe this is a good and proper thing. Why, in the United States, would police believe they would not face an armed public?
The sub-headline:
A new law allowing people to carry handguns without a license has led to more spontaneous shootings, many in law enforcement say.
There is no data to support this, only anecdotes by authority figures in places which are traditionally anti-Second Amendment. In the body of the article, after the emotional mention of the shooting of the 9-year-old girl in Houston, is this explanation of anecdotes apparently collected by the reporter.
From the article:
The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license.
At the same time, mainly in rural counties, other sheriffs said they had seen little change, and proponents of gun rights said more people lawfully carrying guns could be part of why shootings have declined in some parts of the state.
Is there any real data in this reporting? Yes, one datum. The one incident where a man, in a defensive situation, shot and killed an innocent 9 year-old girl in error. It seems the reporter received considerable mixed messages when he asked people if they had seen any change. Predictably, people in areas where the assumption is "guns are bad", claimed they noticed a change predicted by the prevailing political thought in those areas. People in areas where the right to bear arms is valued by the political class, did not see any such change.
Many left-leaning outlets take their views from the New York Times. The Crime Report took the New York Times article, and embellished it a bit. From thecrimereport.org:
Headline:
Random Gun Violence Up in Cities After Texas Drops Permits
From the article:
While rural areas of the state are reporting little change in terms of shootings, sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas are reporting a rise in random gunfire and people carrying weapons since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license, reports J. David Goodman for the New York Times.
After restoring Constitutional Carry, where permits are not required, it is rational that more people would carry weapons. What else would be expected?
The anecdotal reports of rising "random gunfire" do not indicate a rise in unjustified injuries or deaths in any statistical sense. From the New York Times article:
In the border town of Eagle Pass, drunken arguments have flared into shootings. In El Paso, revelers who legally bring their guns to parties have opened fire to stop fights. In and around Houston, prosecutors have received a growing stream of cases involving guns brandished or fired over parking spots, bad driving, loud music and love triangles.
This is the usual unfounded prediction from those who think "guns are bad".
Notice, one of the incidents involved armed people stopping a violent confrontation. This is very weak sauce to build a case for violating fundamental, enumerated, Constitutional rights.
Those who wish to see the population disarmed consist of many sub-groups. A large number of them simply use the sophomoric argument, "if there were no guns, no one would be hurt with guns". It is as silly and simplistic as it sounds.
We cannot eliminate guns. Attempting to eliminate guns does not reduce suicides or murders.
For a century, Progressives have worked hard to make sophomoric logic into law, based on their disdain for the common man.
Reality has reversed the situation. The common man now disdains the Progressive ruling class.
The data, so far, indicates little or no change in murder or suicide rates with the restoration of Constitutional Carry.
This reporter expects arrests for merely exercising Second Amendment rights will measurably decrease.
Perhaps an enterprising researcher will work to measure that metric.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Prosecutors decided Friday they won’t file felony charges against a man arrested in the fatal shooting of a 28-year-old in St. Paul this week due to it being an apparent case of self-defense.
Deandre L. Buckner, of St. Paul, died Tuesday night. Police arrested a 20-year-old man at the scene in Payne-Phalen.
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - Topeka Police say they’ve talked to everyone believed to be involved in a Friday morning shooting at a South Topeka bar, and self-defense is a possible consideration.
One person was killed and another injured in the incident.
Topeka Police Department said a caller reported a disturbance and gunshots just before 2:30 a.m. Friday at 45th St. Bar in the 4600 block of SW Topeka Blvd.
Officers arrived to find Raymond Davis, 29, of Topeka dead, and another person wounded. The second victim is expected to recover.
An Owen County, Indiana homeowner died during a home invasion on Wednesday night after exchanging gunfire with the two suspects.
Officers with the Owen County Sheriff’s Department responded to reports of an active home invasion just before 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday and when they arrived, they found homeowner Gilardo Garcia Salinas, 39, injured and outside of the home.
A chaotic scene as Greenfield police responded the morning of Sept. 28. From store surveillance we see a blue Toyota 4-runner. A husband and wife in it were leaving Meijer in search of her favorite hash browns.
Mai Her told police, "And was like a little walkway crossway and the guy he just came out of nowhere."
Her tells police the man, identified in reports as Eliut Cruz-Cruz, yelled at her husband, Steven Dunlap, claiming Dunlap disregarded a crosswalk.
"And then the guy's like you hear me? You got a problem with me? And then he reached inside our car, the driver's side and started punching my husband like this and grabbed my husband," said Her.
A fight ensued right outside the doors. Meijer's camera doesn't show it, but Dunlap says Cruz-Cruz was kicking him in the face, ribs and arms. A witness called 911 and told dispatch, "There were two guys who were fighting, and a woman came out with a gun and shot one of them."
The victim’s nephew tells Local 12 that his uncle is partially blind and had just gotten home from the hospital Tuesday evening.
“I don’t know if it hit him or not,” the victim told dispatchers.
Police, with the assistance of a K-9, followed a trail of blood down an alleyway and found Jeffery Carl, 36, hiding in a shed around the corner.
That shed is owned by Joe Lewis, who happens to be a friend of Carl’s.
“My reaction was, ‘Damn, somebody shot that boy in the a**,’” said Lewis.
Carl is no stranger to the victim either and told police the victim was an “uncle, pretty much.”
Steven Candelaria fired in self-defense, fatally shooting an armed man who confronted him outside an Albuquerque apartment in 2020, a defense attorney told jurors Tuesday on the first day of Candelaria’s murder trial.
But prosecutors allege Candelaria and his brother arrived at Luciano Montoya’s apartment seeking revenge and pistol whipped a woman before firing more than a dozen gunshots at Montoya’s home, fatally injuring Montoya.
Candelaria, 31, is charged in 2nd Judicial District Court with first-degree murder and other crimes in the Nov. 17, 2020, shooting death of 39-year-old Montoya.
According to Hampshire County Sheriff Nathan Sions, a man identified as Shawn Davis approached another individual identified as John Dulaney while a number of students were awaiting the arrival of the school bus. Dulaney was sitting in a pickup truck at the bus stop around 6:30 a.m. last Wednesday.
“Mr. Davis was carrying a knife at the time he approached Dulaney. There was a verbal confrontation and Mr. Dulaney reported Mr. Davis reached through the window with the knife. The knife was closed but he said he was afraid he was going to flip it open and that’s when he essentially fired two shots.” said Sions.
Deputies responded to a call at 1:30 a.m. from 40-year-old Janet Wilborn who said her estranged husband, Corey Terrell Doner, forced himself into her home. Wilborn stated she shot him.
Upon arrival, deputies found Doner had been shot in the abdomen.
Wilborn previously filed a protection from abuse order on Doner. This order expired on Oct. 22, and officials say Wilborn was in the process of reinstating this.
The sheriff’s office says the incident appears to be self-defense. This case will be presented to a Russell County Grand Jury.
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