Category: Legal Stuff

Long Time Coming

Legal Stuff, Rights, The Gun Thing

I’ve always maintained that it’s an injustice for someone to lose their Second Amendment rights because of a criminal record imposed by the commission of a non-violent crime.  By all means, deny the Second to recently-paroled armed robbers and the like — but for non-violent offenses like forgery or tax evasion?  No.

Seems as though some judges are coming to the same conclusion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held this week in Range v. Garland that the government cannot disarm people convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses.

Unless I miss my guess, this is headed straight for the Supremes — and they’d better get it right.

Down The Toilet

Freaks & Loonies, Legal Stuff, Perverts

That’s what’s going to happen to this poor guy’s business:

A women’s spa, where nudity is compulsory, has been ordered by a judge to admit pre-op trans women with penises after an activist complained when the owner tried to ban them.

Of course, where else but in the Blue Northwest?

The family-owned spa, which has a branch on the outskirts of Seattle and one in Tacoma, is modeled on Jjimjilbang – sex-segregated bath houses in Korea – and offers monthly memberships and day passes.

Needless to say, real women — i.e. those without dangling bits — are probably going to stop frequenting this spa because they don’t want to see hairy penises in a girls-only haven, and the place will soon have to close.

All because some blue-haired trannie freak felt slighted.

In the old days… let me not go there.  On the other hand, why the hell not?

Next: The Supremes

Legal Stuff, Rights

Oh, I like this kind of thing:

A federal appeals court upheld a Texas law that bans Big Tech from censoring speech based on political viewpoint on Friday.

House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users banning users simply based on their political viewpoints. The law also requires several consumer protection disclosures and processes related to content management on the social media sites to which the bill applies. These sites must disclose their content management and moderation policies and implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove, providing a reason for the removal and a review of their decision. They also must review and remove illegal content within 48 hours. House Bill 20 also prohibits email service providers from impeding the transmission of email messages based on content.

Needless to say, the Left went into full hair-on-fire mode:

The law was promptly challenged by NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association. They argued that tech companies have a First Amendment right to select and curate the content people post on their platforms. They were able to get the new law blocked, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed that decision — and won.

Fortunately, common sense and Constitutionalism prevailed.  In the judgment of the 5th Circuit:

The implications of the platforms’ argument are staggering. In the platforms’ view, email providers, mobile phone companies, and banks* could cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate, or business. What’s worse, the platforms argue that a business can acquire a dominant market position by holding itself out as open to everyone — as Twitter did in championing itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.”…Then, having cemented itself as the monopolist of “the modern public square,”…Twitter unapologetically argues that it could turn around and ban all pro-LGBT speech for no other reason than its employees want to pick on members of that community…

The 11th Court found differently, hence it’s off to the Supremes we go.  And they can’t punt it back, because two federal appeals courts have conflicting rulings.

Let’s see what happens.

*Note how banks were specifically mentioned, which should make this little episode interesting.

Fair Warning

Legal Stuff, Rights

Following on from the decision of credit card companies to “flag” sales made at gun stores, we have this development:

Twenty-four Republican attorneys general sent a letter to Visa, Mastercard, and American Express Tuesday warning them to drop plans to code and compile gun sales in America.

The new code will not protect public safety. Categorizing the constitutionally protected right to purchase firearms unfairly singles out law-abiding merchants and consumers alike. First, efforts to track and monitor sales at gun stores would only result in vague and misleading information. This categorization would not recognize the difference, for example, between the purchase of a gun safe and a firearm. Nor would it capture firearm purchases made at department stores, resulting in arbitrarily disparate treatment of “gun store” merchants and consumers.

More importantly, purposefully tracking this information can only result in its misuse, either unintentional or deliberate. Creating and tracking this data only matters if your institutions are considering using that information to take further, harmful action—like infringing upon consumer privacy, inhibiting constitutionally protected purchases by selectively restricting the use of your payment systems, or otherwise withholding your financial services from targeted “disfavored” merchants.

And my favorite part:

Social policy should be debated and determined within our political institutions. Americans are tired of seeing corporate leverage used to advance political goals that cannot muster basic democratic support. The Second Amendment is a fundamental right, but it’s also a fundamental American value. Our financial institutions should stop lending their market power to those who wish to attack that value.

Be advised that we will marshal the full scope of our lawful authority to protect our citizens and consumers from unlawful attempts to undermine their constitutional rights. Please keep that in mind as you consider whether to proceed with adopting and implementing this Merchant Category Code.

Give it to the bastards good and hard, boys and girls.  Make ’em sweat, and make ’em bleed if they ignore you.

Legal Strangulation

Anti-Gun Nannies, Legal Stuff, The Gun Thing

Oh, this is nice:

Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, Giffords, is calling on major credit card companies to flag gun and ammunition purchases.

Before I get stuck into this, let me just ask the relevant question first:  who gets control of the “flagged” purchases?

Because if it’s you, or the police, or anyone other than Gun Owners of America, you can all get fucked.

Of course, BankWoke will be only too pleased to get into Giffords’ rancid panties because #AllGunsAreEvil, and there isn’t a single bank that I know who would go against the Big Banks if they decided to do this.  (I wish Nolan Ryan’s R Bank would, but they don’t have any branches around here.  When they do… I’m gone.)

On a more cheery note:

On March 9, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Visa refused to succumb to the pressure, noting that it is not the credit card company’s job to “[set] restrictions on the sale of lawful goods and services.”

And as long as they do, I’ll continue to use Visa.