SPECIAL REPORT: How Florida Sheriff’s Office, Prosecutors Botched a 2021 Homicide Case

Judy, Ariana and Edward Ptarcinski. (Photo courtesy Ptarcinski family.)

Despite what the media wants you to believe, not all murders are committed with firearms. Knives and what the FBI considers “cutting instruments” are used in roughly 10 percent of all killings. And there are no background checks on knives.

Murders involving firearms usually draw far more attention and scrutiny from the legacy media since a gun death always fits their narrative. Reporters fixate on the firearm itself and whether it was an “assault weapon” or had a standard-capacity magazine. The media thoroughly investigates where the firearm was purchased, whether the suspect could legally possess it, and whether they belonged to any political groups. When a firearm is not used in a violent crime, the media rarely reports the incident. This impacts law-abiding gun owners because of the false narrative it creates that only firearms are used in violent attacks.

Had Ariana Ptarcinski’s death involved a firearm rather than a knife on Christmas Eve 2021, maybe her killing would have received more scrutiny. It sure could have used some. Investigators and prosecutors never examined one critical piece of evidence. If they had, they would likely have made an arrest. As a result, the 18-year-old’s stabbing death remains unsolved, even though there was only one other person in Ariana’s bedroom that night she was killed: her 20-year-old boyfriend, Ramon Durst, whom she had been dating for less than a year.

Ariana’s autopsy report leaves little room for interpretation: She didn’t kill herself. Her cause of death is listed as “complications of stab wound of neck.” The manner of death was “homicide,” and that she was “stabbed by other(s).” Florida’s District Six Medical Examiner noted that the fatal stab wound was 1.5 centimeters long, on the left side of Ariana’s neck, approximately 20 centimeters from the top of her head, and 4.5 centimeters above the top of her left shoulder. She also had two cuts on the right side of the back of her head. One was 1.5 centimeters. The other was 2.5 centimeters. There were two faint bruises on her left forearm. The largest was 1.5 centimeters long. The bruises could have faded after Ariana was stabbed. She didn’t die immediately but lingered on life support for one day. Her parents made the decision to donate her organs after she was declared brain dead.

Christmas Eve 2021

Hernando County Sheriff’s Office Detective Chris Kraft, who is assigned to the Sheriff’s Crimes Against Persons unit, was the lead investigator in this case. His initial report includes a brief summary of the case:

“SYNOPSIS: For an unknown reason Ramon Calderon-Durst slit Ariana Ptarcinski’s throat while in Ariana’s bedroom and then took her into Edward and Judy Prarcinski’s (sic) master bedroom by her hair and stated to Edward and Judy, “I did this.” At this time the investigation is ongoing.”

According to his first report, Kraft arrived at the Ptarcinski home shortly after midnight on Christmas Day, 2021. Kraft first contacted two neighbors, Thomas and Melissa Lobianco. They told him they were placing presents under their Christmas tree when they heard someone scream, “I’m going to kill you!” They said they saw Ariana’s father Edward Ptarcinski screaming at Durst, saying “You killed my daughter!”

“Thomas advised that he then began to walk towards Edward and noticed Ramon charging towards Edward in an aggressive manner while covered in blood,” Detective Kraft’s report states. “Thomas stated that he did not know what Ramon’s intentions were towards Edward and punched Ramon on the side of Ramon’s head with his left fist. Thomas stated that Ramon bent forward as if he was going to fall down, but he did not. Thomas stated that he then punched Ramon once again with his fist, knocking Ramon to the ground. Thomas stated that he then returned back to his residence and told Melissa to call 911.”

Lobianco’s wife confirmed her husband’s statement. The detective then interviewed Ariana’s father, Edward Ptarcinski.

“Edward advised that after spending the evening with his family and his daughter’s boyfriend, Ramon for Christmas, they all retired to their bedrooms for the night. Edward stated that while in the master bedroom with his wife Judy he had gotten up to use the restroom at which time he noticed the entry door of their bedroom open and Ramon walking into the bedroom holding his daughter, Ariana by her hair stating, “I did this.” Edward advised that he noticed Ariana bleeding from the area of her neck and noticed that it her neck had been slit by unknown means. Edward then stated that he then began to scream for help,” Kraft wrote in his report.

Kraft then interviewed Ariana’s 12-year-old sister, Isabella Ptarcinski.

“Upon speaking with Isabella, she stated that she was awakened by hearing arguing, but could not make out what was being said. Isabella stated that as she exited her bedroom to see what was going on, she noticed Ramon carrying Ariana towards Edward and Judy’s bedroom by her hair. Isabella could not provide any further information or details,” the report states.

Ariana’s parents do not agree with this statement. Isabella did not hear arguing, they say.

The detective attempted to interview Durst at the scene, but he declined to make a statement.

“I then made contact with Ramon, who was detained in Deputy A. Dowdell’s patrol vehicle. I then attempted to obtain Ramon’s personal information but he would only provide me with his name, date of birth, and address and then made no further statements,” the report states.

Durst was taken to the Sheriff’s Office and placed in an interview room, which was equipped with a video recording system. Detective Kraft tried to interview Durst again at the Sheriff’s Office.

“Ramon was very emotional and upset. Ramon stated that he did not want to speak to me because he did not want to incriminate himself. Ramon did engage in conversation with me but appeared to be trying to obtain information,” Kraft wrote. “Ramon was never advised of his Miranda Warnings because he did not wish to talk about what occurred. He was not questioned about what happened. I observed Ramon who was wearing a white t-shirt and green shorts. His shirt was covered in blood. He had blood on his hands, arms, legs and face. Ramon had a cut on the left side of his neck. The cut appeared to have been caused by a knife and the injury was superficial. The cut may have been about three inches long. There appeared to be a second smaller cut above the first one. Ramon did have some cuts and scrapes on his shoulder, back, arms and legs.”

After deputies photographed Durst and collected his clothing and DNA samples, they drove him back to the Ptarcinski home, where he got his car keys and drove off.

Crime scene investigators recovered two knives from Ariana’s bed, as well as her sketchbook.

“A notebook was located in Ariana’s room. In the notebook, a drawling was located and dated 09/09/20. The drawling was of a female resembling the victim. The drawling depicted a female with her throat cut and blood coming out of her mouth and neck area,” Kraft wrote.

Two days after Ariana died, detectives received a letter from attorney Melissa Vickers, who told them she now represented Durst, and said she may arrange an interview. To date, and despite numerous email exchanges with his attorney, Durst has never consented to be interviewed by the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office.

No charges

Detective Kraft sent the case to the State Attorney’s Office for review. On August 22, 2023, Assistant State Attorney Peter Magrino notified Kraft in a letter that no charges would be filed. His decision, Magrino wrote, “is not based on the lack of quality of the investigation or any lack of investigative effort on your part.”

“As you know, Florida courts have historically held that acts of simple negligence cannot be made criminal regardless of the loss of human life without Mens Rea,” Magrino wrote.

Mens Rea is a legal term that translated from Latin literally means a “guilty mind.” It is the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of the crime. It has been defined as the criminal intent that prosecutors must prove in order to prove that a defendant is guilty.

“As you know, Florida courts have historically held that acts of simple negligence cannot be made criminal regardless of the loss of human life without Mens Rea. The Medical Examiner has determined the manner of death to be homicide with the cause of death to be a complication of a stab wound to the neck. When the incident occurred, there were no eye witnesses in the bedroom. On scene investigation determined there no probable cause to arrest Ramon Durst,” ASA Magrino wrote in his letter to Detective Kraft. “Since that time, we have been in contact with his attorney in an attempt to have Durst provide a statement. As you know she was initially concerned over his mental status with his ongoing therapy. Later as the decedent’s family started a social media circus the attorney grew concerned for her client’s physical well-being given threats that were made. Although I advised the parents that they were not helping the situation their conduct continued to no avail. Thus, there is insufficient evidence to sustain any criminal charge as it relates to the death in this matter at this time.”

One week earlier, Magrino sent a similar letter to Ariana’s parents, but he left out the part about the “social media circus.”

“As I had discussed with you on prior occasions the subject was not arrested at the time the sheriff’s office responded to the scene as there was no probable cause to believe a crime was committed by Ramon Durst. Although Medical Examiner listed Ananas’ (sic) death as a homicide, Florida courts have historically held that acts of negligence cannot be made criminal regardless of the loss of human life without Mens Rea. To date Mr. Durst through his lawyer has exercised his constitutional right not to provide a statement concerning the incident. Thus, there is insufficient evidence to sustain any criminal charge as it relates to the death in this matter,” ASA Magrino wrote.

Expert disagrees

John Baeza is a retired New York City Police Department detective and a national police practices expert who is investigating Ariana’s death for the Ptarcinski family pro bono.

Baeza began his law enforcement career as a correction officer at NYPD’s infamous Sing Sing Correctional Facility. He worked as a patrol officer at NYPD’s 32^nd Precinct in Harlem, served undercover as part of the Manhattan North Tactical Narcotics Team, and worked as a detective in the Manhattan Special Victims Squad and the Manhattan North Homicide Squad. After retiring from NYPD, he worked as a deputy sheriff in Pasco County, Florida, before serving as security director for Congressman Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns.

Baeza is a member of NYPD’s Honor Legion, the Retired Detectives of the Police Department of the City of New York, the New York City Police Detectives’ Endowment Association and the International Homicide Investigators Association. In addition, he is a diplomate of the International Association of Forensic Investigators and is certified to teach Criminal Investigation and Criminal Profiling. In 2022, he was inducted into the National Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame, where he received the Courage in Service Award. He has received more than 20 awards and commendations for valor, bravery and exceptional merit. His published articles have appeared in the Journal of Behavioral Profiling and the Rape Investigation Handbook.

“There’s a piece of evidence in this case that nobody looked at,” Baeza said. “That piece of evidence would have led to probable cause to arrest the suspect.”

Baeza said during the 74 minutes that Durst was handcuffed in the back of a deputy’s squad car he made numerous admissions of a guilty mind – all of which constitute mens rea.

“They were spontaneous admissions. The Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office need to look at these statements. Then, they need to follow the letter of the law. They must arrest him because there is probable cause at that point.”

Instead of flagging the video, Baeza said the deputy wrote a three-sentence description of the tape, which he placed into evidence on December 28, 2021.

“There are no notes of any copies that were made of the tape or notes about any review,” Baeza said. “It is my assertion that nobody viewed the tape. If they would have, they would have had probable cause to arrest the guy immediately.”

There is only one possible reason, Baeza said, why this didn’t occur.

“From my experience, it tells me that investigators were apathetic or lazy and didn’t treat the case as if it involved a member of their own family. That’s always the point I try to make. There are certain detectives who will investigate a murder as if it’s their own family member, so they will always do the right thing. In this case, that was absent.”

Lots of mens rea

Deputy Abraham Dowdell wrote a three-sentence description of the recording that took place in the back of his squad car – a recording that’s full of mens rea.

“While Ramon was seated in the back seat of my patrol vehicle, he constantly attempted to engage in conversation, asking if I could find out the status of his girlfriend, good or bad, what’s the crime rate in the area, and how many federal prisons in Florida. At one point he said he was going to be raped, at which time I inquired why you would say that. He said look at me I’m covered in blood. At no time did I question or interview Ramon, nor did I question or interview anyone on scene,” Deputy Dowdell wrote.

Some of the admissions Durst made include the following:

• “I slipped on the bed.”
• “No one will have mercy for me.”
• “Do you know what federal prison I will go to?”
• “I know I don’t deserve any mercy.”
• “I’m going to get raped in prison.”
• “Why did I do that, something so brutal and violent.”
• “Officer Dowdell, how do you think one goes on from a situation like this?”
• “I don’t want to get raped.”
• “Do you hold contempt for prisoners, criminals?”
• “Malice, Hatred, Spite – do you hate criminals?”

Baeza pointed out that the investigators apparently had other priorities that did not include watching the 74-minute video.

“One of the things that struck me were the hundreds of pages of Facebook screenshots in the case file, which had nothing to do with solving this case. It had to do with people who were critiquing the Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office. I have never seen that before in all of the cases I have reviewed.”

Officials mum

Neither Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis nor Detective Kraft were willing to comment for this story.

“The Death Investigation you are speaking of is an open investigation; therefore, we are unable to participate in an interview at this time. The HCSO, as a whole, is declining to comment, as we do not comment on open investigations,” Denise M. Moloney, public relations manager for the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, said via email.

Orlando lawyer Melissa Vickers, Durst’s defense attorney, did not return calls seeking her comments and an interview with her client.

Assistant State Attorney Peter Magrino, who declined to file charges in this case, did not respond to calls, emails or messages left with his secretary seeking his comments for this story.

Magrino’s boss, William Gladson, State Attorney for Florida’s Fifth Judicial District, wasn’t aware of the 74-minute tape or that it contained more than a dozen examples of mens rea. The State Attorney had never viewed the evidence.

“That would have been Mr. Magrino,” Gladson said. “He was assigned the case.”

Parents Demand Justice

“Ariana was smart, a very talented artist, very quiet – the greatest kid,” said her father, Edward. “She was so happy. She wanted to be a funeral director and a coroner. We miss her every day. I cry every day. The pain is real. It hurts your heart. The last memory I have of her was to see her eyes – she was in so much pain – and I couldn’t help her. She had blood coming out of her mouth. Christmas will never be the same. Isabella, our 12-year-old is going through some serious issues. It’s all hitting her now.

“I want two things: I want justice for my daughter, because right now she’s not at peace. I also have a problem letting the Sheriff’s Office and prosecutor treat us like they did for two years. They treated us like the enemy. The first time we heard from the detective he asked how our daughter was doing. She had died two days before he called. They always kicked us down. I don’t know how they can rest their heads at night.”

This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.

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About Lee Williams

Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.

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Report on El Paso Gun “Buyback” October 28, 2023

Report on El Paso Gun “Buyback” October 28, 2023

Gun turn-in events are labeled with the Orwellian term “buyback.” They are not “buybacks”. You cannot “buy back” items you never owned before.

The El Paso gun turn-in event was held on October 28, 2023. It was scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. It started about 10 minutes early in Ascarate Park. The money for the event came from the American Rescue Plan, where the Biden administration created 1.5 trillion dollars out of totally recyclable electrons. The politicians who receive the money must find a way to spend it. Gun turn-in events are a way to expend money. KVIA.com reported significant money had been handed out by 10 a.m. From kvia.com:

According to El Paso County Commissioner Carlos Leon, $60,000 worth of gift cards were made available by the county to be exchanged for firearms, and by 10 a.m., $51,000 worth had already been handed out.

That amount equated to roughly three hundred guns, including handguns, rifles, shotguns, assault style rifles, as well as antique firearms.

Of the $300,000 allocated for these events in El Paso, $120,000 will be used for advertising and administrative costs.

El Paso was not as gun-friendly as Dallas. The city is a Democratic stronghold. Private buyers were asked by the police to set up across the street from the entrance to the event. El Paso needed an advocate like CJ Grisham.

There were five private buyers at the El Paso event. Police were not as friendly as at the Dallas event. They asked the participants for identification and insinuated the private buyers were doing something illegal. When the participants politely refused, the police officers told them to have a good day and left. The private buyers were dressed in casual attire.

This minty HK VP9 was purchased for cash at the El Paso event. The event organizers were offering $150 for handguns.

An acquaintance of a participant in El Paso said he would have considered the private buyers to have been federal agents doing sting operations because of how they looked and dressed.

Opportunities to obtain guns for little money picked up after the gift cards ran out. The cards ran out at about 11 a.m., an hour before the event was scheduled to end.

An officer at the event told a participant the police would not destroy “historical” guns. Historical is a flexible term. It is hoped many valuable and collectible firearms were preserved.  One private buyer obtained a Remington 24 or 241, a near copy of the Browning .22 autoloader.

Remington model 241, image from Rock Island Auction, with permission.

Another private buyer paid $100 for this Oxford Arms Co. double barrel. Oxford Arms Co. was a store brand. The hammerless shotguns made for Oxford Arms in the 1920s and 30s were solid guns, a variation of the Stevens 311. It is common for older rubber recoil pads to deteriorate after 50 or 60 years.

Oxford Arms double barreled shotgun.

A private buyer obtained this Ruger P94 in .40 caliber at the El Paso event. The Ruger P94 pistols have an excellent reputation as solid, reliable, accurate pistols.

Ruger P94 in .40 caliber.

El Paso will be holding additional gun turn-in “buyback” events. Dates for the additional events have not been released at this time. If $60,000 is allocated to each event, two more events are budgeted.

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About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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‘Business Of Buying & Selling Firearms” Act NOW: Comment Period Ends Dec. 7th

Opinion

The ATF is up to their gun-banning tricks again. IMG NRA-ILA

Your action is needed RIGHT NOW. The comment period on the BATFE’s proposal to change the definition of what it means to be “engaging in the business of buying and selling firearms” expires on December 7, 2023, so you have less than a week to send your comment. You can submit a comment with just a few mouse clicks by simply going to the Gun Owners of America website and clicking on their prepared form, or you can go to the Federal Register website and compose a comment of your own.

• Gun Owners of America
• Federal Register Website

There is no excuse for not doing one or the other of these actions.

The anti-rights radicals have latched onto this one and “generated” tens of thousands of repetative comments gaming the system in support of the BATFE’s new definition proposal. There are currently almost 300,000 comments logged, and a majority of those appear to be boilerplate paste-ups from the antis’ web pages. We need to catch up and surpass them. That will require not only that you submit a comment but also that you share this information widely and encourage others to submit comments.

Please note that while the GOA comment system is the easiest way to submit a comment, federal agencies are supposed to give less weight to repetitive comments like those and the ones generated by anti-gun groups. Original comments from individuals are supposed to be given more weight by the reviewers, so it’s better to write your own original comment at the Federal Register website if you’re able. But don’t let that be an impediment. Any comment is better than no comment, so if you don’t have the time or confidence to write up an original comment, just use the GOA system to submit one of theirs. This will probably put you on GOA’s email list, which you should be on anyway, but you can easily opt out of that list if you prefer.

“I oppose this revision of the definition of “engaging in the business.”

Original comments don’t need to be detailed or elaborate. Simply stating that you oppose the new definition is the minimum comment needed. Pointing out specific reasons for your opposition can give your comment more impact, but it’s not essential.

Here are some examples of fairly simple comments:

Version 1:

I oppose this revision of the definition of “engaging in the business.”

Rather than “clarifying” the definition, as claimed in statements from Director Dettelbach and on the BATFE website, this new definition is even more ambiguous and confusing than the original definition which has been in place since 1968. It opens up broad possibilities for the BATFE and prosecutors to twist the definition as needed to go after innocent gun owners and collectors.

The BATFE has a long and troubling record of prosecuting and persecuting gun owners by using ambiguity in the laws and regulations to their prosecutorial advantage.

The changes proposed in this new definition do not comport with the intent of Congress in passing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and create more confusion and potential for abuse.

The clear objective of this definition change is to discourage the private transfer of firearms, and try to force all private transfers to go through licensed dealers, with all of the incumbent paperwork and records that would entail. This proposed rule is an attempt to create a backdoor gun registry which is something that has been repeatedly rejected by Congress.

This proposed change is unconstitutional and goes well beyond the authority of the BATFE. It should be rejected in its entirety.

Version 2:

“I am against the recent alteration of the ‘engaging in the business’ definition.

This change, which Director Dettelbach and the BATFE website claim clarifies the term, actually introduces more vagueness and complexity compared to the longstanding definition from 1968. Such ambiguity grants the BATFE and legal authorities excessive leeway to manipulate the definition, potentially targeting law-abiding gun owners and collectors. Historically, the BATFE has exploited legal uncertainties to unjustly prosecute gun enthusiasts.

Furthermore, this redefinition contradicts the intentions of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, leading to greater confusion and potential misuse. It appears that the primary aim of this change is to hinder private firearm transfers, pushing them towards licensed dealers, thus necessitating extensive paperwork and record-keeping. Effectively, this rule seems like an attempt to establish an indirect gun registry, a concept consistently opposed by Congress.

This alteration not only exceeds the BATFE’s jurisdiction but also challenges constitutional boundaries. As such, it warrants complete rejection.”

Version 3:

“I stand against the redefinition of ‘engaging in the business’ as proposed.

This revision, advertised as a clarification by Director Dettelbach and the BATFE, actually makes the definition more opaque and perplexing than its 1968 predecessor. This obscurity allows for possible misuse by the BATFE and prosecutors, endangering innocent gun owners and enthusiasts. The agency’s history of leveraging vague regulations to prosecute gun owners is well-documented and concerning.

These proposed changes clash with Congress’s objectives in enacting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, introducing more ambiguity and avenues for exploitation. The revision’s underlying goal seems to be the restriction of private firearm transfers, compelling them through licensed dealerships with the accompanying bureaucratic requirements. This rule change appears to be a covert attempt at establishing a firearm registry, something repeatedly dismissed by Congress.

In exceeding the BATFE’s legal authority and infringing upon constitutional rights, this proposal should be thoroughly dismissed.”

An even simpler comment might just say:

“I oppose the ATF’s proposed changes to the definition of “engaging in the business.” The proposed new definition is confusing and open to interpretation, which puts Americans at risk. It is unconstitutional and goes beyond the ATF’s authority and the intent of Congress. It should be rejected.”

You can read the BATFE’s summary of the proposed new definition and the full language of the proposal on the Federal Register website. At the top of that page is a button for submitting a comment. Arguments about some of the concerns that gun owners have with the proposal can be found on the GOA website and in their sample comments, but I’ll summarize the key points here.

The distinction between private firearms transfers and commercial transfers was instituted with the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, in which Congress required firearm dealers to be licensed and maintain certain records of their firearm and ammunition transactions. This was later revised under the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act to remove ammunition record-keeping requirements and under the Brady Bill to add background check requirements.

The definition of “engaging in the business of buying and selling firearms” has been a bone of contention since 1968, as the BATFE has twisted and manipulated the definition to ensnare innocent gun owners and FFL holders. For example, they have simultaneously argued that a licensed dealer should have their license revoked due to only selling five guns in a given year, which BATFE said was not enough to justify the dealer’s license, while at the same time arguing in another case that a private seller of firearms was illegally “engaged in the business” because he sold five guns in a year and therefore should have had a license.

Under the Biden-ATF’s newly proposed definition, the ambiguity and potential for abuse are increased, not decreased.

Where the current definition talks about selling firearms for “livelihood and profit,” the new definition only talks about “profit.” Where the current definition talks about repetitively buying and selling guns, the new definition suggests that selling – or simply offering to sell – just one gun is enough to trigger the offense of “engaging in the business without a license.” Where the current definition includes specific protections for someone who occasionally buys or sells firearms to enhance their collection or as a hobby, the new definition provides no such protections, offering instead some ambiguous language that can easily be twisted to mean whatever the BATFE’s “experts” choose for it to mean.

Several of the Republicans who crossed party lines (you can see the complete list of RINO’s that need to be primaried here) to vote in favor of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act have expressed opposition to this new definition and said they did not intend the Act to be applied as the BATFE is attempting to do.

In short, this is a bad proposal that will not reduce crime or prevent criminals from acquiring guns, but will put more gun owners at risk. It should not be allowed to go into effect.

Your participation is needed immediately. Go to the Federal Register website and enter a comment in opposition to the new definition, or use the GOA system to submit their prepared comment under your name.

Either way, do it now, before the December 7th, 203 deadline.

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About Jeff Knox:

Jeff Knox is a second-generation political activist and director of The Firearms Coalition. His father, Neal Knox, led many of the early gun rights battles for your right to keep and bear arms. Read Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.

The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs, and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition has offices in Buckeye, Arizona, and Manassas, VA. Visit www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

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Federal Judge in Colorado Insists There is No Second Amendment Right to Buy a Gun

Opinion

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Honest people can disagree with the Founders’ decision to enshrine the Second Amendment within the Bill of Rights.

They cannot, however, pretend that decision never happened.

For much of the 20^th Century, however, gun control activists tried to convince the public that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” had nothing to do with the right of individuals to keep and carry guns for their own self-protection. That charade – never convincing to anyone who could read – has been debunked by the U.S. Supreme Court no less than four times in the last 15 years. But Second Amendment denialism remains an active strain of the firearm prohibition effort, as demonstrated by a federal judge in Colorado who ruled last week that whatever the provision means, it does not include the right to buy a gun.

That decision came in the case of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis, which challenged Colorado’s three-day waiting period for firearm purchases. Proponents of the law undoubtedly knew it was in trouble after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which clarified how lower courts are to analyze challenges to gun control laws under the Second Amendment. Bruen stated: “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.  The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” This test likely spells doom for Colorado’s waiting period, as laws of that type were completely unknown to the generation that adopted the Second Amendment.

Faced with this reality, Judge John L. Kane – appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter in 1977 – decided to stretch reason to the breaking point by deciding the right to possess a firearm doesn’t include the right to acquire one.

The court began its analysis by acknowledging that the Second Amendment right articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller meant “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” But then Judge Kane went on to insist: “[P]urchase and delivery are one means of creating the opportunity to ‘have weapons.’ The relevant question is whether the plain text covers that specific means. It does not.”

According to this “reasoning,” a state could completely ban the sale and delivery of firearms without implicating the Second Amendment. This would imply a right to have something, but not to obtain it through the most obvious and ordinary means.

Of course, it’s true that the Second Amendment says nothing explicitly about buying and receiving guns. But it’s also true the First Amendment says nothing explicitly about buying and receiving newspapers.

Nevertheless, any judge insisting a ban on newspaper sales would not implicate the First Amendment prohibition on “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” would in doing so disgrace himself and ruin his professional and intellectual credibility.

Perhaps recognizing this, Judge Kane hedged his bets by offering a number of alternative theories about why Colorado’s waiting period did not infringe the Second Amendment.

First, he theorized, “Even if purchasing a firearm could be read into the terms ‘keep’ or ‘bear,’ receipt of a firearm without any delay could not be, as the Founders would not have expected instant, widespread availability of the firearm of their choice.” Judge Kane attempted to bolster this argument by pointing to “expert” testimony that indicated firearm purchases at the time of the founding were not as convenient, prompt, or accessible as they are today.

But even these “experts” acknowledged this was because technology, production, and marketing were circumstantially more primitive in those days, not because legislators made a deliberate choice to delay firearm purchases. Of course, virtually nothing that involved the delivery of a good was as efficient and accessible to the founding generation as it is in modern times. But the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that it will not tolerate “frivolous” arguments that 18^th Century technological limitations delineate the scope of constitutional rights in the present day, including in a Second Amendment case that dealt with stun guns.

Next, Judge Kane pointed to language in Heller that he claimed rendered “presumptively lawful” any regulation on “the conditions or qualifications” of the “commercial sale of firearms.” He then argued: “Colorado’s Waiting-Period Act regulates only the sale, and specifically sellers, of firearms. … The Act does not apply to anyone who does not ‘sell a firearm.’”

Putting aside the fact that the disputed issues in Heller had nothing to do with firearm sales, much less mandatory waiting periods, Judge Kane was again resorting to frivolous formalism in attempting to stake his reasoning on the distinction between sellers and purchasers. Colorado’s waiting period imposes an arbitrary and de facto impediment on the purchase of guns, thereby implicating the rights of buyers at least as much as sellers. Returning to the First Amendment, no one would take seriously an argument that a person’s First Amendment right to access information was not implicated just because a particular restraint applied to a publisher or bookseller and not the reader himself.

Meanwhile, the language Judge Kane invoked to argue the Supreme Court allows firearm sales to be regulated cuts against his primary ruling by suggesting the Supreme Court considers such sales as the default starting point under the Second Amendment.

But Judge Kane wasn’t finished, and proposed yet another reason why Colorado’s waiting period is consistent with the Second Amendment, even if he were wrong about everything else.

Again, while acknowledging – as the parties themselves agreed – that waiting periods for firearm purchases were unknown in American law until well into the 20^th Century, he still found them consistent with America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. This was because, he said, “our Nation had a historical tradition of regulating the carrying and use of firearms by intoxicated individuals,” and “the Waiting-Period Act and the intoxication laws both work to prevent individuals in a temporary impulsive state from irresponsibly using a firearm.”

Judge Kane was dismissive of plaintiffs’ attempts to point out the obvious distinction that intoxication speaks to the condition of a particular individual in a particular moment, while the waiting period broadly applies to firearm sales generally, regardless of the buyer’s condition or state of mind. His response to this fundamental difference was that the intoxication laws affected all intoxicated persons, some of whom also might not have behaved irresponsibly with a firearm.

Judge Kane’s final gambit was to suggest that the Supreme Court had indicated a general openness to shall-issue licensing schemes for carrying firearms, so long as they were not directed to “abusive ends.” This, he said, was analogous to the waiting period, because both require a “defined requirement” to be met before exercise of the right, and plaintiffs had not proven the waiting period was abusive.

Judge Kane offered no limiting principles for what sorts of laws purportedly aimed at impulsive or irresponsible behavior or that imposed “defined requirements” prior to the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms might be permissible under the Second Amendment. But it’s difficult to understand how his reasoning would be distinguishable from the “interest-balancing” the Supreme Court specifically rejected in Bruen, which likewise focused on why the government purported to be acting, not on whether such actions were well-established in American history.

There is perhaps no legal rule so clear and unequivocal that it cannot be purposely misconstrued by a judge who is more interested in his preferred outcome than in actually following the law. But if the Polis case shows anything about Bruen’s historical test, it’s that it makes spotting such judges easier than ever.

Read Related: 2nd Amendment Guarantees Rights To Acquire & Train With Guns, Not Just RKBA ~ VIDEO

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About NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

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President Biden’s Reelection Campaign Targets Gun Control

President Biden’s Reelection Campaign Targets Gun Control, IMG NRA-ILA

President Joe Biden’s campaign is waking from its slumber and vowing he will “finish the job” on gun control as a central pillar of his pitch to stay in The White House for another four years.

The Biden-Harris reelection campaign is circulating memos and reaching out to friendly media to make the case that President Biden will use a second term to usher in gun control’s radical unconstitutional agenda. That includes banning America’s most popular-selling centerfire rifle, the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR). That also means defying the will of Congress. White House officials are playing up bipartisan efforts but are making it clear that they are willing to strike out unilaterally if Congress doesn’t knuckle under to their demands.

“The president demonstrated that he can get things done, working across party lines when necessary, on our own where we can’t,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed told The Messenger.

‘Finish the Job’

President Biden has already made clear he’s not listening to American citizens when it comes to guns. An NBC News national poll indicated that the majority of Americans live in a gun-owning household for the first time. The Biden-Harris reelection campaign, though, will lean on the political favors they’ve delivered for special interest gun control – specifically the deep-pocket donors who expect a return for their campaign donations.

President Biden continuously calls for Congress to re-enact the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported had no effect on reducing crime.

“Who the hell needs an assault weapon that can hold, in some cases, up to 100 rounds?” President Biden said just last month. This is the line of attack that he’s coupled with veiled threats of using U.S. military force against its own citizens.

“If you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” he said in 2021.

Weaponizing ATF

President Biden has made his attacks on the firearm industry central to his administration, starting with calling firearm manufacturers “the enemy” to most recently halting U.S. firearm exports without explanation. In between, he’s pushed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to punish the firearm industry through a “zero-tolerance” policy that has seen a sharp increase of federal firearms licenses revoked or surrendered for minor clerical errors.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris promised they would use the ATF as a blunt force instrument to hammer the firearm industry – simply because they don’t agree with Second Amendment rights. The ATF has published Final Rules – one to redefine frames and receivers and another to ban pistols with attached braces. Both have faced legal headwinds with various courts deciding that the ATF overreached its authority to write criminal law without Congressional input or approval. It is the responsibility of Congress to write law and for the Executive Branch to execute that law. Both Final Rules created criminal penalties without a vote in Congress.

Most recently, ATF Director Steven Dettelbach spoke to Harvard University where he doubled back on a pledge to U.S. Senators that he would “use the tools Congress gives” and instead advocated for increased gun control. He told the audience he agreed that the administration should pursue an MSR ban and also push for universal background checks. Both would be Constitutionally-specious. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Heller that the U.S. Government cannot ban an entire class of firearms and in order for universal background checks to work, it would necessitate a national firearm registry. That’s still forbidden by federal law.

Scaring Voters

President Biden isn’t just sharpening his attacks on the firearm industry. He’s scaremongering voters too. His reelection campaign circulated a memo titled, “Trump’s America in 2025: More Guns, More Shootings, More Deaths.”

“A Donald Trump presidency will mean more guns in schools and more guns in the hands of criminals, all because he thinks being pro-gun makes him look tough,” Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said in a statement, according to The Hill. “But his refusal to stand up to the gun lobby to protect our kids makes him weak and a coward.”

The Biden-Harris campaign counts it as a feather in their cap that they caved to gun control special-interest demands to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention that’s stacked with gun control lobbyists. While they blame others challenging them for unsubstantiated claims that gun owners had carte-blanche access to the Oval Office, the Biden administration literally gave gun control lobbyists an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on The White House grounds.

Biden-Harris campaign staffers are scaring voters that the same protections they enjoy on those protected grounds would create chaos should similar protections be afforded to schools and private citizens. It just doesn’t make sense. Criminals – especially violent criminals – have shown time and again that posting “gun-free zone” signs doesn’t deter crime. Meanwhile, investigations have shown that violent criminals sought soft targets where they knew they wouldn’t be confronted by armed security or private citizens protecting themselves with firearms.

President Biden’s pledge to “finish the job” means the end of Constitutional rights. The presidential election is less than a year away and the primary means of preventing these efforts is through the ballot box.

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About The National Shooting Sports Foundation

NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect, and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org

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Trump Administration’s Unilateral Ban on Bump Stocks Turned Owners of Those Rifle Accessories Into Felons

Opinion

Slide Fire SSAR-15 Mod Bump Fire Stock Pistol Grip

On Dec. 26, 2018, every American who owned a bump stock, a rifle accessory that facilitates rapid firing, was suddenly guilty of a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. That did not happen because a new law took effect; it happened because federal regulators reinterpreted an existing law to mean something they had long said it did NOT mean.

As anyone who has read the Constitution or watched Schoolhouse Rock could tell you, this is not how laws are supposed to be made. The Trump administration’s bump stock ban, which is at the center of a case that the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, raises the question of whether unelected bureaucrats can evade the constitutionally prescribed legislative process by unilaterally criminalizing previously legal conduct.

As the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) explained when it imposed the ban, bump firing is “a technique that any shooter can perform with training or with everyday items such as a rubber band or belt loop.” It involves pushing a rifle forward to activate the trigger by bumping it against a stationary finger, then allowing recoil energy to push the rifle backward, which resets the trigger.

As long as the shooter maintains forward pressure and keeps his finger in place, the rifle will fire repeatedly. The ATF’s rule bans stock replacements that assist this technique by allowing the rifle’s receiver to slide back and forth.

Between 2008 and 2017, the ATF repeatedly said such products were perfectly legal as long as they did not contain a spring or other mechanism that pushes the rifle forward after recoil.

But in March 2018, the agency proposed a new rule declaring that rifles equipped with bump stocks qualified as machine guns, making the accessories illegal.

Why did the ATF change its mind?

In October 2017, a gunman murdered 60 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas, and it turned out that some of his rifles were fitted with bump stocks.

The massacre inspired several bills aimed at banning bump stocks. Noting that “the ATF lacks authority under the law to ban bump-fire stocks,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said “legislation is the only answer.”

President Donald Trump, by contrast, maintained that new legislation was unnecessary. After he instructed the ATF to ban bump stocks by administrative fiat, the agency bent the law to his will.

Federal law defines a machine gun as a weapon that “automatically” fires “more than one shot” by “a single function of the trigger.” A bump-fired rifle shoots just one round for each function of the trigger, and it does not fire “automatically” unless you ignore the ongoing human intervention required to activate the trigger repeatedly.

That is what the ATF did. It also read “a single function of the trigger” to mean a single pull of the trigger (not a bump!). Noting that “the law has not changed,” Feinstein warned that the ATF’s “about face,” which relied on “a dubious analysis claiming that bumping the trigger is not the same as pulling it,” would invite legal challenges.

In response to those challenges, federal appeals courts have disagreed about whether the definition of machine guns is ambiguous and whether the ATF’s new interpretation of it is reasonable. Yet the ATF insists that bump stocks have always been illegal, although no one (including the ATF) realized that until 2018.

The implication is that bump stock producers and owners were inadvertently committing felonies for years. Once the ATF belatedly recognized what it now says the law plainly requires, those accidental felons avoided criminal charges only thanks to prosecutorial discretion. The ATF graciously extended that forbearance until March 26, 2019.

Such capricious invention of crimes is inconsistent with the rule of law and the separation of powers. Neither the Las Vegas massacre nor Trump’s reaction to it changed the law. The Supreme Court should not let the ATF pretend otherwise.

Read Related: Review Route 91: Uncovering the Cover Up, 2017 Las Vegas Shooting ~ VIDEO

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About Jacob Sullum

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @JacobSullum. During two decades in journalism, he has relentlessly skewered authoritarians of the left and the right, making the case for shrinking the realm of politics and expanding the realm of individual choice. Jacobs’ work appears here at AmmoLand News through a license with Creators Syndicate.

Jacob Sullum

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Federal Appeals Court Knocks Out Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License

Opinion

A major Second Amendment decision has been handed down in Maryland Shall Issue et al. v. Moore by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In a victory for the right to bear arms, Maryland’s onerous Handgun Qualification License law was declared unconstitutional in a 2-1 decision, with Judge Julius Richardson (a Trump appointee) writing the court’s opinion.

The process to obtain a firearm in Maryland is “a long and winding” one. The Fourth Court explained that “Like with any firearms transfer—whether a purchase from a licensed dealer, gun show, or private person, or even a gift from a family member or friend—you must comply with Maryland’s … registration process, which requires you to fill out an application with certain identifying information and then wait seven days while the state performs a background check. And if you want to carry your handgun, you need to get a separate carry permit too.”

But that’s not all. There is a further prerequisite that must be satisfied to obtain a handgun. Before an applicant can commence the “normal” licensing process, she must obtain a Handgun Qualification License. To do so, an applicant must:

• Submit fingerprints to undergo a background investigation;
• Take a four-hour long “firearms safety training course”;
• Fire at least one live round; and
• Wait up to thirty days for approval before you can start the rest of the process.

The Fourth Circuit ruled that this preliminary process for obtaining a handgun was unconstitutional. This is a big win for gun rights, considering that the Fourth Circuit is often extremely inimical towards the right to bear arms. Still, the Court’s opinion is well reasoned and provides an excellent precedent for use in future Second Amendment cases.

The Fourth Circuit explains that under Bruen, we begin with the plain text of the Second Amendment: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Although the plaintiffs challenging the law fell within the definition of “the People,” the Court flagged a potential “wrinkle.” Specifically, the Second Amendment’s text does not expressly mention purchasing or acquiring arms at a moment’s notice.

The Court correctly recognized that the “plain text” of the Second Amendment necessarily protects rights beyond the rights to have and to carry arms. It explained:

[T]the Amendment’s text protects only the right to “keep and bear” arms. But, on its face, the challenged law says nothing about whether Plaintiffs may “keep” or “bear” handguns. It only restricts Plaintiffs’ ability to “purchase, rent, or receive” them. How, then, does the law regulate the right to keep and bear arms?

The answer is not complicated. If you do not already own a handgun, then the only way to “keep” or “bear” one is to get one, either through sale, rental, or gift. And the challenged law cuts off all three avenues—at least, for those who do not comply with its terms.” (internal cites omitted).

In other words, if a person’s ability to acquire firearms is restricted, then that person’s right to keep and bear arms is infringed.

In keeping with Heller and Bruen, the Fourth Circuit relied upon Founding-era dictionaries to define “infringe.” Founding era lexicographers Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster defined “infringe” to mean “to hinder or destroy.” Thus, if the licensing regime hinders the Second Amendment, it implicates its text because it constitutes as “infringement.”

The dissenting judge argued that the plain text protects only the keeping and bearing of arms. But the Court rejected this assertion explaining that because Maryland’s onerous licensing process hinders the right to acquire firearms (needed to keep and bear them), the law implicates the Second Amendment’s plan text since the law hinders or “infringes,” upon this right.

The Fourth Circuit stated:

So [plaintiffs] just need to show that the law regulates a course of conduct that falls within the Amendment’s plain text, i.e., their ability “to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 592. Nothing in the Amendment’s text or Bruen says that it protects only against laws that permanently deprive people of the ability to keep and bear arms.

The Court continued:

Yet, under the challenged scheme, an applicant without a firearm cannot possess or carry one until they are approved—a process that can take thirty days. And the law’s waiting period could well be the critical time in which the applicant expects to face danger. So the temporary deprivation that Plaintiffs allege is a facially plausible Second Amendment violation.

Because the Fourth Circuit found that Maryland’s Handgun Qualification Law constituted an “infringement” under the Second Amendment’s text, the burden then shifted to the government to demonstrate that its licensing requirements were in accord with the historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Of course, Maryland was unable to identify a similar Founding-era regulation supporting the burdensome 30-day wait period or the Handgun Qualification License.

The lack of a relevant historical analogue law is excellent news for other jurisdictions—like New York and New Jersey—that have ridiculously long waiting periods to acquire a firearm. This delay is incompatible with the protections afforded by the Second Amendment, and unlike any type of restriction imposed on other constitutional rights. After all, you don’t need to go through a month-long process to prevent an unwarranted search, preach the Gospel, or make a post about politics on social media.

While the government offered up historical analogues, which allegedly barred Americans from possessing firearms if they were found after a hearing with robust due process to be “dangerous.”  The Fourth Circuit rejected these analogues explaining that the Maryland law in question is not focused on dangerous people: indeed, it applies to everyone!

The Court wrote:

Bruen is clear that a historical analogue only justifies a modern law if the two are “relevantly similar.” 142 S. Ct. at 2132. The “metrics” that we use to decide whether two laws are “relevantly similar” are (1) “how” and (2) “why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right.” Id. at 2133. In other words, we ask (1) “whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right,” and (2) “whether that burden is comparably justified.” Id. 

Here, Maryland suggests that the justification may well be the same: prevent dangerous people from getting weapons. But the burden is markedly different. The historical “dangerousness” laws targeted people already deemed dangerous by the state and subjected them to penalties if they possessed firearms. See Folajtar, 980 F.3d at 914 (Bibas, J., dissenting). Maryland’s law operates through an entirely different mechanism. It does not merely identify a dangerous group of people and prohibit them from acquiring handguns; other statutes already occupy that field. See, e.g., Md. Code, Pub. Safety § 5-133. Instead, it prohibits all people from acquiring handguns until they can prove that they are not dangerous. So Maryland’s law burdens all people—even if only temporarily—rather than just a class of people whom the state has already deemed presumptively dangerous.

The government then attempted to rely on laws concerning militia service. However, militia laws applied only to those who were in the militia: they did not apply to the ordinary citizen or to all of “the People.” Indeed, the militia laws did not apply to men over a certain age and did not apply to women. The Founding Era Militia service laws matched neither the “how” nor the “why” of Maryland’s licensing regime.

The Fourth Circuit elaborated:

[T]hese militia-training laws imposed no burden on the right of keeping and bearing arms. Instead, the service burden that these laws imposed was divorced from gun ownership. You could not get out of training just by ditching your weapon. (Indeed, that would open you up to even more sanctions.) And just because you owned a weapon did not mean that you had to train. If you were a woman or older man who owned arms, for instance, there was no need to appear on the parade grounds. You only had to train if you were in the militia. In other words: These laws imposed a service obligation on militiamen, not gun owners. That obligation applied regardless of whether you owned a weapon. So none of these militia laws placed any restriction on gun ownership.

The Fourth Circuit’s opinion is also important because it correctly recognizes that the language in Heller and Bruen concerning “long-standing regulations” is dicta. In finding Maryland’s licensing regime unconstitutional, the Fourth Circuit demonstrates that such alleged longstanding regimes are not immune to scrutiny; in other words, they are not presumptively lawful.

Let’s hope the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Maryland Shall Issue et al. v. Moore survives the prospect of an en banc hearing.

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About Mark W Smith

Constitutional attorney and bestselling author Mark W. Smith, host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment channel on Youtube, is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. His Second Amendment scholarship has been cited by many attorneys and judges, including by attorneys in legal briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in NYSRPA v. Bruen and in U.S. v. Rahimi.

His most recent book is DISARMED: What the Ukraine War Teaches Americans about the Right to Bear Arms.

Mark’s recent speech about the Second Amendment to the Federalist Society in Washington, D.C., at its National Lawyers Convention can be seen here.

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Judicial System Reeks with Democrat Political Bias Against Guns and More

They’re grinning because they know the game is rigged — by them. (Mom -At-Arms capture of deleted tweet by Judge Elizabeth Rochford for Supreme Court.)

“Allison Greenfield, law clerk to Judge Arthur Engoron, has been recently involved with leading anti-Trump organizations in New York City, and has even been caught on camera attending the ‘Fall Event’ of a group called the ‘Grand Street Democrats’ in October 2022,” The National Pulse reports. “Greenfield – whose partisan activities were the basis for Judge Arthur Engoron’s now-overturned gag order against President Donald Trump – has been advising Engoron throughout the case, notably glaring at Trump and rolling her eyes during presentations by Trump’s lawyers, according to in-court witnesses.”

That’s hardly the only flag-raiser.

“I have Uncovered screenshots from the X account of Dawn Marie Engoron, the wife of Leftist NYC Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil fraud against President Trump shows that she has been posting attacks on Trump from her account @dm_sminxs  as the trial is ongoing,” conservative investigative journalist Laura Loomer claimed on X. “This is incredible bias … Nobody can actually say this is a fair trial!”

EXCLUSIVE: I have Uncovered screenshots from the X account of Dawn Marie Engoron, the wife of Leftist NYC Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil fraud against President Trump shows that she has been posting attacks on Trump from her account @dm_sminxs as the trial is… https://t.co/LynqZsciiz pic.twitter.com/07xcIo7Kma

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 8, 2023

While Dawn Engoron chose Newsweek (itself problematic in terms of unbiased reporting) to issue a denial through, the account she claims is not hers is locked down, and that keeps independent eyes away. Add to that the judge, a longtime Democrat donor, “has exhibited ‘clear judicial bias’ against Trump [and] failed to honor Trump’s due process rights,” per House GOP conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has filed an ethics complaint against Engoron accusing him of “weaponized lawfare.”

Another prominent example of Democrat judicial bias occurred in Georgia.

“An Obama-appointed federal judge issued a ruling … that undermined rule of law in Georgia,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger charged. “Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner of the Middle District of Georgia, sister of failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) enjoining Ben Hill and Muscogee counties from using legal processes under Georgia law to ensure only Georgia voters cast ballots in the January runoffs.”

“Notably, the judge is the sister of Stacey Abrams [and the wife of a “motivational speaker and emotional intelligence trainer” recently arrested “for human trafficking and attacking a teen”–DC]. On November 18, Stacey Abrams’s organization Fair Fight donated $2.5 million to Senate Majority PAC, for which the plaintiff Majority Forward serves as the nonprofit arm,” Raffensperger elaborated. “That a judge would rule on a case brought by a group heavily funded by her sister is very concerning.”

What’s also concerning, and indicative of another bias potential, is how Raffensperger, well aware of Democrat voting shenanigans happening right under his nose, interpreted Donald Trump saying “find” votes to mean anything other than what the president was really saying:

“We can go through signature verification and we’ll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you let us do it… You know that. You have no doubt about that. And you will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt and so is she, totally corrupt.”

That makes it more than fair to ask why Democrat operative and Fulton County DA Fani Willis is trying to eviscerate the First Amendment and prosecute former “President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants (along with 30 unindicted coconspirators) for legally questioning the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia.”

It’s like the wrong people are on trial.

And yes, of course, rights prohibitionist Democrats are engaged in open lawfare against the Second Amendment as well. We see that in the numerous protracted courtroom battles taking place across the land, with states using their virtually unlimited tax plunder war chests to keep from acknowledging “shall not be infringed” and complying with the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard of history, text, and tradition at the time the Constitution was enacted.

One such case is unfolding in Illinois, where, again per Newsweek, “Illinois’ prohibition on high-power semiautomatic weapons is facing a new challenge, with a state representative petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review”:

Now, state Rep. Dan Caulkins, a Republican, has petitioned the nation’s highest court to review the state Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law on due process, equal protection, and Second Amendment grounds. The petition argues that Justices Elizabeth Rochford and Mary Kay O’Brien participated in the case despite receiving campaign contributions from those who support the ban.”Both Justice Rochford and O’Brien received disproportionate campaign contributions, and both made a commitment to support the legislative policy of banning assault weapons,” Caulkins told WRSP-TV.

While O’Brien actually dissented on the case, one frequent correspondent to this writer puts things in perspective:

So, with the Caulkins V Pritzker case before SCOTUS, Pritzker may make the case that since O’Brien didn’t concur with Rochford that the ruling wasn’t tainted. Holy moly you should see why O’Brien dissented (because PICA [Protect Illinois Communities Act] doesn’t go far enough!)

What the Newsweek account fails to mention is the group that did the groundwork to expose this blatant judicial conflict of interest. It’s important to assign credit where due because it will otherwise remain unknown, even among most members of the gun owner community (and I speak from firsthand experience knowing what it’s like to have the media and latecomers take over an original story without a backward glance).

Gun owners who are unfamiliar with the Mom-At-Arms website have an opportunity to correct that by seeing their original reporting documenting how both judges are financially beholden to the tune of $500,000 each not only with ban challenge defendant Gov. Jay Pritzker, which violated the IL Supreme Court Code of Judicial Conduct, but have also been supported by Everytown/Moms Demand Action and have established themselves as citizen disarmament activists in their own right.

And tellingly, the tweets posted and linked to in order to document the conflict no longer appear, because the judge had her Democrat operatives delete her account after the election. As did Judge O’Brien (who was congratulated by Everytown, who promised she’d “provide fair and impartial rulings on gun safety.”

They’re not only conflicted but hiding it. You don’t get more in-your-face corrupt than that. But don’t look for the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board to care.

As things stand, there’s no guarantee SCOTUS will take up Rep. Caulkins’ petition. Add to that, per the Chicago Sun Times, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals “upholds Illinois gun ban, finds no 2nd Amendment protection for assault weapons.”

“Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’,” Ian Fleming’s notorious villain observed in Goldfinger.

What do you call it when it happens so often that you lose count?

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About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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Judge Bruce Schroeder from Rittenhouse Trial to Retire

Judge Schroeder: “That’s how YOU read it.”

Judge Schroeder came into the national spotlight as the judge who presided over the Kyle Rittenhouse trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kyle Rittenhouse had to kill two people in self-defense and wounded another during the Kenosha riots.

Kenosha Wisconsin Superior Court Judge Bruce Schroeder has decided to retire as of November 27, 2023. Judge Schroeder served 40 years, six months, and two days as a circuit court judge. The State of Wisconsin and the United States were served well by this dedicated and respected judge.

This correspondent covered the Rittenhouse case extensively. The case had been grievously misrepresented in the old media. In particular, the old media had believed the false narrative of the politically motivated prosecution in the case. A law that did not exist was used to charge Rittenhouse with a weapons offense. Eventually, Judge Schroeder threw out the bogus charge. Charges were brought against Rittenhouse before the evidence was even examined. What made the case compelling was video of all the important events. There was no serious contention about what happened. The only controversy was about what was in Kyle Rittenhouse’s mind when he was attacked. Kyle’s testimony was very credible.

Judge Schroeder, quite correctly, did not follow the case in the media. This proved critical because he did not have preconceived notions of who did what to whom. For example, Judge Schroeder refused to allow anyone in the case to be called a “victim.” To do so would prejudice the jury. Much of the trial was to determine who was the real victim. The jury concluded the real victim was Kyle Rittenhouse.

It would not have happened with a judge who tilted with the political winds. The pressure on Judge Schroeder to allow the prosecutors to convict Kyle Rittenhouse in a political trial was immense. The full force of the Left and the national media were focused on the trial, and they had a very hard time believing what the evidence showed them to be the facts.

Those who had actually researched the case and looked at the evidence were not surprised.

Judge Schroeder showed what an ethical and competent judge should do in these cases. Some in the media were horrified to see Judge Schroeder refuse to allow the prosecutors to run roughshod over the Constitution and witnesses.

The case should never have been brought for prosecution. The Jury unanimously found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty of all charges. Some commentators said Judge Schroeder should have declared a mistrial because of the prosecutors’ misconduct. Judge Schroeder trusted the jury to do the right thing. The prosecutors attempted to create a political show trial, but Judge Schroeder would not stand for it. From the beginning, Judge Schroeder stated he would not allow the trial to become a political trial.

In the end, Judge Schroeder did what his long experience and training in the law required. He acted as the impartial referee between adversaries, which is how our adversarial trial system is supposed to work. Judge Schroeder upheld the law as written.  The jury did the right thing. Kyle Rittenhouse is a free man, and the right to defend yourself has been reinforced.

Thank you, Judge Schroeder. You are a great example of an ethical judge who should be emulated all over the United States of America.

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About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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