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Gun-rights groups understandably are upsetthat a Louisiana public school punished a fourth-grade student after a teacher saw a BB gun in the boy's bedroom during a video classroom session. That was an absurd case of political correctness, given that the gun merely was in the background. It reflects infuriating anti-gun bias.

Now contrast many gun activists' reactionor apparent lack thereofto a more significant gun-related issue that grabbed headlines the same week. A grand jury in Louisville gave a wrist slap to officers who killed Breonna Taylor during a raid at her home. The African-American medical worker hadn't done anything wrong. The drug-related warrant, which spurred the raid, apparently involved her former boyfriend.

I scoured the internet and found little outrage from gun-rights groups and supporters. Yet the Taylor caseas well as the issue of police raids and police militarization, in generalposes a real risk to Americans' Second Amendment rights. They also pose risks to our other constitutional rights, such as protection against government searches and seizures, and the requirement for due process.

Heavily armed, black-clad SWAT officers conduct thousands of these raids each year, with many of them botched and some even taking place at the wrong address. As The New York Times recently explained, Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed and heard banging. Police say that they announced themselves before busting down the door with a battering ram, but Walker said he didn't hear that announcementand feared the intruder was Taylor's ex-boyfriend.

Walker fired his gun, hitting a sergeant in the thigh. One officer reportedly fired 10 rounds blindly into the apartment, while others fired five rounds at Taylor, killing her. Dispatch logssuggestthe officers waited 20 minutes before providing medical assistance to Taylor. Police found no drugs in the apartment, according to the family lawyer. The grand jury indicted one officer for "wanton endangerment," but filed no charges against the others. One officer was fired.

Authorities dropped attempted-murder charges against Walker, but they typically file such charges against citizens who use firearms when the intruders turn out to be officers.

"In theory, no-knock raids are supposed to be used in only the most dangerous situations," per a 2015 Voxreport. "In reality, though, no-knock raids are a common tactic, even in less-than-dangerous circumstances." It noted that 80 percent of them involve the execution of a simple search warrant. (A judge had issued a no-knock warrant in the Taylor raid, even though it later was amended to a knock-and-announce warrant.)

Gun-rights supporters argue correctly that Americans should be free to own firearms to protect themselves. When the government employs these police-state tactics, how can you reasonably know that the people plowing through your door aren't criminals who want to kill your family? In my view, such raidswhether "no knock" or "knock and announce"also pose a grave risk to Americans' Second Amendmentprotections (as well as to police who conduct them).

The late San Jose police chief, Joe McNamara, worried that police agencies increasingly send SWAT teams to homes to deal with relatively minor incidents if they suspect that the person owns a firearm. With California'sreporting system, any gun owner could be subject to a SWAT raid solely because they have availed themselves of this legal right. After all, it's easy for the authorities to know if you own a weapon.

During a 2018 hearing about proposed gun restrictions at the Maryland House of Delegates, one gun-rights advocatetoldUSA Today, "The Second Amendment is not about hunting. It is not about competitiveshooting. The Second Amendment is about self-defense. It's about being able to stop people who would do you harm, whether that's a criminal or the government."

Gun-rights supporters are on point with this argument, which one can easily confirm by perusing the Founding Fathers' statements about gun ownership. Yet in most of these police-shooting cases, the loudest Second Amendment supporters go silent. Few of them issued any substantive comment after a Minnesota police officer in 2016 shot to deathPhilandro Castile, who had told the officer he had a licensed firearm in his possession.

The fundamental problem is rooted in the nation's endless drug war, which in turn has led police agencies to behave more militaristically. "Simply put, the police culture has changed,"wroteMcNamara in a 2006 Wall Street Journal column. "An emphasis on 'officer safety' and paramilitary training pervades today's policing, in contrast to the older culture, which held that cops didn't shoot until they were about to be shot or stabbed."

Racial disparities certainly matter, but I believe that cultural change is the impetus for ongoing police-brutality protests. Those Americans who support the right to private firearms ownershipand the groups that claim to speak for usneed to speak out about this threatto our liberties. Quite frankly, it's a far bigger problem than schools that foolishly suspend kids for having a BB gun within view of the video camera.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

The rest is here:
The Police Tactics That Caused Breonna Taylor's Death Should Infuriate Second Amendment Advocates - Reason

Layers and details involved in the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer are still unfolding 24 hours after the federal case was announced.

We are learning more about the men arrested in Antrim County.

Some of the men involved in that investigation were part of the April Second Amendment rally in Lansing.

The picture below was posted by a downstate senator back on April 30.

The first, third and fourth men in this picture were arrested for their roles in the plot against the governor.

The man on the far right is William Null, one of the four men charged in Antrim.

The April rally ended with many storming the Capitol building to protest the governors response to the coronavirus crisis.

The investigation spans 18 communities with 13 people arrested.

Court documents show this investigation took months of work by investigators and informants inside the two militia groups.

The federal complaint shows the group had several plans to kidnap Governor Whitmer.

Those plans included:

The FBI says they were communicating through an encrypted group chat and using code words to avoid detection.

The group had this all planned to happen before the November election.

They wanted to try her in Wisconsin for treason because they were upset with her actions during the coronavirus pandemic.

See more here:
Man Charged in Antrim Co. for Plot to Kidnap Governor Attended 2nd Amendment Rally in Lansing - 9&10 News

With only a few weeks until Election Day, voters are feverishly hearing from candidates running for offices from your local town board to president of the United States.

Though rallies, town halls and campaigning are mostly virtual this election season, candidates are articulating their visions and appealing to voters interests. As an electorate, we are being demographically portioned into groups the suburban voter, the millennial voter and the Second Amendment voter.

However, one major constituency is not being highlighted in the current debate, which is why, as a pediatrician, I plan to vote like childrens futures depend on it in November. Children are 20% of the population but 0% of the vote, and their problems dont get addressed unless physicians, parents, teachers and those who care for kids make their issues our own.

Nothing is more fundamental to child health than health insurance and the ability to see a doctor when your child is ill. For healthy children, insurance coverage allows kids to access preventive care like autism screening, vision/hearing/dental screening and life-saving immunizations.

But while the current Covid pandemic has highlighted disparities in childrens access to internet and quality virtual education, long-standing income-based gaps in childrens health insurance coverage have gone largely unnoticed.

Read more here:
Another Voice: Cast a vote for kids and ensure Medicaid is protected - Buffalo News

Opinion | LetterThe Democrat solution is to raise taxes and grow government

By Verdell Jackson // Oct 12, 2020

Vote to enhance our freedom and make sure our government is fiscally responsible. Excellenceinvoting.org is a web site that provides honest information on candidates. We need a governor and legislators with skill and expertise to deal with the funding deficit we will have as the result of COVID-19. The Democrat solution is to raise taxes and grow government, which will not build a strong economy. Greg Gianforte is a proven Montana job creator. He continued his work in Congress by protecting our freedom and securing federal relief and health care. He gives most of his income away each year. As governor he will have the support of conservative Senate legislators in the Flathead such as Carl Glimm, SD2, who chaired House appropriations last session, Keith Regier, SD3, who chaired Judiciary, Bob Brown, SD 7 who chaired Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and holdover senators Bob Keenan and Mark Blasdel.

Conservative House candidates are Rep. Mark Noland, HD10, Matt Regier, HD4, John Fuller, HD8, and Derek Skees, HD11. Their voting records demonstrate that they strongly support the constitutions of Montana and the United States, freedom, jobs, and protection of our water from aquatic invasive species. They opposed the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Compact, which would give the tribe off reservation water rights to control use of water in western Montana.

New conservative candidates are Braxton Mitchell, HD3, who is making a huge positive impact on young people in his fight to protect our property rights, Second Amendment, public lands and our constitutional republic. Catherine Owens, HD5, supports lower property taxes by coming up with creative ways to generate revenue, protecting our public lands and water and does not support the CSKT Compact which her opponent supported. Amy Regier, HD6, also does not support the CSKT Compact and will work to lower property taxes, support the Second Amendment, promotes family values and access to public lands.

Verdell JacksonKalispell

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Elections Determine Our Freedom and Wealth - Flathead Beacon

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Opinion columnist Published 4:00 a.m. ET Oct. 8, 2020

Riots over George Floyd predictably resulted in billions in property damage, but it might be a surprise that they have strengthened the argument for gun rights.

This yearsriots, sparked by the death of George Floyd and continued in the names of several others, have destroyed billions of dollars in property, cost numerous people their livesand businesses and jobs,and promoted what will probably be a decade or more of de-urbanization.But whatever else happens, they will have accomplished an important social change.Thanks to these riots, the case for the Second Amendment and the personal right to own weapons is growing steadily stronger, as is the legal case for private gun ownership.

Thats the thesis of a new paper by George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein, who also serves as the director of GMUs Liberty and Law Center.The Right to Armed Self Defense in the Light of Law Enforcement Abdication, notes that the experience of this years riots undercuts the classic argument against an individual right to arms.While gun-control proponents have for decades argued that individual gun ownership is unnecessary in the modern era, where we have police forces to control crime, that hasnt worked out very well this year for people in numerous urban centers around America.

Bernstein offers an extensive review of happenings in cities ranging from Seattle to Louisville, Portland to Chicago and New York and Raleigh, and many other cities. In case after case, police were told to stand down, in order to avoid provoking violence.And in each case, the result was more violence, more property destruction, and more damage to businesses and jobs, while political leaders stood by.

In Seattle, city officials not only allowed the creation of a police-free zone, the city actually helped the creators by supplying things like traffic barriers and portable toilets. How did that work out?

Open-carry activist on Sept. 17, 2020, in Lansing, Michigan.(Photo: Nicole Hester/Ann Arbor News via AP)

It was a debacle, despite Mayor Jenny Durkans initially comparing it to a block party.When it was finally ended, Bernstein notes, Durkan admitted that the rioting produced a 525% increase in person-related crime, including rape, robbery, assaultand gang-related activity.

Justice and law reform: Why defunding police, upping social budgets alone won't work

Likewise, in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and prosecutor Kim Foxx established an early policy of toleratingand even implicitly encouragingstreet violence through their lackadaisical response. Bernstein notes, EvenotherChicagoofficials whogenerallysupportcriminaljustice reformhavecriticizedFoxxsreluctancetopursuefelonychargesagainst thosearrested forriotingor looting.

Meanwhile, On a particularly violent weekend in early June, Lightfoot refused to deploy the National Guard beyond Chicagoscentralbusinessdistrict,drawingcondemnationsfromofficials representing districts on the south and west side of the city, which were left unprotected during Chicagos deadliest weekend in sixty years.Over that weekend, twenty-four people werekilled andatleast sixty-one injured by gunviolence,and thecitys911dispatchersreceived65,000callsina single day 50,000 more than normal. As chaos unfolded, one Democratic city councilwoman told the mayor on the phone, My ward is a shit show .... [Rioters] are shooting at the police. I have never seen the likes of this. Im scared.

Bernstein recounts, with heavy documentation, numerous cases along these lines from numerous cities around the nation. In addition, he notes other cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles, where police called in sick to protest the actions of city leaders, leaving citizens unprotected.

Reforming the police: Screams of 'defund police' misplaced. Instead, use military as example for progress.

Even in normal times, gun owners joke thatwhen seconds count, the police are only minutes away.But, sometimes, theyre not coming at all.Sometimes theyre not even allowed to show up. (And, historically, political leaders have sometimes used the denial of police protection to opponents as a means of opening those opponents up to violent attacks.)

Bernstein notes that this is something that courts should take into account when Second Amendment cases are argued. But its also something that the rest of us should keep in mind.In 2020, the police will protect you seemsparticularly hollow.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of"The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself,"is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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Riots of 2020 have given the Second Amendment a boost - USA TODAY