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I was shocked when I first found out that for centuries, Catholic laypeople were not allowed to read the bible. Only priests were allowed to read it.

Patrick says

I was shocked when I first found out that for centuries, Catholic laypeople were not allowed to read the bible. Only priests were allowed to read it.

The lay people were illiterates in their own language, let alone being able to read Latin.

I was shocked when I first found out that for centuries, Catholic laypeople were not allowed to read the bible. Only priests were allowed to read it.

Having a religion where members are all but required to be literate to read the Book is a big advantage.

Some of Oregon's trans and queer gun supporters are worried that a new state law will prevent them from buying firearms.

The law, Measure 114, grants county sheriffs and police chiefs discretion to determine who qualifies to purchase a firearm under a new permit-to-purchase program.

But Measure 114 lacks criteria clearly defining what disqualifies applicants, details on what makes someone a threat and what data can be used by law enforcement in making that decision. That's a problem for activists who have critiqued law enforcement....

https://notthebee.com/article/great-news-it-is-now-legal-to-carry-a-gun-without-a-permit-in-fully-half-of-the-united-states

Joe Biden wants to "ban the number of bullets that can go in a magazine" 🤔

ATF just made felons out of 40 million Americans with their reclassification of pistol braced guns as SBR's.

Not just for years but for decades I have been perplexed by the fact that American Jews are overwhelmingly anti-gun. Now they are not just indifferent to guns as they were when I was growing up 60 years ago, but today they are genuinely hostile to them. They are both in leadership positions of the movement to ban private ownership of all firearms as well as at the grass-roots level individually in favor of gun bans by over 10 to 1. After much thought I have arrived at what appears to be the explanation for this cultural aversion to firearms by most American Jews, and since I have never seen anything like this explanation in print anywhere, I thought it worth writing the following essay describing what for want of a better term I refer to as "the shtetl mentality." ...

Before the existence of the state of Israel ever since the diaspora Jews have lived in small areas of other people's countries. Among American Jews this now typically means great grandparents who lived in shtetls or ghettos, segregated, isolated rural or urban areas in Europe. One of the major hazards of this situation was that occasionally a few Cossacks would get drunk, ride over to the nearest shtetl, rape a few women, maybe murder a man who protested rather than begging for his life and then ride off into the sunset, big fun... for the Cossacks.

It had to be inescapably clear to these Jews that there were dozens if not hundreds of them, able-bodied and sober, surely a match for 8 or 10 drunk Cossacks. It would have been easy, even for people not trained in arms, to kill them and bury them someplace, but it is obvious why they did not. If they had done so, all the Cossacks would have come to the shtetl fully armed for battle. They would have massacred every Jew in this shtetl and every other one within 100 versts. Defense was just not an option, not a survival trait. The women raped and the men murdered had to be seen as the price Jews paid for living, for surviving as a people. Since no Jew ever even remotely considered the possibility that without some major provocation someday the Cossacks would try to kill them all, it seemed like a reasonable if awful compromise.

Such a compromise must have taken a devastating and horrific psychological toll on the people forced to make it. Sooner or later someone among our traumatized ancestors had to make the following rationalization to justify this situation: "We are better than those people because they are violent and we are not. They handle weapons, and we do not." In order to maintain self-respect people in such a condition had to explain it as the result of something that made them better than their oppressors. This was the notion that they voluntarily (rather than of necessity as was the actual case) eschewed the use of weapons of any sort because they understood that violence was evil while their tormentors did not. It was the key to survival, self-respect and eventually the shtetl mentality which American Jews, far removed from the shtetl, still carry with them despite the fact that it has long since lost its utility. ...

The Jews who remained in Europe lived through the Holocaust. This caused the ones who survived and emigrated to Israel to see that the rules had changed. They saw that not all violence was wrong, that violence could be used to preserve the Jewish people and that the defensive use of weapons was necessary for the survival of the group. This led to a greater acceptance of individual use of weapons for personal defense. American Jews only observed this from afar. They did not live it so they did not adopt this new insight as valid for themselves even if most grudgingly accepted it as necessary for Israeli Jews.

The shtetl mentality has led to the Jewish Plan A for what to do in case seriously bad things begin to happen to Jews in America. Under such circumstances Jewish leaders plan to yell "Holocaust" as loudly as they can. They plan to use their not insubstantial resources and assets in the media to do this in hopes that the rest of Americans will rise and protect them from whatever new Cossacks have emerged. While this is a most reasonable Plan A, the fact that if this fails there is no Plan B is at the heart of what is foolish and stupid about the shtetl mentality. We have learned, or we should have learned, that there always must be a Plan B, a Plan B based on the notion that for a Jew the phrase "assault rifle" is a misnomer. The correct term, once the shtetl mentality has been transcended, is "Jewish defense rifle."

NuttBoxer says

ATF just made felons out of 40 million Americans with their reclassification of pistol braced guns as SBR's.

What if they made the guns smooth bore? Then the "rifle" classification part could not apply.

ATF just made felons out of 40 million Americans with their reclassification of pistol braced guns as SBR's. Now I have to change my order to avoid filling out a Form 1 or 4...

It was an open secret that nobody was planning to use that brace as a brace...

Eric Holder says

It was an open secret that nobody was planning to use that brace as a brace...

That does not matter one bit

Yes, even San Francisco has to follow the Constitution!

Under intense and unrelenting pressure from CRPA, the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office today issued its first CCW permit in many years. Last June, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto bragged about his defiance of Second Amendment rights, stating proudly that he had “not issued a single concealed carry permit since taking office in January of 2020.” Well, Sheriff, the streak is over!

It was an open secret that nobody was planning to use that brace as a brace...

There are a few options listed in the rule to cure the problem. The "least" bad option is to file the NFA paper work needed to get the tax stamp and thus regain compliance with the law.

The problem here is that the definition of a SBR and what the braces were being sold as and marketed as did not line up with the law. If the manufacturer designs and intends for the brace to be wrapped around your arm and people instead shoulder it, this does not "redesign" it.

The Court found the prohibition on the possession of firearms as an unlawful user of marijuana was unconstitutional because there is no historical tradition of removing the right to keep and bear arms from people who use intoxicating substances. Here is a summation of the Court order. From the order, p. 1:

Before the Court is Defendant Jared Michael Harrison’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment (Dkt. 17), which argues that the statute he is charged with violating, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), is unconstitutionally vague, in violation of the Due Process Clause, and unconstitutionally infringes upon his fundamental right to possess a firearm, in violation of the Second Amendment. For the reasons given below, the motion is GRANTED. ...

In short, there is no historical tradition of banning the right to keep and bear arms simply because a person uses intoxicating substances. The conclusion of the court is clear. From the order:

Because the Court concludes that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) violates Harrison’s Second Amendment right to possess a firearm, the Court declines to reach Harrison’s vagueness claim. The Motion to Dismiss the Indictment is GRANTED. Accordingly, the Indictment is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

IT IS SO ORDERED this 3rd day of February 2023.

The court noted the late provenance of the ban, which did not occur until 1986. This shows how the slippery slope works in practice.

https://www.ammoland.com/2023/02/judge-rules-ban-on-gun-possession-for-marijuana-users-unconstitutional/

The Court found the prohibition on the possession of firearms as an unlawful user of marijuana was unconstitutional because there is no historical tradition of removing the right to keep and bear arms from people who use intoxicating substances. Here is a summation of the Court order. From the order, p. 1:

Before the Court is Defendant Jared Michael Harrison’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment (Dkt. 17), which argues that the statute he is charged with violating, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), is unconstitutionally vague, in violation of the Due Process Clause, and unconstitutionally infringes upon his fundamental right to possess a firearm, in violation of the Second Amendment. For...

That's good news. Fucking government always wants to find ways to take away guns. The fact that they take gun ownership right away from people who committed crimes is ridiculous IMO. Because it's fucking government, once they have a way to confiscate guns, they'll find a way to turn all of us into criminals to take our rights away. Republicans don't do shit about it either, they are just as faggy self serving cunts as Democrats when it comes to gun control.

We’ve all seen signs announcing a particular place is a “gun-free zone.” While these signs are supposed to reduce gun violence by informing would-be shooters that their firearms aren’t welcome on the site, the reality is that they are instead beacons alerting criminals to soft targets.

And it looks like the New York Times may have finally figured that out. After a murder took place in Times Square on Thursday night, the paper openly questioned why posted signs banning guns from the area didn’t stop the violence. “The shooting was the first since the creation of the expansive, signposted zone, the police said in a statement, and it immediately renewed questions about whether such a designation can truly protect the area,” the so-called paper of record reported.