Free Republic

On August 3, 2023, Judge Janet Bond Arterton of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut ruled on whether the recent Connecticut law banning the possession of common semi-automatic rifles and pistols under the appellation of “assault weapons” and of standard capacity magazines which hold more than ten rounds. Judge Arterton ruled the law is not prohibited by the Second Amendment. She does not see it as an infringement because, she claims, “assault weapons” and magazines over ten rounds are not arms protected by the Second Amendment. Magazines that hold more than ten rounds are referred to...

On August 8, 2023, In the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) in the case of Wolford v. Lopez.The case was filed on June 23, 2023, and has been written about previously on AmmoLand. The plaintiffs asked for a TRO for five of fifteen so-called “sensitive places” in the new Hawaii law. Judge Kobayashi issued the TRO for most of the places asked for by the plaintiffs, with some exceptions. Whether the other places which are labeled as “sensitive places” in the law will be upheld by...

Last month, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton tossed out a lawsuit challenging Connecticut’s ban on concealed carry in state parks, ruling that the plaintiff in the litigation didn’t have standing to sue because there was no credible threat of him being arrested or prosecuted for violating the ban. That was an exceedingly odd decision, but it kept the ban in place (at least for now), which counts as a win as far as anti-gunners are concerned. Now Arterton has followed up with another legal doozy, rejecting a preliminary injunction against the state’s newly-expanded ban on so-called assault weapons and...

Oregon voters in November narrowly passed Measure 114, which requires residents to undergo safety training and a background check to obtain a permit to buy a gun...The legislation also bans the sale, transfer or import of gun magazines with more than 10 rounds...

Newly released whistleblower documents reveal that federal prosecutors repeatedly interfered on Hunter Biden’s behalf during the probe into the younger Biden’s business dealings. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith on Thursday released five documents that include the testimonies of two IRS whistleblowers, as well as supplemental affidavits and memos detailing alleged efforts to politically interfere with the probe. The whistleblowers testified that from 2014-2019, Hunter Biden personally received 8.3 Million Dollars from Ukraine, China, and Romania and didn’t pay taxes on the income, but the Biden Department of Justice attempted to block the IRS agents investigating the tax...

It was on Guo’s yacht that Bannon, the former chief White House strategist for Donald Trump, was arrested in a criminal fraud case in 2020.Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire and associate of Steve Bannon, was denied bail on Thursday after being charged in a $1 billion fraud case in March. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres rejected Guo’s proposed bail package, saying he must remain behind bars pending trial because there is “no condition or set of conditions” that would ensure his return to court or the safety of the community, according to the court order. Torres said Guo “has means...

A federal judge in North Dakota has temporarily blocked the implementation of the Biden administration’s controversial “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, granting the request of a coalition of 24 states and more than a dozen industry groups. On Dec. 30, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its final “Revised Definition of Waters of the United States” rule, broadening what types of water sources were subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act. In issuing the April 12 injunction (pdf), U.S. District Judge Daniel L. Hovland held that the plaintiff states had successfully demonstrated that the new rule...

A federal judge in Texas recently agreed with a federal judge in Oklahoma that the national ban on gun possession by cannabis consumers violates the Second Amendment. Kathleen Cardone, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, also concluded that the federal ban on transferring firearms to an "unlawful user" of a "controlled substance," first imposed by the Gun Control Act of 1968, is unconstitutional. The case involves Paola Connelly, who was charged with illegal possession of firearms under 18 USC 922(g)(3) after El Paso police found marijuana and guns in her home while responding...

Liberal advocacy groups that publish widely cited lists of purported "hate groups," tarring a diverse spectrum of conservative organizations, are facing defamation claims alleging they knowingly spread falsehoods about those organizations' beliefs and activities. A federal judge recently refused to dismiss litigation against the 52-year-old Southern Poverty Law Center for designating the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, which promotes "legal, sustainable and reduced immigration," as an "anti-immigrant hate group." The designation came seven years after SPLC told The Associated Press the label would be too strong for what it called a "nativist" group that works "through the political process." That has...

A federal judge on Thursday struck down a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, jeopardizing free coverage of a wide range of preventive services including mammograms, colonoscopies and mental health screenings for nearly 168 million people on employer health insurance and on Obamacare’s individual market. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, the author of several previous rulings against Obamacare, sided with conservative employers and individuals in Texas who argued that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that set those requirements has been acting unconstitutionally since 2010. The decision blocks enforcement of the rules nationwide.

A federal district court in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky, Central Division (at Lexington), has held a ban on the exercise of Second Amendment rights for a mere domestic restraining order 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8 is unconstitutional. On June 15, 2022, A Harrison County Family Court in Kentucky issued a Domestic Violence Order (DVO), a restraining order, against Sherman Kelvin Combs. In Kentucky, the DVO procedures do not require council (an attorney) to be appointed for respondents or a jury resolve factual issues.A few days later, it is alleged Combs purchased a .357 revolver from a...

A federal judge in Chicago has denied a motion seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block Illinois’ assault weapons ban and a similar ordinance in Naperville. U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall ruled Friday that the Illinois and Naperville bans on selling assault weapons are “constitutionally sound.” Lawyers for the National Association for Gun Rights and Robert Bevis, who owns a gun store in Naperville, had sought the court orders in a lawsuit to stop the bans. As is now common in such cases, they argued that it’s “impossible” for the new state gun law and a similar...

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking enforcement of New York’s “Hateful Conduct Law” seeking to regulate “hate speech” on social media platforms, ruling that the law is a violation of the First Amendment, which prevents the U.S. government from regulating the speech of its citizens.

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important. Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say. Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny...

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Tampa, Florida's ban against talk therapy for minors seeking freedom from unwanted same-sex attraction. The city had tried to block licensed therapists from providing voluntary counseling to those minors. The federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that the ban is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.... The latest ruling is based on Liberty Counsel's previous victory in Otto v. City of Boca Raton in which the Eleventh Circuit had ruled that similar attempts to muzzle counselors from helping their clients in Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton were unconstitutional...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge in Wisconsin on Wednesday ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of a man shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during a protest in 2020 can proceed against Rittenhouse, police officers and others. The father of Anthony Huber, one of two men shot and killed by Rittenhouse, filed the lawsuit in 2021, accusing officers of allowing for a dangerous situation that violated his son's constitutional rights and resulted in his death. Anthony Huber's father, John Huber, also alleged that Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, conspired...

A Florida federal judge...sanctioned former President Donald Trump and his lead attorney Alina Habba nearly $1 million in Trump's racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton for what the judge called a "pattern of misuse of the courts." In a scathing order, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks said Trump and Habba... are jointly liable for $937,989.39 in attorney fees and costs of the 31 defendants... which claimed that Clinton conspired with the Democratic National Committee and others to "weave a false narrative" that Trump colluded with Russians..." Judge Middlebrooks said the lawsuit "should never have been filed" and was brought simply...

In what is likely to become a landmark case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an en banc decision of all the judges in the circuit, struck down the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule which changed the definition of a machinegun to include bump stocks. Thirteen judges were in the majority, with three judges dissenting. The case is Cargill v. Garland. This correspondent wrote about it previously. Here is a summation of how the sixteen judges ruled. From the opinion: Of the sixteen members of our court, thirteen of us agree...

A federal judge on Thursday imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on former President Donald Trump and his lawyer for filing a since-dismissed ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and many others, which had claimed they tried to rig the 2016 presidential election in her favor by smearing Trump.“We are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” wrote Judge John Middlebrooks in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in his order sanctioning Trump.The judge in his...

The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Thursday affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the vaccine mandate for federal contract workers is unconstitutional. The majority opinion stated that a broad interpretation of the mandate could provide the president “nearly unlimited authority to introduce requirements into federal contracts.” The court said Biden wanted it “to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would permit him to unilaterally impose a healthcare decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States. We decline to do so.” Judge Kurt Engelhardt, writing for the majority, demonstrated the fallacy of the government’s...