Link to Breaking headline and short synopsis from Washington Post 11AM Eastern Time
Trump pardons Oregon cattle ranchers in case that sparked 41-day occupation of wildlife refuge in 2016
Some background here from Wikipedia
It boils down to this, those who have fought the legitimacy of United States ownership of public land, vast open sparsely settled land that this country took from indigenous peoples and Mexicans in the 19th century is to no longer subject to government regulation, as long as Donald Trump can have the final word on whether those who breach these laws shall face any punishment.
It’s squatters rights, and those with the most guns win.
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The Timing is no accident as this article in the L.A. Times on one of Kavanaugh’s dissents against any limits to magazine size in assault rifles:
Kavanaugh appears to support broader gun rights under the 2nd Amendment. In 2011, he filed a 52-page dissent when the appeals court, by a 2-1 vote, upheld a District of Columbia ordinance that prohibited semiautomatic rifles and magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The judges in the majority, both Republican appointees, noted that several large states, including California and New York, enforced similar laws.
But Kavanaugh said the ban on semiautomatic rifles was unconstitutional because the weapons are in common use in this country. “As one who was born here, grew up in this community in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and has lived and worked in this area almost all of his life, I am acutely aware of the gun, drug and gang violence that has plagued all of us…. But our task is to apply the Constitution and the precedents of the Supreme Court, regardless of whether the result is one we agree with as a matter of first principles or policy,” he wrote.
Since the Supreme Court in 2008 established a 2nd Amendment right for individuals to have a gun at home, the justices have refused to hear a 2nd Amendment challenge to state laws or local ordinances that restrict the sale of semiautomatic weapons.
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If K. is confirmed, every vigilante will be well armed if they choose to ignore federal law.