CA - Judge refuses to strip Mongols biker club of trademarked logo

OFF THE WIRE
By Joel Rubin

The Mongols motorcycle club logo is seen on a member's jacket at a news conference in Los Angeles. (Ted Soqui / Corbis via Getty Images)

After a decade spent fighting the Mongols motorcycle club and its violent members in court, federal prosecutors appeared poised last month to deliver a decisive blow when a jury voted to strip the notorious club of trademarks it holds on its coveted logo.

But a federal judge in Santa Ana Thursday let the Mongols off the ropes, ruling that taking control of the insignia from club would be unconstitutional and refusing to enforce the jury’s decision.

Denying Mongol members the ability to display the logo on their leather riding jackets and elsewhere would overstep the right to free expression embedded in the 1st Amendment, as well as the 8th Amendment’s ban on excessive penalties, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found.

“There is a realistic danger that the transfer of the rights associated with the symbol to the government will have a chilling effect,” Carter wrote.

In a sternly worded, 51-page ruling, Carter unambiguously knocked down each of the arguments prosecutors had made in favor of wresting away control of the trademarks the club’s leaders used to maintain tight control over its image and membership.

In doing so, the judge dealt a significant setback to the novel legal strategy prosecutors had concocted in the case, which aimed to apply federal forfeiture laws, which are typically used to take cash, houses and other tangible property, to the abstract rights associated with a trademark.

Carter said the government was well within its rights to take weapons, ammunition and other contraband seized in raids against the Mongols.

However, likening the Mongols to a ship, the judge wrote, “The Government is not merely seeking forfeiture of the ship’s sails. In this prosecution the United States is attempting … to change the meaning of the ship’s flag.”

Prosecutors’ claim that rights to the insignia should be stripped because it was a vital part of the club’s criminal activity — a powerful image used to “generate fear among the general public” — fell far short of clearing the high barrier the 1st Amendment requires the government to clear if it wants to restrict speech, Carter wrote.

Since the group was formed in late 1960s, the image of a Genghis Khan figure in sunglasses riding a motorcycle beneath the group’s name has been the foundation of the Mongols’ identity, which over the years has included involvement in drug dealing and violence by many members.

Only those who have been admitted to the inner ranks of the insular group are allowed to stitch the large patches of the insignia onto their riding apparel. And in the closed-off world of motorcycle clubs, built largely around rivalries and alliances with other groups, the logo serves as an unmistakable signal to friends and enemies.

“We are ecstatic that the Mongols motorcycle club has been able to win this 1st Amendment battle for itself and all motorcycle clubs,” said Stephen Stubbs, an attorney for the Mongols. “The government has clearly overreached into a realm that the Constitution does not allow. They tried to ban symbolic speech.”

In a statement, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office said, “We are disappointed in the ruling,” adding that prosecutors believe the country’s laws obligated Carter to order the trademarks to be forfeited.

The government is “definitely considering an appeal,” he said.

In December, after a lengthy trial, a jury convicted the Mongols organization of racketeering and conspiracy charges, finding that the group shared responsibility for murder, attempted murder and drug crimes committed by individual members.

The verdict cleared the way for prosecutors to go after the trademarks as part of the sentence against the club.

Following more testimony and legal wrangling over the forfeiture issue, the jury voted unanimously that the Mongols should lose control of the trademarks, finding that there was a direct link between the image and one of the criminal charges the club faced — conspiracy to commit racketeering.

Calling the verdict the “first of its kind in the nation,” U.S. Atty. Nicola Hanna said seizing the Mongols’ trademarks would serve to “attack the sources of a criminal enterprise’s economic power and influence.”

But rather than order the trademarks forfeited, Carter set a hearing to examine, among other things, the 1st Amendment issues raised by the verdict.

When both sides arrived in court Thursday to make their cases for signing off on the jury’s decision, Carter — who during the trial made no secret of his concerns that the novel legal strategy crossed constitutional lines — had his order already written.

The judge said 1st Amendment issues were undeniably at play because the type of trademarks the Mongols own, called collective membership marks, don’t serve any commercial purpose but only help members to identify themselves as part of a group.

And because the jury had found the logo was tied directly to the conspiracy charge but not the murders and other violent crimes with which the club was accused of participating, Carter concluded forfeiting the trademarks would violate the Constitution’s 8th Amendment, which forbids the government from imposing excessive punishments.

Denying members control over the logo would be an “unjustified and grossly disproportionate” punishment, he wrote.

In laying out the rationale for his decision, Carter revisited the long history of the government’s pursuit of the Mongols.

Formed in the 1970s in Montebello by a group of mostly Latino men who reportedly had been rejected for membership by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, the club has expanded over the decades to include several hundred members in chapters across Southern California and elsewhere.

In 2008, nearly 80 Mongols members were charged in a sweeping racketeering case that included an array of alleged murders, assaults and drug deals.

Prosecutors devised the strategy of stripping the Mongols of their trademarks in that earlier case. At a news conference announcing the charges, then-U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien laid out the strategy, saying that taking control of the trademarked insignia would give the government the authority to force Mongols members to remove the image from their riding jackets.

All but two of the defendants in the case pleaded guilty and a judge agreed the trademarks should be forfeited, but ultimately reversed himself after deciding none of the people charged in the case actually owned the trademarks.

That led prosecutors to try again with a second racketeering case that was largely the same as the first but which named only one defendant: Mongol Nation, the entity that prosecutors say is made up of the club’s leaders and owns the trademarks.

Carter has not yet imposed a sentence on the Mongols in the current racketeering case. The punishment could include monetary fines.

“Judge Carter’s decision recognizes that there are many punishments and penalties that can be imposed, but denying speech rights raises serious 1st Amendment concerns,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley.

Joseph Yanny, a criminal defense attorney who argued the case for the Mongols, expressed disappointment that the judge had rejected his requests that the verdict be tossed out altogether.

But he acknowledged that allowing the club to maintain control over its logo was a major win. Losing the trademarks, he had said during the trial, would have amounted to a “death sentence” for the Mongols.

The government’s case, he said, was an attempt to impose “collective guilt” on an organization for the crimes committed by some of its members.

“That’s never been the law in this country,” he said.

CA - Mongol Nation Reductio Ad Absurdum

OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com

There is an important hearing this Thursday in the Mongol Nation case.

The court – the court is fellow named The Honorable David O. Carter – will hear arguments on three issues.

The first issue is whether this entire case is built on rock or sand. The government has argued that the turn of phrase “Mongol Nation” is an actual thing rather than a term of affinity. What the government successfully convinced a jury last December was that the Dodgers baseball team lost the World Series at the direction of Dodgers Nation. Mongol Nation is something both prosecutors and Mongols like to say. But it a phrase with many meanings. The government’s audacity in this case has been to insist that Mongol Nation means what the prosecutors say it means.

The second issue is whether an entity – an abstraction that exists in your heart and your mind – can be guilty of drug dealing and murder. The government’s case, as briefly stated as possible, is that “an unincorporated association” called Mongol Nation acting on behalf of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, is guilty of racketeering. Two government prosecutors named Steven Welk and Christopher Brunwin double talked a jury into agreeing to this.

Regardless of what the jury found “Mongol Nation” guilty of, it has been Mongols Motorcycle Club president David Santillan who has had to sit in court and listen to this bullshit for years. The Mongols Motorcycle Club is the actual defendant. And Mongols attorney Joe Yanny hopes a couple of motions he has filed, exposing the sand under the government’s splendid monument to sophistry, will put a stop to this case.

“If you can’t burn in hell you aren’t guilty of the sin,” is how Yanny likes to put it. The point of this case has never been to punish a wrongdoer. The point of this case for the last ten years has been to outlaw the rebellious, anti-authoritarian, peculiarly American phenomena of outlaw motorcycle clubs.

Yanny hopes that Carter, possibly as early as this Thursday, will recognize the absurdities in the prosecution and declare Mongol Nation innocent.

Constitutional Issues

If he does not, the issue of whether the government can seize the Mongols Motorcycle Club’s insignia will depend on Carter’s comprehension of the evermore faded, tattered and ambiguous Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution may bear heavily on any judge. Carter tried to lighten his load six weeks ago by soliciting amicus curiae briefs (or friends of the court briefs) from interested members of the public.

Carter wanted opinions on:

“Whether criminal forfeiture of any and all legal and equitable rights of any kind or nature associated with or appurtenant to a collective membership mark violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

“Whether forfeiture of a collective membership mark is feasible under intellectual property law.”

And, “Whether an unincorporated association is legally capable of committing the crimes of murder and/or attempted murder.”

Since you are reading this, there is a chance you care about this case. Not that many people are reading this. Not as many people care about this case as you might think. Which might be part of the problem.

Eventually five briefs floated in. Two of them support the Mongols. Two of them seem quite fatuous. And the fifth seems to have been bought and paid for by the prosecutors.

David Loy

David Loy, who is the Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties in Southern California, wrote one the briefs that disapproves of prosecutors outlawing symbols common to well-known bad people. Loy fought and won a case titled Ramon Rivera versus Ronnie A. Carter, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); John A. Torres, Special Agent in Charge, ATF Los Angeles Field Division; and Eric H. Holder, United States Attorney General against the same prosecutors, Welk and Brunwin, who brought this case. Rivera was a Mongol who fought for the right to wear his patch. The government, with unlimited resources, fought Loy every step. He won anyway. Welk tried to keep the courts from reimbursing Loy for his time. Loy won that fight, too.

Writing about Mongol Nation last month Loy said, “The government certainly can’t prohibit people from wearing shirts or buttons supporting the Democratic Party, Black Lives Matter, or the National Rifle Association – and it can’t prohibit people from wearing the Mongols logo either.”

Taylor And Tinkham

A pair of Midwestern lawyers named Rodney V. Taylor and George W. Tinkham contributed an insightful brief. They both ride motorcycles and they both work for ABATE of Illinois.

ABATE, is the original bikers’ rights organization. It was formed by members of the Hells Angels and Easyriders Magazine to protest helmet laws in 1971. The name was originally an acronym for “A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments.” ABATE, or Abate, or A.B.A.T.E., is now generally understood to mean “A Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education.

Taylor also serves as general counsel to ABATE of Indiana and ABATE of Ohio. He is a well-known philanthropist and he was appointed Sagamore of the Wabash in 2007 by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

They write:

“In response to the Court’s invitation, Amici propose addressing two questions:

“1. Whether criminal forfeiture of any and all legal and equitable rights of any kind or nature associated with or appurtenant to a collective membership mark violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,

“and 2. Whether criminal forfeiture of a collective membership mark violates the due process rights of individual members of a collective.

“The answer to both of these important questions is an unequivocal yes.

“The forfeiture urged by the Government impermissibly infringes on vital Constitutional rights of members of Mongol Nation and the broader rights of motorcyclists everywhere. Those rights that would be infringed include, but are not limited to, rights possessed by citizens and recognized under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America.

“The mark in question has been well-described in this matter: the caricature of a Mongolian warrior with top-knot and sword, mounted on a motorcycle. The word ‘Mongol’ appears in block letter above the image. The mark is used in a number of ways to identify those with permission to use it. Most prominently, the mark is featured as a large patch on the back of leather jackets or vests worn by motorcyclists. However, the mark may also be used on shirts, smaller patches, and other items, as well as being incorporated into tattoos. Additionally, the mark, or variations on it, are used by people who are supporters, but not members, of the club.

“The display of such logos and insignia by club members and supporters is a protected expression under the First Amendment, since it communicates the wearer’s association with, or support of, the club. Use of the mark helps identify members and supporters and helps those members and supporters identify with each other. As such, the marks are an expression of the users’ position on any number of issues, including motorcycling issues, and use of the marks by those who have been authorized to use them is clearly a form of speech protected by the 1st Amendment as expressive conduct.”

Rebecca Tushnet and Michael Tracy

Rebecca Tushnet is the most academically distinguished of the court’s new friends. She is the inaugural Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard University. She joined Harvard Law School in 2016 after teaching at Georgetown University Law Center.

Unfortunately, no matter how full her head may be of useful law she dares not speak any of it. Her brief is partly titled “in support of neither party” and she seems determined to make sure everybody knows what “trademark” means.

She displays no awareness that this is, at its heart, a case about which symbols people may wear to a bar, and hang in their closets, and keep photos of on their phones.

Michael L. Tracy is a labor and personal injury lawyer in Irvine, California. He tends to litigate cases to make money rather than to right wrongs — except in the sense that he helps his clients who may have been sexually harassed, or slipped and fallen in the lobby of a big building, or been possibly injured bin some way by someone who is somehow connected to a big bank balance, get theirs. He is one of those lawyers who doesn’t get paid until you get paid. And, if he is to get paid, he needs court dates.

He writes he is:

“Concerned that the amount of time taken by criminal cases such as this are impacting a crowded docket. In reviewing the filings relating to the forfeiture, it appeared that neither side had clearly stated what they were trying to accomplish nor clear legal reasoning for how to accomplish it.

“Collective membership marks are a type of trademark and can be assigned and transferred similar to other trademarks. Prior to committing the criminal acts, Mongol Nation had the right to license the items to its own members and keep the profit from so doing. Because of the criminal forfeiture, those profits will now go to the future purchaser.

“Due process will be ensured provided the RICO forfeiture statute is followed.”

It seems possible that Tracy has learned everything he knows about this case by reading the Los Angeles Times while listening to ABC7 Eyewitness News!

Stefan D. Cassella

Stefan D. Cassella, on the other hand writes as if he learned about this case in whispers, in bed, with Welk.

He is a former Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section and was the Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore. He “drafted many of the federal forfeiture and money laundering statutes.”

He is currently the proprietor “of AssetForfeitureLaw, LLC, a consulting company providing professional services relating to the recovery of criminal proceeds and the suppression of money laundering activity. His clients include the FBI, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the U.S. Secret Service, the World Bank, the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney’s Offices, as well as financial institutions, NGOs and private law firms. He has appeared as an expert witness in state and foreign courts regarding the federal asset forfeiture and money laundering laws.”

The government will probably lean heavily on Casella’s brief if they have to appeal this case. Most readers will be most impressed by the way he just prattles on about “Mongol Nation” as if it was General Motors.

“Defendant Mongol Nation has objected that there is a constitutional objection to the entry of the forfeiture order that the Government has requested: that the forfeiture would violate the First Amendment rights of Defendant and its members…. The undersigned amicus submits that that there is no such bar to the entry of the forfeiture order.”

“It is well-established that tangible personal property that would be used to engage in expressive conduct may be forfeited if the reason for the forfeiture is unrelated to the content of the intended speech,” Cassella moans on. “ For example, in United States v. Any and All Radio Station Transmission Equipment, the Ninth Circuit upheld the forfeiture of radio broadcast equipment that the defendant used and intended to use to engage in radio broadcasts without a license to do so. The forfeiture of the equipment, the court said, does not implicate the First Amendment if the reason for the forfeiture was the violation of the licensing requirement, and not the content of the intended speech. Indeed, it is also well-established that tangible personal property that itself contains expressive content otherwise protected by the First Amendment may be forfeited if the forfeiture is based not on the content of the property, but on the connection between the property and another crime.”

“The forfeiture of the Marks in this case does not prevent Defendant from engaging in the recreational enjoyment of motorcycle riding, of affiliating with like-minded enthusiasts, or of creating a new patch, insignia or other accoutrements signaling that affiliation. It would only forbid the future use by Mongol Nation of the particular Marks that were used in furtherance of the drug offenses, murders and other acts of violence of which it has been convicted.”

“Defendant’s challenge to the forfeiture of the Marks in this case is…misplaced. Because the Marks are intangible rights subject to forfeiture…and because the forfeiture is unrelated to the content of the expressive nature of the Marks, and because Defendant has the right to engage in future expressive conduct of the same nature, albeit without the use of the particular Marks that it used in the past to commit acts of racketeering, the forfeiture ofthe Marks is mandatory under RICO and is not barred by the First Amendment.”

Cassella does no reveal if, or how much, he was paid for his brief.

The case, as police are fond of saying, continues.

Chuck Schumer CAUGHT in ugly abortion bill lie

OFF THE WIRE

This is pathetic... no matter how you slice it!

If this is "politically" correct there's something majorly wrong with the demorats!!

https://thehornnews.com/chuck-schumer-caught-in-abortion-bill-lie/ 

Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday blocked a Republican bill that would have saved the lives of babies born alive after botched abortion attempts.And Schumer was caught lying about the bill when he defended Democrat votes.Blocking the bill means that the health care providers would have the legal right to kill a fully healthy baby— moving arms, feet, legs, crying for milk and all.Democrats made their’ voice clear: They couldn’t care less. And they’ll let infanticide go unchecked.Seemingly out of left field, Schumer even claimed about the bill’s contents would “impose requirements on what type of care doctors must provide in certain circumstances, even if that care is ineffective, contradictory to medical evidence, and against the family’s wishes.”But the bill doesn’t include specifics. Drawn up by Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., the proposal is fairly simple. It all comes down to one question.“I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we’re OK with infanticide.”If an infant is born alive during a botched late-term abortion attempt, Sasse’s bill would simply require doctors to render “the same degree” of care used for any birth. The baby would be immediately sent to a hospital and given the care any other child would receive.“Can the extreme far-left politics surrounding abortion really have come this far?” McConnell asked. “Are we really supposed to think that it’s normal that there are now two sides debating whether a newborn, whether newborn living babies deserve medical attention?”Supporters said the measure presented lawmakers with a moral choice. Democrats didn’t care.Senators voted 53-44 for Sasse’s bill — seven votes short of the 60 needed to end Democratic delaying tactics aimed at derailing the measure.The vote was the latest instance in which Republicans have tried to go on offense on the issue and put Democratic abortion-rights lawmakers in an uncomfortable position.Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Doug Jones of Alabama and Joe Manchin from West Virginia were the only lawmakers to cross party lines as Democrats demonstrated anew that even in the minority, they can derail common sense bills.Several dozen House Republicans, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., stood on the Senate floor during the vote, just as a contingent of House Democrats did last month during a crucial vote on ending the government shutdown. Republicans control the Senate by 53-47.President Donald Trump reacted to the vote while en route to his summit in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, tweeting —

California - AG balks at release of criminal cops list

OFF THE WIRE

POLICE
AG balks at release of criminal cops list
California keeps a secret record of convicted law enforcement officers but says you can’t have it

By Robert Lewis and Jason Paladino
Investigative Reporting Program
Their crimes ranged from shoplifting to embezzlement to murder. Some of them molested kids and downloaded child pornography. Others beat their wives, girlfriends or children.
The one thing they had in common: a badge.
Thousands of California law enforcement officers have been convicted of a crime in the past decade, according to records released by a public agency that sets standards for officers in the Golden State. The revelations are alarming, but the state’s top cop as! Ys Californians don’t have a right to see the records. In fact, Attorney General Xavier Becerra warned two Berkeley- based reporters that simply possessing this never-before- publicly-released list of convicted cops is a violation of the law.
The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training provided the information last month in response to routine Public Records Act requests from reporters for the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and its production arm, Investigative Studios.
But when Becerra’s office learned about the disclosure, it threatened the reporters with legal action unless they destroyed the records, insisting they are confidential under state law and were released inadvertently. The two journalism organizations have rejected Becerra’s demands.
"It’s disheartening and o! Minous that the highest law enforcement officer in the state ! Is threaten-

List

FROM PAGE 1

Ing legal action over something the First Amendment makes clear can’t give rise to criminal action against a reporter," said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech and open records.

The documents provide a rare glimpse at the volume of officer misconduct at a time of heightened interest over police accountability. The list includes cops who trafficked drugs, cops who stole money from their departments and even one who robbed a bank wearing a fake beard. Some sexually assaulted suspects. Others took bribes, filed false reports and committed perjury. A large number drove under the influence of drugs and alcohol — sometimes killing people on the road.

The Berkeley journalists chose not to p! Ublish the entire list until they could spend more time reporting to avoid misidentifying people among the nearly 12,000 names in the documents, said John Temple, director of the Investigative Reporting Program.

Still, the details are stunning in a state where officials have fought for years to keep virtually any record of police misconduct a secret. And they come amid a larger battle playing out in courtrooms throughout the state over California’s new police transparency law, Senate Bill 1421. Law enforcement groups have sued to limit the impact of that law, claiming it shouldn’t expose police disciplinary records created before the law took effect on Jan. 1.

Becerra himself has rejected public records requests from his own agency, and he is now being sued by a prominent First Amendment group for failing to comply. Many other agencies in ! California have followed the attorney general’s lead.

"Once you disclose a document that’s confidential and private, you can’t take it back," Becerra told reporters earlier this month. "You don’t get a second chance to get it right, you got to get it right the first time."

While that law has garnered the most attention and a public fight over police disciplinary records, it was another law that took effect Jan. 1 that led to the disclosure of the convictions of thousands of law enforcement officers and applicants.

The secret list

Tucked into a public safety omnibus bill last year was a provision allowing the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to keep information in its records showing when a current or former law enforcement officer is convicted of a felony or oth! ER crime that would disqualify them from being a cop.

Police departments often check POST’s records as part of the routine background check process when hiring new officers. But until the law changed, POST only labeled someone as being disqualified from serving in law enforcement when the person was convicted and had exhausted all appeals — which could take years and was difficult to track. The new law allows them to disqualify someone after a conviction, according to a POST spokesman.

So at the start of this year, Becerra’s office provided POST for the first time a list of what the agency says are convictions of current and former law enforcement officers and people who at one time had tried to become a cop.

POST provided 10 years’ worth of convictions — nearly 12,000 names in all — to the Berkeley-based inves! Tigative reporting organizations in early January in response to a up! Blic records request. Three weeks later the AG’s office sent a letter saying the records were "inadvertently" released and were considered confidential.

Attorney General Becerra’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Nic Marais, an attorney with Keker, Van Nest & Peters representing Investigative Studios, said the state’s assertions that the documents had been released "inadvertently" was hard to believe given that POST spent four weeks weighing the reporters’ request. In a letter to the AG, Marais wrote that because the documents appear to be a summary of public records, the disclosure exemptions cited by POST and Attorney General Becerra’s Office do not apply. Finally, he wrote that state law exempts reporters from prosecution for receiving records.

Snyder, of the First Amendment C! oalition, argued the underlying records are in the public interest.

"Police officers are vested by the public with extraordinary power," he said. "In order to monitor the use of that power, the public needs to know when they are over the line."

But attorney Mike Rains, who represents police officers, questions why they should be singled out by such a list.

"To the extent the public wants that to be public record, I can understand that," said Rains, who is leading a legal fight to block the release of officer disciplinary records under the new law.

"Why don’t we make that known for everybody?" Rains said of convictions, pointing out there’s no broad disclosure for lawyers, doctors, teachers and other trusted professionals.

M! any of the indiscretions in the new documents released last month to t! he Berkeley investigative reporting organizations have never been revealed publicly until now. Some of the officers were fired from the force only after an arrest. Others remain on the job despite a criminal conviction.

About 3,500 names on the list appear to match the names of police officers in state personnel databases, and about 2,250 of those have been on the force within the last five years. But without more information, the exact breakdown of which individuals were in law enforcement as opposed to applicants to become an officer is still unclear.

Phil Caporale, a spokesman for POST, said his agency is using the list to check if active officers have committed crimes that should prevent them from working in law enforcement.

"There’s that potential. That’s what we’re trying to eliminate … to make sure no one out! there is a peace officer today who shouldn’t be," Caporale said.

The agency also is on the lookout for former cops with convictions who try to get back into law enforcement, he said. "We want to make sure those folks don’t slip through the cracks."

Democrats reject push to alert ICE when illegal immigrants fail firearm background checks

OFF THE WIRE
         By Gregg Re
Interesting... "“The fact that Democrats do not want law enforcement notified if an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a background check is truly troubling.”

State’s proposed gun bill will check your social media accounts before granting you a firearm license

Illinois Democrats want to pass a new bill that would make gun buyers share their pubic social media accounts to police before granting them a firearm license. The bill’s proponents point to Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland High School shooter, and Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter, who both posted troubling comments before going on a rampage and killing innocent people.

Democrats this week approved legislation to require background checks for essentially all sales and transfers of firearms -- but rejected GOP-led efforts to amend the legislation to alert law enforcement authorities when gun buyers, including illegal immigrants, fail those background checks.

The House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of the bill 23-15, in a strict party-line vote, sending it to the House floor. If approved by the full House, the bill would be the most significant gun-control legislation approved by either chamber of Congress in at least a decade -- although it stands little chance of passage in the Senate, where Republicans command a slim majority.

Republicans in the House charged that H.R. 8, known as "The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019," should have included Florida Rep. Greg Steube's proposed amendment to require that law enforcement be notified "when an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a federal background check." (H.R. 8 was numbered in honor of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in Arizona on Jan. 8, 2011 by a mentally ill gunman.)
“Clearly, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee don’t care about preventing gun violence, they simply are playing politics with Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” Steube, a Republican, said after the vote. “The fact that Democrats do not want law enforcement notified if an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a background check is truly troubling.”
WATCH: FATHER OF PARKLAND SHOOTING VICTIM BLAMES 'OBAMA-ERA' POLICIES, REFLECTS ON 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
He continued: “In rejecting this amendment, the Democrats have shown their true colors. It is clear they are not interested in preventing gun violence or stopping the illegal purchase of firearms, but rather they are only interested in limiting the rights of law-abiding citizens to advance their own political agenda."
Wednesday's vote came a day before the one-year anniversary of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people. However, Steube dismissed arguments that the massacre necessitated the new legislation.
“As written now, H.R. 8 would not have prevented any of the mass shootings in Florida in recent years,” Steube's office said in a press release. “The shooter in Parkland passed a background check before purchasing a firearm, the shooter at Pulse Nightclub passed a background check before purchasing a firearm, and the shooter just weeks ago that murdered five women in District 17 passed a background check before purchasing the handgun he used in the commission of that heinous crime."
Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz echoed Steube's concerns.

"Democrats in the Judiciary Committee just voted against notifying ICE when an illegal alien fails a background check to buy a gun," Gaetz wrote on Twitter. "They hate ICE so much that they'd keep ICE in the dark when illegals try to get guns!"
The vote on the bill came after a contentious, daylong hearing in which Republicans offered a series of other amendments in addition to Steube's proposal, all of which were blocked by Democrats. Among the rejected amendments were some seeking to address background check fees, which Republicans said could be unduly burdensome for family members trying to transfer guns to relatives.
Republicans said they were ready to offer additional amendments when Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., shut off debate around 8 p.m., 10 hours after the hearing began.
CONNECTICUT DEM INTRODUCES 50 PERCENT TAX ON AMMO
Nadler called the background checks bill long overdue to address a "national crisis of gun violence" that claimed nearly 40,000 lives in 2017.
"Our country is awash in guns, and we have the shameful death toll to show for it," he said.
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the panel's senior Republican, called Nadler's action "disturbing" and said it did not bode well for the two-year congressional session.
"If this is the way the chairman wants to begin this session of Congress, I really wonder where we go from here" and whether the two parties can work together, Collins said.
But Democrats said Republicans were delaying a vote on the bill because they oppose universal background checks for gun purchases.
"This isn't a debate, it's a show," said Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla. She called universal background checks for all gun sales common sense and said, "Let's move forward."
At one point, Steube displayed a large cup that read, "The Second Amendment is my gun permit."
Democrats have pledged additional gun legislation, including restrictions on high-capacity magazines and a measure to allow temporary removal of guns from people deemed an imminent risk to themselves or others.
Meanwhile, fellow freshman Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., said lawmakers "know background checks work, that they save lives, and yet we need to close loopholes" that allow some private purchases and transfers to be made without background checks.Instead of working with Democrats, "Republicans are adding more loopholes, which is shameful," Dean said.
BACKGROUND CHECK REQUIREMENTS ACTUALLY DO VERY LITTLE, STUDY SHOWS
However, earlier this month, gun violence experts from the Center for Gun Policy and Research and the Violence Prevention Research Program conducted a study in Washington state, Colorado and Delaware to analyze whether state laws requiring more background checks actually resulted in more checks.
The results, published in medical journal Injury Prevention, suggest the laws had little impact.
Delaware was the only state that saw apparent results, with an increase ranging from 22 to 34 percent based on the type of firearm. But according to the study, "no overall changes were observed in Washington and Colorado."
The study said data "external to the study" suggested Washington saw a “modest, but consistent” increase in background checks for private-party sales, and Colorado saw a similar increase in checks for non-gun show sales.
The push comes as reports emerged that an initial background check five years ago failed to flag an out-of-state felony conviction that would have prevented a man from buying the gun he used to kill five co-workers and wound six other people, including five responding police officers, at a suburban Chicago manufacturing plant this week, authorities say.
Gary Martin, who was killed in a shootout with officers Friday, ending his deadly rampage at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, was issued a firearm owner's identification card in January 2014 after a background check failed to show a 1995 aggravated assault conviction in Mississippi, Aurora police Chief Kristen Ziman said Saturday.
He bought the Smith & Wesson handgun he used in Friday's attack two months later, on March 11, 2014, she said. Five days after that, he applied for a concealed carry permit, which included a more rigorous background check that used digital fingerprinting and that did flag his Mississippi felony conviction, which led the Illinois State Police to revoke his permit.
Separately, Republicans pushed to allow exceptions for victims of domestic violence and transfers among family members, but were dismissed by Democrats.
Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., a freshman whose son was killed by gun violence, said she has been working on gun legislation since his death more than six years ago.
"As a survivor of gun violence myself, I refuse to let my colleagues stand here and devalue the importance that this bill has," she said.
And Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., said that while the bill "can't bring back" any of those killed in Parkland or other shootings, it will help reduce gun violence.
"If this legislation prevents one person wishing to do harm to others with a gun from doing that, it will be something we can be proud of," he said.
Fox News' Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.