Open Firearms Carry On Michigan School Properties...

There is growing debate regarding our right in Michigan to openly carry firearms on school property when in possession of a concealed pistol license.

There shouldn't be.

Michigan's law is very clear: open carry onto school property by one holding a concealed pistol license is expressly protected (note that I do not say "permitted - it is a RIGHT, not a privilege), and the federal Gun Free School Zones Act (18 USC 922) also contains a specific exemption for concealed pistol license holders: 

"B) Subparagraph (A) does not apply to the possession of a firearm—
[…] (ii) if the individual possessing the firearm is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located or a political subdivision of the State, and the law of the State or political subdivision requires that, before an individual obtains such a license, the law enforcement authorities of the State or political subdivision verify that the individual is qualified under law to receive the license;"

For further discussion of Michigan's law, I refer you to MSP legal update 86, which states, 

"The above section does not apply to any of the following:
[…]  A person with a valid concealed pistol license (CPL) issued by any state "
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/MSP_Legal_Update_No._86_2_336854_7.pdf

That public schools are government entities and therefore subject to Michigan's firearms pre-emption law is clearly established under both federal and state laws and guidelines.

Under IRS definitions, public schools are "instrumentalities," agencies (branches) of governments: 

"An instrumentality is an organization created by or pursuant to state statute and operated for public purposes. Generally, an instrumentality performs governmental functions… 

In Revenue Ruling 57-128, the IRS addressed the question of whether an organization is wholly-owned by one or more states or political subdivisions. In making this determination, the following factors are taken into consideration:

• Whether it is used for a governmental purpose and performs a governmental function
• Whether performance of its function is on behalf of one or more states or political subdivisions
• Whether there are any private interests involved, or whether the states or political subdivisions involved have the powers and interests of an owner
• Whether control and supervision of the organizations is vested in public authority or authorities
• Whether express or implied statutory or other authority is necessary for its creation and/or use of the instrumentality, and whether such authority exists
• The degree of financial autonomy and the source of operating expenses"

According to census.gov, with only a few exceptions, school districts are counted as government entities.

Under MCL 380.501, "A public school academy is a body corporate and is a governmental agency."

Under MCL 380.1311d, "...the strict discipline academy corporation is a governmental entity."

MCL 380.552"...the school of excellence is a governmental entity."

In Michigan, school districts have the power of taxation through the levy of property taxes, making them government subdivisions.

By all objective measures, school districts in Michigan are local units of government and are covered under MCL 123.1102,

"A local unit of government shall not impose special taxation on, enact or enforce any ordinance or regulation pertaining to, or regulate in any other manner the ownership, registration, purchase, sale, transfer, transportation, or possession of pistols or other firearms, ammunition for pistols or other firearms, or components of pistols or other firearms, except as otherwise provided by federal law or a law of this state."

Schools are trying to have it both ways.  On the one hand, they claim NOT to be government agencies for purposes of avoiding Michigan’s pre-emption law, yet they claim the protection they believe their status as government subdivisions affords them in immunity from prosecution.

They can’t have it both ways.  Their appeal to immunity means they truly recognize their status as local units of government.

Assuming their status as local units of government grants them immunity from prosecution, this argument holds up only in so far as the policies and actions of the government agency are lawful. Government immunity does not provide blanket immunity against unlawful policies or activities; policies that violate Michigan's pre-emption law are clearly illegal, therefore invalidating any claim to immunity.

Open Letter To Michigan State Legislators Re: Proposed Homeschool Registry…. And A Call To Action….

To Our Honorable State Legislators in Lansing,

One woman who, incidentally, home schooled her children while torturing and eventually killing them, and suddenly we have a legislator calling for an tracking system for ALL homeschool families. One woman out of the thousands in Michigan who home school their children without incident and with honor.

No. I am asking you to OPPOSE any such efforts to create such a registry.

This knee jerk reaction in which something bad happens and we suddenly feel the need to create even more laws needs to end. "Hard cases make bad law."

Sincerely,

If you are reading this and are a supporter of homeschooling in Michigan, please take a moment to do two things:

First, copy and paste the letter above into an email, or fax and send it to your legislators in Lansing.  You can find their contact information by clicking on the link at the right side of the page.

Second, be sure to copy this letter to Rep. Stephanie Chang, the author of this proposed legislation, to let her know you OPPOSE the creation of such a registry: stephaniechang@house.mi.gov.

MI representative calls for homeschool registry

Fight For $15….

I'm going to be blunt.

I see all these unmarried kids complaining that they can't support their kids on McDonald's wages, trying to turn minimum wage jobs into careers, and demanding the kind of wage usually reserved for someone who has finished college or trade school. 

We warned you about keeping it zipped and waiting to have kids until you were GAINFULLY employed and married. We warned you that YOUR CHOICES would put you EXACTLY where you find yourselves now - flipping burgers at McDonalds. 

Now you want to lay a guilt trip on us about not being able to support the children YOU BROUGHT INTO THIS WORLD as a result of those bad choices. 

You were warned, but you knew better than we did. 

How's that working for you?

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day 2015

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day 2015, begins at sundown Wednesday, April 15, 2016, and ends at sundown Thursday, April 16, 2015.

In remembrance of six million Jews exterminated by the Nazis.

Never Forget.

Never Again.

I SUPPORT ISRAEL!

I received the following remark in response to a recent Facebook posting: "Profile picture is offensice [sic]. Remove it or be reported ok!" Yes, the person who posted that is muslim. 

My response? "Report me. I do not apologize for my support of Israel..."

I have a challenge for you: if you are an American who stands with Israel, post this photo as your Facebook or Twitter profile pic.  Let's send a strong message to those among us who are working toward the destruction of Israel that, while our administration may not support Israel, AMERICANS DO!  

The words of Yahweh to the patriarch, Abraham: 

"I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” Genesis 12:3, 

and, 

"...through Isaac shall your offspring be named," Genesis 21:12.

EPA "Green" Agenda To Force Rolling Blackouts In Michigan….

Michigan will face rolling blackouts after coal-fired power plants are shut down, possibly as soon as this summer, almost certainly by next summer.  Funny, the last time I faced rolling blackouts, I was living and studying in Peru, SA.  Last I checked, the United States isn't a third world country, yet the federal government is forcing us to act like one in order to further an environmental agenda that has been thoroughly de-bunked.  

Rather than asking if Michigan's power market should be opened up to competition (which should never have been ruled out in the first place), as one media outlet has done, we should be asking why our elected officials aren't doing more to reign in an out of control EPA.

The EPA certainly hasn't taken into account that there are people out here with bona fide health issues/machines that require access to electricity.

Get to work, legislators. Reign in the EPA. NOW.

And Michigan State legislators, it is time to nullify the power of the EPA to shut down OUR power plants, as other States have done to nullify other federal dictates that intrude on our Tenth Amendment rights as States.  The Tenth Amendment exists for a reason, and it is past time to exercise your rightful, Constitutionally enumerated powers to nullify the dictates of the EPA.

Psychologist: Psychological Tests Can't Predict Rogue Pilots...

In the aftermath of the GermanWings crash, the reliability of psychological testing is downplayed. Said Dr. Erin Bowen, a behavioral psychologist, in an interview conducted for the Today Show,

"The idea nowadays that a full psychological workup would somehow clue you in to which pilots are going to do things like this, it's fiction."

Yet the Brady and Bloomberg anti-firearms groups continue to insist that psychological evaluations are the magic bullet (forgive the pun) that should determine who should or should not own a firearm. If they can't predict which lawfully-licensed pilots are going to take down an aircraft, then they certainly can't predict which firearms owners are likely to commit crimes with lawfully-owned firearms.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thank you, Dr. Bowen, for stating what so many of us have known for so long.

Senator Green, Enough Already!!!

Senator Green,

I truly respect the work you have done to advance firearm carry rights in Michigan.  

But with all due respect, I am sick of this argument that the right to carry concealed in a gun free zone should require significantly more training than carrying the same firearm openly in a gun free zone.  It is completely irrational to argue that a person with a CPL can openly carry in a gun free zone based solely on their cpl training, yet the moment that same person chooses to carry that same gun into the same gun free zone concealed, they have to have significantly more (expensive) training.

It is time for concealed/open carry parity.  The danger doesn't somehow increase with the choice to carry concealed in a gun free zone, and it is time to stop pretending otherwise for the sake of the resident gun grabbers in our legislature.  

Incongruous….

Mr. President, Please Explain….

Mr. President, during your prayer breakfast speech, you addressed the issue of atrocities committed in the name of religion.

Please explain how it is that you have no trouble attributing the crusades, the inquisition, slavery and Jim Crow directly to individuals acting in the name of Christianity, yet you continue to insist that atrocities committed by muslim jihadis in the name of Islam and Islam are mutually exclusive.

It was a jihad - for all intents and purposes, a crusade - that lasted for over nine hundred years that left Islam in control of the middle east, northern Africa, and much of the Iberian peninsula.  It was atrocities committed against Jews and Christians - an inquisition, if you will - as well as the capture of the Holy Land in general and Jerusalem in particular that brought about the crusades.

Muslims are responsible for instituting their own version of Jim Crow - dhimmitude - against the unconverted living in their controlled areas, essentially relegating them to second class citizenship status.

It was muslim slavery and pillaging of American personnel and shipping traffic that led to the assault by US Marines on Tripoli on orders of President Thomas Jefferson, yes, the same president to whom you attribute the "celebration" of the first iftar at the White House.  You know it was nothing of the sort.  The dinner in question to which Libyan ambassador Mellimelli was invited was to have taken place at 3:30 pm.  The ambassador, however, was observing the ramadan fast, so the dinner was re-scheduled to after sundown as a diplomatic courtesy to accommodate his religious beliefs.  Jefferson had no reason to love Islam.  It was his earlier meetings, while US ambassador to France, with Ambassador Sidi Adja that taught him (as he reported to Congress), 

"...that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise." 

Some 1.5 million white slaves were taken by the Barbary (muslim) pirates.  To this day, muslims lead the world in the slave trade. 

Mr. President, you argument simply doesn't hold water.  Muslims have done all of these things in the name of their religion for millennia.  If you attribute guilt for similar atrocities directly to those who committed them in the name of Christianity, then you must also acknowledge and attribute the same atrocities to the muslims that commit them in the name of their religion to the present day.