Jury trial for using a sub as a weapon. Not exactly like when the Swedish sub hit Ronald Reagan (the aircraft carrier). Even then it was in the context of a (war) game.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Throwing a sandwich at a federal agent turned Sean Charles Dunn into a symbol of resistance against President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital. This week, federal prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury of fellow Washington, D.C., residents that Dunn simply broke the law.
That could be a tough sell for the government in a city that has chafed against Trump’s federal takeover, which is entering its third month. A grand jury refused to indict Dunn on a felony assault count before U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office opted to charge him instead with a misdemeanor.
Securing a trial conviction could prove to be equally challenging for Justice Department prosecutors in Washington, where murals glorifying Dunn’s sandwich toss popped up virtually overnight.
Before jury selection started Monday, the judge presiding over Dunn’s trial seemed to acknowledge how unusual it is for a case like this to be heard in federal court. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, said he expects the trial to last no more than two days “because it’s the simplest case in the world.”
Around 4 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2022, a team of FBI agents finished searching then-former President Donald Trump’s social club in a surprise raid and drove off in vans loaded with boxes that few expected would carry such extraordinarily sensitive cargo.
In a hastily convened conference call that evening, Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen listened as his investigators described the hundreds of pages of top-secret records they found, some containing gravely serious material. Several detailed covert government operations and U.S. spying powers could get American operatives killed if the information fell into the wrong hands. Instead of the documents being kept under lock and key in a government safe, agents found them spilling out of boxes in Trump’s personal office, his residence and even a bathroom shower.
Olsen turned to his top Justice Department expert on the mishandling of classified records, Julie Edelstein, to ask what they should do next. She delivered a startling assessment.
“If it was anybody else, we would arrest him tomorrow,” Edelstein said.
Knowingly taking classified documents outside of a secure government facility was a crime, plain and simple, she explained. Trying to conceal them after receiving a May subpoena to return all classified records, as Trump had, made the crime far worse, she argued.
But Olsen’s team knew that with Trump, all bets were off. The Justice Department would invariably treat the former president more gingerly.
Gun control is not just two hands, much like the claim that “All Trekkies are Republicans”
The larger context for ‘gun control’ is and has always been, safety and self-defense.
Even from your neighbors. Yes even if that’s necessary. As long as conscription remains in abeyance, the citizen marksmanship program should be ubiquitous.
Equally necessary is training, and even all the simple regulatory solutions: mandatory owner-operator insurance on the vehicle registration model, constraints on the ownership of military hardware, storage etc.
And the problematic elements need work: red flag endorsement, controlling qualified immunity for LEOs, manufacturer controls, improved ownership databases, etc.
When news broke that a Marine veteran running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat had taught military-style firearms courses to left-wing activists, many reacted in disbelief. Reddit posts revealed that Graham Platner — who’s running to try to flip the seat long held by Republican Susan Collins — not only joined the Socialist Rifle Association but even taught a “defensive handgun course” for its members. A socialist-leaning gun club training with AR-15s, and a Democrat involved, might seem downright scandalous. But as an owner of one of America’s big scary black rifles, living in the most armed developed nation in the world, with a track record of targeted right wing domestic violence, I was more surprised that anyone was surprised at all.
Why wouldn’t left-leaning Americans arm themselves? Given today’s political climate, rainbow Pride flags flying alongside rifles should hardly shock us — it feels almost inevitable. If anything, Platner didn’t break a norm; he popped the bubble. He made visible what’s already been happening in basements, back 40 ranges, and weekend classes: liberals trading in euphemisms for live fire drills, swapping slogans for training repetitions, and reclaiming the Second Amendment, which Democrats have long ceded to the right wing.
Progressives embracing firearms is no longer a fringe curiosity; it’s a growing reality. My own existence as an armed American reflects a broader trend. A recent NBC News poll found 52 percent of American voters have a gun in their household, up from 46 percent in 2019. Notably, the share of Democrats reporting gun ownership jumped from 33 to 41 percent in that period. In other words, millions of Democratic households have added firearms in just the past few years.
For context there’s this article supporting the “Trekkie-Republican” claims