Score this one as a success! AB 286, the bill that would have banned guns first on pretty much all private property with just a tiny sign, then casino properties, passed the Assembly on a party line vote. It goes on to the Senate. The BIG WIN here is that the trespassing while armed portion of the bill was removed! It is not only about 80% unfinished receivers or so-called "ghost guns." Many thanks are owed to the NVFAC PAC for their help in getting us this far and they will work in the Senate to get the remainder of the bill taken care of. On a side note, the federal government is probably going to ban that stuff anyway, but, it is still a huge win. See the current amended version here. As you recall, the original bill would have allowed private property owners pretty much anywhere to ban even permitted concealed carry. This was toned down to just premises with unrestricted gaming licenses. No one deserves to be disarmed anywhere they go. Casinos cannot protect innocent citizens from violence inside their casinos, on the Strip, the parking garage, etc. Heck, you aren't safe within rifle range of a hotel window. The persons causing violence on the Las Vegas Strip are not law-abiding citizens or even permitted concealed carriers (though we loathe the idea of permission slips). We do not believe the power of the state should be extended to ban firearms on private property. If a property owner does not want armed patrons, the existing trespassing statutes, which require a verbal warning and not just a sign, are sufficient. We know that signs don't protect anyone and don't dissuade criminals from carrying guns. All signs do is give police a reason to arrest after an incident has happened while good people are defenseless. At a bare minimum, concealed firearm permittees should have been exempted from the bill. If hotels want to disarm permittees, let them exercise their existing prerogatives. Hotels, if they are going to disarm customers, need to provide secure storage in the rooms. Laws shouldn't prohibit someone who is picking up fares or dropping off friends at the entrance, or storing the gun in a locked car, from those behaviors. Sandra Jauregui is clearly off the reservation within her party and unsupported by her collogues. The left knows that gun control is unpopular right now and something like banning guns in a majority of public spaces would be very risky to re-election. Keep up the pressure! No more gun control! Jorge Gomez brings his rifle to downtown Las Vegas last spring during the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter riots. Something happens with police, he appears to run away, police claims Gomez raises his rifle, police shoot him. Apparently no video evidence was found to corroborate their statement, but body cams weren't issued to that unit and local security footage didn't quite capture the incident (IIRC). Right, wrong, or indifferent; we disagree with brining a rifle to an incident like this. Even truly non-violent political protests (2A rallies) we have conflicting feelings about openly carrying rifles. Riots are events that quickly go beyond the law (for both sides) and is basically a return to uncivilized behavior. Anything can happen and expecting protestors, innocents, or police to play by the rules of a calm, sunny day is stupid. Don't bring a rifle to a riot unless you expect to use and you also accept the risk of being shot. If you want to play "good guy, bad guy," Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial for his life after shooting three actual bad guys who tried to kill him during the riots in Kenosha. If it isn't your revolution (that you're willing to die for) or your home/business you're willing to kill and die for, don't bring a rifle to this stuff. The first rule of surviving dangerous situations is don't be there. Whatever Metro might have done wrong, Mr. Gomez would be alive if he didn't openly carry his rifle that night. I was reading the trial coverage of the Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, on trial for the “murder” of George Floyd. Basically the reports from legal reporters who are actually at the trial show that the prosecution is doing a terrible job proving the case and is essentially making the defenses’ case. This is the kind of detailed reporting that we got during the OJ Simpsons case. Last night I caught a segment talking about it on the evening TV news and they basically edited some of the statements and to portray the situation that Chauvin was in the wrong and guilty which is completely out of context with the actual testimony. The use of force expert for the prosecution was an LAPD sergeant who happened to be black. Seems to me they found an expert of convenience who of course called the use of force “excessive.” That clip is pretty much what LA saw. Compare that against the reports from Legal Insurrection, above. The real testimony shows a complex, nuanced cause at a minimum, and at the other end of the spectrum, that Chauvin was not kneeling on Floyd’s neck and that Floyd had just ingested a fatal dose of Fentanyl. Regardless of perspective, this isn’t an issue that can be dealt with in two minute clips on the evening news. People died and cities burned because of this stuff last year. Whatever the outcome of the trial is, the media is not accurately reporting what’s going on at the trial and is putting out this narrative that regardless of the evidence, Chauvin is guilty. Instead of accurately reporting on the facts and testimony, they are creating the expectation in the public’s mind that Chauvin will be convicted when in reality that’s a chancy thing. The media is fomenting riots and insurrections with their misleading coverage. In a few weeks, if Chauvin is acquitted, brace for riots worse than we’ve seen. The unintelligent public has been primed to expect a guilty verdict of murder and it is highly probable he will receive an acquittal or a lesser included charge. If you don’t believe in evil, you should. 2015: Nevada's Only Topless Open Carry Bar The tiny Elko County city of Wells, Nevada, isn't known for much. In 2021 it's known for two things: a real estate boom and it's controversial Sixth Street Bar that made waves in 2016 over it's topless bartenders who were openly carrying. With COVD-19, the bar in this forgotten corner of Nevada has struggled badly with the loss of business, brought on by Governor Sisolak's bar closure and mask mandates. This did not bide well for new owners Mike Oxbig and Anita Koch who remodeled the bar, brought back the topless, gun-toting girls, and started posting tantalizing phots on Instagram. After a sixth month hiatus, Oxbig and Koch re-opened the bar and hoped for the best. One thing they didn't go for were shirts and masks. Elko County health officials fined the bar twenty-seven times for mask related violations alone, adding on public indecency charges that led the female staff to "cover up" with pasties and masks that insulted the governor. Anti-mask supporters from all over Nevada, and even travelers dipping off I-80 for a drink, came to support the bar throughout 2020. ![]() However, this support and the defiant stance, only doing the bare minimum to "cover up", infuriated new residents of Wells. Two of those new residents happened to be from California. The 2020 pandemic brought a revolution to the nation's work force. Many people began to work from home remotely from anywhere in the country. This is what brought Max C. Pads, a human resources manager from the San Francisco Bay Area, to Wells. He wanted to trade is $3,000 a month 1,500 sqft apartment for a sprawling 2.5 acre lot. Unemployment is what brought Jackie Mehov, a feminist studies major and diversity coordinator, back home to live with her grandmother, Norma Stits. What did Mehov and Pads have in common? They desire to help lead their new, rural community into the 21st century through progressive politics. After a contentious election, in November 2020, Mehov and Pads were declared the winners of the two council seats up for election. Vote counting took three days and was won by a margin of 734 and 735 votes respectively, all new residents who took advantage of same-day registration and mail-in ballots. The new pair led a challenge to the old variance from city ordinances prohibiting nudity that the Sixth Street Bar gained back in 2015. Suddenly the big draw for this little bar was under threat. Mehov told Nevada Carry that: "While female toplessness should be permitted wherever male toplessness is allowed, businesses shouldn't be exploiting its female workforce as a show piece to draw in business. This is degrading to women and objectifies them, glamorizing not only weapons, but also the resistance to the governor's order that we all wear masks to stop the spread." Pads attempted to pass an ordinance outlawing open carry, but found himself in hot water after the city attorney advised that the city would probably be sued if they did so. Someone also kept lighting bags of dog poop on fire on Pads' porch. Karen, 44, a buxom mother of two who carries a pair of magnums, states that she feels very empowered taking her top off at work. "I get double the tips I got before and I get to stick it to the governor? What's not to love?" Owner Anita Koch said: "We welcome customers who appreciate the freedom that we celebrate in this bar. They aren't coming here for the burgers or the video poker, that's for sure." Currently pending on the Wells city council agenda is a motion to ban the use of pasties in businesses. This ordinance is supported (ironically) by Sixth Street Bar's owners and staff as it would make the bar a full-topless one again. Pads and Mehov, who sponsored the proposed ordinance, admit that it was flawed, and rather than promote the nudity they abhor, intend to modify the language to require at a minimum bras. The two anti-boobs and anti-gun councilpersons requested that state legislators ban openly carried firearms in nude establishments, but were ignored by their local Republican legislators. Reportedly, they didn't have enough money for a campaign donation to Democrats in Reno and Las Vegas to get one of them to sponsor their "no guns with boobs" legislation. RGJ Article: Reno Delays Bank Decision Due to Low Gun Violence Rating So the Reno City Council doesn't like the fact that Chase Bank doesn't totally hate guns and gun owners. Seriously Reno City Council, you have the time to waste on bullshit like this that half of your constituents don't support anyway? If you live in Reno, consider a strongly worded email to your council member or a phone call. Vote these clowns out in the next election. Never forget what they would do if they could get rid of preemption. Vote these leftists out of office at the state level and keep them from rising up through elected office and screwing up the rest of the state. This bill was posted at the last minute in order to screw gun owners. It is up for a hearing Wednesday, 3/17/2021. Bill Text here NELIS page here Sandra Jauregui proposed another one of her “kitchen sink” gun control bills, this one to basically make it illegal to carry a gun on any business private property if signs are posted. This one is a dumpster fire. We have to wonder if she has some group of gun control lawyers whispering in her ear or if this is her own idea. This bill could ban guns nearly everywhere that isn’t either public property or an owned home. Unless you have written consent to carry a firearm from the owner or operator of a “covered premises,” you can’t carry there, even if you have CCW permit. “Covered premises” would apply to nearly all types of businesses. Potentially, it would be illegal to carry a gun at the grocery store or drug store just because they have slot machines. Gas station with slots? Illegal. It would require signs, but if a business does post the signs, lots of people would be screwed. Gun free places are:
This all applies up to the property line. "'Public accommodation facility' means a hotel and casino, resort, hotel, condominium hotel, motel, hostel, bed and breakfast facility or other facility offering rooms or areas to the public for monetary compensation or other financial consideration on an hourly, daily or weekly basis."
The real meat regarding hotels is to exempt people who buy guns at “trade shows,” i.e. SHOT Show. Jauregui got shut down last time over NSSF threatening to pull SHOT Show out if a preemption repeal passed and it appears she thought she learned her lesson to exempt this (she learned nothing). Basically, to not break the law the gun has to be in a checked bag and you have to notify the hotel at check in, who then is allowed to use their rules to handle the gun. So if a casino wants to force you to check the gun into the security armory, you have to. This is the real heart of the bill: I imagine she’s counting on all the other, blatantly unconstitutional crap to be pulled out, but the hotel stuff is to please the casinos or something. If just that part went into effect, you couldn’t carry on casino (hotel/resort; whatever) property unless you’re willing to check your gun in for your stay. I’d imagine that this would eventually work out to: check your gun in when you check in, pick your gun up when you leave. No taking your gun out when you wanted to leave the property. "'Shopping mall' includes any area or premises where multiple vendors assemble for the primary purpose of selling goods." Not just your big, enclosed indoor mall, but any strip map. Sure, the owners of the businesses inside might be cool, but if the owner of the property wants to slap a "no guns" sign at the driveway you're screwed. We’ve already mentioned that “licensed gaming establishment” means any place with slots; grocery stores, gas stations, drug stores, etc. Signs must be posted at "a conspicuous place" or at hotel check-in. Signs have to have specific language stating "Firearms are prohibited on this property unless the person wishing to possess the firearm has obtained the written consent of the owner or operator of this property or an agent thereof.” "Conspicuous place" isn't defined. 1 inch letters are very small too. These signs would probably be missed by all sorts of people. Texas was damn specific about its 30-06 and 30-07 signs specifically to avoid issues with people missing the signs and unintentionally breaking the law. Gun free zones are a terrible, stupid idea and the whole intent behind this bill is simply to disarm you. No business who does not take responsibility for the safety of its customers should be disarming people. This is obviously unconstitutional as it violates the state right to bear arms. It’s also overbroad. A strip mall owner can remove the rights of his tenants and his tenants’ customers to carry firearms just because the owner throws up a sign? What’s wrong with the existing trespassing law here? Would Ban 80% ReceiversThe rest of the bill deals with “unfinished frames or receivers,” i.e. 80% receivers, and would basically ban 80% receivers by requiring them to be serialized by a firearms importer or manufacturer. It would also retroactively ban your existing homemade firearms that don’t have a serial number issued by an ATF licensed company. This would affect your gun or lower receiver shaped piece of plastic or metal because some of the companies selling them aren’t usually licensed gun manufacturers because 80% receives aren’t guns. So this bill is partially an ex post facto law (unconstitutional) that would make your Polymer 80 pistol without a serial number illegal to possess. Once again, as is their procedure, the Democrats who run the Legislature put this bill forward at the deadline to propose new bills and immediately scheduled it for hearing less than two days later (3/17). They are trying to ram this through without opposition. GET INVOLVED NOW! Comment on the bill (opposed, AB 286) Attend the virtual hearings and testify Email and call your legislators; hell, call all of them. Click this link for links to contact info and emails at the top of the page. Sheriff Darin Balaam had this to say. Let me be clear, there is no excuse for getting this far behind. We’ve let the people of Washoe County down and we have let ourselves down. As to how we got here, some of it is the fact that we closed Administrative Services down for ten weeks in 2020 due to COVID-19; some if it is getting used to working with new software and some of it is just the sheer increase in the number of people purchasing guns and applying for a CCW. This is how you deal with and fix a crisis like this. 120 days is the deadline, not the goal. LVMPD needs to treat its citizen's right to armed self-defense seriously and put the manpower where it needs to be to get permits in people's hands faster. Either that or support constitutional carry in Nevada. Review-Journal—VICTOR JOECKS: Universal background checks didn’t reduce Clark County homicides3/1/2021
Victor is right. Except for the "drafting error." No, in Question 1, the FBI NICS system was used instead of Nevada's own point of contact because NICS is free; Nevada charges $25. The proponents felt that Nevadans wouldn't vote for Question 1 if the background checks cost money. Well then Attorney General Laxalt stepped in and the FBI said "No, we're not doing your checks for free. You chose a state system." Since the FBI couldn't run background checks, and since the state couldn't enforce a law without anyway to comply, Question 1 nullified. In 2019, the Legislature and Governor Sisolak said "fuck you Nevadans, watch this" and passed the same law, except with the FBI taken out and the Nevada system installed. Now private gun sales are illegal and cost you $25 for someone to call Carson City...which last year had abysmal delays on "instant" background checks. I would add this. If private gun bans are so wonderful, where are all the charges for illegal handgun sales? The DAs and police aren't wasting time to investigate that. The only charge I'm aware of in the Bloomberg background check era is one guy out of Washington state. As far as 2020 homicides, locking down the state, terrifying people, and causing people to lose jobs, all while the desperate casinos lower rates that attract scum from out-of-state, sure didn't help. But then again in 2020 gun sales went through the roof, so some dumbass who doesn't understand that correlation does not equal causation will say "See! Dramatically higher gun sales and higher murder rates! More guns = more crime!" It's an easy sell for the stupid because historical, cultural, and political factors don't show up nicely on a spreadsheet. Casinos don't want people to have guns (excluding their security staff). This means that even if you are citizen who has gotten better tactical training than most police and shoot more often than they do and have a CCW, they don't care. Why? The first reason is liability. If they ban all the guns, then in some sense I don't fully understand they are less liable should something happen. So so they think. I haven't been able to find any good case law or really anything that explains this. The closest I've come is that some insurance carriers get weak kneed over the idea and don't want guns carried around at the places they insure. Second the people in charge don't want you carrying. This could be normality bias from "your don't need a gun here" to outright hostility and leftist anti-gun thinking. Who knows. Some of it is rich people thinking "little people" who are dumb enough to lose money in the casino shouldn't have guns to begin with. Finally, and what I think the real answer is, some near-superstitious idea that if you ban guns, through security, signs, or magic detectors your gun problems will go away. In one sense, this is true. Credible security measures will scare off the criminal who doesn't want to get caught illegally packing. Some law-abiding citizens won't want to bother with the hassle of unassing their gun or being treated like a terrorist by security. As far as management, they banned the guns, so after that whatever happens is kinda like an act of god. Magical thinking I'm supposing here. They don't care what happens to you; your safety is not their priority. Their priority is making sure bad stuff doesn't happen on their property to create bad PR or shutdown gambling and loses them money. An idea solution would be, should an armed person come across the proverbial or actual radar, is to see if that person has a CCW. If they do, no harm no foul. Maybe ask them to disarm while drinking or on the casino floor. But no, that would be too hard for casinos to do. Let's be honest. The people causing problems with guns Downtown and on The Strip shouldn't have guns at all. They probably don't have CCWs and aren't openly carrying. They're drug addicts, drug dealers, felons, and gang members. No law will stop them from doing stupid, violent, and illegal stuff. Disarming customers and engaging in security theater doesn't make anyone safe. Private security measures don't extend to the street where customers frequently travel. So to answer the question: "Why do you need a gun in a casino?" the answer is that crimes do happen inside them, in their parking lots, and on the streets and areas immediately outside them. If I choose to patronize these businesses, I shouldn't be disarmed because of a poorly thought out kneejerk policy. And so what if the casino is now a sterile environment? Excluding the Mandalay Bay shooting, practically all the major gun battles on The Strip happened outside of casinos anyway. AB 133 on NELIS
This bill is a direct response to the June 1, 2020, police killing of protestor Jorge Gomez, who was openly carrying during the riots in downtown Las Vegas in front of the federal courthouse. Police say Gomez was radicalized and may have tried to fire a shot. Police fired several less-lethal munitions at Gomez before shooting him. The exact details of the confrontation are disputed. The officers that night were not required to wear a body camera. The lead sponsor of the bill is Assemblyman Edgar Flores, not coincidentally the attorney for the family of the dead man. This June 12, 2020 article from the Nevada Current basically lays out why Flores is proposing what he's proposing. About the incident: Gomez did legally possess his weapons at the protest/riots, but what exactly he did is unclear. Nevada Carry is wary of long-gun open carry at rallies/protests and doubly so when things turn violent. Whatever Gomez may have done to get shot probably wasn't because he happened to be openly carrying. Whether police overreacted to an actual or perceived threat is up for discussion. Bill analysis: On the surface, the bill would require police to active their body cams and be trained on interacting with persons who are openly carrying firearms. The language of the act leaves it suggests this would only apply in the case of actual enforcement or investigation, and not a casual or friendly encounter. In the late 2000s, open carrier Tim Farrell was stopped by Metro without probable cause for openly carrying, which led to reforms and education within Southern Nevada law enforcement regarding open carry. Since then, police/open carrier interactions in Nevada have been overwhelmingly unremarkable. Bottom line: watch, but could be a good bill. It's a bit of an overreaction by someone who has a conflict of interest, but increasing police oversight around armed citizens exercising their rights can't be bad. What could be bad is the kind of anti-open carry amendments that might be tacked on. |
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