Bits: The gun version of fentanyl; Theocracy rising in Israel; Global warming is a hoax?

Gun switches convert semi-automatic pistols to fully automatic machine guns.  

If a gun safety law that bans switches come into effect, it is reasonable to think that gun nuts would haul it into federal court court and eventually the radical right Republican US Supreme Court would find the ban to be an unconstitutional burden to bear arms. The new test is whether the weapon at issue was regulated according to the traditions and history of the US. By that easily cherry-pickable test, essentially all modern gun safety laws are unconstitutional burdens on citizen's right to bear arms. A NYT article comments:

The growing use of switches, which are also known as auto sears, is evident in real-time audio tracking of gunshots around the country, data shows. Audio sensors monitored by a public safety technology company, Sound Thinking, recorded 75,544 rounds of suspected automatic gunfire in 2022 in portions of 127 cities covered by its microphones, according to data compiled at the request of The New York Times. That was a 49 percent increase from the year before.

Switches come in various forms, but most are small Lego-like plastic blocks, about an inch square, that can be easily manufactured on a 3-D printer and sell for around $200.

“The gang wars and street fighting that used to be with knives, and then pistols, is now to a great extent being waged with automatic weapons,” said Andrew M. Luger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

Oh great, killing technology advances. Some humans sure do know how to kill humans and enjoy it. It's probably been that way since a few centuries after the rise of modern humans, maybe sooner. Here's a fun 29 second video:

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

A Taliban consisting of rabid Jewish extremist theocrats is forcing its way toward control of Israeli society. That movement looks a lot like its Christian counterpart in the US, Christian nationalism. As usual, deranged male ideologues dominate a push to move a modern society back to the Dark Ages. The NYT writes:

An ultra-Orthodox Jew walking past a sign in Bnei Brak, Israel, 

urging men to not look at women in the street

(I don't want to look at that anywhere)

The trains from Tel Aviv were packed one evening last month when Inbal Boxerman, a 40-year-old mother of two, was blocked by a wall of men as she tried to board. One of them told her that women were not allowed on — the car was for men only.

Ms. Boxerman was stunned. It was a public train operated by Israel Railways, and segregated seating is illegal in the country. The men stopping her appeared to be protesters going home from a rally supporting the governing coalition, which includes extremist religious and far-right parties pushing for more sex segregation and a return to more traditional gender roles.

“I said, ‘For real?’” said Ms. Boxerman, who works in marketing. “And my friend came up and she also said, ‘Are you for real?’ But they just laughed and said, ‘Wait for the next train — you can sit in the way back.’ And then the doors slammed shut.”

Public transportation is the latest front of a culture war in Israel over the status of women in a society that is sharply divided between a secular majority and politically powerful minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who frown on the mixing of women and men in public.  

Supporters of expanding the rabbinical courts’ jurisdiction — such as Matan Kahana, a former religious affairs minister who remains in Parliament but is not in the governing coalition — argue that as a pluralistic society, Israel should tolerate sex segregation in some arenas to accommodate the ultra-Orthodox, for whom it is a way of life.  

“I’m all for the rabbinical courts — they are a symbol of Israeli sovereignty in our own land and our eternal connection to Hebrew law,” he said on Twitter earlier this year.  

One of the first bills put forth by the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox Shas party proposed jailing women for six months if they visited the holy site of the Western Wall in Jerusalem in “inappropriate” or immodest clothing. Although the bill drew so much outrage that it was dropped, the coalition has taken other steps that worry women.

Q: What is the difference between what the Israeli Jewish Taliban and the American Christian Taliban are trying to do?

A: Religion and not much else. 

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Notice: Republican candidates running for president

The Hill reports:

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy railed against climate-conscious business policy at an Iowa State Fair appearance Saturday.

In an fireside chat with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Ramaswamy said that environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) business policies are among the “grave threats to liberty,” and said “the climate change agenda” is a “hoax.”

“They’re using our money… to implement social and environmental agendas through the backdoor. Through corporate America,” Ramaswamy said. “Using your retirement funds and your investment accounts to vote for racial equity audits or Scope 3 emissions caps that you didn’t know they were using your money to do, and that Congress would have never passed through the front door.”

That's just a quick reminder that for the most part, the radical right Republican Party is pro-pollution, pro-climate change, pro-species extinction, corrupt, morally rotted, authoritarian, anti-climate science and some other bad stuff. At this point in view of all available evidence, one can argue that those are assertions of fact, not opinion.

Qs: Are those assertions fact or are they still in the realm of contested opinion? What additional evidence would be needed to move one, some or all of them from opinion to fact?