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Mark Anthony Frassetto

@mark-frassetto.bsky.social
833 followers 1.2K following 3.3K posts

Personal account, views my own. Dept. Director 2A History and Scholarship, Everytown Law Studying the history of firearms regulation. History, Rugby, Marquette Basketball, miniatures, and occasional figure skating and gymnastics takes.

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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 9h
Never great when you have to add this to your phone.
A contact that says "car crash guy"
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 17h
I got some bad news for you sunshine Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel And they sent us along as a surrogate band We're gonna find out where you fans really stand
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I think Wisconsin could be ranked after this week and,as absurd as it sounds, they have an outside shot at the playoff. I think 1 loss against the remaining schedule is realistic and winning out isn't inconceivable.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I totally missed that Nike ran a pretty unambiguously pro KKK ad for Converse shoes.
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Raffi Melkonian @rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I'm sorry, what? scholar.google.com/scholar_case...
It is an oft-repeated statement that "[t]he appellants will not be permitted to feed one can of worms to the trial judge and another to the appellate court." Kennedy v. Commonwealth, 544 S.W.2d 219, 222 (Ky. 1976), overruled on other grounds by, Wilburn v. Commonwealth, 312 S.W.3d 321, 326-29 (Ky. 2010). Some version of this "can of worms" phrase appears in fifty published and 230 unpublished Kentucky opinions.[15] There are, of course, many additional opinions not using this specific phrase that rely on the basic, black-letter-law concept behind it, that appellate courts do not have the authority to review issues that were not raised before or decided by the trial court. See, e.g., Reg'l Jail Auth. v. Tackett, 770 S.W.2d 225, 228 (Ky. 1989) (citing Kentucky cases for this concept which were published between 1961 and 1938).
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Suuuuper interesting, I was not tracking this. The judge found the law criminalizing noncitizen voting is a voter qualification statute, and therefore outside of Congress’s power. Surprisingly, this is an issue of first impression! Decision is here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
The best reading of the actual statute that underpins this criminal case yields an inescapable
conclusion: 18 U.S.C. S 611 is a voter qualification statute, and the Constitution does not authorize
Congress to legislate voter qualifications for federal elections. Except for very specific constitutional
provisions (that cannot support this statute; we will go through them, Congress has no power to say
who can vote or who cannot vote in federal elections-that foundational power is reserved for the States,
and limits Congress.
Some legal principles are so fundamental that they form American constitutional bedrock, and
this case reveals a big one: When you're prosecuted based on a law that Congress did not have the
authority to pass, the prosecution cannot stand. That principle in federal law harkens back to cases
like Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 180 (1803), and United States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. 32, 34 (1812), and
has had explicit and unbroken support in criminal cases since Ex Parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 376-77
(1879) ("An unconstitutional law is void, and is as no law. An offence created by it is not a crime. A
conviction under it is not merely erroneous, but is illegal and void, and cannot be a legal cause of
imprisonment."). The principle is so fundamental that it even predates our constitutional republic; it
lies at the very heart of our constitutional heritage. See, e.g., Bayard v. Singleton, 1 N.C. 5, 9-10 (1787) (striking down a legislative act as unconstitutional and holding that a court cannot enforce an
unconstitutional law in any type of proceeding). This principle acts as a shield for every person facing
criminal prosecution in the United States, citizen and non-citizen alike. That shield protects the
Defendant here, and none of the Government's arguments break through it.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Capital punishment is wrong, full stop. Capital punishment as practiced by the incompetent prison officials who keep having these shambolic botched executions is doubly wrong. This is also the conservative Supreme Court justices fault. www.cnn.com/2026/09/29/u...
cnn.com
Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike still alive after failed state execution attempt, lawyers say | CNN
Tennessee officials were unable to put Christa Gail Pike to death Wednesday for a 1995 murder after administering two doses of a lethal drug. A death penalty expert said it was an unprecedented failur...
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Finished up some Roman Legionnaires and British Galahad Armored infantry
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My six year old made some abstract art in his art class.
A commentary on death and dyingA critique of modern capitalism.A flower, just like Georgia O'Keeffe
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
holy shit -- turns out Jack Smith went to a Hawkeyes game in Maryland but Schmitt's team is so reckless they concocted a conspiracy theory that Smith was actually in Atlanta seeing a Hawks game and colluding with Fani Willis. Klobuchar points out to Schmitt, "you have your teams wrong."
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I think they are lying, but if this were true then we should ban it and punish everyone who tries to keep working on it. That really shouldn't be a controversial thing to say. Any existential risk to humanity is more significant than the dubious positive results of AI.
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Capital Weather @capitalweather.com · 28/09/2026
Congratulations to Peter! The 1st-grader at Woodlin Elementary School in Silver Spring is our latest winner in the first-ever Capital Weather Kids Art Showcase. For more info and how to submit, we encourage parents and teachers to visit www.capitalweather.com/weatherart/
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The football gods are just!
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Game deciding bad call by the refs in the Cowboys v Ravens game.
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Squidge Rugby @squidgerugby.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is the best rugby team I’m afraid.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Badgers!
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The most egregious defensive delay of game just put Northern Alabama over Western Illinois. Top notch shithousery.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
In high school, at the start of a football game we ran out into the middle of the other team's logo, stomped a hole in it and put a piece of sod from our field down, declaring "this is our field now!" We proceeded to get beat 55-6 with their backups coming in during the 3Q.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Iowa!
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Not the best execution by Tennessee at the end.
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Capital Weather @capitalweather.com · 26/09/2026
Enjoy the dry start to Saturday — a meandering nor’easter will make its presence felt later. ☁️ Clouds increase 🌦️ Showers develop this afternoon, continuing at times tonight and Sunday 💨 Breezy, with gusts around 30 mph today 🌡️ Highs in the 60s this weekend Latest DC forecast: capitalweather.com
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Having the ref audio on the replay is so much better.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Why wouldn't northwestern use their timeouts there?
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
All the anti-iced coffee people are dorks. I can't possibly imagine caring about that.
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Everytown for Gun Safety @everytown.org · 25/09/2026
NEW: The ATF is proposing to destroy older firearm records, potentially making crime guns impossible to trace. These records are critical investigative tools. We cannot afford to lose them.
smokinggun.org
ATF Proposal Would Make Older Crime Guns Untraceable
Pandering to gun groups, the ATF’s records retention rule could hinder roughly 50,000 crime gun traces each year.
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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is the master key to deciphering contemporary debates about free speech. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/se...
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I think the badness of the last few seasons of GOT should have knocked it down the rankings -- but it's a good list.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Pretty egregious vote to miss for Alsobrooks.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'm in the article writing stage where you get comments back from the editors months after writing, but have forgotten all the tiny nuances that would let you easily respond to the comments, so you have to rediscover them from first principles.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is a good piece. I'd just add that there is a big, results oriented, gap between the context free hyper-textualism of step 1 of the Wolford analysis and the context heavy non-textualism of step 2 of the Wolford analysis -- At least as gun rights folks want to interpret Wolford.
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Guha Krishnamurthi @ggkrishnamoomoo.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Some thoughts about a tension between textualism and originalism. It seems like the way the "history and tradition" test is being applied is anti-textualist... 🧐 Thanks to @dorfonlaw.bsky.social as always
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
dancing to Bella Ciao on the "viral tiktok hits" episode of dancing with the stars is very funny.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is just the dumbest standard you could possibly imagine. Impossible to defend intellectually.
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Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
9th Cir., en banc, holds that Hawaii's shall-issue handgun law does not violate the Second Amendment bc it is non-abusive (it doesn't effectively deny citizens their 2A rights by use of modest procedural burdens). Judges Nelson, Forrest, VanDyke dissent. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...
And while certain background checks, firearms safety courses, lengthy wait times, exorbitant fees, or other components of a shall-issue regime could trigger the Second Amendment’s protections, nothing in Plaintiffs’ Complaint suggests that either the thirty-day restriction or the police station inspection requirement crosses that line. At most, the provisions impose only modest, procedural burdens.  They require compliance with a reasonable deadline and, for firearms that fall into the categories set out in § 134-3(a)(c), see supra note 1, a brief administrative visit to verify basic information.  They do not materially impede Plaintiffs from acquiring firearms.  Even in light of Hawaii’s distinctive tradition of heightened firearm regulation, which the Supreme Court has viewed with skepticism, see Wolford, 146 S. Ct. at 2040, 2046, the requirements at issue here are not abusive.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A real windfall for Sports Illustrated -- sitting on a goldmine web domain.
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GVPedia @gvpedia.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Recently, the CDC quietly restored to its website the misleading and previously deleted stat that claims Americans use guns in self-defense “60,000 to 2.5 million” times per year. Nothing in the earlier evidence changed, just the administration.
open.substack.com
The CDC's New Gun Statistic Has an Alien Abduction Problem
When surveys and empirical reality collide, a science agency must side with reality
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
ballistae
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
So it's unclear whether Jake Paul is adopting more of the Civic-Republican (the weapons should be controlled by locally controlled militias with elected officers) or Hybrid (an individual right to arms that are useful in militia service) Interpretations of the Second Amendment.
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Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
My essay, "The Absence of Original Meaning in Second Amendment Cases," is forthcoming in the Quinnipiac Law Review! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... I argue that the Court's Second Amendment cases from 2022 to last term indicate an increasing unwillingness to engage in historical, textual meaning.
The Absence of Original Meaning in Second Amendment Cases
45 Quinnipiac Law Review (Forthcoming 2027)

23 Pages Posted: Last revised: 21 Sep 2026
Michael L. Smith
University of Oklahoma - College of Law

Date Written: September 21, 2026

Abstract
In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court set forth a two-step analysis for adjudicating Second Amendment challenges. At step one, courts are to consider whether the behavior the challenged law restricts falls under the Second Amendment’s plain text. If it does, courts should proceed to step two, where the burden is on the government to demonstrate that the law is consistent with a historical tradition of analogous firearm restrictions. Proving such a tradition is difficult, and results remain unpredictable. Governments and courts hoping to avoid such a historical quagmire might be inclined to decide cases at the first step of the analysis by concluding that a case involves individuals, activities, or arms beyond the Second Amendment’s plain text. One might think that the Court would be receptive to such arguments, as it has emphasized the importance of the original meaning of the Second Amendment’s text in its early cases.

One would be wrong. The Court’s latest rulings in United States v. Hemani and Wolford v. Lopez render Bruen’s first step illusory. In Hemani, the Court bypassed the first step, concluding it had been conceded. More significantly, in Wolford, the Court relied on a prolonged hypothetical analysis of conduct the law at issue might burden, and limited consideration of historical evidence to the second step of the analysis where the burden is on the government to prove up a historical tradition that grounds the modern restriction. If such analysis is enough to overcome Bruen’s step one, just about anything will.

This development demonstrates the Court’s unwillingness to engage with original public meaning—an approach that Justices and scholars frequently proclaim to be…
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Packers gotta try the field goal here!
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I think it's cool we are going to garrison the arch like a Red Alert 2 building.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Me: I crushed that guy with my brilliant chess intellect, I'm a modern day Capablanca, a middle aged chess prodigy, let's just check game review to confirm my brilliance--
Two horrible chess players more or less randomly moving pieces around
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I finished up some things that had sat half painted for months. Some Wargames Atlantic French Resistance Women and some Warlord Games American Militia. One of the militiamen has a rare two left arms condition presumably caused by poor nutrition at the time.
MilitiaFrench resistance
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Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
5th Cir., 2-1, holds that the federal prohibition on buying and selling handguns across state lines violates the Second Amendment. www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
The only plausible way to reconcile the government’s view with the historical record is to read early laws restricting cross-border firearms sales at an extremely high level of generality, without regard to the significant differences between state borders and national borders, and also without recognizing that the historical record is devoid of laws meaningfully restricting the trade of firearms between states in the time soon after the United States became established as a single, cohesive entity.  That was precisely the Second Circuit’s misdirection in rejecting a challenge to the Ban functionally identical to the one presented here.  See United States v. Vereen, 152 F.4th 89, 100 (2d Cir. 2025), cert. denied, 146 S. Ct. 1519 (2026) (determining that the historical record was adequate to justify the Ban because “colonial and founding-era state laws regulating the movement of firearms and gunpowder between colonies and across borders … satisfy the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ inquiries under Bruen”).  We reject the Second Circuit’s approach.  That distinguished court’s questionable analysis stretches the historical record far beyond what it can actually bear.  Broad similarities between historical precedents and modern regulations are insufficient at Bruen Step 2, and the Supreme Court helpfully drove this point home in United States v. Hemani, 146 S. Ct. 1677 (2026).
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Ms. Rosenberg @msrosenberg.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Court reform before anything else or there is nothing else
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Everytown for Gun Safety @everytown.org · 18/09/2026
If you’re not old enough to buy a beer, you shouldn’t be able to buy a handgun. But today, Trump’s Department of Justice released a dangerous opinion claiming that the life-saving federal law that stops people under 21 from buying handguns is unconstitutional and shouldn’t be enforced.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My wife won summary judgment on this case against a very scammy company when she was at the FTC. She had to do oral argument against a former SG on the scope of the injunction. Now a bunch of consumers are getting redress. www.ftc.gov/news-events/...
ftc.gov
FleetCor Agrees to Pay $100 Million to Resolve Administrative Action After Federal Court Finds that It Violated the FTC Act by Charging Unauthorized Fees
FleetCor and its CEO will pay $100 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission administrative action alleging that the company charged its customers, who overwhelmingly are small businesses, undis
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Ridiculous, both as a 2nd Amendment matter and as an executive power matter. www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...
justice.gov
Justice Department Concludes Federal Ban on Handgun Sales to 18- to 20-Year-Olds is Unconstitutional and Cannot Be Criminally Enforced
Today, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel released a legal opinion concluding that the federal prohibition may not be enforced against licensed dealers selling handguns to otherwise l...
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I just called my doctor to refill a prescription and they used an AI agent, and it's definitely just requesting refills of random drugs that I've never taken--one possibly just being propane.
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