FULL AUTO: The Supreme Court yesterday shot down the Trump era ban on bump stocks, the attachment that can turn a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun. The ban was enacted after the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas in which several guns fitted with a bump stocks were used to kill 60 people.

  The decision that said the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and firearms overstepped its legal authority with the ban was split 6 to 3 ideological lines. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in an evident misunderstanding of how a bump stock works that, “We hold that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machine gun’ because it cannot fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger.’” 

  A bump stock slides back and forth, allowing the shooter’s finger to rapidly pull the trigger, allowing the gun to fire like a machine gun. But it does not fire exactly with a single pull of the trigger as defined in the 1934 law that outlawed machine guns. The conservative majority takes things literally.

  In a rare verbal dissent delivered from the bench, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “The majority puts machine guns back in civilian hands.” She went on, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” A bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’ Because I, like Congress, call that a machine gun, I respectfully dissent.”

  In 11 minutes the Las Vegs shooter fired 1,000 rounds.

INFOWAR: A Houston bankruptcy judge ordered liquidation of the personal assets of Infowars conspiracy monger Alex Jones with the proceeds paid to the families of victims in Connecticut’s Sandy Hook school shooting. But the judge refrained from shuttering Jones’s Infowars business empire, allowing him to keep spreading his lies and conspiracy theories like his claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged by actors, a hoax to spur gun control.

  Jones owes $1.5 billion in damage awards to the Sandy Hook families. Court filings estimate his personal assets to be about $5 million. Both Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy.

  The decision splits the victim families with some in Texas favoring the continued existence of Infowars so they can recover more profits. The Connecticut families want Jones to be shut down and shut up.

THE WAR ROOM: Having failed for more than two years to defeat Ukraine in his giant land grab, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed laughably severe terms for a permanent peace.

  Putin said in a speech that he would agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine disarms and permanently surrenders four currently occupied regions in the country’s west. He also said western countries must lift their economic sanctions.

   Russia now occupies about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula taken 10 years go.

  Putin’s proposal appears to be a Hail Mary attempt to do with negotiation what he has been unable to achieve with missiles, tanks, and troops. The government in Kyiv immediately dismissed the proposal as “offensive to common sense.”

HOOP DREAMS: The Dallas Mavericks blew out the Boston Celtics 122-84 last night at home, forcing the Celtics to come back another day or more to try to put a lock on the NBA championship. The Celtics lead the series 3-1, but their 38-point loss was the biggest in NBA playoff history. 

THE ROYAL WATCH: Britain’s Princess Kate appeared in today’s parade marking the birthday of her father-in-law, King Charles III, despite still being treated for an undisclosed cancer. It’s Kate’s first public appearance since Christmas. She said in a brief statement, “I am making good progress, but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days.”  Kate rode.

  Kate rode in a carriage with her three children. Photos revealed her to be smiling, but terribly thin and pale. 

UNAFFORDABLE: Five American cities made the international list of “impossibly unaffordable” places to live. They are: San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Honolulu.

  Australia also has three in the top 10: Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.

  Hong Kong came in at #1, with just 51 percent home ownership. Toronto is #10.

  US cities that came in as most affordable are Pittsburgh, Rochester, and St Louis. Having lived in Rochester we can say, okay, fine, if that’s where you really want to live ….

THE OBIT PAGE: Remo Saraceni, who created the giant Walking Piano keyboard that Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced on in the memorable scene in the hit 1988 movie “Big,” died on June 3 in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He was 89.

  Saraceni was a sculptor and toy inventor but he was best known for “interactive electronics” and that piano.

THE SPIN RACK: The Justice Department said it will not prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt in his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena to turn over audio recordings of President Biden’s interview by the special counsel investigating the President’s improper possession of classified documents. President Biden had exerted executive privilege over the recordings. — Wells Fargo says it fired more than a dozen employees who were using technology to fake keystrokes to make it look like they were being productive while working from home.  

BELOW THE FOLD: Donald Trump said at his big 78^th birthday celebration last night that “All presidents should have aptitude tests,” a poke at President Biden’s age. Biden is just three years older.

  Separately, some people came away from Trump’s Thursday meeting with business executives saying the former President “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported that several CEOs “said that [Trump] was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map.” 

For an audio review of the week’s news click here.

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