WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Under the Radar - Episode 32

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

This week on “Under the Radar,” hear about a bill intended to lessen the lethal power of law enforcement, a Supreme Court case blocking New York's new racist redistricting, a Supreme Court case about drug users right to own firearms, and more.

This is Under the Radar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Now, here's your host, Luke Miller. This week on Under the Radar, hear about a bill intended to lessen the lethal power of law enforcement, a Supreme Court case blocking New York's new racist redistricting, a Supreme Court case about drug users' right to own firearms, and more. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and on this show, we'll cover the news you didn't catch this week from the mainstream media.

While they're covering the president's latest tweets, here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect you. Welcome to Under the Radar. The first piece of news I have for you this week is a bill that just passed through the House of Representatives entitled Law Enforcement Innovate to De-Ecalate Act. The bill was introduced by Representative Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, who is a Republican. And there's two main components of the bill that you need to know about.

The first one is the part that deals specifically with law enforcement, and the purpose of that part of the bill is to encourage law enforcement to use less than lethal projectile devices by basically exempting those qualifying devices from federal firearm restrictions, which would make it a lot easier for law enforcement agencies, police departments, ICE, etc., to use alternatives to lethal force that are meant for de-escalation. So I'll get into what that means in a second, but the second main component of the bill is meant to help with innovation of those less than lethal projectile devices by removing federal excise taxes that currently apply to those kind of firearms under the National Firearms.

Act. That part of the bill is excluding these less than lethal weapons from those taxes, the firearms and ammunition excise taxes, to incentivize more companies to start working on these things to make it more profitable for companies to create and innovate these less than lethal weapons. Now the first thing that really stood out about this bill was how it passed through the House of Representatives. So the overall vote was 233 to 185, with 211 Republicans voting yay and one voting against, 22, Democrats voting four, and 184 Democrats voting against. Which in the context that this bill was brought before the House of Representatives, I would have guessed that more Democrats would have been in favor of this, that context being

the recent ICE shootings that occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So in early January, President Trump deployed ICE to Minneapolis. In the context of the Somali fraud scandal that was going on in Minnesota broadly, ICE was sent into Minneapolis to carry out a deportation effort. And there were groups like one called Ice Watch that were organized protest groups that taught their members the best ways to disrupt ICE to alert illegal immigrants when ICE was in a particular neighborhood. They were dedicated to monitoring ICE and resisting their deportation efforts. One of the members of Ice Watch was Renee Good, who decided to take her car and block an entire neighborhood so that ICE vehicles couldn't get into that neighborhood. Her doing so was an effort to protest ICE. Now, when she was asked by ICE officials to remove her vehicle, she resisted at first,

and then she decided to drive her car forward. But there was an ICE agent who was kind of in front of her car. There's much debate about whether if she had kept going she would have hit him or not. She did hit him to some extent, and he had injuries sustained because the car did hit him. But it didn't really appear that she was trying to run him over. She was trying to get away from the ICE officials. Now, that ICE agent who was standing in front of the car, shot and killed Renee Good. whether he was right or wrong in doing so or a little premature in doing so, or whether his life was truly in danger,

that has not been determined by a court yet, so I'm not going to comment on that. But there was a lot of outrage about ICE using lethal force on a protester who was unarmed, technically speaking. She did have a vehicle which could be used as a weapon, and it's worth noting that anti-ice protesters particularly have been using their vehicles as weapons against ICE agents, trying to run them over, trying to ram their vehicles. That has been a common theme that's been happening in these anti-ice protesters. protests. But in this context, a federal law enforcement officer shot and killed a protester, obviously with lethal force. Now, it wasn't but three weeks after that that Minneapolis saw

another ice shooting, a man named Alex Preti, who was also an anti-ice protester. I would play bits and pieces of the video that shows the events that led up to the shooting of Alex Prattie, but it's basically impossible to hear anything because there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people just blowing loud whistles all around. They're trying to alert, at least, legal immigrants that ICE is in the area so that they can evade law enforcement. Now, Alex Prattie was stopped by law enforcement. He had a weapon on him. You can vaguely hear in the video the ICE officials saying he has a gun, he has a gun. It appears in the video that one of the ICE agents reaches for his gun and removes it. But a few seconds later, you hear the shots.

Clearly, one of the ICE agents felt threatened enough to shoot Alex Prattie several times. It ended up killing him. And that's another incident of law enforcement using lethal force that led to a lot of public outcry, because he was a protester, because it did not appear that there was an obvious and urgent threat to the lives of the ICE agents. Now again, all these details are relatively unclear at this point. But one thing that everybody seems to be able to agree on is the fact that these were preventable shootings in one way or another. Not needless in the sense that ICE acted in the wrong because there is disagreement about that. And I think there can be disagreement about that by reasonable people, at least until all the facts come out.

But it was needless in the sense that it never needed to escalate to this point. It never needed to escalate to the point where the protesters were agitating ice enough for them to feel like they needed to use lethal force. And in many situations like this, law enforcement officials would be able to get out of the situation using less than lethal force. Again, I'm not directly condemning those ICE agents who committed those shootings. Like I've said, the details are up in the air and it's hard to say whether they acted in the right or the wrong. And there are undeniably some situations where law enforcement does need to use lethal force. But I think that we can all agree that in situations where law enforcement does not need to use lethal force, force, it would be better if they had access and training to use less than lethal weapons to

minimize the loss of human life. And that's what this bill aims to do. It aims to increase law enforcement ability to access and use these kinds of less than lethal weapons. And I'll give you some examples of what those kind of weapons are. But according to the bill, a qualifying less than lethal weapon cannot fire standard handgun rifle or shotgun ammo. It can't fire projectiles above 500 feet per second, which has kind of been the threshold that they've set in the bill for a weapon that's designed to cause death or serious bodily injury. A less than lethal projectile device is designed to avoid causing death or serious bodily injury. That's another component of it.

And they fall into a few categories. The first category of less than lethal weapon is a conducted energy device. So that means that it transmits electro shocks, which incapacitates somebody who might be trying to attack a law enforcement official or a citizen using one of these kinds of devices. Like a taser is a good example of that. But there are other kinds as well of these conducted energy devices. The next category is chemical irritant devices. The most common one used among citizens is like pepper spray. Among law enforcement, it's like tear gas. But they're developing chemical

irritant guns, which shoot little cartridges of chemical irritants that can subdue people from a good distance away that could be used by law enforcement to temporarily subdue people without killing them. There are acoustic devices, which are basically like sound devices that use sound waves to irritate or cause pain to people's eardrums, which can also temporarily incapacitate people. There are unmanned aircraft, so like drones, and then there's blunt force projectiles. So that would mean like a gun that shoots rubber bullets, for example, is something that can be used by law enforcement officials to incapacitate people, to use force in self-defense or when pursuing a criminal, for example, but aren't going to kill somebody.

And these like rubber bullet guns are probably the most practical for law enforcement to use of these, but all of these categories have their use in particular circumstances for law enforcement. So what the bill does is it makes it so that law enforcement can acquire all these kinds of lessen lethal weapons a lot more easily. It lessens the regulations that surround law enforcement using these kinds of things. And then it also incentivizes production of these kinds of weapons and development and innovation of these kinds of weapons by private companies. And the thought process behind a law like this would be that if you have better less than lethal

weapons available to law enforcement, make them more readily available, make it easier for a law enforcement to get them and to be trained in using them, then potentially you could avoid some of those kinds of situations like what happened with Renee Good and Alex Prettie, because law enforcement officials could be confident that their less than lethal weapon can protect them from violent people without necessarily having to use lethal force themselves. That's the goal. Obviously, that can't work in every situation. Law enforcement has to have access to lethal force in certain kinds of situations. But if they don't have to use lethal force, it's obviously better for them not to.

And if law enforcement officials can have more access to these less-than-lethal weapons and feel more confident in their ability to use them successfully to defend themselves and others, then hopefully the result would be less loss of human life and more effective law enforcement, which are both things that I think we can all get on board with. The next piece of news I have for you this week is a Supreme Court case entitled Kaczynski v. Williams, in which the Supreme Court has granted Republicans' request to pause the order to redraw New York's congressional map. Now, we've had a lot of cases recently about redistricting, as you might recall, the one from Texas that I talked about in December 2025, and the case in California that I talked about in January, both of which were cases about political gerrymandering, meaning that the states were redrawing

their districts to try to give the dominant party more seats in that U.S. House of Representatives, a practice which is kind of politically iffy, but is not illegal, unfortunate as that may be. It is currently legal for these states to redraw their maps to give the dominant party more seats. However, what is illegal under the Constitution, and basically the only rule that the Supreme Court can enforce in regards to redistricting, is that a new congressional map cannot be drawn predominantly motivated by race. So race cannot be the dominant factor in redistricting. And that's the challenge that's going on in New York right now. There was a group of voters that contended that New York's 11th Congressional District, which includes Staten Island and some parts of Brooklyn,

They claimed that that congressional district's boundaries were violating the New York Constitution because they diluted the votes of the district's black and Latino residents. And there was a New York judge who ruled in favor of those challengers. He prohibited New York from using that existing map during an election year and required the state's redistricting commission to redraw the map in a way that would give those black and Latino residents a greater proportion of the votes in that district. So that they would have a greater say in determining who that district's representative would be. Now, that is a state-level judge requiring the state of New York to redistrict on the basis of race. He explicitly says that in his decision. And as Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the decision, points out, that is illegal under the Equal Protection Clause,

and Justice Alito actually called it unadorned racial discrimination. He wrote that that state judge had, quote, ordered the New York Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new congressional district for the express purpose of ensuring that minority voters are able to elect the candidate of their choice. that order blatantly discriminates on the basis of race. Now, the state judge appealed to the New York Constitution, saying that under the New York Constitution, there had to be a fair consideration of race in drawing congressional maps

in order to prevent minority vote dilution. And that was what the state judge cited when requiring the state to do this. However, as Alito points out, a state-level judge cannot appeal to a state law to authorize a violation of the federal constitution, which is obviously correct. The federal constitution supersedes state constitutions,

the two are in conflict with each other, the federal constitution always wins. The federal constitution says that redistricting cannot be done dominantly on the basis of race, and that's what the Supreme Court is upheld here. Now, how does this compare to the Texas and California cases that have happened in the last couple of months as well? This case is completely consistent with those. In the Texas redistricting case from December, Republicans in the state were trying to redraw their maps to give Republicans more seats in the United States House of Representatives. Now, that was challenged by people arguing that that would disproportionately harm racial minorities in the state of Texas. But the Supreme Court allowed the redistricted map to go forward, saying that the challengers had

no way of proving that it was racial gerrymandering. It could have been political gerrymandering, but they couldn't prove that it was dominantly based on race. And so the Supreme Court could not intervene in that case. Similarly, in the California case, Democrats proposed something called Proposition 50 to redraw the state's congressional map in response to the Texas map. Proposition 50 would give California more Democratic seats. It would take away some seats from Republicans, give more seats to Democrats from the state of California.

Republicans challenged the map, also claiming that it was an illegal racial gerrymander, and the Supreme Court upheld California's Proposition 50 map with the same justification, saying that the Supreme Court cannot intervene on partisan gerrymandering claims. They can only intervene if the challengers can prove that it was dominantly motivated by race. Under the Equal Protection's Clause, that allows the Supreme Court to intervene in those kinds of situations. And that's exactly what their justification was in this New York case. Because the state judge explicitly said that the goal of the new map would be to give minority voters more, say, in the outcome of the election, that means that it is a racially based gerrymander. And the Supreme Court overturned that because the one rule that they can enforce in redistricting cases is that they can prevent racial gerrymandering.

And that's exactly what they did with this case. You're listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. The next piece of news I have for you this week is another. Supreme Court case entitled United States v. Himani. This case is challenging a law that bans illegal drug users from possessing firearms. So there's a Texas man named Ali Danyal Hemani, and in 2022, FBI agents legally entered his home. They found a pistol, marijuana, and cocaine. Both of those drugs are illegal in the state of Texas, and Himani told the agents that he used marijuana roughly every other day, which would make him a habitual illegal drug user. Now, under a federal law, it's a crime for anyone who is an

unlawful user or addicted to any controlled substance to have a gun. In this case, Himani is challenging the federal statute under the Second Amendment, saying that even though he is a habitual user of an illegal substance, that alone does not prove that he is a dangerous enough threat to the public to take away his Second Amendment rights. Now, obviously, the purpose of the original statute that prevents illegal drug users from owning a gun is to prohibit disproportionately dangerous people from carrying guns out in public. For example, you wouldn't want your local crackhead to be walking around with a pistol because their judgment is impaired and you don't know what kind of effects that's having on their mental health or stability, and that poses a danger to everybody around them. In this case,

Hamani is arguing that marijuana is kind of different. It's a different degree of controlled substance, which is true, it's under a different classification under federal law. And he's saying that just because he is a habitual marijuana user, that does not mean that he is disproportionately dangerous. And that's kind of what the case hinges on is whether the Supreme Court can or should rule about how dangerous particular drugs are. And they would kind of have to do that in this case because the original statute doesn't specify. So if you look at the original statute, it's part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and it prohibits possession of firearms or ammunition by people who use illegal drugs or are addicted to controlled substances. But where it becomes unclear is that the wording of the statute

refers to the unlawful use of illegal substances. So what counts as unlawful use? Hamani is arguing that he's being criminalized and robbed of his Second Amendment rights when his marijuana use doesn't actually make him dangerous. The term unlawful here isn't actually talking about whether marijuana is illegal in the state of Texas, which it is, but whether he was an unlawful user. And that's what gets tricky too because marijuana is legal in a lot of states. And so the Supreme Court was divided on whether their decision would be applied differently in different states. And that poses an actual problem. If marijuana use is legal in a state like Colorado, is he an unlawful user for being a habitual user of marijuana? And would that bar anyone who uses

legal marijuana in a state from owning a gun? Well, that would seem to be a clear violation of the Second Amendment. But in a state like Texas where marijuana is illegal, would the application of this statute mean that because Himani uses a drug that's illegal in Texas, but is legal in lots of other places, that that robs him of his Second Amendment right in the state of Texas. So that's what the Supreme Court is discussing in this case. The other thing that the Supreme Court was skeptical about here is whether they should be the ones who determine the application of the law. Meaning, should the Supreme Court be the ones who decides how unlawful use of a drug is applied? Should they be the ones to decide whether marijuana makes someone dangerous to society, or whether it's in the same classification as heroin or as any other kind of drug that's a controlled substance? As they pointed out, the purpose of the Supreme Court is to interpret the law, not apply the law how they see fit and expand all.

on what the statutes actually say. And there's an extremely high bar to clear for a federal statute to be able to deprive somebody of their Second Amendment rights. And so much of the questioning by the Supreme Court justices in this case led observers to believe that the Supreme Court was likely going to throw out Hamani's charges under this federal statute, mostly because of how vague it is and how high of a bar has to be cleared in order to take somebody's Second Amendment rights away. And it was unclear according to the terminology of the Gun Control Act of 1968 that people

who use marijuana are disqualified. disproportionately dangerous to the public and pose a heightened threat of violence in the same way that somebody who was addicted to a more hardcore drug would be. So while the Supreme Court hasn't made their decision on this case yet, they heard this case this week. It seems as though they're going to establish the precedent that illegal marijuana users are not unlawful users and dangerous enough to deprive them of their Second Amendment rights to own a gun. The last piece of news I have for you this week is a bill that just passed through the House of Representatives entitled Housing for the 21st Century Act. The main purpose of the bill is to revise the federal housing programs and expand them. But the goal is to offer a lot more affordable housing, rental housing, mobile housing, through federal grants, to help address some of the housing affordability crisis.

So one of the issues that is always going to matter to Americans is the ability to buy a house. One of the ways that we measure economic success in this country is the ability of the average person to buy a house. And today that's harder than ever. Fewer and fewer people are able to buy homes. there's more people over the age of 70 buying houses today than under the age of 35 buying houses today, which is just a remarkable statistic. But if you look at the price of the average house over the last 60 years or so, you can really see why. In 1963, the price of the average house in the United States was $19,600.

By 2000, it was $375,000. By 2023, it was $428,000. And just two years later, so from 2023 to 2025, you saw an over $100,000. increase in the price of the average house going from 428,000 to 534,000, which is just a remarkable increase in two years. And that is certainly surpassed inflation. So that $20,000 house in 1963, when indexed for inflation, is about $210,000 today. But obviously, the price of the average house is $534,000, which is more than double the inflation adjusted value of those houses in the 1960s. Now, you got to factor in modern amenities that go into houses, things that make houses more valuable, that kind of stuff. And yes, that's true. But it is the case that it is harder than ever to buy a

house in the United States today. So while conservatives will always bemoan increases in spending on federal housing programs, and rightfully so in a lot of ways, I could understand why Congress would pass a bill like this hoping to make housing more affordable for people. Particularly a couple of things that the bill does is that it increases the statutory maximum loan limits that the federal housing administration can ensure, which incentivizes lenders to give out housing loans for mortgages so that more people will be able to get those mortgages and purchase homes. What the bill does is it increases the statutory maximum amount so that bigger loans will be insured by the FHA, particularly for apartment buildings, which the goal of this is to make more rental

housing available and to incentivize more production of apartment buildings and multifamily housing. And the other important thing that the bill does is that it increases the maximum eligible income for the Home Investment Partnerships Program, which gives grants to state governments to create affordable housing for low-income families. It's a welfare housing program that's run on the state level, and this is an investment program from the federal government to help those states help their people. This bill increases the amount of people that are eligible for that housing assistance program within these states. So overall, whenever the federal government expands public housing programs, you have to wonder whether it'll actually drive the price of housing up and make more people reliant on public housing. That's what public intervention in private sectors generally does.

economically speaking, but as far as short-term relief goes and incentives for people to produce those kinds of cheaper housing that people need, this bill does take a step in that direction. So to recap this week, we had two bills, one that would provide law enforcement with more, less than lethal weapons, and one expanding federal housing programs, and we had two Supreme Court cases, one blocking racial gerrymandering in New York, and the other about whether marijuana users can own guns. Tune in next week for more. Well, that's all I have for you today on Under the Radar. I'm your host, and I want to thank you for listening and encourage you to tune back in next time for more coverage of the news that fell under the radar. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

Thanks for listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.