Courts – MILESFORTIS

In the Seventh Circuit, Procedural Red Herrings Threaten the Second Amendment

The Seventh Circuit heard oral argument on November 12 in Viramontes v. County of Cook, Illinois, a challenge to Cook County’s ban on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15, inaccurately labeled as assault weapons. These bans are flatly unconstitutional under Heller, which establishes that the law-abiding citizens of this Nation have a right to possess firearms that are in common use. Semiautomatic rifles undoubtedly are in common use – indeed, the AR-15 has been the best-selling rifle in the Nation for years. Unfortunately, the Seventh Circuit departed from Heller in a case called Bevis to hold that arms that are predominantly useful for military purposes can be banned. But even under that reasoning, semiautomatic rifles cannot be banned. They are common civilian firearms, not military firearms, because they lack the capacity for automatic and burst fire.

The questioning at the Seventh Circuit, however, did not focus much on the merits of the case. Rather, the panel (consisting of Judges Sykes, Brennan, and St. Eve) took a surprise detour through a series of procedural objections put forward in Cook County’s briefs. (Take a listen here). Judges Sykes and St. Eve appeared to think that Viramontes’ challenge should fail because he didn’t put forward critical evidence about semiautomatic rifles in the district court. Viramontes’ lawyer challenged that notion, including by citing to specific pages in the record containing key pieces of evidence. I decided to dig deeper into the history of the case to see who has the better of the argument. The short answer is that Viramontes does. Indeed, he has built one of the most robust records I have seen by a plaintiff in a case challenging a semiautomatic rifle ban.

Before turning to the record, it is helpful to take a step back to see how we got to this point. When Viramontes filed his case, the constitutionality of a ban on semiautomatic rifles was controlled by two Seventh Circuit precedents, Wilson and Friedman. Viramontes did not initially seek to build a record in the district court because his sole path to victory was to have the Seventh Circuit or U.S. Supreme Court declare that Wilson and Friedman were wrongly decided.

Cook County, however, requested the opportunity to build a record, and the district court obliged. Then, while the case was proceeding in the district court, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bruen, arguably wiping out Wilson and Friedman as precedent. It was in this context that the parties put forward their evidence and engaged in summary judgment briefing. It was not until summary judgment was fully briefed that the Seventh Circuit decided Bevis, and the parties addressed that decision in short filings.

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The Illinois ‘assault weapon’ ban fails

The Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions made clear the Second Amendment acknowledges– does not grant–an individual right to keep and bear arms, a right that does not end at one’s property line, and encompasses weapons—not just firearms–in common use for lawful purposes such as self-defense. Government may not erect arbitrary barriers to the exercise of the right, but because the Supreme Court hasn’t absolutely delineated what weapons in “common use” might be, blue states like Illinois remain determined to disarm Americans, the better to crush them when it’s time for the glorious revolution.

Graphic: X Screenshot

Among the most common contemporary targets of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists are “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines. That there is no such thing as an “assault weapon” deters them not. Neither does the fact magazine capacity restrictions produce no public safety benefit, and most contemporary handguns and rifles feature magazines of greater than their commonly imposed 10 round capacity. Cracktivists have hit on the most common and popular sporting rifle, the AR-15 family, which since the Vietnam War has featured a standard 30 round magazine, as a particular object of hate. Upholding the narrative, Illinois banned “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines.

An ”assault weapon” is best understood as any scary looking gun cracktivists want to ban. True assault rifles are fully automatic military arms. AR-15s outwardly resemble the military M4 but are like all other semiautomatic arms: they fire one round for each function of the trigger.

Don’t anti-liberty/gun crackvisits know this? Of course they do, but they also know they have unlimited taxpayer funds for lawsuits which normally take years to wend their way to the Supreme Court and in the meantime, they get to deprive Americans of their rights and even jail and ruin some of their political enemies.

Fortunately, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen McGlynn has sided with the Constitution, and overturned the Illinois ban:

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Analysis: How a Federal Judge Reinterpreted the ‘Military Arms’ Argument to Protect AR-15s

After a federal appeals court wrote AR-15s and the magazines that typically come with them out of the Second Amendment, a federal judge has written them back in.

Last November, a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel declined to enjoin Illinois’ ban on so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines after ruling that each was too akin to military hardware to be counted as “arms” protected by the Second Amendment. Yet just last week, a US District Court judge under the Seventh Circuit’s jurisdiction struck down the exact same ban as unconstitutional.

In fact, he did so by relying on the circuit’s own words.

When the Seventh Circuit panel upheld Illinois’ ban, it set a new standard to determine whether a proposed gun law implicates the plain text of the Second Amendment–a key component of the Supreme Court’s Bruen test.

“In order to show a likelihood of success on the merits, the plaintiffs in each of the cases before us thus have the burden of showing that the weapons addressed in the pertinent legislation are Arms that ordinary people would keep at home for purposes of self-defense, not weapons that are exclusively or predominantly useful in military service, or weapons that are not possessed for lawful purposes,” Judge Diane Wood wrote in Bevis v. Naperville.

Wood drew specific attention to the “military use” prong. Relying on dicta from the Supreme Court’s Heller decision assuring other courts that the ruling did not prohibit regulation of machineguns used by the military (specifically the M16), she posited that civilian AR-15s are nearly indistinguishable from M16s. She concluded, therefore, that they are also “predominantly useful in military service” and may be banned.

Judge Stephen McGlynn came to a different conclusion regarding the “military use” of AR-15s and similar rifles when reviewing the case. While following the analytical structure handed down by the Seventh Circuit, he conducted his own inquiry into what makes a weapon “predominantly useful in military service.” Where the Seventh Circuit panel hand-waved away rate-of-fire differences between AR-15s and military service rifles, McGlynn found cause for highlighting the distinction.

“The commercially available AR-15’s external similarity to the M16 rifle and M4 carbine belies its nature, as its lack of burst or fully automatic fire fundamentally renders it a different weapon,” he wrote.

He also argued that rifles acquired for the military are subject to unique standards of “military specificity and rigorous quality-insurance inspections,” whereas civilian-market AR-15s have no such standards. Ultimately, he concluded, these differences render the AR-15 outside the scope of the Seventh Circuit’s military use standard.

“The Court holds that ‘military use’ refers to weapons that are selected, procured, tested, and issued to military members for use in combat,” McGlynn wrote. “With this in mind, none of the weapons, magazines, or attachments prohibited by PICA can be called ‘military-grade’ since they were not issued to the military for use in combat.”

Furthermore, he noted that the Seventh Circuit previously recognized a “dual use” standard for categories of weapons that have both lawful civilian and military applications in Bevis and its pre-Bruen assault weapons ban rulings.

“Obviously, many weapons are ‘dual use’: private parties have a constitutionally protected right to ‘keep and bear’ them and the military provides them to its forces,” Judge Wood wrote. “In this sense, there is a thumb on the scale in favor of Second Amendment protection. When we refer to ‘military’ weapons here, we mean weapons that may be essentially reserved to the military.”

Though Judge Wood specifically had shotguns and semi-automatic handguns in mind, Judge McGlynn found that AR-15s and similar rifles could just as easily fit the bill.

“Even if arguendo there are no material differences between the M16/M4 and AR-15, so-called ‘dual use’ has clearly been established here,” he wrote. “Clearly, even though handguns are useful and are used in military service, they are clearly protected by the Second Amendment. However, as noted above, AR-15s are distinct from their military counterparts.”

Ultimately, Judge McGlynn’s analysis represents a response to an argument that has become increasingly common among federal appeals courts looking for rationales to uphold state assault weapon bans despite Bruen’s demanding standards. It could serve as a blueprint for gun-rights advocates as they continue challenging similar bans in courts that are primed to rule against their position.

At the same time, it may not be an argument that is necessary for very long. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to take up an assault weapon ban case very soon, one that many gun-rights advocates believe is their best opportunity yet to have the justices weigh in. Should they do so, Justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the likely majority in any hardware ban case, has already tipped his cap regarding his views on the Seventh Circuit’s “military use” analysis.

In a statement accompanying the High Court’s denial of cert after the Seventh Circuit upheld Illinois’ ban, Thomas accused the panel of “contorting” the justices’ past Second Amendment guidance to reach a “nonsensical” conclusion that the Second Amendment does not protect “militaristic” weapons like the AR-15.

“The Seventh Circuit’s contrived ‘non-militaristic’ limitation on the Arms protected by the Second Amendment seems unmoored from both text and history,” he wrote. “It is difficult to see how the Seventh Circuit could have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles are not ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment.”

It may not matter much to gun-rights advocates in the end whether they’ve found an analytical avenue through the Seventh Circuit’s novel reading of the Bruen test for hardware bans. However, the Court has not been eager to take up an “assault weapons” ban case to this point. So, these lower court battles may continue to take on an outsized importance.

Court Vaporizes 50 Years of Environmental Law Leaving Trump’s EPA to Build on the Ashes

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit summarily vaporized 46 years of Federal environmental regulations. Writing in a case called Marin Audubon Society, et al v. FAA, et al, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that the Council on Environmental Quality, a cabal inside the Executive Office of the President charged with ensuring that National Environmental Protection Act requirements are interpreted uniformly across the federal government, had illegally used the Federal Register to publish that guidance thereby giving citizens, agencies, and even the courts the impression that their internal guidance had the authority of law.

The decision was written by Karen LeCraft Henderson (George H. W. Bush) and A. Raymond Randolph (George H. W. Bush) with Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan (Joe Biden) dissenting, and it found:

As the parties argue the case, it centers on whether the Agencies complied with regulations of the Council on Environmental Quality, an entity within the Executive Office of the President. We will not address these arguments. The CEQ regulations, which purport to govern how all federal agencies must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, are ultra vires.

Ultra vires means the CEQ was acting “beyond the legal scope of it authority.”

The court goes on to detail the shenanigans by which an advisory body with no regulatory authority was able to write environmental regulations for the entire United States for nearly a half-century just because it decided it could.

Making the case even more awesome is that it was set off by enviro-wackos suing the FAA for allowing sightseeing flights near some national parks. The enviros claimed the FAA used the wrong standard established by the CEQ to permit the flight. They ended up being right in a backhanded kind of way.

This decision throws the entire environmental regulation scheme governing the federal government into chaos. I suspect that many of the CEQs regulations will be reissued by other agencies, but after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (see The Supreme Court Firebombs the Administrative State and Tells Congress to Get Off Its Butt and Work) that slew the medusa called “Chevron deference,” the survival of those replacement regulations is not assured.

The silver lining is that Trump’s EPA, under Lee Zeldin (see We Have Another Trump Cabinet Pick: Lee Zeldin Gets the Nod), will get the first crack at reworking useless and expensive regulations.

Complete Decision

Marin Audobon Society vs. FAA by streiff on Scribd

Seventh Circuit Hears Oral Arguments in ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Challenge

No, not the challenge to the gun and magazine ban that U.S. District Court Judge Stephen McGlynn found unconstitutional last Friday. The almost half-dozen lawsuits taking on the Protect Illinois Communities Act will be heard by the Seventh Circuit as well, but not for several months. Instead, today’s oral argument is in a case called Viramontes v. Cook County, which is seeking to undo the “assault weapons” ban first put in place by Cook County lawmakers in the early 1990s.

The ordinance, which was revised in 2006 and again in 2013, makes it “unlawful for any person to manufacture, sell, offer or display for sale, give, lend, transfer ownership of, acquire, carry or possess any assault weapon or large capacity magazine in Cook County.” Earlier this year U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, a Clinton appointee, ruled in favor of Cook County and dismissed the claims brought by the plaintiffs.

Pallmeyer’s decision was based almost entirely on the Seventh Circuit’s denial of an injunction in yet another challenge to a semi-auto ban in Illinois. In Bevis v. Naperville, the appellate court ruled that both local and statewide bans on so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are likely to withstand constitutional scrutiny because the arms in question are “more like military weapons than those useful for self-defense.”

That decision was authored by Judge Frank Easterbrook; a Reagan appointee with a long history of upholding Illinois gun laws. In 2009, Easterbrook ruled that Chicago’s ban on handguns didn’t violate the Second Amendment because the Second Amendment’s protections didn’t extend to state and local laws. In 2015 Easterbrook ruled in favor of Highland Park, Illinois and its ban on “assault weapons”, arguing that even if arms that were in common use were prohibited, gun owners had other options available to them if they wanted a firearm for self-defense.

But Easterbrook is not a part of the three-judge panel that’s considering the constitutionality of Cook County’s gun and magazine ban today. Instead, Judge Diane Sykes (who’s authored a good ruling for gun owners), Judge Michael Brennan, and Judge Amy St. Eve will determine whether the county’s prohibition on modern sporting rifles and ammunition magazines that can hold more than ten rounds violate the Second Amendment.

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NSSF Celebrates Major Legal Victory as District Court Strikes Down Illinois’ MSR Ban

WASHINGTON, D.C.— NSSF^®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, celebrated today the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen P. McGlynn of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois striking down as unconstitutional the Illinois law that bans most semiautomatic firearms including Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), certain models of semiautomatic handguns and standard capacity magazines. The decision is a significant victory for the millions of law-abiding gun owners and the firearm industry in Illinois.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law HB 5471, the “Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA),” in January 2023. HB 5741 is among the nation’s most expansive gun control laws and banned the sale of hundreds of models of rifles including commonly-owned MSRs, certain semiautomatic handguns and rifle magazines with a capacity greater than 10 cartridges and pistol magazines with a capacity greater than 15 cartridges.

NSSF, along with several co-plaintiffs, filed a legal challenge seeking to strike down this unconstitutional law and prevailed. Notably, in his decision Judge McGlynn wrote, “PICA is an unconstitutional affront to the Second Amendment and must be enjoined. The Government may not deprive law-abiding citizens of their guaranteed right to self-defense as a means of offense.” More specifically, the court held that MSRs and standard capacity magazines are in common use and have legitimate self-defense purposes.

“This decision handed down by Judge McGlynn is welcomed and what we in the firearm industry have known all along: commonly-owned firearms and standard capacity magazines are protected by law-abiding Americans under the Second Amendment,” stated Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already recognized that semiautomatic rifles ‘traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful,’ and with over 28 million of these rifles in circulation today, they are clearly commonly-owned for lawful purposes, meeting the threshold set by the Supreme Court in its Heller decision.

Semiautomatic handguns are overwhelmingly the choice of firearm for personal self-defense. This law was clearly unconstitutional and did nothing to punish criminals who choose to break the law. It only deprives law-abiding Americans from being able to exercise their full spectrum of Second Amendment rights.”

While the court struck down the law, it did stay its permanent injunction for 30 days to give the State the opportunity to appeal and seek an emergency stay from the Seventh Circuit, which means that the law temporarily stays in effect.

NSSF will continue to monitor.

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Colorado Under-21 Gun Sales Ban

The Centennial State can once again deny 18-to-20-year-olds the ability to purchase any firearms.

A three-judge panel for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned a lower court injunction against Colorado’s recently passed gun sales ban for adults under 21. The panel determined that the lower court “abused its discretion” by finding the ban likely unconstitutional. Instead, it ruled that commercial firearm purchases are not covered under the Second Amendment.

“Pineda has partially met his burden at step one by demonstrating that (1) 18- to 20-year-olds fall within ‘the people,’ and (2) the arms he wishes to purchase constitute protected “arms,” Judge Richard Federico wrote for the majority in RMGO v. Polis. “However, Pineda fails to prove that SB 23-169 implicates his right to ‘keep and bear’ arms, the third prong of step one. This is because SB 23-169 is presumptively lawful as a law that imposes conditions or qualifications upon the sale and purchase of arms and thus does not fall within the protections of the plain text of the Second Amendment.”

The ruling deals a significant blow to Colorado gun-rights advocates looking to stave off the state’s increasingly restrictive approach to firearms. The opinion opens the door for the state’s young adult sales ban to take effect for the first time, and its capacious view of permissible commercial sales restrictions could invite many additional regulations.

The case stems from Senate Bill 169, which Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed into law in May 2023. The bill raised the state’s minimum age to purchase any firearm to 21. State policy previously allowed 18-year-olds to purchase rifles and shotguns but not handguns.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) immediately sued Polis over the law and secured a preliminary injunction against its enforcement last August, the same day it was supposed to take effect.

“The Court finds that the Governor has failed to meet his burden to demonstrate that SB23-169 is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation,” Judge Philip Brimmer wrote at the time.

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I have only been to Minnesota twice. The first on a summer family vacation decades ago, and second, on a layover when flying to Alaska. Other than necessity required by the latter, I have no plans to ever visit that tyrant run state again

Is Your Private Vehicle a ‘Public Space’ When There’s a Gun Involved?

It’s an odd question stemming from an equally strange case, but that’s the question the Minnesota Supreme Court will soon answer after hearing oral arguments on Monday.

Back in 2022, a guy named Kyaw Be Bee was arrested for the misdemeanor charge of carrying a BB gun, rifle, or shotgun in a public place after police discovered a BB gun underneath the driver’s seat of Bee’s car. The deputy had become suspicious of Bee and another man when he spotted them standing near a vehicle in a parking lot around 2 a.m. Bee and his companion strolled back to their own vehicle when they became aware of the deputy, and once they drove away the deputy pulled them over, which is when he discovered the BB gun.

Bee’s attorney argued in a pre-trial hearing that a private vehicle should not be considered a public place and a judge agreed; dismissing the misdemeanor charge after reasoning that a private vehicle is not a public place, even when it’s on a public road.

Prosecutors appealed that decision and the Minnesota Court of Appeals found in their favor, ruling that private cars on public roads should be considered public spaces. Bee’s attorneys then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard from both sides yesterday.

“To focus the law on the method of transportation upon a public roadway, instead of the geographic area of the roadway itself, ignores the clear statutory text, renders portions of the statute ineffective, leads to absurd results and is therefore not reasonable,” Saint Paul city attorney Lyndsey Olson, who argued for the state, told justices Monday.

However Drake Metzger, an attorney for Bee, said the statute is “unambiguous” about what makes a space public.

The law defines public space as “property owned, leased, or controlled by a governmental unit and private property that is regularly and frequently open to or made available for use by the public.”

Lawmakers included exceptions for hunters; target shooters; people’s homes or business; and gun shows and shops.

What the law doesn’t address is whether or not a private vehicle is considered a public place; it simply says that if a gun is being transported in compliance with the law, the statute does not apply.

“At the end of the day, the inside of a motor vehicle is not a public space under this definition,” Metzger said Monday.

Metzger also argued that his client could have been charged with carrying without a license based on how the BB gun was stored in the vehicle, but accusing Bee of having a gun in a public place when it was in his car just doesn’t make sense given the language of the statute.

Olson, arguing for the state, saw it differently.

“I don’t think that this is saying that being in a motor vehicle inherently means that you’re in a public place,” Olson said. “It depends on the geographical place that the vehicle is on.”

Bee could have been charged with another crime as well, Olson said, public safety is at the root of gun laws.

“The consequences of a particular interpretation excluding vehicles on public roadways from public space could risk public safety by allowing the gun possession within vehicles without restriction,” she said.

The problem with Olson’s argument, at least from my perspective, is that it requires “interpreting” the statute instead of simply reading and adhering to the text. As Metzer says, the law in question defines what constitutes a public space, and while it does include some private property, that property must be “regularly and frequently open or made available for use by the public”. Your car, my truck, and (presumably) Bee’s vehicle aren’t open for use by the public, even when they’re on a public road, so how could they reasonably be considered public spaces?

Even if the Minnesota Supreme Court finds in favor of Bee (which, given the makeup of the court, is probably unlikely), as his own attorney pointed out, the state could still have charged Bee with improper storage of the BB gun. Whether that statute is constitutional under the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment is another question for another day, but when it comes to the question of whether a private vehicle is a public space, I think the answer is and should obviously be “no.”

Georgia Supreme Court Stops Democrats’ Attempts to Cheat in One County.

One metro Atlanta county enacted an extension that allowed for the counting of absentee ballots after Election Day, but the Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling on Monday that put a stop to it.

WSB Radio reports:

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled late Monday that the extension granted by Cobb County that could impact thousands of mail-in voters has been reversed.

The ruling from the court reversed a lower judge’s ruling that had granted 3,000 voters an extension of the mail-in-ballot deadline after Cobb County election officials admitted they missed the deadline to ship them out.

The deadline for mail-in ballots to be received in Georgia is election day — but the lower judge had given those voters an extension for them to be postmarked by election day and received by Nov. 8, the same deadline for overseas ballots.

Cobb County, Ga., is just northwest of Atlanta, and it’s a typical suburban county in that it has trended toward the Democrats in recent elections. The Democrat Party had filed a suit to allow the county to grant an extension to the mail-in deadline for 3,000 absentee ballots, which a superior court judge upheld.

The mail-in ballot deadline was Oct. 31, but the county initially extended the deadline because it had received a “surge in absentee ballot requests,” as the Cobb County Courier described the situation:

“We want to maintain voter trust by being transparent about the situation,” said Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas in the news release. “We are taking every possible step to get these ballots to the voters who requested them. Unfortunately, we were unprepared for the surge in requests and lacked the necessary equipment to process the ballots quickly.”

“After our vendor’s final run on Friday, we needed to utilize our in-house equipment for the final shipment of ballots, but the equipment was not working properly,” said Silas. “By the time we got the equipment online, the deadline for mailing the ballots had passed, prompting us to work with the US Postal Service and UPS to take extraordinary measures. Our team has been working around the clock to get the ballots out.”

Judge Robert Flournoy had ruled that “this Court declares that Defendants’ delay in mailing absentee ballots to the Affected Voters violated Georgia law and likely Plaintiffs’ and similarly situated voters’ state constitutional rights.” Claiming “broad discretion,” Flournoy ordered an extension to the deadline for these voters.

“The Georgia Supreme Court ordered the Cobb board to ‘keep separate’ the absentee ballots of those voters that are received after the deadline on election day but before November 8 in a secure, safe, and sealed container separate from other voted ballots,” WSB reported.

“The court also ordered the board to notify the voters by email, text, or public announcement of the change,” the report continues. “At this point, all votes will need to be in by 7 p.m. on Election Day.”

Republican National Committee Co-Chair Michael Whatley quickly celebrated the high court’s decision:

However, the ACLU was apoplectic:

Back in May, during Georgia’s primaries, I wrote about how the Supreme Court contest between Justice Andrew Pinson, a Kemp-appointed, fair-minded young jurist, and John Barrow, a far-left crusader, was a down-ballot race that was too important to ignore. Georgia voters made the right choice, and this decision reflected the wisdom of reelecting Pinson.

Never forget that all elections are important.

Massachusetts grapples with fallout from landmark Supreme Court gun ruling

A landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling involving a New York gun law has begun to undermine Massachusetts’ gun laws, with a Boston Municipal Court judge recently ordering the Police Department to provide a concealed carry license to a man it had deemed a public safety risk.

At issue is the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in what is known as the Bruen case, which cited the Second Amendment to overturn a New York law that required applicants for licenses to carry concealed handguns to show proper cause for why they needed one.

The ruling prohibited states from requiring gun owners to have a “good reason” to carry, unraveling gun regulations in Massachusetts, New York, and four other states with so called may-issue laws that gave local authorities sweeping discretion over who receives licenses.

Boston Municipal Court Judge Richard Sinnott cited the ruling in August in ordering Police Commissioner Michael Cox to grant a concealed carry license for East Boston resident Jordan Lebedevitch, who wrote in his application that he hoped to work in the firearms industry and needed to carry a gun for his job at a security company. Earlier this month, Cox sued in Suffolk Superior Court to overturn Sinnott’s decision. That lawsuit is still pending.

Police had found Lebedevitch unsuitable, a legal determination fordenying the license, citing a 2023 police report from his then-wife claiming he threatened to kill himself during an argument. State law gives gun licensing authority to local police leaders.

Lebedevitch disputed the threat of suicide in a letter to the department, writing that the situation had been a “misunderstanding.” He filed a legal petition in Municipal Court, which landed before Sinnott. The judge initially ruled in favor of the Police Department but reversed his decision the next day, ordering the department to issue the license, according to court filings.

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Federal Appeals Court Upholds DC Magazine Ban

Gun owners in the nation’s capital will continue to face ammunition magazine capacity limits, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A divided three-judge panel for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision upholding DC’s ban on the possession and sale of what it called “extra-large capacity magazines” (ELCMs). The panel ruled the city’s ten-round limit for magazines fit within the nation’s historical tradition of regulating “particularly dangerous weapons” and those “capable of unprecedented lethality,” even though there weren’t similar bans when the Second Amendment was ratified.

“Because ELCMs implicate unprecedented societal concerns and dramatic technological changes, the lack of a ‘precise match’ does not preclude finding at this preliminary juncture an historical tradition ‘analogous enough to pass constitutional muster,’” the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion in Hanson v. District of Columbia. “Therefore, we hold Hanson is not sufficiently likely to succeed on the merits of his claim to warrant the entry of a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the magazine cap.”

The ruling deals a significant blow to gun-rights advocates in their decades-long quest to undo DC’s restrictive gun laws. It comes as appeals courts across the country have routinely upheld similar bans in recent years despite the Supreme Court raising the bar modern gun laws have to clear to pass muster in 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

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FPC Files New Lawsuit Challenging Texas Gun Carry Bans

FORT WORTH, TX (October 29, 2024) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it has filed a new Second Amendment lawsuit challenging laws prohibiting individuals from carrying firearms at certain locations in the State of Texas. The complaint for Ziegenfuss v. McCraw can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/ziegenfuss.

Through the case, Plaintiffs seek to end enforcement of Texas laws that restrict firearm carry in three locations: (1) in any business where alcohol comprises 51% or more of sales (even if the individual is not consuming alcohol), (2) racetracks, and (3) sporting events. These locations “are not so-called ‘sensitive places’ where Texas can disarm people such as Plaintiffs; indeed, the challenged locations cannot be analogized to the very few—and very different—locations where bearing arms was prohibited under constitutionally relevant American history (at and around the time of the Founding),” Plaintiffs say in their Complaint.

“FPC already struck down Texas’s ban on firearm carry for adults under the age of 21. We now set our sights on ending enforcement of these locational bans so that all peaceable adults may carry firearms in public places without fear of criminal prosecution. This case is one of dozens we are litigating to help us achieve our strategic objectives and eliminate unconstitutional and immoral carry restrictions throughout the United States,” explained FPC President Brandon Combs. ……………

Question O’ The Day
So how exactly does a leftist SCOTUS judge dissent & say non-citizens should have the right to vote?

By the way, as I have heard it, the ‘self identification’ of being a non-citizen was when called up for jury duty they said “I cannot serve because I am not a citizen”.

Supreme Court Allows Virginia To Remove Noncitizens From Voter Rolls

The Supreme Court allowed Virginia on Wednesday to remove individuals identified as noncitizens from the voter rolls.

The justices paused a lower court order preventing officials from removing around 1,600 individuals who the state said “self-identified” as noncitizens.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan would not have granted Virginia’s request, according to the order.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows Virginia to remove individuals identified as noncitizens from the voter rolls. pic.twitter.com/OKlMKqdTJl

— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) October 30, 2024

U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Giles, a Biden appointee, ruled Friday that Virginia must stop its efforts to remove noncitizen voters within 90 days of the election and restore registered voters removed under the program. When an appeals court upheld the decision on Sunday, the state quickly filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court.

“The injunction, which prohibits the application of a law that has been on the books since the Justice Department precleared it in 2006, will also irreparably injure Virginia’s sovereignty, confuse her voters, overload her election machinery and administrators, and likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal offence that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters,” the state

We are pleased by the Supreme Court’s order today. This is a victory for commonsense and election fairness. I am grateful for the work of Attorney General @JasonMiyaresVA on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Clean voter rolls are one…

— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) October 30, 2024

Republican Virginia Gov. Genn Youngkin wrote on X that the order is “a victory for commonsense and election fairness.”

“Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” he wrote.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) initially sued Virginia on Oct. 12, alleging the state violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by making changes to the voter rolls within 90 days of the election when the “risk of disfranchising eligible voters is greatest.” Youngkin signed an executive order in August requiring election officials to expedite the removal of ineligible noncitizen voters from the voter rolls.

FPC Pushes Forward In Post Office Gun Ban Challenge

The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) has filed a motion for summary judgment in its case pending before a U.S. District Court in Texas challenging the Post Office gun ban.

The lawsuit FPC v. Garland challenges federal gun control laws prohibiting firearm possession, storage and carry at United States Post Offices and related properties, including post office parking lots. The plaintiffs are two law-abiding citizens licensed to carry in Texas and two non-profit membership associations—FPC and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).

Brandon Combs, FPC president, said the lawsuit is one in a long line of challenges designed to restore Second Amendment rights.

“Your right to carry weapons for armed self-defense does not end at the Post Office,” Combs said in a release announcing the action. “We look forward to eliminating this immoral ban and further restoring the People’s right and ability to protect themselves in public.”
In its motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs argue that the post office gun ban fails both of the standards set by the Supreme Court in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen
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Ballots that arrive after Election Day are invalid, federal appeals court rules

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that votes in federal elections must be received by state officials by the time polls close, striking down a Mississippi law that allowed ballots to arrive after Election Day.

The ruling could have sweeping implications for the way many states have administered elections for years, but it’s unclear if the decision — made by three Trump-appointed judges on the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — will apply on Nov. 5 or only in future elections. Likely appeals could also slow the impact. Still, the effect could be enormous if other courts uphold its rationale that long-standing federal law requires all ballots to be received by Election Day.

Recognizing the significance of its decision, the panel also left it up to a lower-court judge — who initially sided with Mississippi — to determine when the ruling should take effect. The panel underscored the longstanding legal principle that courts should avoid changing election policies on the eve of the vote.

For now, the circuit court’s ruling only applies to Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi — a list that does not include any core presidential battlegrounds but includes a key Senate race. It also tees the issue up for the Supreme Court, where a similar ruling would have a far more dramatic impact.

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More Support For Challenges To New Massachusetts Gun Law.

We’ve reported recently how Massachusetts’ sweeping new anti-gun law, launched early by an emergency preamble attached to it by Gov. Maura Healey, is facing a lot of pushback from pro-freedom groups.

Not only have two lawsuits already been filed to challenge the law in court, but an initiative petition to get a question on the 2026 state ballot to repeal the law already has more than the 90,000 signatures needed to put the matter to the vote.

Just two weeks after the measure was signed into law the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) ponied up $100,000 to help fund the court challenge by the Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL). Now, according to a report at masslive.com, others within the firearms industry are joining the efforts to repeal the law or have it declared unconstitutional in court.

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Well, that didn’t take them long, did it?
And the Supreme Court again displays its cowardice concerning the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Second Circuit’s Second Opinion on NY Carry Laws Same As the First

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its second opinion in the multiple challenges to New York’s post-Bruen carry restrictions, but the court ended up making no changes to its initial ruling that was issued almost a year ago.

Instead of granting cert to Antonyuk v. James and hearing the appeal themselves, the justices on the Supreme Court granted cert but vacated the Second Circuit’s first ruling and remanded the case back to the appellate court after SCOTUS released its decision in Rahimi back in June. If the justices were hoping that Rahimi would guide the Second Circuit in a different direction they, like Second Amendment advocates, must be disappointed by today’s ruling.

Essentially, the only portions of New York’s post-Bruen laws the Second Circuit takes issue with are the requirement that concealed carry applicants disclose their social media accounts to licensing authorities and the state’s “vampire rule”, which prohibits concealed carry on all private property in the state unless signage specifically allowing concealed carry is conspicuously posted.

Virtually all of the other “sensitive places” defined by the deceptively named Concealed Carry Improvement Act were upheld by the Second Circuit on Thursday, including houses of worship, public parks and zoos, public transportation, establishments where alcohol is served, theaters, conferences, business centers, and “gatherings of individuals to collectively express their constitutional rights to protest or assemble.”

As Chuck Michel said, the entire decision is more than 200 pages long, so while you can read it in its entirety here, we’ll be focusing on just a couple of aspects of today’s decision in this post.

Just like the Second Circuit’s original ruling in Antonyuk, the panel makes a few staggering leaps of faith that aren’t supported by what the Supreme Court has said about the right to keep and bear arms. The Court has held, for instance, that modern gun control statutes must fit within the national tradition of gun ownership, and doubted “that just three colonial regulations could suffice” to prove a national tradition of restricting concealed carry to those that have demonstrated a justifiable need.

But the Second Circuit says that even if there are no “distinctly similar historical regulation[s]” to point to in defense of a current gun law, that may not matter.

Legislatures past and present have not generally legislated to their constitutional limits. Reasoning from historical silence is thus risky; it is not necessarily the case that, if no positive legislation from a particular time or place is in the record, it must be because the legislators then or there deemed such a regulation inconsistent with the right to bear arms.

No, but it definitely proves that those legislators didn’t create certain laws restricting the rights of lawful gun owners in response to concerns about violent crime or public safety, and that is telling… or at least it should be. The Supreme Court’s “text, history, and tradition” test is relatively straightforward, but it’s been squarely rejected by the Second Circuit in favor of a more “nuanced” approach that, conveniently enough, allowed the panel to conclude that even where there are no historical analogues in place, modern restrictions on the right to carry are permissible.

The Second Circuit also continues to place a lot of reliance on gun laws that were in place around 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, not just 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. In theory, that makes some sense, given that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant in part to prevent states from intruding on those freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights. But in the aftermath of the Civil War, many states, particularly in the former Confederacy, instituted laws that were designed to stop freedmen from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. In some case those laws were facially about depriving former slaves and freedmen from possessing or carrying a gun, but others were couched in racially-neutral terms but were enforced primarily or solely against groups.

The Second Circuit’s decision upholding most of New York’s newest restrictions on the right to carry relies largely on rewriting the Bruen test and an over-dependence on a handful of mid-19th century statutes. Again, even the absence of any historical analogues is no barrier for the Second Circuit, which is utterly ridiculous.

Antonyuk and the other related cases have yet to go to trial on the merits. So far, all of the legal wrangling has been about preliminary injunctions issued by the district courts, and the Second Circuit has now remanded these cases back to the lowest level of the federal judiciary to start the process all over again. Given the hostility the Second Circuit has historically displayed towards the Second Amendment (it originally upheld New York’s “may issue” law, for instance), today’s decision isn’t exactly surprising. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating for those New Yorkers who’ve seen their right to carry become even more limited in scope and practice in the two years since the Supreme Court declared that right is just as fundamentally important as the right to keep a gun in the home.

TPTB have always been scared to the point they wet themselves that the peons possess the means to eliminate them from the equation.
It became even more scarier when reliable weaponry that can either smite from a distance, or be easily carried and concealed, was developed.
We’re going to see if this still holds basically true, or if our Supreme Justices can override the goobermint’s fear that those in power can be help to ultimate consequences.

Perhaps the Most Concerning Comment on Vanderstock

The ATF’s rules on so-called ghost guns don’t actually stop bad guys from making their own guns. Still, those rules exist.

At least, they exist until after the Supreme Court rules on Vanderstock v. Garland.

As we’ve noted previously, though, the odds don’t look good for pro-gun folks. It seems the Court had at least some interest in keeping the rules in place, which is troubling because it seems pretty clear to me that the ATF overstepped.

However, there was one comment that bothered me more than just about anything else I saw come out of the arguments.

“Drilling a hole or two, I would think, doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends… My understanding is that it’s not terribly difficult for someone to do this,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.

While it’s easy to ridicule the Chief Justice for this misguided statement, it’s important to consider his sources for the hyperbole, the ATF and the Biden administration.

“Drilling a hole or two” is a demonstrably dishonest take on the process, and I would have particularly enjoyed seeing a kit laid out in front of the Justices for a hands-on show of how “not terribly difficult” it is.

This would have been good for a few laughs.

Representing manufacturers and groups opposing the rule, Peter Patterson pointed out that building the kits is far more complicated than the administration has suggested, however, Patterson wisely remained grounded in his argument, staying with the facts and nature of the litigation, which had nothing to do with how easy or difficult a kit is to build, and everything to do with the ATF overstepping its authority.

Since the conclusion of the day’s oral arguments, the mainstream media has touted the Supreme Court’s disposition during the hearing as signaling a tendency towards the ATF and Biden administration’s arguments regarding lack of manufacturing difficulty and the potential for prohibited individuals to purchase kits and build them at home for criminal intent.

I will point out, however unnecessarily, that violent crime has been around long before 80% receiver kits, and violent criminals have never had an issue arming themselves, sometimes aided by our own government. Just ask Barack Obama and Eric Holder about Operation Fast and Furious.

All of that is absolutely true, of course. It’s a good deal more complicated than just drilling a couple of holes and calling it good, which is why the ATF’s argument regarding how “readily” it can be turned into a firearm is wrong and should be overturned.

But I’m bothered by Roberts’s statement about how it does give “the same sort of reward” that one might get from working on their car.

I wasn’t aware that was the legal threshold for our rights, whether or not a judge finds it satisfying.

Especially when I don’t find working on my car particularly rewarding. If I’m working on my car, it’s because something isn’t right and I can’t afford to take it to a mechanic. Since that’s what my son does for a living now, that’s rare, but that’s how it’s been in the past. For me, it was a task that needed to be accomplished, not something I found enjoyment in.

That’s kind of how hobbies work, though. Some people are really into DIY projects like renovating their bathroom. Others do it because they need the bathroom fixed and can’t afford to hire someone. The first group is the amateurs in the original sense of the word–those who do something for the love of it–while the others aren’t necessarily finding any sense of reward, necessarily.

Some people get a charge out of collecting stamps while others only buy them now to pay bills that don’t have an online presence for whatever reason.

Yet Roberts’s comment, while possibly meaningless, suggests that the justice might well consider whether they see this as a real hobby or not, and if they don’t because they, personally, don’t see anything fun in making one’s own firearms, we have a big problem.

Supreme Court Orders Fresh Look at Young-Adult Gun Restrictions

The US Supreme Court sidestepped a brewing gun-safety issue for now, telling a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that 18-to-20-year-olds have a broad constitutional right to carry a firearm.

In a two-sentence order Tuesday, the justices opted not to take up an appeal by Pennsylvania officials, instead ordering a fresh look at the issue at the lower court level. The reconsideration order cited the high court’s ruling in June upholding a federal gun ban for people under domestic-violence orders.

Pennsylvania is one of 32 states, along with the federal government, that establish 21 as the minimum age for some gun rights. The case before the high court involved a Pennsylvania law that prohibits people age 18-to-20 from openly carrying firearms during a declared state of emergency.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the law, saying in a 2-1 decision the state hadn’t shown the type of historic pedigree required under an earlier Supreme Court ruling.

The law is being challenged by two gun-rights groups and three people who were under age 21 when the suit was filed in 2020. They urged the Supreme Court to reject Pennsylvania’s appeal without ordering reconsideration, saying lower courts are generally in agreement that states can’t put special restrictions on 18-to-20-year-olds.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry argued that the 3rd Circuit imposed a much stricter historical test for gun laws than the Supreme Court said in the domestic-violence case was required.

The Supreme Court has steered clear of new Second Amendment disputes since its June 21 ruling. Lower courts now are grappling with bans on so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, laws prohibiting gun possession by convicted felons and restrictions on where firearms can be brought.

The Pennsylvania case is Paris v. Lara, 24-93.