Category: Courts

Rights Protected by the Second Amendment are Being Restored, NOT Created

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-— The jurisprudence of the Second Amendment is: it was ratified to protect the existing right of the people to keep and bear arms. It did not create new rights. One reason to protect the right was to enable the creation of militias from the armed population.

It was well understood, at the time of ratification, the right to keep and bear arms included the right to do so for self-defense as well as community defense, for hunting, and included the ancillary rights to practice, buy, sell and make weapons, as well as ammunition and accessories for them. These rights were not disputed and were considered to be derived from the natural rights to life and liberty. From Heller:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.

The American Second Amendment was recognized as needed because the English right to arms had been construed too narrowly to protect the colonists against the exercise of power by King George and the British Empire. The Americans had recently fought a long and bitter war sparked by the British attempts at disarming the American colonists.  The initial battles of Lexington and Concord were direct attempts by the representatives of the British Crown to confiscate gunpowder and, particularly, cannon.  Cannon were crew served weapons. The officers of the Crown confiscated plenty of individual weapons as well.

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Missouri AG prioritizing Biden social media collusion lawsuit, defending Second Amendment law

(The Center Square) – A lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s administration for alleged collusion with social media companies and defending Missouri’s Second Amendment Preservation Act are priorities for Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

Litigation in both cases began while Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt was serving as Missouri’s attorney general. After the State of the State address on Wednesday, Bailey, who was appointed in November to replace Schmitt, said depositions in the social media collusion case are leading toward an injunction.

“We have documentary evidence, we have testimonial evidence and we intend to seek more evidence in the coming weeks,” Bailey said in an interview with The Center Square. “We’re on an expedited discovery timeline. At some point, we’re going to get into a procedural posture where we’re going to ask for an injunction to prevent further coercion and collusion from the federal government and prevent Biden and his team from censoring speech.”

Missouri v. Biden was filed by Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry in May and they were granted a motion for discovery to expedite a possible preliminary injunction in July. In addition to releasing documents in the case, they released the transcript of a deposition of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor who recently retired.

Last week, Bailey released emails from White House Digital Director Robert Flaherty and other associates to major social media platforms. It included an email from Flaherty to Facebook asking why a video by Tucker Carlson on COVID-19 vaccines didn’t violate the social media platform’s standards.

“What we’ve demonstrated and what we believe is going on is censorship because it’s unelected federal bureaucrats targeting specific speech that they disfavor and asking that it be removed from big-tech social media platforms,” Bailey said. “That’s the problem. It stifles free, fair and open debate and it undermines our First Amendment. There should be marketplace of ideas that is free from government censorship.”

Bailey said defending the Missouri’s Second Amendment Preservation Act in lawsuits also will be a priority. The city of Arnold filed a lawsuit and St. Louis city and county and Jackson County filed a separate suit seeking to overturn the law. Both lawsuits claim the law restricts local police cooperating with federal law enforcement on gun violations.

“The Second Amendment is what makes all of the other (amendments) possible,” Bailey said. “It prevents enforcement of federal firearm regulations that exceed or violate the Second Amendment. We need to be going after criminals and not guns, first and foremost. I think most law enforcement officers in the state of Missouri agree with that. If we spent more time going after the criminals and not the guns, we will have safer streets.”

Bailey said the Missouri law is aligned with the principles of the authors of the U.S. Constitution.

“The founders understood that, number one, our rights come from God and not men,” Bailey said. “The federal constitution was a floor, not a ceiling, and the states could be guarantors of individual liberties. So the state legislature wants to expand upon the foundational rights codified in the Second Amendment and they have authority to do that. It’s about federalism and individual liberty.”

This was a request for a temporary injunction to stop enforcement while the case makes its way through the system.

I think this is simply lawyers being lawyers and making sure that other lawyers have the opportunity to bill more hours, but it sure makes me wonder why even Justice Thomas wouldn’t even respond to the clear poke in the eye this is by the State of New York.

Supreme Court Rejects New York Gun Retailers’ Bid to Block New Concealed Carry Laws

The Supreme Court rejected a bid by New York gun retailers on Wednesday to block a slew of new gun control laws in the state, which they argued violate their Second Amendment rights and hurt their businesses.

There were no noted dissents in the order or explanations from the justices for their decision.

Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Unconstitutional Illinois Gun Ban

BELLEVUE, WA – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the recently-signed Illinois gun ban legislation, alleging it to be unconstitutional and asserting the state has criminalized “a common and important means of self-defense.” The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul.

Joining SAF in this legal action are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns, Inc. and a private citizen, Dane Harrel. Named as defendants are Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Illinois State Police Director Brendan F. Kelly, and other officials in their official capacities. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

“Illinois has banned the future sale, importation, purchase, delivery and manufacture of the most popular rifle in the United States, along with their standard capacity magazines,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “People who already own such firearms must now register their guns with the State Police. This ban violates the constitutional rights of Illinois gun owners, and we intend to prove it in court.

“Once again,” he continued, “Illinois lawmakers are scapegoating firearms and people who own them in a transparent attempt to convince people they are doing something about the horrible violence the state has suffered in recent years, especially in Chicago. In reality, it’s an effort to distract the public from the fact that these same lawmakers have been unable or unwilling to crack down on criminals responsible for violent crime.”

Modern semiautomatic firearms banned under the new Illinois law have been deliberately mischaracterized as “assault weapons” and even “weapons of war,” Gottlieb explained. He called this patently dishonest and deceitful.

“Anti-gun politicians tout this sort of legislation,” Gottlieb observed, “while they know it really won’t accomplish anything beyond creating the false public impression they are making the community safer. No neighborhood, no city, and no state ever became safer by restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

 

Gun-rights group to appeal federal judge’s ruling upholding RI’s 10-round magazine limit

PROVIDENCE — A group of gun-rights advocates has filed notice they will appeal a federal judge’s decision here upholding Rhode Island’s new ban on gun magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

Michael A. Kelly, a lawyer representing the group, told The Journal on Friday that they hope to argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that a so-called high-capacity gun magazine is part of a firearm and therefore can’t be regulated as the law does.

Last month, U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. refused to grant a request by a Chepachet gun store and several Rhode Island gun owners for a preliminary injunction blocking the law, which makes possession of gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds a felony.

McConnell found that the plaintiffs, Big Bear Hunting and Fishing Supply, along with three Rhode Island residents — Mary Brimer, James Grundy and Jonathan Hirons — and a Newport homeowner who lives in Florida, Jeffrey Goyette, had not shown that they would suffer irreparable harm if the law were allowed to take effect, and furthermore, that allowing its enforcement was in the public’s interest.

The Second Amendment protects the right of people to “keep and bear arms,” McConnell acknowledged. But the plaintiffs, he said, had not demonstrated that the magazines represented “arms” as described in the Second Amendment. They hadn’t presented credible evidence establishing such a magazine as a weapon of self-defense.

He called the ban “a small but measured attempt to mitigate the potential loss of life by regulating an instrument associated with mass slaughter.”

The group of gun owners filed their notice of appeal Friday in U.S. District Court.

Kelly said he plans to hire as an appellate lawyer Paul Clement, the former U.S. solicitor general. Clement successfully argued for gun-rights advocates in a case prompting the U.S. Supreme Court last year to strike down a New York handgun-licensing law that required those who want to carry a handgun in public to show a special need to defend themselves.

Delaware faces lawsuit over large capacity magazine ban

(The Center Square) — Delaware is facing a legal challenge over its ban on large capacity magazines from a group which claims it violates the constitutional right to bear arms.

A lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court by the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of two gun owners, alleges the state’s new gun restrictions violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments by preventing them from “exercising their fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to grant preliminary and permanent injunctions preventing the state from enforcing the restrictions on large capacity magazines.

“Delaware arbitrarily labels standard capacity magazines capable of holding more than 17 rounds as “large capacity magazines” and bans them despite the fact that they, along with the firearms with which they are compatible, are in common use for lawful purposes,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in a 25 page complaint. “There is no historical tradition of this sort of firearm regulation in the United States.”

Last June, Gov. John Carney signed a package of gun control measures that included a ban on the sale of assault-style weapons, an increase in the age to purchase most firearms from 18 to 21, strengthened background checks and limits on large capacity magazines. It also banned the use of devices that convert handguns into fully automatic weapons.

The proposals were pushed through the Democratic-controlled General Assembly in the wake of several mass shootings, including the massacre of 21 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

“We have an obligation to do everything we can to prevent tragedies like we’ve seen around the country from happening here in Delaware,” Carney said in a statement at the time.

But Alan M. Gottlieb, the foundation’s executive vice president, said the large capacity magazine ban “literally criminalizes one of the most common and important means by which Delaware citizens can exercise their right of self-defense.” He said the restrictions “make self-defense a potential criminal act, and that must not be allowed to stand.”

The group cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the N.Y. State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen case, which struck down a New York law requiring applicants to show “proper cause” to obtain a permit to carry a firearm. The high court’s conservative majority affirmed the constitutional right to carry firearms in public places for self-defense.

Adam Kraut, the foundation’s executive director, said reduced police manpower in many communities means “there is no guarantee that emergency calls to law enforcement will bring anything resembling a swift response.”

“In the meantime, citizens must be able to rely on their fundamental rights, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, and those rights must be protected,” he said.

The 3rd Circuit Considers Whether Nonviolent Crimes Justify the Loss of Second Amendment Rights
Because of a misdemeanor welfare fraud conviction, Bryan Range is no longer allowed to own guns.

Back in 1995, Bryan Range pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $2,458 in food stamps by misrepresenting his income. He returned the money, paid a $100 fine and $288 in court costs, and served three years of probation.

Although Range did not realize it, that Pennsylvania misdemeanor conviction also came with a lifelong penalty: He lost his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. His case, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit will hear next month, poses the question of whether that policy, which prohibits gun ownership by millions of Americans with no history of violence, violates the Second Amendment.

Federal law generally makes it a felony to purchase or possess a gun if you have been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration. When a state classifies a crime as a misdemeanor, that disqualification applies if the maximum penalty exceeds two years.

Range’s crime was punishable by up to five years in prison, which meant he was no longer allowed to buy or own a firearm. When he tried to buy a deer-hunting rifle in 1998, he failed the background check.

Range figured that must have been a mistake. His wife bought him a rifle, then bought him another after the first one was destroyed in a house fire. Range later tried again to buy a gun but was again turned away, which prompted him to take a closer look at the federal prohibition, which is commonly described as applying to “felons.”

After discovering that he was a “prohibited person” even though he had not been convicted of a felony, Range sold his hunting rifle to a gun dealer. But for that law, he says, he would have kept the rifle and might also have bought a shotgun for home defense.

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The Bruen decision’s ‘Text-History-Tradition’ mandate  will go down as ‘the’ way we get 18 USC §922 (o)  – the ‘Hughes amendment’ ban on new manufacture of automatic firearms that can be possessed by the private citizenry ruled unconstitutional.

Wyoming Man Sues For Right To Make His Own M16 Machine Gun

A Wapiti man who wants to make a machine gun is suing the U.S. government for denying his application to do so, saying a federal anti-machine gun law violates his Second Amendment right.

Jake Stanley DeWilde filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming last week, asking for the court to issue a declaration against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The Argument

DeWilde’s complaint says that on Dec. 8, 2022, he submitted an ATF form asking to make and register an M16 machine gun. But 12 days later, the ATF denied his application, citing federal law that forbids both the transfer and possession of machine guns.

The statute doesn’t apply to U.S. government and military forces or machine guns owned before 1986.

The lawsuit relies on case law from 2008, District of Columbia vs. Heller, and 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. vs. Bruen.

These cases together indicate that guns cannot be considered “dangerous and unusual,” and therefore legitimately unlawful if the guns are in “common use,” DeWilde says in his complaint.

DeWilde argues that because the M16 is in “common use” by the U.S. military, it should be made legal for the nation’s citizenry. He also argues that his Second Amendment right has been violated.

“Plaintiff desires to own an M16 machine gun for all lawful purposes, including defense of hearth and home and militia functions,” reads the complaint, which then asks the U.S. District Court for Wyoming to proclaim the ATF and the nation’s attorney general in violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

DeWilde filed the lawsuit on his own behalf without legal counsel.

En Banc Fifth Circuit Denies Chevron Deference to ATF in Bump Stock Case

A majority of judges concluded the plain language of the statute does not apply to bump stocks, but they also would have denied Chevron deference had they found the statute ambiguous.
Today the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms regulation extending the federal prohibition on machineguns to “bump stocks” is unlawful, as Eugene noted in a post below. In Cargill v. Garland, the judges split 13-3 on the merits, and the 13 in the majority divided on the rationale. Eight of the judges concluded the statute is unambiguous. Five additional judges concluded that, insofar as the statute is ambiguous, it should be interpreted not to cover bump stocks under the Rule of Lenity.

One aspect of the opinion, that appears to be supported by half of the judges on the en banc court, is that even were the statute ambiguous, it would not merit Chevron deference because the agency had not relied upon Chevron. Seven additional judges further concluded that ATF should not get Chevron deference because the statute imposes criminal penalties and the ATF reversed its prior interpretation of the statute. (Judge Oldham joined the first part of the court’s Chevron discussion, but not the rest.)

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New York AG’s Emergency SCOTUS Bid to Preserve Concealed Carry Law Could Mark Showdown Between Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh

New York State Attorney General Letitia James (D) asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to keep its new Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) in effect while a lawsuit works its way through the courts. The emergency filing marks the justices’ first chance to decide a major Second Amendment dispute since it ruled last summer in New York State Rifle v. Bruen.

The 2022 statute was the result of the state legislature’s emergency session which immediately followed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen. The case had been a successful challenge to New York’s century-old handgun licensing regime. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Court’s opinion that the statute was an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment that unduly interfered with New Yorkers’ “special need for self-defense.”

Thomas also noted in his opinion that gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

New York’s legislative response to the Bruen ruling made it a felony to possess a gun in “sensitive areas” — such as museums, stadiums, public transit systems, parks, Times Square and houses of worship — as well as “restricted areas,” such as private property. The CCIA also added training requirements for concealed-carry permits, as well as a mandated written exam, in-person screening, and a review of social media accounts to ensure a licensee’s “good moral character” before licensing

After it was passed, the CCIA came under immediate attack by gun activists in multiple lawsuits.

In one such case, U.S. District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby, a George W. Bush appointee, temporarily blocked the “sensitive places” and “good moral character” portions of the law on the grounds that analogous regulations did not exist in the 18th and 19th century. James successfully appealed that ruling.

A three-judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit next ruled unanimously to stay Suddaby’s order pending the outcome of New York’s appeal and ordered expedited consideration of the case with a Jan. 9, 2023, deadline for briefs.

The panel, which consisted of Circuit Judges Robert D. Sack, a Bill Clinton appointee; Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee; and Joseph F. Bianco, a Donald Trump appointee, is the same trio that stayed another district court order in a separate challenge to the CCIA in December.

The gun owners responded with an emergency petition to the Supreme Court on Dec. 21, 2022, in which they asked the justices to keep the district court ruling in effect while the underlying challenge to the CCIA works its way through the appeal.

In a 43-page responsive brief, James urges the justices to refrain from taking the “extraordinary step” of vacating a circuit court order. In particular, James pointed to the timing of the question before the high court.

“This Court ordinarily awaits percolation of legal issues in the lower courts before granting review and would benefit from such percolation here,” the AG’s brief states.

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2022 Closes with A Nation On the Precipice of Ruination

New York – -(AmmoLand.com)- As one more year draws rapidly to a close in these first three decades of the 21st Century, the United States stands precariously at the edge of an abyss.

After a century of sidestepping the issue, the U.S. Supreme Court established, in three precedential case law decisions, what had been visibly plain in the language of the Second Amendment itself all along if one would only look.

All three cases were handed down in the first three decades of the 21st Century. They include:

District of Columbia vs. Heller in 2008, McDonald vs. City of Chicago in 2010, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen in 2022.

These three cases, together, stand for the following propositions, now black letter law:

  • The right of armed self-defense is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia
  • The right of armed self-defense is a universal right, applicable to both the States and the Federal Government.
  • The right of armed self-defense applies wherever a person is, inside the home or outside it.

These three legal axioms are, together, the singular Law of the Land.

But for this Law, the Republic would have fallen into ruin, this Century.

There would be nothing to rein in a rogue Congress, a rogue Biden Administration, or rogue jurisdictions like those around the Country: New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Washington State, Washington D.C., Oregon, Hawaii, and several others.

The rot from those State jurisdictions and from the Federal Government would eventually infect many other states.

Forces inside the Government and outside it, both here and abroad—wealthy and powerful, malevolent and malignant—constantly machinate to destroy the right to armed self-defense. These forces will not tolerate an armed citizenry. The existence of an armed citizenry contradicts their end goal of a neo-feudalistic world government. The armed citizenry precept deviates from their plan of world conquest.

Their goal for the 21st Century is a return to the political, social, and economic feudalistic construct operating in the world of the 5th through 15th Centuries—the Middle Ages.

These ruthless elements have declared——

  • The United States can no longer continue as a free Constitutional Republic;
  • The American people must be subjugated; and
  • Any thought of an armed citizenry must be erased from the collective memory of the American people.

The ashes of a once powerful, respected, sovereign, independent United States are to be commingled with the ashes of other western nations.

The EU and the British Commonwealth Nations are a step in the direction of that world empire.

The neoliberal democratic world order is conceived as——

  • One devoid of defined geographical borders,
  • One absent national government; and
  • One bereft of any defining history, heritage, culture, ethos, or Judeo-Christian ethic by which the people of one nation may easily distinguish themselves from any other.

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Just to point out; In New York the ‘Supreme Court’ is the same as what others places call a ‘District Court’  or the first court that sits on a case.

NEW YORK SUPREME COURT JUSTICE DEEMS NEW YORK’S RED FLAG LAWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

A New York State Supreme Court Justice ruled last week that New York’s Extreme Risk Protection Order laws, often called Red Flag laws are unconstitutional and declined to issue an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO). As we have written in the past, extreme risk protections have become very popular in anti-gun states and are a way for government officials to take away the Second Amendment rights of individuals who have not committed any crime. Yet, New York’s Red Flag laws were expanded in July of 2022. Justice Thomas E. Moran, of the Rochester based Monroe County Supreme Court struck down these laws in a 10 page decision, in a case entitled G.W. v. C.N., 2022 NY Slip Op 22392 (Monroe County Sup. Ct. 2022).

This particular case highlights everything wrong with Red Flag laws. The Petitioner who filed for the Extreme Risk Protection Order was the estranged boy friend of the Respondent who was a licensed gun owner in New York State. He alleged that his ex-girlfriend was a danger to herself and others and obtained a Temporary Extreme Risk Protection Order. Justice Moran pointed out that the Petition cited a variety of statements that the Respondent allegedly made threatening to harm herself with a gun which the Petition falsely claimed were made within 6 months before the Petition was filed but in fact dated back to 2020 and 2021. The Court also pointed out that there was a Family Court case also going on in which The Petitioner had an Order of Protection against him which among other things barred him from the home that they had shared.

Turning to the Constitutionality of the Article 63-A, which lays out New York’s Red Flag laws and procedures, the Court cited the United States Supreme Court decisions in Heller, McDonald and most recently Bruen and applied the Bruen Standard that when the 2nd Amendment’s text covers a person’s conduct, a law which regulates that conduct is presumptively unconstitutional unless the State can demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the country’s historical tradition of firearms regulations.

The Court also noted that many safeguards of due process that the State had in other analogous situations did not exist in New York’s red flag laws. For example, the Court noted that Red Flag laws and the New York Mental Hygiene Law use the same definition for “likely to result in serious harm”. However, under the New York Mental Hygiene Law, those determinations are made by a Doctor, a person licensed trained and experienced in making such determinations. However, in the case of New York Red Flag laws, most of the authorized Petitioners are not Doctors and are not licensed, trained or experienced in making that determination. Under the Mental Hygiene Law, two doctors are required to make the determination if a person’s liberty is to be taken away for more than 48 hours. No such safeguard is required, not even one doctor is required, before a person loses their gun rights for one year.

Another example cited by the Court is under Article 10 of the Mental Hygiene Law which permits civil detention of certain dangerous sex offenders after they have served their sentence. However, before a Judge can civilly detain someone under this statute, the convicted sex offender is entitled to a Court appointed, free attorney, a state-funded psychiatrist to assist in the defense, a probable cause hearing within 30 days and ultimately a full jury trial before the convicted sex offender’s liberty can be taken away. The Court pointed out that none of those protections exist in New York’s Extreme Risk Protection order Laws.

The Court pointed out that where mental health issues have formed the basis for a loss of fundamental Constitutional rights in the past in New York, the laws have always provided a number of substantive and procedural due process protections none of which are afforded under New York ERPO laws. The Court reiterated a statement from the Supreme Court that Second Amendment rights are not a second class constitutional right.

We should note that this decision, and the Courts reasoning, may form the basis of also striking down many of the Safe Act provisions as they relate to people with past psychiatric issues being prohibited from purchasing or owning guns.

Federal Judge Tosses Lawsuit Opposing Concealed-Carry Ban on D.C. Metro, Finding Challengers Did Not Show ‘Any Threat’ of Prosecution

A federal judge threw out a challenge to D.C.’s concealed pistol law after four D.C.-area residents failed to include a basic part of their case. Although the challengers made multiple arguments about the use of guns in 1600s New England, they included nothing to show that they were — or ever would be — personally affected by the statute. Gregory T. Angelo, Tyler Yzaguirre, and Cameron M. Erickson live in the District of Columbia, and Robert M. Miller lives in Virginia. The four hold licenses to carry firearms, and say that they regularly use public transportation including the D.C. Metro. The plaintiffs waged a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of D.C. Code § 7-2509.07(a)(6), which prohibits the carrying concealed firearms in “sensitive areas,” which include D.C. public transportation, and levies a penalty of fine or imprisonment up to 180 days for violators.

In their 35-page complaint, the four alleged that if it were not for the statute, they would carry their concealed handguns on the Metro and buses for self-defense. They said that because of the statute, they now refrain from doing so because they fear arrest and prosecution.

Taking cues from the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen, the challengers pointed to Justice Clarence Thomas’s recently established test that gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The plaintiffs reached back centuries in support of their argument that there is “no basis to label the Metro as a sensitive area,” providing an extensive history of gun law anecdotes going back to the early 1600s in the U.S. and several hundred years prior in Europe. Plaintiffs allowed that, “Public transportation systems did not exist as they do today at the founding of the nation,” but argued that because, “a March 9, 1636 ordinance provided that every person above 18 years of age (except magistrates and elders of the churches) were ordered to ‘come to public assemblies with their muskets,’” that 2022 concealed-carry restrictions conflict with our nation’s founding principles.

The D.C. law, said the plaintiffs, interferes with their Second Amendment right of self-defense and goes far beyond any limits imposed by Supreme Court precedent.

They asked the court to issue either a preliminary or a permanent injunction, restricting enforcement of the statute.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, a Barack Obama appointee, rejected their argument, finding that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove harm. They provided no evidence that the law has been used to prosecute anyone, much less the four of them.

Moss wrote in the court’s 25-page ruling that in order to establish Article III standing, all plaintiffs must demonstrate some kind of “injury in fact.” In other words, it is not enough for a plaintiff to simply disagree with a law — that plaintiff must be actually harmed by the law. That’s where the four plaintiffs fell short.

Moss pointed out that, “No plaintiff in this case has been arrested and prosecuted — or threatened with arrest or prosecution or with the imposition of a civil penalty — for violating the provision of D.C. law at issue here.” Moreover, none of the plaintiffs even alleged that they have either been “singled out” or were somehow “uniquely targeted” for prosecution, said Moss. Without such a showing, the plaintiffs could not sufficiently establish their right to bring the lawsuit.

According to the Moss, the case’s shortcomings went farther. Not only did the plaintiffs fail to show that they were especially at risk of prosecution, but they did not show that anyone was at risk of prosecution.

“Plaintiffs have failed to proffer any evidence relating to any threat or risk of enforcement,” wrote Moss. To underscore the omission, Moss recounted exchanges from oral argument in which the court appeared to prompt the plaintiffs’ lawyer to provide the kind of evidence that could have supported the claim:

Indeed, when asked at oral argument, Plaintiffs’ counsel was unable to identify any case in which an individual licensed to carry a handgun has ever been prosecuted simply for carrying a concealed handgun on a Metrorail train or a Metrobus. Instead, Plaintiffs’ counsel merely speculated that those carrying concealed handguns often pat their sides (to confirm that they have their guns with them) and that, by doing so, they might provide a tell for law enforcement officers and thereby invite arrest.

Moss also called out the attorney for a general response to the specific question of threat of enforcement. Moss said that during colloquy with the court, plaintiffs’ counsel answered that the Metropolitan Police Department “invariably arrests those who violate any of ‘the myriad of firearms regulations’ in the District of Columbia,” but noted that, “Neither statement by counsel, however, is evidence, and the evidence that Plaintiffs have offered says nothing about the risk of criminal or civil enforcement of § 7-2509.07(a)(6).”

Moss denied both requested injunctions.

Counsel for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Now in court proceedings, all evidence is submitted to the bench for admission into the trial and all parties have access to the evidence. Since this means that, at least the prosecutors had access to the video the jury saw, the continued prosecution, instead of the charges being dismissed, informs us that “justice” has devolved into some other thing.

Concealed Carrying Woman Shoots 2, Killing 1, Acquitted With Video Evidence

DAYTON, OHIO — A woman got to return home for the holidays after shooting two women, killing one, in Dayton, Ohio, last December.

Georgia Jackson, 36, shot these two women Dec. 2021. She was indicted in August on two counts of murder and four counts of felonious assault, according to the Dayton Daily News.

However, it’s apparently been determined that she acted in self-defense. It didn’t hurt that there was video evidence to back Jackson up.

Jackson was reportedly charged following a shooting Dec. 19, 2021 where she shot Ashley Webster, 34 and an unnamed 27-year-old.

The defense reportedly wrote that Webster threatened Jackson and a man with whom she attended a holiday party. Webster then allegedly made four trips to Jackson’s home, during one of which she attempted block Jackson’s vehicle with her own.

She then “attempted to assault the defendant with an object,” the defense wrote according to the Dayton Daily News.

“During this final attempted assault, the defendant, a licensed CCW carrier, invoked her right to self-defense and defense of another.”

Webster died on the scene, while the other woman was non-fatally wounded.

“During this time, the individual responsible for shooting both females called 911, provided her location and was detained,” Dayton police Maj. Jason Hall said according to the Dayton Daily News.

“The initial indications are that the deceased and the suspect were known to each other and had been involved in an ongoing dispute that tragically escalated into gunfire.”

The defense invoked Ohio’s Stand Your Ground law, and Jackson’s charges were dismissed.

“The shooting death of Ashley Webster by the defendant was fully investigated and the police believed this to be a case of murder,” the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office stated.

“At trial, the defendant claimed self-defense and was found not guilty by the jury.”

It sounds like her case for self defense is pretty apparent. It’s a shame so much of her time and pains were taken for crimes she didn’t commit.

BLUF
So let’s be clear about what the Defensive Gun Use Database shows, and what Heritage’s position is: Civilians—just like the law enforcement officers who are exempt from these restrictions—sometimes need to defend themselves with more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

And in those cases where more than 10 rounds are needed, the extra ammunition may mean the difference between life or death.

BOLD-FACED LIE: Gun Control Groups Twist Heritage Foundation Data Out of Recognition in Court Documents

A conglomerate of gun control groups has filed a brief in federal court supporting the District of Columbia in a lawsuit challenging the city’s prohibition on civilian possession of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

This was not at all surprising.

What was quite perplexing, however, was the gun control groups’ citation of two of my recent monthly articles for The Daily Signal on defensive gun use. The groups claim the two articles “support” the premise that the District’s ban doesn’t negatively affect law-abiding gun owners, because none of the cases I cited “involved the use of anywhere close to 10 rounds of ammunition.”

Worse, the gun control groups spun this as The Heritage Foundation, among others, having “acknowledged that the ability to fire more than 10 rounds of ammunition without reloading is not necessary for defensive purposes.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

These are incredible claims in the most literal sense: They lack any credibility.

At best, the legal brief’s characterization of my monthly articles on defensive gun use is lazy to the point of recklessness and wrongly attributes to my employer, The Heritage Foundation, a policy position that it doesn’t hold. At worst, this constitutes an intentional effort to manipulate a federal court with a blatantly misleading representation of Heritage’s work on defensive gun use.

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SAF SUES NEW JERSEY OVER NEW CONCEALED CARRY LAW

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a federal lawsuit against the State of New Jersey, challenging the state’s new gun control law prohibiting licensed concealed carry in an expanded list of so-called “sensitive places,” and further criminalizes carrying an operable handgun “while in a vehicle.”

Joining SAF are the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners and the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, along with three private citizens, Nicholas Gaudio, Jeffrey M. Muller and Ronald Koons. Plaintiffs are represented by attorney David D. Jensen, David Jensen PLLC, of Beacon, N.Y.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The case is known as Koons et al v. Reynolds et al.

Named as defendants are Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds, Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. Macaulay, Sussex County Prosecutor Annemarie Taggart, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and State Police Supt. Patrick Callahan, in their official capacities.

Shortly after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed the new legislation on Dec. 22, SAF and its partners quickly filed the lawsuit.

“We are asking for a declaratory judgment against certain tenets of the new legislation,” explained SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We are also seeking a preliminary and/or permanent injunction restraining the defendants and their officers, agents and other employees from enforcing the challenged segments of the law.

“The specific sections of law violate the right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment,” he continued. “There is no established historical tradition that could be used to justify these restrictions. This new legislation literally criminalizes licensed concealed carry just about everywhere, making a mockery of the right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment.”

“New Jersey’s Legislature and Governor have shown that they do not wish to heed the Supreme Court’s guidance as to the bounds of the right to bear arms in Bruen,” said SAF’s Executive Director Adam Kraut.  “Despite clear directives as to a citizens’ right to bear arms, New Jersey continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional rights of its citizens in the name of ‘safety’. Such disregard for the rights of New Jerseyans will not be tolerated. As such, we are seeking to vindicate the rights of our members and the public in an expeditious manner. It is a shame the elected officials of New Jersey have no respect for the enumerated rights of the People and continue to needlessly waste their state’s tax dollars passing unconstitutional laws which render the common person defenseless.”

Shots filed: New Jersey hit with first lawsuits over new carry laws

When he joined me on Cam & Co earlier this week, Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs executive director Scott Bach promised that a lawsuit challenging the state’s new concealed carry restrictions would be filed before the ink was dry on Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature, and the group has delivered; submitting a complaint to the U.S. District Court in New Jersey on behalf of the organization and seven individual plaintiffs that seeks an injunction blocking enforcement of the law.

In fact, the lawsuit was one of at least two that have been filed in the hours since Murphy put pen to paper. A coalition including the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, and three individual plaintiffs have filed their own suit in federal court that also seeks injunctive relief against the new laws.

Interestingly, one of the plaintiffs in the SAF/FPC/CNJFO/NJSAS lawsuit was one of the rare individuals who had been able to obtain a carry license under the state’s previous “may issue” regime. As long as the state could allow broad discretion in choosing who could exercise their right to carry, those blessed by the State to do so enjoyed wide latitude. Now that the Supreme Court has instructed the state that a right of the people means just that, however, New Jersey lawmakers have suddenly declared that guys like 72-year old Jeffrey Mueller are a clear and present danger. From page 17 of the complaint, authored by attorney David Jensen:

Plaintiff Muller is one of the very few New Jersey citizens who was able to obtain a permit to a permit prior to Bruen. In January 2010, an out-of-state gang kidnapped Plaintiff Muller and took him to Missouri, where he was able to escape and summons help. Plaintiff Muller was thereafter a key witness in the kidnappers’ prosecution. Notwithstanding this, Plaintiff Muller obtained a permit only after litigating a judge’s denial of his application, which the New Jersey State Police had approved. One of Plaintiff Muller’s attackers remains in prison in New Jersey, and another was released last month (in November 2022).

After Plaintiff Muller obtained his permit to carry in June 2011, and he began carrying a handgun most of the time. The prosecution against Plaintiff Muller’s attackers was ongoing, and he was particularly concerned about protecting himself. In recent years, as time has passed, Plaintiff Muller has carried a gun less than he did during the years following June 2011, but until just now he has continued to carry a handgun on a regular basis.

Among other places, Plaintiff Muller has often carried a handgun while shopping at stores such as ShopRite, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Company, stopping at gas stations, getting food at delis and restaurants, including restaurants that serve alcohol. Plaintiff Muller has carried a handgun while attending appointments with his physician and dentist. Plaintiff Muller has carried a handgun while walking in parks and while taking his grandchildren to playgrounds. Plaintiff Muller has also carried a handgun while visiting libraries, as well as while attending music shows at public entertainment venues. Finally, Plaintiff Muller has carried a handgun while attending trade shows at casino facilities (i.e. in a conference room, not on the casino floor). While he does not recall carrying a handgun while using public transit, or while visiting a museum or a theater, Plaintiff Muller would want to be able to carry a handgun in any of these places were he to be present there. As a general premise, when Plaintiff Muller carries a handgun, he normally carries it with him throughout the day, unless he is going to a place that prohibits guns, such as a school. Up until now, Plaintiff Mulller has normally carried his handgun in a holster on his person while traveling in car.

All of those actions are now illegal under the New Jersey law signed today, simply because the anti-civil rights Democratic majority in Trenton couldn’t stand the thought of New Jersey residents being able to do the same without having to be kidnapped and taken to another state in order to prove their “need” to carry a firearm.

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I’m not the only one who is of the opinion that Goobernor Newsome’s believing this is somehow a ‘win’ for abortion rights is a fantasy. RKBA is a right that is actually addressed in the Bill of Rights. Abortion isn’t. However, as Goobernor Newsome and Attorney General Bonta aren’t likely to appeal this, all fore the good as it will make lawsuits against California’s gun control laws easier .

Federal judge strikes down California’s ‘fee-shifting’ gun control scheme, which echoed Texas abortion law

A federal judge has blocked the state of California from enforcing a gun control scheme that was modeled after a controversial Texas abortion law, delivering Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom the exact outcome he wanted.

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued a permanent injunction on Monday against the “fee-shifting” provisions of the state’s gun law – which empowers private citizens to bring lawsuits against manufacturers of illegal guns – declaring it unconstitutional.

“‘It is cynical. ‘It is an abomination.’ ‘It is outrageous and objectionable.’ ‘There is no dispute that it raises serious constitutional questions.’ ‘It is an unprecedented attempt to thwart judicial review,’” Benitez wrote in his opinion, quoting directly from Newsom’s criticisms of the Texas abortion law.

The Texas measure makes abortions illegal after a fetal heartbeat can be detected and permits private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone else who assists in a woman’s procurement of abortion for $10,000. This fee-shifting mechanism was designed to protect the 2021 law from judicial review to circumvent the Supreme Court’s old abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade. The high court has since overturned that precedent, permitting states to restrict, or liberalize, abortion.

Newsom called on the California legislature to enact a similar law for guns days after the Supreme Court ruled than the Texas heartbeat law could remain in effect following a legal challenge.

California’s gun law also creates a private right-of-action for citizens to sue gun manufactures who make “assault weapons and ghost guns” for $10,000. Newsom described the law as virtually identical to the Texas provisions, but Benitez wrote that “California’s law goes even further.” He observed that the gun control statute denies a prevailing plaintiff attorneys fees. Further, Benitez emphasized that only the California measure “applies to laws affecting a clearly enumerated constitutional right set forth in our nation’s founding documents.”

“Whether these distinctions are enough to save the Texas law fee-shifting provision from judicial scrutiny remains to be seen,” Benitez wrote. “And although it would be tempting to comment on it, the Texas law is not before this Court for determination.”

The judge’s order is likely to set up a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the outcome Newsom desired. The governor’s office called it “hypocritical” to block the state’s gun law while permitting the Texas abortion measure to stand.

“I want to thank Judge Benitez. We have been saying all along that Texas’ anti-abortion law is outrageous. Judge Benitez just confirmed it is also unconstitutional,” Newsom said in a statement Monday. “The provision in California’s law that he struck down is a replica of what Texas did, and his explanation of why this part of SB 1327 unfairly blocks access to the courts applies equally to Texas’ SB 8. There is no longer any doubt that Texas’ cruel anti-abortion law should also be struck down.”