Category: Goobermint

Oregon’s attorney general concedes state unable to put permit-to-purchase gun program in place by date Measure 114 becomes law

Two days after telling a federal judge that Oregonians will be able to apply for a permit to buy a gun by the end of this week, Oregon’s attorney general Sunday night acknowledged the state isn’t ready to have a permitting process in place as required by the voter-approved gun control Measure 114.

In a three-page letter to the court filed at 9:14 p.m. Sunday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Brian Simmonds Marshall conceded that local law enforcement agencies have made it clear that “necessary pieces of the permit to purchase system will not be in place” by this coming Thursday, the date the measure is set to take effect.

The attorney general’s concession echoes what gun rights advocates have argued for the past several weeks and have informed U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut in multiple legal briefs filed in pending lawsuits.

The attorney general has recommended the permit requirement be postponed until February while the measure’s other regulations are allowed to go into effect.

“The State’s position that Measure 114 is constitutional on its face remains the same,” Marshall’s letter said.

The voter-approved measure, which narrowly passed with 50.7% of the vote, will ban the sale, transfer and manufacture of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds; require a permit to purchase a gun; and not allow a gun sale or transfer to occur without a background check completed.

The attorney general’s office admitted in its letter to the court that the firearms safety courses that are required before someone can obtain a permit to buy a gun are not yet available.

Oregonians should be allowed to continue to buy guns without a permit during a ‘‘limited window,’’ until the state has a full permitting process in place, the attorney general’s letter recommends. Meanwhile, the state will continue to work to get a process up and running, Marshall wrote.

“The State’s proposed postponement would mean that, while the permitting system is brought online, Oregonians who lack a permit will be able to purchase and transfer firearms. Meanwhile, the State and local law enforcement would continue to work towards implementing Measure 114′s permit provisions. Moreover, Oregonians would be able to begin the application process. When the Court’s order expires, Measure 114′s permit requirement for purchases would go into effect,” Marshall wrote to the judge.

The attorney general’s office pointed to the court declaration by Jason Myers, a retired Marion County sheriff who is now executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association. Myers estimated it will take at least another month to prepare an operational permit system.

In a press release, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum recommended the permit to buy a gun requirement be postponed until February.

“Postponing the permit requirement by approximately two months should give Oregon law enforcement time to have a fully functional permitting system in place. If Judge Immergut agrees to the postponement, then starting in February anyone who purchases a gun in Oregon will be required to have a permit,” Rosenblum said in the release.

Marshall wrote to the court that the state is “committed to working cooperatively with its partners in local law enforcement.”

For the measure to achieve its goal of enhancing public safety, “it is critical that local law enforcement has adequate time to effectively implement the Measure,” Marshall’s letter said.

Under the measure, anyone applying for a permit to buy a gun must complete a training course that includes instruction on state and federal laws related to purchase, ownership, transfer, use and transportation of guns; safe storage of guns including reporting of lost and stolen firearms; how to prevent the abuse or misuse of firearms, including the impact of homicide and suicide on families, communities and the country; and a demonstration that the applicant knows how to lock, load, unload, fire and store a firearm before an instructor certified by a law enforcement agency.

Myers had informed the judge in writing that the sheriffs’ association was unaware of any firearms safety course in Oregon that currently covers all the training requirements.

Immergut held a two-hour hearing Friday morning on the Oregon Firearms Federation’s motion for a temporary restraining order to block the regulations from going into effect as its lawsuit proceeds, contending the measure impinges on their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Most of the argument Friday, though, focused on the provision banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

When Immergut asked Marshall during the hearing if the regulations will be ready to take effect on Thursday, he pledged that Oregonians will be able to apply for a permit then. State police later in the day issued a news release, saying a permit application would be on the agency’s website on Thursday.

Other suits filed challenging the gun control measure included declarations from the sheriffs’ associations and the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police. They argued that their agencies are unprepared and not staffed or funded to support a permitting program for prospective buyers.

Immergut had said at the end of last week that she would rule by Tuesday on whether to grant a temporary restraining order that would put the voter-approved measure on hold.

The judge has given parties to the pending four federal lawsuits until noon Monday to submit any friend of court briefs in support or against the pending motions for a temporary restraining order.

The Rev. Mark Knutson, one of the chief petitioners behind Measure 114, said Sunday night that the Lift Every Voice Oregon interfaith group that obtained signatures to put the measure to voters “wants the most equitable and just process possible…We want this done right to save lives.”

Kevin Starrett, executive director of the Oregon Firearms Federation, said he’s concerned about the tens of thousands of prospective gun buyers currently waiting to have their background checks completed by state police. “They are not going to clear that backlog quickly,” he said by email.

Since Election Day, gun sales in the state have spiked. As of Friday, state police had 41,160 background checks pending for gun purchases or transfers, Capt. Kyle Kennedy said. On Black Friday, the state police received 6,055 new background check requests, the highest amount since Election Day, he said.

— Maxine Bernstein

Well, they’re welcome to apply for admittance.

As Canada Prepares to Confiscate Guns, Some Provinces Rebel Against the Policy

Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s government is coming for people’s firearms. There will be a mass gun confiscation program, as his administration banned some 1,500 firearms with a freeze on handgun sales for the time being. Gun control advocates up north have long advocated for a handgun ban, which could be the next step amid Trudeau’s anti-gun crusade. It’s estimated that some 150,000 legally registered firearms are scheduled to be seized by the government. The rash of new gun laws comes after the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooter, which left 22 people dead. The shooter, Gabriel Wortman, was later killed by police.

These new anti-gun measures were proposed but not passed until after the 2021 Canadian federal election, where Trudeau’s government hung onto power. One of their promises is to enact stricter gun control laws. The rough draft of the proposal called for a voluntary gun buyback policy, a fancy word for confiscation. Now, fresh off an election win, it’s a mandatory act, though some provinces will not assist in the effort. Trudeau’s gun seizure agenda has led to a further straining of relationships between the capital, Ottawa, and the rest of the country it would seem (via Washington Post):

After a gunman rampaged across rural Nova Scotia in 2020, killing 22 people in Canada’s worst mass killing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau banned some 1,500 makes and models of “military-grade” assault-style firearms and pledged to buy them back from owners.

Now, as Canada’s Liberal government prepares to launch the first phase of the mandatory buyback, several provinces and territories say they won’t help.

The most strident opponents, including the United Conservative Party government in Alberta, are suggesting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “refuse to participate.” Tyler Shandro, the province’s justice minister, declared the buyback was not “an objective, priority or goal” of the province or its Mounties. Alberta, he said, is “not legally obligated to provide resources for it.”

Marco Mendicino, Canada’s public safety minister, has cast Alberta’s “reckless” position as a “political stunt.” But Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick have also balked at using “scarce RCMP resources” for the program.

“New Brunswick’s bottom line is this: RCMP resources are spread thin as it is,” said Kris Austin, the province’s public safety minister. “We have made it clear to the government of Canada that we cannot condone any use of those limited resources, at all, in their planned buyback program.”

The dispute is one of several that’s inflaming tensions between Ottawa and the provinces. Alberta and Saskatchewan, long estranged from the capital, recently introduced bills to seek greater “sovereignty” for their provinces and to fight what they see as federal “intrusion.”

Yukon’s government said it supports Trudeau’s gun-control proposals and is committed to finding a balance between counteracting the adverse impacts of illegal firearms and respecting hunting rights. But Tracy-Anne McPhee, the territory’s justice minister, has told Mendicino that its RCMP lacks the “administrative, personnel or the financial resources” to participate without additional support, a spokeswoman said.

I like the Second Amendment sanctuary attitude some of these premiers have taken. Still, sadly, without an explicit right to bear arms, that’s codified like the one in our Bill of Rights—I think there will be some chilling videos of Canadian federal police officers showing up at people’s homes and taking their private property. And somehow, there will be a slew of liberal writers defending how the government taking the property of law-abiding citizenry is essential to the health of a democracy. That’s not healthy—that’s cancer.

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Immergut said she expected to rule on Monday or Tuesday as to whether to issue a temporary restraining order. Regardless of what she decides, a more involved hearing is still expected on the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to block the law from being implemented until a final ruling on the law’s constitutionality.

Judge says she’ll decide next week whether to delay new Oregon gun law

The new law requiring a permit to purchase a gun and banning high-capacity magazines was approved by voters in November, but faces multiple legal challenges

A federal judge Friday said she will decide early next week whether or not she would block a voter-approved gun law days before it is set to take effect.

“This is a very complicated area of law,” U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut said, explaining she wanted to review the two sides’ arguments and the cases they referenced before making her decision, particularly given a recent Supreme Court ruling dramatically changing the standards that must be applied to gun laws. “It’s a new landscape.”

Immergut said issuing a temporary restraining order to block Oregon’s Measure 114 from going into effect as scheduled on Dec. 8 would be an extraordinary remedy. Though, that is exactly what the people who have brought the lawsuit want.

The law would require anyone purchasing a firearm to get a permit first and ban magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

The new provisions were narrowly approved by voters in the Nov. 8 election, carried largely by broad support in the state’s more liberal, populous counties. In some rural counties, voters opposed the measure by as much as a three to one margin.

The lawsuit, one of three filed seeking to block the law from taking effect, was brought by the gun rights group the Oregon Firearms Federation, gun store owners in Marion and Umatilla Counties and three sheriffs: Sherman County Sheriff Brad Lohrey, Union County Sheriff Cody Bowen and Malheur County Sheriff Brian Wolfe.

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Another Lawsuit Filed Against Oregon for Most Restrictive Gun Law in the Country

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Oregon State Shooting Association (OSSA), and Mazama Sporting Goods filed a lawsuit against the state’s recently passed Ballot Measure 114, which is considered one of the strictest gun control laws in the country. 

The lawsuit claims that the measure infringes upon the right of Oregon residents to buy and own firearms, imposing “severe and unprecedented burdens on individuals seeking to exercise perhaps the most basic right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

This is the third lawsuit filed since November 8, which was filed by the Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF), Sherman County Sheriff’s Department, Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC).

“The deficiencies in this ballot measure cannot go unaddressed. Forget that it is scheduled to go into effect before Oregon even certifies the election, but it requires potential gun owners to take a class that has yet to be created, at a cost yet to be determined, so that they can obtain a permit that doesn’t permit them to purchase a firearm,” NRA Oregon state director Aoibheann Cline said in a statement to the Daily Caller.

The strict measure will require residents to get background checks, firearm training (which does not currently exist), fingerprint collection, and a permit to purchase any firearm.

The lawsuit also alleges that the measure creates a “Kafkaesque regime” which they claim is not supported by history, tradition, or modern regulation.

“Oregon’s Measure 114 is blatantly unconstitutional,” NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane said, adding “the right to keep and bear arms begins with the ability of law-abiding citizens to be able to obtain a firearm through a lawful purchase at a firearm retailer.”

He also said that it threatens the most constitutional right… “Oregon has created an impossible-to-navigate labyrinth that will achieve nothing except to deny Second Amendment rights to its citizens. The measure is an affront to civil liberties which belong to People, not to the state to grant on impossible and subjective criteria,” Keane added.

The state has rushed to pass the measure, meaning no one will be able to buy a firearm beginning on December 8.

“Saint Benitez” delivers another win to gun owners (and legal smackdown to California AG)

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, affectionately known as “Saint Benitez” among Second Amendment activists for his string of decisions striking down California gun control laws (decisions that have, unfortunately, largely been stymied by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges), has unleashed his latest opinion on California Attorney General Rob Bonta in two cases that deal with a weaselly attempt by Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers to make it financially risky to challenge the state’s gun laws in court.

Shortly after the state of Texas passed their anti-abortion law allowing abortion providers to be sued by private citizens and the Supreme Court declined to block it from taking effect, Newsom declared his intent to fire a responding shot in the culture war; this one aimed at the Second Amendment.

Not long after the Supreme Court issued the Bruen decision, Newsom and his legislative allies approved SB 1327, which not only allows California residents to bring their own lawsuits against companies that violate California gun control laws, but imposed a new fee shifting standard on plaintiffs who challenge any of the state’s gun control measures: unless the plaintiffs are successful on each and every complaint they allege, they’re responsible for paying 100% of the state’s attorneys fees. If, on the other hand, the plaintiffs do manage to meet that impossibly high bar, the state is not obligated to pay a dime of their costs.

Two lawsuits were immediately filed in the wake of SB 1327’s enactment; Miller v. Bonta, brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition, and South Bay Rod & Gun v. Bonta from a coalition including the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (where, in full disclosure, I serve as an unpaid board member), Gun Owners of California, Second Amendment Law Center, and the California Rifle & Pistol Association.

On November 28th, Judge Benitez held a hearing on a request for an injunction in the cases. The arguments from the plaintiffs were quite simple; in fact, they were able to throw Bonta’s own words back in his face, since the California AG had previously filed an amicus brief in the challenge to the Texas abortion law on constitutional grounds. Bonta is now forced to defend the very practice he declared unconstitutional just a few months ago, and his chief argument was a weak one: his claim that he won’t enforce the law unless or until the Supreme Court has officially ruled on the constitutionality of the Texas abortion statute. That stance, he argued, should be enough to moot both of these cases, but in today’s ruling Judge Benitez rejected Bonta’s defense in no uncertain terms.

The American court system and its forum for peacefully resolving disputes is the envy of the world. One might question the wisdom of a state law that dissuades gun owners from using the courts to peacefully resolve disagreements over the constitutionality of state laws.

The law at issue here is novel. As four concurring Justices recently said in a Texas case with similarities, “where the mere ‘commencement of a suit,’ and in fact just the threat of it, is the ‘actionable injury to another,’ the principles underlying [Ex parte] Young authorize relief against the court officials who play an essential role in that scheme. Any novelty in this remedy is a direct result of the novelty of Texas’s scheme.” Whole Woman’s Health, 142 S. Ct., at 544-45 (citations omitted). The same principles authorize relief against the state officials here.…

If Defendant Attorney General committed to not enforcing § 1021.11 and entered into a consent judgment binding himself, his office, his successors and district attorneys, county counsel, and city attorneys, it might be a closer question. Again, this does not prevent future Attorneys General or other state statutes from being enacted and enforced. But that is not this case. In this case, the commitment of non-enforcement is conditional. The Defendant Attorney General says that his cessation of enforcement in a seeming case of tit-for-tat will end if, and when, a purportedly similar one-sided fee-shifting Texas statute is adjudged to be constitutional. Certainly, that condition may or may not occur. In the meantime, the statute remains on California’s books. And the actual chilling effect on these Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights remains. Therefore, the case is not moot.

Bonta’s attempt to avoid having to defend the indefensible has failed, and both Miller and South Bay Rod & Gun will now move forward. In response to Benitez’s decision, Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb declared that “California cannot be permitted to use the law to suppress constitutional challenges to its increasingly radical gun control schemes”, and today’s decision is a key step towards a broader decision consigning SB 1327 to the dustbin of history.

FPC Files Lawsuit Challenging Oregon “Large Capacity” Magazine Ban as Unconstitutional

PORTLAND, OR (November 30, 2022) – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it has filed a new Second Amendment lawsuit challenging Oregon Measure 114’s ban on magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds and requested a temporary restraining order to prevent the ban from being enforced while the case continues. The complaint and motion in Fitz v. Rosenblum can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“The State of Oregon has criminalized one of the most common and important means by which its citizens can exercise their fundamental right of self-defense,” argues the complaint. “By banning the manufacture, importation, possession, use, purchase, sale, or transfer of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds (‘standard capacity magazines’), the State has barred law-abiding residents from legally acquiring or possessing common ammunition magazines and deprived them of an effective means of self-defense.”

“Today’s filings are proof yet again that when statist idealogues attempt to unilaterally restrict the rights of peaceable people, FPC will step up and fight back,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “And the good people of Oregon should keep their eyes peeled for additional FPC responses to the incredibly flawed Ballot Measure 114.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation.

Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up at JoinFPC.org. Individuals and organizations wanting to support charitable efforts in support of the restoration of Second Amendment and other natural rights can also make a tax-deductible donation to the FPC Action Foundation. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visit FPCLegal.org and follow FPC on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org), a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exists to create a world of maximal human liberty, defend constitutional rights, advance individual liberty, and restore freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs.

FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.

Bans on “Assault” Weapons Do Not Reduce Crime

Prominent Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have repeatedly expressed interest in reinstating a federal assault weapons ban. Biden himself included an assault weapon ban in his 1994 crime bill, which lasted ten years until its expiration in 2004. Biden has claimed that the ban did its job and reduced mass shootings: “When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.”

But a detailed review of the data demonstrates that the ban had no real benefits whatsoever, and neither did it lessen the frequency of major shootings.

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Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy questions law enforcement funding for ‘Second Amendment sanctuaries’

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Sunday that there needs to be a “conversation” about whether to continue to fund law enforcement in a “Second Amendment sanctuary state” or counties that are “refusing to implement” gun laws that are on the books.

Murphy said “Second Amendment sanctuaries” are counties that have declared that they are “not going to enforce state and federal gun laws” and that there needs to be discussion in the Senate over whether they want to continue to fund law enforcement in these counties.

CNN’s Dana Bash followed up and asked if he wanted to withhold funding for law enforcement.

“I think we have to have a conversation about whether we can continue to fund law enforcement in states where they’re refusing to implement these gun laws,” Murphy said. “I’ll talk to my colleagues about what our approach should be to this problem. But 60% of counties in this country are refusing to implement the nation’s gun laws. We’ve got to do something about that.”

Murphy said the county where the Colorado shooting at Club Q happened is a “Second Amendment sanctuary state.”

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Skynet smiles

Dystopia Arrives in San Francisco: Authorities Introduce Policy Granting Robots a License to Kill.

In this episode of Dystopian Moments on the Left…

While I hesitate to make comparisons to George Orwell’s dystopian account of a future totalitarian state in the classic “1984” while writing about the crazy goings on in today’s America, what term is better suited when dystopia finally arrives? That is if you consider killer robots taking out human beings in the streets.

The San Francisco Police Department has submitted a proposal to city officials, which is likely to be approved on November 29, that would give robots the license to use deadly force against suspects who threaten the lives of citizens or police officers — with military-style weapons, no less.

Look, I’m all in on the notion that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, but — and maybe it’s just me — robots armed with military-style weapons killing human beings sounds a bit creepy and, well, Orwellian. Nonetheless, as reported by Mission Local, the draft policy reads:

Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when the risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.

San Francisco’s rules committee unanimously approved a version of the draft last week, which will face the Board of Supervisors on November 29th, where it’s likely to sail through. The Board will also be required to sign off on the purchase of any new military-style equipment, but the police will be able to replace existing equipment up to a value of $10 million without approval.

Tifanei Moyer, senior staff attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, wrote in an email, as noted by Mission Local, that the policy isn’t standard and that legal professionals and citizens should reject the idea.

We are living in a dystopian future, where we debate whether the police may use robots to execute citizens without a trial, jury, or judge. This is not normal. No legal professional or ordinary resident should carry on as if it is normal.

That’s a bit nonsensical in my book, given that an officer in the same situation, as outlined earlier, would make the same deadly force decision — or would he or she? Jennifer Tu, a fellow with the American Friends Service Committee, appears to disagree:

There is a really big difference between hurting someone right in front of you, and hurting someone via a video screen.

The SFPD has 17 robots in its arsenal, 12 of which are fully functional. According to police spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca, they have never been used to attack anyone. That appears about to change. If the policy is approved as expected, it will just be a matter of time before a robot takes out a suspect.

Hell, let’s extrapolate. How long will it be before deadly robots patrol the crime-infested streets of cities across America? If it someday happens, would that be a good thing or bad? Questions abound.

On November 29, San Francisco and its citizenry will likely take a giant step forward — or would that be backward?  All the way to George Orwell’s 1984.

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Biden may have directly named Elon Musk at that press conference, but his threat was aimed at every household in America.

Biden’s not-so-subtle lurch toward dictatorship

In the wake of the midterm elections, President Joe Biden was asked during a rare press conference, in reference to Twitter’s new owner, whether he thought Elon Musk was a threat to national security. With a pause and a smirk, the president said that topic was “ worthy of being looked at. ”

With those words, Biden made it clear that if you even seem to oppose his politics, your private life will be under the direct scrutiny of the state. Despite his constant prattle about saving our democracy, Biden seems to think he’s running an authoritarian police state.

In truth, the federal government already maintains entities that review acquisitions such as Musk’s for anything from foreign influence to anti-competitive business practices. After many months in which Musk’s negotiations to purchase Twitter happened in full public view, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that she sees no basis for the government to investigate that purchase.

Despite Musk’s having followed the law, Biden, on a whim, wants to change the game. Suddenly, and after years of Twitter and other social media having significant foreign investors, a normal and transparent voluntary transaction is a potential “threat to national security.”

Biden signaled his desire to strip off the veneer of the rule of law and use the power of the presidency as a dictator would—by his whim and without respect for the rules that everyone else must abide by.

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New Jersey: Bruen-Buster Bill Is Back

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- On Monday, November 21, the full Assembly is expected to vote on A.4769.  This legislation started out as a “copy-cat” strategy, mimicking what New York did to lash out at the Supreme Court post-Bruen.  The bill arbitrarily and drastically expands the number of places labeled as “sensitive places” where concealed carry is prohibited.

Over the last month, the bill has been assigned to multiple committees and has been amended several times to clean up drafting errors, among other things.  Incredibly, this bill is so deeply flawed that all of this time and effort has been spent in vain.  Anti-gun Majority Democrats deny that the United States Supreme Court affirmed the right to carry.  The court spoke resolutely and was unambiguous.

Your immediate assistance is needed to help block A.4769, which is unconstitutional and will:

  • Drastically increase the cost of obtaining permits and credentials.
  • Expand the already-rigorous New Jersey training requirements.
  • Use social media and online posts as grounds to deny permits.
  • Require gun owners to acquire insurance, even though it is not known whether or not this type of insurance is even available or legal.
  • Ban carry on all private property unless the owner posts signage permitting it.
  • Expand the number of “sensitive places” to include arenas, parks, beaches, restaurants, and theatres, among other public places.
  • Ban carry at public gatherings.
  • Perhaps most offensively, it would create a special class of public officials who do not need a permit to carry, and these privileged individuals will be exempt from the no-carry zones.

Ultimately, this legislation is destined to end up back where in began – in the courts.  New Jersey has enough serious problems where the Legislature does not need to be wasting taxpayer dollars debating and defending legislation that is already settled law!

Md. handgun licensing lacks historical roots, gun group tells 4th Circuit

Maryland’s licensing requirement for would-be handgun buyers infringes upon the constitutional right of people to keep arms for personal protection in their home and has no historical roots from either 18th- or 19th-century America, gun rights advocates told a federal appeals court Wednesday.

Maryland Shall Issue made its argument as the 4th Circuit considers whether the state’s handgun qualification license, or HQL, comports with the Second Amendment and its most recent interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In June, the high court ruled 6-3 that gun restrictions are valid only if in keeping with the constitutional text, history and tradition of state firearm regulations when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791 or when the 14th Amendment extended the right to keep and bear arms to the states in 1868.

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh told the 4th Circuit last month that the history and tradition of ensuring gun owners are trained in firearm use dates to 1792 – the year after the Second Amendment’s ratification — when Congress enacted the Uniform Militia Act. Several states passed similar statutes shortly after, Frosh stated in papers filed with the appellate court.

In its response, MSI distinguished the militia laws from Maryland’s HQL.

“Whereas the HQL requirement requires nearly everyone to complete the firearm safety course before acquiring a handgun, militia laws required militia training only after the militia men had acquired a handgun or other firearm,” MSI wrote in its 4th Circuit filing. “No state required militia training before firearm acquisition or tied this training to firearm acquisition.”

In addition, the militia laws and Maryland’s licensing mandate were passed for wholly different reasons, stated MSI, which was joined in the HQL challenge by gun seller Atlantic Guns Inc. and two Marylanders.

“Maryland enacted the HQL requirement to encourage safer gun storage practices in the home and reduce handgun violence in urban areas,” MSI stated.

“Militia laws, by contrast, were enacted to train young men for military service so they would be prepared for armed defense against foreign or domestic threats,” MSI added. “Militia laws did not condition the exercise of anyone’s right to acquire a firearm on compliance with the militia requirements.”

Those challenging the licensing requirement are represented by MSI President Mark W. Pennak; Cary J. Hansel III, of Hansel Law PC in Baltimore; and John Parker Sweeney, of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in Washington.

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Gun makers fire back, sue states over “public nuisance” laws

Over the past couple of years a handful of states, starting with New York, have put laws on the books that allow citizens to sue gun makers over the third-party actions of criminals; an attempt to do and end-run around the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was approved on a bipartisan basis in 2005 in an effort to curb these exact kinds of junk lawsuits meant to bankrupt the firearms industry. The most recent states to adopt these public nuisance statutes are New Jersey and Delaware, and they’re now the subject of brand new litigation aimed at overturning the regulations on the grounds that they violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution as well as many other portions of our founding document.

“These laws enacted by the Delaware and New Jersey flout the will of Congress and undermine the U.S. Constitution,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “These state laws are at odds with bedrock principles of American law, which does not hold manufacturers and sellers legally responsible for the actions of criminals and remote third parties over whom the manufacturer and seller have no control when they misuse lawfully sold products.”

Delaware and New Jersey’s laws also violate the First Amendment, Second Amendment, Due Process Clause and Commerce Clause. These laws would impose liability on industry members for firearms lawfully sold in other states that later find their way into Delaware or New Jersey through the independent actions of remote third parties and criminals.

Basically, any time a criminal uses a gun in the commission of a crime Delaware and New Jersey want a gunmaker to be sued for their supposed liability. Even if the gun was stolen, even if the buyer passed a background check, even if the gun had been purchased 20 years ago; if there was a gun involved, the gun maker should pay.

It’s an absurd legal standard, and one that anti-gun politicians only want to apply to the firearms industry. Brewers, distillers, and automotive makers aren’t subject to lawsuits every time a drunk driver criminally misuses their product and harms or kills someone as a result. Heck, both the New Jersey and Delaware laws specify that these public nuisance standards apply to gun makers only. If someone uses a knife in the commission of an armed robbery, the company that crafted the blade can’t be sued. But if the robber uses a pistol, then victims can fire off those lawsuits at will.

Joe Biden has made the repeal of the PLCAA a regular part of his gun control talking points, but now that Republicans have secured a majority in the House of Representatives that’s off the table. Instead, expect to see a flood of blue states create their own “public nuisance” laws in the coming months to get around the PLCAA’s prohibition on these junk lawsuits.

The NSSF has already filed suit against New York’s law, and the case is currently in the Second Circuit. Attorney Paul Clement, who successfully argued for the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association in the Bruen case, is representing the firearms industry trade group and individual gun manufacturers in both the New York case and the new lawsuit taking on the Delaware and New Jersey statutes. Clement is a brilliant legal mind, and his initial complaint in the latest lawsuits are fun reads with solid arguments in favor of overturning the laws and preventing them from being enforced while the issue is litigated.

Here’s a taste (emphasis is mine):

A1765 is breathtaking in its scope. Although criminal misuse of a firearm triggers the statute’s application, A1765 does not regulate the use of firearms. Nor does A1765 impose liability on individuals who misuse firearms to the detriment of themselves or others. Instead, the statute regulates selling, manufacturing, and advertising lawful (and constitutionally protected) firearms and related products. In other words, A1765 regulates commerce in and speech relating to arms—even when it takes place entirely outside of New Jersey, as will often be the case.

The statute also removes traditional elements of tort law that ensure that judges and juries do not impose liability on private parties for constitutionally protected conduct. For instance, speech-based torts traditionally required proof of reliance. A1765 not only does away with that bedrock requirement, but allows judges and juries to impose liability based on truthful, non-misleading speech about lawful products. Making matters worse, A1765 redefines proximate cause to include criminal misuse by third parties with whom a defendant never dealt—which is not proximate cause at all.

None of this is constitutional, argues Clement.

The Commerce Clause prohibits states from regulating commerce (selling, manufacturing, marketing, etc.) that takes place beyond their borders, even when that commerce has effects within the state. The First Amendment prohibits states from punishing wide swaths of truthful speech about lawful products, even if the products are dangerous or the speech is unpopular. The Second Amendment protects commerce in arms. And the Due Process Clause prohibits states from punishing one private party for the conduct of someone else.

All of that is reason enough to invalidate New Jersey’s new statute. But there is an even more obvious problem with A1765: It is squarely preempted by federal law. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several state and local governments sought to use novel applications of common law theories like negligence and nuisance to impose civil liability on manufacturers and sellers of firearms and ammunition when third parties misused their products. Congress saw these lawsuits for what they were: unconstitutional efforts to stamp out lawful and constitutionally protected activity. To end such incursions, Congress enacted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (“PLCAA”) in 2005 by wide margins on a substantially bipartisan basis. The PLCAA expressly prohibits and preempts state-law civil actions “brought by any person against a manufacturer or seller of [firearms or ammunition] … for damages, punitive damages, injunctive or declaratory relief, abatement, restitution, fines, or penalties, or other relief, resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of [firearms or ammunition] by the person or a third party.”

These public nuisance statutes are intended to go around the PLCAA, and lawmakers have explicitly acknowledged that. As Clement pointedly notes, “while the state may get credit for its candor, that does not make its law any more consistent with the protections afforded by Congress and the Constitution.”

These public nuisance laws have been a giant middle finger to the gun industry, the Constitution, and Congress, and as long as the courts New York, New Jersey, and Delaware to get away it more Democrat-controlled states will decide to do the same. The end goal isn’t about accountability for those responsible for criminal acts. It’s an end to the firearms industry, one blue-state verdict and gun company bankruptcy at a time.

DeWine allies push for passage of STRONG Ohio gun bill in lame duck session

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine cruised to re-election last week, defeating Democrat Nan Whaley by an eye-popping 25 points. Now the governor, who signed Constitutional Carry into law back in March, is hoping to spend some of his newly-acquired political capital to put several new gun control measures on the books, and his allies in the state legislature are doing everything they can to help.

The bill in question is SB 357, and though it’s been bottled up in committee for most of the year, there’s now a push to move the bill forward during the legislature’s lame-duck session that started this week.

An attempt to revive some of the “Strong Ohio” proposals against gun violence, stalled in the General Assembly since 2019, faces a timeline that’s hard to meet.

State Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, is trying to resurrect some of the “Strong Ohio” proposals against gun violence that stalled in the legislature in 2019. His Senate Bill 357 will get a first hearing, but also faces a tight timeline. The bill includes a “red flag” provision, better background checks, some limitation on private sales, and using $175 million in federal funds to improve mental healthcare.

Gov. Mike DeWine has signaled approval of the bill, which includes some of the ideas he unsuccessfully floated following the August 2019 mass shooting in Dayton’s Oregon District.

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee held its first hearing on SB 357, but didn’t hold a vote on the measure. Dolan, meanwhile, has made a few tweaks to the legislation, which would create a new category of prohibited persons, require adults under the age of 21 to have a co-signer for all gun purchases, and establish a “seller’s protection certificate” that is designed to encourage (but not require) background checks on private transfers of firearms.

“Everything in this sub bill is about before you buy a gun,” said Dolan, who chairs the finance committee.

During months of campaigning for the Nov. 8 election, legislators heard people statewide asking what they’d do to prevent gun violence, he said.

From speaking with healthcare personnel, law enforcement and others, it became clear the state’s current involuntary commitment program is not sufficient to identify all the at-risk people who shouldn’t be able to buy guns, Dolan said.

His substitute bill adds a sixth “disability” to state laws preventing people from buying guns. Existing ones prohibit fugitives from justice, felons, those who committed juvenile crimes that would be adult felonies, drug addicts and alcoholics, and those with established dangerous mental problems from buying guns, he said.

Dolan’s bill adds people who go before a behavioral risk assessment team and have been determined to be a “suicidal or homicidal risk.”

Ohio law already prohibits people under age 21 from buying handguns, he said. His bill would add that under-21 buyers of other guns would need a cosigner age 25 or older. There are exceptions for anyone under 21 in law enforcement or the military, Dolan said.

For some reason Dolan’s really focused on the fact that these provisions are all directed at individuals before they purchase a firearm, though that doesn’t mean that any or all of his proposals would be constitutional or effective.

Take his new category of prohibited persons, for example. The supposed reason to add those who’ve been determined by a behavioral risk assessment team to be a “suicidal or homicidal risk” is that the state’s current involuntary commitment law isn’t working as well as it should. Seems to me the proper legislative response would be to determine why that’s the case and work to fix the existing law, rather than avoiding improving the state’s mental health system by making it easier to deny some individuals the ability to purchase a firearm. If someone truly is a risk to themselves or others, simply denying them the ability to purchase a firearm at a gun store isn’t going to make them any less dangerous, but Dolan’s bill treats guns as the issue and not the supposedly dangerous individual.

There are also major issues with Dolan’s desire to force young adults to find someone who’ll sign off on their gun ownership. The co-signer assumes some legal liability if the under-21 gun buyer were to misuse the firearm; an extraordinary provision that is unlike any existing (or historical) gun regulation that I’m aware of. Not only would this have a chilling effect on the Second Amendment rights of young adults, it’s hard to see how this restriction even remotely fits with the text, history, and tradition of the right to keep and bear arms.

SB 357 has been floating around the Ohio legislature in one form or another since 2019, and so far it’s received a very cool reception from the Republican majority. Clearly DeWine is hoping to capitalize on his overwhelming victory last week, but whether or not his Republican colleagues in the statehouse have had a change of heart about his gun proposals is still very much up in the air. The first test will be a vote in the Senate Finance Committee, and Ohio gun owners should be reaching out to those committee members to share their concerns before the bill has a chance to reach the Senate floor.

The Government Can’t Fix Social Media Moderation & Should Not Try

Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- Despite their increasingly bitter differences, Democrats and Republicans generally agree that content moderation by social media companies is haphazard at best. But while Democrats tend to think the main problem is too much speech of the wrong sort, Republicans complain that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are biased against them.

The government cannot resolve this dispute and should not try. Siding with the critics who complain about online “misinformation” poses an obvious threat to free inquiry and open debate. And while attempting to mandate evenhandedness might seem more consistent with those values, it undermines the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment in a more subtle but equally troubling way.

Under a Texas law that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit declined to block last week, the leading social media platforms are forbidden to discriminate against users or messages based on “viewpoint.” The “censorship” that Texas has banned includes not just outright removal of content and cancellation of accounts but also any steps that make posts less visible, accessible, or lucrative.

That means platforms are obliged to treat all posts equally, no matter how objectionable their content. With narrow exceptions for speech that is not constitutionally protected, Facebook et al. are not allowed to favor tolerance over bigotry, peace over violence, or verifiably true historical or scientific claims over demonstrably false ones.

While such neutrality is constitutionally mandatory for the government, imposing it on private actors violates the First Amendment right to exercise editorial discretion.
The companies that challenged the law cited a line of Supreme Court decisions recognizing that right in a wide range of contexts, including a newspaper’s selection of articles, a utility’s control over the content of its newsletter, and a private organization’s vetting of participants in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Even assuming those cases established a general right to exercise editorial discretion, the 5th Circuit said that is not an accurate description of what social media platforms are doing when they decide that certain posts are beyond the pale. Because they rely heavily on algorithms, do not review content before publication, and take action against only a tiny percentage of messages, Judge Andrew Oldham declared in the majority opinion Facebook et al. “are nothing like” a newspaper.

Writing in dissent, Judge Leslie Southwick objected to that characterization. While “none of the precedents fit seamlessly,” Southwick said, a social media platform’s right to curate content is analogous to “the right of newspapers to control what they do and do not print.”

That right has never been contingent on whether editors do their jobs thoughtfully, consistently or fairly. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit observed when it blocked enforcement of Florida’s social media law in May;

“private actors have a First Amendment right to be ‘unfair’ — which is to say, a right to have and express their own points of view.”

Oldham rejected the argument that social media companies are expressing a point of view when they make moderation decisions based on “amorphous goals” like maintaining “a welcoming community” (YouTube), fostering “authenticity, safety, privacy, and dignity” (Facebook), or ensuring that “all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely” (Twitter). Yet the conservatives who want the government to restrict moderation decisions take it for granted that social media companies have an ideological agenda — one that is hostile to people on the right.

If social media platforms pursued that agenda more explicitly and systematically, Oldham’s argument implies, the government might be obliged to respect their decisions. The more proactive and heavy-handed they were, the stronger their First Amendment claim would be.

Should the Supreme Court resolve the split between the 5th and 11th circuits by endorsing Oldham’s reasoning, platforms that want to escape Texas-style regulation might decide that broader and tighter content restrictions are the way to go. By trying to mandate a diversity of opinions, the government could achieve the opposite result.

 

Deadly Consequences of Believing Gun Control Will Work

A report by Oregon Public Broadcasting may have opened some eyes—albeit too late—to the futility of passing ever-more-restrictive gun control measures, as the story includes a quote from Paul Donheffner, legislative committee chair of the Oregon Hunters Association, which opposed recently-passed anti-gun Measure 114.

“It is going to put a lot of honest citizens through the wringer,” Donheffner said. “The people that are committing gun violence aren’t going to get a [permit to purchase], you’re not going to get a background check, you’re not going to go through all this rigmarole.”

Measure 114 will require training and a police-issued permit (neither of which will be available when the initiative takes effect, thus effectively cancelling out the Second Amendment and Article I, Section 27 of the Oregon State Constitution) in order to purchase a firearm. The Second Amendment Foundation is currently preparing a legal challenge.

Critics of the legislation concur with Donheffner’s observation. It will not prevent any crimes and it will only inconvenience law-abiding citizens.

There may be no better example of gun control failure than Chicago, where the weekend saw “dozens of people shot,” according to Fox News. Among the victims was a 12-year-old girl shot in the neck during a drive-by, and a 64-year-old man killed during an attempted supermarket holdup.

The Windy City has some of the most restrictive gun control laws, and it also has a body count of at least 580 people killed by gunfire out of the 640 homicides so far this year, according to the popular website, heyjackass.com.

All of this provides a contrast to a weekend Op-Ed piece posted by NBC News touting the promise of Oregon’s anti-gun-rights measure. Authors Ari Davis, policy advisor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, and Lisa Geller, state affairs advisor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, assert Measure 114’s licensing requirement for gun purchases will prevent “many dangerous people from purchasing guns and deters gun straw purchases carried out in order to traffic guns to criminal networks.”

That’s assuming criminals go through the process to get their hands on guns, which Donheffner said emphatically is not going to happen.

And the Oregon Firearms Federation weighed in Monday with an email message stating, “114 is clearly unconstitutional. Of that there is little doubt.  It’s just a matter of whether or not the courts can read the simple language of both the Oregon and United States Constitutions and the recent Supreme Court decision in New York.”

The Federation announced the “Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation will use every resource at our disposal to overturn this mean spirited, evil attack on our rights in court.”

At least three county sheriffs in Oregon have already announced they will not enforce a tenet of the new law which bans so-called “large capacity magazines” capable of holding more than ten cartridges.

This all translates to a legal donnybrook brewing south of the Columbia River, which will be played out in federal court.

In the meantime, however, true believers in gun control will continue pressing for increasing restrictions which only seem to affect law-abiding citizens, claiming that studies show more restrictive laws lower the violent crime rates.