RKBA – Page 35 – MILESFORTIS

Second Circuit Rules Legal Gun Ownership Not Probable Cause for Warrantless Search

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t traditionally been a welcoming place for gun owners. This is the same appellate court that originally upheld New York’s “may issue” carry regime before the Supreme Court overturned their decision in Bruen, and since then the court has upheld many of New York’s post-Bruen restrictions on lawful gun owners.

Today, however, a three-judge panel on the court got it absolutely right when it ruled that a Connecticut police officer isn’t entitled to qualified immunity after handcuffing, detaining, and conducting a warrantless search on a resident after he produced a valid handgun permit.

Defendant-Appellant Nicholas Andrzejewski, an officer of the Waterbury,Connecticut police department, appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Arterton, J.) denying in part his motion for summary judgment on the grounds that his purported conduct was not shielded by qualified immunity.

That conduct, as alleged by Plaintiff-Appellee Basel Soukaneh, is that in the course of a routine traffic stop, Andrzejewski unlawfully and violently handcuffed and detained Soukaneh in the back of a police vehicle for over half an hour and conducted a warrantless search of Soukaneh’s vehicle after Soukaneh presented a facially valid firearms permit and disclosed that he possessed a firearm pursuant to the permit.

On appeal, Andrzejewski argues we should reverse the district court’s denial of qualified immunity because the presence of the lawfully owned firearm in the vehicle gave him the requisite probable cause to detain Soukaneh, search the interior of his car, and search his trunk.

Andrzejewski’s argument is essentially that, by exercising our Second Amendment rights, we give up our Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, he basically maintained that possessing a valid pistol permit gave him reasonable suspicion to search Soukaneh’s vehicle for some evidence of wrongdoing.

After the district court ruled that the officer wasn’t entitled to qualified immunity for his actions, Andrzejewski introduced a new argument in his appeal to the Second Circuit; it wasn’t solely Soukaneh’s gun permit that led him to handcuff the gun owner and search his car, it was the fact that Soukaneh had stopped his vehicle in a “high crime area known for drug transactions”.

As the panel noted, however, “a location’s reputation as a high crime area alone is typically not enough to suggest reasonable suspicion [of a crime], let alone probable cause.” And the court found that Andrzejewski offered no evidence whatsoever that Soukaneh was illegally possessing a gun when he was confronted by the officer. To the contrary, as a matter of fact. Andrzejewski was able to conclusively determine that Soukaneh had a valid pistol permit and lawfully possessed the firearm that he informed the officer he was carrying.

The desire to confirm the legitimacy of the facially valid firearms permit that Soukaneh presented did not—with nothing more—provide Andrzejewski with probable cause for the half-hour or longer handcuffed detention that occurred.

It is uncontested that Soukaneh presented Andrzejewski with a gun license, the legitimacy of which Andrzejewski himself admits he had no reason to question. Moreover, Andrzejewski concedes that he was informed of the facially valid license before Soukaneh told him that he had a gun and specified its location.

Andrzejewski does not allege that the permit appeared abnormal in any fashion or that Soukaneh engaged in any suspicious or threatening behavior. On the facts before us, Andrzejewski does not provide an articulable reason why he, or any other reasonable officer, could conclude that there was probable cause to believe that Soukaneh possessed his firearm unlawfully in violation of Section 29-38(a).

To find otherwise would consign those validly carrying firearms pursuant to a license to automatic detention because it would effectively presume that gun permits are invalid until proven valid, or that lawfully owned guns are per se contraband until proven otherwise. Such a finding would effectively render armed individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights meaningless when they are lawfully carrying firearms.

As common sense as that position is, it’s still somewhat surprising to see the Second Circuit panel unanimously reach that conclusion… especially since the panel was comprised of two Biden appointees and one judge appointed by Barack Obama.

Andrzejewski could still appeal to an en banc panel of the Second Circuit or take his case directly to the Supreme Court, but I doubt he’s going to find a more receptive audience for his arguments at SCOTUS. The Supreme Court has already declared that the Second Amendment isn’t a second-class right, so I doubt a majority would go along with the officer’s contention that exercising your right to keep and bear arms negates your Fourth Amendment rights altogether.

Maryland, AR-15s and the Fourth Circuit

Should you be so unfortunate as to live in Maryland, and more unfortunate as to own an AR-15, you’re a criminal, as the Fourth Circuit Court recently affirmed. This despite the Supreme Court’s Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions having made clear the Second Amendment acknowledges the individual right to self-defense in one’s home and elsewhere, and common and usual weapons are presumptively constitutional. Unfortunately none of those decisions specifically mention the AR-15, the most popular—common and usual–rifle of its type in America. This opened the gun ban door a crack, which the 4^th Circuit majority used to push the door wide open:

We have described the AR-15’s capacities in abundant detail to demonstrate just how far outside the animating purposes of the Second Amendment this weapon lies. While we know that the AR-15 thrives in combat, mass murder, and overpowering police, appellants have failed to demonstrate that the weapon is suitable for self-defense. This is likely because such a showing would be difficult to make. Indeed, many of the weapon’s combat-functional features make it ill-suited for the vast majority of self-defense situations in which civilians find themselves.

It would be hard to imagine a more deceptive and less informed recitation of legal mush. The majority decision goes on to claim the “heightened firepower” of the AR-15 is a terrible risk of overpenetration, and the 30-round magazine, standard since the Vietnam era, is also useful for mass murder, because self-defense shootings commonly only involve a few shots. The majority would also have us believe the AR-15 is particularly useless for home defense. They conclude their specious arguments with this:

In sum, the AR-15—with its military origination, combat-functional features, and extraordinary lethality—has “the same basic characteristics, functionality, capabilities, and potential for injury as the M-16.” And its all too frequent use in terrorism, mass killing, and police murder shows that the AR-15 offers firepower ill-suited and disproportionate to fulfilling the Second Amendment’s purpose of armed self-defense. Therefore, just like the M16, the AR-15 is “most useful in military service” and “may be banned” consistent with the Second Amendment.

Where to begin? The AR-15 has been on the civilian market since the 1960s, and while Armalite—“Armalite Rifle,” not “Assault Rifle” certainly wanted military contracts, only the Air Force initially adopted the rifle for base defense. The Army eventually adopted it, and after decades of development, the select-fire M4, not available to civilians, is the current issued rifle.

Both the M4 and AR-15, the M4’s semiautomatic only, look-alike cousin, fire the .223/5.56 NATO cartridge, which is of only intermediate power, and has long been known as an unreliable penetrator and man stopper. The Military is currently developing a higher-powered cartridge, and rifle.

Is the AR-15 a “common and usual” arm? Best estimates place more than 23 million in citizen’s hands. However, Americans have purchased more than a million guns a month for 60 straight months, so that figure is surely low.

“Firepower” is a military concept inappropriately applied to individual arms. The majority’s argument is emotion-laden and obviously taken directly from the writings of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists, while the dissent is well-reasoned, relying on the law, the Founder’s intent and accurate history.

They also hope to ban “large capacity” magazines for the same reasons by using the same tactics. While it’s true most armed encounters involve relatively few rounds fired, attacks by multiple armed thugs are becoming more common, in and out of the home. In such encounters, a 30-round magazine can be the difference between life and death.

Certainly, we carry handguns because it’s difficult to carry long guns of any type as we go about our daily business, but because handguns are more convenient does not make rifles unconstitutional. Anyone knowingly entering an armed encounter with less than a rifle is looking to die. The police are increasingly abandoning shotguns and adopting AR-15s for patrol carry. Are the police now the military? Should citizens be less well armed, less able to defend themselves?

The 4th Circuit has now clearly established a split among the lower courts, which will allow the Supreme Court to grant cert and further define the limitations of the state in banning popular, common and usual guns. In our uncertain times, a decision in line with their Heller, McDonald and Bruen jurisprudence would be welcome, and conducive to the preservation of our representative republic.

Second court crushes Biden’s assault on AR-style pistols.

Today [the 9th] another federal court rejected President Joe Biden’s war on guns, ruling against his effort to require 3 million to 7 million owners of AR-style pistols to register and pay a $200 tax on their firearms or face prison.

In the latest blow to liberal gun control politicians and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government’s plan, claiming it was likely to get tossed by the Supreme Court.

For now, the millions of users of guns equipped with “pistol braces” can keep them without fear of being fined or jailed.

LEGAL ALERT: The Eighth Circuit has ruled that the ATF’s pistol brace rule likely violates federal law, saying it “is arbitrary and capricious because it allows the ATF to arrive at whatever conclusion it wishes”: https://t.co/i6tZ3ZmcVF pic.twitter.com/NsTPgMWMpe

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) August 9, 2024

The court said the ATF rule was poorly written and vague and gave the agency too much leeway to go after owners of the popular firearms.

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Kamala Harris And Tim Walz Really Don’t Like The Second Amendment

The first ten amendments to our Constitution are known as the “Bill of Rights” for a reason — within it are denoted numerous “rights” that belong to individuals and which are guaranteed as such against government limitation. Any American elected official who fails to grasp this foundational principle, or who understands it but refuses to accept it, is undeserving of holding public office. Take, for example, Kamala Harris.

Our current vice president, the Democrat Party nominee for president, is on record positing that one of those fundamental individual liberties expressly guaranteed against government intrusion, does not actually protect an individual right after all. So much for the clear language and history underpinning the Bill of Rights.

Not surprising, the context in which Harris has taken such a posture openly antithetical to the very principle on which the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791 is the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms. She proudly lent her name as the then-district attorney for San Francisco, to a legal brief opposing what turned out to be the seminal 2008 Heller decision that declared expressly that the Second Amendment does in fact protect an individual right to possess a firearm.

Harris’ stance set forth in that legal brief tells us all we need to know about her disdain for the Second Amendment.

In the years since Heller, Harris has continued to support all manner of government restrictions on possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens, including among other measures, confiscatory bans on the country’s most popular rifle the AR-15, lauding Australia’s draconian gun confiscation program and most recently, criticizing the Supreme Court’s Cargill decision in June that stopped the ATF from arbitrarily declaring “bump stocks” to be “machine guns” under federal law.

The choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate is further hard evidence of where the current vice president stands with regard to the rights supposed to be guaranteed under the Second Amendment.

As governor of the North Star State, Walz has supported and signed legislation expanding so-called “red flag” laws and background checks for gun purchases that go beyond those already mandated under federal law. It was a quite different story during Walz’s tenure in the U. S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019, however, when he needed and avidly sought the support of the NRA.

In the language du jure for what previously was known quite accurately as “flip-flopping,” Walz now declares his views have “evolved” such that he criticizes the NRA by name, and declares he is proud to be the recipient of an “F” rating from the Association that supported him previously. He has made a show of donating to charity a sum of money equal to that which he happily received from the NRA while a congressman.

And oh, how his positions have “evolved.” For example, that most popular rifle in the country among law-abiding citizens – the AR-15 — now is considered by Walz a “weapon of war” that must be banned.

As with many latecomers to the gun control movement, Walz considers his anti-Second Amendment views appropriately constitutional because, well, they help “keep our kids safe.” Lost in his probably cursory study of the historical underpinnings of the Second Amendment, and even as reflected in recent Supreme Court decisions (most notably the 2022 Bruen decision), is the fact that “keeping kids safe” is nowhere to be found even impliedly in any writings by our Founders justifying the Second Amendment (or elsewhere in the Bill of Rights for that matter).

To Walz, as to his gun control colleagues in Washington, including Kamala Harris, “common sense” equates seamlessly to “constitutional.”

It will be interesting to see how Harris’ and Walz’s extreme anti-Second Amendment views will resonate nationally with voters who do not live in the states they have represented in public office (California and Minnesota), particularly considering that private ownership of handguns for self-defense continues to rise across the country, especially among women and Black Americans. Hopefully a majority of votes tallied after the polls close Nov. 5th will reject the views of the Democrat Party’s national ticket that the Bill of Rights can be casually discarded based on their vague notion of “common sense.”

Bob Barr currently is President of the NRA.

Empowering women through self-defense and firearm training
Alpha Female Tactical offers safe learning environment

DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – Firearms are common in the U.S., but not everyone knows how to use them safely. Finding a comfortable learning environment can be particularly challenging for women. Katrina Cain, the owner of Alpha Female Tactical, addresses this need on a private range at Bullets and Bones in DeFuniak Springs.

Cain provides courses and training specifically for women to learn about gun safety and defense. “We wanted to provide a comfortable learning environment for women because it is a male-dominated industry,” said Cain.

The inspiration to start these classes came from Cain’s personal experience. After realizing that few resources and training opportunities were available for women, she decided to take action. “We launched in October of 2020 after I got my concealed carry license and realized I wasn’t shown how to properly handle a firearm—load it, shoot it, or anything. I shot one single bullet, and that qualified me to get my permit at the time. My husband and I felt there needed to be more training for women to become comfortable with firearms.”

Cain is not just advocating for safety on the shooting range. As a deputy at the Walton County Sheriff’s Office, she brings her law enforcement experience to her training. “I see the domestic violence, the crimes, and the issues we have—not only here but worldwide. Things happen. We want every woman to be empowered and confident in her ability to defend herself, her children, or her loved ones.”

Courses at Alpha Female Tactical are designed to give women confidence, regardless of their background. “Especially if they’re coming from a place of trauma or have a history with firearm-related incidents or domestic violence. We want to provide a safe and supportive environment for them to learn how to defend themselves.”

Whether new to firearms or looking to advance their skills, women can find valuable resources at Alpha Female Tactical. “We offer everything from beginner classes for those who have never touched a gun to advanced tactical skills. Our classes include concealed carry, self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, pepper spray, non-lethal, and firearms training.”

Cain emphasized the importance of proper training. “It doesn’t help anyone to carry a firearm without the proper training and understanding of how it functions.”

In a world where personal safety is increasingly important, Cain and her team at Alpha Female Tactical are making strides to ensure women feel empowered and capable of defending themselves.

For more information on Alpha Female Tactical and its courses, visit its website or contact it directly at Bullets and Bones in DeFuniak Springs.

SAF Vows to Take Maryland’s Semi-Auto Ban to the Supreme Court

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has announced they will seek Supreme Court review in Bianchi v. Wilkinson, SAF’s challenge to Maryland’s assault weapons ban, after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law.

“Today’s decision from the 4th Circuit is unsurprising given their prior decision in Kolbe,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut.
“We believe, much like in Kolbe, the court’s analysis is flawed and that the challenged law is unconstitutional. We will be filing a petition for certiorari at the Supreme Court, as this case presents an excellent vehicle for the Court to settle this debate once and for all.”

In the 65-page opinion, judges for the majority wrote: “The assault weapons at issue fall outside the ambit of protection offered by the Second Amendment because, in essence, they are military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense.”

Chief Judge Diaz drafted a concurring opinion, with five other judges joining. Judge Richardson drafted a dissenting opinion, with four other judges joining stating: “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right subject to the whimsical discretion of federal judges. Its mandate is absolute and, applied here, unequivocal…In holding otherwise, the majority grants states historically unprecedented leeway to trammel the constitutional liberties of their citizens.”

Joining SAF in the case are the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Field Traders, LLC., the Firearms Policy Coalition, and three private citizens, David Snope, Micah Schaefer and Dominic Bianchi, for whom the case is named. “The court relied heavily on the distinction between ‘military style’ arms and those appropriate for self-defense use,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This distinction runs completely contrary to the mandates of Heller and Bruen, and now sets the stage for another petition for SCOTUS review of the case.”

r/GunMemes - tHe 2A oNly aPpLyS tO mUsKeTs 🥴🥴

Federal Appeals Court Again Upholds Maryland AR-15 Ban

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has once again found Maryland’s so-called assault weapons ban is constitutional.

In a ten-to-five ruling on Tuesday, a full panel of the appeals court determined the Old Line state’s ban on AR-15s and similar firearms does not violate the Second Amendment. It found the banned guns fall outside the protections guaranteed by the Constitution. Using similar reasoning to the last time the panel ruled on the same law in 2021, the majority decided semi-automatic assault weapons are too similar to military weapons to fall under the Second Amendment.

“The assault weapons at issue fall outside the ambit of protection offered by the Second Amendment because, in essence, they are military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense,” Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote for the majority in Bianchi v. Brown. “Moreover, the Maryland law fits comfortably within our nation’s tradition of firearms regulation.”

A lot has changed in Second Amendment jurisprudence since the appeals court ruled on the ban in 2021. The most significant was the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established a new test for Second Amendment cases. The Court then vacated the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Bianchi and sent it back down for reconsideration in light of the new test. The Fourth Circuit delivering the same result once again could provide reason for The Court to take up the case, especially since it has now reached a final conclusion on the merits.

The Supreme Court has been reluctant to take up Second Amendment cases in recent months and declined to grant certiorari in all of its pending gun cases last month. That included denying a request to take up a collection of cases challenging the Illinois assault weapons ban. However, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that reluctance was based on the fact those cases were at the preliminary injunction stage rather than final judgment.

“This Court is rightly wary of taking cases in an interlocutory posture,” Justice Thomas wrote. “But, I hope we will consider the important issues presented by these petitions after the cases reach final judgment. We have never squarely addressed what types of weapons are ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment.”

The Fourth Circuit did address what types of arms are protected or, at least, which ones aren’t. The majority looked primarily at the Supreme Court’s holding in 2008’s DC v. Heller decision, which recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms while striking down the city’s handgun ban, as well as dicta in the case.

“As recognized in Heller, ‘the Second Amendment right … extends only to certain types of weapons’; it is ‘not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,’” Judge Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the majority. “Arms typically used by average citizens for self-defense are generally within the ambit of the Second Amendment, presumably because these arms had proven over time to effectively amplify an individual’s power to protect himself without empowering him to singlehandedly reign terror upon a community.”

Judge Wilkinson pointed to Heller‘s description of short-barrel shotguns and “M-16 rifles and the like” as weapons the government can ban. He said there was a common thread that connected those firearms, which also extends to semi-automatic AR-15s and the other guns Maryland bans.

“What brings all the weapons beyond the scope of the Second Amendment together, and what separates them from the handgun, is their ability to inflict damage on a scale or in a manner disproportionate to the end of personal protection,” he wrote. “As such, they are weapons most suitable for criminal or military use.”

The majority then turned its attention to the Bruen test, which requires modern gun laws to be rooted in the history and tradition of firearms regulation dating back to the Founding Era in order to withstand scrutiny. In what has become the post-Bruen go-to legal reasoning to uphold modern gun bans, the majority asserted it could take a broader view of historical analogues because it argued assault weapons are a modern invention that has fueled the modern problem of mass shootings. It then pointed to early regulations on gunpowder storage and the carrying of Bowie knives as substantially similar to Maryland’s ban on the sale of modern semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15.

“In sum, then, 18th and 19th century legislatures’ passed laws in a number of states that restricted the use or ownership of certain types of weapons,’ once it ‘became obvious that those weapons … were being used in crime by people who carried them concealed on their persons and were thus contributing to rising crime rates,’” Judge Wilkinson wrote. “These legislatures—in balancing individual rights and public peacekeeping—permitted individuals to defend themselves with firearms, while ridding the public sphere of excessively dangerous and easily concealable weapons that were primarily to blame for an increase in violent deaths.”

Ultimately, as they did before the Supreme Court handed down its Bruen decision and remanded the case, the majority concluded Maryland’s assault weapons ban is constitutional.

“The Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment is an integral component of the Bill of Rights. But as our nation’s history has shown, it is ‘neither a regulatory straightjacket nor a regulatory blank check.’ The Amendment has not disabled the ability of representative democracy to respond to an urgent public safety crisis,” Judge Wilkinson wrote. “To disregard this tradition today—when mass slaughters multiply and the innovation of weaponry proceeds apace—could imperil both the perception and reality of well-being in our nation. We therefore hold that Maryland’s regulation of assault weapons is fully consistent with our nation’s long and dynamic tradition of regulating excessively dangerous weapons whose demonstrable threat to public safety led legislatures to heed their constituents’ calls for help.”

The dissenting judges disagreed with that conclusion and slammed the majority for treating the Second Amendment as lesser than other protections offered in the Bill of Rights.

“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right subject to the whimsical discretion of federal judges. Its mandate is absolute and, applied here, unequivocal,” Judge Julius N. Richardson, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote for the dissent. “Appellants seek to own weapons that are indisputably ‘Arms’ within the plain text of the Second Amendment. While history and tradition support the banning of weapons that are both dangerous and unusual, Maryland’s ban cannot pass constitutional muster as it prohibits the possession of arms commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. In holding otherwise, the majority grants states historically unprecedented leeway to trammel the constitutional liberties of their citizens.”

Courts Attacking Second Amendment Right to Legally Acquire Firearms

There’s an interesting – if not devious – trend emerging in some Second Amendment cases. The first step of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen test is to ask whether the conduct at issue is covered by the text of the Second Amendment which protects a pre-existing “right to keep and bear arms.” Some lower courts in purporting to apply the Bruen test are upholding gun control laws by holding that you do not have a Second Amendment right to buy a firearm.

That’s intellectually dishonest, to say the least. The ability to freely approach the gun counter to legally purchase a firearm is paramount to exercising the Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. There is no “keeping” of firearms if there is no legal right to lawfully acquire those same firearms. The ramifications of this flawed legal reasoning are self-evident. The government could simply ban the buying (and selling) of firearms and therefore eviscerate the Second Amendment all without infringing upon the right.

Right to Buy

The most recent example comes from New Mexico, where a federal district court judge refused to preliminarily enjoin the state’s seven-day waiting period for purchasing a firearm. There were several serious concerns with this decision, including the judge’s determination that the lengthy waiting period doesn’t constrain the rights to keep and bear arms. The judge contended that the waiting period only minimally burdens the “ancillary right to acquire firearms.”

That might come as news to an individual facing imminent threat to their safety or even their life. A woman who is the victim of domestic violence who considers purchasing a firearm to protect herself and her family could argue that the state’s seven-day waiting period is a seven-day ban on her ability to lawfully keep and bear arms when she knows there’s a threat to her life.

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Court Hands SAF, FPC Another 2A Victory for Maryland Citizens

A federal court in Maryland has handed a victory to the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners in a challenge of the state law restricting carry in certain locations. The court declared three provisions in the statute to be unconstitutional. The case is known as Novotny v. Moore.

Chief U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III for the District of Maryland, a Barack Obama appointee, issued the 13-page ruling and a separate order granting summary judgment enjoining the state from enforcing provisions in the law which restrict the carrying of firearms in: (1) locations selling alcohol for onsite-consumption, (2) private buildings or property without the owner’s consent, and (3) within 1,000 feet of a public demonstration.

“We are pleased that the court found Maryland’s draconian ‘anti-carry’ rule to be unconstitutional,” says SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Such a provision flies in the face of this nation’s history and tradition. Of course, we will examine the court’s opinion and weigh our options for appeal to continue to challenge other provisions we believe are unconstitutional.”

SAF is joined by Maryland Shall Issue, the Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens, all of whom possess “wear and carry permits,” including Susan Burke of Reisterstown, Esther Rossberg of Baltimore and Katherine Novotny of Aberdeen, for whom the lawsuit is named. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson and Peter A. Patterson at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C., Mark W. Pennak at Maryland Shall Issue in Baltimore and Matthew Larosiere from Lake Worth, Fla. The case was consolidated with a similar case known as Kipke v. Moore.

“We’re delighted by the court’s decision,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This is just one more step in SAF’s ongoing effort to win firearms freedom, one lawsuit at a time.”

Kansas church’s attendance doubles after ‘blessing’ congregation with firearms
4 guns, including AR-15, raffled off to members in June/July

LENEXA, Kan. — A few weeks ago, a Facebook post from a Kansas City-area church caught my eye. And judging by the reaction to the post, it caught a lot of yours, too.

River Church Kansas City meets at the corner of 79th and Quivira in Lenexa. For Father’s Day, the church gave an AR-15 rifle to one of its members.

The church posted photos of the gun and the raffle winner online, and thousands of people reacted.

Then, to celebrate the Fourth of July, church leaders gave away three more guns.

I sat down with the pastor to hear how he thinks guns and church go together.

‘A gun is a blessing’

The idea came from the church’s young pastor, Christopher Zehner.

“I was thinking about Father’s Day because we’ve got a lot of men in the church, they like to shoot guns,” Zehner told me when I sat with him in his church’s auditorium. “I thought, ‘Let’s give away a gun to the church and let some of the men get involved, and let’s make it a big, fun event.’”

But I had the same question as many Facebook commenters — how is a gun a blessing?

“A gun is a blessing because here in America, we have what’s called the Second Amendment, and we’re free Americans,” Zehner told me. “We have the right to bear arms.”

“Why make it such a focal point of intersection between proud American, Constitution supporting and teaching Jesus Christ?” I asked.

“We make that connection because Christ gives us freedom, and so, as Christ has given us freedom on the inside, Americans are free as well, so it correlates,” Zehner said. “We love this nation because God is the one that authored it.”

Giveaway reaction

The reaction on Facebook was overwhelmingly negative.

Comments included:

“Nothing says faith over fear, like worshipping firearms.”
“A church that upholds the constitution of the USA. Just like Jesus intended.”
“People are leaving the church like never before, and you all wonder why.”

Zehner didn’t read all the comments, but he got the gist.
“A gun in itself is not bad,” said Zehner, who is a gun owner. “It’s the person behind the gun that has a bad heart is what’s bad. I wanted people to know that there’s still a young generation like myself that still stands for what this country was founded on.”

The strong Facebook reaction was part of the reason Zehner and other church leaders decided to do it again.

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Harris Wanted to Use Illegal Registry to Harass Gun Owners and Confiscate Firearms.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris once threatened to use databases of gun owners to send police to their homes to confiscate firearms.

Ms. Harris described her gun control stance in August 2019 at a Democratic presidential primary forum that took place shortly after two deadly mass shootings in California and Texas.

She said she was “prepared to take executive action” to implement comprehensive background checks, crack down on gun dealers and ban the import of so-called assault weapons.

Ms. Harris said she knew how to enforce tough gun laws because as California attorney general she allowed police to “knock on the doors of people” on a state list of prohibited gun owners and people deemed a danger to themselves and others.

“We sent law enforcement out to take those guns because we have to deal with this on all levels.”

— Kerry Pickett in Harris backed using ‘lists’ of gun owners to send police door-to-door to seize firearms

Note to NRA: This Isn’t How You Get That ‘Homecoming’ You Want

A couple of weeks ago, the NRA’s Doug Hamlin called for a “homecoming.” He wanted gun rights advocates to return to the new and improved NRA. Wayne LaPierre is out and things are returning to normal there.

I get where he’s coming from and while I believe that if the NRA disappeared tomorrow, someone would step in to fill the void, the truth of the matter is that it’ll take longer for that to happen than I’d like and during that time, our right to keep and bear arms could be severely damaged. So we need something that void now and rebuilding the NRA is probably much faster than hoping someone else steps in quickly.

I want Hamlin to get that homecoming.

However, if that’s the goal, this isn’t exactly a winning strategy.

We love our guns here in the Great Land. Alaska is in the top five states with the highest per-capita gun ownership; as I’m fond of pointing out, up here in the valley, even the hippies have guns, and know how to use them. Most of us aren’t overly concerned about human predators, although that can happen; most Alaskans keep guns to put food on the table and to occasionally fend off a big hairy beast.

But we also know that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting or fending off big toothy critters. Therefore it comes as something of a surprise to see the National Rifle Association endorsing Alaska’s Democrat at-large Representative Mary Peltola for reelection. (Full disclosure: My wife and I are both Life Members of the NRA and have been since the mid-90s.)

Peltola is Alaska’s sole representative and an advocate for the Second Amendment. On her campaign website, she said she owns 176 long guns and dares “someone to tread on Alaskan freedoms.”

In a statement to The Hill, she said she campaigned in 2022 on a “pro-freedom platform” and continues that to this day.

“Guns are an integral part of Alaska’s culture and our subsistence lifestyles,” Peltola said. “Alaskan gun [owners] are the strongest proponents for responsible gun ownership. We pass down our knowledge and skills to our children.”

Peltola argued that the endorsement may help the country understand Alaskan culture and see “the importance of the Second Amendment in communities.”

Except, that’s not what Mary said only a couple of years ago. From the Great Land, Must Read Alaska’s Suzanne Downing had this to say:

Just two years ago, the NRA rated Peltola with a “D.” Now, an endorsement? What has changed? Even the Gun Owners of America has rated Peltola with an “F.”
Peltola wants gun control measures, such as universal background checks, waiting periods, and gun storage laws.

According to The Washington Post in 2022, “During her campaign, Peltola said she wants a national law protecting abortion rights and favors some gun-control measures, such as universal background checks.” (Azi Paybarah, “Who Is Mary Peltola, The First Alaska Native In Congress?”)

On a questionnaire for the Anchorage Daily News, Peltola supported universal background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases.

Well, this is awkward.

Had the NRA not graded her a “D” just a couple of years earlier, it would be easy to say they were unaware of her anti-gun tendencies. Instead, they clearly knew she wasn’t exactly a champion of the right to keep and bear arms. Someone at the organization did, and one would assume that if nothing else, records were kept.

And yet, here we are.

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Courts Attacking Second Amendment Right to Legally Acquire Firearms

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There’s One Lesson We’d Do Well to Learn from Gun Grabbers

The gun control crowd isn’t exactly filled with my favorite people.

And on so many things, they’re completely and totally wrong.

But there’s a saying about blind squirrels and nuts. It’s not that different from the one about the accuracy of dysfunctioning wall-mounted timepieces, really. The gist is that even the most unlikely people do something right. At least, for values of “right.”

So to have the gun control crowd done something we’d do well to emulate.

Propelled by and fed up with what they see as a lack of progress when it comes to addressing America’s epidemic of gun violence, many activists like Brooks, who have felt the effects of gun violence first hand, are embracing a new tactic: running for elected office. For political organizers, this group represents a promising new cohort, whose members, if elected, may finally move the needle on gun reform.

“There is a new wave of activists-turned-candidates, particularly among women and mothers, who are no longer willing to stand by,” Brooks said. “How can we not think about our kids?”

Pinpointing the moments that led them to run for office comes easily to these candidates.

For Emily Busch, who is running for a US congressional seat in Michigan, it was the November 2021 mass shooting at Oxford high school, where her son was a freshman, that propelled her to action. The event left four dead and seven injured. “My son ran for his life with 1,700 other kids,” Busch said. “It’s something that you never ever want to experience, which is why I’m running.” …

“I think we’re going to be more passionate because we’ve experienced it,” she said, emphasizing the growing need for “leaders who understand this issue on a personal level and who can bring authentic, passionate advocacy to the legislative process”.

That same vision is driving progressive groups to find more candidates who are willing to run for office on gun violence platforms. Last February, nearly 50 new candidates gathered in Las Vegas with Demand a Seat, an initiative to train gun safety advocates to run for office and work on campaigns offered by advocacy organization Everytown for Gun Safety.

At the four-day boot camp, participants received mentorship from veteran politicians, training in the fundamentals of campaign building and guidance in how to effectively elevate a gun safety platform.

The program capitalizes on a trend that gun safety advocates have been witnessing for several years. “Gun safety is actually good politics now, it’s not just good policy,” said Moms Demand Action’s executive director, Angela Ferrell-Zabala. “Folks [are] choosing to run and win on gun safety.”

Here’s the thing. These aren’t just people who favor gun control. We can beat those folks easily.

What’s working for them is that these are people who have personal stories about violence committed with a firearm. It’s about how they or their families have been touched by this violence. That’s a lot harder to counter. People love stories and they respond to them. They respond to emotion, too, and these people’s stories are disturbing to think about happening to your family.

Yet there’s a counter to this and it’s not that difficult to understand.

We need people who have used guns to defend themselves to run as gun rights supporters. We need those who have been touched by violence and who remain supportive of gun rights because of how things went with their experiences. In short, we need to be able to counter with stories and emotions of our own.

Yes, the mothers of kids who were present at mass shootings is powerful, but so is the mother who defended her kids with a loaded Glock 19.

It’s easy to say we shouldn’t be basing this sort of thing on emotion. It’s not even wrong to say it. It’s just irrelevant because most people aren’t really interested in listening. They’ve been taught that their feelings are what matters, so that’s what they “think” with.

We can and should try to change that, but in the meantime, why not recruit those who have their own pro-gun stories to tell to run for office so we can put this whole thing in check?

We can learn something from the gun grabbers. We can learn how to beat them.

Researchers at Duke University release new study on gun violence

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Duke University’s recent study on gun violence showed that not even restrictive gun laws are having a significant impact among gun deaths among children.

Since 2020, guns have ranked as the leading cause of death among people between the ages of one to 18.

The study identified 36 firearm laws including expansive background checks, mandatory waiting periods, safe storage provisions and laws that limit access for people at risk of harming themselves or others.

Surprisingly, there were no notable distinctions between states with and without firearm laws when it comes to firearm deaths among children.

There were also no significant reductions in suicide death rates in states with laws setting minimum ages for possession or purchase of firearms.

N.J.’s ban on AR-15 ‘assault’ rifles is unconstitutional, federal court rules

A federal court judge on Tuesday ruled New Jersey’s ban on AR-15 rifles is unconstitutional, a decision that could force the state to lift its decades-old prohibition on certain semi-automatic weapons.

The judge’s ruling was limited in scope — it applies only to one type of firearm, the Colt AR-15, and allows “for use of self-defense within the home.”

It marks the latest clawback of New Jersey’s famously strict gun laws following several recent pro-Second Amendment decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision was hailed as a partial victory by gun rights advocates who challenged New Jersey’s ban, arguing in court papers the law “blatantly violates the fundamental rights of the state’s law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in common use for self-defense and other lawful purposes.”

State Attorney General Matthew Platkin said Tuesday his office would appeal the ruling, arguing it “weaponizes the Second Amendment to undermine public safety.”

“The AR-15 is an instrument designed for warfare that inflicts catastrophic mass injuries, and is the weapon of choice for the epidemic of mass shootings that have ravaged so many communities across this nation,” Platkin said.

In a 69-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Peter Sheridan, a George W. Bush appointee, criticized “the Supreme Court’s pronouncements that certain firearms policy choices are ‘off the table’ when frequently, radical individuals possess and use these same firearms for evil purposes.”

However, Sheridan wrote, he was bound by the higher court’s rulings in two cases, known as Bruen and Heller.

“This principle — combined with the reckless inaction of our governmental leaders to address the mass shooting tragedy afflicting our Nation — necessitates the Court’s decision,” the judge wrote.

The judge’s ruling concerned dual challenges to New Jersey’s Assault Firearms Law, enacted in 1990, and a 2018 law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy that limited magazine sizes to 10 rounds.

While Sheridan ruled the AR-15 ban unconstitutional under the new Supreme Court rulings, he upheld the state’s large-capacity magazine ban under the same framework.

The Supreme Court’s ruling “forbade a complete prohibition on a class of gun ownership,” he wrote, noting that AR-15 rifles are commonplace in gun-friendly states.

But the judge’s ruling only applies to the Colt model because of the “variety of firearms regulated in the Assault Firearms Law and the nuances that each individual firearm presents” and because the evidence in this case concerned the AR-15.

The gun rights groups, including the New Jersey Association of Rifle and Pistol Clubs and the national Firearms Policy Coalition, filed notice appealing the judge’s ruling upholding the magazine ban, court records show.

“Bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are immoral and unconstitutional,” FPC President Brandon Combs said in a statement Tuesday.

“FPC will continue to fight forward until all of these bans are eliminated throughout the United States.”

All Real Gun-Control Conversations Boil Down To This

I have spent a great deal of time over the last two decades debating gun-control advocates both within the United States and abroad. Naturally, the circumstances and details of these debates can be different, but the fundamental claims they make are broadly the same. Here is an attempt to distill into one conversation the criticisms that commonly appear, and the sound arguments I have found effective in countering them.

They often begin with someting like: “Charles, we have to do something about guns.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” I respond. “What do you want to do?”

I want common-sense gun control.
Such as?

Well, we could start by accepting that the Second Amendment doesn’t even protect the right to keep and bear arms. That idea was made up by Antonin Scalia in 2008.
Ah. I’m afraid that you’ve fallen here for a debunked conspiracy theory. In truth, the right to keep and bear arms has been a part of American life since the 17th century. It was respected in colonial America—and in many colonial and state constitutions—long before the Constitution was written; it was acknowledged and reaffirmed by every major legal scholar of the 18th and 19th centuries; it was explicitly extended to all Americans by the drafters of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the two postbellum Freedmens Bureau Acts, and the 14^th Amendment; and it was accepted by 80% of the American public prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller. The U.S. Bill of Rights protects individual liberties; there is no such thing as a “collective right” in that document. The right, as the Second Amendment makes clear, is “of the people.”

Fine. But it’s an amendment. It was, itself, a change. Doesn’t that tell you something? It, too, could be amended.
Not really. The Second Amendment is, indeed, an “amendment” to the original Constitution, albeit one that was added only two years after the Constitution went into effect. But, contrary to your implication, it wasn’t the result of shifting political attitudes or of a debate over policy, but of a desire to make sure that Americans’ fundamental liberties were clearly protected. When James Madison introduced the proposed U.S. Bill of Rights into Congress, he made it clear that he had included only those provisions that were entirely uncontroversial. As a historical matter, the term “amendment” is a misnomer when applied to the first 10 changes. They are more accurately described as the price of admission for the ratification of the Constitution, as that was the agreement at the time.

Okay, but surely things have changed?
What has “changed,” exactly? Human nature? Man’s capacity for evil? The intrinsic right to self-defense—be it against an individual who would do you harm or a government that has turned on its people?

The modern world is just different. Look at our technology!
Actually, I agree with that. The modern world is different. And, in some ways, it is true that the Founders couldn’t have imagined how we now live. But, that cuts against the argument for gun-control rather than in its favor. When the Founders talked of “tyranny,” they were referring most immediately to a largely benign British Empire that, until it started to meddle in unacceptable ways, had mostly left the American colonies alone. There is no way that they could have conceived of the scale of the horrors that would be inflicted in the 20^th century by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China and others. The case for the Second Amendment was watertight in 1789. By 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, it was unassailable.

But America isn’t like those places, is it?
No, mercifully, America is not like those places. But it’s a little bit odd to make that point while you’re trying to remove one of the reasons that America is not like those places, isn’t it? America is free in part because of the U.S. Constitution. You can’t start removing or undermining parts of that Constitution and just assume that everything would remain exactly the same after you’d done it.

Ha! So you think that if America became a tyranny, the people could fight back with small arms?
Yes, I do think that. And, perhaps more importantly, I think that America would have no chance of becoming a tyranny while the people remain well-armed. But I must ask you: Can you hear yourself? You’re positing the possibility that the United States would become a tyranny while worrying about the citizenry being armed. What, in the last three centuries of human history, has given you the idea that the problem to be solved is that free people have arms?

Crime has given me that idea. Criminals use guns! We have to stop that.
How?

By banning guns!
By banning guns for whom?

In the past, laws that permit the government to choose who may carry firearms have invariably been used to disarm minorities and the poor.

For everyone!
There are half a billion privately owned firearms in the United States. Even if you could convince the public to (a) repeal the Second Amendment, and (b) usher in a societal change that would rival the failed prohibition of alcohol, it would still be the height of naivety to believe that the criminals that you were attempting to disarm would be affected by the ploy. By definition, criminals do not follow the law. The only thing that deters them is the fear that other people—that is, the people who don’t commit the crimes—will be able to fight back.

You’re talking about the myth of a good guy with a gun?
The myth? It’s hardly a myth! Concealed-carriers in the United States are among the most law-abiding people in the country. Indeed, data out of Texas and Florida shows that they are up to seven times more law-abiding than the police. And you only need to open a newspaper to discover that concealed-carriers stop crimes on a regular basis. Why, I must ask, would you wish to take the guns away from the people who aren’t the problem?

Okay, so if you need someone to act as a deterrent, why not let the police have guns and take them away from everyone else?
Leaving aside the other problems associated with disarming a free people, may I ask if you’ve ever been to the United States? Or, if you have been to the United States, if you’ve ever been outside of the cities? America is an enormous place. Even if it were a good idea to limit gun ownership to the police, it would remain the case that the vast majority of areas in America are too big or too remote to be effectively policed.

Then make them gun-free zones!
Are you serious? The solution to the threats posed by criminals or by wild animals is to put up a sign saying that nobody is allowed to be armed and that the bad guys must follow the laws?

Okay, fine, but shouldn’t we at least decide who is allowed to carry a gun and who is not?
Do you mean that we should prohibit felons, children, tourists and the mentally ill from carrying firearms? Because we already do that.

No, I mean that the government should choose which citizens are allowed to carry and which are not.
Ah, I see. Do you know how that has worked out in history?

What do you mean?
I mean that, while I accept that this may not be your motivation, the history of gun control in the United States has been inextricable from the history of racism and discrimination. In the past, laws that permit the government to choose who may carry firearms have invariably been used to disarm minorities, the politically unpopular and the poor.

Well, obviously, I don’t want to do that. I’m nice! But could we perhaps impose some strict training requirements and high fees?
So that only wealthier people can exercise their rights?

No, so that the country is safer.
What evidence do you have for the proposition that limiting the rights of law-abiding people would make the country safer? Many states have now abolished their permitting systems completely, and the change has had no effect whatsoever on crime.

What about background checks? We don’t have any!
That’s not true. All commercial sales require a background check; all sales over the internet must be shipped to a dealer, who performs a check; and there is no such thing as the “gun-show loophole.” Private, intrastate transfers are not federally regulated, because, as well as being intrusive, expensive and practically impossible, federal regulation would require the creation of a gun registry.

Gun control so often fails because a majority of Americans want to keep their freedom.

What’s wrong with a gun registry?
For a start, they don’t do anything to prevent or help solve crime, which is why many of the most anti-gun jurisdictions in the United States, plus countries such as Canada, have abandoned theirs. They’re also a problem for civil liberties, as they can leak—or be leaked. And, historically, they have been used by tyrannical governments to enable confiscation.

Fine. Then ban semi-automatics.
What is a semi-automatic?

It’s a machine gun.
No, it’s not. That’s an “automatic.” A “semi-automatic” is a standard firearm that fires one round with each depression of the trigger. Far from being exotic, the term “semi-automatic” describes more than 200 million firearms in the United States, including the most commonly owned rifles and the vast majority of handguns sold. The technology has been around since the 1880s—during the presidency of Grover Cleveland.

Well, we can at least ban the AR-15.
Why?

Because it’s an assault weapon.
What does that mean?

It means that it’s more dangerous than other guns. It’s a weapon of war.
It’s neither of those things. It’s a standard semi-automatic rifle, of the type that has been owned in America for 140 years; moreover, it’s used so infrequently in crimes, that the FBI doesn’t even bother to keep statistics. In 2019, rifles—that’s all rifles, not just so-called “assault weapons”—were used in around 2.6% of all homicides committed in the United States. By way of context, that’s about as many homicides as were committed with clubs and hammers, about half as many homicides as were committed with hands and feet and about a quarter as many homicides as were committed with knives.

But we banned them before. We can do it again.
Actually, we can’t. The Second Amendment protects weapons that are in common use, and the AR-15 most definitely meets that description. Besides, every study shows that the ban on so-called “assault weapons” that was in effect between 1994 and 2004 did nothing. I thought you wanted to improve things?

Well, we have to do something. And we would, if it weren’t for the NRA!
This is a misconception. The NRA, among many other things, does political advocacy. The NRA has been highly effective in persuading the public to help protect the right to keep and bear arms, but it enjoys no power in the American system of government outside of that role. The primary reason that the gun-control movement has failed to achieve its objectives in recent decades is that the public steadfastly opposes its agenda. The simple truth here is that, in both Congress and in the states, the votes aren’t there because the voters aren’t there.

But the courts have blocked common-sense gun control!
It is certainly true that the courts have upheld the original meaning of the Second Amendment in recent years. But, as of yet, the practical effects of this have been limited to a handful of recalcitrant states whose laws were so extreme as to have forced the judiciary’s hands. Thus far, the shift in favor of the right to keep and bear arms has been driven by the electorate, not by judges.

Gah. I just hate guns.
And that’s your prerogative. But all you’re telling me by noting that is that you, personally, aren’t a threat to anyone. That’s good. But it doesn’t help us solve the problem, which is that there are people who aren’t like you who exhibit ill-intent toward others. Those people don’t care whether or not you like guns. They don’t care about gun-free zones. They don’t care about permitting processes. This is why law-abiding citizens need the right to keep and bear arms.

‘common use for lawful purposes’

Survey Shows Growing Number of Americans Own Guns For Self-Defense

A new survey from the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan has discovered what most of us already knew to be the case: the number one reason why tens of millions of Americans exercise their Second Amendment rights is personal safety.

The survey quizzed about 2,500 gun owners about their motivation to keep and bear arms, and the vast majority of respondents said self-defense was the most important factor in their decision.

Nearly 80% said they were motivated to get a firearm for personal protection, a proportion that appears to have risen over the past 25 years. No single study has tracked the reasons for gun ownership over time, making comparisons inexact, but similar studies have found that about 26% of Americans reported owning a gun for protection in 1999. Various studies suggest that between 60% and 70% of gun owners said protection was their main motivation for having a firearm from 2017 through 2021.

It’s a trend that has roots in the social upheaval of the 1960s, said Dr. David Yamane, a professor of sociology at Wake Forest University who studies gun culture in the United States and who was not involved in the survey.

“It was a time of profound social unrest and social uncertainty, lots of political movements, cultural change, foreign threats, people listening to crazy music, you know, ‘sex, drugs and rock n’ roll,’ political assassination, riots or protest movements in some cities,” said Yamane, who owns a gun and who financially supports organizations that promote gun ownership.

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NRA Challenges ‘Engaged In The Business’ Rule In Alabama Court

The National Rifle Association on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging the DOJ/ATF’s Final Rule redefining who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms.

The NRA, along with two individuals, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Specifically, Butler v. Garland argues that the rule, which arguably bans most private sales of firearms, violates the Administrative Procedures Act.

Along with the NRA, the individual plaintiffs are Don Butler and David Glidewell. Butler, from Talladega, Alabama, is an NRA member, firearms hobbyist and collector. Glidewell, from Ragland, Alabama, is also an NRA member, firearms hobbyist and collector, according to the complaint.

Randy Kozuch, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said the lawsuit is a follow-up on the promise made by NRA when the Final Rule was announced.

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