They just need one more common sense gun law and then everyone will be safe. https://t.co/Ev7ydpLt3R
— Rangermonk (@rangermonk1) July 20, 2024
Category: RKBA
Republicans at RNC Don’t Budge In Face of Latest Anti-Gun Onslaught
We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on all the people pushing for gun control in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. We’ve seen it from celebrities and athletes, to say nothing of politicians, even Biden who only calls for assault weapon bans on days that end in the letter “y.”
A lot of people are shocked that Republicans aren’t tripping over themselves to back gun control.
And let’s be real, if that was going to happen, it would happen at the Republican National Convention. Kicking off just a couple of days after the attempt on Trump’s life, you’d imagine emotions would be high and if they were ever going to do it, it would be here and now.
Only, as the Washington Times notes, it ain’t happening.
Republicans at their party convention said their commitment to gun rights and expanding concealed carry wasn’t diminished by the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
The party, according to delegates and lawmakers at the Republican National Convention, remained steadfastly opposed to sweeping gun control laws such as a ban on so-called assault weapons such as the AR-15-style rifle used by Mr. Trump’s would-be assassin.
Addressing a gathering of Second Amendment activists at the convention, Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas said the attack Saturday on Mr. Trump only proves that firearms in the hands of law-abiding individuals are necessary.
“There are 400 million guns currently in circulation. Guns aren’t going anywhere,” Mr. Hunt said. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, and that guy is now dead because a good guy with a gun shot him.”
He added, “Imagine how many moral lives were spared because that sniper acted and took him out immediately.”
I just want to jump in here and point something out for all those anti-gun voices that laugh at the “good guy with a gun” thing: Law enforcement are good guys, too.
Many times, the good guy with a gun is a cop of some stripe, but the issue with counting on that is that cops aren’t always present and able to protect you. Trump had an entire detail charged with protecting him and we see how that went.
Moving on…
Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida assured gun-rights activists at the gathering, which was sponsored by U.S. Concealed Carry, that the platform’s drive-by treatment of the Second Amendment did not mean Republicans were less concerned about the issue.
“Everyone has always and will forever associate the conservative movement as right in line with the principle of 2A — ’shall not be infringed,’” she said. “Just because we don’t explicitly talk about it in a political platform for a single cycle doesn’t mean that we are not absolutely adherent to the belief that Americans have the right to defend themselves.”
Ms. Cammack said Republicans in Congress are working on passing national reciprocity legislation that would enable legal gun owners to carry concealed firearms across state lines, similar to how a driver’s license works.
That’s great.
Of course, it should have passed nearly eight years ago when Republicans controlled every branch of government, but better late than never, I suppose.
Regardless, it seems Republicans at the RNC aren’t remotely interested in buckling to the anti-gun agenda, especially in the wake of the attempt on Trump’s life. No one is taking it lightly or think it’s not a big deal, either. We just all seem to understand that nothing we said before Saturday’s attack has fundamentally changed. Gun control wouldn’t have prevented that attack and claiming otherwise is ridiculous.
That hasn’t stopped the usual suspects, mind you, but they’re so fanatical about pushing an anti-gun agenda, rationality isn’t really in their wheelhouse.
I’m just heartened to see gun rights remain respected at the RNC under the current circumstances.
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals: Carry Bans for Under-21s Violate the Second Amendment
Minnesota’s ban on concealed carry for adults younger than 21 violates the Second Amendment, according to a three-judge panel on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a district court decision that found the state’s statute unconstitutional.
On Tuesday, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the lower court decision, giving the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, MN Gun Owners Caucus, and several individual plaintiffs a huge victory… as well as teeing up a potential appeal to the Supreme Court by Minnesota Attorney General and longtime anti-2A advocate Keith Ellison.
The opinion, authored by Eighth Circuit Judge Duane Benton, is relatively brief and mercifully short of legalese. First, the panel weighed in on standing, and rightfully allowed the litigation to proceed even though the original plaintiffs have now reached the age where they can apply for a carry license. Plaintiffs aging out is a real problem when challenging restrictions on young adults, but the 2A groups found a 19-year-old to serve as an additional plaintiff in Worth v. Jacobson, and the panel ruled that the “organizational plaintiffs have an unbroken chain of standing” thanks to the addition.
With standing resolved, Duane and the other two members of the panel then turned to the question at hand; whether Minnesota’s prohibition on concealed carry for adults younger than 21 passes constitutional muster. The panel dismissed the claims by the state that young adults aren’t part of “the People”, nor do they possess the full flower of their individual rights until they turn 21. As Benton pointed out, “Reading the Second Amendment in the context of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment unambiguously places 18 to 20-year-olds within the national political community.” And if they’re a part of the national political community, then they possess the right to keep and bear arms.
Unless, of course, Minnesota could demonstrate a national tradition that prohibited some adults from exercising their Second Amendment rights based solely on their age. The state pointed to various ordinances and regulations, including 18th and 19th century prohibitions on college students keeping guns on campus, but the court found all that none of them were a close enough analogue to pass muster.
Minnesota did not proffer an analogue that meets the “how” and “why” of the Carry Ban for 18 to 20-year-old Minnesotans. The only proffered evidence that was both not entirely based on one’s status as a minor and not entirely removed from burdening carry—Indiana’s 1875 statute—is not sufficient to demonstrate that the Carry Ban is within this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 65 (a “single” “postbellum” “state statute” is insufficient weight to meet the state’s burden).
Minnesota has not met its burden to proffer sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that 18 to 20-year-olds seeking to carry handguns in public for self defense are protected by the right to keep and bear arms. The Carry Ban, § 624.714subd. 2(b)(2), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Minnesota through the Fourteenth Amendment, and, thus, is unconstitutional.
This is the first Second Amendment case to be decided since the Supreme Court used two fairly dissimilar 18th century statutes to uphold the modern prohibition on gun possession for those subject to a domestic violence restraining order in Rahimi, and it’s good to see that the Eighth Circuit didn’t try to abuse the Court’s narrow decision to uphold the state’s carry ban by citing statutes that barred minors from possessing guns or other historical laws with a tenuous connection at best to the law the plaintiffs challenged.
FPC President Brandon Combs hailed the decision, saying it “confirms that age-based firearm bans are flatly unconstitutional. All peaceable people have a natural right to carry firearms in public, and adults under the age of 21 are no exception,” while Second Amendment Foundation Executive Vice President and founder Alan Gottlieb called the ruling “a significant victory for the rights of young adults.”
Now the ball is is AG Ellison’s court. Will he seek an en banc review of the panel’s decision… and would the Eighth Circuit even grant his request given that both the trial court and the appellate panel are in agreement? Unless Ellison is willing to take the loss, his choices are limited to asking the Eighth Circuit for a do-over with the entire appellate court weighing in, or taking his appeal directly to the Supreme Court. He has a tough decision to make, because now that the Eighth Circuit panel has issued its ruling, it won’t be long before the state is formally enjoined from prohibiting young adults from applying for and receiving their concealed carry license.
Missouri Sheriffs – as all Sheriffs do – still retain the power to deputize whoever they want, and in the past quite often commisioned ‘Special Deputies’ with no law enforcement status or required duties, primarily as a way to legally sidestep the ban on concealed carry, that is, up until when wanna-be gun grabber John Danforth was Attorney General in the mid 70s, and ruled that reserve deputies had to serve on duty at least 24 hours per month. We then elected him to the Senate where as a mere one of a hundred politicians he was actually less able to bother the citizenry.
NYTimes Frets Over Long Island Executive’s ‘Special Deputies’
If you’re a regular reader here at Bearing Arms, you know that I’ve got my own concerns about Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s “special deputy sheriffs“, but mine are substantially different than the anxieties of Long Island Democrats shared by the New York Times.
In a piece headlined, “A Trump Ally Is Training 75 Armed Citizens. Is That a Militia?” reporter Corey Kilgannon plays up the fearmongering by Democrats over Blakeman’s plans for a reserve deputy force that would be deployed during emergencies.
The leader of a New York City suburb is recruiting 75 armed citizens, many of them former police officers, for a force of “special deputies” to be activated whenever he chooses.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who has allied himself with former President Donald J. Trump and thrust himself into the culture wars, posted a call in March for residents with gun permits and an interest in becoming “provisional emergency special deputy sheriffs.”
The posting called the initiative a strategy to assist in the “protection of human life and property during an emergency” such as a hurricane or blackout — and perhaps, Mr. Blakeman later added, “a riot.”
The new force has drawn vocal opposition in this well-to-do Long Island county, which is one of the country’s safest, protected by one of the largest police departments. It has plunged Nassau into a national debate about authoritarianism in an election season that some see as a fork in the road for American democracy.
Whether Nassau County actually needs a reserve force of deputies is an open question, but these types of programs are hardly unusual. They can be found in New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.; just to name a few deep-blue cities that have similar reserve or auxiliary officer programs in place. And despite Kilgannon’s contention that the reserve force in Nassau County will be under the sole supervision of Blakeman, who could call them out at his whim, the reserve force is run by Sheriff Anthony LaRocco. According to the sheriff, the “Provisional Emergency Special Deputy Sheriffs will have no police powers unless an emergency is declared by the County Executive and they are activated.”
Despite those guardrails, Long Island lefties are losing their minds over what they see as Blakeman’s “private militia”.
WASHINGTON – Federal regulations prohibit any licensed importer, manufacturer, dealer, or collector to sell or deliver any firearm to an individual who does not reside in the state in which the licensee’s place of business is located.
U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) led his colleagues in introducing the bicameral Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act (FICRA) to modernize and streamline the legal framework governing interstate firearms transactions. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA-01) introduced a companion measure in May.
“The Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens should not dissipate at state lines,” said Cramer. “For decades, outdated regulations have placed unnecessary burdens on our nation’s federal firearm purchasing laws. The Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act fortifies Second Amendment liberties by ensuring citizens can purchase and bear arms nationwide. It also enhances lawful commerce and supports our military members and their families, all while respecting states’ laws and regulations.”
“Our federal firearm purchasing process is unnecessarily complicated and is unfair for law-abiding citizens, small businesses, and our service members willing to put their lives on the line for our country. The need to modernize and simplify our federal firearm purchasing laws is long overdue and I’m pleased this bill will finally right this wrong,” said House Majority Leader Scalise.
Additional cosponsors include U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC), Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Steve Daines (R-MT), John Hoeven (R-ND), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Jim Risch (R-ID), Rick Scott (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC), and John Thune (R-SD). The legislation has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).
“This legislation would modernize the way firearms are sold under federal law and remove arbitrary barriers for law-abiding gun buyers and sellers,” said Randy Kozuch, Executive Director of NRA-ILA. “On behalf of the NRA’s millions of freedom-loving members, we applaud Senator Cramer for championing this legislation to benefit gun owners nationwide.
“This is common-sense legislation that would allow law-abiding Americans to purchase firearms of their choosing while ensuring state and federal laws are enforced,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Americans are allowed to purchase long guns across state lines. This bill would extend that right to handguns. Your Second Amendment right to acquire and keep a handgun for self-protection does not end at your state’s border. This bill would remove an arbitrary and unconstitutional infringement on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”
👀WATCH: @DeptVetAffairs bureaucrat Kevin Friel told @RepRosendale that HE WOULD NOT COMPLY with GOA-backed legislation to restore a quarter of a million veterans gun rights—EVEN IF CONGRESS PASSED THE LAW.🤯🤯 https://t.co/0SCG8HtKia pic.twitter.com/eKAdzYh9jH
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) July 10, 2024
Colorado Finds 1 in 4 Homicides with Firearms are ‘Justifiable Self Defense’
The number of times firearms are used in self-defense is difficult to quantify. In a rare analysis of data concerning deaths related to firearms, the Colorado Center for Health & Environmental data has produced figures that indicate firearms are commonly used for self-defense.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment analyzed 5,287 firearm-related deaths in Colorado from 2016 to 2020. Of those deaths, the vast majority, 73.6%, were suicides. 24.9% were homicides/assaults (about 1316). Of the homicides, 24.7% were justifiable self-defense (about 325).
Firearms availability has minimal if any, effect on overall suicide rates. Firearms availability may increase or decrease overall homicide rates. The preponderance of the evidence is the availability of firearms has either no effect or slightly reduces overall homicide rates. Increasing legal firearms carry appears to have a small but measurable effect in decreasing overall homicide rates.
Gun Rights Groups Challenge California’s New Firearm Tax
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), along with several other gun rights groups and individual plaintiffs, has filed a lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court challenging California’s recently implemented 11% tax on firearms, gun parts, and ammunition.
The lawsuit, named James v. Maduros, targets Nicolas Maduros, director of the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
Gun Owners of America Files Suit Against New Jersey’s “One Gun a Month” Law
The pro-Second Amendment group Gun Owners of America (GOA), along with its sister organization the Gun Owners Foundation, filed suit against New Jersey’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin, challenging him to defend the latest attack on Second Amendment rights in the Garden State.
The attack, clearly an act of derision for and challenge to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen) in 2022, was instigated by anti-gun Democrats who used a thinly disguised excuse to pass the law: straw purchases.
Supreme Court Sidesteps Pending Gun Cases
The Supreme Court has decided against providing further guidance on the Second Amendment—at least for now.
The High Court released its final orders list for the term on Tuesday. It featured the Justices’ decision to grant, vacate, and remand (GVR) seven cases dealing with laws prohibiting specific people from having guns back to the lower courts for new decisions. They also vacated and remanded a case dealing with New York’s concealed carry restrictions and denied a request to review a collection of cases on Illinois’ ban on the sale of AR-15s and other popular firearms.
The orders list is the earliest indication of how active the Court plans to be on the Second Amendment moving forward. After a session that featured three gun-related cases—but just one Second Amendment case—the Court’s decision to kick the can on addressing a series of outstanding questions suggests a limited appetite among the Justices for further refinement of its Bruen test at this time.
The Court left little concrete evidence of its thinking in deciding against taking up the pending gun cases. Only the petition denial for the six separate lawsuits challenging the state and municipal “assault weapon” and magazine bans in Illinois featured comments. Justice Samuel Alito noted that he would have voted to review the cases immediately. Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a statement urging the Court to take up the issue once it receives a case that has advanced through the entire appellate process.
“This Court is rightly wary of taking cases in an interlocutory posture,” he 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 decision to hold off on reviewing the constitutionality of Illinois’ hardware bans is likely to disappoint gun-rights advocates, who have long sought the High Court’s opinion on bans on popular firearms like the AR-15. However, the Court’s decision to sidestep the question of gun rights for felons and other prohibiting categories is also likely to frustrate the Biden administration.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) had previously asked the Court to address whether the federal gun bans for drug users and felons were constitutional after two separate federal appeals courts struck them down as applied to particular defendants. In United States v. Daniels, the Fifth Circuit held the federal drug user gun ban unconstitutional as applied to a specific non-violent marijuana user. In Garland v. Range, an en banc panel for the Third Circuit struck down the felon-in-possession ban as applied to a man with a 30-year-old conviction for lying to get food stamps.
After the Supreme Court upheld the federal gun ban for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders in last month’s U.S. v. Rahimi decision, the DOJ was unsatisfied with the guidance they offered. It again urged the Court to issue a decision on whether it can legally disarm felons under the Second Amendment.
“Although this Court’s decision in Rahimi corrects some of the methodological errors made by courts that have held Section 922(g)(1) invalid, it is unlikely to fully resolve the existing conflict,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote.
“The substantial costs of prolonging uncertainty about the statute’s constitutionality outweigh any benefits of further percolation,” she added. “Under these circumstances, the better course would be to grant plenary review now.”
Instead, the Justices sent Range, Daniels, and five other related cases back down to their respective circuit courts “for further consideration in light of United States v. Rahimi.”
BLUF
In short, the death of Chevron may be good for the state of the law as a whole, but it’s not the magic bullet some gun rights commentators seem to think it is.
Analysis: The Death of Chevron and the Future of Gun Litigation
Friday brought a rare instance of a no-nonsense Supreme Court decision unambiguously reversing prior precedent in a way that has far-reaching consequences–but maybe not for gun policy.
Loper v. Raimondo saw the Court stating, in no uncertain terms, that Chevron, “a decaying husk with bold pretensions,” is overruled. Twitter–and my email inbox–were ablaze with theories about what this might mean for gun litigation. In all likelihood, though, the impact on Second Amendment cases will be more muted than many expect.
It’s easy to understand why people might think Chevron would have had an outsized impact on the firearm space. After all, it seems as though the ATF–an administrative agency–has been the primary source of tumult for gun owners over the last three administrations. Where an admin agency is the source of pain, it seems natural to presume a legal concept that advantages administrative agencies would be a huge lever in that conflict. But practitioners and astute spectators alike would observe that Chevron hasn’t been invoked in the gun space very often at all.
Simply stated, Chevron’s death won’t be as dramatic as some commentators expect in the gun law arena largely because the ATF has been expressly disclaiming and attempting to avoid its application for years. Likely knowing Chevron was on shaky ground, and because its application to laws with criminal penalties is inappropriate, the government has fairly consistently simply asserted in gun cases that its legal arguments are ordinary legal arguments rather than agency arguments entitled to deference under Chevron.
To understand the tension here, it’s important to understand what Chevron actually did. Even when it was at its strongest, the application of Chevron was limited to situations where the statutory provision being litigated over was ambiguous, and there was a “permissible” agency interpretation. In those instances, the court would defer to the agency’s interpretation of the law, even if the court disagreed with the interpretation.
Chevron was always controversial, as it was in tension with the core legal principle that courts are the only ones who can say what the law is. That’s why the Supreme Court began walking Chevron back almost as soon as it was decided.
In fact, the Supreme Court hasn’t deferred to an agency interpretation under Chevron since 2016.
More pointedly, though, there is a critical reason you won’t see the government arguing that gun laws are ambiguous, which had always been a threshold question in Chevron cases. Why? Because gun laws almost always involve criminal penalties, and the longstanding rule of lenity states that in cases involving criminal consequences, any ambiguities in the law must be resolved in the least restrictive manner. This would make the road to proper reliance on Chevron, on the part of the government, a minefield of instant losses.
That is not to say that the death of Chevron won’t have any impact on gun litigation. But it will most likely be more nuanced than revolutionary.
For example, as explained, the ATF has been making its legal arguments for years now by basically saying, “this is how you ought to read the law, even if you weren’t deferring to us.” Even where Chevron wasn’t supposed to be applied, including in criminal cases, it’s quite likely the overarching idea of Chevron–that administrative agencies are experts and thus know more about the laws they are tasked with–has poisoned the minds of judges all the way down, manifesting as subconscious deference to the agency’s interpretation of the law.
This vestige of Chevron is probably the most lasting, and unfortunately–as the dissent in Loper makes clear–that idea will be very hard to shake. The simple fact is, though, that no matter how technical a statute is, they are meant to have come through the legislature, which is–for better or for worse–a bunch of lawyers. While nerdy, lobster-clawed science-types at the EPA might have nuanced understandings when it comes to sniffing nitrogen, that doesn’t change the fact that laws have to be consistently interpreted.
In short, the death of Chevron may be good for the state of the law as a whole, but it’s not the magic bullet some gun rights commentators seem to think it is.
So 3, 4 or 5 years down the road, after the cases are appealed at the 7th circuit – again – SCOTUS might take an appeal. The ultimate purpose of the Supreme Court was to decide ‘cases and controversies’, and yet, they kick the can down the road, to what end, who knows.
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenges to Illinois Assault Weapons Ban
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a series of challenges to Illinois’ ban on assault weapons, leaving the controversial law in place for now but indicating potential future involvement, WTTW and The Center Square are reporting. The decision comes after the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban last November, stating that “even the most important personal freedoms have their limits.”
In a Tuesday order, the high court denied petitions for writs of certiorari in six cases challenging the ban. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, expressing a willingness to take up the issue once the cases reach final judgment. Justice Thomas wrote, “if the Seventh Circuit ultimately allows Illinois to ban America’s most common civilian rifle, we can — and should — review that decision once the cases reach a final judgment.”
The Illinois ban, part of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, was enacted in response to the tragic mass shooting at a Highland Park July 4 parade in 2022, where a gunman using an AR-15-style rifle killed seven people. The law prohibits the purchase and sale of firearms and accessories classified as assault weapons and imposes limits on magazine capacities for both handguns and long guns. Existing owners of these firearms were required to register them with the Illinois State Police by the end of 2023.
Justice Thomas criticized the Seventh Circuit’s decision, calling it “nonsensical” and arguing that common semiautomatic firearms like the AR-15 are protected under the Second Amendment. He cited his dissent in a similar 2015 case, Friedman v. City of Highland Park, to support his position.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear these cases leaves unresolved a significant legal question about the extent of Second Amendment protections. The Seventh Circuit’s ruling found that the guns and high-capacity magazines regulated under the Protecting Illinois Communities Act “lie on the military side of that line and thus are not within the class of Arms protected by the Second Amendment.”
Justice Thomas responded, “In my view, Illinois’ ban is ‘highly suspect because it broadly prohibits common semiautomatic firearms used for lawful purposes,’” adding that it is difficult to see how the Seventh Circuit could have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles are not “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment.
While this decision denies immediate relief to the challengers, it sets the stage for a potential future Supreme Court review. The focus now shifts to the Southern District of Illinois federal court, where four consolidated gun ban challenges are expected to move forward with a bench trial scheduled for September 16 in East St. Louis.
NBC News Wants to Teach You How to Store Guns Correctly
I grew up watching NBC News because our local TV station was an NBC affiliate. We’d hit the local news, followed by the network news.
It wasn’t until I was a fair bit older–older than I’d like to admit, really–when I realized just how biased NBC News actually was. It was kind of jarring.
They’re especially bad about issues like guns, and I cringe every time I find an article from them on the topic. It’s usually not likely they’ll speak with anyone who understands them and when they do, they aren’t exactly flattering.
So when I saw they published a piece on gun storage, well, I was prepared to be disappointed. Especially when it talked about “experts.” That usually means anti-gun mouthpieces who have never even touched a gun without fainting, so the advice is going to be geared to make guns as useless as possible. That…didn’t happen.
Instead, it’s a sober, reasonable discussion of various methods of gun storage, some of their pros and cons, and mostly just leaves it there.
Yes, it cites studies that claims most gun owners aren’t securing their guns, but those are the studies that are out there. I’m not going to fault the writer for going there when that’s the information available.
This is perhaps the most troubling part of the piece:
Twenty-six states and Washington, D.C., have safe-storage laws that punish gun owners if a child accesses an unsecured firearm. These laws have drawn support from gun safety advocates and the U.S. Surgeon General, but they’re opposed by gun rights groups that argue people should be free to decide when and how to secure their weapons.
That’s not quite how the debate falls–mandatory storage laws have a bad habit of getting in the way of someone’s self-defense needs, which is why gun rights advocates oppose them–so this bit presents a bit of the writer’s bias, but this is someone working for NBC News.
Nothing about this is surprising.
Yet from here, it’s just a brief discussion of some of the gun storage options out there. It’s very brief, so a lot of nuance is missing, and there seems to be a phobia about guns loaded, but it’s not the most terrible article on the topic I’ve ever seen.
So that leads me to wonder why NBC News never thought to write it before.
Oh, I get that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made headlines recently talking about this as a small part of his overall desire to see our gun rights stomped on, but there was no reason not to discuss this a lot earlier.
We have a reach here at Bearing Arms. The other gun rights sites out there do as well, and ours may well be more targeted than NBC News ever would be, but they have a broader reach and they can speak to the more casual gun owner.
They could have hit this years ago. They could rehash it regularly, even, just to make sure that people know what their options actually are.
Why didn’t they?
For people who seem to believe they have the duty to change the world, this is a simple thing they could have done ages ago.
How often do Americans use guns in lawful self-defense? It’s a difficult question to answer, in part because many who send a criminal to flight by merely demonstrating they are armed, never report the incident. The same is true for many who brandish their handguns, or even point them at criminals, instantly convincing them running for their lives is the better part of valor.
Refusing to report is surely common in blue states, where law-abiding citizens can be virtually certain if they report lawful self-defense, they’re far more likely than the criminal that forced them to defend themselves to be arrested and prosecuted. Even in red states, many don’t want to take the chance.
Another factor that has become obvious during the Biden administration is as many as 7,000 police agencies—surely most if not all blue—have stopped reporting crimes, particularly violent crimes. This represents about a 35% reduction in the number of cities reporting crimes. No reports of crime, no crime exists, and leftists can claim huge reductions in violent crime even as they decriminalize crime and refuse to prosecute criminals.
There have, however, been a number of studies whose results are revealing. The Clinton administration conducted such a study, secure in their belief the results would conclusively prove lawful self-defense with guns was rare, a result they planned to use in pushing even more gun control schemes. To their horror, they found as many as 1.5 million such cases per year. They tried to hide the result, but it eventually leaked. Another study, which, to the horror of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists has stood the test of time and every attack, indicates as many as 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year, and in only 8% of those cases, was it necessary to shoot the criminal attacker. In 82% of cases, merely revealing a handgun and/or demonstrating the will to use it were sufficient to end an attack. In such cases, we can never know if the criminal was intent on robbery, rape, kidnapping or even murder.
The Centers For Disease Control have long been prohibited by law from using taxpayer dollars to advocate for gun control, which has not, of course, stopped them. A recent CDC report has been revealed to be ridiculously unprofessional and invalid. Conducted entirely by telephone, it had these four primary problems:
1. They were unable to determine whether firearms were stored loaded or unloaded during the phone interviews.
2. They were only able to obtain data from the eight states, which is statistically meaningless.
3. Some respondents did not want to disclose whether they had a firearm in their home.
This is surely a major factor in that Americans have never been more mistrustful of the government, particularly when speaking about gun ownership.
4. All of the data was self-reported to the researchers, and therefore “subject to social desirability and recall biases.”
One might also wonder why the CDC, which is ostensibly supposed to be dealing with disease vectors, should be spending time and money on an incompetently done telephone survey about gun storage in the home. As one might imagine, the survey ignored lawful defensive gun uses, the need for which is one of the primary reasons Americans keep firearms in their homes. By the way, the CDC was forced to admit the aforementioned flaws.
Why would anyone want to suppress the truth about lawful, defensive gun uses? They do irreparable damage to the anti-liberty/gun narrative, which holds guns are inherently evil, and so are those who own them. They have the mystical power to compel their owners to murder. Guns exist only to kill the innocent—that would be leftist favored victim groups–and far fewer people own guns than the “gun lobby” claims, yet guns are everywhere, are responsible for unimaginable carnage and must be banned. Despite there being few guns, anyone owning a gun is virtually certain to kill a family member, despite firearm accidents being at a 100 year+ low.
There’s no logic or reproducible results supporting anti-liberty/gun “research,” which is why those that advocate that position simply resort to lying, which lies are eagerly and uncritically trumpeted by most of the media. Fortunately, Americans have wised up. For nearly 60 consecutive months, they’ve bought more than a million guns a month. They may not be willing to tell the government how many guns they own or how they use them, but they’re more than willing to use them to protect their families, and if necessary, to preserve our representative republic.
That’s what really scares our self-imagine elite.
W.Va. Campus Self-Defense Act to take effect July 1
On July 1, Senate Bill 10, the W.Va. Campus Self-Defense Act, will take effect in West Virginia. Passed by the West Virginia Legislature in 2023, the Campus Self-Defense Act allows a person to carry a concealed pistol or revolver on the grounds of an institution of higher education, with some exceptions, if that person has a current and valid license to carry a concealed deadly weapon.
The West Virginia University Campus Safety Steering Group has been working for many months in coordination with several sub-groups, including one focused solely on what is commonly known as campus carry, on how the law will be implemented across the WVU System.
These, in conjunction with signage, will assist in informing where licensed concealed pistol and revolvers are not allowed on the Morgantown, Keyser, Beckley and Health Sciences campuses.
Facilities has started installing signs in areas specifically exempt from the law under BOG Finance and Administration Rule 5.14 — Deadly Weapons, Dangerous Objects and the W.Va. Campus Self-Defense Act.
Ultimately, it is up to the concealed carry license holder to know the specifics of the law and BOG Rule and to follow the regulations while on campuses throughout the WVU System. Violations will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
Additionally, please review the FAQs for updated information, including a section specifically for Health Sciences, a step-by-step What To Do if You See Someone on Campus With a Gun guide and storage locker requests for qualifying students living in residence halls.
Occupants of “sole occupancy” offices wishing to request an approved sign for a prohibited area can do so by submitting a signage request.
Faculty members are encouraged to use the Faculty Senate-approved statement addressing concealed carry in their syllabi. It is available at facultysenate.wvu.edu/home.
The University wants everyone to feel safe on campus and works each day on measures to help ensure that. For example, the University Police Department offers active shooter, self-defense and verbal de-escalation training.
Assault Weapon Ban Challenge: Yzaguirre v DC
As of yesterday, Arsenal Attorneys (that’s Dick Heller’s lawyer) has filed a complaint in the US District Court for DC against the District of Columbia and the MPD police chief seeking to overturn DC’s assault weapon registration restrictions on Second Amendment grounds.
DOJ Asks Supreme Court to Resolve Question of Gun Rights for Felons
Fresh off its victory in Rahimi, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking the Supreme Court to clarify who it can disarm under the Second Amendment.
US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar filed a supplemental brief with the High Court on Monday to request that the Justices make the federal felony gun ban their next Second Amendment priority. Specifically, the brief asked for review in five separate appellate court cases dealing with the federal gun ban for felonies of varying severity. She argued such a move was necessary because the Court failed to address the issue in its latest Second Amendment decision.
“Now that the Court has decided Rahimi, we believe that it should grant plenary review to resolve Section 922(g)(1) ‘s constitutionality,” the brief reads. “Although this Court’s decision in Rahimi corrects some of the methodological errors made by courts that have held Section 922(g)(1) invalid, it is unlikely to fully resolve the existing conflict.”
The DOJ’s brief is the earliest indication of the legal fallout from the Court’s decision in US v. Rahimi, which upheld the domestic violence restraining order gun ban. It suggests that the federal government is unsatisfied with the Court’s narrow ruling in that case. It is seeking further guidance from the Court that will help lower courts evaluate the extent to which certain felons retain gun rights, something federal circuit courts have been divided over since Bruen.
Instead of providing a sweeping re-evaluation of Bruen, the majority stuck closely to the specific contours of the case against defendant Zachary Rahimi.
“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may—consistent with the Second Amendment—be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in US v. Rahimi. “Since the founding, our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms. As applied to the facts of this case, Section 922(g)(8) fits comfortably within this tradition.”
DOJ’s request comes as the High Court considers which of its pending Second Amendment case petitions to grant. The brief’s request for expeditious review could sway the Justices to defer to the federal government’s wishes, as it has often done in past cases.
Comment O’ The Day
Are you surprised the gooberment lied in a report? – Jessica J
Citing Fake Mass-Shooting Data, US Surgeon General Declares ‘Gun Violence’ a Public Health Crisis
United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared that “gun violence” constitutes a public health crisis Tuesday but cited fake mass-shooting data from the long-debunked Gun Violence Archive to support his spurious claims.
Murthy presented his finding in a 40-page Surgeon General advisory, titled “Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America.”
“While mass shooting deaths represent only about 1% of all firearm‑related deaths in the U.S., the number of mass shooting incidents is increasing. According to data published by Gun Violence Archive, the U.S. experienced more than 600 mass shooting incidents each year between 2020 and 2023, compared to an average of less than 400 annual mass shooting incidents between 2015 and 2018,” the Surgeon General’s advisory states.
In his report, Murthy cites data from the Gun Violence Archive more than four times.
Founded in 2013, the GVA quickly became the administration’s source of choice for mass-shooting data because they hype the numbers. The small nonprofit came up with its own extremely broad definition of a mass shooting, which says anytime four or more people are killed or even slightly wounded with a firearm regardless of the circumstances, it’s a mass shooting. For example, according to the GVA there were 417 mass shootings in 2019. The FBI says there were 30, because it uses a much narrower and more realistic definition, which excludes gang-related and drug-related shootings, which the GVA includes in its data.
Murthy is not the only member of the Biden-Harris administration to use fake data from the GVA. Biden and his handlers have cited GVA’s mass-shooting data throughout his presidency in speeches, written statements and social media.
The Truth on Permitless Carry, More Guns Create Safer Communities
I grew up in the inner city of St. Louis in a single-parent household. We faced poverty, hunger, violence, and decay. It was a daily struggle that I assumed was the life of every black family in America. I didn’t know the world that existed outside of my neighborhood.
But by God’s grace, I saw a glimmer of light in the distance and chose a different path. I joined the St. Louis Police Department’s Prisoner Processing Division, where I learned about the true threats that plague our society, what public safety really means, and why we should hold our Constitutional Rights—especially the Second Amendment—close to our hearts.
After 16 years, I left the Police Force but never lost focus on protecting people. So, I continued training individuals in self-defense and started an organization called Aiming for the Truth to focus on changing the underlying factors that drive violence in our communities.
A critical part of my job – as both a firearms coach and someone who is trying to generate wholesale change in impoverished communities – is showcasing truth while dispelling lies surrounding violence, firearms, and the Second Amendment.
Thanks to the anti-freedom people and organizations, most of us grow up seeing firearms as a tool for chaos, not a means to peace. But here’s the truth: Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens create safer communities. But you don’t have to take my word for it–the data proves it.
In a recent paper from the Firearms Research Center at the University of Wyoming, senior fellow K. Alexander Adams assesses the research surrounding “Constitutional Carry,” a law under consideration in North Carolina that 29 other US states have adopted. In short, this legislation allows qualified citizens to carry a firearm without a weapons permit.
“The relationship between constitutional-carry laws and homicide is negative, which is the opposite of what gun-control activists have predicted,” wrote Adams. In fact, “Constitutional-carry laws were associated with about 6% lower homicide rates. The doomsday scenarios of constitutional-carry opponents are not supported by social science.”
Adam referenced a study published by the Center for Justice Research earlier this year that affirmed his national research.
“Beginning June 13, 2022, Ohio became the 23rd state to allow its citizens to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. In the year following, crime involving guns dropped across Ohio’s eight largest cities as a whole and in six of the eight individually.”
Adams also name checks the John Locke Foundation, quoting from a column published in Carolina Journal, “When analyzing violent crime rates of constitutional carry states (with enough data) in years since enactment, the states either reflected the national trend in violent crime or showed a relative decrease in their violent crime rates.”
As lawmakers in North Carolina contemplate passing gun rights legislation, it’s vital for them to seek and vocalize the truth. We know the gun control lobby are lying – and will continue to lie – about permitless carry – and the Second Amendment more generally – because they want power. If they can convince citizens that their rights can – and should – be compromised, freedom diminishes as the ruling class consolidates control.
So, considering the facts, figures, and future of this great nation, let’s endeavor to spread and amplify the truth – even when it doesn’t fit neatly into a political party or ideology.
Let’s talk about the Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa and why gun control is simply Jim Crowe 2.0.
Let’s share the stats about Gun Free Zones becoming the choice location for mass murder and expose the detrimental impact of “assault weapons bans” as they threaten the safety and civility of our communities.
Permitless carry boils down to individual responsibility. The ability to exercise your rights without government intervention. While some try to paint these laws as a recipe for disaster, the data tells another story – a story that young men and women who grew up like me deserve to hear.
Supreme Court Silent on Illinois Gun Ban Lawsuits
Now that the Supreme Court has released its opinions in Garland v. Cargill and U.S. v. Rahimi, the expectations about today’s Orders from Conference were pretty high. The Court has been hanging on to a half-dozen prohibited person cases as well as six combined challenges to the gun and magazine bans that are a part of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, and with Cargill and Rahimi now a part of the record, the assumption was that the justices would have decided to do something with these cases in last week’s conference.
Well, you know what they say about assuming things.
Nothing on IL cases. Nothing on Antonyuk. Nothing on Range or Daniels.
SCOTUS likes the drama, confirmed.
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 24, 2024
In today’s orders from last week’s conference the Court did grant, vacate, and remand one case that’s been on hold; Guedes v. ATF, an FPC Action Foundation lawsuit dealing with the ATF’s bump stock ban. The Court remanded Guedes back to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had previously upheld the ATF rule, for further reconsideration in light of its ruling in Cargill.
LEGAL UPDATE: The Supreme Court has GVR’d @FPCAction‘s lawsuit challenging the federal bump stock ban, which means the bad DC Circuit opinion was vacated and the case was sent back to be reconsidered in light of Cargill. You can read more here: https://t.co/ijBkyu8FTQ pic.twitter.com/UFkYkOttR9
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 24, 2024
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has basically been put on notice that it got it wrong in Guedes, and is now being given the chance to rectify its error.
But what about Range, which deals with whether someone convicted of a non-violent misdemeanor punishable by more than a year in prison can be prohibited forevermore from purchasing or possessing a firearm? Or Daniels, which challenges the federal statute barring “unlawful” users of drugs from legally possessing a gun? I expected those cases to be GVR’ed as well today, and it doesn’t make much sense to hold on to them for another week or more. Maybe there are one or more justices writing a dissent?
ATF Whistleblower Applauds Bump Stock Ruling, Warns of Threats Ahead
Retired ATF Deputy Assistant Director Pete Forcelli, who helped blow the whistle on the Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal, tells Bearing Arms the Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down the agency’s ban on bump stocks, but he’s still deeply concerned that the agency is going to continue to be used by the Biden administration as a way to enact new gun control laws without getting Congress involved… especially if Joe Biden gets another four years in office.
The left likes to attack things, and the problem that I have is when the ATF is tasked by the White House or the Justice Department to attack things rather than hold the people responsible [for their crimes]. It’s not an item that causes the damage. It’s the person misusing that item. How many bump stocks have been used in shootings in the United States aside from Las Vegas? I don’t know of any, to be honest.
Of course, the bump stock ban was implemented under Donald Trump’s watch, so the right can look for simplistic solutions as well, especially in the wake of a high-profile shooting like the Route 91 Harvest Festival murders that resulted in 60 deaths and hundreds of injuries. But the Biden administration has used the ATF to do an end-run around Congress on a regular basis; first by targeting unfinished frames and receivers, then pistol stabilizing braces, and most recently gun owners who offer to sell one or more of their firearms from their personal collection.
Those are just the rules the agency has implemented. According to Forcelli, the White House has been demanding even more.