Category: RKBA

Louisiana Passes Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act

BATON ROUGE, LA. (May 28, 2024) – Today, the Louisiana Senate gave final approval to the “Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act,” a bill to prohibit financial institutions from using a credit card merchant code that would enable the tracking of firearm and ammunition purchases.

Sen. Blake Miguez filed Senate Bill 301 (SB301) on March 1. The bill would prohibit any financial institution operating in the state from requiring or permitting “the assignment of a firearms code in a way that distinguishes a firearms retailer from other retailers.”

SB301 also prohibits all state and local government entities from keeping any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or the owners of such firearms. Financial institutions would be prohibited from denying a transaction based on the code. Those found guilty in a court of violating the law would be subject to a fine not to exceed $1,000 per violation, with the court determining the amount by factors “including the financial resources of the violator and the harm or risk of harm to the rights under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 11 of the Constitution of Louisiana, resulting from the violation.”

On April 16, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 28-11. Last week, the House approved the measure with some technical amendments by a vote of 74-26. Today, the Senate concurred with a vote of 27-9.

Over the 2023-2024 legislative sessions, at least 13 states have passed similar legislation.

Continue reading “”

No Second Amendment, No First: God, Guns, and the Government

Today’s Left endlessly preaches the evils of “gun violence.” It is a message increasingly echoed from the nation’s pulpits, presented as common-sense decency and virtue. Calls for “radical non-violence” are routinely endowed with the imprimatur of religious doctrine.

But what if such teachings were misguided, even damaging? What if the potential of a citizenry to exercise force against violent criminals and tyrannical governments is not just compatible with church teaching, but flows from the very heart of Biblical faith and reason? What if the freedoms we treasure are intimately tied to the power to resist violent coercion?

This is the long-overdue case John Zmirak makes with stunning clarity and conviction in No Second Amendment, No First. A Yale-educated journalist and former college professor, Zmirak shows how the right of self-defense against authoritarian government was affirmed in both the Old and New Testaments, is implied in Natural Law, and has been part of Church tradition over the centuries.

Continue reading “”

Narrative: Anti-gunners seek safety; pro-gunners care only about rights. Wrong!

Far too often when a media outlet reports on “gun violence,” the undertone in the article favors the viewpoint of gun grabbers, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

It’s the same basic premise in most news stories: A shooting somewhere prompts anti-gun legislators to pass “commonsense gun control,” but pro-gun lawmakers are simply not interested in passing “gun safety” reform because, well, rights are more important than safety.

The authors often even cite the misleading statistics promulgated by Everytown for Gun Safety or Brady United — both staunch gun-grabbing organizations.

Such was the case again with a story about House Bill 433, the ban on so-called “mass casualty weapons” that, if passed, would result in making nearly all semi-automatic handguns and rifles illegal in Ohio. Fortunately, that bill likely will go nowhere. Another recent example was a story on passing “safe storage” laws.

Speaking of legislation: BFA testifies in favor of SB 32, Sen. Shaffer’s bill to provide civil immunity

What’s getting in the way? According to the typical narrative, it’s extremism. What they’re saying, of course, is that we gun-rights advocates are installing too many pro-gun extremist Ohio legislators who put rights above safety and cater to the evil gun lobby.

Continue reading “”

The 2A Case That SCOTUS Might Not be Able to Resist

Since Bruen was decided almost two years ago, the Supreme Court has turned away every gun control challenge presented by Second Amendment advocates. Sure, most of those cases were submitted before final judgment, and SCOTUS has accepted several cases brought by the DOJ, but there are a lot of gun owners who are understandably frustrated that the Court has been unwilling to step in and smack down post-Bruen carry restrictions, bans on commonly owned firearms, and other infringements that are having a daily impact on millions of Americans.

A cert petition just filed with the Supreme Court may prove to be irresistible to at least four of the justices, however. The case is known as Wilson v. Hawaii, but you might remember it as the case where the Hawaii Supreme Court invoked the “law of the paddle” to declare that Hawaii’s state constitution doesn’t protect an individual right to keep and bear arms despite the fact that its language contains the almost the exact same wording as the Second Amendment.

Christopher Wilson was convicted of the “crime” of carrying a firearm without a license back in 2017, when Hawaiian licensing authorities were routinely denying any and all concealed carry applications under the state’s “may issue” law. Wilson’s public defenders acknowledge he was bearing arms, but argue there was no chance at all for Wilson to receive a license, which is why he never applied for one.

Mr. Wilson did not have a license to carry his pistol. That year county police chiefs throughout Hawai’i issued licenses to carry to 225 employees at private security firms. Fourteen “private citizens” applied for a concealed carry license and the police chiefs in every county denied them all.

The fact that only fourteen residents in the entire state applied for a carry license that year is telling, especially given the surge in applications once the state’s “may issue’ regime was deemed unconstitutional. It was seen as a waste of time and money to apply for a concealed carry permit back then, but an untold number of residents may still have been carrying in the belief that their right of armed self-defense was worth the legal risk they were incurring.

A trial court actually sided with Wilson and dismissed the charges, but prosecutors appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court opinion and reinstated the charges against him. That was the decision crafted by Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins, who claimed that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms under Hawaii’s constitution. Instead, Eddins and the rest of the court maintained that any right that exists is one that can only be exercised collectively by a state militia.

Continue reading “”

BLUF:

The United States makes up less than 5% of the global population, yet we Americans hold nearly 50% of civilian guns worldwide.
With all these guns, you’d expect America to be at the top of the charts in gun violence and deaths, right?

When you dive into the statistics, past the fear and the headlines, you find that the U.S. doesn’t even crack the top 10 globally for gun violence or deaths per capita.
“The U.S. has the 32nd-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 3.96 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019.”

Most gun violence in our nation isn’t scattered randomly across the vast landscapes of America.
No, it’s concentrated in just 2% of our counties.Over half of all our murders happen in these small pockets.

This isn’t just about advocating for the right to bear arms. It’s about advocating for the right to live in a society that tackles the root causes of its problems

Anti-Gunners Channel Orwell to Defend Bump Stock Ban

With the Supreme Court’s decision in Garland v. Cargill looming, gun control activists are engaging in some Big Brother-esque torture of the English language to defend the ATF’s abuse of its regulatory authority.

The doubleplus ungood spin from groups like Brady and Giffords is being aided and abetted by gun control-friendly writers like The Hill‘s Clayoton Vickers, who contends that if the ATF’s rule is struck down by the Supreme Court it “could quickly open an unfettered marketplace of newer, more powerful rapid-fire devices.”

David Pucino, legal director at Giffords Law Center, said lower courts are currently treating bump stocks and similar devices like machine guns, which are banned.

“The use case for new rapid-fire devices lower courts are considering is that somebody wants to have a machine gun, and the law won’t let them have one,” Pucino said.

If the Supreme Court does overturn the ban, he said, it “would be very, very dangerous for public safety.”

Pucino’s comments are erroneous on several counts. First, not every lower courts are treating bump stocks like machine guns. If that were the case the Court might never have agreed to hear Garland v. Cargill. It’s the government that asked the Court to take the case, after all, and the DOJ filed that request because the Fifth and Sixth Circuits have both issued rulings that bump stocks do not turn firearms into machine guns.

Pucino is also off base when he claims that the argument boils down to “someone wants a machine gun but the law won’t let them have one.” Garland v. Cargill technically isn’t even a Second Amendment case. The question before the Court is whether “a bump stock device is a ‘machinegun’ as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) because it is designed and intended for use in converting a rifle into a machinegun, i.e., into a weapon that fires ‘automatically more than one shot … by a single function of the trigger.'”

It’s that phrase “single function of the trigger” where Pucino and other anti-gunners are trying to play games with the English language.

Gun control advocates argue that a debate over “single function” misses the point of bans on machine guns.

“The Justices are aware there’s a sort of forced nature to the other side’s argument,” Shira Feldman, director of constitutional litigation at Brady United Against Gun Violence, told The Hill.

Brady, a gun-control advocacy group, has also filed a brief in Cargill.

“Is it really reasonable that Congress would have written the law such that we have to read these statutes in a way that we wouldn’t normally parse language?” Feldman said.

It’s the gun control groups who are wanting to read these statutes in a way that defies common sense. In their view, a “single function of the trigger” is the same as “multiple functions of a trigger”, so long as any device attached to a firearm can help increase the rate of fire. Congress didn’t define “machine gun” by how many rounds could be sent downrange in a given period of time, which is essentially how the gun control groups want the statute in question to be interpreted. A bump stock doesn’t change anything at all about how a trigger functions, and it certainly doesn’t turn a semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic machine gun.

There’s another flaw in the logic (and I use that term loosely) of the gun control groups. Like Vickers, they claim that allowing bump stocks to be sold will be “very, very dangerous for public safety.” But they also claim that the gun industry is already flouting federal law to sell any number of devices that turn AR-15s into machine guns.

According to Feldman and fellow legal experts at Brady, the gun industry has been “disingenuous” in calling rapid-fire accessories legal and has sold them as “get them before … [they’re] banned” products.

“We’ve seen the gun industry do everything they can do to skirt federal regulation to increase the lethality of the weapons that they can sell to civilians, whether it’s a hellfire [trigger], a bump stock or a host of other accessories,” said Christian Heyne, chief programs officer at Brady.

“The main reason you have these is to kill as many people in this short amount of time as you can. And to victims, it isn’t important exactly how the trigger mechanism works,” added Douglas Letter, Brady’s chief legal officer.

“The point is that what Congress was trying to do [when it passed machine gun bans] was make these unbelievably dangerous weapons not a part of our civilian society,” he said.

It’s not disingenuous to sell products that the ATF says are perfectly legal. What’s disingenuous is the agency reversing years of determinations to the contrary, while writing rules that are so ambiguous it’s impossible to know whether you’re in compliance or violating their edicts. It’s disingenuous to claim that the main reason someone wants a bump stock or a binary trigger is to “kill as many people as possible” given the fact that hundreds of thousands of bump stocks were lawfully purchased before the ATF banned them, but were rarely used in crimes of any kind.

Garland v. Cargill is a case about bump stocks, but it’s also inherently about agency power. Will the Supreme Court give the green light to ATF and other federal agencies to ignore the plain text of federal statutes and essentially write new laws out of existing regulations, or will it rein in the multiple administrative abuses that have taken place since the bump stock ban was imposed in 2017? I have no idea where the Court will come down, but with a decision expected before its summer recess in June, we don’t have too long to wait before we learn the answer.

CRPA Joins Amicus Brief in US v. Kittson

Today, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Foundation, and the Second Amendment Law Center took the somewhat unusual step of filing an amicus brief in a unique criminal case out of Oregon. US v. Kittson involves an individual charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), which prohibits the possession or transfer of an unregistered fully-automatic firearm. The United States District Court for the District of Oregon upheld the ban despite Mr. Kittson’s Second Amendment arguments, and now he is appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Read the full brief here.

The district court ruling caught our attention not so much because of the result (considering the confusion that courts have created on how to apply the Bruen test of constitutionality, it isn’t surprising that courts are not yet ready to overturn machine gun bans) but rather because of the district court’s refusal to properly apply Bruen’s methodology and historical tradition analysis. In the decision, which is just a few paragraphs, the same federal judge that upheld Oregon’s new magazine capacity law ruled that machine guns are not “arms” covered under the Second Amendment’s plain text, and that prior Ninth Circuit precedent is still good law even after Bruen. The judge skipped the history and tradition analysis entirely.

Our amicus brief focuses on why and how the district court failed to apply Bruen correctly. First, we point out that machine guns are undoubtedly “arms” under the Second Amendment, so the historical tradition analysis must be conducted. Next, we discuss the proper contours of that historical analysis. We contend that the Ninth Circuit should order the district court to analyze whether history supports classifying machine guns within the historical tradition of regulating “dangerous and unusual” weapons. If they are not, they may not be banned. Finally, we argue that the Ninth Circuit should also inform the district court that an arm merely being used by the military, without more, is not sufficient reason to ban it. Even if the machine gun ban is ultimately upheld, like any Second Amendment question it deserves the benefit of a full historical tradition analysis first.

District courts should not be allowed to get away with ignoring what the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision demands.  The analytical legal process matters, and these abuses will continue to be copied in other cases if they are not corrected.

While our main focus is on the civil Second Amendment cases that we litigate on behalf of all law-abiding gun owners, last week’s excellent decision in US v. Duarte reminds us that a lot of Second Amendment case law and legal precedent will be made in criminal matters, where overworked public defenders can benefit from our expertise. So CRPA our allies will continue to monitor criminal matters for amicus brief opportunities.

As we’ve harped on time and again, the way in which the Bruen standard is used (or ignored) in cases all over the country has the potential to advance our cause or to erode gains already made.  This is a critical fight!

Appeals Court overturns gun conviction, questions legality of CPD traffic stop-and-search strategy

CHICAGO (WLS) — There’s strong reaction Friday to an ABC7 I-Team investigation of a controversial Chicago police tactic: vehicle searches during traffic stops, especially in minority communities.

Critics have labeled CPD traffic stops as the “new stop-and-frisk,” while law enforcement experts say the stops are vital in the fight against violent crime citywide.

Now, the ABC7 I-Team has learned in one of the rare cases where a gun was found during a traffic stop search, a man convicted for the crime could walk free from behind bars after the state Appeals Court overturned the conviction, and questioned whether the basis of the stop was unlawful.

While the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office plans to appeal that decision, as the I-Team first reported this week, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has proposed a new plan to not charge gun crimes if the firearms were found during traffic stops for expired license plates, busted turn signals and other minor infractions.

Continue reading “”

Louisiana: Governor Signs Bill Strengthening Firearm Preemption Law

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a measure that will strengthen the state’s firearm preemption law. Landry signed Senate Bill 194, sponsored by state Sen. Blake Miquez, on Wednesday.

“This bill strengthens 2A rights to ensure a consistent set of gun laws across Louisiana,” Sen. Miguez tweeted when the measure was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. “A patchwork of gun laws ultimately leads to law-abiding citizens becoming criminals for merely exercising their constitutional rights.”

Firearms preemption laws basically keep municipalities and parishes from passing more restrictive gun laws than those in state law. This measure will expand the types of behavior political subdivisions are generally prohibited from regulating, provide standing for both individuals and organizations to seek declaratory and injunctive relief when political subdivisions are in violation and require political subdivisions to repeal any offending ordinances or regulations within six months of the bill’s enactment.

“A person or an organization whose membership is adversely affected by any ordinance, order, regulation, policy, procedure, rule or any other form of executive or legislative action promulgated or caused to be enforced in  violation of this Section may file suit against an offending political subdivision in any court of this state having jurisdiction for declaratory and injunctive relief,” the measure states. “A court shall award a prevailing plaintiff in any such suit reasonable attorney fees and costs including expert witness fees and expenses.”

This measure would further restrict the authority of local governments to regulate firearms to include their “manufacture, …carrying, …storage, …[and] taxation;” and add “firearm accessories, knives, edged weapons, or any combination thereof” to the preemption statute.

The National Rifle Association had been lobbying for the passage of the bill since its introduction and was pleased that Gov. Landry signed the measure.

“The NRA would like to thank Governor Landry for signing this critical piece of legislation and his continued commitment to protecting Second Amendment rights in Louisiana,” NRA-ILA said in an update to members. “NRA also thanks Senator Blake Miguez for introducing the bill, and all members of the Louisiana legislature who supported SB 194 throughout this year’s legislative session.”

Two other measures have also been sent to the governor and await his consideration. Senate Bill 214 would create a uniform set of laws for carrying concealed firearms in dining establishments, ensuring lawful citizens have the right to defend themselves and their families in places that serve alcoholic beverages. Additionally, Senate Bill 152, makes some technical clarifications to some of the state’s carry statutes.

Yes, it would be nice, but this is the usual ‘grandstanding’ that even if it makes it through the house wouldn’t make it past a demoncrap filibuster, and even less a POTUS veto. And everyone knows it.

Republicans Introduce ‘RIFLE Act’ To Remove NFA $200 Tax

A group of 13 Republican U.S. Senators led by Tom Cotton of Arkansas has introduced legislation to remove the $200 tax imposed on firearms and suppressors regulated under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA).

In an official announcement, Cotton’s office listed the following facts:

  • The 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) regulates short-barreled shotguns and rifles, fully automatic firearms, suppressors, and a catchall category of explosives. In addition to background checks and registration, NFA regulated items have a $200 tax.
  • The ATF has acknowledged the tax was intended “to curtail, if not prohibit, transactions” of firearms. The $200 tax, unchanged since 1934, is equivalent to $4,648 in today’s dollars.
  • Since 2018, ownership of NFA regulated items have grown by more than 250% as more sportsmen, shooters and firearm enthusiasts exercise their Second Amendment right.
  • The RIFLE Act does not modify the current checks and registration; it solely removes the federally mandated financial burden on law-abiding gun owners.
  • The legislation is endorsed by the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Continue reading “”

Dem. Sponsor Of WA Gun Owner Insurance Mandate Runs For Insurance Commissioner

The Democrat Washington state Senator who earlier this year introduced legislation to require gun owners to obtain liability insurance is now running to become the next insurance commissioner.

State Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue), who has consistently supported gun control measures as a lawmaker, said in a campaign announcement,

“As a State Senator, I have been a vocal advocate for issues such as gun safety, voting rights, and women’s health. I have also been a leading voice on healthcare issues in the State Senate, including sponsoring legislation to create a public option for healthcare in Washington. As your next Insurance Commissioner, I will work tirelessly to protect consumers and to hold insurance companies accountable for their actions. I will fight to expand access to affordable healthcare, to promote transparency and fairness in the insurance market, and to ensure that all Washingtonians have access to the coverage they need to stay healthy and secure.”

She goes on to claim she is “committed to working collaboratively with all stakeholders,” although gun owners may not be included in that definition.

But Kuderer will be facing a Senate foil, at least in the primary. State Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-Auburn), an ardent Second Amendment advocate, has also filed for the position. Neither Kuderer or Fortunato would lose their Senate seats this fall.

Kuderer’s measure, Senate Bill 5963, never made it out of committee. She had nine co-sponsors, all Democrats and all whose names are often linked to gun control legislation.

Kuderer is among four Democrats running for the insurance commissioner’s spot. The three others are identified as Chris D. Chung of Tacoma, Bill Boyd of Spokane and John Pestinger of Seattle.

Fortunato also has company from Republican Justin Murta of Snohomish. Two other candidates have filed without stating party preference, Jonathan Hendrix of Seattle and Tim Verzal of Eatonville.

But only one candidate—Kuderer—can be linked to the proposed liability insurance mandate.

Under her bill, any person who owns a firearm would have been compelled to obtain “in full force and effect,” an  insurance policy “covering losses or damages resulting from the accidental or unintentional discharge of the firearm, including but not limited to, death or injury to persons who are not an insured person under the policy and property damage.”

The law would also have required the gun owner to keep valid and current written evidence of the coverage readily available where each firearm was stored.

The law would also have required insurers to ask whether anyone named on the policy owned a firearm and whether it was securely stored.

When Kuderer introduced her bill in January, she was quoted by MyNorthwest.com stating, “This …requirement does not regulate, limit or control the manner or method in which people may keep or bear arms. Instead, it simply says you must have liability insurance.”

KTTH conservative commentator Jason Rantz countered at the time, “This is astonishing. The bill literally regulates and controls both the manner and method in which we may keep and bear arms.”

GUN CONTROL ELITE POLITICIANS REBRAND ‘BITTER CLINGERS’ FAUX PAS AS ‘POOR SOULS’

Today’s gun control politicians are making it clear. It’s not just guns they despise. There are two other primary obstacles to civil disarmament that they loathe.

One is the Second Amendment itself. The other, well, it’s you – the gun owner.

It wasn’t that long ago when President Barack Obama lambasted gun owners who refused to roll over to his gun control agenda. Stumping for his first election to The White House, he told fundraisers at a San Francisco event of smalltown Pennsylvania voters that were left behind, especially by the political elites.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” President Obama said in 2008. Interestingly, it was former U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), later Secretary of State, who rebuked him.

“I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America,” she said. “His remarks are elitist and out of touch.”

Of course, that was before she labeled half of America “a basket of deplorables” in 2016 when she was making her second run for the Oval Office.

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” former Secretary Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Those were also a whole lot of gun owners who couldn’t buy into her gun control agenda – which included banning the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), the most popular-selling centerfire rifle in America.

Continue reading “”

Barr for NRA President Would Prove Association Has Learned Nothing

“Insiders Reveal the Rot Within the NRA,” John Crump reported Wednesday. “AmmoLand News has been speaking to several insiders on the condition of anonymity at the National Rifle Association (NRA) and NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) about the state of the historic gun rights organization since former Executive Vice President Wayner LaPierre and the NRA was found liable in a civil corruption case out of New York State.”

Revelations show the Herculean task facing the four recently elected “reform candidates” to bring about real changes in the way the association operates. That assumes they can recruit support from other Board members, and exert sufficient influence on senior management and staff to rein in excesses/reverse the corrupt practices instilled in decades of the Wayne LaPierre administration.

It’s been known for some time that powerhouse NRA Counsel William Brewer has long-donated to gun-grabbers, and while separating itself from his disastrous representation will be necessary for the association’s future credibility with no-compromise gun owners, one revelation in Crump’s report seems more immediately pressing and correctable:

“AmmoLand News has also been told that former Congressman Bob Barr will be the next President of the NRA. Mr. Barr is currently on the Board of Directors and is the only one that AmmoLand News knows of who has had a negligent discharge of a firearm. According to our sources at the NRA, Mr. Barr is a Brewer loyalist.”

That was anticipated when then-candidate Jeff Knox told AmmoLand  readers:

“Then in a surprise move, the board elected Bob Barr to replace Willes Lee as First Vice President. Without the Bylaw change, Lee would have been expected to be elected President at that meeting.”

My reaction to reading that: “Who better than a Lautenberg Amendment fanboy?”

That’s a lifetime ban on possessing firearms for anyone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. And that could plunge people into “horrors stories” over “offenses” including “a wife tear[ing] her husband’s pocket during an argument [or] a daughter throw[ing] keys at her mom – and miss[ing]” — or simply pleading down to the misdemeanor charge to avoid expensive prosecution and the threat of more severe incarceration penalties.

From Gun Owners of America:

In early March, Rep. Bob Barr endorsed the concept of the Lautenberg gun ban, calling it “important and worthwhile legislation.” Barr’s comments appeared as an editorial in the March 6, 1997 issue of USA Today, where he called for only a limited repeal of the Lautenberg ban. While he opposed the retroactive part of the ban, Rep. Barr endorsed the underlying principle behind the Lautenberg gun ban, stating that, “This is important and worthwhile legislation, and we cannot allow its effectiveness to be reduced.”

Read the entire GOA article because there’s plenty more.

And then listen to Barr’s own words when he was running for president as the Libertarian Party candidate and see if you heard any repudiation or apology:

Telling the audience how he improved a bad bill hardly addressed his assertion that Lautenberg “is strong protection for women and children,” or his claim that his amending language kept it from being “declared unconstitutional.” He then goes on to support the concept of “prohibited persons.” So, the answer is, no, he wouldn’t repudiate his past support and spearhead the effort to repeal it. Instead, he preferred you to be caught in the trap and then go through a Catch-22 appeals process.

As an aside, since the LP platform on immigration is one of “come one/come all,” perhaps would-be future NRA president Barr can explain how the “pathway to citizenship” Democrats are paving into a superhighway won’t end up with leftist supermajorities and court appointments that will end up reversing Bruen and giving the gun-grabbers the keys to the kingdom.

See further related posts over at the original The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance.

If you agree this guy doesn’t belong anywhere near the presidency, tell the NRA to “Say ‘NO’ to Lautenberg Bob.”

 

Taking guns away from lawful owners isn’t practical

RALEIGH — When officers from the U.S. Marshal Service, the N.C. Department of Adult Correction, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, and other agencies approached a home in eastern Charlotte on April 29, their purpose was to serve warrants on a fugitive named Terry Clark Hughes Jr.

The fugitive fought back, costing four men their lives: Adult Correction officers Alden Elliot and Samuel Paloche, Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks, and CMPD’s Joshua Ayer.

Hughes was a habitual felon. In 2011, he was convicted in Person County of breaking and entering. In 2012, he was convicted in Alamance County of speeding to elude arrest — having fled a checkpoint at more than 100 miles an hour — and possessing a firearm, which as a felon he lacked the right to do.

So, when the task force arrived at the Galway Drive house on April 29, among the charges Hughes faced was the illegal possession of guns. Alas, he still had guns. He used them to murder four men before his outrageous conduct cost him his own life.

The officers were there, in other words, to enforce a gun-control law with nearly universal acceptance. And yet, in the aftermath of this horrific incident, progressive politicians couldn’t help themselves. Rather than tailor their reactions to the facts of the case, they engaged in a robotic plug-and-play.

In his April 29 statement, for example, Joe Biden called the officers “fallen heroes.” Yes, they are.

But the president also said this: “We must do more to protect our law enforcement officers. That means funding them — so they have the resources they need to do their jobs and keep us safe. And it means taking additional action to combat the scourge of gun violence. Now. Leaders in Congress need to step up so that we ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of guns, and pass universal background checks and a national red flag law. Enough is enough.”

Several days later, after President Biden met with family members of the fallen heroes as well as others wounded in the firefight, he insisted lawmakers needed to “keep the weapons of war” out of the wrong hands.

The hands of habitual felon Terry Clark Hughes certainly had no business holding firearms of any kind. But it was already illegal for him to do so. That was one of the main reasons the officers were there to arrest him in the first place.

As for the funding of state and federal law enforcement, I see no evidence it played any role here. Safe storage of guns? While the North Carolina General Assembly has already legislated on this matter, it also had no relevance to the case. Nor did the absence of red flag laws (since any report to authorities by family members that he possessed a gun would already have triggered yet another warrant for his arrest) or broader background checks (since he already knew he was precluded from owning a gun and wouldn’t have tried buying firearms from anyone required to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System).

That leaves only Biden’s stated desire to ban all assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Assuming he means semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 — automatic weapons are already illegal for the vast majority of Americans to own — there are tens of millions of such rifles currently in private hands across our country. Most have magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

To put the matter bluntly, there is no practical way of confiscating these weapons from their lawful owners. Let’s focus on actual criminals like Terry Clark Hughes.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Judge Fast-Tracks Review of ATF’s Universal Background Check Rule Amid Legal Challenge by GOA, Texas

A federal judge has expedited the legal proceedings against a new rule by the ATF that mandates universal background checks on private firearm sales. U.S. District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s decision on Friday sets the stage for a rapid review of the contentious rule, which has faced strong opposition from gun rights advocates and several states.

The rule, slated to be enforced starting May 20, 2024, would significantly expand the scope of background checks, requiring them even in private transactions that have traditionally been exempt. This includes sales by individuals not classified as being “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. According to reporting by Breitbart News, this change blurs the lines between private sellers and licensed dealers, potentially impacting millions of gun owners across the country who wish to buy or sell a firearm to or from a private seller.

Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Gun Owners Foundation and the State of Texas, along with other states (Louisiana, Mississippi and Utah) and advocacy groups (including the Tennessee Firearms Association and the Virginia Citizens Defense League), have filed a lawsuit arguing that the rule not only exceeds the regulatory powers of the ATF but also infringes on constitutional rights. The plaintiffs claim the rule would unfairly classify ordinary citizens who sell firearms as dealers, subjecting them to rigorous licensing and background checks.

Judge Kacsmaryk has ordered the ATF to respond to the motion for preliminary relief by 5 p.m. tomorrow, May 14, 2024, with the plaintiffs’ reply due by the following day by 5 p.m. as well.

Continue reading “”

Representative Massie finally posts his correcting the domestic enemy Nadler, who should one day be prosecuted under 18 US Code § 241.

Breyer’s ‘Pragmatic’ Approach to Destroying the Second Amendment

Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer may no longer be in a position to decide cases that come before the Court, but he’s still trying to shape the judiciary in a way that would allow for judges to uphold virtually every gun control law the anti’s could dream up.

Breyer’s new book Reading the Constitution; Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism outlines his approach to interpreting the Constitution. I’m actually surprised he managed to fill several hundred pages with material, given that his view is basically that judges should have the power to ignore what the text of the Constitution has to say if they don’t like it.

Breyer highlights the need for considering the broader context in which laws are passed and the “practical consequences” of different interpretations. He refers to the majority judgment in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), in which he dissented. The Court held, 6–3, that New York’s law requiring a citizen to have a license to carry a gun outside his home violated the right to carry arms under the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Breyer expresses his disagreement with the ruling by emphasizing his preference to prioritize the practical implications. Considering the alarming patterns of gun violence in the US, Breyer believes the Court should have limited the access to firearms.

Does Breyer not know his history, or is he just choosing to ignore it? The Second Amendment was ratified shortly after a civil war that not only brought the United States its independence but led to small-scale reprisals between patriots and loyalists throughout the course of the war. As the Bill of Rights was being drafted and debated, the memory of Shay’s Rebellion was fresh in the mind of the Framers, while the Whiskey Rebellion broke out along the western frontier the same year the Second Amendment was ratified. The Founders knew all about “gun violence”. They just didn’t believe that disarming the American people was the answer.

Breyer’s criticism of textualism is based on his adherence to pragmatism. He contends that judges should endeavour to interpret the Constitution in a manner that is pragmatic and adaptable to the requirements of modern society. According to him, this approach is better aligned with the intentions of the Constitution’s framers, who intended for the constitution to be “workable” and responsive to evolving circumstances.

The Constitution is responsive to “evolving circumstances”, but the proper way to do that is through an amendment, not a panel of nine justices deciding that is language can be discarded because they think it’s right thing to do in our modern age.

Breyer’s not the first to adopt a “pragmatic” approach to the Constitution, of course. I’d argue that Roger Taney’s decision in Dred Scott is actually a pretty good example of the pragmatic philosophy that Breyer espouses. Taney twisted the Constitution’s text beyond recognition in order to reach his conclusion that black Americans could never be entitled to citizenship and that Congress had no power to regulate slavery in the territories. He did so in the belief that the practical implications of his ruling would make the country a more peaceful place by removing the issue of slavery and abolition (which Taney considered an act of “Northern aggression” from the national debate.

Pragmatism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. In Bruen, Breyer (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan) argued that the majority opinion “refuses to consider the government interests that justify a challenged gun regulation, regardless of how compelling those interests may be,” adding “the Constitution contains no such limitation, and neither do our precedents.”

The text of the Second Amendment doesn’t include a clause after “shall not be infringed” that says “unless the government thinks there’s a good reason to do so”. The entire purpose of the Bill of Rights is to restrain the government from violating our individual rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment applies those protections to abuses from state and local governments as well. The only pragmatic way to change that while remaining faithful to the Constitution is to pass another amendment negating the right to keep and bear arms. That option has been available to the gun control lobby for decades, but as we’ve seen with Gavin Newsom’s proposed constitutional amendment, it’s not feasible because the support simply isn’t there.

Since repealing the right to keep and bear arms is off the table, Breyer (and others) are left to insist that the Constitution is essentially whatever they want it to be. That judicial arrogance is at the heart of some of the worst legal decisions in this country, including Dred Scott, but thankfully was consigned to the minority in Bruen. If Democrats are able to reshape the court in their image after the November elections, however, that “pragmatic” approach could very well become the majority view on the Court. Our right to keep and bear arms could disappear as quickly as Dred Scott’s right to live free did in 1857; not because the Constitution demands that result, but because the “pragmatic” enemies of individual liberty do.