RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – On Thursday, two bills submitted by South Dakota Representative Dusty Johnson passed out of the House Judiciary Committee. The bills focus on the Second Amendment and the right to own a firearm.
To be able to purchase a firearm in the United States, you need to have an identification card such as a driver’s license, passport, or military ID. However, Tribal IDs are not currently accepted, and because of this, Representative Johnson re-introduced the Tribal Firearm Access Act, which would classify a Tribal ID as a valid form of identification for the purchase of firearms.
“They should be able to use that same government-issued photo ID to be able to go through purchasing a gun. They still have to go through the background check, they still have to go through the same process with a federal firearms dealer. But it makes it clear that having a tribal ID is just as good as having a state-issued driver’s license for the purchasing of firearms,” stated Rep. Johnson.
Also Thursday, the Travelers Gun Rights Act was passed out of the same committee. The bill, also introduced by Johnson, would allow firearm access for those who don’t have a permanent physical address.
“In many states to be considered a resident, you have to have lived in a permanent residence for quite a period of time, a year is not unusual, and you have to be considered that resident before you can purchase a firearm. That isn’t fair to military spouses. People who travel all over the country following that military member. It’s also going to make it that much easier for RV-ers, people who don’t have a permanent address that they’re at day in and day out, they’re out on the road, to also be able to exercise their second amendment rights,” Johnson continued.
Senator Mike Rounds also supported the Traveler’s Gun Rights Act. The next step for both bills is the full House.
Both sides of the Second Amendment debate will be watching the U.S. Supreme Court closely in 2024 as it applies the standards from previous decisions to new high-profile cases.
In the 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision, the Supreme Court ruled that, to be constitutional, new gun laws must match the plain text of the Constitution and the “history and tradition” of the United States.
“The test that … applies today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in June 2022.
One of the first major post-Bruen cases, United States v. Rahimi has court watchers curious about how Bruen will be applied. The high court heard oral arguments on Rahimi on Nov. 7, 2023.
Federal law currently bars those who are under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns. The Supreme Court in the Rahimi case will decide if it stays or goes.
Gun control advocates say the “text and tradition” standard of the Bruen decision, if applied in Rahimi, would allow violent abusers access to guns, resulting in the deaths of domestic violence victims.
“The Supreme Court must reverse this dangerous [Bruen] ruling,” Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, wrote on the Everytown for Gun Safety website. “Domestic abusers do not have—and should not have—the constitutional right to possess a firearm.”
Gun rights advocates say the Rahimi case has been mischaracterized as an attempt to arm violent criminals when it’s really about protecting society without preemptively suspending constitutional rights.
“It’s going to answer one issue, which is, do we as a country have a historical tradition of disarming people that we believe to be dangerous?” William Kirk, a Washington state-based lawyer who specializes in the Second Amendment, told The Epoch Times.
This dangerous legislation, prefiled at the Roundhouse by Los Alamos State Representative Christine Chandler, targets the already heavily regulated firearm industry with potential litigation intended to make it impossible to remain in business in New Mexico.
This specific, aggressive targeting of the singular industry necessary for the citizens to exercise a constitutionally protected right weaponizes the civil justice system and will create a vacuum into which unlicensed and unregulated persons and entities will likely step.
Bad actors in ANY industry who engage in unconscionable, unfair, or deceptive trade practices are already held to account by the state’s existing Unfair Trade Practices Act. Federally licensed firearm manufacturers and retailers who violate gun laws commit federal felonies and face prison time, heavy fines, and revocation of their license by the ATF. So why is HB 114 being filed?
HB 114 creates new civil violations associated with “false advertising” and actions that “negatively impact public health, safety, or welfare” that apply only to the firearm industry. Activist attorneys general, district attorneys, and gun control organizations are explicitly authorized to litigate against members of the firearm industry and drive them out of business. HB 114 provides a template for destruction that can and will be used against any industry disfavored by certain elected officials and progressive interest groups.
In the interim joint legislative hearings leading up to the 2024 session, in which the bill author participated, lawmakers repeatedly stated that they wanted to target unlawful manufacturers and sellers of illegal firearms and firearm products. HB 114 sweeps up lawful and legitimate firearm industry members in a web of subjective, vague civil law that applies only to them and no other industry.
Today, Chief Counsel Joshua Prince secured a major victory for Second Amendment jurisprudence in Lara, et al. v. Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, docket no. 21-1832, where the Third Circuit held that Pennsylvania’s banning of 18-to-21-year-olds from carrying firearms outside of their homes during a state of emergency is unconstitutional.
In so holding, the Third Circuit declared
The words “the people” in the Second Amendment presumptively encompass all adult Americans, including 18-to-20-year-olds, and we are aware of no founding-era law that supports disarming people in that age group.
In that vein, the court went on to emphasize that
It is undisputed that 18-to-20-year-olds are among “the people” for other constitutional rights such as the right to vote (U.S. Const. art. I, § 2; id. amend. XVII), freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, government petitions (id. amend. I), and the right against unreasonable government searches and seizures (id. amend. IV)…and there is no reason to adopt an inconsistent reading of “the people.”
In turning to whether the relevant historical timeframe is 1791 (ratification of the Second Amendment) or 1868 (ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment), the court declared
[That] to maintain consistency in our interpretation of constitutional provisions, we hold that the Second Amendment should be understood according to its public meaning in 1791.
In turning to the statutory sections at issue, the court acknowledged that
[t]aken together, §§ 6106, 6107, and 6109 – when combined with a state or municipal emergency declaration – have the practical effect of preventing most 18-to-20-year-old adult Pennsylvanians from carrying firearms
and that “that the Commissioner cannot point us to a single founding-era statute imposing restrictions on the freedom of 18-to-20-year-olds to carry guns.”
Accordingly, the Third Circuit remanded the issue with “instructions to enter an injunction forbidding the Commissioner from arresting law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds who openly carry firearms during a state of emergency declared by the Commonwealth.”
When Florida became the 26th state to adopt constitutional carry, corporate media and Democrats lost their minds.
None of the requirements for how citizens obtained guns in the Sunshine State changed when Florida House Bill 543 became law July 1, 2023. That didn’t stop the anti-gun press, which were not welcome at the signing, from claiming that permitless concealed carry would exacerbate shootings.
“Following mass shootings, DeSantis signs permitless carry bill,” one NBC News headline complained. In the article, the producer of “The Rachel Maddow Show” sneered at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for trading what he dubbed “modest gun safeguards” for an “extreme” and “controversial” law.
Forbes also amplified rhetoric from gun control groups including Giffords claiming the pro-Second Amendment law is “dangerous” and “will drive gun violence up and further jeopardize the safety of our families and communities.”
Even President Joe Biden’s White House joined the dogpile on DeSantis and Florida Republicans for daring to reinforce their constituents’ constitutional rights.
“It is shameful that so soon after another tragic school shooting, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a permitless concealed carry bill behind closed doors, which eliminates the need to get a license to carry a concealed weapon,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote. “This is the opposite of commonsense gun safety. The people of Florida — who have paid a steep price for state and Congressional inaction on guns from Parkland to Pulse Nightclub to Pine Hills — deserve better.”
Now, more than six months after the law’s adoption, evidence contradicts Democrats’ fearmongering that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a loaded gun for self-defense would result in more “senseless tragedies.”
Since the legalization of constitutional carry in July 2023, Florida’s biggest cities saw a significant decrease in violent crimes, including shootings. In Jacksonville, murders and homicides dropped 6 percent in 2023 from the previous year.
It turns out that not interfering with people’s constitutional rights and allowing law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from criminals who don’t care about gun laws (you know, because they’re criminals) makes criminals think twice before attempting to victimize them.
BLUF
As stated, the policy recommendations presented by the authors are merely longstanding goals of the gun-ban industry, which would help propel them toward their ultimate goal of total civilian disarmament. The only difference is that now their policy recommendations are presented as necessary to “address the dangers of armed insurrectionism.”
A recent report by the Center for Gun Violence Solutions, which is part of Johns Hopkins (Michael) Bloomberg School of Public Health, conflates private gun ownership with armed insurrection in order to advocate for expanded gun control.
The 32-page study, which is titled “Defending Democracy: Addressing the Danger of Armed Insurrection,” not only revisits and revises the Jan. 6th protest — even though no protesters were armed and the only casualty was 35-year-old Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by Capitol Police — it resurrects actual armed insurrections from American history, such as Shays’ Rebellion of 1786, the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 and the American Civil War.
The three authors, who are all attorneys with a history of paid anti-gun activism, clumsily raise the insurrection boogeyman to push for additional regulations for carrying firearms, tactical training prohibitions, additional gun-free zones, expanded Red Flag laws and the repeal of state preemption statutes, which has long been a major goal of the gun ban industry. Preemption laws prevent local jurisdictions from enacting their own gun-control regulations, which would result in a patchwork of gun-free zones.
Their authors’ warped message is to be expected, especially when you consider the biased nature of their backgrounds, their sponsors, their sources and Michael Bloomberg’s school itself. (If you type “gun violence” into the school’s internal search engine it will yield more than 1,000 results.)
I cringe anytime I see someone offer up a “modest proposal” on guns, but it takes a second.
My initial reaction is hope that we’ll see satire like in Thomas Swift’s “Modest Proposal” that suggested addressing poverty by having the poor eat babies. It was a poke meant to shock people, so I tend to hope we’ll see something like that.
But that’s over very quickly. It’s over because, frankly, it’s almost never anything like that.
Instead, what we have is a gun control advocate who is offering up what he or she believes to be a very modest proposal regarding firearms but are complete non-starters as far as most Second Amendment advocates go.
I would like to suggest a simple two-part solution for gun violence in the United States.
First, we must make it more difficult to own guns.
Taxes and national pricing regulations could be used to increase the cost of guns. Regulations could be enacted that charge tariffs to gun manufacturers and retailers based on the real costs of guns to society. Estimates are that gun violence costs our country over $500 billion dollars a year, including costs to victims, cost to police, courts, and the criminal justice system, lost wages and spending, losses to quality of life, etc. And much of these costs are born by government agencies and thus are paid for by all taxpayers. These costs could inform a tariff added to the price of guns manufactured and/sold in the United States.
Second, we could treat guns more like cars; that is make it a bit cumbersome and difficult to own and operate one. We could enact a registration system for guns that would require folks to possess a gun owner’s license before they could purchase or own a gun. To get such a license, people would have to be a certain age (30?), pay a substantial annual fee, and pass an annual gun training course and exam.
Of course, the course and exam would also change a substantial fee to participants, and buying the resultant permit would also be costly. In addition, owners could be required to answer a tedious and complicated gun ownership application and present their gun and ammunition to the “Department of Firearms Ownership,” DFO, for inspection. DFO offices could be very understaffed, very bureaucratic, and very difficult to visit and use. In addition, there would be substantial fines assigned to people who violate any of these rules and, of course, their guns and ammunition would be confiscated.
In other words, let’s make buying and owning a gun very expensive, bureaucratic, and time-consuming process in the United States. And, as an added benefit, the taxes and fees collected in the gun owner licensing and registration process could be used to cover some of the costs created by gun violence and could be directed to public health education programs concerned with the problem of gun violence.
If this is a modest proposal, I’d just love to see what he considers extreme.
Yet this is also particularly telling, at least to me, as to why there will never be any common ground on gun control.
Critics believed constitutional carry in the state would increase crime. They were wrong.
The mayor stood, frowning and grim, flanked by uniformed police officers. Another horrific gun crime had occurred — and it was all the fault of the state legislators who had recently repealed the law requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, what proponents call “constitutional carry.”
“The Republican-led legislature in Columbus passed SB 215 and across this state from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati, you see an uptick in shootings across our state. . . . It’s important that we hold them accountable for passing dangerous gun laws in our state,” the mayor said, his angry voice rising above the roar of nearby freeway traffic.
“The most reckless and . . . careless gun policy in the state’s history,” the mayor said.
“It’s creating an arms race where people don’t feel safe unless they have a gun. So guns beget more guns, which, unfortunately, makes us all unsafe,” the mayor said.
But which mayor? The first quote was from Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland. The second one is from Mayor Andrew Ginther of Columbus. The arms-race quote was from Aftab Pureval, mayor of Cincinnati, on National Public Radio.
Ohio’s three biggest cities — they all got in with the same message: It’s not our fault; it’s the new state law.
There was only one problem: It wasn’t true.
My office commissioned a study with Bowling Green State University to examine gun crime in Ohio’s eight largest cities the year before the law changed — June 13, 2022 — and the year afterward. The conclusion: Eliminating concealed-carry licenses had no impact on gun crimes, and in six of the eight cities, gun crimes actually declined.
I honestly did not know what the data would show, but a study seemingly would be useful for the ongoing debate either way. The numbers could have increased — gun crime, like any other crime, has multiple causes. And it wouldn’t have been surprising if the numbers had stayed the same, because a great deal of the action taken by government seems to have marginal impacts, if any.
But the numbers went down.
In Parma, gun crimes dropped by a whopping 22 percent after constitutional carry; Akron and Toledo both saw declines of 18 percent; and Columbus logged a 12 percent reduction. Canton and Cleveland had single-digit percentage decreases. Cincinnati and Dayton both had single-digit percentage increases.
Over the entire eight-city sample, gun crime dropped by 8 percent. Shot Spotter technology, which detects the sound of a gunshot in a city, produced data that was consistent with the reported crimes where it was available.
Thanks to a decision by a federal judge in Florida on Friday, American citizens who are legally carrying concealed sidearms can no longer be barred from carrying inside a United States Post Office — buildings that are a quasi-part of the federal government and, in effect, the property of the American people.
A federal judge in Florida on Friday ruled that a U.S. law that bars people from possessing firearms in post offices is unconstitutional, citing a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2022 that expanded gun rights.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump in Tampa, reached that conclusion in dismissing part of an indictment charging a postal worker with illegally possessing a gun in a federal facility.
If there is anywhere, honestly, that the Bill of Rights applies, it should be in federal buildings and federal installations. Oh, there’s an argument to be made for barring carry in the Capitol, the White House, in courthouses, and so on – but those are places that are already secured by armed law enforcement (when they aren’t throwing the doors open for “insurrectionists.”) The post offices, not so much. Most post office buildings are pretty small, often crowded, and until now, “gun-free” zones. In other words, target-rich environments for would-be mass shooters.
Mizelle said that charge violated Emmanuel Ayala’s right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, saying “a blanket restriction on firearms possession in post offices is incongruent with the American tradition of firearms regulation.”
She declined to dismiss a separate charge for forcibly resisting arrest. Ayala’s lawyer and a U.S. Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
The decision marked the latest court decision declaring a gun restriction unconstitutional following the conservative-majority Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Things in the last year or two sure seem to be swinging in favor of the Second Amendment, although the pro-gun community should not take any time to rest on its laurels.
Now that this ruling is in place – assuming it goes nationwide and survives any possible appeal to the Supreme Court – it would be interesting to see it as a precedential springboard into other federal facilities, such as (especially) military bases. Military bases in particular should be removed from the federal “gun-free zone” list; military members are in the profession of arms, and they are charged with enormous responsibility. It’s common to have an 18-year-old soldier, when on duty, handling and firing a weapon as formidable as a .50 caliber machine gun, and yet is prohibited from possessing a personal firearm on base. That makes little sense; in light of several publicized incidents on military bases in recent years, it would make more sense to have every officer and non-commissioned officer issued a sidearm to be carried loaded at all times when in uniform.
Post offices, granted, are a different kettle of fish. But now, at least, this decision recognizes that the Second Amendment rights of the citizenry are not negated by some bureaucrat mandating that every such building be a free-fire zone for would-be mass shooters. Self-defense is a fundamental human right, and now that right has been confirmed yet again.
SPRINGFIELD – The U.S. Supreme Court has denied one request to review the Illinois assault weapon ban, but many believe the court is more likely to take up another challenge to the law later this year.
The high court turned down a request by Republican State Rep. Dan Caulkins, of Decatur, to hear an appeal of the case he lost before the Illinois Supreme Court in August.
In his appeal, Caulkins argued that he was denied a fair hearing at the state supreme court because two of the state justices had received large campaign contributions from Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who signed the assault weapon ban into law.
Caulkins also claimed the law is unconstitutional because it allows some people to keep their assault weapons if they acquired those guns before the ban took effect.
The justices at the U.S. Supreme Court gave no reason for declining to hear Caulkins’ appeal. But many people expect the court to take up a separate challenge to the law from the National Association for Gun Rights, which argues more broadly that the ban violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the gun rights group in November. The group is expected to file its appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court within the next several weeks.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced support for several bills that she said were aimed at gun violence — banning assault weapons, raising the age to possess a gun and extending the waiting period to take it home.
“We have a gun problem, ladies and gentleman, and we have a public safety problem,” she said Friday , surrounded by public safety officials, law enforcement and the bills’ sponsors. “We have a responsibility to our children, to families, communities to solve it, and I believe this package goes a long way to do just that.”
One bill would ban assault weapons statewide, another would raise the minimum age to buy a gun, from 18 to 21 years old, and extend the waiting period to take one home from three to 14 days.
The bills were just a few of dozens related to public safety that will come up in the legislative session, which begins Tuesday.
At least three of the gun initiatives Lujan Grisham highlighted Friday reflected failed legislation from the Legislature’s last session. House Bill 101, which would have prohibited people from possessing assault weapons; House Bill 100, which would have established a 14-day waiting period for guns; and Senate Bill 116, which would have made it illegal for anyone younger than 21 to purchase an automatic or semi-automatic firearm, all died in committee.
LEGAL ALERT: The Fourth Circuit has granted the en banc petition in the lawsuit challenging Maryland's handgun license law. The 3-judge panel struck down the law in November, but today's order means that the entire court will rehear the case. pic.twitter.com/uzFH761nx0
The gun industry is one of the most regulated industries in the nation. A firearm can’t go from Point A to Point B without a mountain of paperwork, for example. About the only industry that can compete with it regarding the amount of regulation they deal with is the pharmaceutical industry.
But a lot of people seem to think that the gun industry is unregulated.
Now, this is usually not a big deal. It doesn’t take much to show just how wrong people who think that actually are. We can usually show them how regulated guns actually are.
Occasionally you’ll find someone who should know better but, apparently, doesn’t. An example is this guy who seems to think that toy guns are regulated more than real firearms. He also thinks that should change.
What if the United States regulated real firearms as stringently as they regulated toy guns for children?
Cavataro argues that empowering the CPSC to regulate guns would increase their safety without encroaching on politically charged issues such as gun access and prevalence.…
Cavataro notes that subsequent efforts to introduce product safety regulations have fallen short because product safety measures for firearms are often seen as “gun control.” Cavataro contends that this characterization is misleading. Instead, he distinguishes between product safety measures, which seek to protect firearm users from dangerous mishaps, and gun control efforts, which seek to regulate the possession and use of guns.
Wrong.
What we’re seeing here is a call for a bureaucracy to oversee the gun industry, ostensibly to maintain safety standards, which might be fine for many if we could trust the bureaucracy to end there. After all, making sure you guns work as they’re supposed to wouldn’t be a bad thing, if you’re inclined to believe the government can do that job properly.
But the reason people call these efforts “gun control” isn’t due to a lack of understanding or mischaracterization. It’s because we know damn good and well where such a body would eventually take their regulatory efforts.
Think for a moment how the ATF started as a revenue collection agency and now is deciding what is legal and what isn’t. We’ve seen federal agencies try to say their ability to regulate waterways included mud puddles.
Now think about the GOSAFE Act for a second. This is, in essence, an attempt to regulate the gun industry. It’s not through a regulatory body, which means it has to battle through Congress to become law.
And a lot of people are opposed to it.
Yet if we had a regulatory body over the gun industry, the defeat of such a bill would only be part of what’s necessary. We’d then have to defeat that regulatory body when it attempted to put similar rules in place.
We call it gun control not because we don’t understand but because we understand all too well what will happen.
That’s not going to change.
The Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes. But what does the phrase “in common use for lawful purposes” actually mean?
The anti-gunners want to define “in common use” very narrowly to mean only the actual firing of a gun in self-defense. They argue that because firearms are rarely fired in self-defense, they aren’t “in common use” and, thus, can be banned. That’s a trap and one we must work hard to avoid falling into. Firearms are prolific in America and are commonly used every day for countless lawful purposes beyond the actual firing of a gun in self-defense.
Firearms Are “Used” To Deter Bad People From Doing Bad Things
Let’s begin with a very basic principle: the “use” of a firearm extends beyond firing a gun in self-defense. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects “arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense.” Self-defense is simply an illustration of a type of “lawful purpose”; it is not the only lawful purpose of a firearm as the anti-gunners would like the lower courts to find.
But even in the self-defense arena, firearms are commonly used as a deterrent (i.e., brandishing) without being fired. In the 2021 National Firearms Survey, Professor William English of Georgetown University found that in 81.9% of defensive gun uses, the gun is not fired.
A police officer patrolling Times Square may never fire his handgun at a perpetrator, but its mere presence helps ward off potential criminal activity. The same can be said for the firearm that rests on your nightstand, which acts to deter a criminal from attempting to burglarize your home.
Think of a firearm like a fire extinguisher. A fire extinguisher is in “use” merely by being present in the home. A homeowner does not need to depress the handle of a fire extinguisher to put out a grease fire to “use” a fire extinguisher. Similarly, you would never argue that a life insurance policy isn’t in “use” because the insured is still living. Or that a homeowner insurance policy was not being used because no claim for a loss had yet been submitted. Americans purchase firearms, fire extinguishers, and insurance policies for the same reason – as a means of protection just in case. Contrary to the arguments advanced by the anti-gunners, a firearm is being “used” for self-defense even when it has never been fired.
Thus, the first item we can add to the list of lawful purposes for which Americans use their guns is the two-sided coin of self-defense: either firing in self-defense or merely keeping (or brandishing if needed) a gun as a deterrent to prevent against future harm.
Firearms Are “Used” For Hunting, To Prevent Animal Attacks, And for Pest Control
The “use” of firearms is not restricted to self-defense against violent criminals intending to do us harm. Firearms are also used for hunting, for example. Whether it’s big game, small game, varmints, birds, trophies, or simply sustenance, hunting is both a sport and a valuable means of obtaining sustenance engaged in by millions of Americans across the country. And hunters use a wide variety of firearms. Whether it’s a modern firearm such as an AR-15, a 30-06 Springfield, or an older firearm such as a black powder musket, hunters employ many different types of guns.
Another important lawful use of firearms concerning hunting is the prevention of animal attacks. I have written more comprehensively about this elsewhere, but the danger of animal attacks was top of mind for our Founding Fathers who drafted the Second Amendment. This is especially important for people who live in remote places in the American West where wild, dangerous animals roam free.
Relatedly, many American gun owners today use their firearms for pest control: pest control not only preserves one’s land and livestock, but it may also become necessary to prevent a violent attack. Whether it’s coyotes, feral hogs, prairie dogs, rats, groundhogs, or crows, pest control can come in many forms. Packs of feral hogs demonstrate not just the necessity of semiautomatic weapons but large capacity magazines as well: feral hogs are extremely fast and can be overwhelming, and as a result, modern firearms and capacities are necessary to keep them under control.
Firearms Are “Used” For Sport In Competitions, To Train, And By Civilian Law Enforcement
Shooting competitions have a long and storied history in American culture, and they are yet another way Americans lawfully use their firearms. Examples abound: the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC); the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA), fast draw competitions, the Camp Perry National Matches, the Police Pistol Combat competitions, and the Civilian Marksmanship Program, to name a few. There are also competitions across the country for minors to acquaint them with firearms and their proper usage.
Another use of firearms is firearm training. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has specifically said in Ezell v. City of Chicago (2017) that the Second Amendment protects a right to train with firearms. Firearms training is another lawful use of firearms in the United States.
Relatedly, firearms are “used” by civilian law enforcement, which includes civilians who might be deputized into service for a variety of reasons. It’s not unusual for citizens to sometimes be deputized as a reservists to help protect their town—such deputization is necessary in wide-ranging areas with little police presence.
History and Craftsmanship
Historical shooting activities are another use of firearms in the United States. There are many groups that engage in Revolutionary War and Civil War reenactments that use many types of historical firearms and replicas. We see an example of this every Sunday during the NFL season when the New England Patriots score a touchdown; the Patriots Militia fire their muskets at Gillette Stadium in their Revolutionary War garb.
While some people are interested in history, others enjoy gunsmithing and craftsmanship. Americans engage in gunsmithing as a hobby or even professionally, and many others also like to make their own firearms, whether modern or historical. Sometimes, you can use weapon parts kits or even 3-D printing to accomplish those goals. There are also all sorts of experimentation and improvement that go on with firearms, such as designing new cartridges, chambers, or other things. People also customize their firearms and even use them as home décor above the mantle and throughout their homes.
When it comes to Second Amendment analysis, we must remember that firearms are commonly used by Americans for lawful purposes far beyond the rare occasion when someone fires a gun in self-defense. The anti-gunners are working hard to define “in common use” narrowly to further restrict our rights to keep and bear arms. So, next time you hear the phrase “in common use,” make sure to remember the myriad ways Americans use their firearms in the modern age.
“The staff who have been selected and trained will remain anonymous, and with God’s help this layer of protection will never need to be deployed. We expect no changes to the day to day experiences of students and staff,” the superintendent of Siouxland Christian School, located in Sioux City, Lindsay Laurich said in a letter to the school community last week, which was provided to Fox News Digital.
The school is not detailing how many staff members will be armed while on campus, or their identities, “in order to protect the staff who are taking this courageous responsibility,” Laurich told Fox News Digital. She added that the school had been considering the policy for a year before the official announcement last week.
“I would just add that we have been working on this plan for over a year. However, we felt that this was a necessary step that was needed for our school community,” Laurich said.
It’s now been a week since the deadline passed for Illinois gun owners to register their now-banned “assault weapons”, and the big question at the moment is which agencies, if any, are actually enforcing the new law. We’ve seen plenty of sheriffs and some state’s attorneys publicly say that they won’t be arresting or charging anyone for non-compliance, and as my colleague Tom Knighton reported on Friday, the Illinois State Police has said much the same; they won’t be actively looking for those they know have guns but failed to register them, though if a state trooper finds someone in possession of an unregistered firearm they may still make an arrest.
The state police are also keeping the registration portal open just in case any gun owner feels like registering after the deadline has come and gone. Maxon Shooting Supplies owner Dan Eldridge says he’s not even sure if that’s allowed under the text of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, and wonders if registering after the deadline opens gun owners up to criminal liability.
It sounds like a terrible idea to us. It is not obvious from where the ISP derives the authority to modify the Act’s language, which was passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor.
The department says it won’t pursue criminal charges against late affadavits, but does this prevent an anti-gun Cook or Lake County state’s attorney from doing so?
Put these failures, sloppy work product, and mis-steps together, and it’s easy to see that nobody knows with complete certainty what and when registration affidavits must be filed. Even those tasked with enforcement don’t seem to understand the requirements of this act.
The Office of the Lake County State’s Attorney posted a notice on itsfacebook page warning law-abiding citizens that they must register their assault weapons and high-capacity magazines by December 31.
The Governor ison camerawarning law-abiding citizens that they must register their automatic and semi-automatic rifles and magazines.
There is no requirement to register magazines, and the act does not mention full-auto. Yes, if a full auto is a selective fire device, the semi-auto capability would require registration, but it’s obvious that these politicians have no idea what they are talking about.
Even the Illinois State Police website warns that “individuals who possessed assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and other devices listed in the Act before it took effect are required to submit an endorsement affidavit through their Firearm Owner’s Identification Card account by JANUARY 1, 2024,” though the statute only requires owners of those magazines to submit an affidavit if one has been transferred to them after the deadline had passed.
If the people who wrote the law and the agencies tasked with enforcing it don’t even know the details of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, how can the average Illinois gun owner possibly be expected to be aware of all of the intricacies in the legislation? That confusion may be one reason why compliance with the registration mandate has been so low (Maxon estimates about 4.2% of gun owners have submitted their affidavits to the state police), but Maxon believes there’s a large amount of civil disobedience taking place as well.
Nearly every county sheriff and most of the county State’s Attorneys have stated that they will not enforce this Act. Residents of those counties have little incentive to register.
The act is highly offensive to otherwise law-abiding Illinois gun owners. It is a mess of legislation put into law:
by individuals who know little to nothing about firearms
who are willfully ignorant of the difference between lawful ownership and criminal misuse of firearms
and who abused (again) the proper process for introducing and debating bills, jamming this through in the middle of the night on the last day of the 102nd General Assembly.
“The British follow all the laws, good and bad, the French ignore all the laws, and the Americans follow the good ones and ignore the bad ones”
Non-compliance with unjust laws: It’s as American as apple pie.
So long as Illinois gun stores like Maxon Shooter’s Supplies aren’t selling these now-banned arms, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other anti-gunners in Illinois will still consider PICA a win even if the lack of compliance with the registration mandate makes a mockery of their latest anti-2A effort.
The legal battles to have the gun and magazine ban (along with the accompanying registration requirement) declared unconstitutional are continuing to play out in federal court, and there’s a strong likelihood that U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn, who denied a request for an injunction against the registration mandate shortly before it took effect, will revisit the issue before long and hopefully put the mandate on ice while the litigation runs its course.
Either way, I don’t see any signs that hundreds of thousands of Illinois gun owners will be registering their banned arms now that the deadline has passed, even if the Illinois State Police is encouraging them to do so.
One of the signals this is bogus research is the way Everytown graded Washington State, where the Citizens Committee is headquartered. Washington is position ninth on the list, and is described as ‘making progress.’ The state has adopted increasingly restrictive gun laws in recent years, and the number of homicides has more than doubled since 2014, according to FBI data and statistics from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. Seattle just set a new homicide record in 2023. If that’s what Everytown calls ‘making progress,’ we would be better off going back to living in caves.
The only conclusion one can draw is that Everytown is far more interested in restricting the rights of honest citizens than it is in reducing violent crime or taking violent criminals off the street.
The big tell in almost antigun organizations claims is when they refer to “Gun Violence” statistics and completely ignore criminal violence committed by thugs using other types of weapons and unarmed violence..
“Gun violence” includes justified shootings in self defense by police and/or private citizens, and people who committed or attempted suicide with a gun. And, most importantly, it ignores sky high violence rates against people unable to defend themselves by exercising their specific enumerate right to keep and bear arms.
One could ask, as I have done many times, if the shift was intentional or negligent. I have never received a straight answer. This tells me it is intentional.
These people are deliberate liars. Respond and prepare appropriately.
