NEW: Florida House Judiciary Committee passes permitless carry bill (HB543) with 16-7 vote. https://t.co/dxqEk2c9wD pic.twitter.com/O3dRs8pv0f
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) February 21, 2023
Category: RKBA
How Hard is Real Armed Defense?
Everyone has an opinion. If you ask them, most people will give you their impression of armed defense. Is it trivially easy or is it impossibly hard? I’ve looked at armed defense for a decade and I think we often ask the wrong question about defending ourselves and our families with a firearm. One view is that armed defenders have to make split-second decisions after evaluating a number of complex legal and tactical factors. In contrast, many new gun owners want to concentrate on firearms handling skills so they can manipulate their gun with “fast hands”. I don’t think that is what most defenders really do.
I think almost anyone can learn armed defense if they are willing to take instruction and then practice what they were taught. This is what I’ve learned from firearms students and instructors.
NEW: North Dakota House unanimously passes bill to extend the state's permitless carry law to non-residents, sending it to the Senate. https://t.co/1B82OkDlpS pic.twitter.com/0fTTxUrexw
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) February 21, 2023
Fact Check: Did Mass Shooting Deaths Drop 43% After Assault Weapons Ban?
Shootings at Michigan State University and an El Paso Walmart within days of each other have led to shock and mourning across the U.S.
The regularity of such tragedies, particularly in the wake of other mass shootings recorded this year, has catalyzed online debate over gun control.
According to one account shared on Twitter, a 10-year ban introduced on “assault weapons” in the U.S. in 1994 led to a substantial fall in the number of mass shooting deaths, only to rise significantly after it expired.
A tweet posted by activist Mohamad Safa on February 15, 2023, which has been viewed more than 128,000 times, said: “Do you know that in 1994 Bill Clinton banned assault weapons and mass shooting deaths dropped by 43%, in 2004 the ban expire [sic] and mass shooting deaths shot up by 239%.”
Comparisons between the U.S. and countries with stricter gun control laws are frequently used in the wake of events like the shooting at Michigan State.
Australia, as one example, claims to have seen a significant fall in the number of mass shootings after it experienced one such tragedy at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996.
Analysis by Newsweek found that the country experienced far fewer mass shootings since 1996—perhaps none at all, under some definitions.
Changes to U.S. law and restrictions on firearms have been incremental, but the country briefly saw a ban on what it called “assault weapons” between 1994 to 2004.
While the term “assault” has been more commonly associated with rifles such as the AR-15, the ban included weapons such as the handheld Tec-9 and the Israeli Military Industries UZI.
The bill’s effectiveness and scope were also questioned at the time. A 1999 National Institute of Justice paper on the impact of the ban noted that it still exempted prohibited weapons bought before, and how only small adjustments to a firearm, such as shortening its barrel by only a few millimeters, were “sufficient to transform a banned weapon into a legal substitute.”
The Post was also provided with analysis that suggested per capita incidence of gun deaths did dip during the period. However, this data did not assess assault weapons in particular and, as mentioned in the article, there are other issues with it too.
Looking only at statistics involving six or more victims would, in theory, narrow the number of incidents recorded.
There are further disagreements about what counts as a mass shooting. While four or more is used frequently, the Gun Violence Archive (which is widely quoted in the media) defines it as “being that they have a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed.”
This type of analysis, again, could significantly alter the statistics quoted on Twitter if used.
Furthermore, the link between the dates and the number of deaths here is correlative. Qualitative and quantitative analysis would be needed to more confidently determine whether the assault weapon ban directly impacted the number of deaths in these circumstances.
As data by Statista shows, the number of mass shootings across the U.S. continued to increase after 2004, but we do not have sufficient evidence to attribute that increase to the lifting of the weapons ban alone.
Nonetheless, while the claim that there was a 43 percent drop and 239 percent rise in the 10 years before and after the ban is based on real expert analysis, that analysis used a less usual methodology, and inferences from it are not based on a thorough examination.
A recent Newsweek poll found a majority of Americans agree that there should be a maximum age for purchasing firearms, although respondents did not agree on the limit.
Among these, 20 percent of respondents thought the age limit should be set at 60, while 16 percent said that it should be set at 70.
The Ruling
Needs Context.
The figures cited on Twitter come from an analysis by one expert, quoted by The Washington Post, who looked at the number of mass shootings where six or more people died during 1994-2004 compared to the ten years before and after those dates.
Accounting for shootings where less than six people died could also alter these results. The definition of mass shootings remains contentious with some analysts counting both injuries and deaths of four or more people.
Judge Kozinski’s Full Dissent
KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc:
Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that “speech, or . . . the press” also means the Internet, see Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), and that “persons, houses, papers, and effects” also means public telephone booths, see Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases—or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. See, e.g., Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996) (en banc), rev’d sub nom. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997). But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we’re none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.
It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it’s using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.
The able judges of the panel majority are usually very sympathetic to individual rights, but they have succumbed to the temptation to pick and choose. Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms. Indeed, to conclude otherwise, they had to ignore binding precedent. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), did not hold that the defendants lacked standing to raise a Second Amendment defense, even though the government argued the collective rights theory in its brief. See Kleinfeld Dissent at 6011-12; see also Brannon P. Denning & Glenn H. Reynolds, Telling Miller’s Tale: A Reply to David Yassky, 65 Law & Contemp. Probs. 113, 117-18 (2002). The Supreme Court reached the Second Amendment claim and rejected it on the merits after finding no evidence that Miller’s weapon—a sawed-off shotgun—was reasonably susceptible to militia use. See Miller, 307 U.S. at 178. We are bound not only by the outcome of Miller but also by its rationale. If Miller’s claim was dead on arrival because it was raised by a person rather than a state, why would the Court have bothered discussing whether a sawed-off shotgun was suitable for militia use? The panel majority not only ignores Miller’s test; it renders most of the opinion wholly superfluous. As an inferior court, we may not tell the Supreme Court it was out to lunch when it last visited a constitutional provision.
The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles—that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks’ homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process. See Robert J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond, The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration, 80 Geo. L.J. 309, 338 (1991). In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence. Id. at 341-42. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist. See Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 417 (1857) (finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to “keep and carry arms wherever they went”). A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble.
All too many of the other great tragedies of history—Stalin’s atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few—were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. See Kleinfeld Dissent at 5997-99. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.
My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
Fortunately, the Framers were wise enough to entrench the right of the people to keep and bear arms within our constitutional structure. The purpose and importance of that right was still fresh in their minds, and they spelled it out clearly so it would not be forgotten. Despite the panel’s mighty struggle to erase these words, they remain, and the people themselves can read what they say plainly enough:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The sheer ponderousness of the panel’s opinion—the mountain of verbiage it must deploy to explain away these fourteen short words of constitutional text—refutes its thesis far more convincingly than anything I might say. The panel’s labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it—and is just as likely to succeed.
BLUF
The “collective right” myth was killed in 2008. It was never really alive. Like a zombie in the movies, it keeps rearing its ugly head in ill-informed arguments about the Second Amendment.
Second Amendment “Collective Rights” Myth: Born Nov 1905 – Killed June 2008
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-— The myth of the Second Amendment as a “collective right” and not an individual right, was born in an obscure Kansas Supreme Court case. It was in 1905, as progressive ideology was becoming ascendant in the United States.
Dave Hardy notes, the myth of the Second Amendment as a “collective right” was born with the case of City of Salina v. Blaksley, on November 11, 1905.
What happened there was that the court held that the Kansas guarantee of a right to arms did not cover his actions, because it related only to bearing arms in a militia-type function. This 1905 case was the entire starting point of “collective rights” theory.
The “collective rights” theory did not gain traction for decades. In 1931, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected it in People v Brown:
When the bulwark of state defense was the militia, privately armed, there may have been good reason for the historical and military test of the right to bear arms. But in this state the militia, although legally existent and composed of all able-bodied male citizens…is practically extinct and has been superseded by the National Guard and reserve organizations… The historical test would render the constitutional provision lifeless.
The protection of the Constitution is not limited to militiamen nor military purposes, in terms, but extends to “every person” to bear arms for the “defense of himself” as well as of the state.
Then in 1939, the Miller case was set up by Heartsill Ragon. Ragon was an anti-Second Amendment ideologue and a President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) ally appointed from Congress to the federal judgeship. The case went to the Supreme Court without opposing counsel or briefs. The Supreme Court refused to rule on whether a sawed-off shotgun (having not been presented with any evidence to the contrary) was an arm protected by the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court decision stated all men capable of carrying arms were protected by the Second Amendment. No opposing views were presented to the court. From Miller:
The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.
The Miller decision was muddy, but the context was clear. Individuals were protected by the Second Amendment.
But progressive judges started to ignore and misrepresent the Miller decision as showing the Second Amendment only applied to state militias. In 1942, during the height of World War II, two circuit court decisions added to the flimsy foundation of the “collective right” myth.
In United States v Tot, the Third Circuit held the Second Amendment did not apply to criminals, a finding which can be consistent with an individual rights interpretation. The judge, in one-paragraph dicta, pushed the myth the Second Amendment was a “collective right,” incorrectly citing Miller, and a short historical discussion of the English revolution from 1688-1689, found in Aymette (an anomalous Tennessee case from 1840), and a collection of modern writers. The historical analysis was very weak.
In the First Circuit, in Cases v United States, the three progressive judges went so far as to claim Miller did not apply to military weapons because it was what they wanted to find. From Cases:
Another objection to the rule of the Miller case as a full and general statement is that according to it Congress would be prevented by the Second Amendment from regulating the possession or use by private persons not present or prospective members of any military unit, of distinctly military arms, such as machine guns, trench mortars, anti-tank or anti-aircraft guns, even though under the circumstances surrounding such possession or use it would be inconceivable that a private person could have any legitimate reason for having such a weapon. It seems to us unlikely that the framers of the Amendment intended any such result.
In 1965, Progressive AG, Nicholas Katzenbach, in the Progressive Johnson administration, claimed the “collective right” myth was correct, without evidence. In 1968, President Johnson pushed through the infamous Gun Control Act of the same year. After 1968, a flurry of circuit court decisions adopted the “collective right” myth, citing Tot, or Cases, or a cursory reference to Miller. The “collective right” myth was now fully formed.
The full-fledged “collective right” myth was in active use and fully formed in the courts after 1968.
It was not adopted at the Supreme Court but was pushed hard in the anti-gun MSM Media.
In the 1970s, the “collective right” myth started being exposed by academics. The myth was so thoroughly debunked in the literature the fact the Second Amendment protected individual rights was referred to as the Standard Model.
In 2004, the Department of Justice rejected the “collective rights” myth and confirmed the Second Amendment protected individual rights.
In the Heller decision published on June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court clearly and precisely points out the “collective rights” myth is false, and shows the reality. The Progressive judges on the Supreme Court generally admitted the rights protected were individual rights, but argued they should be limited by the prefactory clause. From billofrights.com:
Finally, the Court reasoned that the right to own weapons for self-defense was an “inherent” (in-born) right of all people. “It has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed.’”
Four of the nine Supreme Court Justices dissented. (They disagreed with the Court’s ruling.) Some of the dissenters agreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual right. However, they argued that the scope of that individual right was limited by the amendment’s prefatory clause. One dissenter agreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, but argued that the District law was a reasonable restriction.
This was the death of the myth of the “collective right”. It never was reasonable to believe a pre-existing “right of the people” would refer only to a right of the states to form militias.
The Heller decision killed any logical claim about the “collective rights” myth. It had been created out of very thin, stone soup.
Murphy Leads 47 Senators to Reintroduce Background Check Expansion Act
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) led 47 senators, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Thursday in reintroducing the Background Check Expansion Act to expand federal background checks to all gun sales. Although more than 90 percent of Americans support comprehensive background checks, under current federal law, unlicensed or private sellers are not required to conduct a background check prior to transferring a firearm. Research indicates that as many as a quarter of all gun sales in the United States may occur without a background check. U.S. Representatives Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) introduced the companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Background Check Expansion Act will require background checks for the sale or transfer of all firearms. This requirement extends to all unlicensed sellers, whether they do business online, at gun shows, or out of their home. Exceptions to the Background Check Expansion Act include transfers between law enforcement officers, temporarily loaning firearms for hunting and sporting events, providing firearms as gifts to immediate family members, transferring a firearm as part of an inheritance, or temporarily transferring a firearm for immediate self-defense.
North Carolina: Pro-2A Measures Pass House, State Senate
The North Carolina Senate voted 29-19 to pass Senate Bill 41, a bill that recognizes law-abiding citizens’ right to self-defense while attending a church with a school attached and, also, repeals the redundant permit-to-purchase system. The House passed, House Bill 49, a similar pro-self-defense bill to Senate Bill 41, by a vote of 77-43. Garnishing bipartisan support in the House for the self-defense bill indicates a potential override of any veto by Governor Roy Cooper, who vetoed similar legislation in 2021 and 2020.
NRA-ILA thanks the Senate leadership of Senator Danny Britt, Senator Jim Perry, Senator Warren Daniel, Senator Phil Berger, and others for fighting to protect the rights of North Carolina’s law-abiding citizens. Also, on the House side, NRA-ILA thanks Speaker Tim Moore and Representative Jeff McNeely for their tireless efforts to advance Second Amendment freedom in the Tar Heel State.
Senate Bill 41 enables law-abiding citizens who hold a concealed handgun permit to carry a handgun to defend themselves and their loved ones when attending religious worship taking place on private property that is both a school and a place of worship, if it does not prohibit firearms. This empowers private property owners to set their own security policy, rather than the state imposing a one-size-fits-all solution. In 2019, an armed citizen in Texas defended his church against an individual. This worshiper, Jack Wilson, was able to take action because of similar NRA-backed legislation in Texas
The permit-to-purchase system was created before modern, computerized background checks existed. The federal NICS checks that licensed firearms dealers conduct are often completed in minutes. Repealing the permit-to-purchase a firearm ensures that law-abiding citizens can exercise their Second Amendment rights without this unnecessary obstacle and fee that is also a burden on law-enforcement resources.
Do what?
Oregon Judge Egan Calls 2nd Amendment Protection Laws Racist & Anti-Semitic
Oregon – The Oregon Court of Appeals [lead by Judge James Egan, Chief Judge at Oregon Court of Appeal] has struck down the Second Amendment Sanctuary Ordinance in Columbia County, an ordinance Oregon Firearms Federation has been defending with Gun Owners of America.
And while that is not a particular surprise, what is a surprise is the scathing, incendiary, and frightening “concurring opinion” from Judge Egan.
In his vicious attack, Judge Egan equated ordinances protecting the Second Amendment with white supremacists and anti-semites.
In the opening page of his opinion, Egan attacks the ordinance and the people who argued for it saying :
“In other words, Intervenors came before this court and referenced UN mandates, which as explained below is a well documented trope meant to invoke white supremacist, antisemitic fear of a takeover of our country by outsiders and minorities who are manipulated by an elite class of supervillians.
On occasion, however, individual members of the court must call out illegitimate quasi-legal arguments and theories for what they are-viz., antisemitic and racist tropes.”
On page 6 of his screed, he titles one section: “The Antisemitic and Racist Origins of the Ordinance.”
He claims that constitutional sheriffs “embrace racist and white nationalist ideologies.”
West Virginia: "Today, the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass Senate Bill 10, the Campus Self-Defense Act, to ensure that law-abiding adults are not stripped of their right to self-defense when they cross an arbitrary boundary onto a college campus." https://t.co/D4I4Fx4sPU
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) February 16, 2023
North Carolina House passes gun bill with bipartisan support
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina House Republicans and some Democrats passed a previously vetoed gun bill Wednesday that opponents warn could endanger children and teachers.
The House voted 77-43 to approve the measure, which would let people with concealed weapons permits carry openly or under clothing while attending religious services at locations where private or charter schools also meet.
Six Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for it, indicating a potential override of any veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who blocked an identical bill in 2021.
Republican lawmakers and several clergy members testified this week that the houses of worship in question do not have an equal opportunity to protect congregants, compared with churches that do not house schools and are not affected by blanket prohibitions.
Supporters said gun-free religious sites could be easy targets for violent attacks, citing recent incidents of shooters targeting congregations.
Rep. Jeff McNeely, an Iredell County Republican and the bill’s primary sponsor, said the proposal would fix a loophole preventing some churchgoers from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
“They should be able to protect their selves like all other parishioners do at other churches who do not have schools on their grounds,” he said.
Under the bill, guns would not be permitted on campus during school hours or when students are present for extracurricular activities. Houses of worship could opt out by posting signs banning guns from the property.
Democratic opponents of the measure said gun owners might not understand those restrictions or could accidentally leave their weapons on campus.
“What I don’t want to see happen is a lawful gun owner leaving their gun in the classroom on a Sunday after church and that gun being found by a student on a Monday,” Rep. Terry Brown Jr., a Mecklenburg County Democrat, said during floor debate.
Another previously vetoed House bill that could receive a floor vote this week would eliminate a longstanding requirement that handgun buyers first obtain a permit from their county sheriff.
Also Wednesday, a House judiciary committee advanced a bipartisan proposal that would launch a two-year education campaign on safe firearms storage and also distribute free gun locks. It now heads to the Rules Committee.
In the Senate, three identical companion bills were combined Tuesday into a single piece of legislation that is expected to reach the floor this week. It is unclear whether the Senate will take up the stand-alone bill passed by the House or move forward with its combined proposal.
BLUF
Until gun-control activists and Democrat politicians are willing to get tough on violent criminals that use firearms I’ll be waiting, along with millions of law-abiding Americans, for that conversation that Representative Slotkin promises. And I’ll be praying this nightmare will stop.
Right on script, gun control activists use Michigan State University attack to further their agenda
An almost unthinkable tragedy unfolded on the campus of Michigan State University last night. Shots rang out on campus as a 43-year old man (Bearing Arms is not naming the alleged perpetrator), believed to have no affiliation with the university, walked onto campus and as of the publishing of this article, killed 3 students and wounded 5. We make no apology for our prayers for these victims and their families. For them, a nightmare has just begun. As they awaken from that nightmare, they will want to know what happened and why.
The investigation is underway, the killer left a note near his lifeless body, a victim of his own cowardice, he took his life moments after the massacre.
As if an off-camera director of this nightmare yelled “action!”, gun control activists and Democrat politicians have already come out for calls to stop these campus attacks. Last night, before much was known about the attack, the assailant or the victims, perennial grifter Shannon Watts was already doing a fundraising dance on the memories of the victims. Her tweet tirade included this call for more gun control and an appeal to text her organization to join with them and joining them means acquiescing to their never-ending fundraising pleas.
Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin was justifiably angry. In a press conference with members of law enforcement and Michigan Governor Whitmer she said, “I am filled with rage.” She continued, “you either care about protecting kids, or you don’t…Please don’t tell me you care about the safety of children if you are not willing to have a conversation about keeping them safe in a place that should be a sanctuary.”
Unfortunately, it’s Democrats who refuse to engage in conversation, preferring it would seem to pass unconstitutional gun control measures, in defiance of recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, and despite mounting evidence that the gun control measures they back, would have little to no impact on these attacks or in reducing overall gun violence. Why won’t they have an impact? Because they target law-abiding Americans, not the criminals responsible for most gun crimes.
The New York Times Has an Embarrassing Epiphany About ‘Gun-free Zones.’
We’ve all seen signs announcing a particular place is a “gun-free zone.” While these signs are supposed to reduce gun violence by informing would-be shooters that their firearms aren’t welcome on the site, the reality is that they are instead beacons alerting criminals to soft targets.
And it looks like the New York Times may have finally figured that out. After a murder took place in Times Square on Thursday night, the paper openly questioned why posted signs banning guns from the area didn’t stop the violence. “The shooting was the first since the creation of the expansive, signposted zone, the police said in a statement, and it immediately renewed questions about whether such a designation can truly protect the area,” the so-called paper of record reported.
“People feel emboldened to carry guns on the street,” said Tom Harris, a retired New York City police inspector and the president of the Times Square Alliance, told the Times. “A gun-free zone is not going to stop a criminal from carrying a gun.”
I have to admit I’m shocked that the New York Times acknowledged this. While I’d like to give them credit for that, the fact is the inefficacy of gun-free zones is something conservative media has been pointing out for years.
In fact, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Pulse nightclub, Sandy Hook Elementary School, and Virginia Tech University were all targeted by mass shooters despite being gun-free zones — and that’s barely scratching the surface. According to a 2018 study by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), a whopping 97.8% of mass shootings over a 68-year period occurred in “gun-free zones.”
So, while it’s great that the New York Times finally has acknowledged that gun-free zones are useless, this epiphany is decades too late.
Will Oklahoma lawmakers increase firearm access? More than 100 bills are seeking just that
One bill would allow guns in parked cars on school property. Another wants to expand access to a firearm while on a boat. And one proposal would increase the area in which a person can reasonably discharge their gun in self-defense.
Four years after Oklahoma’s Republican Legislature approved “permitless carry,” removing any training or licensing requirements to handle a firearm, lawmakers have filed more than 100 bills to expand gun access even further.
With a history of being the first to pass some pro-firearm laws, including the nation’s first ban on “red flag” laws in 2020, Oklahoma’s Legislature often provides a glimpse of what gun-related policies will be a focus for gun rights groups across the nation.
“We try to be ahead of the curve in Oklahoma,” said Don Spencer, leader of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, a local organization that aggressively pushes for pro-gun laws.
“Right now, the big focus is on pushing back on federal government overreach or getting ahead of it, which I think you will see a lot more of.”
House Bill 1002 would allow county sheriffs to arrest federal employees who enforce laws that are “counter” to the Second Amendment, while House Bill 2643 would make Oklahoma-made firearms exempt from federal gun laws.
Those bills have not yet been scheduled for a committee hearing, but they would likely face legal challenges if passed into law.
The politics of pushing back on federal firearm restrictions are already in play in some parts of the state, including in Oklahoma and Logan counties where sheriffs recently said they would not enforce U.S. Department of Justice rulings against some gun accessories.
Virginia: House Subcommittee Voted Down Senate Anti-Gun Bills
Last week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee killed the remaining anti-Second Amendment bills. Despite efforts from the anti-gun majority in the Senate to restrict your rights, no gun control bills have advanced. The following bills were voted down by the Subcommittee:
Senate Bill 918 bans selling or carrying many firearms and magazines that law-abiding citizens commonly own for legitimate purposes, such as self-defense, competition, and recreation, with no exemption for carry permit holders.
Senate Bill 1139 requires anyone with firearms in the same residence as a minor under 18 years of age, to store them unloaded in locked containers, and store ammunition in separate locked containers. Loaded firearms may only be stored in “biometric storage device[s].” There is an exemption for firearms carried on or about the person.
Senate Bill 1181 essentially ends the centuries-old practice of manufacturing firearms for personal use by restricting certain unregulated components commonly used by hobbyists to make their own firearms, far beyond what federal law requires.
Senate Bill 1382 bans many commonly-owned firearms and magazines. Owners of banned firearms and magazines that are at least 21 years of age may continue to keep them, but they cannot sell them. Also, SB 1382 discriminates against young adults aged 18-20 by prohibiting them from purchasing many types of commonly-owned firearms.
Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence
As I discussed recently, I had the opportunity to share my views on American gun culture and gun violence at the 31st annual gathering of the Lutheran Ethicists’ Network (LEN) in January.
A written version of my talk will be published in the Journal of Lutheran Ethics later this year. For the time-being, I have put a preprint of the paper online as a free download at SocArxiv.
BLUF:
Congress is not likely to ban anything, leaving Biden and his anti-gun allies frustrated, while gun rights organizations, including SAF and CCRKBA continue using the Bruen doctrine to push back against restrictive gun control laws, which history may ultimately show should never have been passed in the first place.
CBS Report Details ‘Bruen’ Impact on Restrictive Gun Control Schemes
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- A lengthy CBS News report on the impact of last summer’s Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen indicates lingering angst among gun control proponents now faced with the daunting challenge of justifying restrictive gun laws when they may not be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
In the first paragraph, CBS acknowledges, “the new legal test laid out by Justice Clarence Thomas in his majority opinion has reshaped the legal landscape for firearms laws and led to uncertainty over whether measures that aim to curb gun violence can survive legal scrutiny.”
The recent litigation history of just one organization—the Second Amendment Foundation—adequately confirms the CBS statement. In just the past several days:
- SAF filed a federal lawsuit challenging the recently-signed Illinois gun ban legislation, alleging it to be unconstitutional and asserting the state has criminalized “a common and important means of self-defense.” The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul.
- SAF filed an amended complaint in its challenge of New Jersey’s revised gun permit law, adding one plaintiff and expanding its scope on so-called “sensitive places.” The case is now known as Koons v. Platkin. The case was previously known as Koons v. Reynolds. SAF was already granted a temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Renee Marie Bumb in Camden in that case.
- SAF and its partners in a federal case challenging the federal prohibition on handgun sales to young adults ages 18-20 filed a reply brief supporting their motion for summary judgment in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. SAF is joined in this case by the West Virginia Citizens Defense League and two private citizens Benjamin Weekley and Steven Brown. The case is known as Brown v. ATF.
A worthy repetition. Also something to consider is that U.S. law that created the National Guard (simply a reserve force of the military) and defined it as the ‘organized militia’ created the select militia the founders and framers were righteously concerned about
Madison on the 2nd Amendment & militia clause
The Supreme Court in the Heller decision explained that the second amendment guarantees an individual right of the people to keep and carry arms for their defense in the event of a confrontation.
The anti-gun crowd, however, refuses to accept this common sense reading of the amendment. The best way to interpret the Constitution begins with actually reading it. The next best thing is to read what the Constitution’s chief drafter, James Madison, had to say about America’s founding document. Madison was the chief author of the Federalist Papers, along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. The Federalist Papers offer great insight into the political theories of the day that led to our system of government.
Students of the second amendment should be familiar with both Federalist 29 and 46, which discuss the role of an armed populace in protecting the precious freedom which had so recently been won. It was that thinking that led to the adoption of the second amendment.
Madison was also the original drafter of the Bill of Rights, including what would become the second amendment. The anti-gun crowd regularly accuse second amendment supporters of only focusing on what Justice Scalia called the operative clause of the second amendment, the phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” They assert that we ignore the prefatory clause that reads, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.” To them the prefatory clause confirms that the purpose of the amendment was to protect the right of the states to have militias or as they sometimes phrase it, the right to bear arms when in militia service.
However, beyond that, they never exactly explain what is meant by “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The anti-gun crowd cling to the so-called collective rights view of the amendment that held sway with a number of federal circuit courts pre-Heller. However, beyond denying an individual right to keep and bear arms, those courts said precious little on exactly what the amendment actually protected.
It was commonly stated outside the court room that the operative clause meant that the federal government could not disarm the state militias. But that is not what the amendment says and no federal circuit court actually provided any reasoned discussion supporting such an interpretation. In any event, if that were what the amendment was meant to accomplish, one would think the amendment would have been written in some way like “A well-regulated militia being necessary for a free state, Congress shall not infringe the right of the states to arm the militia.” However, this interpretation of the amendment would have worked a radical transformation of Congress’s power over the militia.
The Constitution addresses the militia in Article I, Section 8. It states “The Congress shall have the power … To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”
Thus, it was Congress’s responsibility, not the states, to organize and arm the militia, with the states having only the responsibility to appoint officers and train the militia as Congress mandates. The militia is not treated by the Constitution as a creature of the several states, but of the nation as a whole to be organized, armed and disciplined by Congress, while being trained by the states as Congress directs.
Congress has in fact exercised this authority.
Title 10 of the United States Code, Section 311 defines the militia of the United States with certain exceptions as “all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and … under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and … female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.”
The National Guard is the organized militia and the unorganized militia consists of those militia members not in the Guard. In the Second Militia Act, passed in 1792, Congress specified the arms militia members were to have. It was incumbent on militia members to report for training and duty with their own arms. The second amendment did not change Congress’s authority over the militia, nor was that the intent of the amendment. Most notably, the second amendment did not provide that the states would or could arm the militia. If that were the meaning of the second amendment, then states could be free to arm the militia in any way they saw fit. States could for instance under the collective rights view of the second amendment, authorize each member of the unorganized militia to own a fully automatic weapon such as the M-16. That would raise issues with respect to the provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934, which greatly restricts the ownership and transfer of automatic weapons. States could also abrogate many other federal firearm restrictions. It is certainly the case that some founders, such as Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, feared that Congress would neglect its responsibility to arm the militia. And so it is not an unreasonable view that a primary purpose of the second amendment was to ensure that the militia would not be disarmed by taking guns away from the people who constituted the militia.
However, that view is perfectly consistent with the wording of the operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The amendment thus ensured that there could be a body of the people armed and available to serve in the militia. It had nothing to do, however, with transferring to the states the right to arm or specify the arming of the militia. That remains the prerogative of Congress. Review of the legislative history of the second amendment confirms that it was designed to protect an individual right of the people generally to possess and carry arms.
When Madison initially introduced the various proposed amendments that would later become the Bill of Rights, he proposed to insert the bulk of them, including what would later become amendments one through five, part of the sixth amendment, and amendments eight and nine, into Article I, Section 9, between Clauses 3 and 4. His speech to Congress can be found here.
This is the portion of the Constitution which limits Congressional power over individuals. Clause 3 is the prohibition on Bills of Attainder and ex post facto laws.
Clause 4 is the limitation on the imposition of taxes directly on individuals as oppose to excise taxes on economic transactions. This clause has been substantially abrogated by the sixteenth amendment, authorizing the federal government to tax incomes. In other words, Madison proposed to put these amendments into that part of the Constitution that protected individual rights of the people from the federal government. The context of Madison’s original introduction to Congress of the Bill of Rights, including the second amendment, is powerful evidence supporting the conclusion that the right to keep and bear arms was intended to confirm an individual right of the people to arms.
Madison did not propose to place the second amendment in that part of the Constitution that governs Congress’s power over the militia. The obvious reason is that Madison was seeking to protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, not some undefined right of the states to arm or control militia members within their borders. Indeed, it was Madison himself who coined the phrase “Bill of Rights” to refer to the amendments he was proposing, including what would become the second amendment. States do not have rights. They have powers. Individuals have rights. In any event, the second amendment guarantees in its own words a right of the people, not a right of the states.
NRA predicts Supreme Court will finally define Second Amendment
A coalition led by the National Rifle Association this week sued to stop the Biden administration’s bid to regulate AR-style “pistols,” an effort that could prompt the Supreme Court to finally define what is allowed under the 231-year-old Second Amendment.
While its suit is specifically aimed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and its flip-flop on regulating and taxing guns, it has the potential to both smoke out the court on what is legal under the Second Amendment and end years of practice by federal agencies and states to make up rules that Congress is supposed to set.
“At some point, the supremes are gonna say, ‘To hell with you. We can’t trust you. We’re gonna strike it. This is what you can do. Anything outside of that you cannot,'” said NRA President Charles Cotton.
No rebuttal for this one. #GunControl #2ndAmendment pic.twitter.com/Fqa7FTDYdD
— Crime Prevention Research Center (@CrimeResearch1) February 9, 2023