California – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Sportsmen’s Alliance, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and Safari Club International filed for a preliminary injunction today in their federal lawsuit against a newly passed California law to protect the free speech rights of shooting, hunting, and conservation organizations throughout the state.
The law, created by the passage of AB 2571, which purports to prohibit the “marketing” of firearms to minors, actually goes much further by banning free speech regarding the use of firearms while hunting, shooting or engaging in competitions that might be “attractive to minors.” It’s anyone’s guess what this means.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance was the first to alert sportsmen on AB 2571 early in the legislative session, citing the bill’s prohibition of communicating any youth firearm-related activities as the death-knell of recruitment efforts and hunter safety training statewide.
Because the law institutes a massive $25,000 per occurrence penalty, individuals and organizations responded by putting the brakes on communicating anything about youth shooting and education programs of all types.
“We’ve just implemented a major overhaul of our next magazine to comply with this draconian law, removing a number of stories about youth hunter recruitment, our high school Conservation Science curriculum and pulling all photos of kids hunting with firearms,” said Todd Adkins, vice president of government affairs for Sportsmen’s Alliance.
“And this is precisely what Gov. Newsom and supporters of AB 2571 want, to muzzle our free speech and gut our recruitment efforts, because their ultimate goal is to remove hunters from the landscape altogether.”
Although Newsom signed an amendment that was passed in the waning moments of the 2022 legislative session, the new language does little to protect free speech by hunting organizations like the Sportsmen’s Alliance which regularly publish on firearm-related issues. Many organizations with routine communication outlets like magazines, websites, social media platforms, and the like will simply cease to exercise their protected First Amendment rights because of the uncertainty created by the new law.
“The amendment Newsom signed is just a bunch of nice-sounding words that don’t fix the underlying gag order the law puts on organizations like ours,” continued Adkins. “It’s political eyewash to call this is a ‘fix’ when it’s really nothing more than a shiny object to show some groups who wanted a carve out.”
The Sportsmen’s Alliance legal challenge in federal district court continues, and the filing of the preliminary injunction necessary to stop enforcement of the law so that free speech related to youth hunter education, recruitment, and shooting programs can continue while the case is pending.
As more Americans purchase firearms, opportunities to access shooting ranges on public lands should be expanded.
A newly-introduced House of Representatives bill aims to bolster public range access for new and returning recreational shooters.
Congressman Blake Moore (R-UT) introduced the timely Range Access Act to “require the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to ensure that each qualifying National Forest and BLM district” designate—at a minimum—one public recreational shooting range without charging a user fee.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages the USFS, states some ranges located on National Forest lands impose usage fees.
“This legislation is an important step in expanding access to recreational shooting practice. Americans from coast to coast love spending time in the outdoors, and expanding our ability to recreate on and enjoy our public lands is one of my core focuses in Congress,” said Congressman Blake Moore in a press release. “The Range Access Act would establish free shooting ranges for sportsmen to safely participate in target practice while supporting our wildlife conservation and local economies.”
The legislation also received praise from the nation’s preeminent shooting sports and conservation organizations.
“The National Shooting Sports Foundation commends Congressman Blake Moore for introducing this vitally important legislation to increase access for the public to practice marksmanship at safe recreational shooting ranges,” said Lawrence G. Keane, National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This legislation, which would require the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to have at least one qualifying recreational shooting range in each National Forest and BLM district, is crucial to ensuring safe public recreational shooting. Congressman Moore’s bill would also benefit conservation by reducing pollution at non-dedicated ranges on federal public lands while also generating additional Pittman-Robertson revenue.”
BLUF
The stereotype of gun owners is a lie. The media calls us male-pale-and-stale, and who cares if old white men are disarmed anyway. In fact, gun owners now look like a cross section of the USA. Minority urban women are the fastest growing segment of new gun owners. I think Democrat politicians are afraid that more women and minorities will decide to become gun owners. These new gun owners might enter the culture of armed America and protect themselves.
More people own guns today than ever before. That growth is a continuation of a long term trend that goes back several decades. In addition to that gradual increase, we’ve also seen an extraordinary growth in new gun buyers in the last two years. We had to rewrite who owns guns and why they own them. Today, about four-out-of-ten families have a firearm in their home. Despite the astounding changes in gun ownership, the way some politicians talk about guns and gun owners is out of date. New gun owners are subjected to a crash course in being misperceived and misrepresented by politicians and by the mainstream news media alike.
What is real and what is fantasy?
Sitting President, Joe Biden, echoed old myths about gun owners at a fundraising event in June. He said,
“More people get killed with their own gun in their home trying to stop a burglar than, in fact, any other cause.. Think about that. Because it’s hard to do. It’s a hard thing to do.”
Mayor John Fetterman, the Democrat candidate for the US Senate from Pennsylvania, also felt the need to comment on guns and gun ownership. He said,
“I have seen with my own eyes at the scenes in my community what a military grade round does to the human body.” He said that rifles, particularly modern rifles, should be outlawed.
“This whole concept that a good guy with a gun will stop the bad guys with a gun, it doesn’t hold up. And the data bears this out, so that theory is over.”
Those statements don’t fit what we know. We know a lot about new gun owners because we talked with them. Gun stores asked new gun owners why they wanted a gun so the gun shop employee could direct the customer to the appropriate products. The industry trade group representing firearms manufacturers and distributors collected those answers. The stereotypical gun owner used to be an old white man who bought a gun to go hunting. Several years ago, personal safety replaced hunting as the major reason new gun owners buy a firearm. Today, gun owners are from every demographic group; male and female, rich and poor, urban and rural. Gun owners represent every ethnic and racial group. About one-out-of-four African-American adults own a firearm. It seems strange that the mainstream media and politicians have deliberately ignored that change.
If my research convinces me of anything,” [John R. Lott Jr.] said, “it’s that you’re going to get the biggest reduction in crime if the people who are most likely victims of violent crime, predominantly poor Blacks, are the ones who are getting the permits.”
In Dallas, there has been a rise in the number of homicides deemed to be justifiable, such as those conducted in self-defense, even as overall shootings have declined from last year’s high levels.
“We’ve had justifiable shootings where potential victims have defended themselves,” said the Dallas police chief, Eddie Garcia. “It cuts both ways.”
Last October in Port Arthur, Texas, a man with a handgun, who had a license, saw two armed robbers at a Church’s Chicken and fired through the drive-through window, fatally striking one of the men and wounding the other. His actions were praised by the local district attorney.
Michael Mata, the president of the local police union in Dallas, said that he and his fellow officers had seen no increase in violent crime tied to the new permitless carry law, though there were “absolutely” more guns on the street.
Sheriff David Soward of Atascosa County, a rural area south of San Antonio, said he had also seen no apparent increase in shootings. “Only a small percentage of people actually take advantage of the law,” he said.
HOUSTON — Tony Earls hung his head before a row of television cameras, staring down, his life upended. Days before, Mr. Earls had pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston.
Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.
“Is Mr. Earls licensed to carry?” a reporter asked during the February news conference, in which his lawyer spoke for him.
He didn’t need one, the lawyer replied. “Everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” A grand jury later agreed, declining to indict Mr. Earls for any crime.
The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license.
At the same time, mainly in rural counties, other sheriffs said they had seen little change, and proponents of gun rights said more people lawfully carrying guns could be part of why shootings have declined in some parts of the state.
Far from an outlier, Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns. When Alabama’s “permitless carry” law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun.
The state-by-state legislative push has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them.
Lawmakers in California, led by Congressman Mike Thompson, penned a letter asking the Joe Biden administration to hold manufacturers responsible for homemade ghost guns.
Currently, it is relatively easy to buy gun parts, or make them at home with a 3D printer, and create an untraceable firearm. Ghost guns allow people to circumvent the background check requirement to own a gun.
“It is far too easy for anyone to download from the internet the computer code to 3D-print unserialized, untraceable, plastic ‘ghost guns,’” the letter said. “These 3D-printed weapons circumvent our system of gun safety rules and regulations, and pose a serious threat to public safety and national security.”
The question of banning the distribution of blueprints for 3D printed guns has been debated over the years, with much speculation that banning the sharing of blueprints is a First Amendment violation.
“President Biden can undo the Trump-era rule that has made the instructions for the 3D-printing of untraceable and deadly ‘ghost’ guns widely available online,” said Senator Markey. “The online distribution of these ghost gun blueprints only increases the risk of these weapons proliferating and poses a serious threat to public safety and national security. President Biden should fulfil his campaign promise and reverse the Trump administration’s weakening of these gun safety regulations.”
“They’re making firearms and they’re shooting and they’re killing people,” Thompson said.
“If you are a danger to yourself or to others, if you’re dangerously mentally ill, if you’re a criminal, you should not be able to get your mitts on a gun,” he added.
CBS13 asked Thompson about gun advocacy groups pushing back against manufacturers being held liable yet they did not commit the actual crimes.
“I have one word for these groups and that’s, ‘tough.’ We need these rules,” he responded.
Thompson is urging the Biden administration to tighten federal enforcement on these guns because he does not believe that such legislation would pass through Congress.
“Well, I’d like to see congress have the intestinal fortitude to pass legislation that would prohibit this nonsense from taking place. But as you know, as long as they have this 60-vote rule in the Senate, we’re never going to get a bill like that passed,” said Thompson.
Thompson wants the President to direct the ATF and DOJ to pass stricter rules that would hold manufacturers liable for ghost guns.
Judge Lynch: "How can there be probable cause to believe that there is an unlawful firearm anywhere based on the fact that there is a permitted firearm?"
Andrzejewski: "The answer to that is it really doesn't matter whether it was permitted or not." https://t.co/cd7QRWEodv
Massachusetts Gun Control Scheme an Abject Failure
Gun Related Homicides Increased 111% Since 1998 Gun Control Act
2020 Massachusetts Department of Public Health Report on Deaths Still Reflects the Commonwealth’s Gun Laws are an Unmitigated Disaster!
On Thursday, October 27, 2022, Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL) released a report reflecting a nearly two-fold increase in gun related homicides in Massachusetts. The report included data taken directly from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Injury Surveillance Program (ISP). The report breaks down gun deaths in the Commonwealth into three categories: Homicides, Suicides, and Accidental deaths.
“What just jumps off the page is the more than doubling of gun related homicides since the passage of the 1998 Gun Control Act,” said Jim Wallace, Executive Director of GOAL. “For more than two decades we have constantly heard that Massachusetts is leading the nation in ‘common sense’ gun control laws. Using the State’s own data, we are proving that is simply a false and dangerous narrative.”
Using the State’s own data, the report reflects an 111% increase in gun related homicides since 1998. Gun related suicides are down a few points, but that marginal success is outweighed by a huge increase in suicide by hanging/suffocation. Virtually no gains have been made in accidental gun deaths as those numbers were so minuscule already.
It is GOAL’s hope that the legislature will finally see what this so-called, gun control effort for what it really is. An affront to our Second Amendment civil rights. There is absolutely no way to justify what has been done to the Second Amendment Community in the name of “safety”. One of the first things the legislature needs to address in the next legislative session is a complete revamp of the State’s gun laws in a manner that respects our community’s civil rights. Further, the political leadership needs to start addressing the human criminal element head on and the growing mental health crisis.
Crap For Brains Quote O’ the Day
Sen. Nia Gill (D- Essex) pushed back on some of Durr’s claims about the bill violating the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s June ruling……
“This is an exercise in legislation that we must do in order for the court to determine the legislative constitutionality of it,” Gill said.
A fast-tracked bill to limit concealed carry in New Jersey hit a snag Thursday when Assembly leaders yanked it from a scheduled vote, conceding its broad restrictions could fold under constitutional scrutiny.
The canceled vote came the same day a Senate panel approved the bill along party lines — and with about 15 amendments that appear to be aimed at appeasing critics who have vowed to fight any new law in court. The bill, introduced two weeks ago, has already been approved along party lines by three Assembly committees.
Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), one of the bill’s sponsors and the majority leader in the Assembly, said legislators plan to revise language in the bill to ensure “it’s directly in line with our legislative intent.”
“That may help constitutional arguments at the end of the day,” Greenwald said. “There’s a focus on making sure that it’s not too broad, not too vague, and that it withstands a challenge.”
Greenwald said lawmakers still aim to pass the bill by the end of November.
“Obviously, the day that the governor signs it, there’s going to be legal challenges — those against it have already made that clear,” said Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex), another bill sponsor. “So we’re just doing everything we need to do to cross our t’s and dot our i’s. There’s no lack of resolve. If anything, we’re even more determined to get something to the governor’s desk.”
Legislators say they drafted the bill to counter the uptick in gun usage they anticipate after about 300,000 gun owners applied for concealed carry permits in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that affirmed a constitutional right to carry. In that ruling, the nation’s highest court struck down a New York law requiring gun owners to prove a reason why they need to carry a concealed gun, prompting New Jersey to remove its similar “justifiable need” requirement.
New Jersey’s bill would create new hurdles for gun owners seeking carry permits and carve out 25 categories of sensitive places where guns are prohibited, which range from beaches to bars to parks.
But gun rights advocates have singled out various provisions of the bill they find problematic — and grounds for a court challenge. A federal judge in New York last week temporarily halted a similar ban there on guns in sensitive places, citing constitutional concerns.
Some of the amendments made to New Jersey’s bill since its introduction have addressed critics’ concerns. After gun supporters complained about one provision that would allow the state’s 565 municipalities to define their own sensitive places where guns would be banned, lawmakers amended the bill to remove it.
Scott Bach, president of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, on Wednesday sounded the alarm about other language in the bill referring to “weapons.” Such vague wording could refer to any everyday tool, including mops, kitchen cutlery, and knitting needles, the association warned in an alert to members.
Greenwald on Thursday conceded the weapons verbiage was one tweak legislators would make before rescheduling the bill for a full Assembly vote.
We’re just doing everything we need to do to cross our t’s and dot our i’s. There’s no lack of resolve. If anything, we’re even more determined to get something to the governor’s desk.
– Assemblyman John McKeon
Earlier in the day, during the Senate’s Law and Public Safety Committee, Sen. Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex), the committee’s chair, agreed some unclear language in the bill needs further consideration.
The committee made 15 amendments to the bill. Two amendments would remove requirements that someone with a carry permit stopped by police produce the gun for inspection and show proof of liability insurance. Two more would allow active and retired law enforcement officers to carry a handgun in sensitive places where the public can’t take them.
Still, supporters and critics spent nearly three hours debating the bill Thursday, with some especially testy exchanges between the panel’s Democratic members and Sen. Ed Durr (R-Gloucester), whose political campaign centered on Second Amendment rights.
Sen. Ed Durr (R-Gloucester) testifies against a bill that would limit concealed carry at the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee on Oct. 27, 2022. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
“If I were to sit here and list all the problems with this bill, we’d be here until sometime next week,” Durr told the panel.
Durr especially objected to the increased fees proposed in the legislation, complaining they would “make it impossible for a person of modest means to protect him- or herself.”
He questioned the state’s ongoing effort to reduce its prison population while tightening gun control at the same time.
“You were making room (in prison) for all the responsible but unlucky gun owners who are going to unintentionally violate this bill,” he said.
Sen. Nia Gill (D- Essex) pushed back on some of Durr’s claims about the bill violating the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s June ruling.
“I’m a lawyer,” Gill told Durr.
He responded, “I’ve seen many lawyers get things wrong.”
Gill retorted: “I’ve seen legislators get them wrong too.”
After almost three hours of testimony, the panel advanced the bill.
“This is an exercise in legislation that we must do in order for the court to determine the legislative constitutionality of it,” Gill said.
It’s already obsolete as the McDonald and Bruen rulings made ‘judicial scrutiny’ out of bounds for a fundamental right, but it does enshrine RKBA in the Iowa Constitution.
DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa sheriffs are speaking out in support of a proposed gun rights amendment to the Iowa Constitution. But not everyone thinks it’s appropriate for sheriffs to endorse political issues.
Iowans will vote on the so-called “Second Amendment” bill on Nov. 8.
“Whenever one of my constituents loses a freedom it’s my fault. It’s our job to speak out,” said Cedar County Sheriff Warren Wethington.
Wethington is one of six Iowa sheriffs officially endorsing what he calls the freedom amendment. It says, in part, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” and is basically creating an Iowa gun rights amendment similar to the second amendment in the federal constitution.
“It needs to be in the Iowa constitution, just simply for the fact that if you have your Second Aamendment rights violated, the way it is now, you have to wait until your time in a federal court. It can be dealt with in a state level now,” Wethington said.
Many Iowa sheriffs are also endorsing Brenna Bird for Iowa attorney general. And they appear in a new political advertisement for Bird, the Republican candidate running for Iowa attorney general against incumbent Tom Miller.
“Those 74 sheriffs, they want a new attorney general,” Bird said.
But Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford wonders about the ethics of law enforcement endorsements.
“The difficulty is while people are entitled to their own opinion, when people have a certain authority over others, whether it’s law enforcement, employers, professors, teachers whatever, they’re in a position to make people subordinate to that authority is uncomfortable at best,” Goldford said.
But Wethington disagrees.
“When I ran for office and was elected I did give up my First Amendment rights, not only is it my right, to speak my mind, but it’s also my duty as an elected official who has a sworn oath to protect the constitution,” he said.
Only six Iowa sheriffs publicly endorsed the firearms amendment, but the Iowa Firearms Coalition says many more are also in support.
THE AYOOB FILE
READERS KNOW MASSAD AYOOB AS A WRITER, BUT HE’S ALSO A LEADER
American Handgunner and GUNS Magazine readers have known Massad Ayoob over the years for his insight and careful analysis of self-defense incidents, and for his several books on the subject, but there’s another side of this multi-talented fellow with the deep voice and New England accent.
He also serves as president of the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights organization that has become the national leader in firearms litigation. It’s also where I hang my hat as editor and communications director. It was a SAF case — McDonald v. City of Chicago — which won a Supreme Court ruling that incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment. It is SAF, sometimes with national and/or local partner organizations, which now has nearly 40 active lawsuits challenging restrictive gun control laws across the states.
And it is SAF, along with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which annually sponsors the Gun Rights Policy Conference. This year, the event was in Dallas, Texas, and it was Ayoob — a pal of mine for decades — who delivered opening remarks and later on the agenda, some timely and important tips on how to win the “gun battle.”
Suffice to say, Ayoob did it with a style all his own; a bit of activist, some diplomat, a dash of cop humor and a heavy dose of reality.
BLUF
“The right to carry is here, and it’s here to stay, and everybody’s got to get used to that,” Bach told the outlet. “This angry fist-shaking by various states like New York and New Jersey is going to blow up in their faces. They can pretend that Bruen doesn’t say what it says, but it’s only going to come back to bite them.”
A gun restriction bill backed by top Democrats in New Jersey is already facing legal threats after the Supreme Court affirmed a constitutional right to carry and sparked challenges to New York ‘s similar gun law.
Assemblyman Joe Danielsen, the New Jersey bill’s main sponsor, is pushing the legislation to prohibit licensed gun owners from bringing firearms into nearly 25 “sensitive places” while imposing stiff barriers for people seeking gun licenses. The bill made it out of committee via a party-line vote this week and has the backing of Gov. Phil Murphy , who has vowed to sign it into law.
If enacted, the legislation could be a tough road ahead in light of two federal court rulings in New York that held the Empire State’s new gun law fails the test established in the summer high court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen .
Just last week, a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order on a provision of a New York gun law that made it a felony for a person with a concealed carry gun license to bring a firearm into churches or other houses of worship. That ruling came just weeks after a separate lower court ruled that much of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act , signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul , failed the Bruen test. Since then, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court has restored much of the act while a three-judge panel decides on a motion to stay the lower court decision.
New Jersey’s Bill A4769 features many similar components that have been subject to judicial scrutiny in light of the 6-3 high court opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas .
A number of sheriffs in upstate New York are declaring that their officers will not prioritize or “aggressively enforce” the state’s recently enacted, highly restrictive gun control law. These elected sheriffs have concluded quite correctly that the state’s new law is at odds with both the Constitution of the United States and with the most recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared New York’s previous and long-standing gun control law – the Sullivan Act – unconstitutional.
The sheriffs’ actions have rekindled a recurring debate about the powers of the more than three thousand local sheriffs serving in every state except Alaska and Connecticut.
The United States has had elected sheriffs long before there was a “United States of America,” with the first one taking office in Virginia in 1652. Police departments, on the other hand, are a relatively new phenomenon. The first municipal police department was not established until 1838 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Unlike most county sheriffs, who hold their positions under their state constitutions, police chiefs answer only to local office holders who appointed them, not to the voters. It is this distinction that has caused a number of sheriffs in “Blue States” to earn the ire of the Left.
Two factors have exacerbated this enmity in recent years – increasingly restrictive gun control measures and abusive COVID mandates by Blue State governors and legislatures. Sheriffs who decline to prioritize enforcing such laws find themselves increasingly maligned by the Left, notwithstanding the fact that they are carrying out their sworn duty to support the federal and state constitutions, and in accord with the wishes of the voters they represent.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) berates these sheriffs who follow the Constitution of the United States as “radicalized” officials who do not themselves understand the Constitution. The recently discredited SPLC simply cannot bring itself to accept that elected law enforcement officials should be permitted to resist such government overreach.
However, these “constitutional sheriffs” are not alone in their views. Since the Supreme Court’s seminal Bruen decision in June that tossed New York’s Sullivan Act, similarly restrictive laws in other states have fallen. Even more to the point, some of the very restrictions in the legislation signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul just days after the Supreme Court rendered its opinion, as part of her attempt to undercut the High Court’s directive, were blocked last week by a federal judge in New York City.
With state and federal courts seeming to agree with sheriffs who decline to vigorously enforce laws they view as inconsistent with their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, especially as related to Second Amendment rights of citizens in their jurisdictions, it is becoming increasingly difficult for their detractors on the Left to argue with a straight face that the sheriffs are the outliers.
Three years ago, the gun control group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — “Everytown for Gun Safety” — published a paper highly critical of sheriffs who declined to prioritize the gun control measures the organization championed. The title of the piece was, When Sheriffs Refuse to Follow the Law.
It is, however, becoming increasingly clear to citizens across the country that it is liberal, anti-gun public officials like Hochul who are not following the law, and that it is constitutional sheriffs who are the ones following it.
As the nation continues to mourn the victims of the Uvalde massacre, and with old wounds aching over the sentencing of the Parkland shooter and the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist trial, Catholics should be the ones who offer answers when it comes to gun violence.
Some legislators want to focus on gun ownership and gun control. But the remedy won’t be found there. Rather, the remedy is spiritual. The nation must realize that saving lives begins with returning sanctity to life in all its stages. And sometimes, as counterintuitive as it may seem to say so, it might, at times, actually take a gun to do that.
A common response to the continual tragedy of school shootings in the United States is to assert that if there are no guns, there will be no shootings. But this perspective is both impractical and misguided. Christians are still called to defend the lives of the helpless—and sometimes an opposing firearm is the best tool to accomplish that. To a virtuous person, the Second Amendment bestows the real potential to be a lifesaver. In these dark days, exercising the right to keep and bear arms may even be considered a responsibility where it is permissible.
As the Left makes arguments that gun control is about saving lives, Pope Francis and the American bishops have taken this tack as well. Though the USCCB’s emphasis is certainly on sensible measures (such as reasonable background checks), the push to have Congress tighten the legislation around the buying and selling of firearms ever since Columbine seems a little too in lockstep with the liberal sectors of government—such as their support for banning assault-style weapons and limiting handgun ownership.
The Second Amendment, unlike the Second Commandment, did not come down from Sinai. There is an understanding that we all have in our hearts, engraved in our hearts, a natural law about the value of human life. And there is no amendment that can trump that.
His Eminence is both right and wrong. Yes, the right to bear arms is not a sacred right, as is the right to life. But there is an often-neglected angle of argument concerning that truth that responsible citizens bearing arms can save lives, and at certain times and situations, it does take an amendment to protect the lives that Cardinal Cupich affirms is a duty of natural law.
But, in fact, the criminals and even the criminally insane will often get their hands on firearms. Severe legislative restrictions, however, will keep many honest citizens unarmed, and that can lead to more unnecessary deaths as well. The bishops might say that being anti-gun is being pro-life, but allowing for the increasingly common scenario where the strong will take evil advantage over the weak is not pro-life at all.
Beginning last year, NRA-ILA has been keeping readers up to date with an ongoing effort by the Mexican government and domestic gun control supporters to attack the American firearms industry. According to a new report from Politico, this conspiracy to leverage a foreign sovereign to undermine an American constitutional right has become more formalized in recent days with the creation of a new advocacy group named Global Action on Gun Violence.
Back in August 2021, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against the most prominent U.S. gun manufacturers alleging that these heavily regulated businesses were somehow responsible for Mexico’s violent crime problem. The suit was the international version of a domestic gun control strategy from the 1990s, when anti-gun jurisdictions and avaricious plaintiff’s attorneys teamed up in an effort to bankrupt the U.S. firearms industry by holding companies accountable for the third-party criminal misuse of their products. This wild departure from long-established tort law eventually necessitated Congress enacting the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
In an attempt to get around the PLCAA, the Mexican suit argued that the U.S. federal courts should ignore both U.S. law and the Second Amendment and instead rule against the gun companies under the laws of Mexico.
Some observers will find it ironic that Mexico has sought to exert sovereignty over foreign businesses in this manner when the Mexican government has failed to exercise sovereignty over its own purported territory. A 2020 Washington Post item stated,
In a classified study produced in 2018 but not previously reported, CIA analysts concluded that drug-trafficking groups had gained effective control over about 20 percent of Mexico, according to several current and former U.S. officials.
The Mexico suit was filed with the help of handgun prohibition group Brady (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.), and specifically longtime Brady counsel Jonathan Lowy. At the time, NRA pointed out, “That Brady would ally itself with a foreign government that has become virtually synonymous with corruption proves just how detached the gun control movement has become from the values and traditions that define America.”
Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said that gun control provisions with large amounts of popular support are unlikely to advance in the current political environment.
“The way this should play out politically is that senators and representatives would be punished in elections because they don’t support the kind of gun safety laws that Americans want,” Liebell said. “However, there’s no evidence that Americans are willing to vote on gun safety the way they’re willing to vote on the economy.”
Liebell also pointed out that the conservative legal movement spent much of the last four decades building the Supreme Court majority that led to the Bruen decision, one that is not likely to go away anytime soon.
“We’re not really talking about history, we’re not really talking about the original interpretation of the Second Amendment, we’re talking about the number of votes that you have on the Supreme Court,” Liebell said.
Let’s get this out of the way first: constitutional carry should be the rule, not the exception. That being said, I don’t think conceal carry permits should go away any time soon. Even as my home state moved to permitless carry several years ago, I maintained my permit and encourage others to get theirs as well.
Why should someone put in the time, money, and effort when it isn’t required? I’d love to tell you.
New York’s new gun law, meant to rebuff the Supreme Court, is already having a rough go of it in federal court.
Just two weeks after a federal judge ruled broad swaths of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) unconstitutional in an opinion granting a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), another federal judge did the same for the law’s felony prohibition on licensed gun carry in places of worship.
“The nation’s history does not countenance such an incursion into the right to keep and bear arms across all places of worship across the state,” Judge John Sinatra wrote in his opinion granting a TRO. “The right to self-defense is no less important and no less recognized at these places.”
Unlike the previous TRO granted against portions of the law, Judge Sinatra declined to add a temporary stay to his ruling. That means licensed gun carriers in the state are now free to carry a firearm for self-defense while attending church or any other religious institution without fear of committing a state felony. That’s a limited but key win for concealed-carry advocates.
Moreover, the decision adds to the growing body of case law examining modern gun-carry restrictions. Judge Sinatra conducted a robust evaluation of the place of worship provision utilizing the framework laid out by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
“In Bruen, the Court made the Second Amendment test crystal clear: regulation in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations,” Judge Sinatra wrote. “New York fails that test. The State’s exclusion is, instead, inconsistent with the Nation’s historical traditions, impermissibly infringing on the right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”
New York attempted to justify its church ban by pointing to place of worship restrictions enacted in the states of Texas, Georgia, Missouri, and Virginia between 1870 and 1890. Judge Sinatra, however, was unpersuaded that such laws constituted a tradition pursuant to the Bruen test because they are “outlier” laws.
“The State relies on a few laws from the late-1800s to insist that a relevant tradition exists,” he said. “Bruen anticipates this argument. Rejecting the relevance of an outlier analogous law and state-court decisions, the Court stated that it would, ‘not give disproportionate weight to a single state statute and a pair of state-court decisions. As in Heller, we will not stake our interpretation of the Second Amendment upon a single law, in effect in a single [State], that contradicts the overwhelming weight of other evidence regarding the right to keep and bear arms for defense in public.’”
In a footnote, he explained that the laws in Georgia and Missouri, unlike New York’s current law, were ultimately interpreted to allow church leaders to decide for themselves whether to allow armed congregants. He also noted that New York failed to identify a single analogous law enacted between the time of the founding and 1870. In contrast, he documented the existence of certain colonial-era laws that actually mandated carrying firearms when attending a place of worship.
“The Constitution requires that individuals be permitted to use handguns for the core lawful purpose of self-defense,” Sinatra said. “And it protects that right outside the home and in public. Nothing in the Nation’s history or traditions presumptively closes the door on that right across every place of worship or religious observation.”
He argued that right, guaranteed by the Second Amendment, forecloses the ability of state governments to implement certain gen policies.
“New York’s exclusion violates ‘the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense,’” he wrote. “It, too, is one of the policy choices taken ‘off the table’ by the Second Amendment.”
Federal courts have now twice sternly rebuked New York over its failure to heed the direction set forth by the Supreme Court. Aside from amending or outright repealing the CCIA, the state’s options for continuing to resist current Second Amendment jurisprudence are limited.
New York, for its part, has already appealed the first TRO to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. It could do the same with the new order.
It has had some limited success on this front already. A Second Circuit judge threw the state a lifeline by placing an administrative stay on the first TRO issued against most of the law, allowing it to remain in full until a three-judge motions panel gets around to reviewing the validity of the TRO. That panel has yet to act so much of the law remains in force for the time being.
New York could choose to pursue the same strategy with regard to its church gun ban. But it seems likely that will only delay the inevitable. Both Judge Suddaby and Judge Sinatra have already demonstrated how the most controversial sections of the law fail under the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard. And, as Judge Suddaby pointed out in his TRO opinion, the criteria for granting a TRO and a preliminary injunction are virtually identical.
Therefore, even if New York can scuttle the TROs that continue to be issued against its law, the imminent injunction hearings seem likely to put them right back where they started.
That bodes well for gun-rights advocates, not only those directly impacted by New York’s restrictive law but for those in similarly situated states as well. California and New Jersey appear to be competing to see who can be the next former may-issue state to replicate New York’s gun restrictions. If and when those copycat bills pass, gun-rights advocates in those states will have a roadmap and caselaw for challenging those laws in court.
Since I don’t think the colonies had ‘colony parks’ back then, I guess we can – maybe – extrapolate town squares? So, did any of the colonies ban guns in town squares? If not……………
A Mississippi resident has filed a federal lawsuit challenging an Alabama state parks regulation that requires written permission to carry a firearm into a state park.
William Lee Mitchum, 43, of Pascagoula filed the lawsuit on Monday, claiming the regulation is an unconstitutional infringement on the 2nd Amendment. His lawsuit asks the court to issue an injunction to block its enforcement.
Mitchum, who grew up in Robertsdale and said he is a frequent user of Alabama state parks, learned about the rule in July and exchanged emails and letters with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Alabama Attorney General’s office before filing the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Monday.
“The constitution is there to restrict the government from infringing on our rights,” Mitchum said. “It doesn’t give us rights. And I believe they have infringed on our rights by these rules.”
Mitchum visited Meaher State Park on Mobile Bay in July. He said the firearms rule was posted and he talked to the park manager, who told him he could not bring his firearm into the park.
Mitchum had previously learned about the rule and said he went to the park specifically to establish legal standing to challenge the rule. Mitchum said he also went to the pier at Gulf State Park, where a permit is required to carry a firearm.
Attorney General Marshall and the ADCNR declined comment on Mitchum’s lawsuit.
A Chicago liquor store owner got shot and killed Monday night while defending himself against an armed robber.
Police said a man entered J&K Food and Liquors and pulled a handgun. He demanded money from 66-year-old Salim Khamo, the owner working behind the counter. They do not know why the armed robber fired his gun, but police say the robber shot first, and Khamo fired back but missed his attacker. The assailant left the store on foot without taking any money or merchandise.
The Chicago Fire Department took the victim to the hospital, and although he was initially listed as critical, he ultimately died from his wounds. Khamo was a refugee from Iraq and opened the store 17 years ago. Family members said Khamo was just a few weeks from retirement.
WGN News released this statement from his family:
“My father was the most compassionate and hard-working man I know. He left Iraq as a refugee to escape persecution and to build a better life for his family. The store was a testament to his honest work, and he was so proud of all the risks he took to provide more for his family. He is survived by his wife, three children, and seven grandchildren, who he loved more than anything else in this world. Nothing brought him more joy than to watch his family continue to grow in the new life he had started here for them. His grandkids were his light and joy. They could brighten his smile every time they saw him. We would also like to say to whomever is responsible for this senseless act of violence, I hope you are brought to justice for taking the life of such a loved and honored man.”
Police just releasing this image of the suspect in the West Ridge liquor store homicide Monday night. This is the man police say biked to J&K Liquors, shot and killed Salim Khamo and took off — leaving a phone and a bike behind. Khamo's family remembers him at 10 @CBSChicagopic.twitter.com/MK7ZYd9WTA
The video that the Chicago Police Department released pauses before the actual shooting, but there may have been a brief period when someone could have gotten off a defensive shot. You can see the robber entering the store. He casually sticks his hand in his pocket when he walks up to the counter. He then produces what looks like a semi-auto handgun from his pocket, all while looking away from the store owner, who is behind the counter.
Many people that carry a gun for self-defense will look at this and say he should have shot his attacker immediately, but you never know how you will respond until you have been in a high-stress situation. It was long ago, but I still remember entering a house fire with a rookie. He had been through training, and nothing would have led anyone to believe the guy was not ready. When we went up the steps of the house, the real world set in, and he could not do it. The training was one thing, but once you feel the heat from the flames and smoke so thick you can not see your hand in front of your face, you never know what you will do.
You can have all the training in the world, but at the end of the day, your head has to be in the game, and you need to be psychologically ready for the fight. Physical skills will mean nothing if you have not thought everything through ahead of time and mentally prepared yourself.
We may never know if the store owner hesitated or maybe did not even have his gun close enough to get to it in time. He didn’t go down, though, without a fight, and hopefully, the criminal that did it will be found, and they toss away the key.
Another, more in depth, look at the takedown of the kneejerk New York gun ban.
From Hardaway v. Nigrelli, decided yesterday by Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. (N.D.N.Y.):
Eight days after the Supreme Court struck down New York’s unconstitutional “proper cause” requirement for conceal-carry licenses, the State responded with even more restrictive legislation, barring all conceal-carry license holders from vast swaths of the State. The complaint and motion in this case focus solely on one aspect of the new legislation, namely, the portion making it a felony for such a license holder to possess a firearm at “any place of worship or religious observation.”
Ample Supreme Court precedent addressing the individual’s right to keep and bear arms—from Heller and McDonald to its June 2022 decision in Bruen—dictates that New York’s new place of worship restriction is equally unconstitutional. In Bruen, the Court made the Second Amendment test crystal clear: regulation in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. As set forth below, New York fails that test. The State’s exclusion is, instead, inconsistent with the Nation’s historical traditions, impermissibly infringing on the right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense….
Reverend Dr. Jimmie Hardaway, Jr. and Bishop Larry A. Boyd filed this lawsuit on October 13, 2022, and are joined by institutional plaintiffs, Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc. (“FPC”), and Second Amendment Foundation (“SAF”)…. Hardaway and Boyd, leaders of their respective churches, “wish to exercise their fundamental, individual right to bear arms in public for self-defense by carrying concealed firearms on church property in case of confrontation to both themselves and their congregants.” They allege that, as “leaders of their churches, they would be authorized to carry on church premises to keep the peace, and would do so, but for Defendants’ enforcement of the unconstitutional laws, regulations, policies, practices, and customs at issue in this case.” In particular, they seek to prevent the enforcement of New York’s new law that makes it a felony to carry firearms at all places of worship and religious observation….
The State argues that the place of worship exclusion complies with Bruen. The State cites to 1870-1890 enactments by four states (Texas, Georgia, Missouri, and Virginia) and the territories of Arizona and Oklahoma that contained place of worship firearm restrictions. This does not carry the State’s burden, as explained below.
At the outset, as the Supreme Court has made clear, individuals have the right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. New York’s exclusion is valid only if the State “affirmatively prove[s]” that the restriction is part of the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The test is rigorous because the Second Amendment is the very product of an interest balancing, already conducted by “the People,” which “elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms for self-defense.” …
New York’s restriction finds no analog in any recognized “sensitive place.” In Bruen, the Court noted: “[a]lthough the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century ‘sensitive places’ where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions …. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of ‘sensitive places’ to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.” Id. (emphasis in original).
In particular, places of worship or religious observation are unsecured, spiritual places that members of the public frequent as often as daily as part of day-to-day life, and encounter vast numbers of other people there—as they do anywhere in public. In contrast, legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses are civic locations sporadically visited in general, where a bad-intentioned armed person could disrupt key functions of democracy. Legislative assemblies and courthouses, further, are typically secured locations, where uniform lack of firearms is generally a condition of entry. The State’s argument that places of worship are analogous because the exclusion supposedly also minimizes the chance of violence between those with opposing views is undeveloped and, in any event, belies the non-confrontational purpose drawing people to houses of worship in the first place. The argument would apply nearly everywhere in public. The places of worship and religious observation exclusion thus finds no analogy in Bruen‘s recognized sensitive places.
Nor is there an American tradition supporting the challenged law here. As in Bruen—where, “apart from a handful of late-19th-century jurisdictions, the historical record compiled by [the State] does not demonstrate a tradition of broadly prohibiting the public carry of commonly used firearms for self-defense”—the State does not demonstrate a tradition of broadly prohibiting the public carry of commonly used firearms for self-defense at all places of worship or religious observation across the state.
Nevertheless, the State relies on a few laws from the late-1800s to insist that a relevant tradition exists. Bruen anticipates this argument. Rejecting the relevance of an outlier analogous law and state-court decisions, the Court stated that it would “not give disproportionate weight to a single state statute and a pair of state-court decisions. As in Heller, we will not ‘stake our interpretation of the Second Amendment upon a single law, in effect in a single [State], that contradicts the overwhelming weight of other evidence regarding the right to keep and bear arms for defense’ in public.” …
Here, the State cites to a handful of enactments in an attempt to meet its “burden” to demonstrate a tradition of accepted prohibitions of firearms in places of worship or religious observation. The notion of a “tradition” is the opposite of one-offs, outliers, or novel enactments. Rather, “tradition” requires “continuity.”
These enactments are of unknown duration, and the State has not met is burden to show endurance over time. As a result, the Court is left with a handful of seemingly spasmodic enactments involving a small minority of jurisdictions governing a small minority of population. And they were passed nearly a century after the Second Amendment’s ratification in 1791. These outlier enactments also contrast with colonial-era enactments that, in fact, mandated such carry at places of worship. These enactments are far too remote, far too anachronistic, and very much outliers—insufficient, then, in the search for an American tradition….
Congratulations to Nicolas J. Rotsko (Phillips Lytle LLP), and David H. Thompson, John W. Tienken, and Peter A. Patterson (Cooper & Kirk, PLLC), who represent the plaintiffs. Note that one of the plaintiffs is the Firearms Policy Coalition; I have consulted for the FPC, but I haven’t been involved in this case.
