This is about using illicit drugs vis-a-vis possessing guns.
LEGAL ALERT: A federal judge ruled that 922(g)(3) and (d)(3) are unconstitutional, saying the former is like “a law that would prevent individuals from possessing cars at all if they regularly drink alcohol on weekends.” The government will likely appeal. https://t.co/jDR7efW1Os pic.twitter.com/oHntN2mDnZ
— FPC Action Foundation (@FPCAction) April 7, 2023
No, Congress has not banned bump stocks, but they have banned machineguns made after May 1986 for possession by us mere mortals, and one of the federal law’s definitions of a MG is :“any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun.”
What the bureaucraps at ATF did was hang their regulatory hat on that, but to do so, they inventively redefined what ‘by a single function of the trigger‘ means.
That’s part of what this case is all about; How much power do bureaucraps have to regulate and how must the court defer to that power.
With Only Minutes To Spare Biden Administration Appeals Bump Stock Case to SCOTUS
AUSTIN, TX – On Thursday, April 6th, 2023 at 10:30 pm, With only minutes to spare, the DOJ filed Petition for A Writ of Certiorari.
The DOJ is also asking for a stay against the Circuit Court’s ruling until the United States Supreme Court can decide whether to grant certiorari. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals en banc ruled 13-3 in favor of Cargill. The court remanded the case back to the District Court to rule in favor of Cargill and issue appropriate relief on 01-06-2023.
“By ruling 13-3 in our favor, the Fifth Circuit reinforced the principle that the laws are to be written by Congress, not federal administrators. And if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, we are confident that it will uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision,” says Michael Cargill.
Under our constitutional system, Congress makes the laws, not the Department of Justice or the ATF.
Congress has banned “machine guns” but it has not banned bump stocks. Agencies like DOJ and ATF can’t just assume the power to rewrite the law, or our constitutional system and separation of powers with checks and balances will disappear.
For years, the ATF said that bump stocks were not machine guns under the law. Now it is saying the opposite, which means that hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans who relied on the ATF’s approval of bump stocks are suddenly felons. That’s not how the law in America should work.
Whether to ban bump stocks is a question—and a responsibility—that lies with Congress, not agencies like DOJ and the ATF. If agencies take over that decision, our government is no longer accountable to the people.
Neither the President nor the Department of Justice can act by executive fiat to change the law. Congress—and only Congress—can convert lawful activity into unlawful activity. But Congress has not banned bump stocks, so the ATF’s rule violates the Constitution.
Garland, et al. v. Cargill Writ of Certiorari – Biden Administration Appeals Bump Stock Case to SCOTUS
Gun owners suing the NYPD say the agency is making it ‘impossible’ to qualify for a handgun
A group of gun owners in New York and New Jersey is suing the NYPD division that reviews applications for firearm permits and licenses, arguing that the NYPD’s application requirements are “impossible to meet.”
The class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court last month, argues that a lengthy backlog in the licensing division “paralyzes” people who want to legally exercise their Second Amendment rights. The gun owners want the courts to appoint a federal monitor to oversee the gun licensing team.
“They [license division staff] have shown time and again that they will infringe on the rights of gun owners and this court has a duty to stop this infringement,” the suit states.
The NYPD declined to comment on pending litigation.
The plaintiffs include a former prosecutor, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor, a gun store employee and a truck driver. All of them have successfully obtained gun licenses in other states but have struggled to complete the process in New York City.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned New York’s strict concealed carry laws last year, ruling that the Second Amendment is not a “second-class” right, many gun owners celebrated what they hoped would be a loosening of the state requirements to own and carry a gun. Instead, the state legislature quickly passed a package of laws that created even more requirements for legal gun ownership, prompting a flood of lawsuits.
Uh Oh…New York Supreme Court Rules the State’s Red Flag Confiscation Law is Unconstitutional
Gosh, this hasn’t been a good week for America’s gun control industry. First Governor Ron DeSantis signed permitless concealed carry into law, tipping the balance in favor of states that don’t require a government-issued permission slip to keep and bear arms. That was traumatizing enough for the forces of civilian disarmament.
Today, however, another blow has landed. New York’s Supreme Court — which for some damned reason is the second highest court in the Empire State — has ruled that the state’s due process-free red flag firearm confiscation law is unconstitutional. Go figure.
The ruling, written by Judge Craig Stephen Brown, makes it clear how an individual’s civil rights are violated under the current law . . .
Without the requirement of any input from a medical or mental health expert, the Court is required to make a determination of whether “the respondent is likely to engage in behavior that would result in serious harm to himself, herself, or others in…section 9.39 of the mental hygiene law.” Under Mental Hygiene Law, a person’s liberty rights cannot be curtailed unless a physician opines that a person is suffering from a condition “likely to result in serious harm.” Further, in order to extend any such curtailment of liberty beyond 48 hours, a second doctor’s opinion must be obtained and such opinion must be consistent with the first doctor’s opinion.
Absent from New York’s Red Flag Law is any provision whatsoever requiring even a single medical or mental health expert opinion providing a basis for the order to be issued. New York’s Red Flag Law, as currently written, lacks sufficient statutory guardrails to protect a citizen’s Second Amendment Constitutional right to bear arms.
In other words, the New York legislature, in its unyielding zeal to disarm as many citizens as possible, didn’t give the slightest thought to the protection of a targeted individual’s civil rights when they wrote their red flag gun confiscation law. The only thing they cared about was grabbing the guns.
As a result, using a quote from McDonald v. Chicago, Judge Brown concluded . . .
As a result, using a quote from McDonald v. Chicago, Judge Brown concluded . . .
“Second Amendment rights are no less fundamental than…Fourth Amendment rights (the right to liberty), and must be afforded the same level of due process and equal protection.” Accordingly, this Court joins the Monroe County Supreme Court in holding that, “under CPLR 63-a, in order to pass constitutional muster, the legislature must provide that a citizen be afforded procedural guarantees such as a physician’s determination that a respondent presents a condition ‘likely to result in serious harm,’ before a petitioner files for a [temporary extreme risk protection order] or [extreme risk protection order].
Since this standard is required to prevent a respondent from being deprived of fundamental rights under the Mental Hygiene Law, then anything less (as contained in 63-a) deprives a citizen of a fundamental right without due process of law.” This Court declares [New York’s Extreme Risk Protection Law] to be unconstitutional.
You can read the full ruling here.
The New York Supreme Court, then, has concluded exactly what we and every other gun rights supporter have been arguing since the first red flag confiscation order was passed in California. They deprive gun owners of their basic, constitutionally protected civil right to due process, frequently issuing ex parte confiscation orders for which the gun owner wasn’t even present to defend himself.
Again, today’s ruling was issued by New York’s Supreme Court. The highest court in New York is the Court of Appeals. New York Attorney General Letitia James’ minions are no doubt already hard at work drafting their filing for an appeal, so this battle is far from over. Still, it’s a positive step and one that will upset the state’s rabid gun-grabber community, lead by none other than Governor Kathy Hochul, to no end…and who could quibble with that?
Now We Know Why They Wanted to Keep the Trump Indictment Sealed
With the indictment and now arrest of Donald Trump, we’ve officially entered a new and very troubling phase in our country’s history. In this new phase prosecutors use their position to punish political enemies for made-up crimes – and half of the country cheers it, believing that their own personal animus toward someone or even a simple policy disagreement means that person should be locked up. There’s no critical thought involved, no sober consideration of the rule of law and evaluation of whether the facts even remotely meet the elements of a crime; these prosecutors act based on the shrieking of the masses and their own hunger for power.
During the few weeks since Trump announced that he was going to be indicted, official news has been almost impossible to come by. What the public knew in the lead-up was mostly as a result of leaks from DA Bragg’s office and speculation from political insiders and pundits. When Trump surrendered to authorities, was processed, and then escorted into the courtroom, we still didn’t know exactly what crime(s) our former president was going to be charged with. It was only once we were 20 minutes into the arraignment proceedings that we learned that he has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. When the indictment was published, it was immediately clear that they kept it under wraps because it’s so flimsy and utterly laughable. As our Nick Arama predicted, Bragg’s engaging in “charge stacking,” a practice that is frowned-upon as an abusive tactic, the “second charge” that would possibly make the offense a felony is unclear, and the actions Bragg’s saying constitute the falsifying took place so long ago that the statute of limitations has expired.
And during the arraignment itself, the American public was similarly in the dark. While the judge allowed five pool still photographers into the courtroom to take pictures before the arraignment, he denied a request from news organizations to broadcast the arraignment. Sure, we’ll potentially have access to a transcript, but a transcript does not in any way tell the entire story of what happened in the courtroom. It doesn’t show facial expressions, vocal intonation, or body language, and as the saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words.
Although Trump’s attorneys argued against the news organizations’ request, saying it could pose a security risk and disrupt the proceedings, for the American public to be unable to fully observe what happens in that courtroom sets a dangerous precedent and doesn’t promote confidence in the principles of equal protection or due process – especially with the lack of transparency regarding the indictment itself. One reporter who was in the courtroom said that Trump’s attorneys laughed quietly when they were looking at the paperwork, and given its contents, that’s understandable. The American people need to see things like that, and hopefully they will be able to watch broadcasts of the preliminary hearing when Trump’s attorneys have the opportunity to skewer Bragg’s argument.
But if District Attorneys like Alvin Bragg and his fellow Soros-funded “justice reformers” George Gascon, Kim Gardner, Larry Krasner, and Kim Foxx have their way, political opponents will be prosecuted behind closed doors, with no ability for the public to truly see what’s happening. And we know that many of their accomplices in the media will absolutely look the other way, because they believe that people they disagree with shouldn’t have the rights the Constitution guarantees them
The Footnote to End All Gun Control
The United States of America is founded on the presumption of innocence. After the Supreme Court’s landmark New York State Pistol Rifle Association v. Bruen Supreme Court decision, there is now a presumption that gun laws are unconstitutional unless the government can prove there was a similar law at the time of the ratification of the Second Amendment.
According to the Bruen decision, the interest balancing test does not apply to Second Amendment cases. The courts can only rely on the original text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment.
This decision put most anti-gun politicians and advocates in a precarious position. Almost no gun control existed at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification. With the combination of little to no supporting historical evidence and without leniency from the previous interest balancing test, gun control advocates will have a much harder time of successfully passing legislation that will defeat SCOTUS’s new test. The anti-gun side had to find something in history that would save gun control laws.
Anti-gun state and gun control advocates usually point to the Sir John Knight’s Case that challenged the Statute of Northampton. According to the anti-gun side, the law forbids carrying a firearm in public. Still, most legal scholars agree that it banned the carrying of a gun in public only if the intent is to terrify the people. Without many other examples of gun control laws, the anti-gun side must base their arguments on this case.
Unfortunately for the gun control side, the Supreme Court addressed the Sir John Knight’s Case and others like it.
According to Footnote 11 of the Bruen decision, whenever multiple interpretations can be taken from a case, the Supreme Court will favor the interpretation that favors the Second Amendment. This demand puts the burden on the state to prove their analog is consistent with the original text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment.
Footnote 11 reads:
“The dissent discounts Sir John Knight’s Case, 3 Mod. 117, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, because it only “arguably” supports the view that an evil-intent requirement attached to the Statute of Northampton by the late 1600s and early 1700s. See post, at 37.But again, because the Second Amendment’s bare text covers petitioners’ public carry, the respondents here shoulder the burden of demonstrating that New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical scope. See supra, at 15.
To the extent there are multiple plausible interpretations of Sir John Knight’s Case, we will favor the one that is more consistent with the Second Amendment’s command.”
Because SCOTUS referenced the case in a footnote doesn’t mean the state will not try to use Sir John Knight’s Case. We have seen states argue that they can use laws from the ratification date of the Fourteenth Amendment to defend their anti-gun statutes. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified shortly after the Civil War ended when states passed laws to prevent formerly enslaved people from getting firearms. Some courts might even accept these arguments, but it is delaying the inevitable.
SCOTUS laid down a straightforward test for gun laws. If a law is inconsistent with the plain text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, it must be thrown out. This new test puts the burden on the states to prove that their law is compatible with the Second Amendment.
Analysis: A Legal Template for Upholding AR-15 Bans is Emerging
A federal judge upheld Delaware’s “assault weapons” ban this week using reasoning likely to resonate with other courts inclined to reach the same outcome.
On Monday, Federal District Judge Richard G. Andrews, an Obama appointee, found the state’s ban on AR-15s, AK-47s, and similar firearms–along with its ban on magazines that hold more than 17 rounds–is constitutional. He did so despite finding the guns were “in common” use for lawful purposes.
“[I] conclude that the prohibited LCMs, like the prohibited assault long guns, are in common use for self-defense and therefore ‘presumptively protect[ed]’ by the Second Amendment,” Judge Andrews ruled in Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association v. Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
That probably left a lot of people doing a double-take. But Judge Andrews came to his conclusion after arguing AR-15s and the like weren’t common during the founding era and represented a technological advancement that is responsible for a uniquely modern problem: mass shootings. Because of this, he argued Bruen allowed him to look for historical analogues that show a history of regulation instituted for the same purpose and using the same means.
He ruled there was such a tradition.
“I find that the LCM and assault long gun prohibitions of HB 450 and SS 1 for SB 6 are consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” he wrote. “Plaintiffs have therefore failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their Second Amendment claim.”
He pointed to the proliferation of late 19th Century Bowie knife and Billy club bans, plus later machinegun bans, as evidence governments have previously banned the sale of weapons they believe are associated with especially dangerous criminal behavior. He further argued banning a subset of weapons was a relatively minor burden and one that was similar to his historical examples.
“[B]oth sets of regulations impose a ‘comparable burden,” he wrote. “Indeed, the burden that the challenged regulations impose is slight.”
Judge Andrews isn’t the only, or even the first, one to use this concept to save a ban. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, denied an attempt to block Oregon’s magazine limit under the same basic framework. While she went further and said she didn’t need to do a Bruen analysis at all because ammunition magazines aren’t protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment, she did the analysis anyway, and it came out along the same lines as Judge Andrews’ argument.
It’s likely other courts will adopt this framework as well.
Other courts, namely the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, have previously shown they don’t believe AR-15s or similar guns should be sold to civilians. The old two-step balancing test of the pre-Bruen era was explicitly about whether the argued public safety impact of banning the guns was enough to overcome the infringement on the right of Americans to have them. Any court that upheld an “assault weapons” ban before 2022 essentially said “yes.”
So, given the opportunity to review the law again, it’s fair to think they may want to find a way to reach the same conclusion. That’s especially true if the path to that answer appears to at least plausibly fit within the Supreme Court’s new test.
Of course, Judge Andrews’ reasoning has some serious flaws. For one, it seems to be making the same mistake in the eyes of the Court that the two-step test did: going one step too far.
Reading Heller, McDonald, and Bruen provides the impression that any class of firearms considered to be in “common use” for lawful purposes, such as self-defense, is inherently protected by the Second Amendment and can’t be banned by the government.
“The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense,” The Court wrote in Heller.
“Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment’s operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right[…].”
That Judge Andrews finds AR-15s and the other banned guns in common use for the purpose of self-defense and then proceeds on to further analysis is unlikely to be what The Court had in mind. It seems relatively clear SCOTUS doesn’t believe it is possible to ban any gun that is in common use for lawful purposes. So, the detour into comparing modern “assault weapons” bans to 19th Century Bowie knife or Billy club bans will likely be unpersuasive should it ever make its way up to The High Court.
It also suffers from the lack of a limiting principle. Judge Andrews argues that the self-loading, semi-automatic technology found in AR-15s and the other banned guns didn’t become popular until after the Civil War. And their adoption led to the rise of mass shootings (never mind that semi-automatics were becoming common about 100 years before the onset of modern mass shootings).
But there’s nothing in Judge Andrews’ line of reasoning that wouldn’t prevent the same argument from being applied to all semi-automatic firearms or an ammunition magazine of essentially any size. That includes semi-automatic handguns, which the Supreme Court has already ruled can’t be banned.
Still, even if the prospects for success on appeal to the Supreme Court are dim for this argument upholding AR bans, it will likely proliferate in some of the most important circuits because it at least attempts to follow the Bruen steps while still maintaining the bans. And, even if the weaknesses are as serious as they appear, pointing them out will only matter if the Supreme Court actually takes up a case involving them. After all, the two-step test The Court excoriated in Bruen was the defacto review standard on gun cases for a decade because of SCOTUS inaction.
Whatever ends up happening, expect to see Judge Andrews’ legal reasoning pop up anytime a gun or magazine ban is upheld.
Yes, that's one of the main problems I see with it as well.
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) April 2, 2023
The Bruen decision, authored by adamant pro-2nd amendment rights Justice Thomas keeps rolling right over the gun grabbers’s fantasies
Federal judge strikes down Minnesota law banning 18-20-year-olds from obtaining gun permits
A judge in Minnesota ruled that a state law prohibiting adults under 21 from carrying firearms in public was unconstitutional
A federal judge on Friday struck down a Minnesota law that prohibits adults age 18-20 from obtaining permits to carry handguns in public.
Assisted by gun-rights advocacy groups, three individuals who were under 21 challenged a 2003 state law that enacted an age requirement to apply for a permit to carry a pistol. They argued that the law unconstitutionally prohibited young adults from exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
In a 50-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Menendez agreed. Relying on the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, the judge concluded that Minnesota’s law was unconstitutional and blocked the state from enforcing it.
“Based on a careful review of the record, the court finds that defendants have failed to identify analogous regulations that show a historical tradition in America of depriving 18- to 20-year-olds the right to publicly carry a handgun for self-defense,” Menendez wrote. “As a result, the age requirement prohibiting persons between the ages of 18 and 20 from obtaining such a permit to carry violates the Second Amendment.”
The judge indicated that her ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which established a new legal test in Bruen to evaluate laws regulating firearm possession. The Supreme Court majority held that the government must demonstrate that a firearm regulation “is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” for it to pass constitutional muster.
Alec Baldwin Codefendant Gets 6 Months Probation on ‘Rust’ Weapons Charge
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A codefendant in the case against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer on a movie set in New Mexico was convicted Friday of unsafe handling of a firearm and sentenced to six months of probation.
Safety coordinator and assistant director David Halls also must pay a $500 fine and complete a gun-safety course after agreeing to plead guilty to the charge related to the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
Halls appeared briefly by video to waive his right to challenge the negligence charge, as state District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer approved terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Defense attorney Lisa Torraco urged the court to not impose a prison sentence — the maximum possible penalty was 6 months behind bars — noting that Halls was “extremely traumatized and “rattled” with guilt.
BREAKING: Renna v. Bonta (S.D. CA): Judge issues preliminary injunction against California handgun roster's chamber load indicator, magazine disconnect, microstamping, and 3-for-1 removal provisions. This is the 2nd injunction against the roster in 2wks. https://t.co/iprbXy0m6B pic.twitter.com/OKmlXZ0xcI
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) March 31, 2023
Yeah, there’s this thing called ‘due process’…….
BLUF
It nevertheless seems clear that the current policy sweeps too broadly by disarming people, potentially including victims of domestic abuse, even when they have no history of violence or threats. That reality certainly seems relevant in assessing the government’s claim that people subject to restraining orders are ipso facto in the same category as “dangerous” individuals who historically have been deemed unfit to own guns.
The Ruling Upholding the Gun Rights of People Subject to Restraining Orders Is Not As Crazy As You Might Think
The 5th Circuit noted that such orders can be issued without any credible evidence of a threat to others.
The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a recent decision in which an appeals court concluded that the federal ban on gun possession by people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment. In a petition filed this month, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar portrays that law as a commonsensical precaution that is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. But there are reasons to doubt that the “historical analogues” cited by the government are close enough and ample cause to worry about the threat that the policy it is defending poses to civil liberties.
Under 18 USC 922(g)(8), which Congress enacted in 1994, it is a felony, currently punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for someone to possess firearms when he is “subject to a court order” that restrains him from “harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner” or “engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury.” The provision requires that the order be issued after a hearing of which the respondent received notice. It also says the order must either include a finding that the respondent “represents a credible threat” to the intimate partner’s “physical safety” or explicitly prohibit “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force” that “would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury.”
The man at the center of this case, a Texas drug dealer named Zackey Rahimi, was convicted of violating Section 922(g)(8) in circumstances that suggest he is exactly the sort of person who should not be trusted with firearms. But his conduct allegedly included a string of violent crimes that would themselves disqualify him from owning guns. The question raised by this case is not whether someone like Rahimi should be allowed to own guns. It is whether the government violates the Second Amendment when it deprives people of the right to armed self-defense based on nothing more than a restraining order that may have been issued without any credible evidence that the respondent poses a danger to others.
When it overturned Rahimi’s conviction in February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit noted that he is “hardly a model citizen,” which is putting it mildly. In December 2019, Prelogar notes, “Rahimi and his girlfriend C.M. had an argument in a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. C.M. tried to leave, but Rahimi grabbed her wrist, knocking her to the ground. He then dragged her back to his car, picked her up, and pushed her inside, causing her to hit her head on the dashboard. Realizing that a bystander had seen him, he retrieved a gun and fired a shot. In the meantime, C.M. escaped the car and fled the scene. Rahimi later called her and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone about the assault.”
Poor NY Times Karen. It’s going to be much farther than she can imagine.
I’m not going to fisk the inaccuracies and outright lies in the article, as they’ll stand out by simple reading.
We’re About to Find Out How Far the Supreme Court Will Go to Arm America
How much further will the Supreme Court go to assist in the arming of America? That has been the question since last June, when the court ruled that New York’s century-old gun licensing law violated the Second Amendment. Sooner than expected, we are likely to find out the answer.
On March 17, the Biden administration asked the justices to overturn an appeals court decision that can charitably be described as nuts, and accurately as pernicious. The decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidated a federal law that for almost 30 years has prohibited gun ownership by people who are subject to restraining orders for domestic violence.
The Fifth Circuit upheld the identical law less than three years ago. But that was before President Donald Trump put a Mississippi state court judge named Cory Wilson on the appeals court. (As a candidate for political office in 2015, Wilson said in a National Rifle Association questionnaire that he opposed both background checks on private gun sales and state licensing requirements for potential gun owners.)
Judge Wilson wrote in a decision handed down in March that the appeals court was forced to repudiate its own precedent by the logic of the Supreme Court’s decision in the New York licensing case. He was joined by another Trump judge, James Ho, and by Edith Jones, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan; Judge Jones has long been one of the most aggressive conservatives on the country’s most conservative appeals court.
Now it is up to the justices to say whether that analysis is correct.
Fifteen years after the Supreme Court’s Heller decision interpreted the Second Amendment to convey an individual right to own a gun, there is no overstating the significance of the choice the court has been asked to make. Heller was limited in scope: It gave Americans a constitutional right to keep handguns at home for self-defense. The court’s decision last June in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen was on the surface also quite limited, striking down a law that required a showing of special need in order to obtain an unrestricted license to carry a concealed gun outside the home. New York was one of only a half-dozen states with such a requirement, as the court put it in the Bruen decision.
Federal District Judge Wimes Creates Novel Excuses to Rule 2A Protection Act Unconstitutional
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-— On March 6, 2023, federal Judge Brian C. Wimes ruled the Missouri Second Amendment Protection Act was unconstitutional, claiming the Act violates the Supremacy clause of the US Constitution, invalidates federal law, and violates the doctrine of “intergovernmental immunity”.
The Federal court system has long held states cannot be compelled to use their resources to enforce federal laws. States are not required to explain why they do not wish to use those resources to enforce federal laws. They have the power to refuse to do so. To hold otherwise is to collapse the power-sharing between states and the federal government into a monolithic entity controlled by the federal government. This doctrine is known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.
Judge Wimes appears to be nullifying the anti-commandeering doctrine by claiming Missouri must use state resources to investigate and prosecute federal law. Refusing to do so, Judge Wimes claims, is “obstructing” federal law enforcement, which is somehow a violation of the supremacy clause and intergovernmental immunity.
From the opinion:
SAPA is an unconstitutional “interposit[ion]” against federal law and is designed to be just that. Id. Section 1.410(5) states the Missouri General Assembly’s declaration that the Supremacy Clause “does not extend to various federal statutes, executive orders, administrative orders, court orders, rules, regulations, or other actions that collect data or restrict or prohibit the manufacture, ownership, or use of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition exclusively within the borders of Missouri . . . .” Mo. Rev. Stat. § 1.410(5). However, the Missouri General Assembly’s assertion that the Supremacy Clause does not extend to acts of Congress does not make it so. To the contrary, 15 “[t]he law of congress is paramount; it cannot be nullified by direct act of any state, nor the scope and effect of its provisions set at naught indirectly.” Anderson, 135 U.S. at 490.
SAPA does not prevent agents of the federal government from investigating, arresting, prosecuting or convicting residents of Missouri who violate federal law. It prevents agents of the state and local governments from assisting federal agents in doing so. Judge Wimes claims the anti-commandeering doctrine does not apply by quoting reasons in SAPA for the purpose of the law. But the purpose of state law has not generally been an issue in anti-commandeering doctrine. The Constitutionality of laws is based on what the law does, not what the law claims the purposes of the law are.
Poor Huffpo.
[Heller and McDonald] allowed opponents to wage new battles against longstanding gun laws. When District Judge Roger Benitez overturned California’s 34-year-old assault weapons ban two years ago, he pointed to Heller, saying that under the decision, “it is obvious that the California assault weapon ban is unconstitutional.”
Because the Heller ruling applied to guns in common use, the sheer volume of semi-automatic rifles in America protects them under the Second Amendment, according to Mark Oliva, a spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Federation.
“There are currently 24.4 million of these rifles in circulation today,” Oliva said. “To put that into context for you, there are more of these rifles in circulation today than there are F-150s on the road.” …
Eight more states have laws similar to California’s assault weapons ban that could be affected if the Supreme Court ultimately weighs in.
The expectation that these laws may be doomed is already complicating the politics of passing new ones like them.
In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham has repeatedly urged the legislature to send her an assault weapons ban to sign this session, but lawmakers tabled the effort — partly over concerns that it wouldn’t withstand scrutiny in federal court.
“There’s absolutely no point to passing new laws which federal courts will strike down and which are clearly going to be deemed unconstitutional,” state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Democrat, tweeted last month.
With those lawsuits still playing out, the future of gun policy remains in flux. But that legal panorama makes it hard to imagine clear lanes for reform in the near future.
“We’re in a very difficult spot with that Bruen ruling,” said Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. “Even though it was only about concealed carry, it’s just made everybody afraid who wants to pass common sense gun violence prevention legislation.”
— Roque Planas and Paul Blumenthal in How the Courts Are Strangling Gun Reform
You simply can’t make up this kind of crap-for-brains judicial double talk.
Comment O’ The Day:
This is exactly what happens when you allow the courts to go outside the original text as Scalia did in the Heller ruling.
Since when did the 2A say anything about dangerous and unusual weapons?
And no one in the decision asked; If it wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t be considered a weapon? Thus, not even under the purview of the court?
The problem is political bias. It’s time the courts started calling it plain.
Nothing about 2A is a difficult decision. Just an unpopular one in certain circles.
So much for even the thin veil of democracy they hide behind.
Bans aren’t unusual? That’s basically what started the revolution!
Second Amendment Roundup: An Opening Judicial Salvo in Defense of Illinois’ New Rifle Ban
The latest salvo in America’s “assault-weapon” wars is the decision of February 17 by Judge Virginia Kendall of the Norther District of Illinois in Bevis v. City of Naperville finding that plaintiffs are not likely to prevail on their challenge to the bans under the city’s ordinance or under Illinois’ just-passed Protect Illinois Communities Act.
Just last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, the Supreme Court said that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms,” and that the term “arms” “covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense” and “weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.” None of those three phrases found its way into the district court’s decision approving the prohibition of the AR-15, America’s most popular rifle, and many other semiautomatics.
The court started out on the right track recognizing that the plaintiffs had standing and that the harm they sought to alleviate was redressable. It made the interesting point that the Second Amendment “differs from many other amendments in that it protects access to a tangible item, as opposed to an intangible right,” and that makes it similar to the First Amendment, under which “individuals can sue when the government bans protected books or attempts to close a bookstore based on content censorship.”
While five appellate courts had upheld “assault weapon” bans, Bruen pulled the rug out from under them with its text-history approach and rejection of the two-part balancing test. The Seventh Circuit had gone its own way in Friedman v. City of Highland Park (2015), holding that the banned arms were not common at the time of ratification, had no militia nexus, and were not needed by citizens for self-defense. As Judge Kendall wrote, “Friedman cannot be reconciled with Bruen.” Per Bruen, protected arms are not limited to those that existed in 1791 or that are useful in warfare, and “the arguments that other weapons are available and that fewer assault weapons lower the risk of violence are tied to means-end scrutiny—now impermissible and unconnected to text, history, and tradition.”
So far so good, but that’s where the opinion goes awry. It states: “The text of the Second Amendment is limited to only certain arms, and history and tradition demonstrate that particularly ’dangerous’ weapons are unprotected.” For that it cites Heller at 627, but on that page Heller said that the Amendment protects arms that are “in common use at the time,” which is a limitation “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ’dangerous and unusual weapons.’”
For that proposition, Heller cited a dozen historical sources, only one of which substituted “or” for “and”—Blackstone referred to going armed with “with dangerous or unusual weapons.” But Bevis read too much into that conjunction. Bruen repeated the basic distinction between arms that are “in common use” and those that are “dangerous and unusual.” The Court in Staples v. US (1994) made a similar distinction between machine guns and commonly-possessed arms like the AR-15, noting that the latter are no different than cars in potentially being dangerous. And in Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), Justice Alito wrote that “this is a conjunctive test: A weapon may not be banned unless it is both dangerous and unusual.”
So Bevis begins with the fundamentally wrong criterion that being particularly “dangerous,” alone, justifies banning a type of firearm.
The court goes on to justify the ban under a historical test, arguing that, unlike today, gun restrictions weren’t needed at the founding: “In the 18th century, violent crime was at historic lows; the rate at which adult colonists were killed by violent crime was one per 100,000 in New England and, on the high end, five per 100,000 in Tidewater, Virginia.” For that the court cites Randolph Roth, American Homicide 61–63 (2009). But as that book says, those were the rates “between the mid-1670s and the mid-1690s,” the low rate ended in “the revolutionary crisis of the 1760s and 1770s,” and “the extremely high homicide rates persisted until the end of the War of 1812 ….”
In arguing that guns were not a problem at the founding, the court describes muskets as being slow and fairly useless, and that “only a small group of wealthy, elite men owned pistols, primarily a dueling weapon.” This history is starting to read like Michael Bellesiles discredited Arming America. As I’ve shown in The Founders’ Second Amendment, long guns and pistols alike were in common use. For instance, just after Lexington and Concord, British General Thomas Gage confiscated 1,778 long guns and 634 pistols from the citizens of Boston.
Since there were no gun bans at the founding, the Bevis court turns to Bowie knives, citing restrictions in a minority of states in the antebellum period that focused mostly on banning concealed carry. An 1837 Georgia law made it unlawful for a merchant to sell a Bowie knife or to carry such knife or a pistol about the person, and Bevis states that “State-court decisions uniformly upheld these laws.” Not so. In Nunn v. State (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court held that the law violated the right to bear arms to the extent it prohibited open carry.
Nunn called the law an “absurdity” because it banned the sale and keeping of Bowie knives, pistols, and spears (!), but then exempted those who “openly wear” such arms. It then stated: “The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree ….”
Bevis next cites Aymette v. State (1840), in which the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed a conviction for concealed carry, but upheld the right openly to carry swords, muskets, and rifles. Not exactly a precedent for banning such arms. And it cited the Texas Supreme Court decision in Cockrum v. State (1859), which upheld a law with enhanced punishment for murder using a Bowie knife, but added: “The right of a citizen to bear arms, in the lawful defense of himself or the state, is absolute.”
Bans on trap-guns set to discharge by tripping a cord are next cited by Bevis, but the guns themselves were not banned, just the dangerous practice. The next cited precedents were Prohibition-era bans on arms with certain firing capacities, but most referred to discharge “by a single pressure upon the trigger device,” i.e., machine guns, not semiautomatics.
The Illinois ban not having a basis in Bruen’s text-history approach, Bevis resorts to the disapproved means-ends scrutiny to show: “Assaults weapons pose an exceptional danger, more so than standard self-defense weapons such as handguns.” While “they fire quickly,” so can handguns.
The most puzzling statement of Bevis comes next: “The muzzle velocity of an assault weapon is four times higher than a high-powered semiautomatic firearm.” Moreover, the “injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury ….” But now the court is comparing, depending on the cartridge type, all rifles with all handguns. No difference exists between the muzzle velocity of an “assault weapon” and any other rifle with the same cartridge and barrel length. While most AR-15s fire the .223 caliber cartridge, deer hunting rifles generally fire far more powerful rounds.
The Bevis court does not articulate any of the defined features of an “assault weapon” that make it so dangerous that it must be banned. Other than quoting the statute, it doesn’t even mention them. “A pistol grip.” And that makes it too powerful? A telescoping stock that makes it adjustable to the user. That makes it fire faster? Go down the checklist of verboten features. None have anything to do with the alleged ability to obliterate a victim.
We are left with who-knows-who’s definition of “assault weapon” as the court claims: “While a high number of assault weapons are in circulation, only 5 percent of firearms are assault weapons, 24 million out of an estimated 462 million firearms.” Avoiding Heller’s test that arms in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes are protected, the court assets that “just under 45 percent of all gang members own an assault rifle (compared to, at most, 15 percent of non-gang members) ….” Ignoring that the test is common use by law-abiding citizens, the “experts” have seriously misinformed the court in representing that such a large number of “gang members” own rifles of any kind.
Instead of addressing whether the banned items are “dangerous and unusual,” Bevis changes the criterion to say that “Assault-weapons and high-capacity magazines regulations are not ‘unusual,’” because eight states ban them. Since 42 states don’t, that sounds kind of unusual. And the FBI agent who said that “shotguns and 9mm pistols” are best for self-defense means nothing in view of the right, as Heller recognized, that the American people make that choice.
In denying the motion for a preliminary injunction, Bevis adds: “No binding precedent, however, establishes that a deprivation of any constitutional right is presumed to cause irreparable harm.” That doesn’t sound too promising for future protection of constitutional rights in general.
The post-Bruen “Sugar High” is a serious threat to our Second Amendment
The NYSRPA v. Bruen verdict passed by the Supreme Court last June was a watershed moment in American history. What began as a fight against the arbitrary power of government apparatchiks to grant concealed carry permits, often with a dollop of corruption, ended with a judicial standard that limits the power of government to infringe upon our right to keep and arms. The new guidance from the Supreme Court places the burden of proof on the government to show that a law that implicates the Second Amendment rights of citizens is in line with the nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation.
The implications have been massive. From coast to coast, laws that were previously rubber-stamped by a jaundiced judiciary are being struck down.
California has seen a lot of the above action but New York, my state of residence, has also seen its fair share of lawsuits after the Empire State struck back.
There is a lot to celebrate. Gun owners in anti-Second Amendment states are giddy at being able to own pistol grips instead of obscene workarounds, threaded barrels, detachable magazines, and folding/adjustable stocks. They’re no longer limited to Gen3 Glocks, and are no longer discouraged to apply for a carry permit because they aren’t rich, politically connected, or refuse to participate in Third World bribery.
Yet, amid all this, I see reason for alarm. Granted, things were far worse and on a bad trajectory but seem to have turned around. Those gains, in my opinion, are tenuous and can be rolled back within our lifetimes. The scoreboard as it stands now is the result of a razor-thin Electoral College victory in 2016. Regardless of one’s sentiments and policy positions on abortion, the overturning of Roe v. Wade should serve as a warning.
In an ideal world, lawmakers would refrain from passing laws that violate the Constitution, the Executive Branch would stop usurping the authority of lawmakers, and the judiciary would make use of its lifetime tenure to judge cases on their merits and not be cowed down by public opinion or political pressure. But the world we live in is far from that. The weakened separation of powers will be dangerous in the long run, not just for the Second Amendment, but for the overall health of the Republic.
Secondly, the enemies of our freedoms are organized, well-funded, and waging an all-out war. They’re working secretly with the CDC, pushing propaganda in Hollywood, applying pressure campaigns on private industry, conspiring with academia, and using public money to push their agenda. I hesitate to say this, but they’re behaving like modern-day Benedict Arnolds, colluding with foreign nations to subvert the American Bill of Rights because of their deep-seated hatred and basic denial of our right to keep and bear arms.
I’ve heard people say that “we’ve got ’em on the ropes” but I’m doubtful. What I see is a danger arising from a post-Bruen “Sugar High” and complacency on the part of gun owners.
Will you stop your activism now that you can buy pistol grips and folding stocks? Will you stop calling your elected representatives now that you have your carry permit? Will you show up to vote or relax at home? Will your rifles gather dust in your safe as you go about your life assuming that the law and political circumstances will stay as they are now, and your freedoms will remain safe?
It’s a good idea to live like an optimist but prepare for the worst. I implore the reader to still act like your freedom is on the verge of obliteration: continue dutifully calling your elected representatives, speak up when needed, and most importantly, continue taking inexperienced people to the range and bring them into the fold of gun ownership, so our freedoms can be enjoyed by our grandchildren and their descendants a hundred years from now.
Litigation Highlight: Legal Challenges to ATF Rule on Stabilizing Braces
In January of this year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) published Final Rule 2021R-08F, “Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces.’” The new rule changes the operative definition of “rifle” in the Code of Federal Regulations such that most pistols with attached stabilizing braces (often called “pistol braces”) will now be subject to heightened federal regulation under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) and the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). Citizens, state attorneys general, and gun policy groups have already filed several lawsuits in federal district courts challenging the legality of ATF’s rule.
In this post, I’ll first introduce the pistol brace and the tale of historical (non)regulation, beginning with a brief table-setting history of the NFA and GCA. Second, I’ll survey the main legal arguments presented in the ongoing lawsuits, with a focus on Second Amendment challenges.
The NFA, GCA, and the “Short-Barreled Rifle” Category
The NFA, passed in 1934 in response to widely-publicized incidences of gang violence, imposed burdensome taxes, regulatory requirements, and criminal non-compliance penalties on the ownership and transfer of weapons associated with criminal use. In 1968, the GCA modified the definitions of certain weapons already regulated by the NFA and instituted a system of federal licensing for firearms distributors. Together, these two acts regulate machine guns (fully-automatic rifles like the “Tommy Gun,” infamously associated with Prohibition-era criminals); short-barreled rifles and shotguns; suppressors; destructive devices (like grenades and other explosives); and an amorphous category of “any other weapon” (now referred to as ‘AOWs,’ and understood to include ‘disguised’ firearms and firearms that don’t fit neatly into another category). Collectively, these weapons are known as “NFA items.”
More specifically, this regulatory scheme limits who may import, build, or purchase NFA items, and under what circumstances they may do so. The most onerous restriction at the time of the NFA’s passage was the $200 tax it imposed on possession of NFA items (equivalent to ~$4,500 in today’s dollars). Since the amount of this tax has not changed over the years, the tax itself is no longer the NFA’s most restrictive element. Instead, that honor now belongs to ATF’s ‘approval’ requirements, which involve extensive background checks and fingerprinting, as well as the registration of the individual NFA item with ATF. The average wait-time for an individual seeking to buy an NFA item, such as a short-barreled rifle (SBR), is estimated to be 270 days.
The NFA as originally written also regulated handguns, but a concerted lobbying effort on the part of the National Rifle Association caused lawmakers to drop handguns from the final bill. So, today, the NFA regulates neither handguns (defined in relevant part as “a firearm which has a short stock and is designed to be held and fired by the use of a single hand”) nor full-length rifles (defined in relevant part as “weapon[s] designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder” and having a barrel longer than 16 inches). Since neither handguns nor full-length rifles are subject to NFA regulations, these two types of firearms are substantially easier to access than SBRs, which differ from full-length rifles only in their barrel length.
Yes. It took 14 years, Justice Kennedy dying and Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett being seated to get the job nearly done.
Report: Far More Gun Laws Struck Down in Wake of Bruen Than Heller
The Supreme Court’s latest Second Amendment ruling has delivered more immediate effects than its previous landmark decision.
A revised analysis from Jake Charles, an associate professor at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law, shows dozens of gun-rights claims have already succeeded in federal court since New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen was decided in June 2022. The new count, posted on Tuesday, puts post-Breun decisions far ahead of the pace of 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, which saw gun-rights advocates achieve relatively little in its immediate aftermath.
“There wasn’t a single successful Second Amendment challenge in the 6 months after Heller,” Charles said in a social media post. “In my research, I found *31* successful claims in the 8 months since Bruen.”
The disparity demonstrates that lower courts may be taking a different message from Bruen than Heller. While Heller established the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, it didn’t produce an explicit test for deciding future Second Amendment cases and struck down a total handgun ban that was already an outlier. Bruen struck down a concealed-carry permitting regime that was still used by eight states before the case, set down a specific test for deciding gun cases, and chastised lower courts for the test they had been using to decide cases after Heller.
One complicating factor in comparing the results of either ruling is that Heller wasn’t incorporated and applied to the states until 2010’s McDonald v. Chicago. Still, comparing the Charles count to one in a 2018 paper by Duke Law Professor Joseph Blocher and Southern Methodist University associate professor Eric Ruben, it took until 2012 for gun-rights advocates to top 30 wins after Heller. The success rate for Second Amendment claims has also been significantly higher post-Bruen than it was in the first several years after Heller, with Charles finding 14.6 percent of post-Bruen claims succeeding while Blocher and Ruben found fewer than ten percent succeeded in the four years after Heller.
There has been a significant difference in success rates for civil claims compared to criminal claims, which won far less often. Charles also broke out challenges by topic and saw a stark difference in how lower courts have handled different issues. Claims involving carry licensing or defaulting private property to be off limits for gun carry have won every time thus far. Claims over age restrictions, “ghost gun” regulations, and sensitive place bans have succeeded about half the time. In contrast, challenges to commercial regulations, the National Firearms Act, unlawful gun use, sentence enhancements, and bail conditions have failed every time.
Charles, who ran the Duke University Center for Firearms Law before joining Pepperdine, has been critical of the Court’s decision in Bruen. Most of his newly-published analysis focuses on claims the standard it adopted is unworkable and asserts “the Supreme Court may desire to sit as a super-legislature over nationwide gun policy” while imploring ” lower courts, legislators, and citizens” to resist that possibility. He critiques the use of a history-based standard for deciding cases about current firearms regulations and notes areas where lower courts have been at odds on how to implement it in practice.
He cites the increase in victories for plaintiffs making Second Amendment claims as evidence the Bruen standard is degrading gun restrictions across the country.
“The Court’s historical test has the potential to significantly expand the Second Amendment’s scope,” Charles wrote in the analysis. “No matter how compelling the state’s interest, no matter how narrowly tailored its regulation, Bruen’s new method appears to dictate that a modern gun law cannot stand without adequate grounding in the distant past.”
Naturally, gun-rights activists took an opposing viewpoint. The Truth About Guns, a pro-gun publication, echoed language from the Bruen majority to explain the difference in how lower courts have reacted to each ruling.
“It’s no longer a second-class right,” the publication tweeted.
Kostas Moros, a lawyer for the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said the deluge of pro-gun decisions was akin to the release of pent-up demand. He argued Bruen itself was the result of how little effect Heller had on the way lower courts viewed the Second Amendment.
“We are just making up for lost time,” he posted. “If courts had applied Heller in good faith and we had a sort of ‘win some, lose some’ scenario, Bruen probably never would have happened (or would have been limited to just being about carry).”
This decision by the entire 5th Circuit is precedence setting, and law, for these states: Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
ICYMI 5 Circuit: Ban on 2A Rights by Civil Restraining Order is Unconstitutional
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-— In the Fifth Circuit, the entire Court has ruled, en banc, that mere civil restraining orders may not infringe rights protected by the Second Amendment. The unconstitutional infringement was placed into law by the infamous Lautenberg Amendment in 1996. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been turned upside down and ruined by this infamous and unjust law.
Legislators considering Constitution before passing laws? THE HORROR
When laws are challenged, they’re challenged on constitutional grounds. Is this law in keeping with the Constitution or is this a case of legislative overreach?
In fact, lawmakers are supposed to at least consider such things before passing laws. After all, they swear to support and defend the Constitution, which one would imagine requires them to consider it at a minimum before passing some bill.
But it seems that the folks at the Huffington Post are upset that lawmakers are considering court rulings before passing gun control. They made this pretty clear recently.
In fact, they’re so upset, they said it all over again.
Left In The Legislative Lurch
Eight more states have laws similar to California’s assault weapons ban that could be affected if the Supreme Court ultimately weighs in.
The expectation that these laws may be doomed is already complicating the politics of passing new ones like them.
In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham has repeatedly urged the legislature to send her an assault weapons ban to sign this session, but lawmakers tabled the effort — partly over concerns that it wouldn’t withstand scrutiny in federal court.
“There’s absolutely no point to passing new laws which federal courts will strike down and which are clearly going to be deemed unconstitutional,” state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Democrat, tweeted last month.
With those lawsuits still playing out, the future of gun policy remains in flux. But that legal panorama makes it hard to imagine clear lanes for reform in the near future.
“We’re in a very difficult spot with that Bruen ruling,” said Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. “Even though it was only about concealed carry, it’s just made everybody afraid who wants to pass common sense gun violence prevention legislation.”
Now, in fairness, this is only one part of a much longer piece lamenting the rulings and the impact they’re having on gun control.
Still, it’s interesting that they’re still complaining about states not passing gun control because they figure it’ll be tossed by the courts.
I’m sorry, that’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
Huffington Post can be big mad all they want, but the truth of the matter is that gun control isn’t constitutional. The author tries to get hung up on the militia clause at one point–a matter that has been thoroughly and completely debunked–and then laments the text and history test laid down in Bruen, but at no point can they actually make a legitimate case that gun control is within keeping behind the text or spirit of the Second Amendment.
That’s unsurprising, of course.
I’m glad to see legislatures hold up a bit before infringing on people’s rights. I’m upset that they’re only starting to do it just now, but this is a case of better late than never.
If they’re holding up, that’s great, but as the piece also notes, a lot of places aren’t. In truth, that is the real problem, not those exercising a bit of caution and, dare I say, common sense.
Then again, it’s Huffington Post. What can you really expect?