Category: Courts

U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Trump Disqualification Case on February 8

From today’s order in Trump v. Anderson:

The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The case is set for oral argument on Thursday, February 8, 2024. Petitioner’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support or in support of neither party, are to be filed on or before Thursday, January 18, 2024. Respondents’ briefs on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support, are to be filed on or before Wednesday, January 31, 2024. The reply brief, if any, is to be filed on or before 5 p.m., Monday, February 5, 2024.

Judge allows challenge to NY assault weapons ban to proceed

A federal judge is allowing a challenge to New York’s assault weapons ban to proceed after he denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit Thursday.

Two people supported by gun rights advocacy groups sued New York officials in December 2022 over the state’s ban on assault weapons, saying the law was “infringing the right of law-abiding, peaceable citizens to keep and bear commonly possessed firearms for defense of self and family and for other lawful purposes.” U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas sided with the individuals bringing the lawsuit in a ruling released Thursday, denying state officials’ motion to dismiss the case.

Attorneys for New York officials filed a motion in the Southern District of New York to dismiss the complaint in May, arguing that the court does not have the jurisdiction to address the plaintiffs’ claims. The state officials’ legal team said the individuals “fail to establish that any injury-in-fact is traceable to the assault weapons ban” because they do not say they hold a license required to buy a semiautomatic rifle.

Karas dismissed the defendants’ arguments in the ruling.

“While there may be serious questions about Plaintiffs’ exemption argument, the Court need not address that question here because Plaintiffs adequately allege standing under Defendants’ interpretation of the statute,” Karas wrote.

“Put simply, Defendants have failed to explain how invalidating the Assault Weapons Ban would have no effect on the ability to obtain licenses for those same weapons,” Karas added later in the ruling.

The attorneys for the state officials also contended that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the individuals have not proved that they have “suffered an injury-in-fact.” Karas also pushed back on the argument, saying that the individuals “have also demonstrated that they face a credible threat of enforcement if they follow through with attempting to acquire assault weapons.”

TN joins coalition challenging ATF rule violating second amendment

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is joining 26 other state attorneys general and the Arizona State Legislature in a public comment letter demanding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms drop a proposed rule that violates the Second Amendment. The proposed rule risks making any individual who sells a firearm for profit liable to civil, administrative, and even criminal penalties for failing to register with a federal agency.
“Inserting a heavy-handed and punitive federal bureaucracy into small-scale transactions between family and friends is misguided and constitutionally suspect overreach,” said Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. “This regulation will unduly burden law-abiding citizens while having no meaningful impact on violent criminals. The constitutionally sound response to gun crime is aggressive enforcement of existing criminal laws and more robust mental health options.”
The attorneys general argue that the right to sell firearms for profit among individuals without significant federal-government licensing and oversight is protected by the Second Amendment.
The public comment letter claims that the rule doesn’t clearly define profit, and that it presumes individual sellers are firearms dealers even if the individual only sells one firearm.
“If the Bureau was serious about combatting violent crime, it would focus on enforcing the laws that are already on the books to hold violent criminals accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, the Bureau has instead targeted innocent people who sell firearms. That is not only unlawful but wrong, and the Bureau must change course,” the comment letter reads.
In addition to the Arizona State Legislature and Attorney General Skrmetti the attorneys general of the following states also signed the letter: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Hearing on Oregon’s Measure 114 Finds it Unconstitutional

When Oregon voters passed Measure 114, it was hailed as a victory for gun control. To be fair, they weren’t wrong. The egregious infringement on people’s rights was as clear as day.

What’s more, any attempt to point out the unconstitutionality of the law were met with claims that it was the will of the people–because segregation was perfectly acceptable because most people in the South supported it or something.

That sparked off the legal fight, one that many people were confident the law would survive. Why they thought that is beyond me, but I’m biased.

It seems, though, that my understanding of whether or not Measure 114 was constitutional or not comes a lot closer to what the most recent hearing on the matter found.

A state court ruling against Oregon’s gun control policy, Measure 114, is going to stand after an expected final hearing about the matter today in Harney County Circuit Court to consider more arguments against the Court’s original case finding.

Harney County Circuit Court Judge Robert Raschio today said he expects the court’s judgment in the case to reflect language he used in his opinion letter about the case, saying Measure 114 is unconstitutional by Oregon’s Constitution.

He had set a January 2, 2024, hearing about his pending ruling against Measure 114 after defendants made more arguments in filings with Harney County Circuit Court after Raschio issued his written legal opinion, ruling November 21, 2023, that Oregon’s gun control policy, passed November 2022 by referendum as Measure 114, violated the state’s constitution.…

Judge Raschio denied that motion, before stating the Court’s judgment language would reflect his Opinion Letter Granting a Permanent Injunction in the case.

He opened that letter with, “The Harney County Circuit Court is issuing a Permanent Injunction under Oregon Revised Statute 28.020 declaring 2022 Ballot Measure 114 unconstitutional thereby permanently enjoining its implementation.  

The court finds the plaintiffs have shown their rights to bear arms under Article l, § 27 of the Oregon Constitution would be unconstitutionally impaired if Ballot Measure 114 is allowed to be implemented. Dovle v. City of Medford, 356 Or. 336 (2014). Based upon a facial constitutional evaluation of Ballot Measure 114, the measure unduly burdens the plaintiffs’ right to bear arms. State v. Christian, 354 Or. 22 (2013).”

And, the truth of the matter is that Measure 114 does all that and more if you’re looking at the Second Amendment, but the court found that it violated the right as protected under Oregon’s constitution.

Frankly, the Oregon Constitution isn’t particularly vague on the matter.

 Section 27. Right to bear arms; military subordinate to civil power. The people shall have the right to bear arms for the defence [sic] of themselves, and the State, but the Military shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power[.]

Plain and simple, people have the right under Oregon’s constitution. There doesn’t seem to be anything expressly permitting gun control, though it lacks that whole “shall not be infringed” thing we see in the Second Amendment.

The measure requires things like universal background checks and magazine bans as well as a gun licensing requirement.

Interestingly, while “the will of the people” seemingly supported the law, it should be noted that only six of 36 Oregon counties actually voted in favor of it. These counties were also the most urban in the state. Shocking, I know.

The passage of Measure 114 is a prime example of the urban/rural divide on guns.

In this case, though, the urban counties thought they could foist this abomination onto the rural ones and have just found out that it’s not that simple. Constitutionality matters.

True the Vote Defeats Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams, Marc Elias, and the Biden Department of Justice in Landmark Election Case in Georgia Federal Court

Fair Fight et al v. True the Vote et al | Case No. 2:20-cv-0302-SCJ

HOUSTON, TX, January 2, 2024 – True the Vote (TTV) declares a decisive triumph in their legal battle against Stacy Abrams’ Fair Fight, legal teams led by Marc Elias, and the Biden Department of Justice. A federal court in the Northern District of Georgia today affirmed that citizens have the right to lawfully petition their government in support of election integrity without fear of persecution or prosecution.

In a resounding vindication, TTV successfully defended its actions of December 2020, aiding Georgia citizens in filing elector challenges based on data showing over 364,000 voters appeared to be ineligible to vote due to change in residency.

This victory is a testament to every American’s constitutional right to free speech and the importance of actively participating in the electoral process.

True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht affirmed, “Today’s ruling sends a clear message to those who would attempt to control the course of our nation through lawfare and intimidation. American citizens will not be silenced.”

True the Vote lead attorney Jake Evans stated, “After almost three years of litigation and a two-week federal trial with plaintiff calling 12 witnesses, Judge Steven Jones awarded a complete defense verdict for all defendants. This decision is monumental. It vindicates True the Vote in totality and establishes that eligibility challenges under Section 230 are a proper method to ensure voter rolls are accurate. I am grateful to help achieve this great victory.”

Engelbrecht added, “This is an answer to the prayers of faithful patriots across America.”

True the Vote remains steadfast in its mission to support trustworthy elections and looks forward to assisting citizens in future such lawful efforts.

True the Vote Wins Federal Election Lawsuit in Georgia

A federal judge finds after a non-jury trial that election watchdogs making voter registration challenges did not violate the Voting Rights Act.

The conservative vote-monitoring organization True the Vote’s challenges to Georgia voters’ eligibility didn’t amount to voter intimidation in the 2020 election, a federal judge ruled on Jan. 2.

U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, in a 145-page ruling that was issued a little less than two months after the end of a civil trial, found that the defendants didn’t violate the Voting Rights Act.

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New Year, Same Old Ninth Circuit

My wife has watched way too many sappy Christmas rom-coms over the holiday break. It’s one of her guilty pleasures, even though she knows from the get-go how the story is going to play out. Girl meets guy under improbable circumstances, there’s immediate friction with an undercurrent of attraction, they get together, there’s a huge blowup, and yet they manage to reconcile and live happily ever after. The characters and the locations may change, but the story is basically always the same.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is like the Hallmark Channel of the judicial system, at least when it comes to gun control fans. No matter what law is being challenged or how egregiously it violates our Second Amendment rights, lawsuits in the Ninth Circuit seem to follow the same script: gun owners sue, a judge agrees that the law is likely to be unconstitutional and grants an injunction, only to have it stayed and eventually overturned. Sometimes we get a plot twist and a three-judge panel will uphold the injunction, but inevitably that decision is overruled by an en banc review. No matter how improbable or untenable the decision may be, anti-gunners are assured of a happy ending in the Ninth.

Not once in the fifteen years since the Heller decision was handed down has the Ninth Circuit ultimately concluded that a gun control law goes too far and abridges a fundamental right, and though it’s still fairly early the appellate court looks to be keeping that streak alive by allowing California’s new “gun-free zones” to take effect today after a rare Saturday ruling to grant an administrative stay of Judge Cormac Carney’s injunction halting enforcement of the new bans in supposedly sensitive places… including virtually every publicly accessible business that doesn’t specifically post signage welcoming concealed carry holders.

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Left-wing activists sue to change public policy where their candidates cannot win

EXCLUSIVE — Left-wing activist organizations are at the forefront of shaping public policy through lawsuits in places where their aligned political candidates are unlikely to win.

A new Alliance for Consumers report obtained by the Washington Examiner shows how groups such as the anti-gun Everytown for Gun Safety or climate change activist group EarthRights International sue companies to advance their policy preferences to circumvent the legislative process.

These organizations often represent local governments in “public nuisance” lawsuits, which are used to claim that the public is generally harmed by the existence of something, such as tobacco, in order to obtain favorable public policy outcomes and massive settlements.

“Public nuisance lawsuits have almost nothing to do with helping consumers, but a lot to do with pushing a left-wing agenda,” Alliance for Consumers executive director O.H. Skinner told the Washington Examiner. “There’s been growing attention to the political donations that these lawsuits help drive toward left-wing candidates.

“More attention needs to be paid to the public interest groups and shadowy nonprofit funding networks, like Arabella Advisors, who staff, finance, and promote these cases,” Skinner continued. “That is what we have done with this report, and we think it illustrates clearly what these lawsuits are really about and why they are a threat.”

The report, which Alliance for Consumers sent to every Republican governor in America on Wednesday, highlights several organizations involved with public nuisance claims that are aimed at altering or circumventing the policy decisions made by those elected to decide them.

Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to limit gun rights, has been active in trying to change public policy on guns, including by using its Victory Fund to start a “Demand a Seat” initiative to get its trained activists to run for political office. This year, the group boasted that 17 of its candidates won elections in Virginia alone.

The group launched Everytown Law to focus on being “the largest and most experienced team of litigators in the country dedicated to advancing gun safety in the courts and through the civil and criminal justice systems.”

Everytown has been active in filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers for “contributing to the violent crime epidemic,” as it did when representing Kansas City, Missouri, in a public nuisance complaint in 2020 against the Nevada-based Jimenez Arms and other manufacturers and distributors.

It also represented the city of Chicago when it sued an Indiana gun store because its sales of firearms have “created, exacerbated, and sustained a public nuisance that causes harm to the health, safety, and well-being of Chicago residents.”

The legal wing of the activist organization also trains government lawyers on how to defend limitations to the Second Amendment, and it files direct challenges to laws protecting the right to own and use guns, such as Stand Your Ground laws, which offer some protection for the use of lethal force in self-defense.

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Mark McCloskey, Pardoned for Brandishing Guns at Protesters, Can’t Get the Guns Back

From [the 26th’s] Missouri Court of Appeals decision in McCloskey v. State, written by Judge James M. Dowd and joined by Judges John P. Torbitzky and Michael S. Wright:

This appeal arises out of a petition for replevin in which appellant Mark McCloskey sought the return of two firearms that police had seized pursuant to search warrants in connection with a June 28, 2020, incident in which McCloskey and his spouse exhibited the firearms as a group of protesters passed by their home. They were charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon punishable by up to four years in prison. McCloskey and the State reached a plea agreement whereby McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and forfeited ownership and possession in the two firearms in exchange for the State dismissing the felony charge….

Soon after, the governor pardoned McCloskey and he filed against the State, the Sheriff, and the Mayor (Respondents) his underlying petition for replevin of the weapons in which he claimed the governor’s pardon gave him the right to their immediate return….

While we agree that the pardon restored all of his rights forfeited by the conviction and removed any legal disqualification, disadvantage, or impediment, Missouri law is unequivocal that a gubernatorial pardon obliterates the fact of the conviction, not the fact of guilt. Thus, McCloskey’s guilty plea, for which he obtained the benefit of the State dismissing a felony charge punishable by jail time, survived the pardon and importantly, with respect to the issue at hand in this replevin action, triggered the guns’ forfeiture. Therefore, since McCloskey’s guilt remains, it follows that he is not entitled to the return of the weapons….

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MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT PUNTS ON TRUMP

Michigan is one of a number of states in which anti-Trump forces have argued that he is barred from running for the presidency by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That claim was rejected earlier this month by the Michigan Court of Appeals. Earlier today, Michigan’s Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion, denied plaintiffs’ application for leave to appeal the Court of Appeals’ ruling. The Supreme Court stated its rationale briefly:

The application for leave to appeal the December 14, 2023 judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.

One judge dissented, arguing that the Court should have taken the appeal and ruled that Trump is, at a minimum, entitled to run in Michigan’s GOP primary.

Analysis: A New Twist on the ‘Dangerous and Unusual’ Standard for Gun Bans

A Massachusetts federal judge upheld the commonwealth’s ban on AR-15s and similar rifles this week. His rationale for doing so relied on an idiosyncratic understanding of the rifle’s purported lethality and defensive utility.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV denied a motion for preliminary injunction against Massachusetts’ ban on “assault weapons” and ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. He did so by putting a new twist on an old argument. He determined that modern laws banning AR-15s fit within the country’s historical tradition of regulating “dangerous and unusual” weapons.

“The banned weapons are ‘dangerous,’ because they are unreasonably dangerous for ordinary purposes of self-defense due to their extreme lethality and high potential for collateral harm,” Saylor, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in Capen v. Campbell, “and they are ‘unusual,’ because it would be unusual for an ordinary citizen to carry such a weapon on his person on the street for self-defense, or to use it in the home to confront invaders or to protect against personal violence.”

While Saylor is certainly not the first to uphold a hardware ban since the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, his analytical framework for doing so stands out among the rest for its emphasis on the “dangerous and unusual” standard and his understanding of how AR-15s fit in.

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The Great Legal War Over Your Freedom

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022, the lower courts have been either trying to apply, or to resist, its directive to decide the validity of restrictions on the basis of the text of the Second Amendment and historical analogues from the time of the Founding. According to the ruling, an activity is presumed to be protected if it involves keeping and bearing arms by the people. The burden is then on the government to find historical precedents to show that a restriction is part of the nation’s history and tradition.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals applied Bruen to the federal ban on gun possession by a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) and found it to violate the Second Amendment. State DVROs are often issued with little pretense of an adversary hearing or are mutually agreed upon in divorces without knowledge that it evokes a federal gun ban.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, U.S. v. Rahimi, and a barrage of amicus briefs have been filed on both sides. Mr. Rahimi faces several state charges involving actual violence, dwarfing the federal possession charge. The amicus brief of the National Rifle Association put it this way: “Rahimi should not only lose his Second Amendment liberties, but he should also lose all of his liberties—if the allegations against him are ultimately proven true with sufficient due process. But constitutional safeguards cannot be set aside to obtain those ends.”

Consider the supposed historical analogues cited by Biden’s Justice Department and its amici—discriminatory laws disarming Catholics, slaves and “tramps”; confiscation of arms by oppressive British monarchs and by our own patriots in the American Revolution (there was a war going on, after all); and wholly irrelevant laws against gun sales to children and intoxicated persons. The Court heard oral arguments in the case on Nov. 7, 2023.

The Third Circuit, in Range v. Merrick Garland, held the federal ban on gun possession by felons to be unconstitutional as applied to a person convicted of a minor, non-violent offense.  Again, no laws in the Founding era disarmed persons who were not dangerous. The government is asking the Supreme Court to hear that case after it decides Rahimi.

When it decided Bruen, the Supreme Court directed the Fourth Circuit to reconsider its upholding of Maryland’s “assault weapon” ban in Bianchi v. Frosh. That court had held that ordinary AR-15 semi-automatic rifles are not really different from machineguns and are “weapons of war most useful in military service,” even though no military force in the world issues them as service rifles.

The Fourth Circuit got right on it, holding its oral argument on Dec. 6, 2022. A year later, crickets. Still no decision. Is it really so hard to apply Bruen’s simple tests, or would the court not like the result?

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Massachusetts Assault Weapon Ban Ruled Constitutional by Judge

Massachusetts’ law prohibiting the possession and sale of some semiautomatic weapons commonly used in mass shootings is acceptable under a recent change to Second Amendment precedent from the US Supreme Court, a federal judge said Thursday.

The National Association for Gun Rights asked the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to prevent the state from being able to enforce its law, claiming the weapons are protected under the Second Amendment because they were in common use at the time the Second Amendment was adopted.

The banned weapons “are unreasonably dangerous for ordinary purposes of self-defense due to their extreme lethality and high potential for collateral harm,” Chief Judge Dennis Saylor wrote in an order denying the gun rights group’s request to halt enforcement of the law.

This IS NOT the Bruen Standard.

The US Supreme Court held last year in New York State Rifles & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen that state governments must prove a regulation would have been consistent with the nation’s historical regulation of firearms.

Saylor’s decision helps build the jurisprudence for the types of state regulations that remain acceptable under the Second Amendment post-Bruen as many states grapple with challenges to their weapon laws. States like Illinois, California, and Connecticut have also been allowed to move forward enforcing their assault weapon bans.

“The relevant history affirms the principle that in 1791, as now, there was a tradition of regulating ‘dangerous and unusual’ weapons—specifically, those that are not reasonably necessary for self-defense,” the order said, and the current restrictions “pose a minimal burden on the right to self-defense and are comparably justified to historical regulation.”

THIS, is not the Bruen Standard either!

Saylor was not convinced that assault weapons are commonly used for self-defense, finding them “generally unsuitable” for that purpose because of their weight, size, and firepower.

“The features of modern assault weapons—particularly the AR-15’s radical increases in muzzle velocity, range, accuracy, and functionality—along with the types of injuries they can inflict are so different from colonial firearms that the two are not reasonably comparable,” the order said.

The case is Capen v. Campbell, D. Mass., No. 1:22-cv-11431, order 12/21/23.

Federal Judge Declines to Temporarily Block Key Portion of Illinois High-Power Semiautomatic Weapons Ban

A federal judge in Illinois has declined to temporarily delay a portion of the state law banning some high-power semiautomatic weapons from going into effect.

U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn on Friday declined a request from several gun rights groups that would have delayed the Jan. 1 deadline for residents of Illinois to register their guns that are under the ban, according to the Chicago Tribune.

According to the report, those who have guns or accessories that are included in the ban are required to file “endorsement affidavits” with the Illinois State Police on their website.

Individuals who fail to register could be charged with a misdemeanor for the first offense and a felony for any offenses after.

McGlynn wrote in his opinion that a temporary injunction would “create further delays in this litigation when the constitutional rights of the citizens demand an expeditious resolution on the merits.”

President of Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, Dan Eldridge, told the outlet that the issue could end up in the Supreme Court.

“There’s a lot of stuff in motion in here,” Eldridge said.

The ban, signed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker in January, includes penalties for individuals who, “carries or possesses… manufactures, sells, delivers, imports, or purchases any assault weapon or .50 caliber rifle.”

The law also includes statutory penalties for anyone who, “sells, manufactures, delivers, imports, possesses, or purchases any assault weapon attachment or .50 caliber cartridge.”

Any kit or tools used to increase the fire rate of a semiautomatic weapon are also included in the ban, and the law includes a limit for purchases of certain magazines.

On Dec. 14, the Supreme Court allowed the law to remain in place after the National Association for Gun rights asked for a preliminary injunction.

In November, a 7th District U.S. Court of Appeals panel also refused a request to block the law. In August, the law was upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision.

Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Overturn Injunction on Federal Agencies Influencing Tech Censorship
Biden wants the Supreme Court to support its censorship efforts.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed an injunction against federal agencies to stop the current White House from colluding with Big Tech’s social media.

And now, the Biden Administration is going to the US Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to reverse this decision.

The big picture effect – or at least, the intended meaning – of the Fifth Circuit ruling was to stop the government from working with Big Tech in censoring online content.

There’s little surprise that this doesn’t sit well with that government, which now hopes that the federal appellate court’s decision can be overturned.

The White House says the ruling is banning its “good” work done alongside social media to combat “misinformation”; instead of admitting its actions to amount to collusion with Big Tech – which has been amply documented now, not least by the Twitter Files – the government insists its actions are serving the public, and its “ability” to discuss relevant issues.

We obtained a copy of the petition for you here.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is back again here – to say that what those now in power in the US (a message amplified by legacy media) did ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as well as subsequently regarding the pandemic “misinformation” – which is now fairly widely accepted to be censorship (“moderation”) – is what Murthy still calls, justified.

By what, though? Because the appellate court’s ruling looked into the government’s “persuasive actions” (and no, you’re not reading a line from a gangster movie script, where “coercion” is spelled as, “urging”, etc.).

In any case, the appellate court found these actions were in fact coercive and unconstitutional.

Well, Murthy believes the court got it all wrong. The Fifth Circuit is accused of “improperly applying new and unprecedented” remedies. (No – he was not talking about the Covid vaccine(s). The reference was to the court’s allegedly flawed “legal theories”).

Murthy and other administration representatives are telling the Supreme Court that what the Fifth Circuit found to be unconstitutional, was actually “lawful persuasive governmental actions.”

The “grand” argument here is that, historically, US governments have been using free speech as a vehicle to promote their policies. And so – why would this case of “urging” Big Tech be any different?

“The Biden administration’s urging of social media platforms to enforce their content moderation policies to combat misinformation and disinformation is no different,” the government said.

Judge Declares Most of California’s New ‘Gun-Free Zones’ Can’t Be Enforced

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez isn’t the only Second Amendment “saint” in California who miraculously adheres to the text, tradition, and history of the right to keep and bear arms. Judge Cormac Carney has delivered a stern rebuke of his own to state lawmakers who imposed a host of new “sensitive places” where lawful concealed carry is forbidden, granting an injunction against their enforcement just a little more than a week before the state’s carry-killer legislation known as SB 2 is set to take effect.

In a 43-page opinion handed down late Wednesday, Carney described SB 2 as “repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.” The law “turns nearly every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’” according to Carney, “effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public.”

Carney ruled in favor of the gun owners and Second Amendment organizations who brought the May v. Bonta and Carralerro v. Bonta litigation on every one of their challenges; granting an injunction against the following “gun-free zones” established under SB 2:

  • Hospitals, mental health facilities, nursing homes, medical offices, urgent care facilities, and other places where medical services are customarily provided,
  • Public transportation
  • Establishments where “intoxicating liquor” is sold for consumption on the premises
  • Public gatherings and special events
  • Playgrounds and private youth centers
  • Parks and athletic facilities
  • Department of Parks and Recreation and Department of Fish and Wildlife property, except hunting areas,
  • Casinos and gambling establishments
  • Public libraries, zoos, and museums
  • Places of worship
  • Financial institutions
  • Privately-owned businesses open to the public
  • Parking areas (including those adjacent to “sensitive places” not challenged by the plaintiffs)

This is the post-Bruen carry decision that gun owners have been waiting for. Carney didn’t try to play philosophical games or stretch historical analogues to the point of silliness in order to uphold these “gun-free zones.” Instead, he did exactly what the Supreme Court has instructed judges to do: look at the text of the Second Amendment, as well as the history and tradition of the right to keep and bear arms when determining whether a modern gun control restriction fits within that national tradition.

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“I’ll take ‘Totally Lacking Due Process” for $500, Alex

On Trump and Colorado

By now most readers will have heard that Donald Trump was disqualified from the ballot in the state of Colorado, by the Colorado State Supreme Court, for what amounts to a criminal offense neither proven nor charged. Fifth Amendment, Schmifth Amendment, apparently.

This is a major escalation of the lawfare phenomenon that’s zoomed from simmer to boil in the seven short years since Trump was first elected in 2016. The glee of #Resistance dolts like Robert Reich and Dean Obeidallah at this decision shows that this was a move dreamed up at the very center of the bubble-within-a-bubble-within-a-bubble that is the blob of the modern Democratic Party. Racket readers, I had a piece planned for later on a quasi-related subject, but I’ll try to get it out in the day or so now.

 

Gun Group Sues Over Vermont’s New Waiting-Period Law

Another Vermont gun law, another legal battle.

The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs is taking aim at a newly enacted gun-safety measure that imposes a 72-hour waiting period on most firearm purchases.

The group filed a lawsuit on Monday in U.S. District Court in Burlington contending that the new law, Act 45, violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Democrats at the Statehouse voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill in May. Proponents pitched the waiting period, as well as provisions that require safe storage and expand the existing “red flag law,” as ways of reducing the state’s high suicide rate.

In June, Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, allowed the bill to become law without his signature while suggesting it may not pass constitutional muster.

The sportsmen’s federation is joined in its lawsuit by gun shops Powderhorn Outdoor Sports Center and Black Dog Shooting Supplies, Vermont GOP chair Paul Dame and Vermont Women’s Shooting Association founder Marsha Thompson.

The waiting period hurts gun shop sales by discouraging “spontaneous purchases,” the 50-page complaint contends.

But discouraging “spontaneous purchases” is exactly how waiting periods can save lives, advocates say. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Alyssa Black (D-Essex), pushed for the law after her 23-year-old son bought a gun and fatally shot himself just hours later.

Vermont is one of 11 states that impose a gun-purchase waiting period, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

An attorney representing the plaintiffs, Brady Toensing, questioned whether the new law would reduce gun violence. Regardless, he said, “the interest-balancing occurred when the Second Amendment was written.”

The lawsuit also renews a challenge to the state’s ban on high-capacity magazines. The Vermont Supreme Court has already upheld the 2018 law. The sportsmen’s federation is now challenging it under federal law.

The legal challenge follows a landmark decision last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that further expanded the country’s unparalleled right to bear arms. In the wake of the ruling, federal courts around the country are fielding a flurry of challenges to similar gun laws in other states.

“We look forward to defending this lawsuit for Vermont,” a spokesperson for Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark said.