Attack on Firearm Ownership Continues
Yesterday, the Colorado House Business Affairs & Labor Committee passed the bill requiring gun owners to purchase firearm liability insurance. The bill will now be sent to the House Committee of the Whole.
House Bill 24-1270 requires firearm owners to maintain a liability insurance policy that covers losses or damages to a person, other than the policyholder, who is injured on the insured property as a result of any accidental or unintentional discharge of the firearm.
Also yesterday, Senate Bill 24-066 was passed by for the day. SB24-066 allows credit companies and payment processors to use merchant category codes (MCC) to track credit card purchases of firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition.
We will continue to monitor these bills and alert you when action is needed.
In the meantime, if you have not already, share this important alert with your family, friends, fellow sportsmen and gun owners, please do. The Centennial State needs all its sportsmen and gun owners actively working together to ensure the survival of our hunting, fishing, and trapping heritage.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s
Controversial Bill Targeting “Unauthorized Paramilitary Training” Passes Through Maine’s House
Maine’s House passed a controversial bill targeting “unauthorized paramilitary training” which has raised concerns with Second Amendment rights advocates, who believe that it could be used to target law-abiding gun owners and firearms instructors.
The bill passed by a single vote.
“The United States of America was founded on what this bill would define as a civil disorder. I find it very likely that King George III would have been very, very supportive of this legislation,” said Rep. Donald Ardell (R-Monticello).
During the House proceedings on Wednesday, numerous Republican representatives spoke against the bill, calling it a violation of constitutional rights.
“I have the right to determine how I want to practice, rehearse train, or drill. This bill is a violation of my constitutional rights,” said Rep. Mike Soboleski (R-Philips).
The bill was originally proposed by Rep. Laurie Osher (D-Orno) in response to a brief attempt by Neo-Nazi Chris Pohlhaus and former Democrat activist Fred Ramey to build a neo-Nazi compound for their “Blood Tribe” in Springfield, Maine.
The Maine Wire Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson visited the site of the neo-Nazi camp earlier this year, and discovered nothing but an abandoned camper, and a single tent.
LD 2130 makes it a crime for anyone to instruct a person in the use of a firearm or explosive if the instructor knows or “reasonably should know” that the trainee intends to further “civil disorder”.
Multiple firearms instructors told The Maine Wire that they are very concerned with the burden placed on instructors to determine the motives of everyone who comes to them for training.
Following a contentious debate in the house, the bill passed in a 72-71 vote.
No House Republicans voted in favor of the bill, and two Independents and three Democrats voted in opposition.
Eight representatives were absent from the vote.
March Gun Sales Top Previous Month
un sales are an important aspect of gun rights. The more people who buy guns, the more people who will, at least in time, become advocates for the right to keep and bear arms. They start to realize that having a gun doesn’t make you stupid, mean, adversarial, or anything else, but it does make you safer from criminals.
And gun sales are good. They’ve been good for a while, but they always seem to pick up when we have a Gun-Grabber-in-Chief occupying the Oval Office.
While President Joe Biden may not know where he is half the time (at best), we know he wants our guns.
Yet March gun sales topped an already strong February.
Americans continue to reach for their wallet when it comes to practicing the right to keep and bear arms, with data suggesting over-the-counter gun sales passing the 1 million mark for the 56th month in a row.
Last month was the 7th-highest March on record in terms of federal background checks for likely over-the-counter gun transfers since the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System was established over 20 years ago.
The unadjusted figures of 2,497,577 checks conducted through NICS last month– while a 15.5 percent decrease from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,954,230 in March 2023– is 6.6 percent higher than the 2,336,390 logged in February 2023.
When the numbers for last month were adjusted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to remove gun permit checks and rechecks, the adjusted figure stands at 1,442,061, which is a shallower drop of about 7.4 percent compared to the March 2023 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,556,492. However, last month’s figures were 14.7 percent ahead of February 2024’s, which came in at 1,343,478.
Industry analysts argue that this massive number of gun sales suggest that Americans are as pro-gun as they ever were, if not more, and I can’t find it in my heart to disagree.
Keep in mind that March’s gun sales outstrip the total number of firearms in private, civilian hands in numerous other countries. That was just a month for us, and not a massively strong month for gun sales, either. I mean, it’s the seventh highest total for March, which means there were six better.
Yet 1.4 million gun sales in March is still important because a significant number of those are likely to be first-time gun buyers. These are people who had no skin in the gun debate before, but now they do. Now they have to think about red flag laws in the context of someone arguing their guns should be taken. They have to think about universal background checks in the context of them buying or selling a gun to a family member or a friend they’ve known since middle school.
That’s why gun owners become gun voters, and now there are more of us.
After April, there will be even more.
Yes, many others of these sales were people buying an additional firearm, and that’s good news as well. We need as many gun sales as possible to keep the industry thriving. Without gun makers and gun dealers, our ability to access firearms diminishes. The right to keep and bear arms only matters if we can actually obtain arms, so those additonal sales are also big.
Buying a product shouldn’t be a political statement, but when it comes to guns, they are. It’s not this side of the debate that made it necessary to make it into a statement, either, but it is and frankly, March was still a hell of a statement.
Second Amendment Roundup: A Double Shot of Oral Arguments.
“Large-capacity” magazines and semiautomatic rifles are “bearable arms” in common use, no different from the handguns in Heller, but will two en banc courts agree?
Once it decided N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen (2022), the Supreme Court acted on several Second Amendment cases it had been holding, granting petitions for writs of certiorari, vacating the judgments, and remanding the cases for reconsideration in light of Bruen. One was a challenge to California’s ban on magazines holding over ten rounds, and another was Maryland’s “assault weapon” ban. With sparks aplenty flying, these cases were argued en banc on March 19 and 20 before the Ninth and Fourth Circuits respectively.
These cases should be decided in favor of a straightforward application of the constitutional test for addressing challenges to “arms ban” laws set forth in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Bruen simply made more explicit the “plain text first, and then historical analogue laws second” methodology adopted by Heller when it declared that the District of Columbia’s handgun ban violated the Second Amendment. Applying that methodology, Heller held that arms that are in common use by Americans for lawful purposes cannot be banned.
First, as a matter of plain text, Heller held that the Second Amendment extends, “prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms.” And Heller made clear that “arms” includes all “weapons.” If the instruments in question are bearable arms, the burden shifts to the government to provide a sufficient number of representative historical analogue laws (not the musings of anti-gun historians) from our early history to demonstrate that the challenged arms ban falls within the country’s tradition of firearms regulation. In fact, the American tradition of firearms regulation is really a history of no or very limited prohibition of arms.
Second, Heller looked at two historical traditions that spoke to the arms ban question. At the outset, the Heller Court acknowledged the history of Americans bringing their own privately-owned firearms and ammunition with them to militia musters. These protected weapons were “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes such as self-defense. The Court further found that the “in common use” test was “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.'”
Putting these two historical practices together, the Court held that arms that are “in common use,” and therefore not “dangerous and unusual,” cannot be banned. In other words, Heller already conducted the historical analysis for arms ban cases, and it concluded that once an arm is found to be “in common use” – and therefore by definition not “dangerous and unusual” – there is no more work to be done. That arm cannot be banned, period.
Because millions and millions of law-abiding Americans possess both the magazines banned by California and the rifles banned by Maryland, those bans are unconstitutional under a straightforward reading of Heller.
Unfortunately, the en banc Fourth and Ninth Circuits appear to be poised to defy Heller and hold that the California and Maryland laws are constitutional.
Marines Ditch 100-Year-Old Marksmanship Standards.
The United States Marine Corps announced earlier this month it is changing the shooting standards to which it has adhered for more than a century. The new system will reflect accuracy as well as the speed at which a Marine delivers hits on target.
Re-evaluation of the century-old marksmanship qualification standards began in 2018, when a combat lethality study found an unexpected loss in proficiency in engagements at unknown distances, or when the Marine or target were on the move. The Marine Corps is investing $34 million to better train its troops with the new system, phasing out an approach that required delivering 30 rounds at established distance in two minutes. The old scoring system didn’t differentiate between lethal shots and those that may not stop an aggressor or readily identify distances problematic for a particular shooter.
“This is about increasing lethality,” Col. Gregory Jones, commander of the Weapons Training Battalion—part of Training Command at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia—told Stars and Stripes. “This is not your granddad’s rifle range.”
Marines are required to annually prequalify and qualify with their rifles. If a prequalification score met standards, it could be accepted for both in the past. Now it must be at the expert level, not just at marksman or sharpshooter performance, to do so.
In addition, the Marine Corps has begun allowing entry-level shooters to support rifles with their magazines. The change reflects improvements in magazine design and strength as well as widespread success using the approach in civilian competitions.
“The rifle range in 1907, it’s not bad or good. It’s what we had when we had … a 1903 Springfield [rifle], which was an 1890s technology,” Jones explained to Stars and Stripes. “Now we have an M-16A4. The test is not as true a measure of lethality as it was when we had older, outdated technology.”
April 6, 2024
This person is running for office. https://t.co/u9h4rQs4fX
— Rangermonk (@rangermonk1) April 5, 2024
Conqueror dominance behavior.
— Toshiro Grendel (@ToshiroGrendel) April 5, 2024
April 5, 2024
3rd Circuit Denies Rehearing In SAF Pennsylvania Gun Rights Victory.
The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition for a rehearing in the Second Amendment Foundation’s victory in a case challenging Pennsylvania statutes that prohibit law-abiding young adults from carrying firearms for self-defense and prevents them from acquiring a state license to carry (LTCF) because of their age. The case is known as Lara v. Evanchick.
The petition for an en banc rehearing had been filed by attorneys representing the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. SAF is joined in the case by the Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens, including Madison M. Lara, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and John D. Ohlendorf at Cooper & Kirk, Washington, D.C.
Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Kent A. Jordan explained, “The petition for rehearing filed by appellant in the above-entitled case having been submitted to the judges who participated in the decision of this Court and to all the other available circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service, and no judge who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing, and a majority of the judges of the circuit in regular service not having voted for rehearing, the petition for rehearing by the panel and the Court en banc, is DENIED.”
“We’re satisfied with the court’s decision,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “It’s an important win. The Third Circuit has affirmed that the Second Amendment applies to young adults, and that 1791 is the historical marker for understanding the right to keep and bear arms. Finally, the court has said 18-to-20-year-olds can open carry during a state of emergency in Pennsylvania.”
“We’ve been fighting this battle for more than three years,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, who is a Pennsylvania resident and practicing attorney in the state. “The court’s decision is an important step forward to getting this issue resolved.”
Just in case there’s any doubt:
A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.
— VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN
Pete Buttigieg Hates Your Car, but Mostly He Thinks You’re an Idiot.
America’s eminently mockable Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, went on national TV on Tuesday to mock Americans who find that electric cars don’t suit their transportation needs.
“Sometimes, when these debates happen,” the failed former mayor of South Bend, Ind. told Fox News, “I feel like it’s the early 2000s and I’m talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.”
Spoiler: Nobody was saying that in the early 2000s. Even before the iPhone came out in 2007 and changed phones forever, Americans were snapping up Nokias and Blackberries and wondering if we still needed our landlines at all. As early as 2005, 69% of Americans already owned cell phones, which was pretty much the entire adult population. Six percent of households had even given up their landlines.
But back to SecTrans Buttigieg, who insisted, “Let’s be clear, the automotive sector is moving toward EVs and we can’t pretend otherwise.” This is like telling a death row prisoner that he’s moving towards the electric chair and can’t pretend otherwise. The prisoner might not want to make the “transition” to the next life, but the government has set a date for him — just like the Biden administration is trying to transition the entire country to EVs.
Even though Americans have to be bribed, browbeaten, and mandated into buying EVs, Buttigieg insisted that Big Government knows best — even when that Big Government is the one in Beijing. EVs are “the economically smart play,” he said. “We’ve been working to make sure that advantage comes back on American soil.” China has the opportunity to undercut more established players like Tesla precisely because Washington is trying to force a massive EV market into existence.
Tesla is the most successful electric vehicle company in the West, and its stock was sent plunging on Tuesday after reporting its first-ever year-on-year sales decline last quarter. “Tesla’s deliveries for the quarter fell far below even the most bearish of analysts’ expectations,” CNBC reported.
Overall, EV sales growth has slowed since 2022, despite billions spent on incentives and record-high prices for gas-powered cars.
Presidentish Joe Biden can’t even bribe people into building EV charging stations. Biden’s misnamed Inflation Reduction Act — really the Green New Deal in drag — set aside a massive $7.5 billion in your tax dollars for fulfilling Biden’s dream of building 500,000 new charging stations over the next few years. But just seven have been built in two years.
Seven. Even with all those government billions just waiting to be taken.
Maybe that’s because, while EV sales hit a record 1.2 million in the U.S. last year, they still represented just 7.6% of the vehicle market. While EV sales are expected to take maybe 10% of the market in 2024, there are so many locations, needs, and situations where EVs make no sense at all. Virtually mandating that they make up two-thirds or more of all sales by 2032, as the EPA did last month, is a quasi-religious crusade courtesy of the most anti-religious White House in history.
Still, at least we’ll always have Pete Buttigieg’s smug ignorance to mock.
Americans Disapprove Of Biden On Guns—And Most Other Issues.
If you thought Americans strongly disapproved of the way President Joe Biden’s economy is working out, you ought to see what people think of the way he has handled the gun issue.
According to a recent survey by The Economist and YouGov, a full 52% of Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling economic issues. Breaking it down, 91% of Republicans, 55% of Independents and even 11% percent of Democrats aren’t too fond of the strangling consequences of “Bidenomics.” And by age, a majority of Americans over 30 disapprove of Biden’s economic performance.
But believe it or not, even more Americans disapprove of the job Biden has done concerning firearms, which 81% of respondents said was an important issue. In total, 54% of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling the gun issue, compared to 28% who approved. That includes a whopping 88% of Republicans and 52% of Independents who gave the president low marks. Disapproval was also very high by race and age: whites, 61% disapproved; Blacks, 35%, Hispanics, 46%; age 18-29, 43%; 30-44, 57%; 45-64, 57%; and 65-plus, 60%.
Remember?
Today:
