Sure would be nice compared to some of the law school grads with crap-for-brains when it comes to civil rights, I’ve run across recently.<\/p>\n
Shaping a better judiciary through firearms instruction in law schools<\/a><\/p>\n The dust from the Illinois \u201cAssault Weapon\u201d and \u201cLarge Capacity\u201d magazine ban remains unsettled. As Cam wrote recently<\/a>, the Seventh Circuit took actions to keep the bans in place while legal challenges continue. Frank Easterbrook, the judge whose decision kept the bans in place, was also in the anti-Rights majority in some other big Second Amendment cases from recent history, namely,\u00a0McDonald v. Chicago<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Friedman v. Highland Park<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n There are many anti-Second Amendment judges out there, both liberal and nominally conservative, whose judicial musings are an academic version of, \u201cI support the Second Amendment, BUT\u2026,\u201d while there aren\u2019t many judges who would insist on protecting the Bill of Rights in the face of\u00a0persistent political and<\/a>\u00a0media pressure<\/a>. Two pro-Rights judges whose names come to mind are U.S. District Court Judge Stephen P. McGlynn (S.D. IL), and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Lawrence VanDyke.<\/p>\n What sets these judges apart from your average anti-Second Amendment judges? Look no further than a\u00a0transcript<\/a>\u00a0and an\u00a0opinion<\/a>\u00a0from cases they have heard:<\/p>\n Judge McGlynn in\u00a0Barnett v. Raoul<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n THE COURT: [\u2026] So here\u2019s a pistol with a protruding grip. Now suppose you have \u2014 many people who are called upon to defend themselves are elderly. They\u2019re people who [have] disabilities. And suppose if they hold a pistol with one hand, because of early stages of Parkinson\u2019s or something, they\u2019re shaky. But with that, they\u2019re able to stabilize it more and it makes it safer for them to use and more accurate for them to use. Would that not be a fair assessment, at least for someone that might be suffering with that disability?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n MR. WELLS: So, Your Honor, I \u2014 with respect to \u2014 again, the particular features, we\u2019re not here today because there are \u2013<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n THE COURT: I\u2019m here today because of that. I\u2019m really looking at \u2014 it looks like all kinds of safety features are made illegal by this statute in an effort to make every possible gun that\u2019s out there, most guns out there, get you tripped up on it. The thumb hole \u2014 I mean, the thumb stock, that doesn\u2019t make the bullets any more lethal. It doesn\u2019t make the gunfire any faster, but it makes it easier for the user to aim it and control the weapon, does it not?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The same could be said \u2014 you know, even the arm brace, you know, if you have an elderly person that wants to use the handgun, but again, maybe they have diabetic neuropathy [\u2026] the arm brace doesn\u2019t make the gunfire any faster or the bullets impact at a higher velocity. [\u2026]<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Judge VanDyke in\u00a0Duncan v. Bonta<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n Until only a few years ago, if you wanted a \u201cmicro-compact\u201d firearm for self-defense (of the type that serves little or no military usage), you were generally limited to a six to eight-round magazine capacity. For example, the KelTec P3AT came with a six-round magazine, as did the Ruger LCP, Glock 43, Kimber Solo, and Walther PPK (of James Bond fame). [\u2026] Not too long ago, it was basically impossible to find a lightweight, micro-compact firearm even capable of holding 10 rounds in its magazine.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Then, in 2019, Sig Sauer released the P365, which took the self-defense market by storm because suddenly law- abiding citizens could have the same size micro-compact firearm, but now carrying 12 or 15 rounds in its magazine.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n As evident from the above, these judges know and understand guns. They can see through the fallacies of these laws. This is a seeming rarity in the judiciary. I am willing to bet that if most judges opened their mouths to talk about guns in front of a camera, they would sound\u00a0exactly<\/i>\u00a0like anti-Second Amendment legislators who, wallowing in their ignorance, blabber about \u201c.30-caliber magazine clips<\/a>\u201d (archived<\/a>),\u00a0heat-seeking meat-cooking bullets<\/a>\u00a0(archived<\/a>),\u00a0one-time use magazines<\/a>\u00a0(archived<\/a>), or \u201cthe shoulder thing that goes up<\/a>.\u201d (archived<\/a>)<\/p>\n Law schools are pipelines into the judiciary.<\/strong>\u00a0The less ignorance on firearms there is in the judiciary, the lower the chance of abusive laws surviving judicial review.\u00a0The strategy of the firearms community, especially instructors, should include serious outreach to law school students.<\/b>\u00a0Advertise your (ideally free) services in law schools. Organize a group outing to the gun range for students. There are\u00a0Federalist Society chapters in law schools<\/a>\u00a0around the country. Ask them for help with your outreach. (Shameless Plug: there\u2019s more in\u00a0my book<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Rooting out gun ignorance is a long-term investment. Law school students are typically in their early 20s, and it may take them another 2\u20133 decades to get appointed to the judiciary. But the results will be there down the line.<\/p>\n Freedom takes hard work. If we all sit back and don\u2019t put in the effort to nurture it, our children and grandchildren won\u2019t have it. If you\u2019re a firearms instructor reading this, please start outreach to law schools near you. If you\u2019re not a firearms instructor,\u00a0consider becoming one<\/a>. Every student\u2019s mind you fortify from ignorance is another safeguard for our liberty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sure would be nice compared to some of the law school grads with crap-for-brains when it comes to civil rights, I’ve run across recently. Shaping a better judiciary through firearms instruction in law schools The dust from the Illinois \u201cAssault Weapon\u201d and \u201cLarge Capacity\u201d magazine ban remains unsettled. As Cam wrote recently, the Seventh Circuit … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92624,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92623\/revisions\/92624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}