New Jersey’s Safe-Storage Proposed Workaround Should Be Dead-on-Arrival

“New Jersey’s answer to losing on semi-automatic rifles and magazines is a bill that would render legal firearms inoperable at home — but the U.S. Supreme Court already told us that turns constitutionally-protected firearms into bricks, and the Third Circuit just quoted that ruling back to Trenton in the same opinion that struck down the state’s AR-15 ban.” — Professor Mark W. Smith, Four Boxes Diner Host

New Jersey lawmakers, having just lost badly at the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, are casting about for a way to keep regulating guns out of existence without technically banning them. According to Politico’s July 23 report, Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald is reviving Assembly Bill A3560, a measure that has languished in Trenton since 2021 without ever reaching a floor vote. It would apparently require gun owners to store every firearm in their home unloaded and locked, with stiff penalties for noncompliance. Greenwald told Politico the bill is “the next thing I’m looking to do” on gun control. In my view, such a law would not survive contact with the Constitution, and the Supreme Court told us why back in 2008.

A N.J. BILL REVIVED BY DESPERATION

The timing is not subtle. On July 17, 2026, the en banc Third Circuit ruled in Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Attorney General New Jersey, consolidated with Cheeseman v. Davenport, No. 24-2415, that New Jersey’s bans on semi-automatic rifles — including the AR-15 — and on magazines holding more than ten rounds violate the Second Amendment. That ruling dismantled a regulatory regime Governor Jim Florio signed in 1990.

With the assault-weapons ban and magazine ban effectively gone, Trenton Democrats are searching for a substitute that accomplishes the same disarmament by different means.

A Senate Democratic spokesperson told Politico only that the chamber is “evaluating all available legislative and legal options.” Greenwald’s answer appears to be: lock every gun up, unload it, and call it safety. It is nothing of the sort. A locked, unloaded firearm cannot be deployed against an intruder in the time a home invasion actually takes. What it can do is guarantee the law-abiding resident is unarmed at the one moment that the Second Amendment exists to address.

HELLER ALREADY ANSWERED THIS

The Supreme Court confronted this exact scheme in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), which struck down a D.C. law requiring that lawful firearms be kept “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock.” Justice Scalia wrote for the Court: “We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

The Court rejected the District’s argument that the statute contained an implicit self-defense exception, noting that the D.C. Court of Appeals had already construed the statute, in McIntosh v. Washington, 395 A.2d 744 (D.C. 1978), to forbid residents from using stored firearms to stop intruders. A firearm that must be unloaded and locked before it can be fired is not a firearm at all for purposes of the emergency it exists to answer. It becomes a hammer, or a brick (at best).

Heller also forecloses the fallback argument that owners can keep one gun accessible so long as some guns are locked up. The Court held it “is no answer” that a prohibition on one class of arms is permissible “so long as the possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed,” because Americans are entitled to choose the arm best suited to defending themselves, not the one the government deigns to leave operable.

THE THIRD CIRCUIT ALREADY QUOTED IT BACK TO TRENTON

New Jersey does not even get the luxury of relitigating this point regionally. The same en banc opinion that killed its rifle and magazine bans quoted Heller’s inoperability holding directly, describing the now-voided D.C. law as requiring “that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times, rendering it inoperable.” The Third Circuit then cited Heller’s guarantee of “an individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation” — a right the Third Circuit noted, following New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), extends outside the home as well. A safe-storage mandate modeled on the D.C. law that Heller invalidated is not a novel legal theory for New Jersey to test. It is the losing argument, restated, in the circuit that just ruled against the state on the underlying weapons themselves.

SIDE BAR: A FURTHER NOTE ABOUT THE PHRASE “SEMI-AUTOMATIC RIFLES”

For the good of the order, I want to remind Team 2A that precision in terminology matters in our fight for the right to keep and bear arms. I have repeatedly explained that it is best to use the phrase “semi-automatic rifles” rather than alternative phrases such as “assault weapons” or even “modern sporting rifles.” The phrase “semi-automatic rifles” tracks the language of then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent in Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244 (D.C. Cir. 2011), as well as the language of the questions now presented in the recent-cert grants before SCOTUS in the Grant v. Higgins and Viramontes v. Cook County cases. The semi-automatic rifle language ties such rifles to the semi-automatic handguns Heller already protects.

And the right to bear arms is not narrowly tailored to address only resisting government tyranny. No, the right to keep and bear arms is about protecting the ability to confront any grave threat to life, from a violent intruder to an armed assailant, to a terrorist, to a rabid animal. In that moment of confrontation, a firearm must be found, unlocked, and loaded before it functions as intended, i.e., to thwart all forms of tyranny.

---

About Mark W Smith

Constitutional attorney and bestselling author Mark W. Smith hosts the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment channel on Youtube and Rumble; is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar; and his Second Amendment scholarship has been cited by many attorneys and judges, including by attorneys in legal briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Smith’s most recent book is ISRAEL DISARMED: What the October 7 Attack Teaches Americans about the Right to Bear Arms and he has lectured at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Princeton University, the Wharton School at U. Penn, and Oxford University. He is a frequent speaker at the Federalist Society’s Annual National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C.

• @fourboxesdiner
• On The Web

---

from https://ift.tt/ogfD9bd
via IFTTT

DOJ Says Virgin Islands Replaced One Unconstitutional Gun-Control Regime With Another

The Justice Department says the Virgin Islands cannot moot a federal Second Amendment lawsuit by replacing its former licensing law with Act 9113. iStock-1312189737

The U.S. Department of Justice says the Virgin Islands cannot escape a federal Second Amendment lawsuit by repealing one unconstitutional gun-control law and replacing it with another.

That argument comes in a July 29 opposition to the territory’s second motion to dismiss in United States v. Government of the Virgin Islands. The filing is the latest development in a fight AmmoLand has followed since the Justice Department first sued the Virgin Islands government, the Virgin Islands Police Department, and Police Commissioner Mario Brooks in December 2025 over excessive licensing delays, discretionary permitting, and firearm-license conditions imposed without statutory authority.

The DOJ’s original complaint accused VIPD of continuing to enforce a “proper reason” requirement after the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, while also demanding bolted-down gun safes and delaying some applications for months.

The dispute expanded after Virgin Islands lawmakers enacted Act 9113 in June. Rather than merely correcting the territory’s unconstitutional licensing system, the new law added restrictions on commonly owned semiautomatic rifles, standard-capacity magazines, suppressors, firearm transportation, storage, and public carry.

On July 23, AmmoLand reported that DOJ had moved to block Act 9113’s rifle and magazine provisions after the en banc Third Circuit struck down New Jersey’s similar bans in Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs v. Attorney General New Jersey, formerly known as Cheeseman v. Platkin.

The July 29 opposition answers the territory’s attempt to end the entire case. Virgin Islands officials argue that Act 9113 repealed the old licensing system and gave DOJ the relief it originally sought, leaving nothing for the federal court to decide.

DOJ says that badly misstates the case. According to the federal government, the lawsuit was never limited to one unconstitutional sentence in the Virgin Islands Code. It targets what DOJ describes as a years-long “pattern or practice” of police misconduct that deprived residents of their Second Amendment rights.

“The new statute does not address—much less remedy—all of VIPD’s misconduct,” DOJ argued. “Moreover, the new statute creates additional constitutional violations that will be the subject of a supplemental complaint.”

Act 9113, in other words, did not end the confrontation. DOJ says it created the next phase of it.

Virgin Islands Admits Former Licensing Rule Was Unconstitutional

The most significant development in the July 29 filing is DOJ’s claim that the defendants now admit the Virgin Islands’ former “proper reason” requirement violated the Second Amendment under Bruen. According to DOJ, territorial officials also admit they knew the requirement was unconstitutional more than two years ago but did not amend the statute until the federal government sued. The filing goes further. DOJ says requests for admission are deemed admitted, showing that VIPD denied one or more firearm-license applications under the unconstitutional proper-reason requirement in every year from 2022 through 2026.

That adds an important new fact. The original lawsuit alleged that VIPD maintained an unconstitutional may-issue system after Bruen. The July 29 opposition now claims the litigation record establishes that VIPD continued denying applications under that standard year after year.

This was not simply an obsolete statute gathering dust in the territorial code. According to the DOJ, it was an unconstitutional restriction that police continued to use against citizens seeking to exercise a fundamental right.

DOJ Details a Broader Pattern of Police Misconduct

The federal lawsuit is not limited to the territory’s former may-issue language. DOJ brought the case under 34 U.S.C. § 12601, which allows the federal government to seek equitable relief when law-enforcement officers engage in a pattern or practice of depriving people of constitutional rights. The July 29 filing alleges that VIPD’s misconduct extended well beyond the proper-reason requirement.

Among other things, DOJ says VIPD required firearm-license applicants to have a safe bolted to their homes even though no Virgin Islands statute imposed such a requirement. VIPD also allegedly required applicants to consent to warrantless searches, inspections, or other intrusions into their homes as a condition of obtaining a firearm license.

A citizen should never be forced to surrender Fourth Amendment protection inside his own home as the price of exercising his Second Amendment rights. But that was the choice gun owners faced in the Virgin Islands.

The filing also says VIPD:

• Routinely failed to process firearm-license applications within 120 days.
• Imposed application requirements not authorized by territorial statute.
• Used a “good moral character” standard without objective criteria.
• Refused to approve certain firearm models or types without statutory authority.
• Stopped issuing licenses for more than five weeks in 2026 because of malfunctioning equipment.
• Restricted some licensees to possessing firearms for self-defense only inside their homes.
• Regularly added discretionary restrictions not found in territorial law.

Perhaps most strikingly, DOJ says VIPD prohibited dealers from selling or distributing magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds even though the department had no statutory authority to impose such a ban.

That allegation reveals the real danger of treating the right to keep and bear arms as a police-administered privilege. Once officials believe they possess open-ended discretion over the right, the written law becomes only the beginning. Bureaucrats begin inventing restrictions that lawmakers never enacted and the Constitution never permitted.

The New 30-Day Deadline Is the Same as the Old One

The Virgin Islands argues that Act 9113 solves the licensing-delay problem because it requires the police commissioner to issue a license or provide written notice of denial within 30 days. DOJ points out one obvious problem: the old law also imposed a 30-day deadline. VIPD allegedly ignored it.

According to the complaint, some applications remained unresolved for as long as a year. DOJ also says VIPD routinely failed to adjudicate applications within 120 days.

The territory’s supposed solution to a police department that ignored the old 30-day deadline is therefore another 30-day deadline.

A statutory deadline has little value when the agency responsible for obeying it has already demonstrated that it considers such limits optional. That is why DOJ argues the court cannot simply accept officials’ assurances that the misconduct will not happen again.

Under the voluntary-cessation doctrine, defendants generally cannot moot a lawsuit merely by stopping challenged conduct after being sued. They carry the “formidable burden” of showing that the violation cannot reasonably be expected to recur. DOJ says the Virgin Islands has not come close to meeting that burden.

Act 9113 Creates New Second Amendment Problems

Act 9113 did far more than replace the Virgin Islands’ former may-issue licensing system. The law also targeted semiautomatic rifles and magazines holding more than 15 rounds, creating an immediate conflict with the Third Circuit’s recent en banc decision striking down New Jersey’s comparable bans.

The July 29 opposition places that earlier challenge within a broader argument: Act 9113 cannot moot the lawsuit because the new law allegedly continues the same pattern of unconstitutional enforcement while directing VIPD to commit additional Second Amendment violations.

DOJ identifies provisions involving public carry, the transportation of long guns, firearm storage, license suspensions, suppressors, magazines, and restrictions on protected firearms. The government expects to add those issues to a supplemental complaint following an August 19 hearing.

The filing also relies on the Third Circuit’s decision in Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs v. Attorney General New Jersey. AmmoLand has covered that ruling extensively because it struck down New Jersey’s bans on covered semiautomatic rifles and magazines holding more than ten rounds.

That precedent is especially important here because the Virgin Islands is within the Third Circuit. The territory cannot dismiss Cheeseman/ANJRPC as the opinion of a distant court addressing an unrelated state law. It is the controlling appellate authority for the federal district court now considering Act 9113.

Virgin Islands Accused of Stonewalling Discovery

The federal government also accuses the defendants of refusing to provide information needed to determine the full extent of VIPD’s conduct.

DOJ says the Virgin Islands would not disclose how many applications were delayed beyond the statutory deadline, why those delays occurred, or how often the proper-reason standard was used to deny licenses. A motion to compel discovery is reportedly forthcoming.

That puts the territory in an awkward position. Officials are asking the court to trust their assurances that the unconstitutional behavior has ended while allegedly withholding evidence that could confirm or disprove those assurances.

The court should not dismiss a constitutional case based on promises from officials who have not fully disclosed what they did, how long they did it, or whether they are still doing it.

A New Chapter in the Same Constitutional Violation

DOJ offers a useful analogy in the filing. Suppose a police department faced a federal lawsuit because its officers routinely violated the Fourth Amendment by choking suspects. If the officers stopped choking people but began beating them with nightsticks, the department could not credibly argue that the case was moot because the original method of abuse had changed.

The same basic principle applies here. The alleged constitutional violation was not merely one sentence in the Virgin Islands Code. It was a governmental practice of treating the right to keep and bear arms as something police officials could delay, condition, restrict, or deny at their discretion.

Repealing the proper-reason requirement does not erase warrantless home-inspection demands, unauthorized firearm restrictions, police-created magazine bans, year-long delays, or continuing enforcement under Act 9113.

The federal government’s July 29 filing turns the Virgin Islands’ mootness argument on its head. Act 9113 is not necessarily proof that the territory corrected its conduct. It may instead become additional evidence that the same constitutional violations are continuing under a different statute.

The Second Amendment is not a licensing privilege bestowed by police. It is a fundamental right secured by the Constitution. The Virgin Islands cannot avoid judicial review by changing the label on its gun-control regime while continuing to burden the people “in the same fundamental way.”

---

About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

---

from https://ift.tt/Hb2hLyD
via IFTTT

Trump DOJ Defends NFA Gun Registry Despite Supreme Court’s Wolford Ruling

The Justice Department argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Wolford v. Lopez does not meaningfully affect the constitutional challenge to the NFA’s regulation of suppressors and short-barreled rifles. Image Duncan Johnson

Something is not adding up inside President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.

The administration has created a Second Amendment enforcement unit, intervened on behalf of gun owners in major constitutional cases and publicly promised to protect the right to keep and bear arms. Yet DOJ attorneys continue filing lower-court briefs that sound as though Merrick Garland never left the building.

Constitutional attorney Mark Smith, host of The Four Boxes Diner, is calling attention to the latest and perhaps most glaring example: the government’s July 27 supplemental brief in Brown v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The case, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, challenges the National Firearms Act’s continued regulation and registration of short-barreled rifles and suppressors.

After the Supreme Court decided Wolford v. Lopez, the district court ordered the parties to explain what effect that ruling has on the NFA challenge.

DOJ’s answer could hardly have been more dismissive:

“In short, Wolford does not meaningfully affect how this Court should resolve plaintiffs’ Second Amendment challenge.”

That is an extraordinary position for a supposedly pro-Second Amendment administration to take.

The same Justice Department that supported the challengers in Wolford is now telling a lower court that the Supreme Court’s clarification of the Second Amendment framework provides “no meaningful guidance” when that guidance threatens a federal gun-control program.

DOJ Says Wolford Is Basically Irrelevant

DOJ attempts to distinguish Wolford by arguing that the case concerned where firearms may be carried, while Brown concerns what weapons the government may regulate.

The brief states:

“Wolford thus concerns how a government may permissibly regulate where firearms are possessed.”

According to DOJ, that question is “conceptually distinct” from the issues presented in Brown. But that framing sidesteps the central point raised by Smith.

Wolford did more than strike down Hawaii’s default ban on carrying firearms on private property open to the public. The decision also clarified the sequence courts must follow under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

First, courts examine the Second Amendment’s plain text. Does the law apply to “the people”? Does it concern “Arms”? And, does it restrict keeping or bearing those arms? When the text applies, the challenged law is presumptively unconstitutional. The government must then establish that its restriction is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. That division between text and history matters enormously in Brown.

The government wants courts to place the “common use” question at the first stage, forcing gun owners to prove that a particular weapon is sufficiently popular before the burden ever shifts to the government. But whether an arm is “dangerous and unusual” is a historically derived limitation. It belongs in the historical inquiry, where the government bears the burden.

As Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained in her Wolford concurrence, courts may not “smuggle additional limits” drawn from regulatory tradition into the plain-text stage.

Smith’s criticism is straightforward: DOJ is doing precisely what the Supreme Court warned courts not to do.

DOJ Stretches Miller Beyond Its Holding

The government next argues that United States v. Miller and District of Columbia v. Heller foreclose the challenge to the NFA’s regulation of short-barreled rifles.

DOJ writes:

“As Miller and Heller make clear, ‘the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.’”

The brief then claims that the principle applied to short-barreled shotguns in Miller “applies equally to short-barreled rifles.”

Miller involved a short-barreled shotgun. It did not involve a short-barreled rifle. It did not involve a suppressor. The Supreme Court heard no argument on behalf of the defendants, and the decision was rendered on an undeveloped record. The Court did not establish a blanket rule that every weapon Congress placed under the NFA falls outside the Second Amendment.

Heller itself demonstrates why DOJ’s argument is wrong. If Miller had already resolved the constitutional status of weapons outside some government-defined category, there would have been no need for the Supreme Court in Heller to examine whether handguns were commonly possessed by Americans for lawful purposes. Instead, the Court considered the specific arms banned by the District of Columbia and determined that handguns were overwhelmingly chosen for lawful self-defense.

The district court in this case must likewise analyze short-barreled rifles as short-barreled rifles–not simply pretend they are constitutionally indistinguishable from the shotgun involved in Miller.

Compact rifles, including pistols in rifle calibers, are owned by large numbers of Americans and are used for lawful purposes including home defense, vehicle defense, training, hunting and recreation. DOJ cannot evade that reality by stretching a 1939 decision beyond the weapon and record actually before the Court.

DOJ Wants Gun Owners to Carry the Government’s Burden

The Justice Department also insists that Wolford does not override Eighth Circuit precedent placing common use at Bruen’s first step.

The brief states:

“Wolford never mentions this inquiry … much less addresses how it fits within Bruen’s analytical framework.”

DOJ further argues that judges continue to debate whether common use belongs at the first or second step. That may accurately describe an ongoing judicial disagreement, but it does not answer the originalist argument. The plain-text inquiry determines whether the object is an “Arm”—a weapon customarily used for offensive or defensive purposes.

Whether an arm may be excluded as dangerous and unusual comes from historical tradition. “Common use” is relevant because an arm possessed by ordinary Americans for lawful purposes cannot reasonably be called unusual. That analysis must occur after the text is satisfied. Otherwise, the government can impose a ban or registration requirement, suppress ownership through that restriction and then argue that the arm is not common enough to receive constitutional protection. That is circular and it rewards the government for successfully burdening the right.

The Second Amendment does not protect only those arms that citizens can first prove sufficiently common to a judge. It protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, placing the burden on the government to justify infringements through history.

DOJ Calls the NFA a “Shall-Issue Licensing Scheme”

The most disturbing portion of the brief may be DOJ’s attempt to rebrand the National Firearms Act.

The government asserts:

“The NFA is a presumptively constitutional shall-issue licensing scheme.”

That description would be laughable if the consequences were not so serious. The NFA requires Americans to obtain government approval before making or receiving covered firearms. It requires the firearm to be registered to its possessor and imposes severe criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered NFA item.

The brief concedes the central feature of the system:

“The NFA requires, among other things, that the firearm be registered to whomever will possess it.”

Yet DOJ insists the plaintiffs are wrong to distinguish registration from licensing because the registration is merely one condition for receiving government permission. That argument proves too much. A license generally establishes that a person is legally eligible to exercise a regulated activity. Registration records specific property and connects it to a particular citizen in a government database.

The NFA does both, but its firearm registry is neither incidental nor imaginary.

Then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh drew that distinction in his Heller II dissent. Kavanaugh concluded that the District of Columbia’s broad firearm-registration requirement lacked support in the Nation’s historical tradition and was substantially more burdensome than traditional licensing or dealer recordkeeping.

Kavanaugh’s opinion was a dissent and therefore not binding precedent, but his historical analysis presents the question DOJ would rather avoid:

Where is the American tradition of forcing peaceable citizens to register lawfully possessed arms with the federal government?

One Bad Brief Can Tarnish the Entire Record

Smith compares these lower-court filings to a bug landing in an otherwise excellent bowl of soup. The administration may build a strong record on the Second Amendment, but Americans will remember the cases in which its own attorneys defended federal registries, shifted constitutional burdens onto gun owners and minimized Supreme Court precedent.

DOJ lawyers do not swear an oath to preserve every federal statute. They swear an oath to the Constitution.

When the government must choose between defending inherited federal power and honoring the original public meaning of the Second Amendment, there should be no confusion about which comes first. The Trump administration has repeatedly said it intends to protect the right to keep and bear arms. The filing in Brown v. ATF does the opposite.

---

About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

---

from https://ift.tt/M7tRzVJ
via IFTTT

Colorado’s Semi-Auto Ban Says August 1–But Gun Buyers Were Cut Off July 28

Colorado’s SB25-003 formally takes effect August 1, 2026, but the state’s mandatory three-day waiting period made July 28 the final practical day to begin an ordinary purchase of a covered semi-automatic firearm. IMG Duncan Johnson

Colorado’s sweeping restrictions on purchasing common semi-automatic firearms formally take effect on August 1, 2026. For law-abiding Coloradans, however, the real deadline arrived three days earlier.

Because Colorado already forces firearm purchasers to endure a mandatory three-day waiting period before taking possession, Tuesday, July 28, was the final practical day to begin an ordinary purchase of a firearm covered by Senate Bill 25-003.

A transaction initiated on July 29 could not be completed until August 1—the same day Colorado begins prohibiting the purchase, sale, or transfer of covered semi-automatic firearms unless the buyer first navigates the state’s new permission process. Colorado has therefore used one infringement on the right to keep and bear arms to accelerate another.

The three-day waiting period did not merely inconvenience prospective gun buyers. It erased the final three days during which Coloradans were supposedly still free to acquire some of America’s most common firearms without first obtaining government approval.

Colorado’s Real Deadline Was July 28

Colorado law prohibits a dealer from delivering a firearm until the later of three days after initiating the required background check or final approval of that background check. Delivering the firearm before that waiting period expires can subject a seller to civil penalties. SB25-003 separately prohibits knowingly manufacturing, distributing, transferring, selling, or purchasing a “specified semiautomatic firearm” beginning August 1.

Put those two laws together, and the practical result is straightforward.

A buyer who began a transaction on July 28 could potentially complete the waiting period and take possession on July 31. A buyer who began the same lawful transaction on July 29 would remain trapped in Colorado’s mandatory waiting period when SB25-003 took effect.

The firearm was lawful to purchase when the transaction began. The purchaser may have passed the required background check and paid the dealer. Yet Colorado itself prevented delivery long enough for a second law to attach and prohibit completion of the transaction.

One Infringement Accelerates Another

Waiting-period advocates commonly dismiss a mandatory delay as a minor inconvenience. A citizen, they argue, can still obtain the firearm eventually. That position misunderstands the nature of a constitutional right.

A person who lawfully purchased and is legally entitled to possess a firearm should not be forced to wait three days before taking possession of his own property. The Second Amendment contains no waiting period, cooling-off period, or exception allowing the government to postpone the right until officials decide enough time has passed.

A constitutional right does not cease being infringed simply because the infringement has a scheduled expiration.

Colorado’s latest maneuver exposes the danger more clearly. Here, the waiting period does not end with the delayed buyer taking possession. Instead, the delay carries the buyer across the effective date of an additional prohibition that may prevent the transaction from being completed at all.

Colorado created a three-day legal barrier and then used that barrier to make its new acquisition ban effective three days early.

Today, CSSA demanded that CBI immediately fix firearm background-check delays now approaching two days.

With SB25-003 taking effect Aug. 1, these delays could block lawful purchases and force Coloradans into the unconstitutional permitting scheme.

We’re already fighting to… pic.twitter.com/RUMyZpcjEf

— Colorado State Shooting Association (@CSSA1926) July 27, 2026

Acquisition Is Protected by the Second Amendment

Anti-gun politicians will claim it is not a firearms ban because Coloradans who already own covered firearms are generally not required to surrender them. That argument is constitutionally hollow.

The right to keep and bear arms necessarily includes the right to acquire them. A citizen cannot keep an arm he is legally forbidden to obtain. He cannot bear an arm that the government prohibits him from purchasing, receiving, or replacing.

A government could destroy the Second Amendment without confiscating a single firearm if it were permitted to outlaw all future acquisition. Existing firearms would eventually break, wear out, become unavailable, or pass out of private hands. Current owners would grow old and die while the next generation remained legally prohibited from acquiring the same arms.

Grandfathering current owners does not transform an acquisition ban into something constitutionally benign. It simply imposes the ban prospectively.

The Second Amendment does not protect only those fortunate enough to own a firearm before a government-selected cutoff date. It protects “the right of the people”—including new gun owners, young adults entering the firearms community, and future generations of Americans.

A Government Permission Slip for Common Arms

Beginning August 1, Coloradans seeking to purchase firearms covered by SB25-003 must first navigate a state-controlled approval system.

The law broadly reaches specified semi-automatic rifles and shotguns with detachable magazines, along with certain gas-operated semi-automatic handguns, such as AR-style pistols.

A prospective buyer must obtain eligibility to participate in the required training process, submit to additional checks and fees, complete state-approved instruction, pass an examination, and have the results entered into a state-maintained record system before a dealer may complete the transaction.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife states that applicants without qualifying hunter education must complete a 12-hour extended firearms course conducted over at least two days. Students must score at least 90 percent on the final examination, after which the instructor has up to three business days to enter the results into the state database.

That is not simply firearm-safety education. It is a permit-to-purchase structure in which the default rule is prohibition and the citizen must obtain the government’s approval to escape it.

For generations, Americans understood that their rights belonged to them—not that those rights were privileges distributed by state officials after payment, instruction, testing, and recordkeeping.

SB25-003 turns that principle upside down.

Where Is the Historical Tradition?

Under the Supreme Court’s text-and-history framework, Colorado bears the burden of demonstrating that its restriction is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The relevant question is not whether governments historically regulated commercial activity in some general sense. Nor is it enough to find an isolated law involving gunpowder storage, militia inspections, or the misuse of weapons.

Colorado must identify a relevant historical tradition of forcing ordinary, peaceable citizens to obtain government permission, pay government-imposed costs, complete mandatory instruction, pass an examination, and enter a state recordkeeping system before acquiring commonly possessed arms. The historical record points in the opposite direction.

Founding-era militia laws frequently required citizens to acquire arms and appear equipped for service. The law presumed that responsible citizens would possess weapons suitable for lawful defense and the common defense.

Colorado now presumes that citizens may not acquire covered firearms unless they first prove themselves to the government. That is not a historical analogue. It is a reversal of the founding principle.

The Fight Moves to Federal Court

The Colorado State Shooting Association is challenging SB25-003 in federal court in Del Toro v. Polis. The lawsuit argues that the state’s restrictions burden the Second Amendment through delays, costs, training mandates, testing, recordkeeping, and a prohibition on acquiring protected firearms without prior government approval.

CSSA Executive Director Huey Laugesen correctly identified what remains unchanged when the calendar reaches August 1.

“Tomorrow, the Constitution will say exactly what it says today,” Laugesen said. “What changes on August 1 is that the State of Colorado will place a bureaucratic obstacle course between law-abiding citizens and the exercise of a constitutional right.”

Colorado lawmakers may pretend that SB25-003 merely regulates the process of buying a firearm. In reality, the law prohibits acquisition unless a citizen successfully navigates that obstacle course. And because Colorado’s existing waiting period prevented immediate delivery of otherwise lawful purchases, the state began closing that gate on July 29. Three days before the new restriction was officially scheduled to take effect.

---

About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

---

from https://ift.tt/myUlD34
via IFTTT

Is the Supreme Court’s ‘Common Use’ Test Really Originalist?

The Supreme Court’s “common use” doctrine strongly protects widely owned firearms such as the AR-15, but critics question whether the test is grounded in the Second Amendment’s original meaning. iStock-1428826745

The Supreme Court’s “common use” test has become one of the strongest weapons available to Americans challenging bans on AR-15s, standard-capacity magazines, and other widely owned firearms. It may also rest on a surprisingly weak originalist foundation.

That is the theory recently advanced by Second Amendment plaintiff Charles Nichols, who argues that the Constitution does not protect an arm because enough Americans already own it. The Second Amendment protects arms because the text says the people’s right to keep and bear them “shall not be infringed.”

Nichols’ criticism deserves serious consideration as the Supreme Court prepares to decide Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, the consolidated cases asking whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right to possess AR-15-style and similar semiautomatic rifles. The Court granted review on June 30, 2026.

The challengers have an overwhelming argument under existing precedent: AR-15s are bearable arms, are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, and cannot plausibly be classified as both “dangerous and unusual.” Nichols, however, is asking a more fundamental question.

Where did “common use” come from, and is it actually consistent with the Second Amendment’s original meaning?

“Common use” is something SCOTUS made a passing reference to, and without explanation, in US v. Miller. Heller (2008) simply cited Miller and one Oregon state court decision from 1980, which said that cannons are not protected by the Second Amendment, which was the opposite of…

— Charles Nichols’ 15th year of 2A lawsuit (@CRTC_Nichols) July 28, 2026

What Miller Actually Said

The phrase is generally traced to the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision in United States v. Miller.

Miller involved a prosecution under the National Firearms Act for transporting an unregistered short-barreled shotgun across state lines. The Court said it had not been shown that such a shotgun had a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” The justices added that it was not within judicial notice that the weapon was “ordinary military equipment” or could contribute to the common defense. That is not quite the modern “common use for lawful purposes” test.

Miller focused on whether the firearm was suitable militia equipment. It did not conduct a serious original meaning analysis of the word “arms,” establish an ownership threshold, or explain why the number of privately owned examples should determine whether the Constitution protects a weapon.

There was also no adversarial presentation from the gun owners. The respondents filed no brief and did not appear for oral argument. As Justice Antonin Scalia later observed in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court heard only the federal government’s side and was presented with virtually no competing historical analysis.

That procedural history should make any originalist hesitant to treat Miller as the final word on which arms the people may possess.

How Heller Created the Modern Test

In 2008, Heller correctly held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right independent of service in an organized militia. It also interpreted Miller as limiting protected weapons to those used by the militia—meaning those “in common use for lawful purposes.” The Court then connected that supposed limitation to the historical prohibition against carrying “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

That move has proven enormously useful to gun owners. Handguns are plainly in common use. So are AR-15s. So are magazines holding more than ten rounds. But useful doctrine and originalist doctrine are not necessarily the same thing.

The historical sources cited by Heller concerned the manner of carrying weapons in a way that terrorized the public. They do not clearly establish a Founding-era tradition allowing the government to ban possession of an entire category of bearable arms merely because judges consider those arms insufficiently prevalent.

There is a major constitutional difference between prohibiting someone from carrying a weapon in a threatening manner and declaring that ordinary citizens may not own that type of weapon at all.

The former regulates misuse. The latter destroys the right. Treating those two things as historical equivalents stretches analogy beyond recognition.

The Problem With Measuring a Right by Popularity

Nichols’ argument exposes the circular nature of “common use.” Suppose the government bans a newly developed arm before millions of citizens can purchase it. Years later, the government defends the ban by arguing that the weapon is not commonly owned. Under that reasoning, the unconstitutional law creates the factual condition used to justify itself.

The government bans the arm because it is uncommon, and the arm remains uncommon because the government banned it.

No other enumerated constitutional right works that way. A new printing technology does not lose First Amendment protection because too few publishers have purchased it. An emerging communication platform does not become subject to prohibition merely because it has not yet accumulated enough users.

The constitutional question should begin with the text: Is the object an “arm”?

Heller defined “arms” broadly as weapons of offense or armor of defense and recognized that the Second Amendment extends to weapons that did not exist at the Founding. The text protects bearable arms, not merely those that have survived long enough—and escaped enough government interference—to become popular.

Common ownership can provide compelling evidence that a weapon cannot be considered “unusual.” But that is different from making popularity the source of constitutional protection. The people do not vote an arm into the Bill of Rights through consumer purchases.

The Question of Cannons and Military Arms

Nichols also criticized Heller’s reliance on the Oregon Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in State v. Kessler. Kessler held that Oregon’s state constitutional right to bear arms protected possession of a billy club in the home. In discussing the meaning of “arms,” however, the court asserted that the term would not have included cannons or other heavy ordnance not kept by militiamen or private citizens. It further suggested that modern weapons used exclusively by the military were outside the state constitutional provision.

Nichols’ objection is that this was a 1980 state-court conclusion, not evidence of the Second Amendment’s original meaning in 1791. The Oregon court cited modern weapons-history books for its technological discussion, but its cannon statement was not grounded in a demonstrated Founding-era legal rule authorizing categorical bans.

That matters because privately owned artillery and armed private vessels were not foreign concepts in early America. More importantly, the Constitution’s text says “arms.” It does not say “small arms popular among individual consumers” or “weapons judges believe are suitable primarily for personal self-defense.”

There may be legitimate questions about whether every weapons system is a bearable “arm” within the Amendment’s text. A cannon, warship, bomber, or nuclear weapon presents a different textual question from a rifle carried by an individual.

But those questions should be answered through the original meaning of “arms”—not by importing an unsupported popularity contest into the Constitution.

The Machine-Gun Concession

Nichols’ sharpest criticism is directed at the likely strategy in the pending AR-15 cases. The challengers will probably emphasize that AR-15s are semiautomatic rifles, not machine guns; that millions are lawfully owned; and that they are therefore protected under Heller’s common-use framework.

That is a powerful and strategically conservative case. The Supreme Court need not reconsider Heller’s suggestion that “M-16 rifles and the like” may be banned to hold that commonly owned semiautomatic AR-15s cannot be prohibited.

Nichols believes, however, that conceding the constitutionality of machine-gun bans leaves the deeper historical error untouched. His point is not that the AR-15 challengers are likely to lose by relying on common use. They should win under the Court’s own precedents.

His point is that they may win by accepting a doctrinal framework that is neither compelled by the Second Amendment’s text nor supported by a genuine historical analogue.

Common Use Should Be a Floor, Not a Ceiling

There is no denying the practical importance of common use. Once millions of Americans lawfully own a type of firearm, the government cannot credibly call it “unusual.” That makes the test devastating to bans on AR-15s and standard-capacity magazines. But an originalist Court should not confuse a sufficient condition for protection with a necessary one.

An arm commonly possessed for lawful purposes is unquestionably protected. That does not mean an arm must first achieve widespread commercial popularity before the Constitution applies.

The Second Amendment’s command is not complicated:

…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

“Common use” may offer the Supreme Court an easy path to striking down modern rifle bans. Nichols’ challenge is whether the Court will eventually recognize that the right existed before any government census of gun ownership—and that constitutional protection cannot depend on how many citizens managed to acquire an arm before politicians prohibited it.

---

About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

---

from https://ift.tt/zLRVOx8
via IFTTT

Montgomery County Rebuilds Carry Ban, Faces New Federal Lawsuit

Maryland Shall Issue and five carry-permit holders are challenging Montgomery County’s rebuilt 100-yard firearm exclusion zones in federal court. iStock-901659046

Maryland Shall Issue and five Maryland carry-permit holders have filed a federal lawsuit, Barreto v. Montgomery County, challenging Montgomery County’s latest attempt to turn much of the county into a maze of overlapping gun-free zones.

The complaint targets Emergency Bill 23-26E, passed by the Montgomery County Council on July 21, 2026, and signed by County Executive Marc Elrich on July 27. The measure took effect immediately. Montgomery County claims the legislation brings its firearm ordinance into compliance with the Maryland Supreme Court’s recent decision in Engage Armament LLC v. Montgomery County.

As AmmoLand previously reported, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled in April that Montgomery County exceeded its home-rule authority by applying its sweeping 100-yard carry prohibition to state-permit holders traveling on public highways. Rather than abandon the scheme, the County enacted Emergency Bill 23-26E—prompting Maryland Shall Issue and five permit holders to return to court.

The plaintiffs argue that the County did not truly fix the law. Instead, it rewrote the ordinance just enough to preserve substantially the same burden on lawful gun owners.

Today, five MSI members and MSI filed suit in federal district court challenging Montgomery County Bill 23-26. That Ordinance effectively bans carry by permit holders in most of the urban areas of the county. The Complaint challenges the Bill under two Counts of State law and one… pic.twitter.com/A8XSESwldS

— Maryland Shall Issue (@MD_Shall_Issue) July 27, 2026

A 100-Yard Gun Ban Around Thousands of Locations

Montgomery County Code Section 57-11 prohibits a person from selling, transferring, possessing or transporting a handgun, rifle, shotgun, ammunition or major firearm component “in or within 100 yards of a place of public assembly.”

Bill 23-26 defines those places to include publicly or privately owned parks, places of worship, schools, libraries, recreational facilities, fairgrounds, conference centers, certain government buildings, polling places, courthouses, and legislative assemblies. The prohibition also covers associated grounds and parking lots.

Those categories are broad enough on their own. Adding a 100-yard buffer around every covered location creates something far more expansive than a conventional sensitive-place restriction.

According to the complaint, Montgomery County includes hundreds of houses of worship, parks, schools and recreational facilities, along with numerous libraries, government buildings and transit-related properties that may fall under the ordinance. Using county land-use information, the plaintiffs identified at least 10,000 parcels covering more than 7,900 acres—or more than 26% of Montgomery County—that allegedly qualify as places of public assembly. That calculation does not include the additional 100-yard exclusion zones surrounding those parcels.

The map included on page 11 of the complaint makes the problem difficult to ignore. Rather than showing a few isolated courthouses or government complexes, it depicts covered parcels scattered throughout Montgomery County.

Once the 100-yard buffers are added, ordinary businesses, sidewalks, homes, parking lots and public roads can fall within the County’s gun ban merely because they are near a church, park, library, gym or school.

Permit Holders May Drive Through—But Not Get Out

The Maryland Supreme Court struck down part of Montgomery County’s earlier law in Engage Armament, holding that it was not a valid local law because it burdened holders of state-issued carry permits traveling on public highways, including Maryland residents who live outside Montgomery County.

The County responded by adding an exception for certain firearms carried or transported in a motor vehicle. A Maryland permit holder may carry a handgun in a vehicle in compliance with state law, while other firearms may generally be transported if locked in a container. But the exception largely ends when the person steps out of the vehicle.

That leads to the central absurdity identified by the lawsuit: A Maryland carry-permit holder may lawfully drive past a church, park or library but may become subject to prosecution after parking and walking toward a store, restaurant, workplace or doctor’s office located inside the surrounding 100-yard zone. Montgomery County has effectively reduced the right to bear arms to a right to remain armed inside a moving automobile.

The Second Amendment does not protect only the trip between destinations. It protects the right to carry arms for self-defense while Americans go about their daily lives.

A permit holder does not stop having a right to defend himself because he needs groceries, a haircut, lunch or medical care.

Criminal Traps Without Fair Warning

The County’s scheme is particularly troubling because many of these zones may be impossible for an ordinary citizen to identify.

A permit holder might know where the county courthouse is. He is far less likely to know that a wooded parcel behind a shopping center could qualify as a park, that a private gym might be classified as a recreational facility or that a church parking lot lies within 100 yards of the restaurant where he is eating.

There are no painted lines on the sidewalk marking the edge of these zones. There is no practical way for a citizen to measure 100 yards from every potentially covered parcel while moving through the county. Yet a violation can carry up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The complaint alleges that the relevant county provisions contain no meaningful mens rea requirement, making violations strict-liability offenses. Each day a violation continues may also be treated as a separate offense. The predictable result is not careful compliance. It is widespread disarmament. When government creates thousands of uncertain criminal zones and attaches jail time to crossing an invisible boundary, prudent citizens will leave their firearms at home rather than risk arrest.

Ordinary Life Becomes Legally Dangerous

The individual plaintiffs give concrete examples of how the ordinance affects lawful gun owners.

Barreto alleges that places he regularly visits—including stores, restaurants, a gym, his physician’s office and a parking garage—are within 100 yards of locations that could qualify as parks, schools, libraries, recreational facilities or government buildings.

Dr. Sachs alleges that his home is within 100 yards of small publicly owned areas that may qualify as parks. Because the ordinance’s exception refers to the “home” rather than the entire residential property, he argues that he may be prohibited from leaving his house armed even to reach his vehicle.

Moore carries a firearm at his church with the knowledge and permission of church leadership for his protection and the protection of other congregants. The complaint argues that Montgomery County’s law forces him to choose between exercising his First Amendment right to worship and his Second Amendment right to armed self-defense.

Duncan and Thacher live outside Montgomery County but regularly travel there to shop, work, eat and visit public locations. Their involvement underscores why the Maryland Supreme Court previously found the County’s ordinance to be more than a purely local matter.

Maryland Shall Issue also says its members include synagogue security volunteers who carry firearms at the request of religious leaders. One member is armed at Chabad of Potomac at the specific request of his rabbi, according to the complaint.

Montgomery County’s prohibition therefore does not merely affect recreational carry. It interferes with armed citizens who have been asked to help protect houses of worship.

Three Separate Challenges to the County’s Law

The lawsuit brings three primary claims.

First, the plaintiffs argue that the ordinance is not a valid “local law” under Article XI-A of the Maryland Constitution. Montgomery County is a charter home-rule jurisdiction, but its authority is limited to local legislation. It cannot enact a general law concerning matters of significant statewide interest. A county ordinance that burdens hundreds of thousands of holders of Maryland-issued carry permits—including people who live elsewhere but work or travel in Montgomery County—is difficult to characterize as merely local.

Second, the complaint argues that Maryland law expressly preempts much of the County’s regulation of firearm possession, carry, transportation, sale, and transfer. State law provides limited authority for local regulation near specified places of public assembly. It does not give Montgomery County a blank check to regulate firearms county-wide or to rewrite Maryland’s carry laws.

Third, the plaintiffs argue that the ordinance violates the Second Amendment under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Wolford v. Lopez, and related decisions. Under Bruen, the government cannot defend a gun restriction by merely claiming it serves public safety. Once the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the conduct, the government must prove that the law is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Historical restrictions existed at certain locations, including legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses. That does not establish a tradition of banning firearms at every privately owned park, church, library, or recreational facility, much less throughout every parking lot, surrounding property, and 100-yard buffer zone.

As the complaint notes, Bruen rejected the idea that government may treat all crowded public areas as sensitive places because doing so would eviscerate the right to carry arms in public.

Montgomery County is attempting to accomplish the same result by accumulation. It has multiplied the number of supposedly sensitive locations until meaningful public carry becomes practically impossible.

Montgomery County Did Not Fix Its Law

The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief blocking enforcement, along with nominal and compensatory damages, attorney’s fees, and costs.

Montgomery County lost its earlier case because it exceeded its authority and burdened holders of state-issued carry permits. Rather than accepting that ruling and adopting a genuinely narrow sensitive-place law, the County enacted emergency legislation that preserves a sprawling system of firearm exclusions.

A person may drive through Montgomery County while armed, but he cannot reliably know whether he may exit the vehicle, cross a parking lot, enter a restaurant, or walk down the sidewalk.

That is not a reasonable regulation of a constitutional right. It is an obstacle course designed to make exercising that right too confusing and legally dangerous to attempt. The right to bear arms means more than transporting a locked pistol through hostile territory. It protects the right of peaceable Americans to carry arms for self-defense while living their ordinary lives.

Montgomery County cannot erase that right 100 yards at a time.

---

About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

---

from https://ift.tt/TNo5Hru
via IFTTT

Deadly Seattle Center Shooting Response a Study in Incompetence?

A triple homicide at the Seattle Center, literally in the shadow of the Space Needle, has resulted in a public backlash against city leaders for mishandling the investigation and not keeping the public informed. iStock-1453704487

The aftermath Sunday’s deadly shooting at the Seattle Center during the annual “Bite of Seattle” event—which is supposed to be “gun-free”—has taken more twists and turns than a rollercoaster, with the end result being public and press frustration and massive criticism, and what some critics suggest was a display of incompetence that the Jet City may never live down.

The shooting cost three people their lives, but about 19 hours into the investigation, it was revealed that one of the “victims” was actually one of the three shooters. The dead, according to ABC News affiliate KOMO, included Junior Cee Niko Semo, 19, now believed to be one of the gunmen. At age 19, it is illegal under Washington statute for him to possess and carry a handgun concealed.

The surviving shooter, who was apprehended, is a 15-year-old who also could not legally possess or carry a handgun under state law. However, it is not clear whether the young teen and Semo engaged in a gunfight with a third gunman. One report indicated Semo and the younger teen were “associates.” The 15-year-old is being held on assault and weapons charges.

The other two victims appear to have been innocent bystanders caught in the line of fire: 44-year-old Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba, killed at the scene, and 56-year-old Ashley Whitehead, who died later at the hospital.

That third suspect was reportedly still on the loose. Police Chief Shon Barnes was out of town at the time of the shooting, and the first press briefing was delayed for at least five hours to ostensibly allow time for “dignitaries” to be on hand for a photo op. Reporters seeking information to which the public is entitled grew frustrated by the delay. Barnes told a press conference the next day that one reason for the delay was that police knew the third suspect was still running free and they were concerned for the safety of Mayor Katie Wilson, Gov. Bob Ferguson, and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. But reporters have hammered the city and police commanders for not revealing that an active shooter was still unaccounted for; information to which the public was entitled long before it was revealed, say critics.

City Leaders Return to ‘Gun Violence’ Messaging

One Seattle talk host is publicly asking whether Wilson should face recall for her handling of the incident, and she was even asked by one reporter during the first late-night press briefing to skip her commenting on “gun violence” and simply tell the press what happened earlier in the evening.

City officials are now reluctantly acknowledging the shooting might have been gang-related, an admission Chief Barnes seemed hesitant to make when he said during the presser that the city has a problem with “small groups.”

Barnes took some bristling criticism for this from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, whose national headquarters is located just across Lake Washington in the city of Bellevue. CCRKBA Executive Director Andrew Gottlieb said Barnes’ preference for using the term “small groups” rather than gangs “sounds like political correctness rather than candor.”

Gottlieb also criticized Barnes and Mayor Wilson for repeated use of the term “gun violence.”

“Wilson must have used the term ‘gun violence’ more than a half-dozen times during her remarks,” he said. “Chief Barnes used it at least ten times. All that does is demonize guns when the real culprit here is apparently a teenager who legally could not be carrying a handgun.”

“Mayor Wilson and Chief Barnes repeatedly mentioned efforts to reduce ‘gun violence’,” Gottlieb added in a statement to the media. “That typically translates to more gun control measures against law-abiding adults including the 112,500 King County residents who have valid concealed pistol licenses. They haven’t hurt anybody. Yet, instead of acknowledging that the problem is with criminals, including juveniles whose parents should be asked why their kid is at the Seattle Center shooting people, we hear about something called ‘gun violence reduction.’ But you’re not going to reduce gun-related violence by penalizing the wrong people, and Seattle’s leaders must keep that in mind.”

Ammoland News spoke with one former law enforcement official who suggested the city’s handling of the shooting and the aftermath was amateurish at best. Other critics have called it a “clown show.”

Former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert also publicly criticized the city’s aftermath response. He told KOMO that the first press briefing should have happened as soon as an hour after the shooting, simply to assure the public that things were under control. The five-hour delay was simply unprofessional.

Police officers on the scene at the time shots were fired can be seen in news footage racing to the sound of gunfire. They quickly took the 15-year-old into custody and retrieved two guns, one apparently wielded by the teen suspect and the other apparently belonging to the dead 19-year-old. It was the command performance which is failing the public confidence test.

Before being elected as Seattle’s mayor, Wilson had never before held public office. She was a founder of the Transit Riders Union. She is a democratic socialist, according to a Wikipedia biography. There are times, say critics, when she is obviously way over her head.

Gun Laws Failed to Stop Underage Suspects

While Seattle city officials are being criticized for mishandling the investigation, there is another factor to be considered, one which so far hasn’t become part of the conversation.

Since 2014, anti-gunners have pushed several restrictive gun control measures into law. None of those gun laws prevented the mass shooting, which left four other people, including a 2-year-old toddler, injured. The Seattle Center’s prohibition against guns at the Bite of Seattle didn’t prevent the fatal shooting. Background checks and the state’s 10-day waiting period didn’t keep guns out of the hands of the teens involved. The gun prohibition movement may get called out on this.

If there were ever an example of gun control’s complete failure in Washington state, the Seattle Center’s triple homicide would be it.

---

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

---

from https://ift.tt/iAPhQqZ
via IFTTT