19th Century Views on the 2nd Amendment: Perspectives from Legal & Educational Texts

H/T Kostas Moros

19th Century Views on the 2nd Amendment Perspectives from Legal & Educational Texts midjourney

The 19th century was a time of significant legal and social discourse surrounding the interpretation of the United States Constitution, including the Second Amendment.

While today’s debates often focus on the modern context of gun ownership, the roots of these discussions are deeply embedded in the perspectives from that era. Examining some of the primary texts from the 1800s reveals not only the dominant legal thought of the time but also how these views shaped the current understanding of the Second Amendment.

Anna Laurens Dawes (1885): The Individual Right to Bear Arms

Add Anna Laurens Dawes, writing in 1885, among those who wasn’t a fan of concealed carry but did consider 2A to be an individual right that guards against tyranny.https://t.co/M41qUAeWPE pic.twitter.com/Nq6BxIFeLU

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) April 10, 2023

In her 1885 work, Anna Laurens Dawes addressed the Second Amendment through the lens of self-defense and the prevention of tyranny. Despite her disapproval of concealed carry, Dawes still affirmed that the right to bear arms was, fundamentally, an individual right. She viewed the Second Amendment as a safeguard against government overreach, aligning with the broader understanding of the era that armed citizens were essential to maintaining liberty.

This acknowledgment is a far cry from modern arguments that suggest the Second Amendment only protects state militias; for Dawes, the right to own arms was personal and crucial for preserving freedom.

Laura Donnan (1900): Teaching the Youth About Constitutional Government

By the turn of the 20th century, Laura Donnan wrote in “Our Government Brief Talks to the American Youth on Our Governments, General and Local,” highlighting the importance of educating young Americans on the principles of governance. Donnan echoed similar sentiments about the Second Amendment, presenting it as a fundamental right for individuals while framing the right within the context of civic responsibility and constitutional structure.

The importance of an armed citizenry was often linked to preserving democratic governance, a common theme in post-Civil War America.

Charles Chadman (1899): A Clear Analysis of Constitutional Law

Charles Chadman’s 1899 book, Constitutional Law, Federal and State, provided a more legalistic analysis of the Second Amendment. In this text, Chadman made a clear distinction that the right to bear arms was enshrined in the Constitution not only for individual self-defense but also as a fundamental component of safeguarding the nation against tyranny.

Legal texts like Chadman’s emphasized the relationship between individual rights and federalism, underscoring that these rights were applicable at both state and national levels.

Andrew White Young (1880): A Youth’s Manual of Constitutional Government

Andrew White Young (1880): A Youth’s Manual of Constitutional Government

In The Government Class Book, written by Andrew White Young and Salter Storrs Clark in 1880, the authors took a practical approach to educating young Americans about their constitutional rights. This book aimed to provide clear instruction on how the Constitution functioned in daily life, and the Second Amendment was no exception. Young and Clark treated the right to bear arms as a given, essential to the framework of constitutional liberty and protection.

Much like Dawes and Chadman, the authors framed the Second Amendment within the broader context of an individual’s duty to maintain a free state, emphasizing both the responsibility and the right of each citizen to defend their liberties.

The Legacy of 19th Century Interpretations

These texts from the 19th century collectively reinforce the idea that the right to bear arms was widely understood as an individual right. Moreover, these views were often couched in the idea that this right was necessary for safeguarding against government overreach.

While some, like Dawes, expressed concern about the practicalities of concealed carry, the overall consensus in legal and educational discourse was that the Second Amendment was a fundamental and personal right.

Today’s debates about the Second Amendment often hinge on whether it protects individual rights or only the rights of state militias. However, these 19th-century texts demonstrate that the individual-rights interpretation has deep roots in American legal and cultural thought. From legal analyses like Chadman’s to youth educational manuals like Donnan’s, the prevailing view was that an armed populace was crucial to the preservation of liberty—a perspective that continues to inform pro-gun advocates in contemporary discussions.

By revisiting these 19th-century sources, it becomes clear that the debate over the Second Amendment is not a modern invention. Rather, it has been an ongoing conversation for over a century, with strong precedent for the interpretation of the right to bear arms as an individual and essential liberty.

---

History fans, the above highlights are just the tip of the bucket. Please read Kostas Moros’ entire thread on 19th-century Views of your Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

This thread covers 19th century views on the Second Amendment. It’s a revised version of a prior thread, with the biggest change being the links to most of the sources, as well as some corrected typos.

This first excerpt is from William Rawle.https://t.co/Zyy0zgajy9 pic.twitter.com/FIpWcfbQJ9

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) April 10, 2023

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

Florida City Issues Gun Ban because of Hurricane Helene

Gun Control in Florida Costs Lives, iStock-884197090

Florida was hit by a massive hurricane a couple of days ago. The City of Okeechobee took advantage of the storm by prohibiting carrying, selling, or displaying firearms and ammunition during its state of emergency.

The city declared a local state of emergency when Hurricane Helene approached the Florida shore. The chief of police, Donald C. Hagan, II, warned residents that the city was banning the carrying of firearms, whether the guns were carried concealed or openly. He also prohibited the sale of firearms and ammunition to anyone, no matter if it was a private sale or from a gun store. Stores were also not allowed to display firearms or ammunition. The state of emergency ran from 9 A.M. on September 26 through 6 A.M. on September 27. Although the state of emergency is over, the order is alarming to many gun rights activists.

Florida has preemption, meaning that local law cannot overrule state law. It appears that Okeechobee might have violated the law by banning firearms. A state of emergency doesn’t override the Florida state law or the Constitution. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham tried to use an emergency order to ban the carrying of firearms, only to be rebuked in court after multiple gun rights organizations sued over the order. Also, during the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous states and localities tried to use the “emergency” to shut down gun shops. The attempts led to multiple lawsuits. Not a single locality or state was successful in defending the shutdowns.

This action by Police Chief Hagan was brought to AmmoLand’s attention by Gun Owners of America (GOA) Florida State Director Luis Valdes. He was visibly upset that a Florida city would try to ban firearms during an emergency. He points out that criminals take advantage of law-abiding citizens during natural disasters such as hurricanes. Since criminals do not obey the law, the order means that only the victims would be disarmed.

“The actions the City of Okeechobee took leading up to Hurricane Helene were not about keeping the residents safe,” Valdes said. “How is preventing the residents from being armed, keep them safe? The Police Chief declaring a state of emergency under FS 870.043 and 870.044 wouldn’t have done that. Furthermore, the laws weren’t even properly applied since the declaration for a state of emergency under those statutes is for rioting, not a hurricane. If rioting or looting were to happen in Okeechobee, then having the residents being armed is what’s needed. Not disarmed and left to the mercy of criminals. As we’ve seen time after time, criminals do not follow the law. A declaration in which the people are disarmed is never going to stop criminals, real or imagined. Okeechobee is only a town of 5,000, and I doubt those folks would have caused issues after the storm. I know because I’ve been through Okeechobee. It is a sleepy and quiet town.”

The order also reminds gun rights activists of what happened after Hurricane Katrina when Americans were disarmed in the aftermath “for their own safety.” Crime ran rampant, and the only ones who gave up their guns were law-abiding citizens who became helpless victims to the criminals who remained armed. Okeechobee is a small town of only 5,000, but it could have turned out very differently if this action had happened on a larger scale.

It is unclear what action could be taken against the town or the Chief of Police since the order has already been lifted, but lawyers and lawmakers are looking into possible actions to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

---

About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

from https://ift.tt/iXMDb8F
via IFTTT

New York County to Raise License Cost for Handguns and Rifles

1911 money iStock-1218242502

On September 15, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill (S4879) allowing Westchester County to change its handgun and semi-automatic rifle licensing fees. Now, the Westchester Board of Legislators is on the verge of drastically increasing its fees for residents of the New York City Suburb.

Westchester County is in the Hudson Valley north of New York City. Sometimes called the “sixth borough,” the county was once a Republican stronghold in the Empire State. Now, it is rapidly moving to the left. Since 2019, the number of Democrats in the county has increased by 15,000, while during the same period, Westchester County lost 7,000 registered Republican voters. The change was spurred by longtime county residents heading south to states like Florida and new young left-leaning professionals moving in to take their place.

Currently, the fee for an application or renewal for a pistol or semi-automatic rifle license is $10. Westchester County is looking to raise the cost of the license to a mind-boggling $175, which could be more than the price of the firearm. The proposed fee to amend a restriction on a license will increase from $3 to $125. Any other amendments will go up from $3 to $25. These increases have gun owners in the county up in arms.

Westchester says the increase will pay the salaries of various county employees. Critics of the proposed changes say the county’s current budget already covers the wages for these workers. They point out that no other county fees are increasing, just pistol and semi-automatic rifle license fees. They alleged that the new fees are nothing more than a “poll tax” on the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

Only two legislators, Margaret Cunzio (C) and James Nolan (R), have vowed to vote “no” on the proposal. The other 15 have not stated how they will vote, but the remaining legislators are all Democrats. It will take a massive turnout by the gun owners of Westchester County opposing the licensing fee increases to have any hope of swaying the remaining Democrat legislators.

Firearms licensing schemes have been attacked in courts across the country. Multiple gun rights groups have filed lawsuits in federal court. Some courts have ruled these licensing schemes unconstitutional, but others have cited “Footnote 9” to rule that these challenged licensing schemes are constitutional. “Footnote 9” of the Bruen decision stated that not all concealed carry permitting schemes are unconstitutional. Some courts have expanded that footnote to licensing schemes for pistol purchase permits.

Westchester County doesn’t seem too concerned about a possible legal challenge. The law was explicitly changed to allow Westchester County to increase its licensing fees. These new fees will hurt the poor and middle class the most since money is tight in the current economic conditions. Some residents will have to choose between the ability to defend themselves and their loved ones and putting food on the table.

There will be a public hearing on the new licensing fee increase on September 30 at 9:30 P.M. The meeting itself will kick off at 7:00 P.M. Anyone who wishes to speak at the meeting must show up before the start time of the general meeting to sign up. It will be held at the Board of Legislators, 8th Floor, Michalian Office Building,148 Martine Avenue, White Plains, NY. A Westchester County resident can also email their legislator and ask them to vote “no” on the proposal.

All legislators can be found here.

---

About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

from https://ift.tt/pYCevX8
via IFTTT

Backing for Astroturf Police Group for Harris Intentionally Hard to Trace

To paraphrase Bill Clinton lying under oath, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘protect’ is.” (The ‘Gander Newsroom/Facebook)

“National law enforcement group endorses Kamala Harris for president,” USA Today claimed Monday. “A group of national law enforcement leaders have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris weeks after the National Fraternal Order of Police backed former President Donald Trump.”

What group? And how do they square representing police with Harris having praised defunding them?

Police Leaders for Community Safety, calling itself “a new force in the policy debates around policing, crime and public safety issues. We have been on the front lines and we know what works – and what needs to change.”

So, who are these “nonpartisan national law enforcement leaders”?

They profile their board of directors and their national advisory board, and if Chair Sue Riseling, retweeting posts from Occupy Democrats, Joe Biden, and Robert Reich is a good indicator of prevailing political sentiments, we’re basically talking about career trough-feeders/armed leftists with a badge. And more than that.

“Police Leaders for Community Safety endorsement of HARRIS looks like an Ops,” X poster Futurist claims, backing up the allegation with documentation of “more FBI backgrounds among their leadership. This is a law enforcement ops to create a last minute false endorsement of Harris. Why hasn’t the media shared any of this public information?”

Police Leaders for Community Safety endorsement of HARRIS looks like an Ops

Harris knew she wouldn’t get the police to endorse her, so a NEW police group was created and launched June 2024 called: Police Leaders for Community Safety, which just endorsed Harris. Rick Myers,… pic.twitter.com/ogJ5DPauok

— Futurist (@americasgreat) September 23, 2024

And their thoughts on armed citizens? Predictable.

“We are calling on Congress to make our communities safer by enacting laws to keep guns out of dangerous hands,” they declare. “Police Leaders for Community Safety supports universal background checks and extreme risk protection (ERPO) laws to prevent individuals who are a danger to themselves or others from possessing firearms. We support regulating military style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and stopping the proliferation of untraceable ‘ghost’ guns – firearms put together by individuals with unregulated components.”

When it comes to the Second Amendment, they’re also oath breakers. And they’re not done:

“Police Leaders advocates for the aggressive prosecution of gun crimes, and proper funding of law enforcement agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Centers for Disease Control’s research on gun violence,” they add.

So, they’re not just collectivist gun-grabbers, they’re “Only Ones,” a term I coined after DEA Agent Lee Paige informed a classroom full of school kids he was “the only one in this room professional enough” to carry a gun — and then shot himself in the leg trying to holster it. I curate such stories to amass a credible body of evidence to present when those who would deny our right to keep and bear arms use the argument that only government enforcers are professional and trained enough to do so safely and responsibly.

While we know some of the personalities involved, what we don’t know is who is funding them, and that looks deliberate. Their website is registered through a proxy, and no entry appears on Candid’s Guidestar nonprofit reporting site.

Acting on a hunch (Riseling is from Wisconsin, as is Treasurer David Mahoney) I checked the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions corporate records, and there it was, with an interesting entity type: “Foreign Non-Stock Corporation” — a corporation organized under the laws of another jurisdiction (in this case, Delaware), and a physical address going to a UPS store in Madison.

They’re not particularly interested in being straightforward about who’s behind them, and the secrecy is reminiscent of a series of reports I did back in 2013-2014 about how Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group had quietly been registering its lobbying efforts in several states. The Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Group, a 501(c)(4) corporation, had registered with numerous states, and curiously, in Delaware.

Also curiously, per Delaware’s Department of Corporations entity search, the registered agent for both Police Leaders for Community Safety and the Everytown Federal Victory Fund is the Corporation Trust Company in Wilmington. In fairness, that may just be coincidental, as CTC is the go-to player in registration that, per Atlas Obscura, services corporate behemoths like “Google, Apple, Walmart, American Airlines, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Coca-Cola,” and companies registered to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Here the trail doesn’t exactly run cold but takes a time-consuming detour that cannot be completed in time for this report. To find out more about Police Leaders, site visitors can obtain “more detailed information including current franchise tax assessment, current filing history,” but there’s a caveat:

“Officer and Director names and addresses are maintained on the images of the annual reports and are not available through this application. If you wish to order a copy of an annual report please call 302-739-3073 for more information.”

I called, and was directed to access “Services,” then “Document Filing and Certificate Request Information” on the website, which display the prominent message:

“Due to the high volume of request, it is taking longer than normal to process requests.”

All we can say at this time is tying Police Leaders into a specific larger gun prohibition group like Everytown is potentially coincidental and circumstantial: It does fit their past M.O., and they are still ramrodding gun-grabs through the states, as exemplified by a CBS “News” piece featuring “reporter” Jennifer Mascia of the Bloomberg-seeded The Trace bemoaning the lack of state ballot initiative gun grabs. It nonetheless reveals a major divide-and-conquer game plan going forward.

What’s clear is somebody with resources and connections is behind them and they’re keeping the “who” close to the vest on purpose. And some in the type of media Tim Walz wants to ban as “not protected by the First Amendment misinformation” are catching on to it, as some recent reports in “conservative” venues reveal:

“Harris endorsement by ‘police leaders’ group is really a bait and switch by radical liberal activists,” Invest USA concludes. “Law Enforcement Group Backing Kamala Harris Exposed as a Sham,” PJ Media weighs in.

Such reports are vital, but their reach is limited to niche audiences interested in being informed with truth. As for what the majority of the voting public will be exposed to, simply enter “Police Leaders for Community Safety” and search under Google’s “News” tab:

• National law enforcement group endorses Kamala Harris for president
• Newly-formed national law enforcement org endorses Harris for president
• Harris-Trump showdown: Leading law enforcement group takes sides in presidential election
• Harris gets stunning endorsement from group that normally backs Trump

You get the picture. But anyone relying on those sources, meaning most voters, won’t, and that’s the plan. They’ll think police back Kamala Harris and remain oblivious to a special interest shadow group trying to swindle them out of their rights by manipulating information to influence the election, with the full backing of “the media.”

They mean to “win” this election by hook or by crook. And if they get away with it, they mean to rule the same way.

---

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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

Texas State Fair Starts Today, AG Still Appealing Gun Ban

BREAKING: I filed a petition for writ of mandamus in the Texas Supreme Court to prevent the City of Dallas from assisting the State Fair of Texas in enforcing a firearms ban that would unlawfully prohibit Texans who are licensed to carry from exercising their rights. The City… https://t.co/Dt2661dHoN

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 25, 2024

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court in a case challenging a lower court ruling that the State Fair of Texas could ban firearms during the event.

“The City of Dallas and the State Fair of Texas cannot nullify state law by banning firearms. And a government entity cannot contract away our rights by offloading this policy to a private entity. Texans who are licensed to carry have a right to defend themselves, and I will fight every step of the way to protect it,” said Attorney General Paxton.

After the announcement that the State Fair of Texas would be a “gun-free zone,” AG Paxton sent the City of Dallas and the State Fair of Texas a letter demanding that they reverse course and allow firearms. The State Fair of Texas is run by a private non-profit and is held at Fair Park in Dallas. The city owns the actual fairgrounds. According to Texas State law, guns cannot be banned on government property or property leased by the government unless firearms are forbidden by statute, such as in a courthouse.

The City of Dallas stated that although it owns Fair Park, it turns over the land to a private non-profit during the State Fair of Texas. Dallas argued in court that it had nothing to do with the decision to enact a gun ban and could not mandate that guns should be allowed because private entities manage the fair.

“The City was not involved in the State Fair of Texas’ announcement of its enhanced weapons policy,” a Dallas spokesperson said in a statement. “The State Fair of Texas is a private event operated and controlled by a private, non-profit entity and not the City.”

Ken Paxton disagreed and stated that no matter who controls Fair Park during the fair, the City of Dallas still owns it. He said state law must be followed, and guns must be allowed in Fair Park no matter what the State Fair of Texas wants.

The State Fair of Texas said that since it is not a government entity, it could make any rule it wanted to make, regardless of the state’s wishes. Last year, guns were allowed at the Texas State Fair. During that event, a firearm was discharged, leading the non-profit to decide to ban guns this year, no matter how legally dubious its stance might be.

AG Paxton would file a lawsuit against the City of Dallas and the State Fair of Texas in Dallas County District Court. He was seeking a preliminary injunction to block the gun ban. Last week, after a two-hour hearing, Judge Emily Tobolowsky denied Paxton’s request. The State Fair of Texas non-profit celebrated the victory.

“We’re just ready to turn our attention to the State Fair of Texas – eight days away from opening, we’re ready to go and hoping that we can keep our folks as safe as humanly possible, that’s the goal,” State Fair of Texas President Mitchell Glieber said.

AG Paxton would not give up his pursuit of allowing guns at the fair and immediately appealed to the Texas 15th Court of Appeals. The court denied his appeal. Paxton then turned to the Texas State Supreme Court and asked them to review the case. The court hasn’t agreed to review the lawsuit, but time is running out for Paxton.

The Texas State Fair is set to open Friday, September 27. If the Texas Supreme Court doesn’t reverse the lower court’s decision, then guns will be banned.

---

About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

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

Anti-Gun Industrial Complex Adds Another Fake ‘Grass Roots’ Group

Opinion

iStock

It seems the anti-gun community lives by the mantra of quantity over quality, as yet another organization has been formed that is designed to promote infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. We’ve noted before that there really is no discernable difference between the various anti-gun entities, and as if to prove our point, five of them collaborated to issue a press release praising the creation of Legislators for Safer Communities (LSC).

Both the press release and the LSC website refer to this new appendage of the anti-gun industrial complex as being “an independent, nonpartisan coalition of state legislators.” The press release claims there are 171 members representing 43 states, while the LSC website gives no mention of the number of actual members, but claims its members are “across all 50 states.”

Although these groups cannot seem to agree on something as simple as how many members there actually are, and whether or not they come from every state, at least they agree on one thing:

None of them understand the meaning of the words “independent” or “nonpartisan.”

While a full list of the membership does not seem to be available, the LSC website does include listings of its Co-Chairs and Steering Committee. Every single legislator listed is a Democrat. It seems a little hard to believe an organization is “independent” or “nonpartisan” when every single known member—and especially those members who we presume are responsible for setting the policies of the group—all come from the same political party.

Besides the decidedly partisan makeup of this “nonpartisan” organization, one wonders why, exactly, this organization was necessary. The website claims the organization will “strive to create safer communities.” Are they saying the other anti-gun groups are not doing this? The website claims the group will “serve as a hub for legislative resources, professional messaging, strategy, research, and peer networking. Again, are the other groups not offering this, or not doing it well?

We found the press release posted to anti-gun billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s organization, Everytown. That group has an entire section dedicated to “Research & Policy,” and the organization regularly coordinates with legislators on pushing anti-gun legislation. Perhaps this group of anti-gun legislators found Everytown’s efforts and resources lacking.

Giffords, one of the other anti-gun groups mentioned in the press release as praising the formation of LSC, has a Resources section on its website that it claims helps to “arm…legislators…with the facts about our country’s gun violence epidemic and the most effective ways to address it.” Not, apparently, to the liking of LSC.

Brady, one of the oldest of the anti-gun groups, also has a Resources section of its website, where it offers “Research,” “Statistics,” and a section called “Campaigns & Toolkits,” where one can allegedly find material to help “spark change in your community.” But maybe Brady’s “change in your community” does not incorporate LSC’s desire to “create safer communities.”

Besides the implication that the existing anti-gun organizations are failing in their ability to provide the resources needed to promote anti-gun legislation for this new group, the other apparent need for the formation of the organization was that, since anti-gun laws were not being promoted effectively enough through Congress, this group of state legislators was needed to promote attacks on the Second Amendment at the state level.

Yet again, it seems the founders of the group felt the existing anti-gun organizations were not capable of doing what they can; promote gun control at the state level.

Ultimately, the new group is not much of a change from the old groups and doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of any sort of new approach to attacking our right to keep and bear arms. The current number of members amounts to a handful of legislators; an average of fewer than four per state, or a small fraction of 1% of all state legislators in America.

While it is possible the group will grow, its actual impact will likely not. It will have no impact on federal legislation, since that is outside its purview, and state legislative battles will simply continue as they have in the past. States with anti-gun monopolies in power—like California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York—will be able to more easily advance the anti-gun agenda, while states with a history of defending the Second Amendment—like Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and Texas (along with several others)—will continue to make life difficult for anti-gun zealots.

A whole bunch of states in between will see constant back-and-forth battles, as they have for years, but it is unlikely this new group will add much to those battles. It is merely another drop in the bucket of anti-gun extremist organizations. Nonetheless, we will keep monitoring it, as we have all the others.

Read Related: New Anti-Gun Group Focused on State Legislatures

---

About NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

from https://ift.tt/v25cTXJ
via IFTTT

Leftists Buying Guns Nothing for 2A Advocates to Crow About

“Michael Ciemnoczolowski, a lifelong Democrat, supports stricter gun laws and contributes to Sandy Hook Promise, a gun-violence-prevention nonprofit,” The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. “But this summer, the liquor store clerk in Iowa City, Iowa, for the first time in his life bought a gun. Apprehension about street crime, armed right-wing extremists, and ‘whatever else the world could possibly throw at us,’ drove his decision.”

Two recent surveys say gun ownership among Democrats is on the rise. A 2023 Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions survey and a 2022 University of Chicago National Opinion Research survey show an uptick in first-time buyers and more guns in Democrat homes.

That’s a good thing, right?

Not really. Without further data to show this will change voting patterns to oppose citizen disarmament, it simply means they’ve got their guns before the (legal) supply is cut off. And based on comments of new gun owners included in the article, they’re still going to keep voting in prohibitionists.

Prove it to yourself. Go to the websites of two groups cited in the WSJ article, Liberal Gun Owners and L.A. Progressive Shooters, or their social media, and find something– anything—informing members of Democrat threats to gun ownership or Republican-led efforts to protect it. The right to keep and bear arms is a lesser priority for them.

It’s all part of a larger narrative being laid out by media handlers for Kamala: “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away” Harris and uberFudd Tim Walz. And they, of course, are both lying through their teeth.

There are no Second Amendment-supporting Democrats. Supporting any infringement negates the claim that there are. And supporting all of the party platform infringements by voting for the politicians bent on enacting them places Democrat gun owners squarely in the enemy camp. That’s because those they elect will come back for more and more, taking whatever increments Republicans will be craven or dumb enough to them until they have it all.

To anyone who says different, of course, they’re talking about taking your guns. They have been in modern times ever since the Gun Control Act of 1968 principal author Thomas Dodd declared, “I would be for abolishing all guns,” and Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign) founder Pete Shields revealed, “The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.”

Some “gunfluencers,” those with a flaccid grasp of history, come out gushing to their followers every time increased gun sales numbers are announced, mistaking gun ownership and gun skills with fellowship and solidarity. That’s not only shallow and naïve, but it’s also ridiculous. “Diversity” is no guarantee for enhancing Second Amendment recognition.

That doesn’t justify race or gender-based exclusion, by the way, as much as the Democrats want to portray everyone who does not give full-throated support to socialism as a Nazi. A Bill of Rights culture embraces all who embrace it back. It simply acknowledges the truism that armed domestic enemies do not make the Republic a safer place, either the overt “Redneck Revolt” kind or the more dangerous because there are a lot more of them, doctrinaire Democrat kind, who will vote in an administration intent on becoming unchallengeable by opening up Chuck Schumer’s superhighway to citizenship.

Let them remake the courts, and Bruen is history. That’s what these new Democrat gun owners will enable.

And we can see for ourselves that groups like 97percent, that say they can accommodate both sides, are nothing but fraudulent gun-grabber fronts. “Friends across the aisle” is a myth perpetuated by swindlers and by people who aren’t paying attention.

So is “friends across the lane.”

Breaking: Dallas Antifa member Meghan Grant was convicted at trial in Tarrant County, Texas today over her role in a violent attack outside a children’s drag event in Fort Worth, Texas on April 23, 2023.

Grant, who is trans nonbinary and a member of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun… pic.twitter.com/JFAKhZQcEN

— Andy Ngo ️‍ (@MrAndyNgo) September 25, 2024

---

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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

Ex-Cop Guilty of Felony Murder in No Knock Raid

On Wednesday, 25 September, 2024, Houston ex-police officer Gerald Goines was found guilty of two counts of felony murder. Reporters in the courtroom, when the verdict of guilty against former officer Goines was read, said they were shocked he was convicted. Goines has been unconfined for nearly five years after he retired in March of 2019.

The sentencing phase of the current trial will start on September 26, 2024. From click2houston.com:

The jury in the high-profile murder trial of former Houston Police Department narcotics officer Gerald Goines reached a verdict of guilty Wednesday afternoon.

Goines was found guilty of two counts of murder in the 2019 Harding Street raid that resulted in the deaths of Dennis Tuttle, Rhogena Nicholas, and their dog.

The ex-officer’s sentencing phase will begin Thursday at 10 a.m. He faces up to life in prison. The same jury will also decide his sentence after hearing from witnesses during the punishment phase.

Goines’ former partner, Steven Bryant, pleaded guilty to federal charges of altering or falsifying government records in 2021. His testimony was significant at the Goines trial this past week. From click to Houston on September 12, 2024:

After the shooting, Bryant testified that he heard former HPD Chief Art Acevedo tell several officers to turn off their bodycam video, to which they complied. When asked by attorney Manning if this was policy, Bryant testified “We are supposed to keep out bodycams on during a raid.”

Bryant was then asked by attorney Manning if any of the narcotics team had on bodycam video during the raid, Bryant said no but the narcotics team sergeant did have an independent body camera video.

AmmoLand has been at the forefront of reporting on the bloody Harding Street raid since it became known in January 2019.  At the time, it was reported no officers were wearing body cameras. Now we know there were body cameras, but Chief Acevedo ordered them to be turned off.

Chief Acevedo resigned from the Houston PD in 2021 to take a position as police chief in Miami, Florida. He was fired after six months on the job. Then, he became the police chief in Aurora, Colorado, in December 2022. He resigned from the position in January 2023. Acevedo was appointed assistant city manager in Austin in January of 2024, but turned down the position later in the month.  Acevedo’s decision to order officers to turn off body cameras has sparked a controversy.

Four other officers were charged after an investigation by the Harris County Attorney General. From a previous AmmoLand article:

Prosecutors charged six officers, including Goins and Bryant, on 1 July, 2020.

The additional charges are primarily for overcharges of overtime, false claims about money for informants, and tampering with government records. Several of the charges are based on phone records which show what was claimed on government forms could not have happened, given the location records from the phones.  One officer characterized them as “paperwork violations”.  Small violations led to a sloppy attitude about following the rules. Many would say overcharging on overtime is not a small violation.  Then Dennis and Rhogena paid the price.

In January, 2019, two innocent people were killed because dirty police officers lied on a warrant. There is significant evidence the corruption had been ongoing for years.  In the aftermath of the raid many are questioning the utility and overuse of no-knock warrants.

Goines still faces federal charges stemming from the no-knock raid. There are at least two ongoing civil cases resulting from the raid.

---

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

from https://ift.tt/K0iEaQ2
via IFTTT

Kamala Harris “Re-envisioning Public Safety”

Opinion

IMG NRA-ILA

All of her protestations to the contrary, Vice President and Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris has shown, time and again, that she does not believe in the Second Amendment and will do what she can to restrict the gun rights of law-abiding citizens. Quite apart from her extremist anti-gun agenda, Harris has embraced a variety of other policies that will make Americans less safe.

Campaigning against Joe Biden in 2020, Harris promised, as president, to “fundamentally transform how we approach public safety” by “drastically limiting the number of people we expose to our criminal justice system.” At the time, she called herself a progressive prosecutor and her criminal justice platform included eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences for criminal defendants and incentivizing the states to do the same, scrapping cash bail, and decriminalizing illegal border crossings by “undocumented” aliens. Harris’s “defund the police” position included an explicit call for “demilitarizing” police departments, reducing budgets, and “forcing change.” “It is outdated and is actually wrong and backward,” she said, “to think that more police officers will create more safety.”

As CNN later pointed out, once Harris was selected as Biden’s running mate she did a complete about-face, with the Biden campaign asserting that Harris opposed defunding the police and had always supported increasing police funding. “‘Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise,’ Sabrina Singh, Harris’ then-press secretary said in October 2020. ‘Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments …’”

Now that Harris is in the running again, she has likewise strategically repositioned herself as something of law and order candidate, with no reference to her 15-page plan of 2020 to “Transform the Criminal Justice System and Re-Envision Public Safety in America.”

Apart from more gun control, the details of Harris’s current policies on public safety are much less clear, although she still supports ending cash bail.

Recent information out of Chicago indicates that such reforms are associated with an increased likelihood of felony recidivism for persons on pretrial release after a recent arrest.

Illinois made news last year when it enacted legislation that made it the first state in the nation to abolish cash bail. As part of dismantling and rebuilding the legal framework on the pretrial release of criminal defendants, the law eliminated cash bail, established a default presumption that all defendants were eligible for pretrial release, and limited the crimes for which a court could order a defendant detained pending trial.

A year after the law went into effect, one researcher says “[w]e can’t say whether it’s had an impact on crime.” While crime did not appear to increase in 2024 as compared to 2023, he cautioned that the findings were too preliminary, given that many of the most serious criminal cases filed in 2023 were still pending a court resolution.

CWB Chicago, a local crime reporting site, has done its own “deep dive” into Cook County records to evaluate how the new law affects crimes by Chicago’s pretrial detainees. It looked at the percentage of new felony crimes attributable, allegedly, to persons on pretrial release, and discovered that almost a fifth of felony charges involved such individuals.

After reviewing court files on felonies (excluding domestic cases) committed in Chicago, CWB Chicago found that 18.1% of new felony cases were filed against people who were already on misdemeanor or felony pretrial release (and two-thirds of the new charges involved persons on pretrial release for a felony). During the same period in the 2023 “cash bail” era, court documents “showed that only 8.5% of defendants facing new felony charges were noted as being in violation of bail bond.” The new number – nearly 20% of people arrested and charged with felonies in Chicago being on pretrial release for another pending criminal case – “appears to be substantially higher than during a comparable period …when Illinois still operated on a cash bail system.”

The folks at CWB Chicago have another metric regarding bail reform, pretrial release and crime. In 2019, after “Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans publicly stated, ‘We haven’t had any horrible incidents occur’” under that court’s affordable bail reform initiative, CWB Chicago began documenting instances of individuals, while out on felony pretrial release, being accused of killing, shooting, or trying to kill or shoot others. So far this year there have been at least 25 such cases, with the latest concerning an individual charged with first degree murder for allegedly shooting a man.

The 25 horrible cases this year represent 40 victims, eight of whom died. (Since 2020, the total number of alleged crime victims of people awaiting trial for a felony in Chicago is at least 388, of whom 130 died.) Significantly, as the website explains, these figures are a considerable underrepresentation. “The actual number of murders and shootings committed by people awaiting trial for felony allegations is undoubtedly much higher than the numbers seen here. Since 2017, CPD has brought charges in less than 5% of non-fatal shootings and 33% of murders, according to the city’s data.”

It is likely too soon to assess the effect of the new Illinois law across the state, but there is reason to believe, as Donald Trump’s campaign states, that the elimination of cash bail is part of the “turnstile justice” approach that drives up crime rates, representing “a catastrophe for public safety [that] puts more violent criminals back on the streets to cause further mayhem.”

Kamala Harris’s breakdown of campaign issues and policies this time around avoids anything like her explicit soft-on-crime plan of 2020. What is apparent is that her 2024 version of “re-envisioning” of public safety in America is just a different reformulation of prioritizing criminals (“justice impacted individuals”) over victims, by proposing the most radical anti-gun administration in American history.

---

About NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

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

Fort v. Grisham: Breaking Down the Fight Over “Sensitive Places” ~ VIDEO

Opinion
H/T and video by Mark Smith of The Four Boxes Diner

In the ongoing debate over gun rights, the Second Amendment Foundation case of Fort v. Grisham is making waves as it addresses the contentious issue of where firearms can be carried. Specifically, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit recently heard oral arguments concerning New Mexico’s controversial decision to ban firearms in certain public areas, including playgrounds and parks.

This case is significant for Second Amendment advocates because it’s a direct challenge to New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham’s emergency order, which sought to limit the presence of firearms in these areas due to a rise in violence. On one side, organizations like the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, and Firearms Policy Coalition are pushing back against what they see as unconstitutional restrictions. On the other side, the state argues that these bans are necessary for public safety.

More BackGround:

“On September 7, 2023, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued Executive Order 2023-130 declaring a state of emergency exists in New Mexico related to “gun violence”. Based upon the declaration of an emergency, Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Health, Patrick Allen, issued a “Public Health Emergency Order Imposing Temporary Firearm Restrictions, Drug Monitoring, and Other Public Safety Measures” on September 8, 2023.

The Orders make it illegal, until at least October 6, 2023, for “ordinary, law-abiding citizens” of New Mexico to carry firearms in public for self-defense in Albuquerque or Bernalillo County. Put another way, the Orders banned carry in two of New Mexico’s counties in direct defiance of the clear command of the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s edicts.”

The Legal Battle: What’s at Stake?

The primary focus of the court’s discussion wasn’t just on the Second Amendment, but also on procedural issues like standing and mootness—questions about whether the plaintiffs are even in a position to bring the lawsuit. However, the meat of the argument centers around whether the government has the right to restrict firearms in public places deemed “sensitive,” like parks and playgrounds.

Governor Grisham’s team heavily relies on historical precedents from the late 19th century to support these restrictions, but the plaintiffs argue that the relevant time period for interpreting the Second Amendment is much earlier—1791, when the Second Amendment was adopted. The court seemed to lean in favor of this argument, noting that regulations from the 1800s shouldn’t necessarily override the original intent behind the right to bear arms.

Key Arguments: Historical Context Matters

One of the most compelling points made during the hearing was about the interpretation of historical laws. The judges expressed skepticism over New Mexico’s reliance on laws from the late 19th century, arguing that those laws might not accurately reflect the country’s founding principles. The plaintiffs pointed out that in the 18th century, there were public areas, similar to modern parks, where firearms were not restricted. For example, Boston Common—used for grazing animals and recreation—had no firearm bans in place.

Furthermore, the judges explored the idea that many 19th-century parks imposed not just gun bans but restrictions on free speech, loud talking, and even stepping on the grass. If those regulations wouldn’t stand today, why should the gun bans from that era be considered legitimate?

The “Sensitive Places” Debate

The concept of “sensitive places” is central to this case. The government argues that places like schools, playgrounds, and parks should be treated as sensitive areas where firearms can be restricted. However, the plaintiffs countered that the Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court only identifies three specific types of sensitive places—polling places, legislative chambers, and courthouses—and any other restrictions must be justified by historical analogies.

The playground debate is particularly tricky because the term itself is vague. Does it apply to playgrounds at schools, in malls, or even at fast-food restaurants? The plaintiffs argue that this lack of clarity weakens the government’s case.

What’s Next?

This case highlights the ongoing struggle between state governments and Second Amendment advocates over the scope of gun regulations. With the 10th Circuit court hearing the arguments, the decision could set an important precedent for similar cases across the country. As the court deliberates, one thing is clear: the historical context of the Second Amendment remains a critical battleground for both sides.

For gun rights advocates, cases like Fort v. Grisham underscore the importance of understanding not just the modern implications of firearm regulations but also the historical foundations of these laws. Whether this case is decided on procedural grounds or the merits of the Second Amendment itself, it serves as a reminder that the fight to protect gun rights is as much about legal strategy as it is about the Constitution.

Stay tuned for more updates on this and other major Second Amendment cases.

Read Related: Dangers of Misrepresenting History: Malcolm Gladwell, Sir John Knight, & the 2nd Amendment

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

Recent Overdose Trends Underline the Folly of the War on Drugs: Both Trump & Harris Support Supply-Side Tactics

Opinion

iStock-Stephen Barnes

The annual U.S. death toll from illegal drugs, which has risen nearly every year since the turn of the century, is expected to fall substantially this year. The timing of that turnaround poses a problem for politicians who aim to prevent substance abuse by disrupting the drug supply.

Those politicians include Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who promises to deploy the military against drug traffickers, and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, whose platform is also heavy on supply-side tactics. Neither candidate seems to have absorbed the lessons of the “opioid epidemic,” which showed that drug law enforcement is not just ineffective but counterproductive, magnifying the harms it is supposed to alleviate.

In the first two decades of this century, the annual number of drug-related deaths quintupled, reaching a record of nearly 108,000 in 2022. That year, illicit fentanyl figured in 90% of opioid-related deaths and more than two-thirds of all drug-related deaths.

“We took the drug and fentanyl crisis head on, and we achieved the first reduction in overdose deaths in more than 30 years,” Trump brags, referring to the 4% drop between 2017 and 2018, which in retrospect looks like a blip. The upward trend resumed in 2019, and it included a record 30% jump in 2020, Trump’s final year in office.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded a 3% reduction in fatal overdoses, similar to the 2018 decrease that Trump cites as evidence of his success. But unlike the 2018 drop, this one seems to be continuing: According to preliminary CDC data, the death toll for the year ending in April 2024 was 10% lower than the death toll for the year ending in April 2023.

Nabarun Dasgupta and two other drug researchers at the University of North Carolina found that the downward national trend indicated by the CDC’s provisional counts was consistent with state-level mortality data and with overdose cases reported by hospitals and emergency responders.

‘”Our conclusion is that the dip in overdoses is real,” they write, although “it remains to be seen how long it will be sustained.”

While replacing street drugs with methadone or buprenorphine reduces overdose risk, Dasgupta et al. say, it does not look like expanded access to such “medication-assisted treatment” can account for the recent drop in deaths. But they think it is “plausible” that broader distribution of the opioid antagonist naloxone, which quickly reverses fentanyl and heroin overdoses, has played a role.

By contrast, Dasgupta et al. say it is “unlikely” that antidrug operations along the U.S.-Mexico border have helped reduce overdoses. They note that recent border seizures have mainly involved marijuana and methamphetamine rather than fentanyl, the primary culprit in overdoses, and that retail drug prices have been falling in recent years — the opposite of what you would expect if interdiction were effective.

Supply-side measures, which are doomed by the economics of prohibition, not only have failed to reduce drug-related deaths. They have had the opposite effect.

Prohibition makes drug use much more dangerous by creating a black market in which quality and purity are highly variable and unpredictable, and efforts to enforce prohibition increase those hazards. The crackdown on pain pills, for example, drove nonmedical users toward black-market substitutes, replacing legally produced, reliably dosed pharmaceuticals with iffy street drugs, which became even iffier thanks to the prohibition-driven proliferation of illicit fentanyl.

That crackdown succeeded in reducing opioid prescriptions, which fell by more than half from 2010 to 2022. Meanwhile, the opioid-related death rate more than tripled, while the annual number of opioid-related deaths nearly quadrupled.

Trump and Harris seem unfazed by that debacle. Trump imagines “a full naval embargo on the drug cartels,” while Harris aspires to “disrupt the flow of illicit drugs.” They promise to achieve the impossible while glossing over the costs of persisting in a strategy that has failed for more than a century.

---

About Jacob Sullum

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @JacobSullum. During two decades in journalism, he has relentlessly skewered authoritarians of the left and the right, making the case for shrinking the realm of politics and expanding the realm of individual choice. Jacobs’ work appears here at AmmoLand News through a license with Creators Syndicate.

Jacob Sullum

from https://ift.tt/81B6v7U
via IFTTT

MD: Brief Submitted in ‘Red Flag’ Challenge Where Marine Corps Veteran Suffered Humiliating Involuntary Mental Health Evaluation

iStock

Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Maryland resident Donald S. Willey have submitted an appellants’ brief to the Maryland Supreme Court in their federal challenge of that state’s so-called “red flag” law. The case is known as Willey v. Brown and was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in August 2023.

Mr. Willey, a 64-year-old Marine Corps veteran, has been battling officials in Maryland’s Dorchester County over alleged di minimis nuisance and zoning infractions. Ultimately, Willey became the subject of an Extreme Risk Protective Order (“ERPO”) to have his firearms and ammunition confiscated for allegedly making threats, which Willey steadfastly denied. Willey was forced to endure a humiliating involuntary mental health evaluation. The federal lawsuit alleges Willey’s constitutional rights were violated for nearly two weeks, after which his firearms were returned.

Background from the complaint:

On June 15, 2023, after a Temporary Extreme Risk Protective Order (ERPO) was issued against Willey, Dorchester County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at his residence to seize his firearms. Despite Willey’s cooperation in surrendering his firearms to avoid arrest, he was informed that he was required to undergo an involuntary mental health evaluation at the University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Cambridge.

Willey was transported to the hospital against his will, where he was subjected to several non-consensual tests, including a blood-alcohol test, a comprehensive metabolic panel, and a urinalysis drug screen. He was also forced to change into a hospital gown for the evaluation. According to the complaint, this experience was deeply humiliating and traumatic for Willey, resulting in a diagnosis of “acute stress reaction” due to the extreme circumstances surrounding the seizure of his firearms and the evaluation process.

This incident underscores Willey’s legal argument that the Red Flag Law violated his constitutional rights by authorizing such measures without sufficient probable cause.

SAF and Mr. Willey are represented by attorneys Mark W. Pennak at Maryland Shall Issue in Baltimore, and by Edward A. Paltzik, Serge Krimnus and Meredith Lloyd at Bochner PLLC in New York.

While the federal case remains active, it hinges on the interpretation of Maryland state law, so the federal district court certified two questions of law for the Maryland Supreme Court to answer. Once the Maryland courts interpret/define “reasonable grounds” as used in the state’s ERPO law, the federal lawsuit will resume. Those questions are:

• What legal standard does the term “reasonable grounds” connote in the Maryland RFL, codified in Title Five of the Public Safety Article of Maryland Annotated Code?
• Does the statute permit an ERPO to issue upon a standard less than probable cause?

“This case is about how so-called ‘red-flag laws’ can be weaponized against private citizens, and in order to flesh this out for our federal case, we’re asking the Maryland high court to define the meaning of ‘reasonable grounds’ in the state ERPO statute,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb explained.

“Answers to our questions will help make our case against Maryland’s law,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Red flag laws are based on the inherently Orwellian belief that you can take actions against someone for an alleged crime that hasn’t occurred. Such laws authorize seizure and punishment for a crime nobody committed but which could occur at some place and time in the future. The concept is absurd.”

For more information, visit saf.org.

---

Second Amendment Foundation

The Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, SAF has grown to more than 720,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

from https://ift.tt/P4pg9Xm
via IFTTT

Notice of Appeal to Ninth Circuit Filed in Montana Gun Free School Zone Case

Vivian and Gabriel’s modest home in Billings, Montana

A notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been filed in the Gun-Free School Zone case in Billings, Montana.

The notice was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Billings Division, on August 6, 2024. The case was settled with a plea agreement on August 2, 2024. Judge Susan P. Waters did not impose a fine or prison time, but Gabriel was sentenced to three years probation. The probation includes paying $75 per month for the costs of administering it.

During the court hearings, Gabriel Metcalf preserved the right to appeal through his federal attorney, Russel Hart. From the Notice of Appeal:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Defendant GABRIEL COWAN METCALF, appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from the Judgment filed and entered against him in the District Court on August 2, 2024.This appeal is from the District Court’s denial of Mr. Metcalf’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment.

The issue was preserved pursuant to a plea agreement that was accepted by the District Court at the time of sentencing.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED August 6, 2024.

Gabriel has a clean record with no history of violence or criminal activity. He was repeatedly told by Billings police officers, in person and in media interviews by police officials, that he was exercising his rights when he was outside his home with a single-shot Rossi Shotgun. Gabriel and his mother had been stalked by a neighbor who assaulted Gabriel. The neighbor had been convicted of assault and violating a court order of protection.

Part of the plea deal was for Gabriel to forfeit the Rossi single shot shotgun and the six rounds of ammunition, which was found when the federal task force served the warrant to search his and his mother’s home.

This case is very clean, without other issues of criminality. It makes for a good challenge to the Gun-Free School Zone Act (GFSZA).  Montana and, therefore, Billings are in the Ninth District Court of Appeals, which has a history of defying the Supreme Court on Second Amendment cases.  Gabriel has a chance of winning with a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit. The record of the Ninth Circuit is such: if a three-judge panel rules in favor of the Second Amendment, the case will be re-heard en banc, and the en banc panel will reverse the case. This only leaves an appeal to the Supreme Court.

There is another case challenging the Gun Free School Zone Act playing out in the Fifth Circuit in Texas.  The case in the Fifth Circuit has attracted the attention of the California Rifle and Pistol Association and the Second Amendment Foundation. They have filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief. Now that the Billings case is being formally appealed, amicus briefs may be filed for it.

The GFSZA was already found to be unconstitutional in 1995, because it was not a valid use of federal power. President Clinton and his Attorney General Janet Reno pushed to have 12 words in the act changed, which some courts have found to render the act acceptable under the Constitution. The current challenge is based on the Second Amendment, not the Commerce Clause.

Gabriel and his mother, Vivian, are barely scraping by in Billings.  Gabriel’s mother, Vivian, has set up a GiveSendGo account to aid in defense of their home and the expenses arising from the case.

---

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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