Are Governor Murphy’s Gun Laws Putting NJ Residents in Danger?

Are Governor Murphy’s Gun Laws Putting NJ Residents in Danger?

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- In Newark, New Jersey a crime is committed every 28 minutes, Citizens have a 1 in 190 chance of being the victim of a violent crime and they have a 1 in 47 chance of being the victim of a non-violent crime. Living in some southern neighborhoods of Newark will increase your chances of being a victim of violent crime to as high as 1 in 3.

Criminals in New Jersey enjoy doing their dirty work in a State that has the strictest gun laws next to California because most of the State’s population has been disarmed and rendered helpless due to Constitution-violating gun laws. Governor Phil Murphy is pushing for even more of those laws during his second term in office. Even though there are over 4500 sex offenders living in New Jersey, Governor Murphy is not wavering on his position to implement more gun restrictions that will undoubtedly put New Jersey Citizens in more danger by making them vulnerable. Murphy is taking advantage of the leverage he has with his Democratic-controlled Legislature as he makes another attempt at attacking the Citizens’ gun rights and their ability to defend themselves in the crime-ridden Garden State.

On June 3, 2015, New Jersey gun laws caused Carol Bowne to be stabbed to death by her convicted felon ex-boyfriend Michael Eitel while she waited for her handgun permit after filing police reports and protection orders. Carol feared for her life but New Jersey decided that it was best to keep her unarmed and helpless long after, the already dangerous 30-day waiting period, had been exhausted.

Governor Murphy is doubling down on more gun restrictions that will do nothing to stop criminals and killers and everything to put more New Jersey Residents in danger. As Democrats typically do, Murphy calls these gun restrictions “common sense” and says that these new restrictions will “keep guns out of the wrong hands.” Not to be outdone by his anti-gun peers, Murphy used the typical talking points when referring to his proposed ban on .50 caliber guns. He said “who can seriously argue these ‘weapons of war’ belong on our streets?” It seems the Governor has a thing for .50 caliber firearms. According to Newsmax, he is concerned with these guns because they “can take down helicopters.” Are we having a problem with people shooting helicopters out of the sky in Jersey?

The following is a list of the proposed bills:

• Require gun owners in the state to store firearms and ammunition separately in a lockbox or safe. It would also stiffen penalties for those who fail to do so. (A2215)
• Require gun owners who move to New Jersey to obtain a firearm purchaser ID card and register their guns within 60 days. (A1179)
• Require people who buy guns in the state to renew their purchaser ID card every four years and show proof of taking a course on safe handling and storage of firearms. (A993)
• Ban the future sales of .50 caliber guns in the state and require current owners of them to register them and pay a $50 fee. (A1416)
• Raise the age at which a person in the state is eligible to receive a firearms purchaser identification card used to purchase shotguns and rifles from 18 to 21. (A509)
• Require ammunition manufacturers and dealers to keep a detailed electronic record of sales and report them to the State Police. (A1302)
• Amend the state’s public nuisance laws to prohibit the gun industry from endangering the safety or health of the public through its sale, manufacturing, importing, or marketing of guns. (A1765)
• Mandate firearm manufacturers to, within a year, incorporate micro-stamping technology into new handguns sold in New Jersey to provide law enforcement with a tool to quickly link firearm cartridge casings found at the scene of a crime to a specific firearm, without having to recover the firearm itself. (A1462)

Executive Director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Scott Bach said, “Not one of Governor Murphy’s schemes punishes gun crime, instead, every single one interferes with the Constitutional right of honest Citizens to defend themselves in an emergency.”

Alan Gottlieb, Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) Founder said: “Someone needs to tell Governor Murphy that a gun does not have a brain to hate with or a finger to pull its own trigger. He needs to support legislation that keeps violent criminals off the streets and stop attacking gun ownership for law abiding New Jersey people.”

Governor Murphy seems determined to push this package of gun control on the Citizens of New Jersey regardless of the data and information staring him in the face that tells him he will be putting good people in danger by doing so.

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About Dan Wos, Author – Good Gun Bad Guy

Dan Wos is available for Press Commentary. For more information contact PR HERE

Dan Wos is a nationally recognized 2nd Amendment advocate and Author of the “GOOD GUN BAD GUY” series. He speaks at events, is a contributing writer for many publications, and can be found on radio stations across the country. Dan has been a guest on the Sean Hannity Show, NRATV, and several others. Speaking on behalf of gun-rights, Dan exposes the strategies of the anti-gun crowd and explains their mission to disarm law-abiding American gun-owners.

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Missouri Self-Defense Bill Referred to Committee Again

House Bill 1462, to reduce areas where law-abiding citizens are left defenseless, has been referred to Senate Governmental Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee. IMG iStock-884171048

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- House Bill 1462, to reduce areas where law-abiding citizens are left defenseless, has been referred to Senate Governmental Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee. Please contact committee members and ask them to SUPPORT HB 1462 and schedule it for a hearing.

CLICK HERE TAKE ACTION!

House Bill 1462 repeals arbitrary “gun-free zones” that do nothing to hinder criminals, while leaving law-abiding citizens defenseless. It removes the prohibition on law-abiding citizens carrying firearms for self-defense on public transit property and in vehicles. This ensures that citizens with varying commutes throughout their day, and of various economic means, are able to exercise their Second Amendment rights and defend themselves.

The bill also repeals the prohibition in state law against carrying firearms for self-defense in places of worship. This empowers private property owners to make such decisions regarding security on their own, rather than the government mandating a one-size-fits-all solution.

Again, please contact committee members and ask them to SUPPORT HB 1462 and schedule it for a hearing.

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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

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Tired Of Bad Statewide Candidates? Start Developing The Next Ones Now

Take Action Time to Act

United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- In some ways, whether it’s Doctor Oz in Pennsylvania or another disappointment elsewhere (like Larry Hogan), Second Amendment supporters have to take some responsibility for the present case. Why? Because they didn’t have a deep enough bench.

Many hopes were pinned on Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania, but when a messy divorce knocked him out, there just wasn’t a Plan B available. So, we have to make do with what options there are in the Keystone State. Ohio is similarly messy, largely because two candidates nearly had a brawl during a debate. Think that helps advance the cause of the Second Amendment?

The fact of the matter is, though, statewide elections are where things can get touchy. In some of the most crucial states that decide presidential elections (Pennsylvania, Michigan), they can be expensive. In other states (Maryland, Washington, Minnesota), the political terrain may be more difficult.

This is not to say that getting good statewide candidates is hopeless. Far from it. See Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and Jason Miyares from Virginia as three such examples. In fact, each show the types of candidates Second Amendment supporters could face, but each of them will also require different approaches.

Youngkin, in some ways, was an excellent candidate. As a successful businessman, he was an outsider and able to put a fair bit of his own money in Virginia’s gubernatorial election. Candidates like Youngkin can be very good (see Trump as an example) on our rights, or they can be Larry Hogans. The best way to reach these candidates is to do so long before they’re candidates. Talking with friends about Second Amendment issues is crucial.

In the cases of Sears and Miyares, both rose from the state legislature. Here, Second Amendment supporters’ best shot of developing statewide candidates is to ask them the right questions when they run for local office or the state legislature the first time. However, just electing someone who supports the Second Amendment is not enough.

Equally important will be putting in the work to maintain relationships and to be among those who can help a state legislator amass the resources needed to go state-wide. That may take time, but if Second Amendment supporters can find and develop the talent today, we don’t have to settle for a Doctor Oz type ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now.

But there is another part: Second Amendment supporters must be willing to put in the effort to make the terrain in more inhospitable places friendlier. That requires heeding the lessons of the 2021 election. Reaching out to voters will pay off. In some cases, it may be a long-term effort.

It would be nice to have a situation where there are a wealth of good candidates for statewide offices in all 50 states. We’re not there yet, but there is a way to make that happen, and make it easier to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local level.

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About Harold Hutchison

Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.

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Waking Up to ‘Woke’ Corporate Discrimination

By Larry Keane

A new trend is emerging in the business world. iStock-Lazy_Bear 1137891404

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- A new trend is emerging in the business world.  Business leaders are waking up to the destructive “woke” policies being foisted on businesses by boardrooms more concerned with virtue signaling than their primary responsibility of ensuring corporate profitability and enhancing shareholder values.

In short, the “woke” buck stops here, more corporate executives are saying. Mixing the politics of culture wars with business is a losing strategy.

Former McDonald’s CEO Ed Rensi is leading the charge. He ran McDonalds from 1991-1997, bringing the chain’s McNugget to market and also served on the boards of Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que, Great Wolf Resorts, and Snap-on Inc. These days, he’s launching The Boardroom Initiative, comprised of three conservative advocacy groups — The Job Creators Network, which was founded by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, The Free Enterprise Group and Second Vote. The goal: get business back to business and out of politics.

“Corporations have no business being on the right or the left because they represent everybody there and their sole job is to build equity for their investors,” Rensi told FOX Business.

Rensi knows how to grow a business. While leading Mcdonald’s, he saw U.S. sales double to more than $16 billion, the number of U.S. restaurants grow from nearly 6,600 to more than 12,000 and the number of U.S. franchisees grow from 1,600 to more than 2,700.

“It is not the providence of board members or executives that take shareholder money profit and spend it on social matters,” Rensi explained. “Corporations should not get involved in social engineering.”

‘Woke’ Banks

Corporate adoption of “woke” policies that attempt to sway public policies on everything from energy investments to the Second Amendment is crippling businesses. Corporate discrimination is nothing new to the firearm industry. It’s a battle NSSF has been engaged in for years.

Corporate banks are engaged in “woke” discrimination against firearm businesses. Banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have all adopted discriminatory policies unfairly denying financial services to firearm-related businesses simply because they don’t like the products that are lawfully made and sold. They want gun manufacturers to adopt policies that exceed federal and state law and would deny Americans their Second Amendment rights, including demanding a ban on the sale of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) and standard capacity magazines as well as instituting age-based gun bans that deny law-abiding adults under 21 their complete civil liberties.

The “woke” gun control policies aren’t just embraced by corporate boardroom executives that are unaccountable to American voters. Investor groups and state treasurers have their own pressure campaign to divest state retirement funds from firearm businesses to financially starve them too.

California’s Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, has been active in the divestment game to discriminate against firearm businesses at the cost of their own investors. Fund managers ignore their fiduciary responsibility to California’s public workers and instead advance a “woke” discriminatory gun control agenda. As of 2019, these discriminatory policies cost CalPERS over $11 million to cover retirements that are underfunded by as much as $600 billion.

Even the “Oracle of Omaha” Warren Buffett isn’t immune to “woke” policies being driven by special-interest investors. Buffett refused to divest Berkshire Hathaway’s funds in firearm company investments in 2018. He told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, “I don’t believe in imposing my political opinions on the activities of our businesses.”

These days, CalPERS is attempting to strip Buffett of his Berkshire Hathaway chairmanship. CalPERS has a .3 percent stake in Berkshire Hathaway and Buffett’s return on investments is nearly triple that of CalPERS over 20 years. Yet, it’s CalPERS ignores profitable investments for “woke” policies and think they know better than Buffet when it comes to investing.

Connecticut’s Democratic state Treasurer Shawn Wooden announced in 2019 that he directed $30 million in equity investments tied to firearm manufacturers to be divested from the state’s pension fund. In 2021, Connecticut was rated as having the worst-funded state pension fund in the country. Not surprisingly, Treasurer Wooden announced just weeks ago he wouldn’t seek re-election.

There’s also the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) that purchased nominal shares in Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger & Co. They used their shares to attempt to force Smith & Wesson to adopt a statement on human rights and to make a public accounting of the cost of criminal misuse of firearms. Their last attempt in 2020 was rejected by shareholders. ICCR teamed with the investment giant BlackRock to force the company to produce a report on the “development of safer firearms.”

BlackRock’s founder and chief executive Larry Fink wrote a letter in January defending investor activism, writing, “Capital markets have allowed companies and countries to flourish. But access to capital is not a right,” Fink wrote to chief executives according to The New York Times. “It is a privilege. And the duty to attract that capital in a responsible and sustainable way lies with you.”

That’s Fink using the power of his purse to tell publicly traded companies to kowtow to “woke” capitalism.

Waking Up

These “woke” policies aren’t just being rejected by business leaders for being destructive to business. Woke politics is being rejected by elected officials. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva rejected “woke-ism” that is wreaking havoc in his county and says midterm elections will be a referendum on their failing legacies. Los Angeles’ “woke-ism” led to record homelessness and out-of-control crime.

“Woke-ism is on the ropes. Let’s put it out of its misery in 2022,” Sheriff Villanueva told Fox News. “My only goal is to make LA livable again.”

When it comes to “woke” gun control targeting the firearm industry, governors and legislatures are standing up. Texas Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott signed the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act into law in 2021. That bill bars states from holding municipal contracts while discriminating against firearm businesses. Six sitting Republican governors attended NSSF’s first-ever Governors Forum at SHOT Show 2022 and told the audience they wouldn’t tolerate discrimination against gun companies.

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt told Breitbart, “We believe in freedom for businesses, but the distinction is, we will not let a bank do business with the state of Oklahoma and also discriminate.”

FIND Act legislation similar to Texas’s law is pending in Oklahoma. Missouri and Arizona have similar bills waiting for Senate votes. U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) introduced similar legislation, H.R. 6970, in Congress. That’s in addition to the Fair Access to Banking Act introduced by U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as S. 563 and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) as H.R. 1729. Those bills would stop corporate banks from picking winners and losers based on executives’ personal politics. It also protects banks from outside pressure by special interest groups seeking to use the banks as a political weapon to advance their agenda.

Louisiana’s House of Representatives Republican Majority Leader Blake Miguez has reintroduced the FIND Act in his state after it was vetoed last year by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. That legislation has the support of the Republican state Treasurer John Schroeder and Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Louisiana’s Bond Commission, on which AG Landry serves, removed JPMorgan Chase from a $700 million gas-and-fuel tax bond series in November 2021, after the bank failed to respond to questions about its firearm lending policies.

It wasn’t the first time Louisiana told banks that the Second Amendment wasn’t for sale. The state barred Citigroup and Bank of America from taking part in a debt offering in 2018, citing their “restrictive gun policies.”

“Woke” capitalism isn’t just bad policy. It is a dangerous policy. It supplants public policy-making by elected officials who are accountable to voters by unaccountable corporate boards executing policy by corporate fiat. It leaves American rights, especially Second Amendment rights, vulnerable to a series of “corporately-endorsed privileges” and not a right of the people at all.

Turns out, that’s bad business too.

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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

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Elon Musk’s Twitter Purchase Good For Gun Owners… Probably

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Gun owners have never had a level playing field on Twitter… or any other social media platform. It was always as if someone was looking over your shoulder – someone always was.

Anyone who has posted support for the Second Amendment on Twitter for any length of time – I’ve had an account since 2013 – has more than a few horror stories about how they were mistreated by the platform’s community standards apparatchiks.

If a Twitter hall monitor determined a tweet violated their nebulous Twitter Rules, punishments could range from a label, which warned readers the tweet contained disputed or misleading information, to limiting the tweet’s visibility, to limiting engagements such as likes, retweets, and replies, to temporary or permanent suspensions of the offending account. To be clear, these were just the public punishments – punishments that the user was told about. The secret punishments were much more troublesome, such as shadow-banning conservative voices and deleting their followers without notice.

I hope Elon Musk makes public the nefarious algorithms and biased practices that have punished and bedeviled conservative Twitter users since the site began.

Why put up with Twitter’s obvious anti-conservative bias?

Because, as Musk himself just tweeted, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

Yesss!!! pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022

In other words, if you value your message, Twitter is a good vehicle to get your message heard.

Info is Ammo

If I had a dollar for every time someone said we need a conservative-friendly platform similar to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, I’d have enough to buy a really good bottle of bourbon. It’s certainly not easy to create a new social media platform, as we have seen with President Donald Trump’s new site, Truth Social, ( Follow AmmoLand News on Truth Social @AmmoLand) and the growing pains it was experiencing. There were thousands of folks waiting for access in Truth Social’s online queue, but after a partnership with Rumble, TS expanded capacity, and those waiting made it onto the platform. But before that correction, the few early Truthers complained there was limited engagement – in other words, there’s no one to talk to.

The one thing Twitter and Facebook have now, which a new site will always struggle to achieve, is that they are platforms in common usage, not unlike an AR Rifle – everybody’s got one. Twitter definitely has its share of problems, which we hope Musk will fix, but nearly everyone has the app on their phone or laptop. Common usage is extremely important, especially now, because we need the numbers.

The Biden-Harris administration’s war on our guns uses secrecy as a weapon – private White House meetings held in backrooms without transcripts or public notice, where unelected officials plot how to infringe upon our Second Amendment rights. Only by publicly exposing these secret gatherings can these secret gatherings be stopped.

Information has become ammunition in Joe Biden’s war on our guns. This is why the gun-banners and the rest of the left are so violently and vehemently opposed to Musk’s purchase. They have relied upon Twitter’s censorship of conservative thoughts and ideas for years. Now, once the censorship is removed as Musk has promised to do, they cannot fathom a society where speech is actually free and not something they can rigidly control.

Twitter has long been the province of the mainstream journalist. Many – especially the blue checkmarks at CNN, or anti-gun NBC hack, Vaughn Hillyard  – use it as a reporting tool. The legacy media’s stranglehold on free speech is now ending too, thanks to Mr. Musk, and they’re pushing back hard, especially on liberal networks like CNN, NBC, and MSLSD. If the Lemons, Maddows, and Reids of the world are united in opposition to anything, it must be a boon for those who value personal freedoms and individual liberties such as free speech, right?

For now, at least until Musk proves me wrong, I will continue to rely upon Twitter as an information source and to post my stories. You can find them here.

This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.

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About Lee Williams

Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.

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New Hampshire Close to Passing Off Road Vehicle Carry Reform

New Hampshire Close to Passing Off Road Vehicle Carry Reform IMG iStock ID: 884214472

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-– New Hampshire is getting close to passing a reform of current carry restrictions. The current law restricts the carry of loaded handguns on off-road vehicles, including snowmobiles, to those with a carry permit.

The law is a relic of the days before New Hampshire passed Constitutional Carry in February of 2017, five years ago.  On March 10, 2022, the New Hampshire House passed the bill easily, 204 to 134, with 54 not voting.  HB 1636 reforms the law to remove the carry permit requirement for carry of loaded firearms on off-road vehicles. On April 20, 2022, the bill passed the Senate Transportation Committee with a vote of “ought to pass”.  From HB 1636:

1  Off Highway Recreational Vehicles; Loaded Firearms Prohibited.  Amend RSA 215-A:20 to read as follows:

215-A:20  Loaded Firearms Forbidden.  No person shall carry on an OHRV, or a trailer towed by same, any firearms unless said firearm is unloaded.  This section shall not apply to law enforcement officers carrying firearms in the course of duty or to pistols or revolvers carried [under a permit issued pursuant to the authority of RSA 159] by any person who is not prohibited from possessing a firearm by a New Hampshire statute.

2  Snowmobiles; Loaded Firearms Forbidden.  Amend RSA 215-C:35 to read as follows:

215-C:35  Loaded Firearms Forbidden.  No person shall carry on a snowmobile, or a trailer towed by same, any firearms unless said firearm is unloaded.  This section shall not apply to law enforcement officers carrying firearms in the course of duty or to pistols or revolvers carried [under a permit issued pursuant to the authority of RSA 159] by any person who is not prohibited from possessing a firearm by a New Hampshire statute.

3  Effective Date.  This act shall take effect upon its passage.

The bill is a relatively mild reform that cleans up a loose end from the era before Constitutional Carry was restored in New Hampshire.

Most bills that make it out of committee are allowed to be voted on in the Senate. The New Hampshire Senate has 14 Republicans and 10 Democrats. 

In 2018, a similar bill, HB 1313, was tabled in the Senate and never voted on, after passing the House.  House Bill 1313 passed the House with a vote of  181 to 148. Here is part of the testimony from the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition in 2018:   It is not clear if the link is still active in the quote.

by NHFC, Inc. on April 16, 2018

Today I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of HB 1313 which was introduced by Rep. John Burt (R-Hillsborough 13) to extend last years Constitutional Carry law to snowmobiles and ATVs.


HB 1313 is a simple bill that merely repeals the requirement(s) that those who wish to carry a loaded pistol or revolver on a snowmobile or ATV first obtain a New Hampshire Pistol / Revolver license. These statutes are inconsistent with Constitutional Carry and need to be repealed. We expect that HB 1313 should pass into law without significant opposition. Click here or scroll down to see how to help enact HB 1313 into law.

This correspondent expects Republican Governor Sununu to sign the bill if it is voted on in the Senate and makes it to his office.

There is enough time left in the legislative session to do so. The New Hampshire legislative session is scheduled to end on June 30th, according to Ballotpedia.

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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.

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How Can Second Amendment Supporters Go On Offense?

Take Action Time to Act

United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Second Amendment supporters often view success by what doesn’t get passed. Don’t get me wrong, stopping assaults on our Second Amendment rights is very important. But there is also a growing need to take the offensive.

The fact is, there are some areas where legislation can make a big difference. The fact is, anti-Second Amendment extremists have opened new avenues to attack our rights, and in some cases, the only way to put a halt to them is by passing legislation – and some legislation needs to be high priority.

While President Biden will veto any pro-Second Amendment legislation passed by Congress, even after the midterms, there are steps that can be taken at the state level.

Financial Deplatforming

Unfortunately, banks and other financial institutions can either act to support anti-Second Amendment extremism on their own or be bullied into doing so. While some states are taking half-measures, there is a need for a harder line when it comes to financial deplatforming.

If FFLs or pro-Second Amendment groups – or activists – can be excluded from obtaining financial services, the Second Amendment itself will die a slow death. This threat is so serious, it should be the top legislative priority at the state level – even over constitutional carry.

Strengthening The Protection of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act

Anti-Second Amendment extremists are using litigation to go after advertising claims made by firearms companies. Worse, judges are ignoring the federal legislation to various degrees – see what happened in Connecticut.

We will need to strengthen the provisions, particularly to avoid the threat from their attacks on firearms advertising. It may be the advertising of firearms in the near future, but down the road, the attacks could be aimed at Second Amendment advocacy itself. After all, anti-Second Amendment extremists have claimed pro-Second Amendment groups are accessories to mass shootings in the past.

Silicon Valley Censorship

The other major threat to the speech of Second Amendment supporters comes from Silicon Valley, especially in light of the CDC’s return to “researching gun violence.” The purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk has the potential to change that, but the change may not come in time for the midterms. Plus, there is an open question about whether a “Resistance” will form within that company.

The experience of Hi-Point Firearms not so long ago cannot be discounted. It isn’t just social media companies carrying out the censorship. Securing free speech online will be a long-term effort, and will probably require long marches through the corporate ladder.

Second Amendment supporters are not in the dire straits they were facing in the past However, these days, Second Amendment supporters will need to take steps to ensure that they can not only defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels, but also ensure those victories cannot be taken away through back-door gun control.

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About Harold Hutchison

Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.

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