Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

NPR.

The Department of Justice has asked a federal judge to block a Missouri law that allows private citizens to sue law enforcement agencies and officers for $50,000 if they can show their state gun rights were infringed upon. Gov. Mike Parson signed the Second Amendment Preservation Act last year, and since then, counties, cities and dozens of Missouri police chiefs have challenged it.

The law, known as H.B. 85, invalidates in Missouri five specific federal gun law categories, such as ones prohibiting the gun ownership by some felons, confiscation orders, and registration laws.

The complaint filed in federal court in Jefferson City, Mo., on Wednesday says “the overall purpose and effect of H.B. 85 are thus to nullify federal firearm laws and to affirmatively interfere with their enforcement.”

“This act impedes criminal law enforcement operations in Missouri,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The United States will work to ensure that our state and local law enforcement partners are not penalized for doing their jobs to keep our communities safe.”

I’m telling you, the FedGov hates this law.  Missouri has the strongest such law on the books, and the FedGov is fearful of it spreading.

But the determination to carry through with this (including preventing any LEO who is found to aid FedGov gun control efforts from ever working again in Missouri) is what will win the day versus the determination of a federal judge.

When they can’t win any other way, they go judge shopping.

News from Alabama.

An Alabama House committee Wednesday approved a bill that would allow the permitless carry of pistols in the state, sending an Alabama House GOP priority bill to that chamber.

The 8 to 5 vote on the bill from Rep. Shane Stringer, R-Citronelle, took place after an hour of contentious debate that crossed party lines.

Stringer argued that the legislation would allow law-abiding citizens to carry weapons without fear of legal retribution, and said permit laws did not deter crime.

“The fact of the matter is criminals don’t adhere to laws,” Stringer said. “They don’t obey the laws we have now. We cannot legislate an evil heart from Montgomery.”

The bill passed with an amendment that would require gun owners to declare that they were carrying firearms when asked by a police officer. But there was confusion about a second amendment proposed by Rep. Proncey Robertson, R-Mount Hope, that appeared to create separate penalties for bringing firearms in areas where they are currently restricted and led Stringer to call Rep. Mike Jones, R-Andalusia, not a member of the committee, to explain it.

Rep. Allen Farley, R-McCalla, a retired assistant sheriff for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, said getting rid of the permits would amount to “defunding the police” and endanger law enforcement officers.

Uh huh.  Defunding the police and endanger LEOs.  I see.  This is a slight variation on the objection that “They sky is falling, the sky is falling, there will be blood running in the streets.”

That’s what they said about open carry in Texas.  That’s what they said about open carry in South Carolina.  That’s what they said about constitutional carry in Texas.  They said it in Arkansas.  That’s what they say everywhere.

It never happens.  But of course, he’s a retired LEO so he’s going to carry water for LEOs.

Anyway, it’s good that it left committee.  That’s where most bills die.

News from Wyoming.

A bill that would attempt to block any state official or agency from enforcing laws deemed to violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been filed in the Wyoming Legislature.

You can read Senate file 102 here.

The bill reads in part:

(a)  This state and all political subdivisions of this state are prohibited from using any personnel or funds appropriated by the legislature of the state of Wyoming or any other source of funds that originated within the state of Wyoming to enforce, administer or cooperate with any act, law, treaty, judicial or executive order, rule or regulation of the United States government that infringes on or impedes the free exercise of individual rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Because the 2022 Legislative Session is a budget session, non-budget bills like Senate File 102 need a 2/3 majority vote for introduction.

Given the makeup of the Wyoming legislature, the 2/3 vote shouldn’t be a problem.  If it is, they need to throw the bums out.

This is weaker than the Missouri law which allows for lawsuits against LEOs who do that, as well as a prohibition on ever working again as a LEO in Missouri.

But this is a great first step.

I’m telling you, the FedGov hates these laws as seen by the drama surrounding the law in Missouri.

Every state should be doing this.

Reason.

Today I filed an amicus brief in support of a cert. petition challenging Maryland’s ban on various semiautomatic rifles. The case is Bianchi v. Frosh, and was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation, and individual plaintiffs. Petitioners are represented by the D.C. powerhouse litigation boutique Cooper & Kirk. (Docket page here, Petition here.)

[ … ]

1. Many lower courts have narrowed Heller from below.

2. Failure to grant review would tempt Congress to enact a national ban, over-riding the policy choices of 43 states.

3. The Fourth Circuit’s novel rule that governments can ban all firearms that are supposedly “like” military arms is based on an egregious misreading of one phrase from Heller. The Fourth Circuit rule would uphold a ban on many common firearms, such as the ubiquitous Colt 1911 .45 caliber pistol, and every semiautomatic pistol that is essentially similar to the Colt, which is to say all of them.

4. The Maryland ban harms public safety because the rifles that it singles out for prohibition are easier to fire accurately, easier to store safely, and often superior for lawful self-defense. To say that improved firearms can be banned because criminals might take advantage of the improvements would be to say that firearms can never be improved.

He gets into “common usage” as well, and we can all agree that any weapon can be and has been a military weapon and that the common usage doctrine was an abominable and inconsistent idea.  As one reader pointed out recently, if something isn’t in common usage, it cannot be introduced into circulation and therefore will never become commonly used.

But Kopel is one of the good guys, and he knows what he’s doing.  He has to play within the rules he’s been given.

Dave Hardy reporting on Virginia’s stance on the case in front of SCOTUS (NY State Rifle and Pistol).

“Following the change in Administration on January 15, 2022, the Attorney General has reconsidered Virginia’s position in this case. The purpose of this letter is to notify the Court that Virginia no longer adheres to the arguments contained in its previously filed brief. Virginia is now of the view that New York’s handgun permit regime is irreconcilable with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which secures an individual right to bear arms outside the home for self-defense.”

So far, the new governor of Virginia continues to impress me.  Hopefully this trend will last.

Not just firearms, but weapons of all kinds necessary to defend life and liberty.  This is our claim.  But not everyone sees it that way.

Quoting from the email I received from this group, “Constitutional Carry is the simple concept that law-abiding citizens shouldn’t need to pay a tax and get permission from their sheriff to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms.”

I laughed aloud when I read this email. Who knew God had given us the right to own guns? I mean, chapter and verse, please. God didn’t have anything to do with the U.S. Constitution, no matter how hard you want to try to do the mental gymnastics to say so. The Constitution is a creation of mankind, period. It is a great document, but it isn’t the Holy Scriptures, nor is it divinely inspired, so let’s back off of that bit of hyperbole.

And therein lies one of the principle bits of propaganda you will see in regards to many issues in the political arena. God is not into politics, nor politicians, nor even the political entities we call nations except, perhaps, the nation of Israel, the only group of people he ever promised a piece of land to call their own.

American politicians today, and probably for all the time we have been a nation, have tried to co-opt God to make him on the side of one political party or another or to have God endorse some act the nation was attempting to do on the domestic or world stage. Here is a free tip: You can be on God’s side by doing the work of God’s kingdom, but don’t believe for a minute you can bring God onto your side to endorse the works of man. It doesn’t work that way.

We can agree that trying to co-opt God is an improper project.  Rather, we need to be on God’s side, and His side is found in the Holy Writ.  So you’ve laid down the gauntlet, and we’ll respond.

To begin with, it’s a bit more complicated than “chapter and verse please.”  Let’s start our discussion with The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6: ““The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.”

The clearest right to own weapons also invokes a duty.  John Calvin, commenting on commandment and prohibition, observes the following.

We do not need to prove that when a good thing is commanded, the evil thing that conflicts with it is forbidden.  There is no one who doesn’t concede this.  That the opposite duties are enjoined when evil things are forbidden will also be willingly admitted in common judgment.  Indeed, it is commonplace that when virtues are commended, their opposing vices are condemned.  But we demand something more than what these phrases commonly signify.  For by the virtue of contrary to the vice, men usually mean abstinence from that vice.  We say that the virtue goes beyond this to contrary duties and deeds.  Therefore in this commandment, “You shall not kill,” men’s common sense will see only that we must abstain from wronging anyone or desiring to do so.  Besides this, it contains, I say, the requirement that we give our neighbor’s life all the help we can … the purpose of the commandment always discloses to us whatever it there enjoins or forbids us to do” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter viii, Part 9).

Simply put, thou shall not take life unjustly also means thou shall defend innocent life.  The clearest right (and thus command) is to be found right in the moral law given to all men everywhere.  These are corollaries, and it is inescapable.  Furthermore, to claim agreement with this and then deny either someone else or yourself the weapons necessary to effect that defense of innocent life is insulting to the Almighty.  The thief may express agreement with the commandment not to steal, but that rings hollow when he then takes your possessions.

But if you wish for more direct evidence of ownership of weapons in the Scriptures, look no further than what Jesus commanded in Luke 22:36.  Let’s look at the cultural context for a moment.

… for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons ‘beyond those customary for hunting or for a journey by land or sea’ is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man ‘of full age’ appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen 1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed while in public in Rome, see Cicero’s letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city: To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (§17). Finally we may cite a letter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce. The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926).

In this passage, Jesus is quite literally ordering His disciples to ignore the Roman laws and disobey them, buy weapons, and be ready to use them.  He is turning His disciples into lawbreakers for the sake of having self defense.

There are more passages to which we may turn, but these will suffice for now.  So, Mr. Cosby, you may get letters which are incomplete accounts of the Scriptural mandate to be prepared for defense of the innocent, but those are merely letters.  They don’t mean such an account cannot be made.

You might want to seek out a little more theological training before you make those bold statements that you called … what was it … hyperbole.

The second amendment didn’t come from God, and God doesn’t need it.  He alone grants rights and duties.  However, it doesn’t end there.  The constitution is a covenant, and for understanding this we may turn to “Lawful Oaths and Vows” also in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

It is a terrible thing to break a lawful oath or vow, cosmic treason against God’s laws, but we’ll leave that for another time and let you ruminate on what we’ve said thus far.

Please let us know if you need anything else.

Reason.

Very few people in the U.S. have had the experience of firing a fully automatic firearm, since even in a country awash in hundreds of millions of legal firearms, only a few hundred thousand are capable of full-auto firing. For the average person to own one requires extensive government paperwork and fees on top of the artificially inflated five- or six-figure price tag for the guns themselves. Realistically, it’s not possible for all but the richest shooters.

SHOT Show, the world’s biggest gun show, descended on Las Vegas in January after a pandemic-induced year off. Before the buyers scurried around the floor of the Venetian Expo trying to secure stock from salesmen with fewer offerings than in years past, many made their way to a massive outdoor range to test out the offerings. I went along with them.

The desert range was more deserted than usual thanks to many of the biggest gun companies being scared off by the omicron COVID variant. The ammo shortage was evident too, even at the industry’s own trade show. What used to be 20- or 30-round demos were cut to five or 10.

A few of the full-autos were there as demos for law enforcement or military buyers who are, as is often the case with gun laws, exempted from the full-auto ban enforced against everyone else. Many were meant in essence to say to normal gun enthusiasts, “Hey, look at this cool gun. Don’t you wish you could own this? Anyway, when you’re done with the fun gun, here’s what you can actually buy.”

That’s one reason I don’t much cover SHOT Show.  I so detest the NFA/Hughes Amendment that I won’t give the courtesy of additional coverage to the manufacturers who act like that.

Many of them do, and few of them spend the money or time to fight unconstitutional laws.

Forbes.

The debate over firearm ownership remains one that will likely never find common ground in the United States. To supporters of the Second Amendment, it is a right guaranteed by our Founding Fathers, while gun control advocates would like to put greater restrictions on the ownership of firearms. Yet, in recent decades the debate over gun control has become a hot button political issue, one embraced by lawmakers on both sides.

On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) of Kentucky – a noted supporter of the Second Amendment – tweeted a simple but direct question, “What pro Second Amendment legislation do you want the House to pass when Republicans retake the majority?”

The response was immediate, with many gun rights groups and supporters calling for the abolishment of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and even the repeal of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).

No, no, no, no and a thousand times no.  My rights are guaranteed by God, not the founders.  The founders created a covenant, which upon violation, justifies dissolution of the contract altogether.

Men of good character want to abolish the ATF because it is an unconstitutional abomination.  Men of good character want to repeal the NFA because it is an infringement on God given rights.

I didn’t make that up.  He said so.

Alabama Sheriffs Association (ASA) director Robert ‘Bobby’ Timmons is standing by his criticism of the Constitutional carry bills set to be debated in the Alabama legislature, even going so far as to say he would support amending the United States Constitution.

Timmons has claimed several times that the Second Amendment was not written to give citizens the right to carry a weapon in a concealed fashion, saying that the amendment was only written to allow citizens to have weapons to defend their homes.

Given his interpretation of the Second Amendment, 1819 News asked Timmons if ASA would support amending the Constitution to limit the Second Amendment to the possession of firearms only for the defense of a person’s home.

“Oh yeah,” Timmons said. “I’d be in favor of that. But, I mean, it would never get passed.”

According to Timmons, the ASA is working with Mom’s Demand Action – which bills itself as a “grassroots movement” that fights for more restrictive gun laws – to fight against Constitutional carry laws that have been introduced into the current session of the Alabama legislature. “Constitutional carry” is a term used to describe legislation that would allow citizens to legally carry handguns without having to purchase a permit from their local Sheriff’s office.

Three bills pre-filed in the Alabama House and Senate would legalize permitless or “Constitutional Carry” in the state. Rep. Andrew Sorell (R) pre-filed House Bill 44 (HB44), along with a coalition of 38 Republicans. The bill would eliminate the need for a person to obtain a concealed carry permit in order to carry a pistol. It would also repeal and revise certain restrictions on the carrying or possession of a firearm in a motor vehicle or on certain property or locations.

Rep. Shane Stringer (R) and Rep. Proncey Robertson (R) pre-filed House Bill 6 (HB6). Sen. Tim Melson filed an identical companion bill in the Senate (SB12). These two bills would also allow for “permitless carry” and would create a process for the return of seized pistols.

All three bills would leave the current concealed carry permitting system in place for Alabamans who want to obtain a license in order to carry concealed in states with CCDW reciprocity with Alabama.

So not only is the Sheriffs association being led by someone who doesn’t believe in the 2A, they are working with a gun control group to kill constitutional carry in Alabama.

It sounds to me like Alabamans have some trash to carry out.  This is on y’all.  You have work to do.  Get it done.  And find out who else in the respective Sheriffs departments supports this guy and his agenda.  Carry out that trash too.

LEOs in Oklahoma may soon have to make a choice on whose side they stand.

An Oklahoma State Senator filed three bills designed to increase the power wielded by Oklahoma sheriffs, including a bill that empowers sheriffs to arrest federal officers who attempt to confiscate guns.

State Senator Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, filed the bills on Thursday.

“I’ve heard from numerous sheriffs and constituents across this state who are concerned at the consistent ignoring of our Constitution happening by this rogue regime” Dahm said. “The Second Amendment was never solely about hunting unless you’re referring to hunting tyrants. It was about the people being able to protect themselves against a government that would seek to disarm them.”

Senate Bill 1199 allows sheriffs to arrest federal officers who attempt to confiscate guns in Oklahoma.

Senate Bill 1200 requires federal agents and officers to receive permission from the county sheriff before operating in their county.

Senate Bill 1201 expands a sheriff’s ability to form a posse to include prohibiting agents, employees and officers of the federal government from violating the constitutional rights of the people of their county.

“The full totalitarian leftist takeover of a society has always been predicated on confiscation of firearms,” Dahm said. “Thankfully in Oklahoma we have county sheriffs that would never allow that to take place. But we must do everything possible to help them stand up for our rights and this bill further enables them to do that.”

I told you before this was an expanding and growing movement.  This is the strongest manifestation of that movement I’ve seen.

The pink panty crowd in Missouri is complaining about their weaker 2A preservation act.  Very well.  Let them resign.

Maybe there’s hope for Oklahoma.  The goal is for agents of the FedGov to be effectively unable to function.