Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

News from S.C.

A day before the South Carolina House is expected to start an hourslong debate over legislation that would allow a permitted gun owner to openly carry, a panel of lawmakers were slated to clear an even more expansive measure that would strike the permit requirement entirely.

The House Judiciary Committee passed a proposal Tuesday in a 18-6 vote that would allow constitutional carry in South Carolina, the constitutional belief that any legal gun owner should be allowed to own a gun without regulations.

State lawmakers don’t expect the constitutional carry measure to reach the debate stage until April, possibly before the crossover deadline to send the legislation to the Senate, well after the House passes the state budget.

This is good, yes?  Constitutional carry.  Hold on.

But what the hearing over constitutional carry offered was a preview of how far some Republican House members will try to pull the debate Wednesday when a mostly Republican-led coalition attempts to pass a bill that would allow permitted gun owners to carry publicly where guns are allowed.

“It became clear there was a substantial amount of support for constitutional carry, not only from traditional Second Amendment right advocates, but supporters of (Democratic state Rep. Justin) Bamberg’s amendment to change it to a constitutional carry bill,” said state Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington. “(It) made sense to offer you an opportunity to showcase your support.”

The dynamics of the debate break down like this:

House Republican leaders are ready to adopt an open carry bill while keeping permit laws in place, legislation that has the best opportunity for passage and falls more in line with public polling that shows South Carolinians are more comfortable with making sure gun owners have permits, not the alternative.

But a few Republican legislators are ready to tack on an amendment that would take the measure further, allowing any legal person to carry a gun without a permit.

They’re trying the “poison pill” approach.  Notice who offered the amendment up – Bamberg, a reprehensible controller.  He later admits it, saying, ““I don’t see how we can have a constitutional carry bill that lets people carry without a permit, without training and carry anywhere except at the places that our state takes money from their paycheck to fund,” said Bamberg, D-Bamberg. “I don’t see how we can do that.”

Normally I’d say to jump on this and make everyone take a stand in public.  But in this instance I’d say let’s be incrementalists.  After open carry is passed, then you can tackle constitutional carry.

The S.C. senate is already balking.

Another problem for constitutional carry backers is that Senate Republicans are unsure whether such an expansive proposal could pass their chamber, a body that has denied similar bills before.

State Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley, told The State while he supports constitutional carry — and has sponsored a bill in favor of it — he was not confident that it could pass the upper chamber.

But, he added, “there were not enough votes to expand gun rights. I believe that there now are enough votes in the Senate to expand gun rights. I just don’t know how far, and we’re going to find out.”

The left is always the best at strategy, displaying amazing patience concerning their goals.  It’s time we took a page from that book.

Start with open carry.  Leave constitutional carry for next year.  In the mean time, work your senators.  Work them hard, both on open carry (this year), and constitutional carry (next year).

You can watch the first 20 minutes and get the gist of just how dense, stolid, ridiculous and clownish the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is.  It sounds like a carnival full of carnival barkers, and quite obviously, they don’t care any more about what the constitution says.

I’ve been following this case since its inception and will try to keep you posted.  If the Fourth Circuit does what it appears they will do, we can all ridicule them for the tyrants they are.

News from South Carolina.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WPDE) — Six South Carolina senators want to make the state a Second Amendment Sanctuary, according to pre-filed legislation in Columbia.

Sens. Shane Massey, Rex Rice, Josh Kimbrell, Tom Corbin, Dwight Loftis and Tom Young filed the bill on Feb. 18.

In the bill, the senators write that they and the other members of the state general assemble find that the “Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual’s right to ‘keep and bear arms'” and that the right may not be infringed upon.

In order to protect that right in South Carolina, the lawmakers want the state attorney general to review any federal law, treaty, executive order, rule, or regulation related to the Second Amendment that might come down. Then, they want the attorney general to “issue a written opinion of its constitutionality.”

If the attorney general finds that the federal law, treaty, executive order, rule, or regulation related to the Second Amendment is unconstitutional, the state senators have a plan to stop the enforcement of it in South Carolina.

Those plans include:

• not giving any public funds, personnel or property from the state to the implementation, regulation, or enforcement of that federal law, treaty, executive order, rule, or regulation;
• not letting any official, agent or employee of the state, or any political subdivision of it, enforce or attempt to enforce that federal law, treaty, executive order, rule, or regulation.

If anyone were to take legal action against South Carolina for not following the federal law, the lawmakers write in the bill that the attorney general shall will defend the case.

Many counties in South Carolina have become their own second amendment sanctuaries, including Horry County.

Kershaw County was the first county in South Carolina to become one.

This isn’t just weak tea, it’s pathetic.  Honestly, you’d think that a state like South Carolina, where they supposedly value liberty, could do better than this given what other states have done and are doing.

There should be no need to turn to a lawyer for an assessment.  That’s what weaklings and fearful men do.  If they want S.C. to be a 2A sanctuary state, then just declare it so.

Furthermore, it’s meaningless unless they not only prohibit agents of the state from participating in confiscatory laws or other infringements, but dispatch state agents to arrest FedGov agents who try to do the same thing.

On top of that, I won’t believe a word they have to say until they decriminalize open carry in South Carolina.

I was in contact with South Carolina Carry today asking if they had a comprehensive email contact list for South Carolina legislators.  They don’t.

As followup to this post I had intended to begin making contact and learned that they (SC legislators) have begun to use the absurd contact forms.  In other words, they have cloistered themselves off and insulated themselves from their constituency.

This makes it very hard, as intended.  If anyone knows how to make contact with South Carolina legislators, especially if you have a comprehensive distribution list, that would be great.  Or if not, if there is some retired gun rights advocate who just wants to help in this endeavor, please feel free to post here, or email me.  Perhaps there is someone who has contacts inside the SC government who could assist us with this?

South Carolina Carry is also interested in such a list.

David Codrea.

Gun owners can thank supposed “originalist” Justice Antonin Scalia for perpetuating and solidifying the “confusion,” although it’s fair to suspect his motives were more deliberate than speculative.

[ … ]

“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” Scalia volunteered, seemingly desperate to apologize for the majority ruling and to make a concession the gun-grabbers could use to later advantage.

I think Scalia was appealing to the beltway elitists for forgiveness.  As we’ve observed elsewhere:

Heller offers a Second Amendment cleaned up so that it can safely be brought into the homes of affluent Washington suburbanites who would never dream of resistance-they have too much sunk into the system–but who might own a gun to protect themselves from the private dangers that, they believe, stalk around their doors at night. Scalia commonly touts his own judicial courage, his willingness to read the Constitution as it stands and let the chips fall where they may. But Heller is noteworthy for its cowardice.

Rather than being a great victory for the second amendment, I believe the Heller decision was one root of our interpretational problems with it.

Codrea does offer the remedy.

“For someone represented by the establishment as an “originalist,” Scalia’s views were anything but. In A View of the Constitution, which colleague Brian Puckett writes “was the standard constitutional law text at Harvard until 1845 and at Dartmouth until 1860,” William Rawle, “a contemporary of the Founders and the man to whom George Washington offered an appointment as the first U.S. Attorney General,” offered a vastly different opinion.

“No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people,” Rawle declared. “Such a flagitious (think “shameful,” “wicked,” “criminal,” “villainous”) attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.”

Speaking of shameful, wicked, and criminal villains, fast-forward to the present. There is a Democrat eye-rolling feeding frenzy to strip Americans of what Continental Congress Delegate Tench Coxe called “the birthright of an American,” which he specifically identified as “every other terrible implement of the soldier.”

“[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people,” Coxe continued.”

News from South Carolina.

A bill that would allow people to carry guns without concealing them in South Carolina is heading to the House floor.

The House Judiciary Committee approved so-called open carry of weapons for people who already have a concealed-weapons permit by a 16-8 vote Tuesday.

South Carolina is one of only five states without open carry, joining atypical partners such as California, Florida, Illinois and New York.

The committee ignored amendments by Democrats that would remove the ban on weapons at the Statehouse and would refine rules on weapons at public events like festivals.

The bill is enthusiastically backed by many Republicans and conservatives, who said it makes sense to let people carry the weapons they can already have in a visible holster. Laws against pointing a gun at someone or threating someone with a gun without a legal reason would remain on the books.

Of course laws against assault will remain on the books, just like laws against brandishing.  Why does that even need to be stated?

Now.  Since the committees have apparently taken their job seriously and refused to allow this bill to perish in committee like it always seems to do, the real struggle begins.

From here on we take names and make lists.  Every member of the House will have to cast a vote, since as I understand it, turning this bill over from committee constitutes a motion and second.  It’s a live bill.

Oh, there are still parliamentary tricks that could be played, like someone could make a substitute motion to do something like send it back to the committee to study this more, or some such nonsense.  But that also requires a vote by every member of the House.

So we take names, and no one gets to hide behind the fact that there is no live bill to vote on.  That horse has left the barn.

It’s time to ramp up the comms to House members, and after that, members of the senate.  They need to hear from people, especially if you live in South Carolina.  I frequently visit relatives in South Carolina and so I should have a say, but they won’t listen to me like they would from my readers in South Carolina.

Get busy.

Update on South Carolina open carry.

The Open Carry Training Act would allow anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry a handgun out in the open.

Reaction to the proposed law is mixed.

“I understand good faith opposition to guns, I do, I get it, but the reality is this law is very narrowly tailored to address one specific concern and that is people who have CWPs if they are going to be criminalized for having that gun exposed,” Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, said.

Lowcountry pediatrician Dr. Anne Andrews cited 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating firearms are the leading cause of death for children in South Carolina between the ages of 1 and 19, surpassing motor vehicle accidents.

Let’s stop there.

First of all, there is no “good faith” opposition to open carry or to guns.  This is a God-given right.  Self defense is a God-given right to which objections should be appealed to the sovereign of the universe, not men and women who want to defend home and hearth.

Next up, Lowcountry pediatrician Dr. Anne Andrews must be an idiot.  ““Guns that are going to be open carried are most likely going to be loaded” has to be the most stolid statement I’ve ever heard in the context of weapons.

Is she implying that concealed firearms aren’t loaded?  Or is she implying that since guns must be assumed to be loaded, a child is going to intentionally attempt to assault an open carrier who is carrying without a weapon retention holster?  This is an equally ridiculous assertion, unless she’s referring to miscreant criminal teens, in which case they aren’t children.  The reference to this person in the article reeks of having to fill in white space by the author.  The objection has no place, makes no sense, and breaks the train of thought and flow of the report.

“One way to look at this bill is, what it does is say, if you’ve got a valid concealed weapon permit you won’t be penalized for this gun being exposed,” Caskey said. “So, if you got your coat caught behind your concealed weapon right now that would be a violation of state law. We are trying to decimalize that.”

Well that itself is a good enough reason to pass the bill, but let’s call this what it is.  It’s an open carry bill, or in other words, it’s a bill to undo what the law currently says about openly carried firearms and pull South Carolina into agreement with what 46 other states know: openly carried weapons don’t cause blood to run in the streets.  Open carry is legal in North Carolina, right across the border, and apparently no one has thought to investigate whether open carry in North Carolina causes blood to run in the streets.

“For people who are not familiar with me, I’m just another minority walking the streets,” he said. “I do have concerns if I would be able to open carry the same as my white counterparts.”

Bamberg defines himself as a pro-Second Amendment gun owner. But he is concerned about sheriffs who have spoken out against the idea.

Well, Rep. Justin Bamberg has given us a disorganized, random pile of mess to unravel.

First, if a minority doesn’t wish to open carry, he doesn’t have to.  This bill doesn’t require open carry.  Second, I think he’s lying and he isn’t really a 2A supporter, at least, not if he’s opposed to open carry.

Third, I’m perfectly comfortable seeing open carry, and I’ve walked right by black guys who were openly carrying in my own state.  But this isn’t about my comfort, nor his comfort, nor the comfort of anyone else.  Rights are not contingent upon comfort.  Many people are uncomfortable listening to street preachers.  I’ve seen people on the sidewalks change to the other side of the road to avoid them, while I’m happy to walk up and talk to them.

We don’t discuss limits on the first amendment because people are uncomfortable with street preachers, nor should we.  And I would hasten to repeat what I’ve pointed out before.  “Anything that can be done with an openly carried firearm can be done with a concealed firearm.  It’s an amazing thing that we actually have to cover this ground again, but the fact that someone cannot visually ascertain the presence of a firearm doesn’t mean it’s not there.  Any confusion on this fact points to a second-grader level psychological problem.”

We don’t infringe on God-given rights because of psychological problems.  Finally, there is this misdirect from Bamberg (whom we quoted earlier).

That’s simply a lie.  This piece of legislation is before the committee.  It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s clear, and it deserves a hearing before the entire legislature.  If Bamberg wants to reign in law enforcement in the state of South Carolina, that’s a worthy goal.  I’m with him on that one, whether LEOs who shoot first and investigate later, LEOs who shoot innocent victims through the doors of their own homes, and on the list could go.

But that all has absolutely nothing to do with this bill.  It’s irrelevant, and the excuse that “we have more important things to work on” is exactly what jettisoned this bill every time it has been brought up, as if the judiciary committee is trying to protect the rest of the legislature from having to stake out a position and cast a vote on it.  You see, killing the bill protects the closet gun controllers from self-identifying and answering for their position in the next election.  They know that.  They plan for it.  Maybe the author of the article, Adam Mintzer, could investigate the real reasons for killing this bill so many times before in his next article.  Perhaps it will be better than this one.

To the South Carolina legislature: it’s okay not to be like the four states who still live in the dark ages, and it’s okay not to be like the control freaks who live in New York.  You can admit that you’re supposed to be a free state.

Pass this bill through committee.  Let the legislature take a vote.  Make everyone take a stand.  It’s time.

Prior: South Carolina Open Carry Tag (many articles)

Expected news.

“As I’m sure you know, the president is a strong supporter of gun control and has been an advocate all of his life, professional life, on this question. The role of the Justice Department is to advance the policy program of the administration as long as it is consistent with the law,” Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“And as I said, so far we have a little indication from the Supreme Court as to what this means. But we don’t have a complete indication. And where there is room under the law for the president’s policies to be pursued, then I think the president is entitled to pursue them.”

[ … ]

Garland is expected to be easily confirmed by the Senate with many Republican votes.

And remember that the next time you are tempted to believe that the republicans are your 2A friends.

This is all as expected.  He is capitalizing on the facts that (1) he’s a communist, the one who holds the presidency is a communists, most of the congress is communists and none of them speak the truth concerning God-given rights, and (2) the SCOTUS is full of communists too and have vacillated and equivocated until there is nothing left of the covenant under which we all agreed to live (the constitution).

So … here we are.  As soon as he is confirmed he will direct the DoJ to direct the ATF to enact new intolerable acts to infringe on God-given rights.

This is horrific.

Brooklyn: Flatbush Avenue & Parkside Avenue, person #CaughtOnCamera beating up a biker with a bat until he falls to the ground unconscious. pic.twitter.com/3PXr06gCNc

— NYC Scoop (@NY_Scoop) February 18, 2021

The victim is still not conscious and is in critical condition.  But the problem is easy to solve.  Shoot him.

Put a slug into the thug’s belly to stop him, and then put another into his head to make sure he doesn’t get back up and start again.  The upshot is that he would never be able to harm someone like this again.

Move from New York where you cannot defend yourself.  Get out of there.  It is the land of communists.

And remember Herschel’s Dictum.  Always.

News from New Hampshire.

The New Hampshire House is considering recommending a constitutional amendment that would prevent future state laws from restricting firearm ownership, one of a series of gun rights bills proposed this year.

The proposal, officially called Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution 8 would prevent the Legislature from passing any law “restricting the right to own, carry, or use firearms or firearm accessories.”

But some gun rights groups say that the amendment needs to be workshopped, and could have unintended consequences for firearms use in the state.

New Hampshire’s constitution already contains a version of the Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, which states: “All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the State.”

This legislation would add two following sentences. “The Legislature shall enact no law that limits the right of a person to own, carry, or use firearms or firearm accessories in any manner that would create a greater burden than that in federal law,” the amendment states. “Any federal law that infringes upon rights guaranteed in this New Hampshire Constitution shall be unenforceable by New Hampshire law enforcement.”

Rep. Terry Roy, the bill’s sponsor, said the amendment was intended to protect firearm rights, and stop the see-sawing of gun legislation between Republican and Democratic legislatures.

“The reason I’m introducing this bill is because I’ve heard from many constituents that they are frankly a little tired of every two years, or four years, or whatever it may be, that power shifts in the State House, and they are concerned about having their rights infringed upon based on whatever political winds are blowing in Concord,” said Roy, a Deerfield Republican.

The constitutional amendment would recognize the federal government’s ability to pass its own firearms restrictions, Roy said, but it would prevent local and state law enforcement from enforcing it. Those new restrictions could only be enforced by federal agents, Roy added.

Roy said he would prefer the amendment to prevent any federal firearms laws from taking jurisdiction, but thought that it wouldn’t be constitutional.

This would be a step in the right direction for New Hampshire, but it doesn’t go far enough.  As for Mr. Roy, he’s kicking the can down the road.  This is all going to come to a head sooner or later, and when it does, the question of constitutionality won’t come up except in law offices here and there.

On the street, the people will demand what they are demanding in other states like Missouri, namely, that state and county LEOs arrest and charge federal agents for enforcing federal gun control laws.

You can run, but you cannot hide.  This is coming, and it’s better to get state legislators on board now with what must be done.