Category Archives: Second Amendment

SAF Ammunition Ban Ad

By: Second Amendment Foundation

Read the original here:
SAF Ammunition Ban Ad - Video

3.10.15 | Second Scoop: Snoop Dogg goes Anti, Gun Ownership Down, Wayne LaPierre on AR-15 Ammo Ban
The Second Scoop: Chris Cheng provides humor, insight, and commentary on the top gun stories you should know about. Come back every Tuesday for a delicious serving of Second Amendment news ...

By: Top Shot Chris Cheng

Read more from the original source:
3.10.15 | Second Scoop: Snoop Dogg goes Anti, Gun Ownership Down, Wayne LaPierre on AR-15 Ammo Ban - Video

Ep. 69: The 2nd Amendment at the Supreme Court (with Alan Gura)
This week Alan Gura joins us for a talk about gun rights at the Supreme Court. What does the text of the Second Amendment say, and how have courts interpreted it over the years? What #39;s...

By: Libertarianism.org

Read the original post:
Ep. 69: The 2nd Amendment at the Supreme Court (with Alan Gura) - Video

Proposed Ban on M855
Remember to join Gun Owners of America, the NRA, the National Association for Gun Rights, the Second Amendment Foundation, etc... They could use your support and you can use theirs. Contact...

By: CR Williams

Visit link:
Proposed Ban on M855 - Video

Published February 19, 2015

A man convicted 25 years ago in Maryland on a misdemeanor charge for carrying a firearm without a license will see his Second Amendment rights restored, under a new federal court ruling issued Wednesday.

Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive director of the Washington-based The Second Amendment Foundation, which represented Julio Suarez, called the ruling significant.

Under existing federal law many people convicted of non-violent state-level misdemeanors have lost their Second Amendment rights because theyve been lumped together with convicted felons due to indeterminate sentencing laws, Gottlieb said.

Thats not right, and cases like this help restore some perspective and narrow some broad legislative brush strokes.

The case provides a building block on which similar cases can be challenged, Gottlieb said.

Suarez, originally pulled over by police in 1990 on a suspected DUI charge, was convicted instead of possessing a firearm without a permit and sentenced to 180 days in prison, 1 year probation and a $500 fine. Court records show the terms of imprisonment and fine were both suspended.

The father of three, who has been married for 20 years and is an active member of his local church, has since led an exemplary life, Gottlieb said, but he noted the conviction was enough to cost Suarez his ability to buy and keep a firearm for defense of his home and family.

In a 26-page decision, Middle District Court Judge William W. Caldwell said Suarez is no more dangerous than a typical law-abiding citizen and poses no continuing threat to society.

A person should not lose his or her constitutional rights for non-violent indiscretions that occur once in a lifetime, said Second Amendment Foundation Attorney Alan Gura, who represented Suarez.

See the article here:
Man convicted of misdemeanor 25 years ago has Second Amendment rights restored

About 100 Second Amendment activists gathered at the Statehouse on Saturday to push for gun rights in the midst of the General Assemblys debate over taking guns from convicted abusers. Thad Moore/The Post and Courier

COLUMBIA Second Amendment activists rallied Saturday at the Statehouse, three days after the Senate voted to bar anyone convicted of a high-level domestic violence crime from possessing guns.

About 100 people gathered outside the capitol holding signs, flags warning Dont Tread on Me and even a pitchfork. The rally was planned before the Senate took up the domestic violence bill, organizers said. But, for some, the passage of the gun ban underscored why they were holding the rally.

Our timing couldnt be better, said Andrew Miller, state coordinator of Gun Rights Across America, which organized the rally.

Sen. Lee Bright, a Spartanburg Republican who was one of three Upstate senators who voted against the domestic violence bill, attended the rally along with three other lawmakers.

When it comes right down to it, weve got to fix this house, Bright told the crowd, gesturing to the Statehouse behind him. Weve got problems in South Carolina.

The gun ban was hotly contested during Senate debate, and was passed only after a compromise was reached that requires a judges approval to take away firearms in the least serious domestic violence crimes. The measure still needs to pass the House, where the bill does not include a gun ban.

Federal law already barred anyone convicted of domestic violence from possessing a gun, but victims advocates argued that a state ban was needed to enforce the law.

Bright called the gun ban an assault on the Second Amendment, but not all those who rallied to defend gun rights disagreed with taking guns away from abusers. A February poll found that 76 percent of South Carolinians would support a law that kept convicted batterers from acquiring guns.

View post:
Second Amendment activists gather at South Carolina Statehouse rally in midst of domestic violence debate

PHOENIX (AP) - A Republican lawmaker who has been pushing a series of guns rights bills pulled out a new proposal Monday, tacking an amendment onto a minor bill that will legalize sawed-off shotguns, silencers and nunchucks in Arizona.

The state already has some of the strongest Second Amendment protections in the country, but the Republican-dominated Legislature is working to add more breathing room for gun owners.

The amendment by Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City, adds to a bill designed to restore a persons gun rights if a judge sets aside a guilty conviction.

We have a right to keep and bear arms and really that right shouldnt be infringed, she said.

The amendment legalizes devices that muffle guns, rifles and shotguns with barrels less than 16 inches and nunchucks - weapons made from two sticks or rods connected by a rope or chain.

Ward said the idea for her amendment came from a pastor in the western Arizona community of Topock who wants to own nunchucks.

Critics said the amendment is overly broad and avoided scrutiny by never going through committee hearings.

Rep. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, said Wards amendment makes the bill less about helping people and more about legalizing weapons prohibited under Arizona law.

It is only going to further our reputation on The Daily Show here in Arizona that we couldnt find a way of banning driving while texting while at the same time making legal silencers, sawed-off shotguns and nunchucks.

Rep. Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said he sees the problem with sawed-off shotguns, but not silencers. This bill could be going too far, he said.

See the article here:
Republicans push to legalize silencers, sawed-off shotguns

The Second Amendment Foundation will launch a nationwide TV and radio campaign Monday aimed at exposing legal holes in President Obamas executive actions to ban ammunition commonly used in AR-15 sport utility rifles.

We bought $700,000 of time on Fox News and Glenn Becks Blaze network, Alan Gottlieb, the groups founder and executive vice president, told The Washington Times in a Sunday telephone interview. Its aimed at getting our legal argument out to the public, and at getting support for a possible lawsuit.

The foundations one-minute commercial heralds 1 million Americans to call a toll-free number to voice their concerns, make a contribution and target Mr. Obama for exercising another executive power grab.

PHOTOS: Awesome rifles: The best and the baddest

The ad claims, The Obama administration was unable to impose gun restrictions and confiscation through the legislative process, so now its trying to ban commonly used ammunition through regulation. If we allow Obama to ban ammunition through executive fiat now, it will lead to the loss of our Second Amendment rights by the time Obama leaves office.

Press secretary Josh Earnest said last week that Mr. Obama supports the ban because he predicts that the AR-15s .223 caliber M855 ammunition will be used to pierce law enforcement officer armor, although there are no such reported cases to date.

The Second Amendment Foundations media campaign is being launched only days after it sent a scathing legal threat to B. Todd Jones, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In addition, 239 congressional lawmakers, including seven Democrats, dispatched a letter voicing their own concerns to the federal agency.

PHOTOS: Bang for your buck: Best handguns under $500

The proposed regulations, which ban the production and sale of the steel-tipped ammunition was a response to an ATF report that claims new handguns are capable of firing the ammunition. But the new AR-15 handguns are nearly 2 feet long, and weigh about 6 pounds, making them almost impossible to conceal like a traditional handgun.

The administrations logic does not satisfy the requirements under federal law to classify the ammunition as armor piercing, the foundation argues.

More here:
Obama AR-15 ammunition ban targeted in gun group's nationwide media campaign

Massachusetts' ban on the private possession of stun gunsan "electrical weapon" under the statutedoes not violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the state's top court has ruled.

The decisionsays(PDF) that the US Constitution's framers never envisioned the modern stun-gun device, first patented in 1972. The top court said stun guns arenot suitable for military use, and that it did not matter whether state lawmakers have approved the possession of handguns outside the home.

Nevertheless, we note that stun guns deliver a charge of up to 50,000 volts. They are designed to incapacitate a target by causing disabling pain, uncontrolled muscular contractions, and general disruption of the central nervous system.... It is difficult to detect clear signs of use and misuse of stun guns, unlike handguns. Stun guns can deliver repeated or prolonged shocks without leaving marks. ...The Legislature rationally could ban their use in the interest of public health, safety, or welfare. Removing from public access devices that can incapacitate, injure, or kill a person by disrupting the central nervous system with minimal detection is a classic legislative basis supporting rationality. It is immaterial that the Legislature has not banned weapons that are more lethal. Mathematical precision by the Legislature is not constitutionally required.

The court, ruling in the case of a Massachusetts woman caught with stun gun, said the stun gun is a "thoroughly modern invention" not protected by the Second Amendment, although handguns are protected.

Moreover, although modern handguns were not in common use at the time of enactment of the Second Amendment, their basic function has not changed: many are readily adaptable to military use in the same way that their predecessors were used prior to the enactment. A stun gun, by contrast, is a thoroughly modern invention. Even were we to view stun guns through a contemporary lens for purposes of our analysis, there is nothing in the record to suggest that they are readily adaptable to use in the military. Indeed, the record indicates "they are ineffective for . . . hunting or target shooting." Because the stun gun that the defendant possessed is both dangerous per se at common law and unusual, but was not in common use at the time of the enactment of the Second Amendment, we conclude that stun guns fall outside the protection of the Second Amendment.

The decision, the most recent analysis of the Second Amendment by any top court, comes as all types of and manner of weapons are being constructed at home via 3D printing technology. The latest showdown about those weapons surfaced last month, when FedEx refused to ship a box that makes homemade metal semi-automatic rifles.

The Massachusetts case, decided last week, concernedJaime Caetano, who lives in one of five states making it illegal for private citizens to posses stun guns. She appealed her 2013 conviction, on Second Amendment and self-defense grounds, claiming she had a right to the weapon to protect herself from what she said was an abusive father of her children. The penalty for breaching the law carries up to a 2.5-year maximum jail term. She was caught with the device outside a grocery store after allowing the authorities, who were looking for a shoplifter, to search her purse.

The law in question, the court said, forbids the private possession of a"portable device or weapon from which an electrical current, impulse, wave or beam may be directed, which current, impulse, wave or beam is designed to incapacitate temporarily, injure or kill" except by specified public officers or suppliers of such devices, if possession is "necessary to the supply or sale of the device or weapon" to agencies utilizing it.

In2008, the US Supreme Court, in a decision known as Heller(PDF), overturned a District of Columbia statute and ruled that a banon handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense." Now, every state allows people to carry weapons of sorts, some with or without permits.

The Massachusetts top court concluded that the woman could have applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, like a handgun instead.

View post:
You have the right to bear arms, not electrical arms, court declares

Published February 23, 2015

A flurry of firearm and Second Amendment-related bills introduced in the Nevada legislature have already generated plenty of controversy, according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal.

This could be the year of the gun, as Republicans, who are in the majority in the Legislature for the first time in decades, see a chance to enact Second Amendment measures supported by many of their constituents.

At least nine bills directly relating to firearms have either been introduced or are being drafted. And there are related measures, including a bill that would extend justifiable homicide to carjacking situations, and another that would allow foster parents who are in law enforcement or who have concealed weapons permits to carry loaded firearms.

First there was a dust-up between Senate Democrats and Republicans over a GOP-backed gun measure that includes domestic violence provisions that Democrats said fell short of what is needed.

Then Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas, generated some controversy over comments she made in a New York Times story about her bill to allow those with concealed weapons permits to carry their weapons on college campuses.

If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them, she said.

To read more from The Review-Journal click here:

View post:
This could be year of the gun in Nevada