Category Archives: Second Amendment

This is the Colt U.S. M1911 .45 ACP pistol Burgett carried throughout his combat experience with the 101st Airborne Division in Europe during World War II. Nickel-plated and acquired by his father, the pistol was mailed to Burgett in Aldbourne, England, the day before D-Day.

A man should have heroes. And I am proud to say I have come to know some of mine. With familiarity only comes deeper respect.

I lost a friend, hero and fellow NRA life member last week, Donald R. Burgett. His books, starting with Currahee!A Screaming Eagle at Normandy, told the story of the enlisted man in the American Airborne during World War II.

I have been fortunate to spend time with some of my heroes, and through American Rifleman have been able to help tell their stories.

At the NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh I had breakfast with Don and his family, including his daughter Rene, as well as Dr. Sidney Clark Phillips Jr., and his lovely sister Katherine.

Then-NRA-Secretary Jim Land had asked if these two World War II veterans, who were honored guests at the Special Presentations we were running that weekend, would lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the NRA Meeting of members. Of course, they were honored.

Don Burgett, left, and Sid Phillips (not pictured) were presented with Taurus M1911s by the company's CEO Bob Morrison at the 2011 NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh, where the two NRA Life members and World War II veterans were guests of American Rifleman. They led the Pledge of Allegiance at the Annual Meeting of Members.

I recall Don asking Sid, "How do you want to do this?" Sid responded, "I believe we should do the hand salute," to which Don replied, as he wiped his mouth with the hotel napkin, "Then that's what we'll do." And shortly thereafter, they did. As they walked across the stage, they were no longer men in the twilight of their lives, a Detroit factory worker and a genteel southern doctor, they were a swaggering Army paratrooper and a Guadalcanal Marine. Their backs were straighter, and age seemed to fall away from them. They graciously took the standing ovation given them by their fellow NRA members, and then Don, who had been a sergeant said, "Hand salute," and a 17-year-old Marine and a 19-year-old paratrooper, more than half a century after they swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, saluted the national colors and began, "I pledge allegiance... ."

Before heading to New Zealand and the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, Phillips trained stateside with a Springfield '03. Nearly 70 years later, Phillips was still proficient with the rifle on his backyard shooting range.

We lost Sid Phillips in 2015. And we have now lost Don Burgett. I sat down to write about Sid a half dozen times, but could not find words adequate enough to express the gratitude our nation owes such men. Our nation is poorer for their loss. They were but two men. Humble men. Amongst millions. They did their part and more. They did nothing less than save the world from unspeakable evil. We owe our freedom, our way of life, to Don and Sid, and all those who served with them. And we are losing them.

We did TV shows with both Don and Sid. As well as magazine articles. You may have missed them in the magazine, but they are online (see links below). I was fortunate enough to come to know them. But their stories and their words are things every American should know. Know what they did for your freedom. And remember them.

Men like Don Burgett and Sid Phillips safeguarded your freedom. Make their valor, their sacrifice, worth it.

I interviewed Don for American Rifleman TV, and we listened to a man who jumped into Normandy, who fought to keep Hell's Highway open, who fought from a frozen foxhole on the road between Bastogne and Foy, tell us his story. He talked about liberating a Nazi death camp, telling the very souls the Nazis sought to exterminate, that things were different now that "America is here." And when he talked about what the Second Amendment meant to him, I watched the eyes tear and voice break of one of the bravest men I've ever met. Watch the video. Men like Don Burgett and Sid Phillips safeguarded your freedom. Make their valor, their sacrifice, worth it. As Don told me, "It's my Second Amendment." And it's yours too. Because men like him were willing to fight for it.

Learn more about these great men here:Video:American Rifleman TV: Don Burgett, Part 1 Video:American Rifleman TV: Don Burgett, Part 2 Hotter Than The Hinges Of Hell's GatesDon Burgett Marine & RiflemanSidney C. Phillips, Jr.

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American Rifleman | The Keefe Report: "It's My Second Amendment" - American Rifleman (press release) (blog)

Imagine carrying a gun in Texas without a government-approved license.

Sound far-fetched? Impossible? It is not - and the unlicensed carrying of firearms is not all that unique.

An organization advocating restrictive gun laws appeared before the Texas Legislature Tuesday. The group opposes legislation that would allow for the carrying of handguns without a license and to related offenses and penalties. (This is from terminology of House Bill 375.)

According to the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, HB 375 and a similar bill are dangerous permitless carry bills that would dismantle Texas permitting system, allowing people to carry loaded handguns in public without a permit or safety training.

What these two bills would do would be similar to what already exists in a dozen states - the unlicensed carrying of guns. There is legislation in Wisconsin allowing concealed handguns to be legally carried without a license. North Dakota approved similar legislation last week.

So, in other words, the state of Texas is not exactly creating its own version of the Second Amendment - other states have or are considering similar legislation.

We are not yet ready to advocate for the so-called constitutional carry law in Texas - meaning the unlicensed carrying of firearms. Let the debate begin.

However, as lawmakers consider the legislation, keep in mind that Texas has had some form of a concealed carry handgun law since 1995 - and there has not been bloodshed in the streets, as many predicted. And other states already allow the unlicensed carry of firearms.

Other laws related to gun control currently in the Texas Legislature give us pause, such as laws that would penalize private businesses which do not allow firearms. It is preferable to allow private business owners to decide for themselves whether to allow the carry of firearms on their property rather than have government dictate what they must do. (This is what clearly-posted signs are for - to inform the public of whether firearms are permitted on the property of a private business.)

Lawmakers in Texas should take a look at how the unlicensed carry of guns is working in other states. Are there similarities with Texas as far as population? What about the rate of crime? Economic factors?

Proceed with this information and research before automatically assuming that Second Amendment is dangerous.

More here:
Editorial: Second Amendment is not 'dangerous' - Amarillo.com

Right now it's illegal for any cannabis consumer in America to own firearms under the Second Amendment. But a state senator in Nevada is trying to get a law passed that would defend the right of medical marijuana patients to bear arms in the state.

According to federal law, people aren't allowed to buy or possess firearms if they use marijuana medicinally or recreationally.

The Gun Control Act of 1968states, "It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person...is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act."

Since marijuanais listed as a Schedule I drug in the Controlled Substances Act,cannabis consumers can't legally bear arms.

But Nevada State Senator Kelvin Atkinson (D-North Las Vegas) hopes to change that by convincing his colleagues to pass Senate bill SB351, which isaimed at protecting the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana patients. He introduced that bill to state legislators last week at the request of medical marijuana patients who reached out to him and asked for help.

"People have come to me and said, 'This isn't fair. Can you guys at least hear us out?' " he told local CBS-affiliate KTVN. "So, it's an opportunity to hear folks out and see where we need to go with it."

Atkinson argues that barring cannabis users from owning firearms is unjust since people who drink don't lose their Second Amendment rights.

"You look at everything else an individual can be on, including alcohol...and it's not an immediate disqualifier," he said. "I think it should be looked at and it shouldn't be an immediate disqualifier for individuals who are...taking it medically."

The senator added that the bill doesn't address recreational cannabis consumers because they aren't required by law to identify themselves. Medical marijuana patients have to apply for and carry a card authorizing their drug use. Recreational users don't face those requirements in the state that legalized adult use in 2016.

But even if the new law does pass, its value would be mostly symbolic since gun dealers would still have to abide by federal regulations. Before people in America can buy a gun, they have to fill out an ATF 4473 form, which specifically asks, "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?"

The form also clarifies that marijuana remains federally illegal even if the state an applicant resides in has legalized or decriminalized it.

Atkinson's bill can't overrule those guidelines, according to Jay Hawkins, Manager of Reno Guns & Range.

"That law doesn't change the guidelines that we're bound by, which is federal guidelines," Hawkins told KTVN. "All that law would change is the possession."

So a person could legally own a gun under the new Nevada law, but they couldn't buy a new one and they couldn't buy any ammo. So thanks to federal cannabis prohibition, their Second Amendment rights have been basically watered down to the freedom to own an expensive paperweight.

But that could change if Congress passes acannabis reform billintroduced to the House last month byRep. Thomas Garrett (R-Virginia). Rep. Garrett's bill would essentially repeal federal prohibition and allow individual states to determine the legality of marijuana.

h/t KTVN (Reno, Nevada)

Banner image: thelegislator.org(Nevada State Senator, Kelvin Atkinson)

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This Nevada Senator Is Trying To Protect Second Amendment Rights Of Cannabis Consumers - Civilized

The Right-to-Carry revolution continues to sweep across the country. With Gov. Doug Burgums signing of HB 1169 last week, North Dakota became the latest state to adopt a permitless/constitutional carry law. New Hampshire passed its own permitless carry law earlier this year, while other states like South Carolina are still considering similar legislation. (South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed a constitutional carry bill passed by the legislature earlier this month.) There are now more states that have constitutional carry laws than there are states with restrictive may-issue policies for carrying firearms. In other words, more state laws look like New Hampshires than New Jerseys, and thats a very good thing.

Judges have been considering the right to bear arms in courtrooms across the country, and a few of them have come up with some pretty extraordinary interpretations of the Second Amendment to justify restrictive gun control regimes. Many of them try to seize upon Antonin Scalias comment in Heller that not all gun control laws would be found to be unconstitutional as evidence that governments should have broad leeway in passing laws restricting the Second Amendment rights of their constituents. Others claim that as firearms have changed over the years, the meaning of the Second Amendment must have changed as well. Because the Founding Fathers never could have envisioned semi-automatic rifles, or multi-shot pistols, laws banning rifles and restricting the carrying of firearms are therefore fine and dandy. But few courts have considered what states around the country have actually been doing for the past few decades.More state laws look like New Hampshires than New Jerseys, and thats a very good thing.

In 1987, there were only nine states that were shall-issue in regards to concealed-carry licenses, and only Vermont expressly allowed carry without a permit. Twenty-four states authorized broad discretion in terms of who could carry, and 16 didnt allow any concealed carry at all. Just 30 years later, there are no states left with complete bans on carrying firearms. Twenty-nine states now have shall-issue laws, 13 now have permitless carry, and only eight (nine, if you include Washington, D.C.) still have the may-issue laws on the books. Constitutional carry isnt clustered in just one region of the country, either. In the northwest, Idaho adopted its permitless carry law in 2016; in the southeast, Mississippi did the same; while in the mid-Atlantic, West Virginia also adopted constitutional carry. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed constitutional carry into law in 2010, and Maine and New Hampshire recently joined Vermont in becoming permitless carry states. This is a broad movement, but good luck getting many judges on the 4th or 9th Circuits to notice.This is a broad movement, but good luck getting many judges on the 4th or 9th Circuits to notice.

Even if you view the Constitution as a living document, changing with the times without any need to actually amend it, its pretty clear that this country supports the individual right to keep and bear arms as much or more than we did at the time of the nations founding. Yes, there are a handful of states where anti-gun attitudes dominate legislatures and the public square, but the momentum is on the side of the Second Amendment. While dozens of states have adopted shall-issue or constitutional carry measures over the past three decades, not one state has reversed course. No state has instituted a ban on the carrying of firearms, or even switched from a shall-issue to a may-issue law. The country has been moving in one direction when it comes to the right to carry, and its in the direction of a full recognition of our Second Amendment rights.

Cam Edwards is the host of Cam & Co., which airs live 2-5 p.m. EST on NRATV and midnight EST on SiriusXM Patriot 125.He lives with his family on a small farm near Farmville, Va. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @camedwards.

Originally posted here:
Continuing Down The Road To Second Amendment Freedom - America's 1st Freedom (press release) (blog)

Three state legislators will host a free seminar about concealed carry laws and Second Amendment rights in Bedford County next month.

State Reps. Carl Walker Metzgar and Jesse Topper and Sen. Wayne Langerholc Jr. will hold the seminar from 6 to 8 p.m. April 11 at the Shawnee Valley Volunteer Fire Co., 3885 Pitt St., Schellsburg.

In addition to the legislators, law enforcement officers will speak about gun laws. The featured speakers are Bedford County District Attorney Bill Higgins, Bedford County Sheriff Charwin Reichelderfer and state police Trooper Matthew Long.

Additional information will be available regarding permit application, arms storage and identification, Pennsylvanias Castle Doctrine law and more. The seminar will also include a question-and-answer session.

Seating is limited and registration is required. Those interested in attending should contact Metzgars office at 814-842-3362 or register online at a legislators website.

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Seminar to focus on the Second Amendment - Daily American Online

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The legislationHouse Bill 1169passed the House on February 21 by a vote of83-9. It passed the Senate on March 21 by a vote of 34-13.

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USNews reports that the permitless carry law allows law-abiding citizens 18 and over to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense as long as they have a valid ID and notify law enforcement of the weapon during instances such as a traffic stop.

According to the West Fargo Pioneer, upon signing the bill Governor Burgum said, North Dakota has a rich heritage of hunting and a culture of deep respect for firearm safety. As a hunter and gun owner myself, I strongly support gun rights for law-abiding citizens. House Bill 1169 allows citizens to exercise their Second Amendment right under the U.S. Constitution.

With Governor Burgums signature, North Dakota became the 2nd state to recognize permitless carry this year. On February 22 New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R) signed legislation abolishing a concealed carry permit requirement in that state.

The addition of New Hampshire and North Dakota brings the total number of permitless carry states to 14. The other 12 areAlaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Vermont, Wyoming, and West Virginia. Although a permit is still required in certain parts of Arkansas and Montana, the vast majority of both states99.4 percentallow concealed carry without a permit.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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North Dakota: The 2nd Amendment Is Your Concealed Carry Permit - Breitbart News

The Second Amendment

Modern debates about the Second Amendment have focused on whether it protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms, or a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations like the National Guard. This question, however, was not even raised until long after the Bill of Rights was adopted.

Many in the Founding generation believed that governments are prone to use soldiers to oppress the people. English history suggested that this risk could be controlled by permitting the government to raise armies (consisting of full-time paid troops) only when needed to fight foreign adversaries. For other purposes, such as responding to sudden invasions or other emergencies, the government could rely on a militia that consisted of ordinary civilians who supplied their own weapons and received some part-time, unpaid military training.

The onset of war does not always allow time to raise and train an army, and the Revolutionary War showed that militia forces could not be relied on for national defense. The Constitutional Convention therefore decided that the federal government should have almost unfettered authority to establish peacetime standing armies and to regulate the militia.

This massive shift of power from the states to the federal government generated one of the chief objections to the proposed Constitution. Anti-Federalists argued that the proposed Constitution would take from the states their principal means of defense against federal usurpation. The Federalists responded that fears of federal oppression were overblown, in part because the American people were armed and would be almost impossible to subdue through military force.

Implicit in the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two shared assumptions. First, that the proposed new Constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and militia. Second, that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry. They disagreed only about whether an armed populace could adequately deter federal oppression.

The Second Amendment conceded nothing to the Anti-Federalists desire to sharply curtail the military power of the federal government, which would have required substantial changes in the original Constitution. Yet the Amendment was easily accepted because of widespread agreement that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Much has changed since 1791. The traditional militia fell into desuetude, and state-based militia organizations were eventually incorporated into the federal military structure. The nations military establishment has become enormously more powerful than eighteenth century armies. We still hear political rhetoric about federal tyranny, but most Americans do not fear the nations armed forces and virtually no one thinks that an armed populace could defeat those forces in battle. Furthermore, eighteenth century civilians routinely kept at home the very same weapons they would need if called to serve in the militia, while modern soldiers are equipped with weapons that differ significantly from those generally thought appropriate for civilian uses. Civilians no longer expect to use their household weapons for militia duty, although they still keep and bear arms to defend against common criminals (as well as for hunting and other forms of recreation).

The law has also changed. While states in the Founding era regulated gunsblacks were often prohibited from possessing firearms and militia weapons were frequently registered on government rollsgun laws today are more extensive and controversial. Another important legal development was the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Amendment originally applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit. Although there is substantial evidence that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to protect the right of individuals to keep and bear arms from infringement by the states, the Supreme Court rejected this interpretation in United States v. Cruikshank (1876).

Until recently, the judiciary treated the Second Amendment almost as a dead letter. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), however, the Supreme Court invalidated a federal law that forbade nearly all civilians from possessing handguns in the nations capital. A 54 majority ruled that the language and history of the Second Amendment showed that it protects a private right of individuals to have arms for their own defense, not a right of the states to maintain a militia.

The dissenters disagreed. They concluded that the Second Amendment protects a nominally individual right, though one that protects only the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. They also argued that even if the Second Amendment did protect an individual right to have arms for self-defense, it should be interpreted to allow the government to ban handguns in high-crime urban areas.

Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), the Court struck down a similar handgun ban at the state level, again by a 54 vote. Four Justices relied on judicial precedents under the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause. Justice Thomas rejected those precedents in favor of reliance on the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but all five members of the majority concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state infringement of the same individual right that is protected from federal infringement by the Second Amendment.

Notwithstanding the lengthy opinions in Heller and McDonald, they technically ruled only that government may not ban the possession of handguns by civilians in their homes. Heller tentatively suggested a list of presumptively lawful regulations, including bans on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, bans on carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, laws restricting the commercial sale of arms, bans on the concealed carry of firearms, and bans on weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Many issues remain open, and the lower courts have disagreed with one another about some of them, including important questions involving restrictions on carrying weapons in public.

The right to keep and bear arms is a lot like the right to freedom of speech. In each case, the Constitution expressly protects a liberty that needs to be insulated from the ordinary political process.

Gun control is as much a part of the Second Amendment as the right to keep and bear arms. The text of the amendment, which refers to a well regulated Militia, suggests as much.

Not a Second Class Right: The Second Amendment Today by Nelson Lund

The right to keep and bear arms is a lot like the right to freedom of speech. In each case, the Constitution expressly protects a liberty that needs to be insulated from the ordinary political process. Neither right, however, is absolute. The First Amendment, for example, has never protected perjury, fraud, or countless other crimes that are committed through the use of speech. Similarly, no reasonable person could believe that violent criminals should have unrestricted access to guns, or that any individual should possess a nuclear weapon.

Inevitably, courts must draw lines, allowing government to carry out its duty to preserve an orderly society, without unduly infringing the legitimate interests of individuals in expressing their thoughts and protecting themselves from criminal violence. This is not a precise science or one that will ever be free from controversy.

One judicial approach, however, should be unequivocally rejected. During the nineteenth century, courts routinely refused to invalidate restrictions on free speech that struck the judges as reasonable. This meant that speech got virtually no judicial protection. Government suppression of speech can usually be thought to serve some reasonable purpose, such as reducing social discord or promoting healthy morals. Similarly, most gun control laws can be viewed as efforts to save lives and prevent crime, which are perfectly reasonable goals. If thats enough to justify infringements on individual liberty, neither constitutional guarantee means much of anything.

During the twentieth century, the Supreme Court finally started taking the First Amendment seriously. Today, individual freedom is generally protected unless the government can make a strong case that it has a real need to suppress speech or expressive conduct, and that its regulations are tailored to that need. The legal doctrines have become quite complex, and there is room for disagreement about many of the Courts specific decisions. Taken as a whole, however, this body of case law shows what the Court can do when it appreciates the value of an individual right enshrined in the Constitution.

The Second Amendment also raises issues about which reasonable people can disagree. But if the Supreme Court takes this provision of the Constitution as seriously as it now takes the First Amendment, which it should do, there will be some easy issues as well.

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) is one example. The right of the people protected by the Second Amendment is an individual right, just like the right[s] of the people protected by the First and Fourth Amendments. The Constitution does not say that the Second Amendment protects a right of the states or a right of the militia, and nobody offered such an interpretation during the Founding era. Abundant historical evidence indicates that the Second Amendment was meant to leave citizens with the ability to defend themselves against unlawful violence. Such threats might come from usurpers of governmental power, but they might also come from criminals whom the government is unwilling or unable to control.

McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) was also an easy case under the Courts precedents. Most other provisions of the Bill of Rights had already been applied to the states because they are deeply rooted in this Nations history and tradition. The right to keep and bear arms clearly meets this test.

The text of the Constitution expressly guarantees the right to bear arms, not just the right to keep them. The courts should invalidate regulations that prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying weapons in public, where the vast majority of violent crimes occur. First Amendment rights are not confined to the home, and neither are those protected by the Second Amendment.

Nor should the government be allowed to create burdensome bureaucratic obstacles designed to frustrate the exercise of Second Amendment rights. The courts are vigilant in preventing government from evading the First Amendment through regulations that indirectly abridge free speech rights by making them difficult to exercise. Courts should exercise the same vigilance in protecting Second Amendment rights.

Some other regulations that may appear innocuous should be struck down because they are little more than political stunts. Popular bans on so-called assault rifles, for example, define this class of guns in terms of cosmetic features, leaving functionally identical semi-automatic rifles to circulate freely. This is unconstitutional for the same reason that it would violate the First Amendment to ban words that have a French etymology, or to require that French fries be called freedom fries.

In most American states, including many with large urban population centers, responsible adults have easy access to ordinary firearms, and they are permitted to carry them in public. Experience has shown that these policies do not lead to increased levels of violence. Criminals pay no more attention to gun control regulations than they do to laws against murder, rape, and robbery. Armed citizens, however, prevent countless crimes and have saved many lives. Whats more, the most vulnerable peopleincluding women, the elderly, and those who live in high crime neighborhoodsare among the greatest beneficiaries of the Second Amendment. If the courts require the remaining jurisdictions to stop infringing on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, their citizens will be more free and probably safer as well.

The Reasonable Right to Bear Arms by Adam Winkler

Gun control is as much a part of the Second Amendment as the right to keep and bear arms. The text of the amendment, which refers to a well regulated Militia, suggests as much. As the Supreme Court correctly noted in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the militia of the founding era was the body of ordinary citizens capable of taking up arms to defend the nation. While the Founders sought to protect the citizenry from being disarmed entirely, they did not wish to prevent government from adopting reasonable regulations of guns and gun owners.

Although Americans today often think that gun control is a modern invention, the Founding era had laws regulating the armed citizenry. There were laws designed to ensure an effective militia, such as laws requiring armed citizens to appear at mandatory musters where their guns would be inspected. Governments also compiled registries of civilian-owned guns appropriate for militia service, sometimes conducting door-to-door surveys. The Founders had broad bans on gun possession by people deemed untrustworthy, including slaves and loyalists. The Founders even had laws requiring people to have guns appropriate for militia service.

The wide range of Founding-era laws suggests that the Founders understood gun rights quite differently from many people today. The right to keep and bear arms was not a libertarian license for anyone to have any kind of ordinary firearm, anywhere they wanted. Nor did the Second Amendment protect a right to revolt against a tyrannical government. The Second Amendment was about ensuring public safety, and nothing in its language was thought to prevent what would be seen today as quite burdensome forms of regulation.

The Founding-era laws indicate why the First Amendment is not a good analogy to the Second. While there have always been laws restricting perjury and fraud by the spoken word, such speech was not thought to be part of the freedom of speech. The Second Amendment, by contrast, unambiguously recognizes that the armed citizenry must be regulatedand regulated well. This language most closely aligns with the Fourth Amendment, which protects a right to privacy but also recognizes the authority of the government to conduct reasonable searches and seizures.

The principle that reasonable regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment has been affirmed throughout American history. Ever since the first cases challenging gun controls for violating the Second Amendment or similar provisions in state constitutions, courts have repeatedly held that reasonable gun lawsthose that dont completely deny access to guns by law-abiding peopleare constitutionally permissible. For 150 years, this was the settled law of the landuntil Heller.

Heller, however, rejected the principle of reasonableness only in name, not in practice. The decision insisted that many types of gun control laws are presumptively lawful, including bans on possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, bans on concealed carry, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, restrictions on guns in sensitive places like schools and government buildings, and commercial sale restrictions. Nearly all gun control laws today fit within these exceptions. Importantly, these exceptions for modern-day gun laws unheard of in the Founding era also show that lawmakers are not limited to the types of gun control in place at the time of the Second Amendments ratification.

In the years since Heller, the federal courts have upheld the overwhelming majority of gun control laws challenged under the Second Amendment. Bans on assault weapons have been consistently upheld, as have restrictions on gun magazines that hold more than a minimum number of rounds of ammunition. Bans on guns in national parks, post offices, bars, and college campuses also survived. These decisions make clear that lawmakers have wide leeway to restrict guns to promote public safety so long as the basic right of law-abiding people to have a gun for self-defense is preserved.

Perhaps the biggest open question after Heller is whether the Second Amendment protects a right to carry guns in public. While every state allows public carry, some states restrict that right to people who can show a special reason to have a gun on the street. To the extent these laws give local law enforcement unfettered discretion over who can carry, they are problematic. At the same time, however, many constitutional rights are far more limited in public than in the home. Parades can be required to have a permit, the police have broader powers to search pedestrians and motorists than private homes, and sexual intimacy in public places can be completely prohibited.

The Supreme Court may yet decide that more stringent limits on gun control are required under the Second Amendment. Such a decision, however, would be contrary to the text, history, and tradition of the right to keep and bear arms.

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Second Amendment - constitutioncenter.org

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He suggests this has happened as a result of the contention that private gun ownership is the ultimate check against tyranny.

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Hayes writes:

The Second Amendment, its most strenuous defenders like to tell us, is the ultimate check against tyranny.The argument is that an armed populace keeps oppression at bay, but its practical effect has been the opposite.If the people are always armed enough to threaten the states control, then the states monopoly on violence is forever in question and the state therefore acts more often than not as if it were putting down an insurrection as opposed to enforcing the law.

Note the assertion that an armed populace threatens the states monopoly on violence. Hayes misses the fact that this is exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted. The Founderswanted to ensure that the central government could not overreach and run roughshod over the citizenry.

See James Madisons Federalist 46, where it is evident that the advantage of being armed is one which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. Moreover, the purpose of the armsas described by Madisonis to enable the people to band together and repel a tyranny.

Madison wrote, Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.

He makes the same point in other ways in Federalist 46, but what is applicable here is that Hayes and others who criticize strenuous defenders who say the Second Amendment is the ultimate check against tyranny miss the fact that this contention was nurtured by Madison. For those who disagreewhether they were disagreeing in 1788 or now, in 2017Madison invites them to look at the lessons the British regular army learned when it tried to expand the Crowns power over armed colonists formed into militias.

Rather than deal with these realities of American history and the documents that so clearly state the Founders intentions, Hayes tries to undercut the benefit of an armed populace by suggesting that Saddam Hussein was able to hold power, although Iraq had one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. Hayes does not mention that Iraq also had a dictatorship which only allowed the best guns to go those loyal to the dictator.

Slatereported this by summarizing the Washington Posts Anthony Shadid regarding Iraqs gun policy prior to the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003: [Iraqi] gun stores can sell only hunting rifles and pistols. But AK-47s, the weapon of choice, are provided to millions of members of the ruling Baath Party and allied militias such as the one known as Saddams Fedayeen.

The Chicago Tribunemade the same point shortly after U.S. forces toppled Saddam Husseins regime:

Under Husseins tough policies, most Iraqis did not have access to guns. His military, however, had a hodgepodge of weapons bought from Russia and the Eastern Bloc nations and taken in wars with Iran and Kuwait. Many were old and in miserable shape, but the Republican Guard received modern equipment.

After U.S. troops took control of Baghdad, looters and thieves grabbed tens of thousands of weapons from government arsenals, Americans estimate. Remnants of Husseins forces apparently collected the best guns and artillery hidden before the war.

Madisons point still stands. A well-armed populace at the outset is a hindrance to the formation of a dictatorship and a check on tyranny from within.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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Chris Hayes: 2nd Amendment Defenders Spurred 'Arms Race' Between Citizens and Cops - Breitbart News

It is odd that federal entities seem to find certain libertieslike the right to bear armsless inalienable than others. I will continue to guard the constitutional rights of all Americans against groups that would undermine them, and I look forward to seeing due process restored in the question of veterans Second Amendment rights.

WASHINGTONCongressman Doug Collins (R-Ga.) voted today to support H.R. 1181, TheVeterans Second Amendment Protection Act, to guard veterans right to bear arms and to due process under the law.

Currently, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) labels veterans as mentally defective if they receive assistance from an appointed fiduciary. In the VA system, attaching this label to a veteran sends his or her name to the FBIs National InstantCriminal Background Check System (NICS). Inclusion on the NICS list prohibits an individual from buying or possessing a gun. Under the VAs system, individuals can be added to the system without any judicial determination,meaning veterans are deprivedof their Second Amendment rights without due process.

As a military chaplain, I find it disheartening that the VA allows bureaucrats to make determinations about a veterans constitutional right under the pretext of mental health care. Under the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, a judicial determinationrather than a bureaucratic labelwould be necessary to report a veterans name to NICS, said Collins.

It is odd that federal entities seem to find certain libertieslike the right to bear armsless inalienable than others. I will continue to guard the constitutional rights of all Americans against groups that would undermine them, and I look forward to seeing due process restored in the question of veterans Second Amendment rights.

Collins also cosponsored a similar piece of legislation, H.J.Res. 40, a joint resolution of disapproval of the Social Security Administrationsimplementation of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, which effectively denied millions of Social Security recipients their Second and Fourth Amendment rights. President Trump signed this resolution into law last month.

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Collins Supports Protecting Second Amendment Rights for Veterans - Fetchyournews.com

Washington Post

Trump: Second Amendment is 'very, very safe' Washington Post March 20, 2017 8:18 PM EDT - President Trump took a dig at former presidential rival Hillary Clinton, saying the Second Amendment would be in danger "if a certain other person won this election." (The Washington Post) ...

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Trump: Second Amendment is 'very, very safe' - Washington Post