Category Archives: Second Amendment

Kirk Smith/THE REVIEW After the university pulled funding for the RSOs ammunition, the Students for the Second Amendment have found alternative means of sponsorship.

BY MADIE BUIANO SENIOR REPORTER

Two months after the university revoked the organizations funding to buy ammunition, Zoe Callaway, president of Students for the Second Amendment, hasnt stopped in her pursuit to bring firearms to campus.

In the meantime, the club will host various speakers throughout the semester. Callaway has spoken to the National Rifle Association, advocates for gun rights and the Second Amendment Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public on Americas constitutional heritage to possess firearms.

Callaway hopes to bring Gays for Guns to campus, a group dedicated to teaching LGBTQ communities proper firearm use. For her last semester as president, Callaway wants to co-sponsor the event with Haven, the schools largest LGBTQ organization.

It would be a really good way to come together, especially since the country is so divided, Callaway said. To bring these two groups together would speak volumes.

Havens president, Elias Antelman, said he didnt have enough knowledge on the subject to comment.

The university provided ammunition funding to the club for approximately three years. Under the new university president, Dennis Assanis, that is no longer the case. Callaway and Jeremy Grunden, the newly appointed vice president of Students for the Second Amendment, were unexpectedly informed of the change over winter break. According to Gruden, the new policy will make the RSOs recurring trips to the shooting range harder.

They did it under our noses, just slipped it in there and didnt really tell anybody, Grunden said.

The unanticipated change will not affect the groups ability to buy ammunition for the time being. In July, Fox News wrote a story on Students for the Second Amendment titled College rifle, pistol-shooting clubs under fire, underfunded amid gun debate. Following the story, Callaway said people donated a couple thousand dollars to their club, money that they will use in substitute of university funds.

Weve also been offered discounts at different stores, Callaway said. People are willing to help us.

Despite funding restrictions, Grunden said that the group has other priorities, like continuing the fight to bring concealed carry to campus, a goal Calloway announced in October. Since then, the group has pursued support through state legislation, rather than through the school administration. The second semester president said she has spoken to senators and representatives in Delaware that have expressed interest.

We all understand its going to take a long time, longer than we like, Callaway said. We still need to find people who will help us draft a bill, and who would be willing to present it at legislative hall.

If her plan to bring concealed carry to campus is successful, Callaway already has an idea for moderating who will be allowed to carry firearms. She said that if members of the community already have their concealed carry permit, they should be permitted to have guns on their person.

Having a permit from a different state means that a screening process has already occurred. Callaway said there should be a mandatory class that people who hope to carry firearms should take as a way to stifle concerns throughout campus.

In the meantime, Students for the Second Amendment is planning a range trip following spring break. On these trips, the groups members go to a local shooting range to shoot paper targets.

According to Grunden, these excursions are of particular interest to members who are first time shooters because it provides them with an opportunity to learn about gun safety and how to properly operate a weapon.

Weve even taken foreign exchange students to the range, Callaway said. Guns are completely banned in China, so this is their only chance to ever shoot a gun.

Other than a range trip Callaway and Grunden said they will be reserving a kiosk in Trabant to advertise and educate the UD community on what their club is about. Callaway said they have been making new pamphlets that have information about gun laws in local states. They are hopeful that this will bring in new members, she said.

See the rest here:
Students for the Second Amendment persevering after ammunition funding is revoked - University of Delaware Review

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The Second Amendment is not about guns, Instead, it is about the inalienable right to self defense.

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CJ Letter 1:56 p.m. ET March 6, 2017

Weapons(Photo: Czanner, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently found that the Second Amendment does not apply to weapons of war. I beg to differ. In our founders day, the musket was a weapon of war and a firearm widely used outside of war.Like most people today, our founders knew that technology would advance. Clearly, they believed that one day tyrants could rise again. This was the single most important aspect of why the founders established the Second Amendment. No modern day judge could possibly reach any other conclusion unless influenced by self-ideology. The Second Amendment not only covers AR-15s and AK-47s, but bigger more powerful semi automatics. Killers can always kill when they are facing unarmed victims, but this is not so for the armed citizen facing soldiers with semi-automatic weapons, for revolvers, shotguns and bolt action rifles are limited against such firepower. The Second Amendment is not about guns, Instead, it is about the inalienable right to self defense, a right that should never be defined by any man or woman, but protected by the oaths of statesmen, who have pledged to uphold that right.

Mark Damon Milby

Pekin, Indiana47165

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Weapons of war should be allowed | Letter - The Courier-Journal

On Wednesday, the Arizona Senate passed Senate Bill 1122, which prohibits local governments from requiring background checks for private party transfers. The billis considered to be a legislative repercussion against the city of Tucson. In the past, Tucson has destroyed every gun it seized, something gun-rights activists says could violate state law.

Because of Tucsons position on guns, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued Tucson under a state law that allows the state to pull funding from local governments whose policies contradict those of the states. In other words, Tucson has one option: repeal the ordinance or face significant funding shortages. Losing state funding would cost the city of Tucson $170 million.

The Tucson city council refused to repeal the ordinance. While the issue plays out in court, the council has decided to pause the gun destruction program.

According to Brnovich, gun control is a state-level issue, not a local issue.

SB 1122 is being considered the legislative remedy to the Tucson problem.

From guns.com:

This is over-wrought, he said Tuesday during session. This does not allow local cities or counties to do any type of a background check for any exchange of property including cars. This is being decided before the state Supreme Court right now so lets not rush it. We should not be deicing for a city whats best for the public safety of its citizens.

The case Farley referenced pits Tucson against the state over its destruction of seized or surrendered firearms. The policy preempts state law which requires such firearms be sold, though a court decision in favor of Tucson would quash SB 1122, Farley said.

The city of Tucson is arguing that gun regulations are a matter of local control, he said. I think we should wait to see what the court decides before we make any more laws that could be invalidated.

Author's Bio: Beth Baumann

Continued here:
Arizona Passes Bill to Lift Infringements on Second Amendment Rights - Bearing Arms

All Second Amendment supporters are encouraged to attend Second Amendment Day at the Iowa State Capitol tomorrow, March 7. Second Amendment advocates will have the opportunity to meet with legislators and other pro-gun Iowans, in addition to watching the floor proceedings as the House of Representatives consider House File 517, the omnibus bill which would make many pro-gun reforms for Iowa gun owners. Further details can be found below. Also, please click the Take Action button below to contact your state Representative and urge them to SUPPORT HF 517!

Second Amendment Day Tuesday, March 7, 2017 Iowa State Capitol 1007 E. Grand Avenue Des Moines, IA 50319

10:00am-10:45am: Presentation and Speakers, Room 102 10:45am-12:00pm: Lobby Time 12:00pm: House of Representatives vote on HF 517

HF 517 covers a diverse range of important issues for gun owners. Included in HF 517 are the following pro-gun reforms:

Please stay tuned to your email inbox andwww.nraila.orgfor further updates on this bill as it advances through the Iowa Legislature.

See more here:
Iowa: Attend Second Amendment Day at the Iowa State Capitol! - NRA ILA

Hugh Taylor | Special to the Daily News

Re: Column, Feb. 14, Why did the Constitution need the Second Amendment?

With guns being as much of a problem as they are, I am interested in learning more about the matter and what can be done about it. The history set forth in the recent column in your paper by Dr. Mark Hopkins is the best that I have read and provides an excellent starting point in understanding the matter.

I personally feel that the Second Amendment only permits gun ownership when a citizen is an active member of an organized (controlled and structured) militia. I think the Second Amendment is currently being misinterpreted.

My training in the USMC taught me that a gun in the hands of an untrained person is nearly worthless as a tool of self-defense and provides only a feeble and false sense of security to the untrained. The present interpretation of this amendment not only provides the public with a false sense of security, but also is causing the loss of freedom and many unnecessary deaths.

People now have to be careful about when and where they go. Laws need to be enacted that protect citizens from the use of guns and the sale of inappropriate weapons (hunting guns excluded). These laws should include search and seizure of weapons that are possessed in the public domain along with stiff fines for violation.

We need a Wyatt Earp. Where is he now? You may remember he required that people check their guns into the sheriffs office when they came to town (Wichita, Kansas) in the late-1800s and that stopped the bloodshed there.

This guest column is from Hugh Taylor, a snowbird from Overland Park, Kansas.

Editors Note

Guest editorials and columns that regularly appear in this space are not intended to reflect a particular stance of the Northwest Florida Daily News but rather share expanded viewpoints from other media outlets and our readers. To be considered for publication, guest editorials and columns from readers cannot be longer than 500 words and must be submitted by email to letters@nwfdailynews.com. Please put Guest Editorial or Guest Column in the subject line.

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GUEST COLUMN: 2nd Amendment currently being misinterpreted ... - Port St. Joe Star

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When asked about policing and how to make neighborhoods safer, Legend said, I think we do have to do something about guns. We shouldnt live in a society so awash with guns that [it] makes the cops fearful and makes them suspicious of everybody.

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The Breakfast Club host DJ Envy said, You travel a lot. Youve been to Toronto, youve been to Japan, and you notice when you go to a lot of these countries, people are not allowed to have guns. Legend interjected, Yes, and their murder rates are way lower. Their suicide rates are lower, too, because when people have guns, they end up using them.

Envy asked, So banning guns in full, youre saying?

Legend responded:

Im not saying that necessarily would work. But if we look at Australia, they did something over there. They had a few mass shootings, and they said, You know what? Were going to take a pretty significant approach to reducing the amount of guns on the streets. And it worked. They didnt have another mass shooting, their murder rate went down, and we wont do it here because we got the Second Amendment. We got the NRA thats going to lobby against it. And maybe it wont be constitutional to do that, but at the end of the day, it actually worked. And if we wantto talk about what makes us safer, that would make us safer.

First, Australias gun confiscation scheme was fashioned as a gun buybacka mandatory buybackwhere peoplewith guns the government wished to ban were required to turn inthoseguns. The scheme resulted in the confiscation of somewhere between 650,000 and 1,000,000 firearms during the years 1996-1997. (Figures vary.) On September 13, 2016, Breitbart News reported that Australia is considering a new body of gun laws to fight the rising gun crime that is marring Melbourne, Australia, and much of Victoria. In fact, Melbourne has had more than one shooting a week since January 2015.

But the Australian model is Legends solution?

Second, part of what Australia is now considering to fight gun crime is an amnesty whereby criminals will have a period of time to turn their guns in without penalty. Ironically, during Legends appearance on The Breakfast Club, he was told a lot of people do not turn in their guns during buybacks because they are afraid that the gunand the crimes committed with itwill somehow be traced back to them. Legend responded by suggesting some type of amnesty period to get guns off the street.

So he is pushing the Australian gun buyback that did not prevent criminals from having guns in the first place and is also pushing the second phase of that failed policy: amnesty for criminals with guns.

Legend also blamed Chicagos gun crime on Indiana, claiming that criminals in Chicago go to Indiana to buy their guns. This opened the door for him to criticize the differences in gun laws from state to state in the U.S. He said, Wed have to do something nationally that was much more pervasive to get rid of guns.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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John Legend: Second Amendment, NRA Prevent U.S. from ...

Hugh Taylor | Special to the Daily News

Re: Column, Feb. 14, Why did the Constitution need the Second Amendment?

With guns being as much of a problem as they are, I am interested in learning more about the matter and what can be done about it. The history set forth in the recent column in your paper by Dr. Mark Hopkins is the best that I have read and provides an excellent starting point in understanding the matter.

I personally feel that the Second Amendment only permits gun ownership when a citizen is an active member of an organized (controlled and structured) militia. I think the Second Amendment is currently being misinterpreted.

My training in the USMC taught me that a gun in the hands of an untrained person is nearly worthless as a tool of self-defense and provides only a feeble and false sense of security to the untrained. The present interpretation of this amendment not only provides the public with a false sense of security, but also is causing the loss of freedom and many unnecessary deaths.

People now have to be careful about when and where they go. Laws need to be enacted that protect citizens from the use of guns and the sale of inappropriate weapons (hunting guns excluded). These laws should include search and seizure of weapons that are possessed in the public domain along with stiff fines for violation.

We need a Wyatt Earp. Where is he now? You may remember he required that people check their guns into the sheriffs office when they came to town (Wichita, Kansas) in the late-1800s and that stopped the bloodshed there.

This guest column is from Hugh Taylor, a snowbird from Overland Park, Kansas.

Editors Note

Guest editorials and columns that regularly appear in this space are not intended to reflect a particular stance of the Northwest Florida Daily News but rather share expanded viewpoints from other media outlets and our readers. To be considered for publication, guest editorials and columns from readers cannot be longer than 500 words and must be submitted by email to letters@nwfdailynews.com. Please put Guest Editorial or Guest Column in the subject line.

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GUEST COLUMN: 2nd Amendment currently being misinterpreted - The Northwest Florida Daily News

The Second Amendment is not about guns The Olympian Thus what the framers were talking about was not preventing persons serving in the military. In 21st century language the Second Amendment would read: A trained and disciplined armed force is necessary to the security of a free State; therefore ... and more »

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The Second Amendment is not about guns - The Olympian

I respond to the Feb. 26 editorial by Ann Turner entitled Leave the Gun Laws Alone regarding three concealed carry bills of the 2017 Wyoming Legislature.

Turner addresses HB136 Campus Carry, which recently failed in the Wyoming Senate. It would have allowed a concealed carry permit holder to carry a concealed firearm on campus.

Turner also mentions HB137 and HB194. Senate-amended HB137 failed conference/concurrence committee consideration Feb. 27, then passed reconsideration March 1. The House version allowed permittees to carry into governmental meetings. Senate amendment(s) are unknown.

On Feb. 27, HB194 passed the Senate. If enacted as presented to the Senate, the bill would empower school districts to authorize permittee employees and volunteers to carry concealed on school property. However, a Feb. 28 GNR article citing Sen.Von Flatern, reported that HB194 was amended Feb. 27 in the Senate, then passed on third reading. As of this writing, however, the roll call votes on bills and amendments page on the legislative website reflects no amendment to HB194 voted on since a failed amendment on Feb. 24. The article reports the Senate amended HB194 in conference/concurrence committee to allow anyone to carry concealed on school property except school employees and volunteers, unless said employees and /volunteers have school district consent and permits. So, at this time, appears HB194 is up for gubernatorial consideration. At this time, the exact terms of HB194 are unclear.

Turner asserts that ... we strongly believe in the Second Amendment ... Then, she pivots, applauding the defeat of HB136 and opposing soon-to-be-defeated HB137 and soon-to-be-gubernatorial-ready HB194 on safety grounds. Turner argues as of 2011 Wyoming already has adequately loosened its gun laws so that people can carry concealed weapons without a permit. She observes that due to such loosening, there already exists the unfettered right to carry concealed guns.

How unfettered can our right to carry concealed be if were still considering bills to expand that right? Turner closes asserting, Simply put, there are places where guns shouldnt be allowed. Doesnt sound unfettered to me!

The penultimate gun law is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It simply, clearly says, ... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It doesnt say the right of the people to keep and bear arms can be reasonably regulated, just so long as the right is not substantially infringed. The peoples right established by the Second is second only to the right of free speech established by the First Amendment.

Some say even the First is infringed. They assert, You cant yell Fire! in a crowded theater. Thats correct, UNLESS ITS TRUE! If theres actually a fire, Fire! could be an important word/tool preventing or minimizing injury. Dont preemptively outlaw the use of Fire! in a theater because someone may yell it irresponsibly and untruthfully. Likewise, dont preemptively ban guns from theaters, schools or governmental meetings because someone may irresponsibly and unsafely use one. Guns could be an important tool to prevent or minimize injury. Prosecute the irresponsible, the unsafe with reckless endangerment or aggravated battery.

War with England was freshly remembered when writing the Second, so it was deemed important that the people be able to oppose an unfair, overbearing or nefarious ruler or government, foreign or domestic.

The selection of two unqualified words, not and infringed, in the Second clearly imparts the absoluteness of the peoples right. The root of infringed is fringe. A fringe is the edge or periphery of something.

Its clear the peoples right to bear arms shall not be abridged in the slightest not even bits out of the periphery, edge the fringe. Every rancher knows the law of trespass. You fence off one foot of one boundary of anothers 35,000-acre ranch and its trespassing, no matter that its merely the periphery, edge, the fringe.

My opinions not conventional wisdom. Its not that of the U.S. Supreme Court. But, the court is not always right. Its just always the court its always the last word for now. Court rulings are not cast in stone.

Bills are unqualified evidence that the right to carry concealed, let alone the right to bear arms generally, is still substantially fettered and infringed. Bills are legislative attempts to correct some of the unconstitutional infringements by Wyomings law.

In short, the Second is the only gun law thats constitutional.

C. Robert Klus Jr. is a retired attorney who lives in Gillette.

Go here to see the original:
Leave the Second Amendment alone - Gillette News Record

Open carry in action.

Erich Schlegel/Getty Images

On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld a state law prohibiting the open carry of firearms in public, ruling that the Second Amendment does not protect the practice. The decision is yet another legal setback in gun advocates recent struggle to persuade the courts to strike down a wide range of firearms restrictions as unconstitutional. Like many other state and federal courts throughout the country, the Florida Supreme Court concluded that the Second Amendment cannot be read to bar states from regulating the manner in which firearms are kept and used.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

As the court noted at the outset, virtually any adult who has no physical impairment or felony record can carry a gun in public in Florida. The weapon, however, must be concealed. After getting arrested and charged for openly carrying a .38 caliber handgun while walking alongside U.S. Highway 1, Dale Lee Norman challenged this concealment requirement, arguing that the Second Amendment protects the right to openly carry firearms. He insisted that the Supreme Courts decisions in D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, which created an individual right to keep a handgun in the home for self-defense, also grant him the right to walk around in public with his firearm in plain view.

To evaluate Normans claim, the court used the analysis deployed by virtually every federal circuit court to consider Second Amendment challenges. First, it asked whether the law burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment based on a historical understanding of [its] scope, or whether it falls into a historically unprotected category of prohibitions. The court found that the law did not fall into a historically unprotected category and instead implicated the central component of the Second Amendmentthe right to self-defense.

The court then asked whether the open carry ban was so close to the core of this right as to prevent people from defending themselves. (Such laws, it asserted, are unconstitutional under Heller and McDonald.) Because Florida law regulates only how firearms are borne in public and still permits concealed carry as well as home defense, the court held that the open carry ban does not severely burden the right to self-defense.

Thus, the court found that the Florida law was not presumptively constitutional, and instead subjected it to intermediate scrutiny, asking whether it was substantially related to an important governmental objective. From there, the court easily concluded that the law passed constitutional muster. The states interest ensuring public safety by reducing firearm-related crime, the court wrote, is undoubtedly critically important. And the open carry ban substantially relates to this purpose because it helps to prevent deranged persons and criminals from grabbing an openly carried firearm and using it for malign purposes.

To my mind, this analysis is weak, as it overstates the scope of the Second Amendment from the start. The courts answer to the threshold questionwhether the open carry ban burdens historically protected Second Amendment conductis incorrect. There is no deeply rooted history of permissive open carry laws in the United States, and open carry bans should therefore be presumed to be constitutional. The dissenters, who believe open carry laws do have historical support, cite two antebellum state supreme court decisions affirming the right to openly carry in public. But as the majority noted, quoting an influential law review article, [t]he notion of a strong tradition of a right to carry outside of the home rests on a set of historical myths and a highly selective reading of the evidence. The only persuasive evidence for a strong tradition of permissive open carry is limited to the slave South.

Thats a critical caveat, because the tradition that supposedly establishes historical precedent for open carry was, in fact, part of the Southern slavery regime. White Southerners openly carried weapons to subdue, threaten, and punish rebellious or insubordinate slaves, and the law protected their right to do so as part of a legal system designed to suppress nonwhites. Obviously, this regime no longer exists; it was abolished by the 13th and 14th amendments. And in 2010s McDonald decision, the Supreme Court explained that the Reconstruction Congress wrote the 14th Amendment with the intent to apply the Second Amendment against the statesin an effort to protect newly freed slaves right to self-defense against violent white Southerners. It thus stands to reason that pre-14th Amendment case law meant to safeguard the subjugation of slaves has no place in the analysis of modern state gun regulations.

Had the Florida Supreme Court simply found, as a threshold matter, that the states open carry ban did not burden historically protected Second Amendment conduct, it couldve ended its inquiry there. Holding as much wouldve spared the majority from having to engage in a rather unconvincing intermediate scrutiny review. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit recently noted, firearm restrictions that fall outside historical protections for the right to bear arms are presumptively constitutional. Open carry has no firm tradition in our legal history, outside of two antebellum decisions designed to perpetuate the slave regime; that should be enough to justify the legality of open carry bans.

Still, in spite of these flaws, Thursdays decision is undoubtedly a major defeat for gun rights activists. It arrives just weeks after a 4th Circuit decision holding that the Second Amendment does not protect assault weapons, and less than a year after the 9th Circuit found that there is no constitutional right to concealed carry, either. (That practice, too, has been widely banned since the nations founding.) Because the Supreme Court clearly has little appetite to expand Heller and McDonald, these decisions will probably stand as the last word on the subject for now. And gun safety advocates can rest easy knowing that whatever few legislative achievements they can eke out in this political environment are unlikely to be toppled by the judiciary.

Originally posted here:
Florida Supreme Court Rules the Second Amendment Doesn't Protect Open Carry - Slate Magazine (blog)