Category Archives: Second Amendment

When a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided an important gun rights case last week, some advocates were already thinking ahead.

Clark Neily of the Cato Institute told my colleague Ann E. Marimow that the 2-to-1 ruling against the Districts requirement of a good reason to obtain a permit to carry a gun in public was thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned.

[Appeals court blocks D.C.s concealed carry law]

It would make an ideal vehicle for the Supreme Court to finally decide whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home, Neily said.

As if.

The fact is the justices have shown a remarkable lack of interest in deciding that issue, or in expanding upon their landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. They have had multiple chances to define with specificity what the Second Amendment protects beyond Hellers guarantee of individual gun ownership in ones home, and they have declined each opportunity.

Just last month, the court decided to stay out of a similar case from California, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decided that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to carry a concealed weapon in public.

[Supreme Court declines to review California concealed-carry law]

Declining to even review the ruling brought an impatient rebuke from Justice Clarence Thomas.

It reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right, wrote Thomas, who was joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.

Thomas said he found the 9th Circuits ruling indefensible.

But even if other members of the court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the court to answer this important question definitively. Twenty-six states have asked us to resolve the question presented, he wrote.

Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith acknowledged the absence of clear direction at the beginning of his opinion last week on the D.C. permit procedure.

Constitutional challenges to gun laws create peculiar puzzles for courts, he wrote, because they require balancing the highest goal of government protecting innocent lives against individual rights bestowed by the Constitution.

The Supreme Court, he observed, has offered little guidance.

The courts first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment is younger than the first iPhone, Griffith wrote. And by its own admission, that first treatment manages to be mute on how to review gun laws in a range of other cases.

By listening closely to what the court had to say in Heller, Griffith and Judge Stephen F. Williams blocked the Districts law as a violation of a core Second Amendment protection.

The law requires those who seeking a permit to carry a concealed firearm show that they have good reason to fear injury or a proper reason, such as transporting valuables. Living in a high-crime area shall not by itself qualify as a good reason.

As of July 15, D.C. police had approved 126 concealed-carry licenses and denied 417 applicants.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson came up with a very different interpretation than her colleagues. Heller blessed the Districts regulation, she wrote, because of the citys unique security challenges as the nations capital and because the permit process does not affect the right to keep a firearm at home.

The sole Second Amendment core right is the right to possess arms for self-defense in the home, Henderson wrote.

She added that by characterizing the Second Amendment right as most notable and most acute in the home, the Supreme Court necessarily implied that that right is less notable and less acute outside the home.

She noted that her colleagues had put on blinders to the historical analyses of the D.C. Circuits sister circuits: All who have considered the issue concluded that restrictive state regulations on carry permits are constitutional.

There arent many states with such stringent requirements Maryland, New Jersey and New York are among them. They are outliers, said attorney Alan Gura, a go-to Second Amendment lawyer who successfully argued Heller at the Supreme Court and the D.C. case, Wrenn v. District of Columbia, as 44 states allow citizens to claim their rights.

As is its custom, the Supreme Court has not given reasons when it declined to review the lower court decisions upholding the state restrictions. That unanimity, though, could be one reason the Supreme Court has not gotten involved.

The court most often steps in when there is a conflict in the lower courts. The D.C. Circuits panel decision creates that for now.

The city has not decided on its next legal move, but it seems likely to ask the full D.C. Circuit to review the panels decision. As David Kopel, a University of Denver law professor and gun rights activist notes, when Heller was decided in that court a decade ago, the full circuit declined to review and overturn the panels groundbreaking endorsement of an individual right to gun ownership.

But the court has changed dramatically since then. It is more liberal now, with a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents.

If the full D.C. Circuit joined its sister circuits in upholding the good reason requirement, gun rights activists would be back to the Supreme Court, again asking for review.

As Thomass dissent indicates, there is some division on the court on the matter, and reasons for why the justices have not stepped in are a matter of speculation.

Perhaps a solid majority agrees the lower courts have read Heller correctly and that it leaves space for jurisdictions to impose stringent requirements for carrying a gun outside the home.

Or perhaps the court remains closely divided Heller was decided on a 5-to-4 vote and the justices simply have little appetite for tackling the controversial matter of guns in the absence of a lower court disagreement that would force their hands.

Read the rest here:
DC gun ruling again raises an issue the Supreme Court has been reluctant to review - Washington Post

Second Amendment rights must be preserved The Second Amendment is needed more today than at any other time in history.

As the military, A well-regulated Militia, grows in size, the more the rights of the people to bear arms must be protected. The same is true as the size of law enforcement grows, the rights of the people to bear arms must be protected.

The Second Amendment is necessary, if not more so, today than when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. It does not need changing or tweaking in any manner. What it needs is to be applied as written.

We cannot totally leave our security, the defense of our families and the defense of our property to law enforcement officers. We must be self-reliant enough to protect ourselves, our family and our property from those who would cause us harm or try to take our property.

Those who believe citizens right to bear arms should be curtailed or eliminated in any manner should do a bit of research first on violent crime and then on what happens when arms are taken away from the citizens of a country.

As gun ownership decreases or arms are confiscated, violent crime rates increase. Yes, violent crimes involving guns decrease, but violent crime by other means increase so much that the overall violent crime rate increases. This is true as well within cities that have curtailed arms ownership. Chicago is a prime example!

Germany confiscated arms at the beginning of World War II. The Nazis then killed millions of citizens. When China confiscated arms, China then went on to kill millions. These are just two examples of what happens when the citizens lose the right to bear arms.

I spent 20 years in the military. I am also a big fan and supporter of law enforcement. We need both a strong military and effective law enforcement force. But these two cannot do it alone; they need the help of the citizens and that means that the citizens should be free to bear arms in support of law enforcement and the military to protect their families and property!

More:
Second Amendment rights must be preserved - The Wilson Times (subscription)

In a major development in the ongoing effort to restore the Second Amendment in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an opinion on Tuesday that would effectively require D.C. officials to make concealed carry licenses available on a shall-issue basis.

The courts decision comes in the combined cases of Wrenn v. D.C. and Grace v. D.C.

Following the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized a Second Amendment right to have operable handguns in the home for self-defense, the District retaliated by banning carrying of firearms outside the home.

A lower federal court found D.C.s carry ban also violated the Second Amendment, but rather than comply with that ruling, D.C. created a sham system for concealed carry permits that requires applicants to show a good or proper reason for needing to carry a concealed handgun. This includes a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community, job duties requiring the transport of large amounts of cash or valuables, or the need to protect a close relative who cannot provide for his or her own special self-defense needs. Practically speaking, this means the vast majority of law-abiding people who simply want to carry a handgun for self-dense in ordinary circumstances are automatically disqualified.

Licensed concealed carry, moreover, is the only option for ordinary people to lawfully carry a loaded, accessible firearm for self-defense outside the persons home or business in D.C., so in effect the ban on carry already found unconstitutional remains.

Wrenn and Grace therefore presented the appellate court with the questions of whether the Second Amendments right to bear arms for self-defense extends beyond the home and, if so, whether District officials could nevertheless deny that right to all but a select, hand-picked few. The courts answer to those questions was a resounding yes and no, respectively.

The D.C. Circuit analogized the Districts current concealed carry licensing regime to the ban on keeping handguns at issue in Heller. The issue, the court stated, is not whether a few select people could exercise the right but whether it was available to responsible, law-abiding people in ordinary circumstances.Because the court found that D.C.s good or proper reason requirement was effectively a ban on bearing arms by people entitled to Second Amendment protection, it declared the requirement invalid and barred its enforcement.

The upshot of this decision is that D.C. must now issue concealed carry licenses to all otherwise eligible applicants, i.e., those who pass the Districts background check and training requirements and pay the applicable fees. Unfortunately, the courts order is effectively on hold while District officials determine their next legal move. That could mean asking for a rehearing before the full D.C. Circuit or appealing directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

How the District will proceed remains to be seen, but in the meantime, your NRAs efforts in the Grace case have for now contributed to winning a vital battle in the continuing conflict over the right to keep and bear arms in the seat of the nations government. As ever, we will keep our readers apprised of further developments in this ongoing effort.

Excerpt from:
NRA-ILA | Appeals Court Schools D.C. on Heller's Meaning ... - NRA ILA

This opinion was handed down in Wrenn v. District of Columbia,a case wherein the D.C. Circuit ruled that the citys good-reason requirement for concealed carry issuance is not constitutional. When the ruling was issued, Breitbart News reported that the court issued a permanent injunction, barring future use of the good-reason clause to limit concealed carry permit issuance.

The Wrenn ruling was welcomed with open arms by concealed carriers, as it came roughly a month after the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) refused to hear Peruta v. California. In Peruta, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Americans have no right to carry a concealed handgun outside the home for self-defense.

Perutas majority opinion was written byJudge William Fletcher and said, We hold that the Second Amendment does not preserve or protect a right of a member of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public. And contrary to what the D.C. Circuit ruled this week, the Peruta ruling upheld Californias good cause for concealed carry permit issuance.

So we have two views, diametrically opposed, on two separate coasts. On the east coast, the D.C. Circuit defended the right to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, and on the west coast, the Ninth Circuit ruled that no such right exists.

As this split festers, we may end up getting the SCOTUS review that Justice Clarence Thomas has been urging his colleagues to undertake. Hecalled it indefensible when they refused to hear Peruta,and if D.C. appeals the D.C. Circuit decision, his colleagues will get the opportunity to review a similar case Wrenn in the shadow of an obvious circuit split.

Thomas is already on record saying SCOTUS ought not sit idly by as state-level gun control cripples the Second Amendment.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host ofBullets 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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More:
Circuit Court: 2nd Amendment Protects Right 'to Carry Firearms for Personal Self-Defense Beyond the Home' - Breitbart News

Things that should not be abridged.

Starting in September, Texas will allow you to open-carry swords. The state already allows you to carry around blades shorter than 5.5 inches, but this fall that restriction will be lifted and Texans can get their saber on.

I think thats great. Seriously. I am totally cool with the right to bear swords. Its an originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment. A sword is way closer to an 18th-century musket than any of the sub-assault-pocket-Uzis turning our country into a shooting gallery today. If you could get people to turn in their guns to receive a personally crafted sword, Id vote to melt down the Intrepid for steel and enslave Hitori Hanzo to do the work.

Guns kill innocent bystanders. The only innocent bystander ever to be killed by a sword was Polonius, and Hamlet felt super bad after that happened. Guns kill indiscriminately. Swords kill their intended target. If we accept that in an free society, some killing must be done in the fight for scarce resources, swords are tactical weapons while guns are weapons of mass destruction.

And while were here, lets remember that a sub-5.5 inch knife is probably way more deadly than a freaking broadsword. Christ. An enemy will make you look like a bloody sprinkler system in the time it takes for you to unsheathe your katana. Youre not a damn Jedi. If Texas is already allowing knives (and guns!), then nobody is made less safe by toting around a sword. Once the F-150 comes out with stab-proof seating, nothing will even be significantly damaged by these things.

I dont know that you can ever go back again. I dont know that you can ever get rid of all the guns lurking in our country. But our country made a wrong turn when we broadly interpreted arms to include rapid-fire hand-held artillery units, as opposed to something limited to personal stabbing weapons and slow reload rifles.

Hannibal didnt need guns. Batman doesnt need guns. Guns are for cowards. If you want to defend your people, you should be limited to the ax aisle at Walmart.

New Texas Law To Allow Open Carry Of Swords, Machetes [CBS Dallas-Fort Worth]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Read more here:
Open-Carry Swords: A Civilized Second Amendment Right - Above the Law

Washington Post

Mo Brooks: 'Second Amendment' | Campaign 2018 Washington Post July 24, 2017 1:14 PM EDT - Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who is running for Alabama's Senate seat in a special election primary on Aug. 15, released a campaign video invoking the GOP baseball practice shooting in June. (Mo Brooks for Senate) ...

Continue reading here:
Mo Brooks: 'Second Amendment' | Campaign 2018 - Washington Post

Second Amendment

Posted July 26, 2017 8:40 am CDT

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Shutterstock.com

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the restriction violates the Second Amendment because it amounts to a total ban on the right to carry a gun for most residents. The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.), Reuters and the Washington Post covered the decision (PDF).

At the Second Amendments core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions, Judge Thomas Griffith wrote for the majority. Traditional restrictions include licensing requirements, but not special-needs requirements, he said.

The Second Amendment erects some absolute barriers that no gun law may breach, Griffith wrote.

At least four other federal appeals courts have upheld similar restrictions, while a fifth has recognized a constitutional right to carry a gun outside the home, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Washington, D.C., gun law says the police chief may issue concealed carry permits to those who show good reason to fear injury to his person or property or has any other proper reason for carrying a pistol.

To show good reason, applicants have to show evidence of specific threats or previous attacks that demonstrate a special danger to the applicants life. District regulations interpret other proper reason to include employment involving the transportation of cash or valuables.

Washington, D.C., is considering asking the full court to hear the appeal, which had consolidated two casesWrenn v. District of Columbia and Grace v. District of Columbia.

More:
Restrictive concealed carry law violates Second Amendment, DC Circuit rules - ABA Journal

Attorney General Ken Paxton recently joined West Virginias amicus brief inRobinson v. United Statesalong with Indiana,Michigan, and Utah in the United States Supreme Court to protect against unjustified frisk searches occurring on the suspicion that a citizen is armed. The basis for this search places a burden on the Second Amendment right to carry a firearm.

In 1968,Terry v. Ohiodetermined that a law enforcement officer may both stop and frisk an individual when specific and articulable facts lead an officer to reasonably believe criminal activity is occurring. This search is justifiable when the officer believes the detained individual is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or others. However, anen bancFourth Circuit recently interpretedTerryto require only a reasonable suspicion that the individual is armed. This interpretation allows officers to justify a frisk search solely on the suspicion of possessing a weapon during a lawful stop, regardless whether there is a reasonable belief that the individual is dangerous.

The Fourth Circuit interpretation places an unlawful burden on Second Amendment rights. The Constitution plainly guarantees law-abiding citizens the right to bear arms, whether through open or concealed carry, said Attorney General Paxton. We must ensure the Court continues to protect the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more here:
AG Paxton Joins Others in Supreme Court Brief to Protect Second Amendment Rights - eParisExtra.com (blog)

FAIRFAX, Va. The right to self-defense scored an important victory on Tuesday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down Washington D.Cs unconstitutional restrictions on issuing concealed carry permits. Today's ruling in Grace v. District of Columbiabuilds on the landmark Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

The Second Amendment protects the fundamental, individual right of Americans to not only keep arms, but also to bear arms. D.C. residents have suffered under a near total ban on their right to carry a firearm for self-defense, said Chris W. Cox, executive director, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. Todays ruling is an important step toward protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

The decision overturns D.C.s requirement that citizens prove they have a good reason to obtain a concealed carry permit. For the overwhelming majority of permit applicants, this results in ade factoprohibition on their right to carry a firearm for self-defense.

In the majority decision, Judge Thomas Griffith wrote At the Second Amendment's core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home", and that "The good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on most D.C. residents right to carry a gun in the face of ordinary self-defense needs.

Governments should not be allowed to take constitutional rights away from law-abiding citizens, Cox concluded. This decision demonstrates that the right to carry a firearm outside the home for self-defense is clearly protected by the Second Amendment.

Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America's oldest civil rights and sportsmen's group. More than five million members strong, NRA continues to uphold the Second Amendment and advocates enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation's leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the armed services. Be sure to follow the NRA on Facebook at NRA on Facebook and Twitter @NRA.

View post:
Court Strikes Down Unconstitutional Ban on Concealed Carry - NRA ILA

A recent questionable claim we fact-checked stemmed from a discussion about whether to ban assault weapons.

Clickbait websites love to make up fake quotes for celebrities and controversial politicians, hoping to mislead readers into clicking into their content and seeing their ads.

For instance, we recently fact-checked a post accusing former Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., of saying something she didnt say; we rated it Pants on Fire.

Now, as part of Facebooks efforts to fight fake news, we learned that users had flagged as questionable a post from someone Bachmann used to babysit for -- former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson. (Yes, the babysitting part is actually true.)

The claim about Carlson appeared first on a site called therightists.com. It was headlined, "Gretchen Carlson: The 2nd Amendment Was Written Before Guns Were Invented. "

Within days, the item was picked up and reprinted essentially verbatim on other websites. One version got 31,400 shares through July 24.

The accompanying article uses as its launching-off point something that Carlson did actually do -- making an on-air break with conservative orthodoxy by saying, in the wake of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting in 2016, that the assault-weapons ban should be reinstated.

"Do we need AR-15s to hunt and kill deer? Do we need them to protect our families?" she asked on air. "Cant we hold true the sanctity of the Second Amendment while still having common sense?"

These comments drew opposition from gun-rights supporters. Its at this point that the article veers off into fabrication.

The article reads, "Interestingly, when confronted by Second Amendment supporters on Twitter, Carlson doubled down on her pro-ban stance, claiming that the fact that youre even using the Second Amendment as an argument against banning assault weapons shows me youre ignorant. Dont you know the 2nd Amendment was written before guns were even invented? "

This would be a ridiculous claim if shed actually said it.

As schoolchildren are taught, muskets were used in the American Revolution. (Heres an example from the collection of the Museum of the American Revolution.) And the revolution occurred more than a decade before the 1789 drafting and ratification of the Bill of Rights, which includes the Second Amendment. ("A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.")

Indeed, the history of firearms goes back even further than that -- to the 1300s, more than four centuries before the Second Amendment was written.

The first hint that this may be bogus appears elsewhere on therightists.com website. On the sites "About Us" page, a grammatically challenged warning explains that therightists.com "is independent News platform That allow People and independent Journalist to bring the news directly to the readers. Readers come to us as a source of independent news that not effected from the big channels. This is HYBRID site of news and satire. part of our stories already happens, part, not yet. NOT all of our stories are true!"

Of course, this warning isnt noted on the actual page the Carlson story appears on.

We also couldnt find any credible news source reporting Carlsons words as cited in therightists.com article.

Finally, we checked with Carlsons office. In a statement, her office confirmed that the article was "total B.S."

Bottom line: Carlson did not say, "The 2nd Amendment Was Written Before Guns Were Invented." The accusation that she did rates as Pants on Fire.

Share the Facts

2017-07-24 19:53:16 UTC

1

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Pants on Fire

Say Gretchen Carlson said, "The 2nd Amendment Was Written Before Guns Were Invented."

various websites

Thursday, June 15, 2017

2017-06-15

Go here to read the rest:
No, Gretchen Carlson didn't say 2nd Amendment written before guns invented - PolitiFact (blog)