Category Archives: Second Amendment

Guns seem to be a regular topic in the newspaper, along with references to the Second Amendment, which protects the citizens' right to keep and bear same.

I was curious, so I read it: 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.

As a strict constructionist, I would like to advocate for the intent of the writers of this article.

Seems to me that those who keep and bear arms ought to be enrolled in a well regulated militia, currently known as the National Guard or the military reserve. These citizens would be trained and ready should our nation require their services when we are threatened by Native Americans or forces of the British, French or Spanish governments.

We could even designate certain units for advanced training in nuclear weaponry, air combat, operation of a submarine or aircraft carrier, and special ops. We would no longer need a standing military force, since the citizenry would stand ready when needed. This could result in a great savings from the national budget, and allow Medicaid to become a national health care system.

If called, I will gladly bring my bow, arrows and slingshot.

William A. Kaeppel Florissant

Excerpt from:
Determining what the Second Amendment means for today - STLtoday.com

By Noah Shusterman By Noah Shusterman July 14 at 6:00 AM

Noah Shusterman is the author of "The French Revolution: Faith, Desire, and Politics," and is currently researching 18th-century militias. He teaches history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Every year on July 14, France celebrates its national holiday, commemorating the storming of the Bastille in 1789. The festivities include fireworks, dances and a military procession through Paris.

Ironically, it was fear of the French army that first led Parisians to storm the Bastille. And distant though that event may be in both time and place, Americans should take note: this kind of scenario is why the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution exists. Both those storming the Bastille and those ratifying the Bill of Rights had a genuine fear of a standing army as the enemy of a true republic a fear that shows just how disconnected modern readings of the Second Amendment have become.

[Trump loves a military parade its one reason hes gone to Paris]

Gun rights advocates argue that the founders included the amendment to protect the people from a tyrannical government. To an extent, they are correct. But the founders were concerned about a specific kind of tyranny. They were worried about the same thing that the Parisians were worried about on the eve of the storming of the Bastille: that a despot would order his soldiers to attack the citizens. A citizens militia, by replacing the army, could prevent that scenario from happening.

In recent years, the idea of the Second Amendment as a justification for standing up to the government has become more popular. Todays visions of armed resistance, though, have become unhinged from the Amendments 18th-century moorings, in ways that make appeals to what the founders thought ring hollow. The story of the storming of the Bastille can help, by showing how an 18th-century Second Amendment solution was meant to work and how ideas of military service have changed since the Early Republic.

In early July 1789, Frances National Assembly was less than a month old. It represented a new beginning for a nation accustomed to absolutist rule. When the troops arrived in the region, Parisians believed that the king or someone close to him had ordered them to destroy the Assembly and put an end to Frances Revolution. This, in a nutshell, was the kind of action that the Second Amendment was meant to prevent.

Parisians were unwilling to wait andsee what would happen. On July 12, on the initiative of the citys government, Parisian men began arming and organizing themselves into a militia. In a well-constituted state, one city leader told a town meeting, every citizen is obliged to bear arms in defense of the fatherland.

By the morning of July 14, 1789, tens of thousands of Parisian men had joined the new militia. They seized guns from a Paris arsenal. Lacking gunpowder and ammunition, they attacked the Bastille prison, which had a large supply inside its walls. The storming of the Bastille had begun.

It had begun, moreover, so that the Parisian citizens, organized into a militia and under local government leadership, could fight against Frances professional army. This, in a nutshell, was the Second Amendment solution, tested two months before the Bill of Rights and with it, the Second Amendment would be written, and two years before itwould be added to the Constitution.

To be clear, there was no causal link between the storming of the Bastille and the writing of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Both, though, borrowed from the same groups of ideas. Americans were even more fearful than the French of a standing army of professional career soldiers. For the founders, such an army was incompatible with a free society, because salaried career soldiers were loyal to their leaders, not to the society they served. Kings or generals could order their soldiers to do anything, including marching on the citizens themselves. That Frances king could order his troops into the Paris region seemed to confirm such fears.

How could a society defend itself, though, without relying on professional soldiers? The 18th-century answer to standing armies was the citizens militia, in which all citizens were part-time militiamen. In any other society, freedom existed at the whim of the military leaders, but an armed, trained, and organized society depended only on itself. Hence the militias necessity to a free state.

The Second Amendment said all of this in its first 13 words A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state without spelling it out as explicitly as it might have. Virginias 1776 Bill of Rights made the links clearer: That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and be governed by, the civil power. The phrasing was different but the ideas were the same: for a society to be free, there could be no professional army. Citizens had to be soldiers, and soldiers citizens.

At the Bastille, French citizens were putting those ideas into action. Storming the prison began as a means to an end, a way to better prepare Parisians to face off against the army. Once the attackers took over the prison, though, the gunpowder became an afterthought. A multiday celebration began.

Still, the militia formed during the preceding days remained in place. Thomas Jefferson, in France at the time, wrote of 50, or 60,000 men in arms in Paris. The king ordered his soldiers back to the border.

The people, armed, organized and under the leadership of the local government, had stood up to Frances Royal Army, and the king had backed down. This was the kind of resistance to the government that the founders had in mind, and it was a far cry from the kinds of resistance seen or even proposed in the United States today.

Over the past two centuries, changes in public perception of the military have made the original vision of the Second Amendment unrecognizable. The nation has moved away from the mandatory militia service that the founders took from granted. As part-time militia service became unpopular among citizens, Americans came to embrace their professional army, and being a career soldier became the highest form of patriotism.

As a result, it has become harder to understand what these well regulated militias were and why they were necessary for the security of the free state. But the storming of the Bastille serves as a reminder that those who would haul out the founders to defend the modern Second Amendment would do well to remember how much American society has changed since the 1790s.

See more here:
Bastille Day reminds us that our Second Amendment debates are distorted - Washington Post

Interviews from the past several years provide clear insight into the Romeo, Michigan, natives position on firearms.

During an April 13, 2013, interview, then-CNN host Piers Morgan asked Kid Rock if he owned a lot of guns and he responded, Yes, tons. Morgan then asked if Kid Rock was safe with his guns, to which he responded, Yes. Morgan then appeared to search for a flaw he could exploit by asking, Why do you trust 315 million other Americans to be safe with them?

Kid Rock simply smiled and said, Cause I got one.

Morgan asked, Do you need to have one for protection? Kid Rock responded, I need to have one. When I go to Detroit, I am never in Detroit without my gun. Ever. Right by my sideloaded, ready. Morgan added, And you wouldnt hesitate to use it? to which Kid Rock replied, No, not at all.

Love for firearms check.

Firearms are for self-defense check.

Now, how about hunting?

On June 20, 2016, Kid Rock gave an interview to Petersens Hunting in which he explained that Hank Williams Jr., introduced him to hunting and the two now share ownership of some hunting grounds in Alabama. Kid Rock said, I always loved guns, but we never really hunted. [Hank]got me into it, and I finally got the itch. I got the bug. The more time I spent with Hank, well, he just doesnt do much other than hunt, collect guns, and make music. Going to visit him in Tennessee and Alabama was what hooked me. I have to give all the credit to him.

When Petersens asked Kid Rock how he responds to anti-hunting propaganda in 21st-century America, he said:

I like win-wins in life. I like things that are all positive. To me, thats hunting. You form bonds with other hunters, you eat healthier, and you become better at, well, life. I see hunting as an American tradition. Its a rite of passage to me. Theres so much family and friendship involved that its really just the backbone of this country.

It is interesting to note that Kid Rock celebrated Donald Trumps presidential victory by releasing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, God, Guns & Trump. Now might be the time for aGod, Guns, & Senator Kid Rock t-shirt; it could be a shirt made to celebrate the fact that a Second Amendment candidate is running against gun control Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow.

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.

P.S. DO YOU WANT MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX?SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY BREITBART NEWSLETTER.

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What Senator Kid Rock Might Mean for the Second Amendment - Breitbart News

We recently celebrated Independence Day, and now that the echoes of the fireworks have faded, the hot dogs eaten and the bunting put away, lets reflect on what it really means.

At the heart of it is the Second Amendment.

Its customary on national holidays to express appreciation for people in the military and veterans. They indeed deserve the recognition and gratitude of the citizenry they serve.

However, those who fought in the American Revolution were not professional soldiers, sailors or marines. They were farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen. They were revolutionaries.

They knew there would be bloodshed and violence when they signed the Declaration of Independence because monarchs, even as urbane and sophisticated as Englands king, do not give up power easily.

The American Revolution was indeed bloody and long. After it ended, when the men who fought in it took the reins of government themselves, they continued to think like revolutionaries rather than as noblemen with some divine right to rule. To their credit, they wanted to ensure American citizens never lost the ability to take back control of the government, through violent means if necessary.

They expected another revolution, perhaps in their own lifetimes. So, they saw the need to state explicitly in the Bill of Rights that citizens have a right to bear arms in order to be able to launch armed uprisings against the government.

Hunting was such a common activity in the 18th century that it never entered the minds of people then that it would require any constitutional protections. But armed revolt was something that dictators have always harbored an interest in preventing, and so the purpose of the amendment was to ensure no king, tyrant or democratic government would stand in the way.

No careful reading of history can lead to any other conclusion on the amendment's meaning.

Understanding how the authors interpreted the Constitution is important because it is a contract of sorts. Courts evaluate contracts in light of the meaning attached to phrases by the people entering into the agreement, in this case the Founding Fathers and the citizens of the states that ratified the Bill of Rights. Meanings change over time, but the only way to change the terms of a contract is to amend it. The Constitution has a process for amending it.

If you think the need for the Second Amendment to arm future revolutionaries is no longer valid because human nature has changed or 250 years of legal precedent is an ironclad safeguard, then it should be amended through the assent of the citizens who are a party to the agreement.

However, it would be wrong to attempt to change the interpretation of the words to reflect modern thinking the way some judges suggest when they describe the Constitution as "a living document." Because if it is that easy to do for one provision, then it could be easily done for others. And all citizens have an interest in safeguarding our personal liberties.

More:
Independence Day and the Second Amendment - Newnan Times-Herald

July 11, 2017 AtlantaLike many African-Americans of his generation, Phillip Smith, a Californian in his 50s, grew up without a gun in the house. To his parents, gun ownership was not just politically unacceptable, but morally wrong a fount, if anything, of trouble and tragedy.

When he moved his own family to the South in 2002, he found a different tradition, where black families, many of them fresh from the farms, had hunting rifles for sport and, to an extent, self-defense. Mr. Smith was intrigued. As he bought his first guns and began practicing at a gun range, he had an epiphany: Perhaps the Second Amendment is the black mans ultimate sign of full citizenship.

Smiths crossover into the world of guns and ammo makes him part of a widening attempt to, as he says, normalize a black gun-carrying tradition fraught with historical pain and tragedy.

His advocacy for African-American gun rights has turned out to be a potent message. TheNational African-American Gun Associationhe founded has grown from 800 to 20,000 members since 2015. Unlike the primarily white and male National Rifle Association, NAAGA is diverse in both color and gender; 60 percent of its members are women.

The main thing and Id be lying if I said something else is that in the last 18 months the racial tone of the country has tilted in a direction that is alarming, at a minimum, says Smith, who lives in an Atlanta suburb. For African-Americans, were seeing the same old faces, the same type of conversations we saw in the 50s and 60s, and we thought they were dead and gone.

Given that white Americans have led the liberalization of gun laws in the past decade, black gun carry is becoming a test of constitutional agency, injecting what University of Arizona gun culture expert Jennifer Carlson calls the specter of legitimate violence into an already tense political climate. Incidents like the June acquittal of the Minnesota police officer who shot Philando Castile, a legal gun owner, during a traffic stop have added to that tension, gun owners like Smith say as did the National Rifle Associations silence over both his shooting and the verdict.

For some black gun owners, the question is a stark one: Can African-Americans reasonably expect to be covered by the Second Amendment in a country still marbled by racist rhetoric, attitudes, and acts?

In one way, it is saddening and troubling how much hopelessness there must be to make such a massive shift to decide guns might be a necessary answer to a documented rise in overt racism, says Nancy Beck Young, a political historian at the University of Houston.

The shooting of Mr. Castile and the election of President Trump changed things for Dickson Q Amoah, a former Air Force reservist from the outskirts of Chicago.

Like Smith, Mr. Amoah says his parents were vehemently anti-gun.To this day, he says, Honestly I still think that getting rid of all these excess guns in Chicago and the country would be a good thing.

Then he saw the white nationalist salute of Hail Trump near the White House in January. His first thought was: Oh, hell no.

For him, carrying a gun has become a test of a stereotype, as Professor Young says,built on the myth of what the black man was after and what he might do.

I used to worry about what people thought of me as a black man, says Amoah, the president of the 761st Gun Club of Illinois. As a gun-carrier, he says, Now, I just dont care anymore.

The extent of the risk legally armed black men take to carry guns is hard to measure. The Washington Post has found that unarmed black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than unarmed white men. But there are no hard studies on that have looked at how officers react to armed black men versus armed white ones. Moreover, privacy laws prohibit deep-dive studies of gun registration data to look for patterns by race.

But Ms. Carlson, author of Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline, found a proxy in administrative gun boards that exist in several states to adjudicate gun license issues. She found, in two adjacent Michigan counties,that black concealed-carry applicants are routinely lectured and quizzed in public forums what she calls degradation ceremonies. White gun owners, meanwhile, are addressed without lectures in hearings where they can plead their case in a semi-private room.

Her findings suggest such proceedings for concealed-carry licenses now serve as mechanisms ... to encourage black men to internalize their position at the bottom of the racial ... hierarchy.

That evidence, she says, underscores how some policing strategies, like stop-and-frisk, only work if you can presume that the guns that are being carried are illegal, says Carlson. In that way, gun laws change the ordering of how people think about danger in a way that is way beyond whether there is a gun there or not.

Only about half as many African-American households have guns as white ones 19 percent, compared with 41 percent.And attitudes toward guns remain starkly divided along racial lines. Sixty percent of black voters favor more gun control, while 61 percent of white voters seek more gun rights.

That reflects a deep resistance to guns in African-American communities that goes back to the civil rights era, when blacks, often victims of gun crimes, began to see gun ownership as counterproductive and dangerous. But that doesn't tell the whole story, gun-carry proponents say.

You dig and you realize the civil rights movement wasnt just a nonviolent movement, counters Amoah. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a gun carrier. And you look at Malcolm X differently. He was a self-defense guy.

Smith in Atlanta says he has had heated debates with preachers over his gun carry advocacy. To some, it seems a reprise of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense movement, which led to a wave of gun control laws in the US. After 30 of its members marched, armed and defiant, into the California state capitol in 1967, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, who ran for president as a staunch Second Amendment defender, signed a law prohibiting open carry in the state.

Scholars say that Second Amendment rights for African-Americans cannot be fought for separately from other rights.

No. 1, Philando Castile was seeking to show an officer his permit when he was killed, so having a gun is not an escape from being killed, says historian Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America.But while that case suggests that African-Americans SecondAmendment rights are not worth as much as those of others, it also brings us to the devalued citizenship of black Americans in 2017. In order to re-value that citizenship it will take a political movement that goes beyond SecondAmendment rights and focuses on the whole panoply of rights generally.

The coast-to-coast growth of NAAGA chapters from a handful to 32 in less than two years seems to mirror a shift, partly a generational one, in that thinking. The number of blacks who prioritize gun rights over gun control rose from 18 percent in 1993 to 34 percent in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.

Black-owned gun shops say they have seen business increase in the last six months, even as gun sales overall have softened, leading to price cuts of more than 50 percent.

At 280 pounds, Louis Dennard says he can be an intimidating presence until people get to know him as the kind-hearted gardener and pitmaster that he is.

His worry is that racist stereotypes get enshrined into law, under a president who openly questioned former President Barack Obamas citizenship and, in Mr. Dennard's view, is basing his legacy on dismantling the work of the countrys first black president. Right now, they are in the process of prejudicing the system, he says.

Though the growth of his gun club is tied to national politics, Smith is careful to not focus his advocacy on the president or the NRA. He says his toughest critics, so far, have been others in the African-American community, who dont see a strong correlation between the Second Amendment and a sense of full citizenship.

Im trying to let everyone know that you have the right not the God-given right, but the right as an American to carry a gun, says Smith. We have things to overcome in the black community in terms of what you believe you have a right to do as a citizen.

My job is to convince people that it is not radical to have a gun ... to protect your family.

Read more from the original source:
Black gun owners ask: Does the Second Amendment apply to us ... - Christian Science Monitor

A Black, off-duty St. Louis policeman was shot by a white colleague when he went to assist officers with an arrest. The Black officer had, according to reports, showed up on the scene and was ordered to get on the ground until he was identified, at which point he was told stand up and walk toward them. At that point, a white officer who had not originally been on scene showed up and allegedly shot the off-duty Black officer. He claimed he was scared.

Whether it is a matter of the so-called Stand Your Ground laws, police shootings of unarmed African-Americans or, as in the now-notorious case of the police killing of Philando Castilein Minnesota who possessed a LEGAL firearm, we are being bombarded with the rhetoric of supposedly scared white people who, regardless of the circumstances, believe that their lives are in mortal danger because we happen to be in the vicinity.

The Castile case was remarkable on so many levels, not the least of which was that he informed the officer who killed him that he possessed a legal weapon. What was even more striking was the thunderous silence of the National Rifle Association, which consistently and vehemently defends the rights of gun owners, in the aftermath! Would they have been as silent had Castile been white?

This issue of white fear is over the top. Frankly, and specifically, I am sick and tired of hearing white police discuss their fear. What did they think was going to happen when they entered law enforcement? Did they think they would be protecting Mayberry, N.C., the fictitious town in The Andy Griffith Show? Should the actions of unarmed or legally armed African-Americans automatically evoke fear in white people?

Another way of looking at this situation is to understand that the cry of fear is the rhetoric of racial suppression. It is a fear that has been generated in the hearts of whites since the time of slavery and the Indian Wars amid their ever-present concern that the slaves might rise up in revolt or the Indians might leave the reservations. Our mere presence induces fear. We do not have to do anything other than exist in order for whites to quake in fear at the thought of us exploding in righteous anger.

The National Rifle Association could not respond to the killing of Castile because doing so would call into question the implicit message that the NRA has propagated for years, i.e., increase weapon ownership is for protection from Blacks. It has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment but is instead based on the notion that gun ownership is actually the prerogative of whites only, a right rooted in the era of the genocide of Native Americans and that of slavery when only free white men could possess weapons.

This is the discussion that must be held. It is not about firearms safety or, for that matter, gun control. And, to be truthful, it is not, mainly, about police accountability. What is at issue is the extent to which U.S. society continues to keep a bulls eye on the forehead of African-Americans because of the fear that we generate, a fear rooted in their deep guilt and anxiety about the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and genocide.

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the former president of Trans Africa Forum. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and at http://www.billfletcherjr.com.

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Are White Gun Owners Protecting the Second Amendment or Their Racial Interest? - Atlanta Black Star

Being Libertarian

In Case You Missed It: Austin Petersen, Second Amendment, CNN. Being Libertarian Welcome to the fifth installment of In Case You Missed It, a weekly news roundup that focuses on some of the biggest news stories from around the globe every week. So, in case you missed it, here's your week in review: ...

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In Case You Missed It: Austin Petersen, Second Amendment, CNN. - Being Libertarian

MONTROSE About 30 people attended the Lee County Young Republicans second meeting Saturday at the Tri-State Gun Club in Montrose.

The first meeting of the newly-formed GOP group was devoted to the First Amendment. The Second Amendment, stating, 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, was the focus of Saturdays meeting.

Each were given a pocket-sized Constitution of the United States book provided by the Wapello County Republicans, which were represented at the meeting. There were sign-up sheets for upcoming events this week, such as the Donnellson Fourth of July Parade and Lee County Fair.

Three safety rules

Tri-State Gun Club President Dave Hunold presented on a program on gun safety, which he reduced to a few rules.

He said if everyone followed these rules there would be no such thing as accidental injury involving a firearm.

The first rule is treat every gun as if it is loaded, Hunold said.

Hunold demonstrated that a person should always safety-check when they pick up a gun.

Secondly, Hunold said one should never point the gun at anything you cant pay for or replace.

The third rule is to keep ones finger off the trigger unless one intends to use the gun.

Hunold demonstrated how to use a gun. He described the design and model of three types of guns a revolver, semi automatic pistol and semi automatic shotgun. He also informed everyone about the most important parts of a gun the muzzle, trigger, barrel and magazine.

Gun control

Des Moines County Co-President Eric Marshall spoke to the group about gun control.

The firearm comes in as a device of protection, Marshall said. Its something for Americans to protect themselves from those that wish to do them harm.

He added that there are irresponsible and responsible ways to use a gun. He said as long as it is properly handled there shouldnt be any problems.

He explained how there are some restrictions on gun usage in different countries and in the United States.

Marshall said that there is a lot more publicity about guns being used improperly than instances when they are used properly.

Capitol trip

After Marshall spoke, Wapello County Republicans Chair Trudy Caviness announced there will be a trip to the State Capitol at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 18. Lunch will be provided at the Republican headquarters. Anyone who is interested in joining the group can contact Caviness at 641-684-7585 by July 14.

After the meeting was over, everyone was invited to participate in trapshooting.

Lee County Young Republican Chair Jordean Stein said that it was a great turnout, with the number of young and older people that came.

Third Amendment is next

The next meeting will be about the Third Amendment on Saturday, Sept. 2, at the Keokuk National Cemetery.

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Learning about the 2nd Amendment - Keokuk Gate City Daily

by C.D. Michel

U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- On June 29 2017, Cuban-born Federal District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez issued aninjunctionin an NRA and CRPA supported lawsuit that challenges Californias laws prohibiting the possession of standard capacity firearm magazines.

For now at least, Judge Benitezs ruling in the Duncan v. Becerra case stops the ban from taking effect. More generally, and perhaps more significantly, it affirms that the Second Amendment is not a second class right, and must be respected and protected by the courts.

In 1960, when he was 10 years old, Judge Benitez emigrated from communist controlled Cuba to the United States. He was accompanied by his 13-year old brother, but his mother was initially unable to accompany them because she had been arrested by Castros forces on suspicion of sympathizing with the United States Government. After being held for three days without being allowed to call a lawyer or her family, she was fortunately released, and was eventually able to escape Castros regime.

Judge Benitez familys experiences under communist rule have impacted his judicial career, and apparently shaped his thinking. Thursdays well-reasoned and meticulously thorough 66-page decision to issue an injunction stopping California law from turning hundreds of thousands of California gun owners into criminals demonstrates that. It shows Judge Benitezs profound respect for, and appreciation of, the freedoms enshrined in the United States Constitution an appreciation likely brought into sharp relief compared to the oppressive dictatorship he and his family lived through.

It seems the Judge has seen how insidious government infringements on civil rights can be, and grasps how the Founding Fathers shaped the Bill of Rights to protect us from statist politicians incrementally increasing those infringements, even in the beguilingly alluring name of public safety.

The ruling is welcome news for gun owners who are under siege from shrewd California lawmakers with an extreme progressive agenda. Last year California politicians were faced with a threat from Gavin Newsoms self-promoting Prop 63 as he vied to seize the mantle of the King-of-Gun-Control from Senator Kevin DeLeon so he could build his name recognition in his gubernatorial campaign. So they raced to pass a number of gun bans that have collectively become known as Gunmageddon. Both Prop 63 and Gunmaggedon included a ban on the possession of standard capacity magazines that can hold more than ten rounds. Although acquisition and importation of the magazines had been banned since 2000, under the new laws gun owners were compelled to dispossess themselves of the magazines by July 1. Its government confiscation with a mustache. But by issuing the preliminary injunction, Judge Benitez instead preserved the status quo while the constitutionality of the ban is fully litigated in court, where plaintiffs are seeking to eventually have a permanent injunction issued.

Unsurprisingly Newsom, Prop 63s main proponent, was unhappy with the decision. As he stated to Fox News, large-capacity magazines enable murderers to unleash dozens of rounds without having to stop and reload.

But to quote the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. And despite Prop 63s purported public safety interests, those interests may not eviscerate the Second Amendment, as Judge Benitez put it.

Even so, Newsoms claim that banning these magazines would somehow save lives is pure fallacy. To support this policy choice, attorneys for the government offered a number of studies and expert testimonies trying to prop up that claim. But unlike some courts that have almost blindly accept the governments claims without scrutinizing the evidence, Judge Benitez took a close look. He found that states evidence was inconclusive at best. One of those experts admitted that it is not clear how often the ability to fire more than 10 shots without reloading . . . affects the outcomes of gun attacks. Another so-called expert cited nothing more than news articles in concluding that the bans on large capacity magazines can help save lives by forcing mass shooters to pause and reload ammunition.

As Judge Benitez correctly notes, the burden of justification is demanding and it rests entirely on the State. In order to meet this burden, the State cannot get away with shoddy data or reasoning. But in this case, the States evidence is nothing more than a false dichotomy. For as a purely public policy choice, a government may declare that firearms of any capacity are dangerous in the hands of criminals, while simultaneously concluding that firearms with larger than 10-round magazines in the hands of law-abiding citizens makes every individual safer and the public as a whole safer. As a result, banning such magazines is hardly the reasonable fit constitutionally required to uphold such a ban.

In addition to the lack of evidentiary support for the policy being advocated, Judge Benitez bravely questioned the appropriateness of the trend of lower courts to apply a convoluted, multi-step test in scrutinizing the constitutionality of gun control laws. Its a subjective test that lets judges put their fingers on the scales of justice, and almost always results in upholding any form of gun-control. But even if that test were applied here, Judge Benitez found the States evidence to be incomplete, unreliable, and speculative at best, flatly rejecting the States attempt to support its ban with anything less than hard facts and reasonable inferences drawn from convincing analysis.

Newsom wasnt the only one to criticize Judge Benitezs clear and well-founded reasoning. Having just recently suffering a defeat before the Office of Administrative Law, which rejected his Departments most recent proposed assault weapon regulations, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra put out a press release stating that Proposition 63 was overwhelmingly approved by voters to increase public safety and enhance security in a sensible and constitutional way.

But Judge Benitez was mindful that a majority of California voters approved Prop 63, just as he was equally mindful that the Constitution is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. If all that was needed to undermine constitutionally protected rights was a simple majority vote, the Constitution would long ago have lost all meaning. And without the Constitution to preserve and protect Americas civil liberties we could, and given that bureaucrats crave power and power inevitably corrupts almost certainly eventually would, find ourselves under oppressive government regimes like those of 1960s Cuba.

Of course, this wont stop the state from appealing the decision to the Ninth Circuit, where the politicians hope to find a more sympathetic audience that will bend over intellectually backwards to defer to the governments arguments.

To learn more about the Duncan case, as well as other NRA / CRPA lawsuits brought to protect the rights of California gun owners, subscribe to NRA and CRPA email alerts. And please take a moment to consider donating to the CRPA Foundation, to support the Duncan case, and other NRA / CRPA efforts in California. About: CalGunLaws.comis an online research resource designed primarily for use by attorneys and interested firearm owners. CalGunLaws.com strives to provide easy access to and facilitate understanding of the multitude of complex federal, state, and local firearm laws and ordinances, administrative and executive regulations, case law, and past and current litigation that defines the California firearms regulatory scheme in theory and practice.

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Sorry Gavin, Your Civilian Disarmament Agenda Does Not Trump the Second Amendment - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

Gun rights advocates, unaccustomed to court defeats, were handed two setbacks late last month when a St. Louis Circuit Court judge and the U.S. Supreme Court both upheld limits on when and where guns may be carried in public. St. Louis Judge Joan Moriarty declared the St. Louis Zoo fits Missouri laws definition of a

, and the high court declined to hear a challenge to a California law that bans carrying guns openly in most situations. The 90-acre St. Louis Zoo campus has on-site preschool and childrens education programs. Nearly half a million students participate in the programs annually. About 3 million families and visitors come to see exhibits involving nearly 20,000 animals. In that family-friendly environment, guns are the last thing the zoo needs. Cincinnati gun rights activist Jeffry Smith announced plans in 2015 to lead a group of open-carry activists into the zoo to challenge its self-declared status as a gun-free zone. A temporary order blocked Smith, so he strapped on an empty holster to walk the grounds. Moriartys June 23 order now makes the zoo ban permanent. Parents strolling with their kids should not have to be constantly on the lookout for gun carriers looking to make a political point with a menacing display of holstered sidearms. The gun owner might think it enhances safety, but everyone else feels terrorized doubly so if an actual armed altercation develops. Friendly fire bullets are as deadly as those from an assailants gun. Visitors carrying guns, Moriarty ruled, would significantly harm the level of visitorship, as well as the mission, the public image and autonomy of the zoo as an institution. The

that was under challenge allows members of the public to carry concealed guns in public only if applicants can demonstrate good cause for needing to carry the weapon. Challengers said authorities in San Diego and Yolo County interpreted good cause so narrowly as to make it impossible to carry guns in public for self-defense. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed weapon but did not decide whether states have a right to ban openly carrying guns. Supreme Court justices did not explain why they

the challenge, allowing the lower court ruling to stand. Although the National Rifle Association maintains that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun, public security is best left in the hands of trained professionals, not gun-toting bystanders. The possibility for tragic mishaps only grows when police have trouble distinguishing licensed gun owners from criminals. The NRA stokes fear to fight limits on open gun carry, but in these two rulings, common sense prevailed.

Gun rights advocates, unaccustomed to court defeats, were handed two setbacks late last month when a St. Louis Circuit Court judge and the U.S. Supreme Court both upheld limits on when and where guns may be carried in public. St. Louis Judge Joan Moriarty declared the St. Louis Zoo fits Missouri laws definition of a

gun-free zone, and the high court declined to hear a challenge to a California law that bans carrying guns openly in most situations. The 90-acre St. Louis Zoo campus has on-site preschool and childrens education programs. Nearly half a million students participate in the programs annually. About 3 million families and visitors come to see exhibits involving nearly 20,000 animals. In that family-friendly environment, guns are the last thing the zoo needs. Cincinnati gun rights activist Jeffry Smith announced plans in 2015 to lead a group of open-carry activists into the zoo to challenge its self-declared status as a gun-free zone. A temporary order blocked Smith, so he strapped on an empty holster to walk the grounds. Moriartys June 23 order now makes the zoo ban permanent. Parents strolling with their kids should not have to be constantly on the lookout for gun carriers looking to make a political point with a menacing display of holstered sidearms. The gun owner might think it enhances safety, but everyone else feels terrorized doubly so if an actual armed altercation develops. Friendly fire bullets are as deadly as those from an assailants gun. Visitors carrying guns, Moriarty ruled, would significantly harm the level of visitorship, as well as the mission, the public image and autonomy of the zoo as an institution. The

California lawthat was under challenge allows members of the public to carry concealed guns in public only if applicants can demonstrate good cause for needing to carry the weapon. Challengers said authorities in San Diego and Yolo County interpreted good cause so narrowly as to make it impossible to carry guns in public for self-defense. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed weapon but did not decide whether states have a right to ban openly carrying guns. Supreme Court justices did not explain why they

refused to hearthe challenge, allowing the lower court ruling to stand. Although the National Rifle Association maintains that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun, public security is best left in the hands of trained professionals, not gun-toting bystanders. The possibility for tragic mishaps only grows when police have trouble distinguishing licensed gun owners from criminals. The NRA stokes fear to fight limits on open gun carry, but in these two rulings, common sense prevailed.

Gun rights advocates, unaccustomed to court defeats, were handed two setbacks late last month when a St. Louis Circuit Court judge and the U.S. Supreme Court both upheld limits on when and where guns may be carried in public. St. Louis Judge Joan Moriarty declared the St. Louis Zoo fits Missouri laws definition of a gun-free zone, and the high court declined to hear a challenge to a California law that bans carrying guns openly in most situations.

The 90-acre St. Louis Zoo campus has on-site preschool and childrens education programs. Nearly half a million students participate in the programs annually. About 3 million families and visitors come to see exhibits involving 20,000 animals. In that family-friendly environment, guns are the last thing the zoo needs.

Cincinnati gun rights activist Jeffry Smith announced plans in 2015 to lead a group of open-carry activists into the zoo to challenge its self-declared status as a gun-free zone. A temporary order blocked Smith, so he strapped on an empty holster to walk the grounds. Moriartys June 23 order now makes the zoo ban permanent.

Parents strolling with their kids should not have to be constantly on the lookout for gun carriers looking to make a political point with a menacing display of holstered sidearms. The gun owner might think it enhances safety, but everyone else feels terrorized doubly so if an actual armed altercation develops. Friendly fire bullets are as deadly as those from an assailants gun.

Visitors carrying guns, Moriarty ruled, would significantly harm the level of visitorship, as well as the mission, the public image and autonomy of the zoo as an institution.

The California law that was under challenge allows members of the public to carry concealed guns in public only if applicants can demonstrate good cause for needing to carry the weapon. Challengers said authorities in San Diego and Yolo County interpreted good cause so narrowly as to make it impossible to carry guns in public for self-defense.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed weapon but did not decide whether states have a right to ban openly carrying guns. Supreme Court justices did not explain why they refused to hear the challenge, allowing the lower court ruling to stand.

Although the National Rifle Association maintains that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun, public security is best left in the hands of trained professionals, not gun-toting bystanders. The possibility for tragic mishaps only grows when police have trouble distinguishing

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Editorial: Courts uphold common-sense limits to Second Amendments rights. - STLtoday.com