Mother Jones: “Gun Control Survives the Supreme Court”
Left leaning news outlet Mother Jones offered a biased take on the Second Amendment in a piece titled, “Gun Control Survives the Supreme Court.” Frankly, we at FirearmsTruth think the real story is “Gun Rights Survive the Supreme Court.”
But the story notes:
“In 2008, the US Supreme Court overturned a DC law banning city residents from owning handguns. The decision in District of Columbia v Heller was unprecedented because the sharply divided court found—for the first time—that Americans have an individual right to own guns outside of the ‘well regulated militia’ described in the Second Amendment.”
Once again the media likes to play word games. The wording doesn’t suggest that just the militias could own guns, and once again we ask, do these people not realize that the members of the militias were armed with their own guns!
But the bias doesn’t stop:
“The NRA as well as dozens of criminals have attempted to invoke Heller in court to challenge everything from bans on carrying concealed weapons in public to restrictions on gun ownership by people involved in domestic violence. Almost all of those challenges have failed, according to the Brady Center, including a second lawsuit filed by Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the original Supreme Court case, who sued again to try to invalidate restrictions on semi-automatic weapons in the nation’s capital.”
“Dozens of criminals” says the author. What is she talking about? This also implies that the NRA is somehow culpable with criminals. Shameful, simply shameful.
Second Amendment Foundation Challenges Interstate Handgun Sales Ban
The Second Amendment Foundation this week filed suit in U.S. District Court in Virginia challenging the constitutionality of federal and Virginia provisions barring handgun sales to non-residents.
SAF is joined in the lawsuit by Michelle Lane, a District of Columbia resident who cannot legally purchase handguns because there are no retail firearms dealers inside the District.
The Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller ruling struck down the District’s handgun ban, confirming that individuals have a constitutional right to possess handguns.
SAF and Lane are represented by attorney Alan Gura of Gura & Possessky, PLLC, who won both the Heller ruling and last year’s Supreme Court victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago. Named as defendants are Attorney General Eric Holder and W. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police.
“This is an important issue in the era of the national instant background check,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The NICS check should allow law-abiding citizens like Miss Lane to exercise their Second Amendment rights regardless their place of residence.”
“Americans don’t check their constitutional rights at the state line,” said Gura. “And since Michelle Lane is legally entitled to possess firearms, forcing her to seek a non-existing D.C. dealer to buy a handgun is pointless when perfectly legitimate options exist minutes across the Potomac River.”
“The Supreme Court has ruled that District residents have an individual right, protected by the Constitution, to have a handgun in their home,” Gottlieb noted. “The high court has also ruled that the Second Amendment applies to the states. Existing state and federal statutes violate both the spirit and letter of recent court rulings and the Constitution, and our lawsuit seeks to remedy that situation.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.
Happy New Year from FirearmsTruth
It is hard to believe that another year has passed, but here we are and it is 2011. We take this time to thank our readers, and to let everyone know that we’re digging in for a long fight.
While there has been a political shift in Washington, the anti-gun zealots remain loud as ever, and the media continues its agenda of misinformation. Looking back at the top “gun related” stories of 2010, we are reminded that it wasn’t the political change that is most noteworthy, or even the SCOTUS ruling in McDonald vs. City of Chicago.
It was the continued beating of the drum from the mainstream media on how American firearms are the cause of so much grief and violence in Mexico. Of course numbers that were debunked in 2009 were repeated again and again in 2010.
The stories that were missing in the MSM were those where guns helped saved lives by protecting those from criminal invasion of their homes or assaults on the street. And of course other than a handful of stories, little was noted about the efforts to bring home the M1 rifles from South Korea.
Finally, we must watch – and we will work to expose, track and report on – the back door efforts to ban guns. We will watch for efforts to block the importation of firearms, efforts by the UN to stop the “gun trade” and efforts by the EPA and other groups to “ban” certain materials (lead bullets come to mind). In other words, we’re not going anywhere.
We’ll be here through 2011 and beyond.
Illinois State Rifle Association: Cook County Fabricates SCOTUS Quotes to Bolster Gun Case in Court
Although the trend against draconian firearm rights infringements is in our favor, we must keep the pressure on while the anti’s are on their heels.
While the ISRA wages uphill battles against long entrenched institutional bias against firearm owners in Illinois, the anti-rights push back, harder and more arrogantly than ever.
Political corruption is nothing new to the Chicago area, it began in the levee district in the 1890s and has had over 120 years to flourish. The courts though, are supposed to be the place where every person gets their chance at unbiased justice. The Constitution should prevail, not money or political affiliations, or myths like gun control that distract the people from the real problems that are more difficult to solve. Read more
Court of Appeals to hear Heller 2 Next Monday
In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled that the District of Columbia’s gun laws violated individuals’ Second Amendment Rights. The law struck down by The Court made it virtually impossible for a citizen of the district to own a handgun, even if it never left the person’s house. At first some D.C. public officials vowed to defy the ruling, but instead of risking court sanctions the D.C. council passed new gun laws that make it burdensome to own a handgun. Heller and others sued and the United States Court of Appeals of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit will hear arguments starting Monday, November 15. Read more
McDonald vs. City of Chicago Audio Released
The Supreme Court ruling this past summer in the case of McDonald vs. City of Chicago was ground breaking, and this week the NRA reported that the June 2010 case is now available as an audio recording.
McDonald v. Chicago Oral Argument
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Won’t Get NRA Endorsement
The NRA issued a statement this past weekend, noting the group will not endorse Senate Majority Harry Reid, who is fighting for his political career in this November’s upcoming mid-term election.
The official statement from the National Rifle Association:
Charlotte, NC -- In the coming days and weeks, the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) will be announcing endorsements and candidate ratings in hundreds of federal races, as well as thousands of state legislative races.
Unless these announcements are required by the timing of primary or special elections, the NRA-PVF generally does not issue endorsements while important legislative business is pending.
The NRA-PVF also operates under a long-standing policy that gives preference to incumbent candidates who have voted with the NRA on key issues, which is explained in more detail here. Read more
Chicago Didn’t Enforce Gun Laws Reports New York Times
Irony in the Windy City indeed. We’ve been continuing to report that Chicago had had for years one of the strictest gun laws on the books in the country and yet has seen a wave of gun violence. Mayor Richard Daley, among others, pointed the blame at guns.
The Supreme Court overturned the city’s gun ban earlier this year, a move that Daley has been trying to find a way of fighting at all costs. But in another example of true irony, it is being reported by The New York Times that the gun ban in Chicago wasn’t all that well enforced. Read more
Allentown Morning Call Doesn’t Call Out Biased Editorial
In an editorial for The Morning Call of Allentown, Paul Goldsmith and Joe Grace of CeaseFire PA wrote yet another twisted tale of what they think the NRA and gun owners actually stand for, and from the opening sentence they push their agenda with little regard for the facts. Read more
Party Lines Not Drawn Over Kagan
The mainstream media tends to believe that guns are issue that is a key divide between Republicans and Democrats, but clearly this isn’t the case. The Omaha World-Herald is reporting that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson has become the first Democrat to announce that he would vote against Elena Kagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Read more
