CCRKBA: Senate Votes NO On Obama Court Nominee
CCRKBA:
Grassroots power has helped derail President Obama’s nomination of anti-gun extremist Caitlin Halligan to the District of Columbia Circuit Court, with keystone opposition from members and supporters of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“We sent out more than one million e-mail alerts to gun owners across the country, warning them of Halligan’s anti-gun philosophy,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and it is clear from today’s 54-45 Senate vote against cloture, thus rejecting Halligan’s nomination, that their voices were heard loud and clear.” Read more
NSSF Time Capsule Marks 50th Anniversary & State of Hunting and Shooting
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has packed a time capsule with materials that reflect the state of firearms ownership, target shooting and hunting in the year 2011 and that tell the story of how NSSF, the firearms industry’s trade association, has helped promote, preserve and protect those freedoms over the last half century.
The time capsule project is the last major event commemorating NSSF’s 50th Anniversary celebration this year. It was a half century ago this month that NSSF was officially incorporated.
The 1 x 2 x 3-foot composite-material box –stamped “Open in 2061!”– will be on display at NSSF’s headquarters. Read more
NRA News: Supreme Court Rejects Case on Gun Rights
Cam Edwards talks to Steve Halbrook, Second Amendment attorney and scholar
26th Annual Gun Rights Conference Slated This Weekend in Chicago
Gun rights activists from across the country will gather this weekend, Sept 23-25, at the Chicago O’Hare airport Hyatt Regency hotel for the 26th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said pre-registration of over 700 for this weekend’s events suggests there will be a great turnout, not only by Illinois activists, but also firearm owners from as far away as Hawaii and Puerto Rico, as well as neighboring Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri. This event is free, and includes a Saturday awards luncheon that will recognize the accomplishments of gun rights leaders from the national level down to the grassroots.
“Since last year’s SAF victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago before the U.S. Supreme Court, we’ve been looking forward to this weekend’s gathering,” Gottlieb stated. “We are joined by members of the Illinois State Rifle Association, which joined us in the McDonald case, and by our expert legal team that made it happen.
“It is only fitting that we gather in the Windy City,” he continued, “not only for this important conference, but also to celebrate the Supreme Court victory. This was a win for all gun owners, because the high court incorporated the Second Amendment to the states, thus paving the way for challenges to onerous state and local gun laws and regulations that have placed onerous restrictions on a fundamental civil right.
SAF is currently engaged in federal court challenges to restrictive gun regulations and statutes in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, Massachusetts and California, and elsewhere.
This year’s jam-packed agenda features panel discussions covering current and possible future legal actions, the importance of election outcomes to the federal courts and Supreme Court, gun politics, legislative challenges and more. Experts from virtually all corners of the gun rights movement will be on hand, and the annual awards luncheon on Saturday promises to be a crowd pleaser.
“We look forward to a very active and productive weekend for firearms freedom,” Gottlieb stated.
The Second Amendment Foundation 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.
NY Times: Bloody Weekend Shows Intractable Gun Problem
New York City is one of the most restrictive places in the nation to own a gun – at least for the law abiding citizen. Criminals can obtain gun easily as was seen this past holiday weekend. The New York Times notes:
“By Monday’s close, 13 people had been killed and 67 injured in 52 shootings since early Friday. The toll stunned veteran police officers, leading some to wonder if violent crime, which has declined across the city for many years, was rising significantly.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has repeatedly suggested: “This is a national problem, requiring national leadership.”
But we are going to counter and suggest that this is actually not a national problem, as much as it is a problem of New York City’s rising crime and trying to push the blame elsewhere.
The New York Times articles notes efforts to curb the violence through programs such as gun buybacks, but never really notes that the truth is that many citizens are unarmed while criminals simply ignore the laws. However, the paper also notes that “it remains difficult to discern what effect his administration’s gun control efforts have had.”
The paper even manages to throw in some bias, as if to give Bloomberg a bone for the “good” effort he has tried to make:
“…politics and developments in constitutional law have hampered Mr. Bloomberg’s efforts to lobby for new gun laws. Three years ago, the Supreme Court recognized for the first time that keeping a handgun at home is a fundamental constitutional right, prompting a wave of gun-rights litigation that has placed New York and other cities on the defensive.”
What this article doesn’t note is that other cities with strict gun control, notably Chicago and Washington, have seen huge spikes in crime. This suggests that the control of guns isn’t the issue. It is the control of criminals that needs to be addressed, but the media fails to see it this way.
D.C. v Heller and McDonald v Chicago need Supreme Court Clarification
D.C. v Heller and McDonald v Chicago were decided in favor of gun rights three and two years ago respectively. Those of us who cherish our 2nd Amendment Rights were jubilant that finally the Supreme Court cleared up the issue in our favor. But as FirearmsTruth reported back then, not all issues were clearly defined by The Court.
NRA – ILA: Legal Update August 2011
From the NRA – ILA:
To give NRA members, gun owners and AmmoLand readers the latest information on Second Amendment cases filed or supported by the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (www.nraila.org), NRA-ILA is pleased to announce a new online column, the NRA-ILA Legal Update.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms, hundreds of Second Amendment cases have been litigated in federal and state courts. The pace of litigation has only increased since the Court’s 2010 decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, holding that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental and protects all Americans. Read more
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.
USA Today’s View: Gun laws are taking a radical turn
In an op-ed piece this week the national newspaper USA Today offered its thoughts on gun laws. We respect their opinion, but think they did so with some unfair statements. First they led off by noting:
“When it comes to gun fights, things are pretty quiet on the Potomac these days. Democrats, cowed by the National Rifle Association’s political clout, have no taste for pushing gun control up the agenda.”
Once again we have to hear about this power of the NRA – which again is painted as being anti-Democratic Party. Isn’t really that the NRA is non-partisan and some Democrats are merely anti-gun? Of course the new Democratic Party is being labeled as the “party of gun control,” but that isn’t the NRA’s doing at all.
Second, the political clout from the NRA comes from the support of the voters. This fact is continually missed by the media.
Much of the op-ed piece is spent talking about Supreme Court rulings and the law.
But the paper concludes by saying:
“From a constitutional perspective, the Supreme Court may have gotten it right. But from a standpoint of public safety, lawmakers are getting it very wrong. A right to keep and bear arms should come with restraints that equally protect those who have no interest in owning them.”
This is a naïve opinion too. We respect different opinions, except we must note that this one is very naïve in its stance. The right to keep and bear arms does not force anyone to own guns. It doesn’t force anyone to carry a gun. The editors stress in the piece that this is because the gun lobby is making a push in some states to overturn concealed carry permits – the rational here it seems is that such permits would put more guns out there.
The truth is that criminals don’t follow the law. Thus, the law wouldn’t protect those who have no interest in owning guns, because the criminals would just carry the guns anyway, permit or no permit.
