When a federal judge in California struck down the states 32-year-old ban on assault weapons in early June 2021, he added a volatile new issue to the gun-rights debate.

The ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez, does not take effect immediately, because California has 30 days to appeal the rejection of its assault weapons ban. Most coverage has focused on Benitezs provocative analogy between an AR-15 and a Swiss army knife. But the case raises troubling questions about the meaning and proper role of militias under the Second Amendment.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed that Californias assault weapons ban unconstitutionally restricted citizens Second Amendment rights by preventing them from using assault weapons for home defense and other legal purposes. Californias defense was that assault weapons are more dangerous than other firearms and therefore subject to additional restrictions.

In his ruling, Benitez asserts that citizens have a right to own a private assault weapon not just for defense of a gun owners home, but also for citizens militias engaged in homeland defense.

If the founders were alive today, I believe they would be very concerned because the Constitution is clear that the only militias protected by the Second Amendment are well-regulated units authorized and controlled by state governments, not a private citizen militia.

The preamble to the Second Amendment mentions service in a militia as a reason citizens have the right to keep and bear arms: 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.

In his ruling, Benitez builds on the 2008 Supreme Court case D.C. v. Heller. In that landmark case, the Supreme Court held, as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, that the amendment protects a right to possess a firearm unconnected to military service and that individuals are free to use such weapons for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Benitez accepts this individual right, including to own assault weapons, but he adds what he calls citizen militias to the mix, which he defines as an informal assembly of able-bodied, ordinary citizens acting in concert for the security of our nation. The AR-15, he says, is an ideal arm for such purposes.

While distinguishing a citizen militia from a state-organized militia, the judge is vague about what, exactly, a citizen militia is. The examples he offers include the armed partisans led by Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents. Although Benitez surely knows that the United States has a long history of vigilantism and mob violence, he doesnt say which informal groups of armed citizens in this country might qualify and which would not.

That lack of specificity is a problem. Does a citizen militia include the protesters who occupied the Michigan State Capitol during the spring of 2020, posing with assault weapons slung over their shoulders? What about the activists who in the summer of 2020 briefly created Seattles Capitol Hill autonomous zone, where guards armed with AR-15s stood watch at the entrance and patrolled the streets? Kyle Rittenhouse, on trial for killing two people with a Smith & Wesson rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, allegedly viewed himself as part of a militia and claimed to be helping the police.

The biggest problem with Benitezs ruling is that the Second Amendment sanctions a well-regulated militia, not an informal assembly of armed citizens. As the founders knew, a well-regulated militia was one authorized, trained and with growing frequency during the American Revolution armed and provisioned by state governments.

After the American Revolution, the purpose of these state militias was clearly laid out in Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 of the Constitution: so Congress could use them to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

Today, the militia in all 50 states is the National Guard. In California, as Benitez notes in his opinion, the militia also includes the State Guard, a force trained and equipped by the government. There is nothing informal about it.

Having lived through the Revolutionary War, the founders knew why the words well regulated mattered. They had seen what happened when people took the law into their own hands.

After the Boston Massacre in 1770, when British soldiers opened fire on a crowd that had been pelting them with rocks and ice, John Adams defended the soldiers during their murder trial, worried that a guilty verdict could lead to mob rule.

In 1775, the Colonial Minutemen who stood their ground at Lexington and Concord served in units authorized by the Massachusetts legislature. Although taking up arms against their king and his soldiers, they fought as members of a well-regulated militia.

Naturally, not all early Americans accepted such distinctions. During the so-called Whiskey Rebellion from 1791 to 1794, which occurred after the Constitution and Second Amendment had been ratified, armed insurgents near Pittsburgh forcibly resisted a new federal tax on distilled spirits, mustering in military-style formations, tarring and feathering federal excise officers, and threatening secession. President George Washington responded in 1794 by marching west at the head of 12,950 federalized state militiamen. By the time the Western Army reached the Ohio River, most of the rebels had gone home. The nations first president made clear that in a democratic republic, the way to make your voice heard is through the ballot box, not the muzzle of a gun.

The right to own a gun is not unlimited, as Justice Scalia wrote in 2008. For that reason, the Supreme Court held that state and federal authorities can bar firearms from schools and public buildings, while the people remain free to prohibit what Scalia called dangerous and unusual weapons.

The AR-15 may no longer be unusual, but Californias decision to appeal Benitezs ruling shows that the state still thinks it is dangerous. If the rifle really is Benitezs ideal weapon for a citizen militia, then perhaps the state is right.

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Why the Second Amendment protects a 'well-regulated militia' but not a private citizen militia - The Conversation US

MADISON - Wisconsin gun owners would not be subject to federal firearm laws under legislation passed by Republicans and one Democrat in the stateAssembly on Wednesday.

The bill, which also requires Wisconsin gun manufacturers to include a "Made in Wisconsin" stamp on their firearms, is part of a national effort by Republican lawmakers to push back against new gun restrictions that could be imposed by a Democratic-controlled Congress and President Joe Biden.

But the idea has been deemed unconstitutional in the past in other statesbecause state law cannot override conflicting federal law under the U.S. Constitution.

Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, said the legislation isinferior to the Second Amendment and "in factundermines the Constitutionthat we all swore an oath to uphold."

According to a nonpartisan analysis by the Legislature's legal staff provided to McGuire, the legislation if enacted would bar law enforcement from confiscating firearms from people who have been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence because there is no state law allowing it.

Proponents call the proposala"Second Amendment sanctuary."

"Passing this bill is going to be protecting the Second Amendmentrights of the people who live in these state's borders," Rep. Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva, said.

Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, said the Biden administration is "scaring usand making us feel like our Second Amendment rights are not going to be upheld."

The bill also would bar the enforcement of laws that restrict gun or ammunition sales and bar law enforcement from confiscatingguns or ammunition.

It prohibits the enforcement of federal regulations that wouldban semi-automatic firearms or assault weapons andregulate the capacity of magazines or require registration of firearms.

Hope Karnopp of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

You can find out who your legislators are and how to contact them here.

Contact Molly Beckat molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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Assembly passes 'Second Amendment sanctuary' bill that would bar enforcement of federal gun restrictions - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Los Angeles Times editorial page is less a journalistic enterprise than it is a partisan grievance noticeboard. The editorial boards descent into trivial activist messaging was on full display in a pair of recent pieces lamenting the federal judiciarys recognition of the Second Amendment. In both, the editorial board denied the core rulings in the U.S. Supreme Courts opinions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago that recognized the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. In neither piece did the would-be jurists at the L.A. Times offer evidence or argument as to their incorrect position or why the legal analysis of self-important regime press agents should carry any weight whatsoever.

The first editorial was published on April 26 and titled, The Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could mean more guns in public. The item took issue with the U.S. Supreme Courts decision to grant cert to NRA-backed case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett. The case challenges New Yorks concealed carry licensing scheme and could prompt the Court to recognize that the right to keep and bear arms extends outside the home.

Lamenting the Courts cert decision, the editorial board wrote,

The case the court accepted Monday (New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. vs. Corlett) follows the courts controversial 2008 Heller decision, which for the first time enunciated a right to own a firearm in the home for self-protection, breaking with historic perceptions that the right was conferred only to members of state militias. From our perspective, it was an errant reading of the Constitution, but unfortunately the nation is stuck with it.

The second editorial was published June 7 and titled, The judge is wrong: Californias assault-weapons ban must stand. This piece complained about the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in Miller v. Bonta. The decision, by Judge Roger Benitez, found that Californias ban on commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms violated the Second Amendment.

Benitezs ruling on the California ban was the result of a faithful interpretation of the Heller and McDonald decisions. We can be certain of this because Heller author Justice Antonin Scalia signed onto a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, that stated as much. The dissent noted,

Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.

Defending Californias unconstitutional ban, the L.A. Times editorial board whined,

Even the Supreme Courts controversial 2008 Heller decision, which for the first time recognized (wrongly) an individual right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense, also said that the government has an interest in regulating firearms and that the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.

In addition to its rejection of the Heller ruling, the editorial board did not even get the basic history correct when it contended that Heller recognized the individual right protected by the Second Amendment for the first time. As Scalia explained in Heller, the Courts ruling in the 1939 case U.S. v. Miller is not only consistent with, but positively suggests, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms.

After their defeat in Heller, the more sophisticated gun control advocates abandoned their discredited collective right messaging on the Second Amendment. In fact, some gun control organizations have explicitly told activists in their messaging guides not to Attack the Second Amendment or gun owners in general.

In 2016, anti-gun group Americans for Responsible Solutions (now Giffords) conducted a gun control rebranding effort based on poll and focus-group data. The resulting messaging booklet warned supporters not to Attack the NRA or the Second Amendment. An earlier gun control group messaging guide from 2013, titled, Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging told readers to acknowledge Yes, there is a right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. Moreover, it told gun control activists, dont re-litigate the courts rulings.

There is good reason for the anti-gun groups advice. Aside from the fact that the outmoded collective interpretation of the Second Amendment is indefensible, that false reading is wildly unpopular.

A February 2008 USA Today/Gallup poll conducted prior to the Heller decision asked respondents, Do you believe the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns, or do you believe it only guarantees members of state militias such as National Guard units the right to own guns? The response was unambiguous; 73-percent responded that the Second Amendment guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns, while a mere 20-percent limited that right to state militia members

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted shortly after the Heller decision, in July 2008, mirrored these results. This poll asked respondents, Would you support or oppose amending the United States Constitution to ban individual gun ownership? 78-percent opposed such a measure, while only 17-percent were in favor.

In May 2009, CNN and ORC conducted a similar poll that asked Which of the following comes closer to your interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? In addition to addressing the need for citizen-militias, it was intended to give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defense. It was only intended to preserve the existence of citizen-militias, and does not give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defense. Once again, the American public made their position clear; with 77-percent choosing individual gun ownership to 21-percent answering only citizen-militias.

With the individual right to keep and bear arms firmly established by the U.S. Supreme Court, in April 2018 Quinnipiac asked respondents Would you support or oppose repealing the Second Amendment, also known as the right to bear arms? An overwhelming 79-percent opposed repeal.

The vast majority of the general public, the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court, both major political parties, and even some of the major gun control groups have all acknowledged or reluctantly acquiesced to the fact that the Second Amendment means what it says the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The L.A. Timess intransigence is symbolic of an increasingly radical and detached media elite who would rather nurse their own prejudices than accept reality or provide any meaningful reporting or informed commentary.

Link:

LA Times Still Denying the Second Amendment - NRA ILA

This session, the South Carolina General Assembly passed the strongest Second Amendment legislation in the last 25 years. Governor Henry McMaster signed it into law promptly. Unfortunately, those who are supposed to be working towards the common goal of protecting and advancing Second Amendment rights for law-abiding citizens are spreading lies against the lawmakers who were instrumental in passing this bill. These legislators were also critical in advancing the ultimate goal of constitutional carry in South Carolina.

House Bill 3094 made South Carolina the 46th state where citizens may open carry a handgun, and eliminated the $50 fee for a Concealed Weapons Permit. These are important reforms that allow law-abiding citizens to carry a handgun in the manner of their choosing that best suits them, and eliminate a cost barrier to exercising this right.

The representatives ensured that the House concurred with the Senate to guarantee the Second Amendment advances in South Carolina. The House already passed H. 3096, the constitutional carry bill supported by these legislators. Though the Senate did not take action on it in 2021, it currently remains alive in the Senate for next year.

NRA once again thanks the representatives that supported constitutional carry by voting in favor of H. 3096. If your state representative voted for H. 3096, you may click the button below to thank them too.

Rita Allison, F. Lucas Atkinson, William Bailey, Nathan Ballentine, Bruce Bannister, Linda Bennett, Jeffrey Bradley, Thomas Brittain, J. Mike Burns, Jerry Carter, Micah Caskey, William Chumley, Neal Collins, Bobby Cox, Westley Cox, Heather Crawford, Vic Dabney, Sylleste Davis, Jason Elliott, Cal Forrest, Russell Fry, Craig Gagnon, Leon Gilliam, Patrick Haddon, Kevin Hardee, William Herbkersman, W. Lee Hewitt, Jonathon Hill, David Hiott, Chip Huggins, Max Hyde, Jeffrey Johnson, Stewart Jones, Jay Jordan, Mandy Kimmons, Randy Ligon, Steven Long, Phillip Lowe, Jay Lucas, R. Josiah Magnuson, Rick Martin, RJ May, D. Ryan McCabe, John McCravy, Sandy McGarry, Tim McGinnis, Travis Moore, Adam Morgan, Dennis Moss, Steve Moss, Christopher Murphy, Brandon Newton, Weston Newton, Roger Nutt, Melissa Oremus, William Sandifer, Murrell Smith, Garry Smith, Mark Smith, Tommy Stringer, Bill Taylor, Anne Thayer, Ashley Trantham, John West, W. Brian White, William Whitmire, Mark Willis, Christopher Wooten, and Richard Yow.

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South Carolina: Correcting Record on Second Amendment Package - NRA ILA

I am mystified by those such as Matt Gaetz who read only a part of the Second Amendment to the Constitution as if that part were the whole and then assert that the right to bear arms is for the potential of leading an insurrection against the government of the United States. There appear to be many who hold such a misbegotten opinion. Here is what the Constitution says:

8.1 The Congress shall have Power

8.15 To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

8.16 To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

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.

How could it be clearer that the so-called militias around this country are not militias in the Constitutional sense? They dont even come close. They should not be called militias. I could come up with several different names for them. They are the opposite. They are the very thing that the militia might be called forth to suppress.

Thats just what happened in 1794 when George Washington rode at the head of the Militiamen to put down a rebellion. One cannot willy-nilly take up arms to participate in an insurrection to defend the Constitution because the very doing so violates the Constitution. Patriots wouldnt get close to the so-called militias.

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Letter to the editor: A closer reading of the Second Amendment is needed - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

That African Americans were no match for the slave owners arsenal didnt mitigate their resistance to subjugation Anderson reports at least a half-dozen insurrection scares during the colonial period. In response to Charlestons bloody Stono Rebellion, South Carolinas Negro Act of 1740 became the model for slave codes throughout North America, (requiring) heavy-handed white control that curtailed the enslaveds movements, literacy, right to self-defense and access to firearms.

Courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

In the Lowcountrys labor-intensive rice culture, 18th century planters understood perfectly the consequences of the hellish society they had spawned. Anderson writes, the combination of insatiable desire for enormous profits coupled with the sadistic brutalization of bonded African labor created an overwhelming fear among whites of the enslaveds capacity and desire for retribution.

Crucial to her case is James Madison, the Virginian who would become Americas fourth President. A slave owner who believed slavery to be an abomination, Madison was the key figure in crafting the Second Amendment. He embraced the necessity of a new constitution, siding with the Federalists, who sought a more coherent government with a national bank and a professional military.

To the contrary, the Anti-Federalists, aligned with Southern slavers like Patrick Henry, feared the centralization of power and a standing army. Undaunted, Madison sprinted between factions, brokering compromises that finally secured the Constitution of the United States in 1789. As an additional inducement, he promised the Anti-Federalists a Bill of Rights to follow. The Second Amendment was therefore, according to Anderson, a bribe that not only elevated militias, whose primary and most important function was controlling the Black population, but ensured that the federal governments constitutional role would not interfere in the states ability to use those forces when necessary.

The Second Amendment was ratified just as the Haitian Revolution began in 1791. The news of victory for the islands slave population would send an electromagnetic pulse wave through the white South. Charleston was as close to Saint Domingue as it was to Boston.

Would Blacks access to guns have made a difference in the 400 years since their arrival in the New World?

Andersons answer is, mostly, no. The armed power of the state, paramilitary mobs and the local police has been too great. As for the Black Panthers and their Hollywood displays of firepower in the late 1960s, she details her reasons for the failure of armed self defense as a political tactic. (Black Lives Matter has never endorsed this strategy.)

(P)ervasive anti-Blackness, even after the civil rights movement, turned the Second Amendments law for protection the castle doctrine, stand your ground and open carry against African Americans, Anderson writes, pointing to studies that indicate, when African Americans openly carry a gun, although allowed by law, it raises exponentially the sense of danger about them and to them.

Anderson has a gift for elegant summary. Her writing has clarity of style and a cool zeal, but do not doubt the fire. The best historians have noble intent; for them, that means nurturing an empathy for historys victims and accepting ones inevitable professional vulnerability: The Second, she said in her Zoom interview, was a hard write, before pausing to add, pain over centuries.

And so she reaches a damning conclusion: The Second (Amendment) is lethal; steeped in anti-Blackness, it is the loaded weapon laying around just waiting for the hand of some authority to put it to use.

As for all tomorrows options, Anderson reminds us of one thats 200 years old: the vision of Gabriel Prosser, who led an 1800 slave revolt in Virginia. His objective, Anderson states, was to create a multiracial, multi-religious, multiethnic republic. It was as if an occult hand had nudged Gabriel well in advance of his contemporaries, the Founding Fathers, who are still trying to find themselves in the 21st century. It is time to defuse the power of white rage, Anderson writes. It is time to move into that future.

NONFICTION

The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America

by Carol Anderson

Bloomsbury Publishing

272 pages, $28

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The Second eyes racial implications of the right to bear arms - Atlanta Journal Constitution

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LETTER: Alter the Second Amendment - Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recently released a proposed firearms regulation that would effectively make millions of Americans criminals while doing next to nothing to stop actual crime. The new rule, should it be accepted, would effectively outlaw certain types of arm braces for pistols devices that brace the firearm against the shooters arm to help with accuracy. The ATFs claimed rationale for banning pistol braces is that its increased accuracy makes the firearm more lethal. Thats one way to spin it.

Undoubtedly, pistol braces do make for greater shooting accuracy, but why exactly is that a bad thing? The accuracy of a firearm actually makes it a safer and more suitable weapon for a law-abiding gun owner. The ATFs argument exposes a flawed mindset one that considers first and foremost the potential criminal use of a firearm rather than that which is beneficial for legal operation.

Columnist Kevin Williamson observes, There isnt really any good reason to restrict short-barreled rifles: Shorter barrels usually result in less power and inferior accuracy they generally are less deadly than their full-sized counterparts. Shorter rifles are easier to conceal, but not as easy as a handgun.

And his colleague at National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty, notes, The personal-defense weapon has a real appeal to gun owners looking for a suitable firearm for home defense or a gun to keep in a truck. The shorter barrel makes it easier to move around the interior of a home or in a car. And the arm brace, often adjustable, makes it easier to fire more accurately. Shooting a pistol accurately in an adrenalized situation is actually pretty tough to do. But if you put that smaller pistol-caliber bullet in a slightly larger gun, and you have a brace that gives you more points of contact, you are likely to fire more accurately.

However, even more significant is the attitude inherent behind this newly proposed regulation. To the gun grabbers, there are simply never enough limitations on the Second Amendment. The ATF should be asking the exact opposite question, which is how to provide greater protection of and access to the Second Amendment.

Data on the criminal use of firearms simply doesnt support or justify the creation of this latest regulation. Instead, this is yet another instance of needless government encroachment on our civil rights. It erodes the Second Amendment by nibbling away at a seemingly fringe issue. Creating a new rule will do little to address actual legitimate criminal behavior, while giving the government yet another crime fighting tool at the expense of the law-abiding citizen.

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Thomas Gallatin: ATF Whittles Away at Second Amendment The Patriot Post - Patriot Post

Jun 12th 2021

The Second. By Carol Anderson. Bloomsbury; 272 pages; $28 and 18.99

A BLACK MAN with a gun has been white Americas nightmare since before the republic was founded. Slave uprisings, black soldiers fighting in the countrys wars, even African-American motoristsall have spurred fear and violence backed by white-supremacist authority. In The Second, a compact yet sweeping history of guns and race in America, Carol Anderson argues that the right to keep and bear arms has never been about an abstract liberty to carry guns. Its primary role has been black exclusion and debasement.

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The Second Amendment, Ms Anderson writes, was born in sin. The word slavery never appears in the constitution. Racism is not explicitly inscribed in the Second Amendment. But, she claims, it was at the heart of the guarantee. When the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention (of whom 25 were slave-owners) drafted a replacement for the Articles of Confederation in 1787, they knew they needed the assent of southern states. The amendment, Ms Anderson says, was a bribe to the South using the control of black people as the payoff. Slave-owners, terrified that their suffering property would rise up, could be sure of arming themselves.

Other scholars offer more nuanced accounts of the amendments origins, but there is little question that its well-regulated militia carried a glint of racial dominance. It was buttressed by the Uniform Militia Act of 1792, which required white males aged 18 to 45 to join state militias and buy guns. By contrast, a free black Virginian caught carrying a firearm in 1832 earned 39 lashes. The same punishment applied in Florida and could be enforced by white citizen patrols on the spot. In 1846 Georgias Supreme Court found that the Second Amendment protected the right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boysto keep and bear arms of every description. But it declined to strike down a law barring any free persons of colour from owning them. Several other states had similar prohibitions.

This double-barrelled interpretation contributed to centuries of brutality against defenceless black Americans. Ms Anderson recounts a South Carolina militias grisly response to a slave uprising in 1739 in which the enslaved were tortured, shot, hanged and gibbeted alive. White militias made Swiss cheese of [black] mens backs, especially those who had surrendered during a massacre in Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873. President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the dishonourable discharge of 167 black soldiers in 1906, on the baseless suspicion that some in their ranks had shot whites in Brownsville, Texas.

The emptiness, for black Americans, of the right to bear arms is amply documented in Ms Andersons vivid retelling. No landmarks of racial progressneither Reconstruction in the 19th century, nor the civil-rights movement of the 20thmade a difference. Nor has the National Rifle Association (NRA), the zealous defender of gun rights that came to the fore in the 1960s, targeted this prejudice. In 1967 the NRA helped draft a bill in California to disarm the Black Panthers, a black self-defence organisation that had broken no firearms laws. Ms Anderson notes that the association has been slow to respond to police violence against black men in recent years, including in 2016 when an officer shot and killed Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota, after Castile disclosed that he was (legally) carrying a gun.

Yet as a contribution to the contemporary debate over gun rights, The Second comes up short. The book makes no mention of Justice Clarence Thomass long concurrence in McDonald v Chicago (2010), which covers much of the same historical ground. Like Ms Anderson, Justice Thomas, himself African-American, lamented as tragic the white supremacy that has persistently denied gun rights to black citizens. But the right to bear arms, in his eyes, remains key to their salvation. Ms Anderson could have grappled with that reading to hone her contrary view: that the amendment is so inherently, structurally flawed that it can never be a pathway to civil and human rights for black Americans.

This article appeared in the Books & arts section of the print edition under the headline "Double standard"

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The entwined histories of guns and race in America - The Economist

June 10 To the Editor:

In the news the past month or so:

A 57-year old retired NYC police officer is shot accidentally by a friend trying to break up a dispute outside a pizza parlor.

A 6-year old boy, a passenger in his mother's car, is shot in a road rage incident.

Another young boy, retrieving his bike from the sidewalk near his home, is shot by a neighbor.

Several dozen are killed or wounded over a weekend in gang-related shootouts in Chicago.

An 18-year old from Ohio is found carrying an AK-47 in a NYC subway.

A woman in Texas shoots a beauty shop owner in a dispute about the cost of her pedicure.

A 5-year old boy is accidentally shot by his mother who was aiming at a dog.

Eight people are killed in Atlanta, followed by shootings in a supermarket in Colorado, an office building in California, a FedEx office in Indianapolis, a rail yard in San Jose. A total of 39 people.

Somebody….anybody….Please! Can anyone tell me what any of this has to do with the Second Amendment?

Anthony McManus

Dover

Visit link:

Letter: What does any of this have to do with the Second Amendment? - Seacoastonline.com

This is a response to "County leaders again disappoint with Second Amendment letter."

Please listen, with discerning ears, to the words of those who would paint us all as less than constitutional. They repaint your history with their beliefs. Do you want to be ruled by these people?

They misguide you with their opinions. They tell you what you are to speak. Do you want to be led by these people?

The Constitution and its amendments were put in place by Americans fighting against such authoritative rulers. Americans should stand up for their rights named via the Constitution and the amendments. Dont you want freedom?

We the people, we the United States, are not bound to the guilt some people would try to paint us with. Our whole history is one of improvements for the citizens of the United States and the world. Dont you want to retain and restore your freedoms?

I know that many of you feel the same as the 50 who sent letters to our Walla Walla County Commissioners about their regard for the Second Amendment.

Please send our County Commissioners your thoughts about supporting the Second Amendment in Walla Walla County. We need your voice.

Continued here:

Your support of the Second Amendment is needed - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) joined Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and 139 Members in sending a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Marvin Richardson regarding the proposed guidance on Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached Stabilizing Braces.

ATF has repeatedly stated, the brace concept was inspired by the needs of disabled combat veterans who still enjoy recreational shooting but could not reliably control heavy pistols without assistance. Consequently, ATF agrees that there are legitimate uses for certain stabilizing braces.

If this is the stance of the ATF, then this is not an attempt to curb gun violence as suggested by this proposed guidance, but a direct tax on disabled combat veterans. Should this guidance go into effect, a disabled combat veteran who has chosen the best stabilizing brace for their disability is now a felon unless they turn in or destroy the firearm, destroy the brace, or pay a $200 tax, wrote the lawmakers. Furthermore, it could make millions of law-abiding citizens felons overnight. It is unclear if someone currently in possession of a pistol with a stabilizing brace is expected to apply the test to the lawfully possessed firearm or if there is some other expectation to clarify the classification. Additionally, and more troubling, is the omission of any outlined process for disabled veterans to report a disability exempting them from this unconstitutional process.

They continued, We are disturbed a government agency would issue guidance that would tax and take away the ability of tens of millions of Americans, including disabled veterans to enjoy constitutionally protected rights. In fact, the ATF seems committed to attacking the constitutionally protected rights of all law-abiding citizens.

Read the full letter here and below.

Dear Attorney General Garland and Acting Director Richardson:

We write to you today to express our deep concern regarding the recent Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) notice for proposed guidance on "Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached 'Stabilizing Braces.'" This proposed guidance is alarming and jeopardizes the rights of law-abiding gun owners and disabled combat veterans across the country.

The ATF has repeatedly stated, "the brace concept was inspired by the needs of disabled combat veterans who still enjoy recreational shooting but could not reliably control heavy pistols without assistance. Consequently, ATF agrees that there are legitimate uses for certain 'stabilizing braces."' If this is the stance of the ATF, then this is not an attempt to curb gun violence as suggested by this proposed guidance, but a direct tax on disabled combat veterans. Should this guidance go into effect, a disabled combat veteran who has chosen the best stabilizing brace for their disability is now a felon unless they turn in or destroy the firearm, destroy the brace, or pay a $200 tax. Furthermore, it could make millions of law-abiding citizens felons overnight. It is unclear if someone currently in possession of a pistol with a stabilizing brace is expected to apply the test to the lawfully possessed firearm or if there is some other expectation to clarify the classification. Additionally, and more troubling, is the omission of any outlined process for disabled veterans to report a disability exempting them from this unconstitutional process.

We are disturbed a government agency would issue guidance that would tax and take away the ability of tens of millions of Americans, including disabled veterans to enjoy constitutionally protected rights. In fact, the ATF seems committed to attacking the constitutionally protected rights of all law-abiding citizens.

The Second Amendment is the right that allows us to defend our other rights. If we are to uphold the Constitution, this right cannot be infringed.

We urge you to take action to correct this injustice immediately by withdrawing this proposed guidance.

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Newhouse Opposes Tax on Disabled Veterans, Calls on ATF to Withdraw Proposed Stabilizing Brace Guidance - Dan Newhouse