Category Archives: Second Amendment

Candidates for Montana's special election to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, launched combative ads showcasing their support for gun rights on Thursday.

Democrat and country music singer Rob Quist is running against Republican Greg Gianforte, a millionaire businessman who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2016.

After receiving criticism for comments made in January suggesting he would be open to a national gun registry, Quist's campaign launched a video ad, "Defend," on Thursday showing him in a field holding a rifle.

"I won't stand by while a millionaire from New Jersy tries to attack my Montana values," the Democrat said just before shooting a television screen.

Just hours later, Gianforte responded with an ad claiming Quist wanted to establish a national gun registry loaded with constituents personal information.

"Some folks just don't get it. Our Second Amendment rights are not up for negotiation," Gianforte said while shooting a computer screen with a shotgun.

Following the congressional special election in Kansas, and anticipated June runoff in Georgia, attention has shifted to Montana's upcoming special election which is set to take place on May 25.

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Montana special election candidates trade Second Amendment shots - Washington Examiner

Statement of Gulf War veteran Willes K. Lee, re-elected to the National Rifle Association of America Board of Directors.

Honolulu, Hawaii -(Ammoland.com)-It is truly humbling to receive support from our members and many non-members to continue to serve you as a Director on the NRA Board. Thank YOU AmmoLand News readers. For 26 years as a soldier, I was privileged to be a Defender of Freedom. I am honored to continue to defend freedom with the National Rifle Association of America, freedom's safest place.

If you are reading this, your vote and support made THE difference. Without having the name recognition of more high-profile candidates, our grassroots victory is important for our five million NRA members, 20 million supporters, and 100 million gun owners. Our Board officers, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, ILA Executive Director Chris Cox and press officers speak for the NRA, but our readers can follow our civil rights progress online at http://www.WillesLee.com, Facebook WillesLeeNRA, and Twitter/Instagram @WillesLee.

Well do our best to keep our grassroots informed and involved so they can do what they love protect the Second Amendment, shoot, hunt, collect, or go out in the backyard and plink.

We have the opportunity to take back our civil rights stolen by anti-gun activists funded by Bloomberg and Soros. It is our time to secure the Second Amendment and regain the liberties stolen by anti-gun progressives. Were working to pass an initial national reciprocity law and the Hearing Protection Act. At state and local levels, Ill engage in challenges across the nation as legislators, judges, and bureaucrats invent new ways to restrict our Second Amendment rights. As important, within the NRA, this win gives a voice to our grassroots members. Since retiring from our military, having been in politics as a member of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Chairman of the Hawaii Republican Party, current President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) and National Director of the Hawaii Republican Assembly (HIRA), a Director for the American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation which hosts CPAC, and a Council for National Policy (CNP) member, I am deeply committed to advancing the interests of gun owners while fighting legislative and regulatory attempts to undermine our rights. It is an honor to serve on the NRA Board of Directors, Col. Ollie Norths NRA Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, our NRA Outreach Committee, and as a co-chairman of the Trump-Pence Second Amendment Coalition

I am a member of and will continue to partner with our many effective coalition organizations supporting the Second Amendment. However, none offer the depth and range, no pun intended, of the NRA. In addition to legislation and protecting our civil rights, NRA programs span from competitions, to hunting, youth shooting, collecting, training, self-defense, safety, to conservation and much more. Supporting all our programs, my focus includes legislation, military and veterans, self-defense, the shooting sports, outreach to new segments of our community, and our fastest growing group women gun owners and shooters.

If you are a member of our National Rifle Association of America, thank you. If you are not, please join, today. Thank you to all the voters and non-voters who supported our grassroots campaign to ensure your voice on the NRA Board.

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Second Amendment Advocate Willes K. Lee Re-Elected To NRA Board Of Directors - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

On April 6,Breitbart News reported that the South Carolina House passed permitless carry legislationsponsored by stateRep. Mike Pitts (R-14). That legislation,which would abolish the need for concealed carry permits, is now with the Senate.

Pitts bill would recognize South Carolinians right to carry a handgun openly or concealed without a permit for self-defense.The Post and Courierquoted Pitts saying, This bill is a very simple bill. It means, by definition of the Constitution, it gives you the ability to keep and bear arms without having to be permitted by the country.

Governor McMaster concurs.According to The Charlotte Observer, McMasters spokesman, Brian Symmes, said, Governor McMaster appreciates the Houses hard work on this bill, believes it is constitutional and will sign it if it reaches his desk.

There are currently12 states that require no permit for exercising the Second Amendment right to bear arms: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, and West Virginia. And permitless carry is the law of the land in99.4 percentof Arkansas and Montana.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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SC Governor: The Second Amendment Is Your Concealed Carry Permit - Breitbart News

A proposed state law that would repeal restrictions and make permits to carry concealed firearms optional has drawn opposition from some Alabama sheriffs.

Senate Bill 24 is sponsored by state Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, who said he believes in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms for the security of a free state.

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Open carry draws fire | Senator says bill about Second Amendment - Sand Mountain Reporter

The U.S. Supreme Court, including the newly confirmed conservative Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, will soon conference to discussa gun-rights case from California that has the potential to expand the Second Amendment.

Related: Supreme Court denies hearing case challenging assault weapons ban

In Peruta v. California, the justices would decide whether the Second Amendment entitles law-abiding citizens to carry handguns outside of the home for self-defense, including concealed carry when open carry is prohibited by state law. Edward Peruta and other gun owners who were denied concealed-carry permits by the San Diego County sheriff appealed the case to the Supreme Court in January, The San Diego Tribune reported earlier this year. California has some of the strongest gun laws of all 50 states. Regarding concealed carry, every state and Washington, D.C., allows it in some form.

Perutafirst filed a lawsuit in 2009 to challenge the countys policy of requiring good cause to obtain a concealed carry permit, saying the policy violates the Second Amendment. The strongest concealed carry laws in the country require applicants to demonstrate good cause or a justifiable need as to why she or he needs a permit. In California, for example, good cause exists to issue a concealed carry weapons permit when there is a clear and present danger to the applicant or the applicants spouse, family or employees, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The gun-rights advocatesmost recently lost on appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2016, when federal judges ruled that San Diegos policy is constitutional. Earlier this week, the court rescheduled discussion related to the case. It remains unknown when the justices will meet to consideranddecide whether to hear it.

Judge Neil Gorsuch is sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, as President Donald Trump watches in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 10. With Gorsuch as the courts ninth justice, it could soon decide to hear a case involving gun rights in California. Carlos Barria/Reuters

If the justices decide to take on the case, though, it could be the most important ruling on guns since the 2008 landmark decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller. In that ruling, the justices recognized, in a 5-4 vote, an individuals right to keep firearms at home for self-defense. Scalia, who was a strict originalist and conservative, wrote the majority opinion in Heller, joined by Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Besides the late Scalia, those justices allstill serve on the court. But the high court hasnt yet ruled on the right to carry a gun outside of the home.

Since, the Supreme Court has rejected taking on dozensof cases fighting gun laws, including a challenge to an ordinance in an Illinois city that bans assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines. The exceptions are the 2010McDonald v. City of Chicago, which basically extendsHeller beyond the federal government to the local andstate levels, and the 2016Caetano v. Massachusetts, which dealt with the use of stun guns, not traditional guns, for self-defense.

After President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch in January, the National Rifle Association gave him a strong endorsement. The organization aired, for example, a nearly $1 million advertising campaign across the country duringhis Senate confirmation hearings to emphasize his impact on the Second Amendment.

But Gorsuch, who is considered an originalist much like Scalia, hasnt written extensively on gun rights. In 2012, he wrote that the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly. In one case, he sided with a Colorado police department after an officer killed a 22-year-old man with his stun gun in 2006. He ruled the officer didnt use excessive force.

Gorsuch also argued in favor of a convicted felon, who appealed his conviction for possessing a gun and said he shouldnt be held accountable because he didnt know he was considered a felon.

Gorsuchs confirmation, which passed the Senate mostly on a partisan vote, restores the Scalia-era balance to the Supreme Court. Despite vehement opposition from most Democrats,three from red states joined their 51 Republican colleagues, who hold the majority, to solidify Gorsuch as justice.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate have introduced a separate, but similar, bill in their respective chambers to allow for national concealed carry reciprocity. The policy, backed by Trump and the NRA, would require states that issue permits allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons to recognize such permits from other states.

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Guns in America: Gorsuch and Other Supreme Court Justices to Consider Gun Case That Could Expand 2nd Amendment - Newsweek

PHILADELPHIA Plaintiffs questioning a law that bans the mentally ill from possessing firearms have dropped Pennsylvania defendants from their case while remaining federal officials recently filed a motion to dismiss claims against them.

The motion was filed Feb. 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, days before plaintiffs Bradley Beers and Joseph Divita dropped the following Pennsylvania entities and individuals as plaintiffs: The Bucks County Sheriffs Department, Bucks County Sheriff Edward J. Donnelly, Bucks County District Attorney Matthew D. Weintraub, Attorney General Joshua Shapiro, Commissioner Tyree Blocker and the Pennsylvania State Police

According to federal law 18 U.S.C.922(g)(4), it is unlawful for individuals who have been committed to a mental institution to own guns. The plaintiffs, who are unable to own firearms, argued the law violates their Second and Fifth Amendment rights.

The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit that brought charges against a number of government officials and entities, including the U.S. attorney general, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI Director James Comey, among others.

The federal government says Second Amendment rights are unrelated to the plaintiffs situation and their histories, and their involuntarily commitment for severe mental disabilities supersedes their Second Amendment rights. It cited District of Columbia v. Heller, a case in which it was determined that the Second Amendment allowed for the denial of access to firearms for the mentally ill.

The motion also cited empirical evidence stating people who have been involuntarily committed are more prone to violence. According to a study cited from National Institute of Mental Health, patients with serious mental illnesses were two to three times as likely to be assaultive as people without an illness.

They also have an increased risk for suicide, with a 90 percent of people who commit suicide having a mental illness, the motion claims.

According to the feds, both plaintiffs were committed for suicidal tendencies and were considered dangers to themselves and others. Beers allegedly placed a gun in his mouth, threatening to kill himself in front of his mother, while Divita allegedly held a knife toward his father and confessed to his sister that he would kill himself if he ever obtained a gun.

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Feds seek to dismiss Second Amendment case involving mentally ill - The Pennsylvania Record

This event is 2A FlashMob Approved by AmmoLand News, anyone attending willautomaticallyqualify for their own FREE 2A Mob Patch.

Michigan -(Ammoland.com)-The Second Amendment March (SAM) is coordinating a pro-gun march and rally at the Michigan State Capitol on Wednesday, April 26th from 10:00 A.M.-2:00 P.M.

This event is open to the public.

The purpose of the event is to show support for the 2nd Amendment and allow citizens to meet with their legislators to discuss gun rights issues. Along with the SAM will be representatives for Michigan Gun Owners (MGO) and Michigan Open Carry, Inc. (MOC).

The event will start with speakers at 10:00 AM until noon. At noon a march will take place around the Capital Mall. Speakers will resume again at 1:00 PM. From 10:00 to 2:00 people are encouraged to meet with their local legislators and discuss their support of the 2nd Amendment. Throughout the event representatives from each gun groups as well as some State legislators will speak on the Capitol steps.

Tables for each gun group will be in the large tent on site with fundraising merchandise and literature available. Vendors can rent a table at this event. Lawful firearm carry is allowed on and in the Capitol building and we encourage all participants to exercise their 2nd Amendment right in a responsible manner.

Oh, and did I mention there will be a raffle?

Tom Lambert President Michigan Open Carry, Inc. [emailprotected]

Michigan Open Carry, Inc is a Not-For-Profit organization that depends on our dues paying members to continue our operation. We are an all-volunteer organization. As such, no one is paid a salary and very few of the personal expenses of our officers are reimbursed. Won't you consider joining us or renewing as a dues paying member today? please email [emailprotected]

About 2A Flashmob: In an effort to motivate gun owners and Second Amendment Supporters to show up in person at important events and rallies AmmoLand Shooting Sports News is giving away FREE 2A Flashmob Patches to anyone who attends a protest, rally, open carry event, committee hearing at your state capital or a Moveon.org counter protest. (You may already be eligible)

Spread the word, get out, get active!

2A Flashmob Patches – Get Your’s FREE

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Michigan 2017 Second Amendment March Is Less Than Two Weeks Away - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

Latest State to Restore Gun Rights

Fairfax, Va. The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) today applauded Gov.Terry Branstad for signingHouse File 517 (HF517) into law. The newly enacted law strengthensIowans fundamental right to self-defense and follows a national trend to expand Second Amendment rights.

It is a great day for freedom. Today, Iowa joined the nationwide movement to expand law-abiding citizens constitutional right to self-protection, said Chris W. Cox, executive director, NRA-ILA.The NRA and our five million members thank the IowaLegislature and Gov.Branstad for working to strengthen Iowans Second Amendment rights so they have the freedom to protect themselves and their families.

Included in HF 517:

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

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Iowa Governor Signs Monumental Pro-Second Amendment Legislation - NRA ILA

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

For decades the federal judiciary has been trying to interpret the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. It is, as Sanford Levinson has termed it, an embarrassment to an elite class of legal scholars that finds firearms to be unusual and repulsive objects. Now the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle is not covered by the Second Amendment, despite that fact that is the most common rifle sold in the United States. This execrable decision is the latest outrage in a long series of disingenuous judicial contortions.

The courts have never come to terms with the fact that any intelligible reading of the Second Amendment requires an interpretation that acknowledges and reconciles its two clauses. The operative clause speaks of the right of the people, while the prefatory clause justifies the operative clause by professing that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.

Prior to the Heller decision by the Supreme Court (2008), for 60 years or more the federal judiciary almost unanimously ruled that the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual right. The militia mentioned in the prefatory clause was taken to be the National Guard. Thus, the right described in the operative clause was interpreted to be the right of states to maintain militia. This interpretation was never credible because it excised the Second Amendment from its contextual and historical underpinnings.

In the Heller decision, the Supreme Court stated unequivocally for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. But Heller was badly flawed. Reversing decades of precedent by lower courts, the Supreme Court read the prefatory militia clause out of the Second Amendment and interpreted the operative clause to protect a personal right. While finding that people have a right to keep a handgun at home for the purpose of self-defense, the court noted in passing that dangerous and unusual weapons were not covered by the Second Amendment. But they failed to explain what these might be. The Heller court went so far as to suggest that weapons most useful in military service M-16 rifles and the like may be banned. Although the Heller decision established an individual right, it also opened the door for lower courts to uphold any statute that banned dangerous weapons or those that might be useful in military service. The flaw is obvious when one recognizes that virtually all weapons are potentially dangerous and useful in military applications.

Thus, we arrive at the 4th Circuit decision that even though AR-15 rifles are commonplace, they may be banned because they are like M-16s and useful in military service. As the dissenting judges noted, this curious logic would have made it possible to ban the muskets and rifles used by citizen militia during the Revolutionary War. But why stop there? Handguns are standard-issue military weapons. Shotguns and bolt-action rifles have been employed by the U.S. military. At one time or place, virtually every weapon has been used by the military, including knives and tomahawks. The irresistible conclusion is that the Second Amendment protects nothing.

The Second Amendment has never been recondite, it is only the judges who have been obtuse. An intelligible interpretation of the Second Amendment emerges the instant one reconciles the prefatory and operative clauses. In other words, the militia described in the prefatory clause is a militia composed of a people with a right to keep and bear arms. What type of arms? In 1939, the Supreme Court spoke explicitly to this. At the time the Second Amendment was adopted, men summoned to militia duty were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time. The Amendment not only protects weapons that might be useful in a military context, arguably it only protects those weapons useful in military service. Thus, the 4th Circuit Court was exactly and completely wrong.

What weapons are excluded? Those not in the common usage by an individual citizen, such as poison gas or large artillery pieces. The phrase used in Heller, dangerous and unusual, is properly understood to refer to weapons of mass destruction. For those who worry that this interpretation would allow the sale and possession of machine guns, take note: There are currently about a half-million registered and transferable fully automatic weapons owned by individuals in the United States. Yet these are virtually never misused.

Judge Neil Gorsuch has recently reminded us that good judges often reach decisions they dont like. Federal judges have found in our Constitution rights to both abortion and gay marriage, subjects that never appear. Perhaps they should consider extending the same latitude to an ancient right that is explicitly provided for.

David Deming is professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and is the author of Science and Technology in World History (McFarland, 2016).

Presidents change and lawmakers come and go, but The Washington Times is always here, and FREE online. Please support our efforts.

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Second Amendment protects the assault rifles - Washington Times

Neil Gorsuch, newly sworn in as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, is taking his seat at a busy time for the court. Beginning this week, the Court will meet in conference to decide what cases it will hear in the near future, and the future of the right to keep and bear arms could depend on the outcome.

In the Peruta case, which is one of the cases up for consideration this week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals originally concluded in a 2-1 decision that San Diego County is violating the constitutional rights of residents by not recognizing self-defense as a valid reason to acquire a concealed-carry license. The judges found that the denial of a concealed-carry license, coupled with Californias ban on the open carrying of firearms, amounts to an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms. However, that decision was overturned by a broader panel of judges on the 9th Circuit. In the en banc decision, the 9th Circuit held that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed firearm in public. What about the open carry ban? The en banc review claimed that the question was beyond the scope of the lawsuit and would require additional litigation before the constitutionality of an open carry ban could be addressed.To confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense described in Heller and McDonald.

If the Supreme Court doesnt agree to hear Peruta, then the en banc decision will remain in force throughout the western states that comprise the 9th Circuit. A new challenge to the states open carry ban has been filed, but it will be years before it gets to the Supreme Court for an appeal. In the meantime, millions of Americans will have their Second Amendment rights curtailed by a court that refuses to examine the real question: Do we have a right to bear arms for self-defense outside of the home?

Increasing the chances that the Supreme Court might hear Peruta is the fact that there is a significant split among the courts of appeals on the issue of bearing arms for self-defense outside of the home. In Moore v. Madigan, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded: A Chicagoan is a good deal more likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in his apartment on the 35th floor of the Park Tower. A woman who is being stalked or has obtained a protective order against a violent ex-husband is more vulnerable to being attacked while walking to or from her home than when inside. She has a stronger self-defense claim to be allowed to carry a gun in public than the resident of a fancy apartment building (complete with doorman) has a claim to sleep with a loaded gun under her mattress. But Illinois wants to deny the former claim, while compelled by McDonald to honor the latter. That creates an arbitrary difference. To confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense described in Heller and McDonald.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan decided not to appeal the 7th Circuits decision to the Supreme Court, and instead the state moved to adopt a shall-issue concealed-carry law (Its interesting to note that Illinois didnt adopt a law similar to Californias, even though anti-gun sentiment runs strong in the state legislature). If the Supreme Court had the chance to consider this case back in 2013, perhaps the Peruta case would be superfluous. Its not. Its the best chance the Supreme Court will have in years to put to rest the idea that the right to keep and bear arms exists only inside the home. Lets hope with the addition of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court that there are four justices ready to vote to hear the case.

Cam Edwards is the host of Cam & Co., which airs live 2-5 p.m. EST on NRATV and midnight EST on SiriusXM Patriot 125.He lives with his family on a small farm near Farmville, Va. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @camedwards.

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Will The Supreme Court Hear A Second Amendment Case This Year? - America's 1st Freedom (press release) (blog)