Category Archives: Second Amendment

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.

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

The City by the Bayon behalf of Californiasues mom and pop firearms accessories companies across the country.Dylan Saunders, owner of one such shop,7.62 Precision, is fighting back.

By Dave Gahary

San Francisco officials recently made news for vowing to protect undocumented (read: illegal) immigrants by refusing to order local law enforcement to assist in enforcing federal immigration law and sued the Trump administration over its order to cut off federal funds to sanctuary cities. Now they have a new target in theirsights: the Second Amendment.

Dennis J. Herrera, first elected city attorney of San Francisco in 2001, is the most well-known champion of same-sex marriage in the Golden State. Today, he wants to make a name for himself by capitalizing onthe many alleged massacres that have been frothily reported by the fake news media.

A week after his attack on the presidents plan to rein in the rampant illegal immigration, Herrera filed suit on Feb. 9 against five named and 50 unnamed companies selling magazine repair kits to California residents, who have had their Second Amendment rights severely limited by gun control-crazy politicians.

Magazine repair or rebuild kits are new magazines that have been opened, disassembled, and packaged for shipping and are used to repair existing magazines, create limited-capacity magazines, or otherwiseassembled and used in accordance with local laws and restrictions.

On the first page of the 34-page complaint, the lawsuit evokes several so-called massacres that have ostensibly occurred in this country over the past decade.

American Free Press sat down with the owner of one of the five named companies, Alaska-based 7.62 Precision, to discuss the lawsuit.

Dylan Saunders, who grew up in Alaska mostly in bush villages without electricity or running water and spent some time in the U.S. Army as a cavalry scout and later as a sniper in an infantry unit, livesin Wasilla, Alaska, where former Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor for six years.

I was injured in Iraq and came back trying to figure out how to support my family, Dylan told AFP. So I started doing what I knew, and that was working with firearms as a way to try to pay the bills.

Listen to AFPs interview with Dylan Saunders by clicking the image below:

He added, Several weeks ago I was very surprised to get a knock at my door at about 10:30 in the evening and receive a summons stating that I was being sued.

Saundersexplained how he got tangled up in this lawsuit.

California some years ago passed a law that prohibited most people in California from purchasing what they call a large capacity magazine, which would be anything larger than 10 rounds, Saunders explained. In the language of that law, they clearly allowed for magazine repair kits to be sold to residents of California, in order to keep grandfathered magazines working. Magazines are consumable items in firearms. They wear out, and theyre usually one of the first components to wear out. So, in order to keep a firearm running you need to be able to repair your magazines since they couldnt replace them.

When California banned magazine repair kits a few years ago, Saunders stopped selling them.

However, Herreras legal staff had simply accessed an old web page from Saunderss website, where ordering the kits is impossible. Once publishedon the World Wide Web,all pages remain accessible, even pages and websites that no longer exist.

Had they simply called me and asked if they could order one from me or even called me and told me that it was the attorney for the city of San Francisco, Saunders said, I wouldve been willing to prove to him that I was not selling these kits and had not intended for that page to be visible. But instead of getting that, they simply sued.

Saunders suspects there is another agenda at play here.

Its pretty obvious that their intent is not to keep people from selling magazine kits in the state of California. Their intention is to attack firearms companies and try to put them out of business, Saunders said. Thats why theyre using lawsuits rather than criminal charges. In the case of criminal charges, they would have to prove that a crime had been committed, while they can bring a lawsuit and hope to bankrupt a company without actually having to win the lawsuit, without having to provide proof. A lot of companies would just fold as a result.

Instead of folding, Saunders fought back, by tapping into what is called crowdfunding, by which a project (in this case, legal fees) is funded by raising money collectively from a large number of people across the world.

These guys were going to get a default judgment if I couldnt retain a law firm, so what I did was I established a GoFundMe campaign, Saunders explained. I was blown away that people from all over the United States jumped in. I think it was less than a week wed raised $10,000, which was our goal.

Saunders has retained a top-notch law firm thanks to the donations, and is still overwhelmed by the support.

We had people donating hundreds of dollars, he said. I was expecting that people would donate $15, $20, $25, and maybe some people would go big and donate $50, but I was just blown away by the support, both monetary and by people sending messages and saying, Were pulling for you in this. It really says something about our country and about shooters across the country.

Dave Gahary, a former submariner in the U.S. Navy, prevailed in a suit broughtby the New York Stock Exchange in an attempt to silence him.

Continue reading here:
San Francisco Tries End-Run Around Second Amendment ... - American Free Press

Fairfax, Va. Iowa is the latest state to pass significant legislation in recent months restoring Second Amendment freedoms. This week Iowa lawmakers sent House File 517, an omnibus bill containing many pro-gun reforms, to Governor Terry Branstad. HF 517 would restore the right of law-abiding gun owners to carry in the capitol and would restore the rights of parents to make decisions about their youth and handguns. The bill also strengthens self-defense rights for law-abiding Iowans.

In state legislatures across America, lawmakers are expanding law-abiding citizens constitutional right to self-protection, said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. The NRA and our five million members thank the Iowa legislature and Governor Branstad for working to strengthen Iowans Second Amendment rights so they have the freedom to protect themselves and their families.

Included in HF 517:

Second Amendment rights bills in the states this year:

Gun Control bills in the states this year:

State laws restoring/protecting Second Amendment rights in recent months:

Twelve states now have Constitutional Carry Laws: Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Maine, Idaho, West Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota

States rejecting gun control schemes in recent months:

Federal legislation protecting Second Amendment rights in recent months:

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.

Link:
Iowa Poised to Restore Second Amendment Freedoms - NRA ILA

Chicago police officers in March. A recent Illinois court ruling has implications for the Second and Fourth amendments.

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

The American judiciary is currently engaged in a vigorous debate that can be summed up in one question: Can you diminish your Fourth Amendment rights by exercising your Second Amendment rights? The Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures; the Second Amendment safeguards the right to keep and bear arms. What happens, then, if police officers search or seize a person solely because he is carrying a firearm? Is that unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment and therefore illegal?

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Last week, an Illinois appeals court answered that question in the affirmative, ruling that mere possession of a handgun does not justify a search or seizure. Liberals and conservatives alike should cheer the courts decision. Empowering law enforcement to curtail the Fourth Amendment makes no one safer, even when its done in the name of controlling gun violence. And allowing officers to target gun owners without suspicion of wrongdoing puts us all at greater risk of harassment, discrimination, and brutality.

Unfortunately, not every court sees the issue that way. In January, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that when officers conduct a lawful traffic stop, they may frisk the driver if they reasonably believe him to be armedregardless of whether the person may legally be entitled to carry the firearm. Even if the individual holds a concealed-carry permit, the court clarified, an officer may still search him without having any suspicion that he committed a crime. In a trenchant critique of the ruling, National Reviews David French wrote that the majority was relegating lawful gun owners to second-class-citizen status. While that might sound dramatic, Judge James Wynn admitted as much in a concurrence, declaring that gun owners forego other constitutional rights, including freedom from unannounced police intrusion and freedom of speech.

We didnt have to wait long to see what Wynns theory looks like in practice. In March, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, refused to reconsider a decision previously issued by a panel of 11th Circuit judges. The panel had thrown out a lawsuit against a police officer who suspected, without any good reason, that a criminal might be lurking inside a particular apartment. In the dead of night, the officer banged on the apartment door. (He did identify himself as law enforcement.) The startled resident retrieved the firearm that he lawfully owned and slowly opened the front door. When he saw a shadowy figure holding a gun, he retreated inside. The officer shot him dead as he was attempting to close the door.

Endorsing the 11th Circuits decision not to re-evaluate the case, Judge Frank M. Hull likened the officers behavior to the knock and talk rule. This rule permits officers to knock on an individuals door for legitimate police purposes. Hull explained that here, the officer had simply engaged in a variation on a knock and talk. When he saw a firearm, he perceived a threat and opened fire. This shooting of an armed individual in his own home, Hull insisted, did not violate any clearly established constitutional rights.

But as Judge Beverly Martin pointed out in dissent, the officer violated at least two constitutional rights. First, he used objectively unreasonable excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Second, this force plainly infringes on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as established by the Supreme Court in 2008s District of Columbia v. Heller. Martin wrote:

The Second and Fourth Amendments, Martin concluded, are having a very bad day in this Circuit.

Martin should be pleased to learn that both amendments are faring much better in the Illinois First District Appellate Court. A panel of judges for the First District was confronted with what is, by now, a familiar fact pattern. Markell Horton, a black man, was standing on a porch when two police officers drove by. The officers saw a metallic object in his waistband that they believed to be a weapon. They stopped the car and got out, at which point Horton went inside the house. The officers walked up to the porch and, they claim, found a set of keys on the ground. They unlocked the front door and entered the house, finding Horton in a bedroom, crouching next to a bed. One officer, Roderick Hummons, detained Horton and searched the room, discovering a gun underneath the mattress. The state charged and convicted Horton, who had a criminal record, of knowingly possessing a firearm after being convicted of two qualifying felonies.

It might be tempting for liberals to view these cases through the lens of gun control. They should resist the temptation.

To summarize: Two officers stopped in front of a house, at which point its apparent residents went inside. Because one resident might have been armed, the officers barged into the house and detained its occupant while searching for the weapon. Yes, it turned out to be possessed unlawfully. But what if Horton had a concealed-carry permit? At the time of the search, the officers only knew that a man with a gun was inside of a house. Did that give them reasonable suspicion to enter the house and search it?

By a 21 vote, the court said no. Possession of a gun, the majority wrote, does not, on its own, give officers reasonable suspicion or probable cause to conduct a search or seizure. The dissent argued otherwise, noting that although a gun owner could have a permitcalled a Firearm Owners Identification, or FOID, card in Illinoishe might also possess his firearm illegally. This rationale, the majority responded, leads down a dangerous path:

The majority also noted that, given Chicagos ongoing history of police misconduct, Horton did not create reasonable suspicion by quickly entering the house upon sight of the police. In an environment where minorities have legitimate suspicion of how they might be treated by police, the court explained, they will be more likely to try to avoid police contacteven though doing so makes them appear culpable of something. Without reasonable suspicion, Hummons search and seizure was unlawful. Under the exclusionary rule, illegally obtained evidence cannot be used at trial. Thus, the court ordered the evidence against Horton should be suppressed.

It might be tempting for liberals to view these cases through the lens of gun control and favor the state or for conservatives to see them as a question of law and order and support the officers. Both sides should resist the temptation. A rule that allows cops to search or seize individuals for carrying a gun can only lead to more brutality against young black men like Philando Castile. It also permits officers to trample upon our rights to property and self-defense. These are constitutional values, not partisan ones. And advocates across the ideological spectrum should urge the courts to follow the First Districts lead and reject the disastrous illogic now developing in the federal circuits.

Read the rest here:
Why Liberals Should Be Alarmed That Courts Are Eroding the Second Amendment - Slate Magazine

Put simply, writes Judge Robert King of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protections to weapons of war.

In Kolbe v. Hogan, the court upheld Marylands ban on assault weapons, also known as rifles that look scary to people who know nothing about guns.

As talk radio host Darryl W. Perry of Free Talk Live notes, Kings perversely broad statement would cover a ban on the possession of rocks:

And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him 1st Samuel, Chapter 17

King also displays a poor grasp of history. No judicial power is required to extend the Second Amendment to cover weapons of war, because theyre precisely what it was intended to cover in the first place.

The Second Amendment was ratified only a few years after a citizen army many of its soldiers armed, at least at first, with weapons brought from home defeated the most fearsome professional military machine in the history of the world, the army of a global empire.

The express purpose of the Second Amendment was to guarantee the continued maintenance of an armed populace. In fact, the Second Militia Act of 1792 legally required every adult able-bodied white American male to own and maintain weapons of war (a musket or rifle, bayonet, powder and bullets) just in case the militia had to be called out.

Even in the 1939 case usually cited to justify victim disarmament (gun control) laws, U.S. v. Miller, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the reason Jack Miller/s short-barreled shotgun could be banned was that it WASNT a weapon of war: [I]t is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

Yes, you read that right: The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment applies ONLY to weapons of war. I think thats too narrow myself, but at least it comes at the matter from the correct historical perspective.

The purpose of the Second Amendment is best understood in terms of a quote falsely attributed to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Japanese navy at the beginning of World War II: You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.

Shame on King and the 4th Circuit for failing to uphold the plain meaning of shall not be infringed.

(Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, thegarrisoncenter.org. He lives and works in north central Florida. Follow him on Twitter @thomaslknapp.)

See more here:
The Second Amendment and 'weapons of war' - The Montgomery Herald

On Friday, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Gorsuchs nomination was heavily backed by the NRA, both because of the pro-Second Amendment views expressed in his judicial writings and his originalist approach to jurisprudence. Justice Antonin Scalia exemplified originalism in his landmark Heller opinion in 2008 that recognized the Second Amendment protects an individual right grounded in the principle of self-defense.

Judge Gorsuchs confirmation capped a dramatic series of events that began with Scalias sudden, unexpected death on Feb. 13, 2016. Not only was Scalia the Supreme Courts leading Second Amendment champion, his was one of only five votes cast in the five- to-four Heller decision, and its five-to-four follow-up, McDonald v. Chicago. Although two justices voting against the Second Amendment in Heller had since left the court, they were replaced in the interim by two equally anti-gun Obama picks, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Thus, with Scalias untimely passing, the court was at best split four to four on its continued support for the Second Amendments individual right.

History will record that the balance of power on the Supreme Court was in fact a key issue in the 2016 presidential election and that Obamas hand-picked successor, Hillary Clinton, suffered a crushing defeat after emphasizing her own view that the Heller Court had been wrong on the Second Amendment.

Candidate Donald Trump, meanwhile, made no secret of his determination to nominate a pro-Second Amendment judge to the fill Scalias vacant seat. After his victory in November, President Trump kept his promise by nominating Judge Gorsuch.

In the intense media and political scrutiny that followed Trumps selection, there was never any serious argument against Judge Gorsuchs credentials, integrity, impartiality, and ability. He has been praised by legal professionals across the political spectrum.

Yet anti-gun loyalists in the Democratic Party, blinded by ideology and unable to recover from their stinging rebuke in the election, launched the first partisan filibuster in U.S. history to block Neil Gorsuchs nomination.

In practical terms, their strategy gained them nothing.

Senate Republicans on Thursday responded by applying the Senate rules instituted by Harry Reid (NV-D) in 2013. At that time, Reid pushed through the elimination of the Senate filibuster on executive appointments and lower-court nominees. The Reid Rule now applies to Supreme Court nominations as well.

Judge Gorsuch was then confirmed on Friday by a bipartisan 54-45 vote.

While there may be no end to the hypocrisy, rancor, and obstruction that liberal loyalists are willing to inflict on the American political process, all citizens of goodwill can rest assured that in Judge Gorsuch, they have a decent, unbiased, and highly-qualified Supreme Court justice who will uphold the law.

And Second Amendment advocates in particular should sleep more soundly knowing that when the Supreme Court again hears a case on the right to keep and bear arms, Justice Scalias seat will be occupied by a man dedicated to ensuring that the Framers vision of constitutional freedom is upheld.

Read more:
Freedom Wins! Pro-Second Amendment Judge Will Join U.S. Supreme Court - NRA ILA

COLUMBIA AVirginia militiaman with a long gun. A 21st century white couple carrying assault weapons in a Starbucks. A black man opencarrying arifle in Dallas before being wrongly identified as the suspect whogunned down Dallas police officers last summer.

The images illustrate a topic Saul Cornell has dedicated his life to understanding: the legal carrying and display of guns in the U.S. under the Second Amendment.

He knows the topic is controversial.

"The interesting thing about the Second Amendment is everyones got an opinion on it," Cornell told a packed house of nearly 100 people in Mumford Hall on Wednesday. "I came to the subject of the Second Amendment not because of any great involvement with gun issues. I came to it out of my interest in the way history gets used by legal scholars and courts."

"Theres a complicated history and a very complicated contemporary reality between firearms and issues of race in America," Cornell said.

He explained how black Americans are disproportionately affected by gun violence, saying that African American men are less likely to be shot if they joined the military rather than remaining civilians.

Many of our gun laws, Cornell said, originated in the Antebellum South, which permitted open carrying of guns in public.

Cornell spoke at the last spring public lecture sponsored by the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, an academic center at MU that emphasizes U.S. Constitutional study, early American history and its relevance today.

He said guns have evolved since adopting the Second Amendment, which means Americans need evolved gun laws.

A Virginia militiaman carrying a long gun couldn't kill as many people as the white couple with assault weapons. Why, then, don't lawmakers enact more regulatory gun legislation parallel to new technology, Cornell asked.

He discussed the differences between the way Americans perceive a white couple and a black man open carrying: the couple celebrated exercising their rights, while police wrongly identified the black man in Dallas as a shooting suspect.

Cornell ended Wednesdays talk by comparing the number of gun-related deaths to car accident deaths in the U.S. He said gun deaths are rising, and the numbers are nearly equal.

"There are more gun stores out there than supermarkets," he said. "That's pretty ridiculous to me."

Traci Wilson-Kleekamp, the president of local activism group Race Matters, Friends, attended the lecture.

"It sounds like you're sort of tip-toeing around this thing on race," Wilson-Kleekamp said. "If you can, be explicit about this connection between slavery and today and our issues with guns."

Cornell said that the South is historically a more violent region, and expressly racial laws originated there.

"People are not aware of how these deep-seeded cultural forms influence their behavior," he said.

He cited a study in which white people often falsely identified guns in pictures with black faces, and simply saw other objects in pictures with white faces.

"It's a deeply, culturally-embedded kind of suspicion, and that makes it harder to extirpate," Cornell said. "Until we recognize it, we can't really move forward."

Read the original here:
Second Amendment historian connects race and gun rights - Columbia Missourian

National security and intelligence community journalist Michael Best reported on Thursday that he just got the documents from the Secret Service regarding threats against Hillary Clinton, and they indicate that the Secret Service did see threats against Clinton seemingly as a result of Trumps comment about second amendment people.

Secret Service documents indicate they did see threats against Hillary Clinton seemingly as a result of Trumps 2nd Amendment people comment, Best writes on Twitter, adding, DHS reaction to Trumps 2nd Amendment people comments: YIKES!'

On August 9th, 2016, Donald Trump suggested his supporters might shoot Clinton if she got to pick a Supreme Court judge, By the way, if she (Hillary Clinton) gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although, the Second Amendment people maybe there is. I dont know.

On July 20th, CNN reported that the Secret Service was investigating a Trump adviser after he called for Clintons execution on the radio. Trump adviser Al Baldasaro told a radio host that Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.

Donald Trump didnt distance himself from Baldarsaro.

Days later, Trump made his second amendment people comment about Clinton getting to fill the Supreme Court seat that Republicans stole from President Barack Obama. Trump supporters and Republicans have tried to pretend his comment wasnt an incitement to violence, but the Secret Service says they did see threats seemingly as a result of Trumps comment.

On the day when Senate Republicans are changing the filibuster rule so they can confirm an extremist to the Supreme Court who was nominated by a president who is under investigation for possible collusion with Russia, the Secret Service confirmed that Trumps call for second amendment people to shoot Clinton if she got to nominate a Supreme Court justice seemingly resulted in threats against her.

Republicans have become radical jihadists inciting violence to get their way, so after not even waiting the average period of time to get Gorusch confirmed, they flipped out and voted to change the Senate rules an act they admitted would ruin the senate. This is the modern day Republican Party. They have become the reactionary hot headed destroyers they chide the far left for being in the 60s.

Republicans arent here for the law and order theyre here to violate laws and norms until they get their way. If they dont get what they want, second amendment people might have to fix it for them.

And if that doesnt work, theyll just change the rules to fit their extremist pick for a seat they already violated precedent to steal from the Democratic president.

With the major victim/persecution complex that colors the Right these days, if the shoe had been on the other foot with these comments, we never would have heard the end of it. There would be investigations into investigations, and leaks and so many more leaks, and conservative journalists illegally recording people to prove how horrible Democrats were. And the press would breathlessly report on the drama, the victimization, the persecution.

If the shoe were on the other foot, elected Democrats would be saying Trump should be shot for treason for all of the Russian connections, since Republicans said that over Clintons hyped up email scandal when she wasnt even found guilty of anything. But Democrats dont roll that way. The Democratic President, Barack Obama, was careful and responsible with his rhetoric.

When it came down to actually inciting violence against his Democratic opponent, Trump supporters and the entire Republican Party enabled and supported Donald Trump. If they werent under a fast gathering cloud of sweeping Russian smoke, this would be a new low for the Republican Party.

As it is, facing possible treason and obstruction of justice accusations, inciting threats against a rival is to be expected. Its how dictators do things.

did Donald Trump incite violence, did donald trump threaten Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, second amendment people

Originally posted here:
Secret Service Says Trump's Second Amendment People Comment Led to Threats Against Clinton - PoliticusUSA

Gun-control advocates often argue that gun-control laws must be more restrictive than the original meaning of the Second Amendment would allow, because modern firearms are so different from the firearms of the late 18th century. This argument is based on ignorance of the history of firearms. It is true that in 1791 the most common firearms were handguns or long guns that had to be reloaded after every shot. But it is not true that repeating arms, which can fire multiple times without reloading, were unimagined in 1791. To the contrary, repeating arms long predate the 1606 founding of the first English colony in America. As of 1791, repeating arms were available but expensive.

This article explains why the price of repeating arms declined so steeply. Then it describes some of the repeating arms that were already in use when the Second Amendment was ratified, including the 22-shot rifle that was later carried on the Lewis andClark expedition.

One of the men to credit for why repeating arms became much less expensive during the 19th century is James Madison, author of the Second Amendment. During Madisons presidency (1809-17), Secretary of War James Monroe (who would succeed Madison as president), successfully promoted legislation to foster the development of firearms technology. In particular, the federal armories at Springfield, Mass., and Harpers Ferry, Va., were ordered to invent the means of producing firearms with interchangeable parts.

To function reliably, repeating firearms must have internal components that fit together very precisely much more precisely than is necessary for single-shot firearms. Before President Madison and Secretary Monroe started the manufacturing revolution, firearms were built one at a time by craftsmen. Making a repeating arm required much more time and expertise than making a single-shot firearm.Howto make repeating arms was well-known, but making them at a labor cost the average person could afford was impossible.

Thanks to the technology innovation labs created at Springfield and Harpers Ferry, inventors found ways to manufacture firearms components at a higher rate, and with more consistency for each part. Instead of every part being made by hand, parts were manufactured with machine tools (tools that make other tools). For example, the wooden stocks for rifles could be repetitively manufactured with such precision that any stock from a factory would fit any rifle from the factory, with no need for craftsmen to shave or adjust the stock.

In New England, the Springfield Armory worked with emerging machinists for other consumer products; the exchange of information in this technology network led directly to the Connecticut River Valley becoming a center of American consumer firearms manufacture, and to rapid improvements in the manufacture of many other consumer durables. The story is told in: Ross Thomson, Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age: Technological Innovation in the United States 1790-1865 (2009);Alexander Rose, American Rifle: A Biography (2008); David R. Meyer, Networked Machinists: High-Technology Industries in Antebellum America (2006); David A. Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932 (1985); Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (1977);Felicia Johnson Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecticut Valley: A Regional Study of the Economic Development of the Small Arms Industry, 1798-1870 (1948). By the 1830s, manufacturing uniformity was sufficiently advanced that repeating arms were becoming widely affordable, and no longer just for the wealthy.

What kind of repeating arms were available before1815, when the Madison-Monroe mass production innovation program began? The state of the art was theGirandoni air rifle, invented around 1779 for Austrian army sharpshooters. Lewis and Clark would carry a Girandoni on their famous expedition, during the Jefferson administration. The Girandoni could shoot 21 or 22 bullets in .46 or .49 caliber without reloading. Ballistically equal to a firearm, a single shot from the Girandoni could penetrate a one-inch wood plank, or take an elk. (For more on the Girandoni, see my article The History of Firearms Magazines and Magazine Prohibitions, 88 Albany L. Rev. 849, 852-53 (2015).)

The first repeaters had been invented about three centuries before. The earliest-known model is a German breech-loading matchlock arquebus from around 1490-1530 with a 10-shot revolving cylinder.M.L. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America: The Impact on History and Technology, 1492-1792, 50 (1980). Henry VIII had a long gun that used a revolving cylinder (a revolver) for multiple shots.W.W. Greener, The Gun and Its Development, 81-82 (9th ed. 1910). A 16-round wheel lock dates from about 1580.Kopel, at 852.

Production of repeaters continued in the seventeenth century. Brown, at 105-6 (four-barreled wheel-lock pistol could fire 15 shots in a few seconds); John Nigel George, English Guns and Rifles, 55-58 (1947) (English breech-loading lever-action repeater, and a revolver, made no later than the British Civil War, and perhaps earlier, by an English gun maker).

The first repeaters to be built in large quantities appear to be the 1646 Danish flintlocks that used a pair of tubular magazines, and could fire 30 shots without reloading. Like a modern lever-action rifle, the next shot was made ready by a simple two-step motion of the trigger guard. These guns were produced for the Danish and Dutch armies. Brown, at 106-7.

In Colonial America, repeating arms wereavailable for people who could afford them, or who were skilled enough to make their own. For example, in September 1722, John Pim of Boston entertained some Indians by demonstrating a firearm he had made. Although loaded but once, it was discharged eleven times following, with bullets in the space of two minutes each which went through a double door at fifty yards distance. Samuel Niles, A Summary Historical Narrative of the Wars in New England, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th ser., vol. 5, 347 (1837). Pims gun may have been a type of the repeating flintlock that became popular in England from the third quarter of the 17th century, and was manufactured in Massachusetts starting in the early eighteenth. Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America 1526-1783, 215-17(Dover reprint 2000) (Smithsonian Institution 1956). Another repeating flintlock, invented by Philadelphias Joseph Belton, could fire eight shots in three seconds. Idem,217. Pim also owned a .52 caliber six-shot flintlock revolver, similar to the revolvers that had been made in England since the turn of the century. Brown, 255.A variety of multi-shot pistols from the late eighteenth century have been preserved, holding two to four rounds. Charles Winthrop Sawyer, Firearms in American History: 1600 to 1800, 194-98, 215-16 (1910).

The repeaters described above werenotthe most common arms. It would take two decades for the program begun by President Madison to result in repeating arms beginning to become affordable to the middle class. So in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a person who could not afford an expensive repeater, but who wanted to be able to fire more than one bullet without reloading, would often buy ablunderbuss. The blunderbuss was the size of a very large handgun. Its muzzle flared outward slightly, like a bell. This made it easier to load while bouncing in a stagecoach, or on a swaying ship. The blunderbuss could fire either one large projectile, or several at once. Most often it was loaded with about 20 large pellets, and so it was devastating at short range. The name seems an adaptation of the Dutch donder-buse or thunder gun.

Excellent for self-defense at close quarters, the blunderbuss was of little use for anything else, having an effective range of about 20 yards. Militarily, it was used by sailors to repel boarders. Stagecoach guards and travelers carried blunderbusses, and it was also a common arm for home defense.For more on the blunderbuss, see Brown and George, above.

No one would dispute that modern arms are much improved from 1791 in terms of reliability, accuracy, range and affordability. But the gap from the 22-shot Girandoni (powerful enough to take an elk) to a modern firearm is pretty small compared withthe changes in technology of the press. Compared to the one-sheet-at-a-time printing presses of 1791, the steam and rotary presses invented in the 19th century made printing vastly faster a speed improvement that dwarfs the speed improvement in firearms in the last 500 years. When the First Amendment was written, a skilled printer could produce 250 sheets in two hours. Today, a modern newspaper printing press can produce 70,000 copies of a newspaper (consisting of dozens of sheets) in an hour. Now, with digital publishing, a newspaper article can be read globally within minutes after it is written.

This means that irresponsible media can cause far more harm today than they could in 1791. For example, in 2005, Newsweek magazine published a false story claiming that American personnel at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated Korans belonging to prisoners there. Eventually, Newsweek retracted the story. But the phony story had already spread worldwide, setting off riots in six countries, in which over 30 people were killed.Had Newsweek been using 18th-century printing presses, the false story would have mostly been read by several thousand people in the New York City area, where Newsweek is based. It would been months if ever before the Newsweek issue with the false story was read by anyone in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

We do not limit any constitutional right to the technology that existed in 1791. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the court observed:

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35-36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

This is an accurate statement of constitutional law, but it understates how truly frivolous the argument against modern firearms is. The people who ratified the Bill of Rights certainly didnot anticipate the invention centuries later of the Internet or of thermal imaging sensors. The American people of 1791 did not have to anticipate the invention of repeating arms, because such arms had been in existence for centuries.

Read the rest here:
Firearms technology and the original meaning of the Second Amendment - Washington Post

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

He referenced the Second Amendment while talking about collegiate sports, contending that NCAA basketball players ought to be paid. In fact, Redick jumped from announcing the end of amateurism in collegiate sports to declaring the end of a Second Amendment that protects 21st century firearms.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Redick said:

The idea of amateurism, it doesnt exist anymore. And so if youre going to do what youre doing, then you just need that complete overhaul. Its got to be something radical. Its not just, Oh, lets just pay every player $5,000. It really requires something really radical. And maybe thats getting rid of college athletics as we know it.

He paraphrased a Thomas Jefferson quote to segue to guns, saying, I go back to the Thomas Jefferson quote Im going to butcher it, but its something weve all read. You wouldnt expect a little boy to wear the pea coat he wore as a boy as a grown man. You need to change with the times.

Redick then addressed gun control, saying laws should evolve in the same way he wants to see collegiate sports evolve. He said:

Laws should reflect that [change], rules, regulations, especially as we know more. Gun control. I dont want to get political, but gun control. Thats something that should evolve as technology evolves. When the 2nd Amendment was created, we had to worry about bears, people lived on the frontier and it took a minute to load a muzzle. I think laws should reflect where we are with guns.

Ironicallyjust one day before Redick made these commentsIndependent Institutes Dave Kopel wrote that gun control arguments framed around musket arguments show a lack of historical knowledge. Writing in The Washington Post, Kopel said:

Gun-control advocates often argue that gun-control laws must be more restrictive than the original meaning of the Second Amendment would allow, because modern firearms are so different from the firearms of the late 18th century. This argument is based on ignorance of the history of firearms. It is true that in 1791 the most common firearms were handguns or long guns that had to be reloaded after every shot. But it is not true that repeating arms, which can fire multiple times without reloading, were unimagined in 1791. To the contrary, repeating arms long predate the 1606 founding of the first English colony in America. As of 1791, repeating arms were available but expensive.

Kopels historical observation helps the reader better understand the Supreme Courts majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). In that opinion, late Justice Antonin Scalia pointed to judicial precedent to show the Second Amendment protects guns in common use at any given time. In other words, at all times the Second Amendment protects the guns commonly owned and used by law-abiding citizens. This means protection for the very 21st century firearms J.J. Redick believes justify more gun control.

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.

Read more here:
LA Clippers JJ Redick: Second Amendment Should 'Evolve' to Allow Gun Control - Breitbart News