Category Archives: Second Amendment

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SCOTUS Warned Against Standard Review When it Comes to The Second Amendment AmmoLand Shooting Sports News Second, the self-defense interest in maintaining loaded handguns in the home to shoot intruders is not the primary interest, but at most a subsidiary interest, that the Second Amendment seeks to serve. The Second Amendment's language, while speaking ...

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SCOTUS Warned Against Standard Review When it Comes to The Second Amendment - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

The restoration of Second Amendment-protected rights in the states is happening so quickly that its hard to keep up. On Friday, the Georgia legislature sent a bill to Governor Nathan Deal that would allow concealed handguns on public college campuses, with some exceptions built in to appease Deal, who vetoed a similar but stronger measure last year. Jerry Henry, executive director of GeorgiaCarry.org, a pro-gun rights group, was realistic: Its not the bill that we wanted but its the bill we got. It gives [us] a foot in the door. If Deal signs the bill, Georgia would become the 11th state with this kind of campus-carry law.

Georgia legislators also sent to Deals desk a bill that improved a number of the states existing gun laws, including giving individuals moving to the state from reciprocal carry agreement states a 90-day grace period to obtain a Georgia Weapons License (GWL) while continuing to carry legally using their previous states license. That bill also explicitly prohibits any probate judge from suspending, extending, delaying, or avoiding the process of approving a GWL application made by a citizen of the state.

In addition, it would protect firearms instructors from civil liability for any injuries caused by the failure of one of their students to use a firearm safely.

A third bill sent to Georgia Governor Beal would allow Virginia concealed handgun permit holders to enjoy permit reciprocity with Georgia.

The next day, multiple pro-gun and pro-hunting bills moved ahead in Virginia, including a measure that would allow any law-abiding person to carry a firearm in any state, county, or municipal park or other recreation area. Another bill would allow law-abiding Virginians to carry a firearm onto school property while dropping off or picking up students. Still another would protect shooting ranges from frivolous lawsuits and noise complaints as long as they are operating lawfully. This bill is a direct pushback against anti-gun groups that have filed such lawsuits and complaints in attempts to shut those ranges down.

Last week, North Dakota became the 14th state to allow constitutional carry, just weeks after New Hampshire passed similar legislation. Other constitutional-carry bills are pending in Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

A Michael Bloomberg-funded move in New Mexico to set up a gun registration system was rejected last week, following voter rejection of such a proposal in Maine last November.

On the national level, gun owners are celebrating House Speaker Paul Ryans withdrawal of his anti-gun ObamaCare Lite bill because of its hidden potential to invade Second Amendment-protected rights. Gun Owners of America (GOA) refused to back the bill unless it contained language that prohibited insurance companies from discriminating against gun owners, doctors from entering patients gun ownership information in any federal database, and federal agencies from trolling Medicaid and other federal health databases in order to add names to the NICS background-check database. GOAs demands were ignored, and so the group rallied its members against the passage of Ryans bill.

Also on the national level, Second Amendment supporters are still celebrating the move by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on his first day in office, which revoked a last-second move by former President Obama to phase out the use of lead ammunition for bird hunting on federal land. Under normal circumstances, such a directive wouldnt have rated a footnote, but in the present environment it showed that President Trump was not only determined to respect the Second Amendment but to put people in place in his cabinet with a similar determination.

And, just days later, President Trump himself repealed the so-called Social Security gun ban, under which certain Social Security beneficiaries would have had their Second Amendment-protected rights arbitrarily revoked without due process.

Another hopeful sign at the federal level is Trumps nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. After reviewing the available background of Gorsuch, 30-year defense attorney Andrew Branca, writing in National Review, stated:

As a strong Second Amendment advocate and someone who has concealed-carried a firearm for pretty much every day of my adult life I, for one, welcome Judge Gorsuchs nomination to the Supreme Court, with great optimism for the Courts future Second Amendment jurisprudence.

Restoring Second Amendment-protected rights after decades of efforts to abrogate them is an inch-by-inch process, and that process is being helped along greatly by a president who is determined to keep his promises in this area. On the importance of the Second Amendment, Trump wrote:

The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans. The Constitution doesnt create that right it ensures that the government cant take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendments purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own.

These victories, taken one at a time, dont appear to amount to much. Taken together, however, they indicate not only the momentum shift in favor of the Second Amendment, but a better understanding of it. The language does confuse some: 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.

The following statement concerning the importance of books in a well-educated culture, offered by Stephen Halbrook, a senior fellow at The Independent Institute, is instructive in clarifying the Founders meaning: A well-educated citizenry, being necessary to the culture of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.

An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Second Amendment Victories Continue to Pile Up - The New American

AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

Civil Rights Groups Threaten Philadelphia & Others With Litigation Over Taser Bans AmmoLand Shooting Sports News We hope that these cities will simply choose to comply with the Second Amendment and respect the people's fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms, said Brandon Combs, president of the Coalition and chairman of the Foundation, but if they ...

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Civil Rights Groups Threaten Philadelphia & Others With Litigation Over Taser Bans - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

As Ed Gardner rides in his car on the way to the shooting range, the local NPR station blares over the radio. Gardner says he's "in the closet" at the range, having to hide from his gun-owning peers one of the most guarded secrets of his identity: He's a liberal.

"We try to avoid emotional topics when people are armed," he said.

Gardner is the executive director of the Liberal Gun Club, which was founded in 2008. Since Donald Trump's election, membership has been booming. Most new members come by way of simply searching for an alternative to the monolithically conservative gun enthusiast forums across the internet.

New members have been coming in droves: Enrollments are up over 10%, and across social media, blog posts about the potential need for a "gun culture on the left" are shared by thousands of people.

The "snowflakes" are grabbing their guns. Those who see the Trump agenda as an existential threat to safety are starting to rethink their position on gun ownership, taking self-defense classes and joining groups like Liberal Gun Club or Pink Pistols, an LGBTQgun club. Waiting to receive these new gun owners are the Second Amendment leftists who have been advocating for a liberal gun culture for years, trying to convince fellow liberals that not only are many gun control measures a lost cause, but a divisive political tool that ignores the underlying causes of violence.

"Tyranny isn't the United States Army, necessarily," Gardner said in the car on the way to the range, having flipped off NPR to discuss the Liberal Gun Club with me. "Tyranny can be when a transgenderkid or adult in Compton is actually afraid for her life because some people don't like queer people."

For some, it wasn't Trump. Piper Smith got to work building a San Diego chapter of the Pink Pistols after the Pulse nightclub shootingin Orlando, Florida. Smith said they've brought over 360 active local members into the chapter, and held self-defense trainings for dozens of paying participants. The group is planning to be present at San Diego's upcoming pride festivities. For Smith, it's a nonpartisan issue it's about protecting LGBTQlives.

"There are plenty of places in California where LGBT people don't feel safe, and with good reason," Smith said. "The police will come and take a report, or they'll come and pick up your body. But I'd much rather have LGBT individuals standing up for themselves, not living in fear and not staying home because it's dark and they're scared."

"Tyranny can be when atransgenderkid or adult in Compton is actually afraid for her life because some people don't like queer people."

Liberal gun owners have been pleading with their lefty brethren for years. In op-eds, magazine stories,Facebookposts and closed-door conversations, they've begged their fellow liberals to understand that gun ownership is intertwined with their heritage, their families, their communities and their personal independence, that restricting access is more about scoring points in partisan politics than about solving the underlying causes of violence. Now, more people are starting to see logic in those arguments.

In Gardner's words: "You've got the chuckleheads like us on the sidelines saying, 'We told you so. Let us show you the way. Let me sing you the song of my people.'"

The Robinsons are typical liberal gun owners in that they belong to one particularly special slice of American Democrats: They grew up rural. Sara Robinson was raised in California on the Eastern Sierra, tumbleweed and cowboy country where you might find gun racks mounted on pickup trucks in the high school parking lot. Her husband, Evan, is from Eugene, Oregon, from a family of gun owners and hunters.

"Everyone had them, and it wasn't the big tribal totem it's become," Sara told me.

The Robinsons, like many gun owners, refer to guns as "tools" devicesyou'd use to deal with rattlesnakes, coyotes, varmints and feral animals that wander over from a neighbor's land to terrorize livestock. The two have spent months out on the road, camping in remote areas surrounded by Trump voters.

And coming out as a gun enthusiast early in a conversation with a right-winger is, well, disarming.

"The first thing conservatives try to do is put you in a liberal box of an educated white lady from the city," Sara said. "The first thing I have to do is pull that rug out from under them. So I drop that code, and that throws them. They don't know what to do with me after that. The gun is really a useful way to put them on notice that I'm not the liberal they think I am."

In 1977, the National Rifle Associationunderwent a radical transformationwhen hardline conservatives seized power in the group nearly overnight, clearing out moderates from leadership positions. Since then, guns have been used by both parties to win easy points with their bases, while creating a sharp political divide based less on core values and more on the stereotype of gun-clinging hillbillies, in the case of liberals, and conservatives' paranoia about liberal elites coming to take the guns.

The split in attitudesin attitudes of urban and rural gun owners mirrors an important theme of the 2016 election:the presumption that coastal elites know what policies best suit rural people's needs.

The rural conservatives the Robinsons meet on their travels see the world as a more dangerous place than their liberal counterparts. When Evan's local gun instructor teaches classes, he invokes the horror of a lurking crack addict, and the racially tinged rhetoric is lost on no one. Sara often hears stories about bar fights, robberies and confrontations that take place an hour's drive away from the closest sheriff's deputy. She once chalked up a lot of that talk up to paranoia. Now, she tends to believe them.

"Trump-land tends to be a rougher place than most liberals live in," Sara said. "Most of us are urban and fairly well educated, we live in denser areas, we're more open and less fearful, so the way we think about strangers is very different."

"The gun is really a useful way to put them on notice that I'm not the liberal they think I am."

The Robinsons said they can't deny there's plenty of rhetoric to fuel the myth that leftists want to come and take all of the guns away, and that the party line evokes a world without guns. Evan recalled Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) saying in 1995, "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in."

"It's an unthoughtful response that, at best, is designed to work on the base with no regard to the relative stupidity of it," Evan said. "The idea that [there could be] no guns in America is magical thinking. They're just not going to disappear, no matter what we do."

Being a liberal gun owner can often mean being a pariah in both worlds. Evan's been blacklisted from several online liberal groups for his position on gun ownership, and gun owners who vote blue can be seen as traitors to the cause of gun ownership in the enthusiast community.

Sara said, "You just learn to keep it quiet."

When I called Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor and author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, to ask him whether gun rights have been a losing political issue for Democrats, he responded, "You needed a Second Amendment leftist to tell you that?"

President Bill Clinton fought so hard for his 1994 ban on assault weapons that he is credited with helpingRepublicans take back Congress in the midterm elections that year. In 2004, the ban expired, having had no conclusive effect on gun violence.

"Many Democrats who have lost elections have cited gun control as an issue," Winkler said. "On the other hand, there's [the] core base that wants it. It's hard for the party to ignore important members of its base and coalition."

Many left-leaning gun owners support existing regulations, as well as accurate reporting for states for the sake of background checks and minimum safety standards for concealed carry permits.

"The idea that if we had no guns in America is magical thinking. They're just not going to disappear, no matter what we do."

But they have a deeper vision for addressing gun violence than reducing access: a hard look at its root causes. Abouttwo-thirds of gun deaths in the United States are suicides.An analysis from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, a pro-gun-reform advocacy group, found that "more thanhalf of all women killed by intimate partners in the U.S. are killed with guns."The analysis also found that over half of all victims of gun homicides are black Americans.

Nearly every damning statistic that indicts guns also indicates a deeper cause.

"We should be looking at suicide prevention, health care, systemic poverty and racism, the war on drugs," Lara Smith, the president of the California chapter of the Liberal Gun Club, said in a phone interview. "These are the real problems, and when you focus on the guns you don't focus on the underlying issues."

The Guardianrecently mapped gun homicides down to the census tract level, reportedly for the first time in U.S. history. The analysis found that, regardless of the hype around isolated mass shooting incidents and famously dangerous inner cities, gun violence often correlates with pockets of extreme destitution. The authors described the violence as a "regressive tax that falls heaviest on neighborhoods already struggling with poverty, unemploymentand failing schools."

The Liberal Gun Club felt vindicated. Because of a ban on funding for research that could advance the cause of gun control at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thanks to NRA lobbying very little data that can speak to the root causes of gun violence actually exist. Progressives of all stripes have been fighting to liftthat amendment for years:anti-gun liberals because they think the research will prove the need to remove guns from public life, and pro-gun liberals because they think the research will light the path for more sophisticated, effective solutions.

"For me, this underscores the need for deeper research," one person posted to the Liberal Gun Club'sFacebook page in the wake of the Guardian's story. "Fund the CDC to do it. Don't be afraid of it. Follow the data where it takes us."

One of the first things that comes up when talking to a gun owner is whether or not you've actually fired a gun a necessary litmus test for whether or not you get it. So when Liberal Gun Club honcho Ed Gardner and I arrived at the range, he put a whole series of weapons in my hands and walked me through how to fire each one.

"We should be looking at suicide prevention, health care, systemic poverty and racism, the war ondrugs. These are the real problems."

The one I was drawn to most was aSmith & Wesson M&P, loaded with powerful bullets called by their caliber: .40s. The M&P is compact and light. It sent empty shells ricocheting across the range, often smacking me sharply across the head. My nerves never died down: A .40-caliber handgun kicks hard and blows much larger holes than a more manageable rifle loaded with thinner .22s. It's blunt and concussive. Gardner later informed me it's one of the weapons of choicefor many American police officers.

Gardner, too, harped on the root causes of violence. He spoke eloquently about the overall project of Second Amendment leftists: to address violence at its root by drawing attention away from guns and toward mental health, poverty and inequality.

"Yes, guns are deadly," Gardner said when we sat down at an Irish pub after leaving the range, the smell of gun smoke and lead still in my nose. "Yes, guns are weapons. Should everyone have them? Probably not. But maybe instead of worrying about what people are using to kill each other, we ask why people are killing each other."

Excerpt from:
2nd Amendment snowflakes: In Trump's America, liberals are finally reaching for their guns - Mic

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GOA suggests the choice of confirming or not confirming is so clear cut that it boils down to one thing: Do you support the Second Amendment?

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Gorsuch is President Trumps nominee to fill the vacancy left behind by Second Amendment bulwark Antonin Scalia. And Gorsuchs nomination proves Trump true to his promise to put forward a justice very much in the mold of Justice Scalia.

GOA executive director Erich Pratt said, Gun Owners of America is urging people to contact their Senators and ask for an aye vote for the Senate.

GOA executive director emeritus Larry Pratt said, [Gorsuch] supports the Second Amendment as it was written [and] as it was understood at the time. So were pretty comfortable getting Mr. Gorsuch on the court, that he is going to be pretty much in line of Antonin Scalia.

Larry also said, This is going to be a whole lot better an appointment that if Hillary Clinton had been making it, that is for sure.

Breitbart News reported that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned Gorsuch during the confirmation hearings and used that opportunity to try to discover even a chance that he would be open to more gun control. What she found was Gorsuch standing on the law and the precedent of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Gorsuch said, Whatever is in Heller is the law and I follow the law.

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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Gun Owners of America-Vote on Gorsuch Comes Down to ... - Breitbart - Breitbart News

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The Next Second Amendment Handgun Carry Case to Go Down in Flames NewsBlaze (registration) (blog) This is a sad second amendment handgun carry case, Young v. Hawaii. The saddest fact is nothing can be done at this late stage to salvage it, thanks to the lawyer who represented Mr. Young on appeal. Mr. Young represented himself in the district court.

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The Next Second Amendment Handgun Carry Case to Go Down in Flames - NewsBlaze (registration) (blog)

This is the Colt U.S. M1911 .45 ACP pistol Burgett carried throughout his combat experience with the 101st Airborne Division in Europe during World War II. Nickel-plated and acquired by his father, the pistol was mailed to Burgett in Aldbourne, England, the day before D-Day.

A man should have heroes. And I am proud to say I have come to know some of mine. With familiarity only comes deeper respect.

I lost a friend, hero and fellow NRA life member last week, Donald R. Burgett. His books, starting with Currahee!A Screaming Eagle at Normandy, told the story of the enlisted man in the American Airborne during World War II.

I have been fortunate to spend time with some of my heroes, and through American Rifleman have been able to help tell their stories.

At the NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh I had breakfast with Don and his family, including his daughter Rene, as well as Dr. Sidney Clark Phillips Jr., and his lovely sister Katherine.

Then-NRA-Secretary Jim Land had asked if these two World War II veterans, who were honored guests at the Special Presentations we were running that weekend, would lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the NRA Meeting of members. Of course, they were honored.

Don Burgett, left, and Sid Phillips (not pictured) were presented with Taurus M1911s by the company's CEO Bob Morrison at the 2011 NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh, where the two NRA Life members and World War II veterans were guests of American Rifleman. They led the Pledge of Allegiance at the Annual Meeting of Members.

I recall Don asking Sid, "How do you want to do this?" Sid responded, "I believe we should do the hand salute," to which Don replied, as he wiped his mouth with the hotel napkin, "Then that's what we'll do." And shortly thereafter, they did. As they walked across the stage, they were no longer men in the twilight of their lives, a Detroit factory worker and a genteel southern doctor, they were a swaggering Army paratrooper and a Guadalcanal Marine. Their backs were straighter, and age seemed to fall away from them. They graciously took the standing ovation given them by their fellow NRA members, and then Don, who had been a sergeant said, "Hand salute," and a 17-year-old Marine and a 19-year-old paratrooper, more than half a century after they swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, saluted the national colors and began, "I pledge allegiance... ."

Before heading to New Zealand and the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, Phillips trained stateside with a Springfield '03. Nearly 70 years later, Phillips was still proficient with the rifle on his backyard shooting range.

We lost Sid Phillips in 2015. And we have now lost Don Burgett. I sat down to write about Sid a half dozen times, but could not find words adequate enough to express the gratitude our nation owes such men. Our nation is poorer for their loss. They were but two men. Humble men. Amongst millions. They did their part and more. They did nothing less than save the world from unspeakable evil. We owe our freedom, our way of life, to Don and Sid, and all those who served with them. And we are losing them.

We did TV shows with both Don and Sid. As well as magazine articles. You may have missed them in the magazine, but they are online (see links below). I was fortunate enough to come to know them. But their stories and their words are things every American should know. Know what they did for your freedom. And remember them.

Men like Don Burgett and Sid Phillips safeguarded your freedom. Make their valor, their sacrifice, worth it.

I interviewed Don for American Rifleman TV, and we listened to a man who jumped into Normandy, who fought to keep Hell's Highway open, who fought from a frozen foxhole on the road between Bastogne and Foy, tell us his story. He talked about liberating a Nazi death camp, telling the very souls the Nazis sought to exterminate, that things were different now that "America is here." And when he talked about what the Second Amendment meant to him, I watched the eyes tear and voice break of one of the bravest men I've ever met. Watch the video. Men like Don Burgett and Sid Phillips safeguarded your freedom. Make their valor, their sacrifice, worth it. As Don told me, "It's my Second Amendment." And it's yours too. Because men like him were willing to fight for it.

Learn more about these great men here:Video:American Rifleman TV: Don Burgett, Part 1 Video:American Rifleman TV: Don Burgett, Part 2 Hotter Than The Hinges Of Hell's GatesDon Burgett Marine & RiflemanSidney C. Phillips, Jr.

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American Rifleman | The Keefe Report: "It's My Second Amendment" - American Rifleman (press release) (blog)

Imagine carrying a gun in Texas without a government-approved license.

Sound far-fetched? Impossible? It is not - and the unlicensed carrying of firearms is not all that unique.

An organization advocating restrictive gun laws appeared before the Texas Legislature Tuesday. The group opposes legislation that would allow for the carrying of handguns without a license and to related offenses and penalties. (This is from terminology of House Bill 375.)

According to the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, HB 375 and a similar bill are dangerous permitless carry bills that would dismantle Texas permitting system, allowing people to carry loaded handguns in public without a permit or safety training.

What these two bills would do would be similar to what already exists in a dozen states - the unlicensed carrying of guns. There is legislation in Wisconsin allowing concealed handguns to be legally carried without a license. North Dakota approved similar legislation last week.

So, in other words, the state of Texas is not exactly creating its own version of the Second Amendment - other states have or are considering similar legislation.

We are not yet ready to advocate for the so-called constitutional carry law in Texas - meaning the unlicensed carrying of firearms. Let the debate begin.

However, as lawmakers consider the legislation, keep in mind that Texas has had some form of a concealed carry handgun law since 1995 - and there has not been bloodshed in the streets, as many predicted. And other states already allow the unlicensed carry of firearms.

Other laws related to gun control currently in the Texas Legislature give us pause, such as laws that would penalize private businesses which do not allow firearms. It is preferable to allow private business owners to decide for themselves whether to allow the carry of firearms on their property rather than have government dictate what they must do. (This is what clearly-posted signs are for - to inform the public of whether firearms are permitted on the property of a private business.)

Lawmakers in Texas should take a look at how the unlicensed carry of guns is working in other states. Are there similarities with Texas as far as population? What about the rate of crime? Economic factors?

Proceed with this information and research before automatically assuming that Second Amendment is dangerous.

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Editorial: Second Amendment is not 'dangerous' - Amarillo.com

Right now it's illegal for any cannabis consumer in America to own firearms under the Second Amendment. But a state senator in Nevada is trying to get a law passed that would defend the right of medical marijuana patients to bear arms in the state.

According to federal law, people aren't allowed to buy or possess firearms if they use marijuana medicinally or recreationally.

The Gun Control Act of 1968states, "It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person...is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act."

Since marijuanais listed as a Schedule I drug in the Controlled Substances Act,cannabis consumers can't legally bear arms.

But Nevada State Senator Kelvin Atkinson (D-North Las Vegas) hopes to change that by convincing his colleagues to pass Senate bill SB351, which isaimed at protecting the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana patients. He introduced that bill to state legislators last week at the request of medical marijuana patients who reached out to him and asked for help.

"People have come to me and said, 'This isn't fair. Can you guys at least hear us out?' " he told local CBS-affiliate KTVN. "So, it's an opportunity to hear folks out and see where we need to go with it."

Atkinson argues that barring cannabis users from owning firearms is unjust since people who drink don't lose their Second Amendment rights.

"You look at everything else an individual can be on, including alcohol...and it's not an immediate disqualifier," he said. "I think it should be looked at and it shouldn't be an immediate disqualifier for individuals who are...taking it medically."

The senator added that the bill doesn't address recreational cannabis consumers because they aren't required by law to identify themselves. Medical marijuana patients have to apply for and carry a card authorizing their drug use. Recreational users don't face those requirements in the state that legalized adult use in 2016.

But even if the new law does pass, its value would be mostly symbolic since gun dealers would still have to abide by federal regulations. Before people in America can buy a gun, they have to fill out an ATF 4473 form, which specifically asks, "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?"

The form also clarifies that marijuana remains federally illegal even if the state an applicant resides in has legalized or decriminalized it.

Atkinson's bill can't overrule those guidelines, according to Jay Hawkins, Manager of Reno Guns & Range.

"That law doesn't change the guidelines that we're bound by, which is federal guidelines," Hawkins told KTVN. "All that law would change is the possession."

So a person could legally own a gun under the new Nevada law, but they couldn't buy a new one and they couldn't buy any ammo. So thanks to federal cannabis prohibition, their Second Amendment rights have been basically watered down to the freedom to own an expensive paperweight.

But that could change if Congress passes acannabis reform billintroduced to the House last month byRep. Thomas Garrett (R-Virginia). Rep. Garrett's bill would essentially repeal federal prohibition and allow individual states to determine the legality of marijuana.

h/t KTVN (Reno, Nevada)

Banner image: thelegislator.org(Nevada State Senator, Kelvin Atkinson)

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This Nevada Senator Is Trying To Protect Second Amendment Rights Of Cannabis Consumers - Civilized

The Right-to-Carry revolution continues to sweep across the country. With Gov. Doug Burgums signing of HB 1169 last week, North Dakota became the latest state to adopt a permitless/constitutional carry law. New Hampshire passed its own permitless carry law earlier this year, while other states like South Carolina are still considering similar legislation. (South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed a constitutional carry bill passed by the legislature earlier this month.) There are now more states that have constitutional carry laws than there are states with restrictive may-issue policies for carrying firearms. In other words, more state laws look like New Hampshires than New Jerseys, and thats a very good thing.

Judges have been considering the right to bear arms in courtrooms across the country, and a few of them have come up with some pretty extraordinary interpretations of the Second Amendment to justify restrictive gun control regimes. Many of them try to seize upon Antonin Scalias comment in Heller that not all gun control laws would be found to be unconstitutional as evidence that governments should have broad leeway in passing laws restricting the Second Amendment rights of their constituents. Others claim that as firearms have changed over the years, the meaning of the Second Amendment must have changed as well. Because the Founding Fathers never could have envisioned semi-automatic rifles, or multi-shot pistols, laws banning rifles and restricting the carrying of firearms are therefore fine and dandy. But few courts have considered what states around the country have actually been doing for the past few decades.More state laws look like New Hampshires than New Jerseys, and thats a very good thing.

In 1987, there were only nine states that were shall-issue in regards to concealed-carry licenses, and only Vermont expressly allowed carry without a permit. Twenty-four states authorized broad discretion in terms of who could carry, and 16 didnt allow any concealed carry at all. Just 30 years later, there are no states left with complete bans on carrying firearms. Twenty-nine states now have shall-issue laws, 13 now have permitless carry, and only eight (nine, if you include Washington, D.C.) still have the may-issue laws on the books. Constitutional carry isnt clustered in just one region of the country, either. In the northwest, Idaho adopted its permitless carry law in 2016; in the southeast, Mississippi did the same; while in the mid-Atlantic, West Virginia also adopted constitutional carry. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed constitutional carry into law in 2010, and Maine and New Hampshire recently joined Vermont in becoming permitless carry states. This is a broad movement, but good luck getting many judges on the 4th or 9th Circuits to notice.This is a broad movement, but good luck getting many judges on the 4th or 9th Circuits to notice.

Even if you view the Constitution as a living document, changing with the times without any need to actually amend it, its pretty clear that this country supports the individual right to keep and bear arms as much or more than we did at the time of the nations founding. Yes, there are a handful of states where anti-gun attitudes dominate legislatures and the public square, but the momentum is on the side of the Second Amendment. While dozens of states have adopted shall-issue or constitutional carry measures over the past three decades, not one state has reversed course. No state has instituted a ban on the carrying of firearms, or even switched from a shall-issue to a may-issue law. The country has been moving in one direction when it comes to the right to carry, and its in the direction of a full recognition of our Second Amendment rights.

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.

Originally posted here:
Continuing Down The Road To Second Amendment Freedom - America's 1st Freedom (press release) (blog)