Category Archives: Second Amendment

On Nov. 3, Donald Trump announced a group of grassroots and mainstream groups as well as public figures called theSecond Amendment Coalitionwith the sole purpose of protecting Second Amendment liberties.

While many of the groups and individuals already service the mission, it was unclear whatthey would do as a conglomerate.Guns.com caught up with two of its members, gun maker Jesse James and six-time Olympic medal winner Kim Rhode, at SHOT Show in Las Vegas in January 2017 to discuss more about it.

The coalition is really about bringing a lot of industry and experience to the table to help, advise and give him the best advice opportunities to help the industry that we can, saidRhode.

At the top of the list for James is universal concealed-carry reciprocity. If youre fingerprinted and youre double background checked and youre firearm trained to have a concealed carry license in your state, that should transfer to every other state. And it doesnt now, he said. There is currently a bill in Congress that hopes to achieve this.

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Mark L. Hopkins More Content Now

This is the second in a series of columns that relate to the purpose of the Second Amendment and the gun rights issue that continues to fester in our society. The first column pointed out the strong desire on the part of the leadership of the country to have a strong federal government. The focus here is in the feeling of necessity in the leadership to have a means to enforce federal law and to protect the government from citizen rebellions. The Second Amendment became the law of the land in 1791. Prior to that Daniel Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army, became the leader of a citizens rebellion in Massachusetts in response to what Shays and other farmers believed were high taxes and a government that was unresponsive to their grievances. In January 1787, they raided the arsenal in Springfield, Massachusetts and continued their anti-government rebellions through the winter of that year. This was two years before the writing of the U.S. Bill of Rights with its all-important Second Amendment. Retired General George Washington was so upset by Shays Rebellion that he wrote three letters commenting on it. Excerpts from these letters follow: But for Gods sake tell me what is the cause of all these commotions. Do they proceed from licentiousness, British influence disseminated by Tories, or real grievances which admit of redress? In a second letter he worried that, Commotion of this sort, like snowballs, gather strength as they roll, if there is no opposition in the way to divide and crumble them. I am mortified beyond expression that in the moment of our acknowledged independence we should by our conduct verify the predictions of our transatlantic foe, and render ourselves ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of all Europe. Later he wrote, If three years ago any person had told me that at this day I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws and constitutions or our own making as now appears, I should have thought him a bedlamite, a fit subject for a mad house. Shays Rebellion was eventually put down when a group of wealthy merchants in Boston pooled their resources and created their own militia to quell the uprising. In the early 1790s, a second major rebellion began in Western Pennsylvania. It was called the Whiskey Rebellion and, again, was a revolt against taxes. Thus, the Second Amendment was written and signed into law in the shadow of these two major citizens rebellions. The U.S. Congress reacted to this second major rebellion by passing The Militia Act which gave teeth to the Second Amendment by requiring all military-age free adults to stand for service to enforce the laws of the Union, thereby insuring domestic tranquility. President Washington himself gave orders to form a militia of 13,000 men to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. His words later were ..this is how a well-regulated Militia should be used to serve the government in maintaining a strong security in each state, as the Second Amendment of The Bill of Rights intended. From the letters written by George Washington and the actions of Congress it is obvious that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to strengthen the Federal Government against rebellion and insurrection. It was not, as some contend, to equip the citizens to make war on the government. In fact, it was just the opposite. My first of the three gun rights columns focused on the desire of the U.S. leadership to have a strong central government and the means to protect that government from rebellion. In this column the focus has been on the like-minded efforts of both President George Washington and Congress to put teeth in the Second Amendment so security and an orderly society could be fostered. My third and final column on this subject will come next week.

Dr. Mark L. Hopkins writes for More Content Now and Scripps Newspapers. He is past president of colleges and universities in four states and currently serves as executive director of a higher-education consulting service. You will find Hopkins latest book, Journey to Gettysburg, on Amazon.com. Contact him at presnet@presnet.net.

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Mark L. Hopkins: The Second Amendment and Shays' Rebellion - Wicked Local Watertown

Trumps nomination of federal judge Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court has been greeted with much glee by conservatives and a well-anticipated gnashing of teeth by the progressive Left. Naturally, those of us in the gun community have our own particularized questions about what a Justice Gorsuch might mean for the Second Amendment. Lets take a look, shall we?

A look at Judge Gorsuchs generalized judicial philosophy is certainly encouraging. Given that it was Scalia who led the proSecond Amendment decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and MacDonald v. Chicago, and that Gorsuch has been described not inaccurately as Scalia 2.0, we may reasonably hope that Gorsuch will bring a Scalia-like originalist and textualist approach to Second Amendment jurisprudence.

Judge Gorsuchs actual record on the Second Amendment is rather sparse, however. He has not been involved in first-principle cases such as Heller and MacDonald, so his decisions have nothing as explicitly affirming. It is worth asking, then, whether any of his decisions could suggest he would approach the Second Amendment in a negative manner.

Having spent decades fighting antiSecond Amendment legislation and jurisprudence, the gun community is sensitive to any suggestion, however slight, that a Supreme Court nominee might be predisposed against their views. The result is sometimes a tendency to object prematurely and cry wolf.

Some in the gun community seem to be leaning in this direction because of a case in Judge Gorsuchs recent past: U.S. v. Rodriguez, 739 F.3d 481 (10th Ct. App. 2013). In my view, however, this 30 opinion (which Gorsuch did not write, but in which he concurred) is entirely consistent with a robust reading of the Second Amendment. Rodriguez is perhaps best described as a Fourth Amendment case (right against unreasonable search) with Second Amendment overtones, much like the recent Robinson decision out of the Fourth Circuit.

In both cases, the police lawfully that is, with reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed stopped an armed person and disarmed him during the stop for purposes of safety. In both cases the person stopped was found to be in unlawful possession of a gun and was ultimately arrested.

In Rodriguez, the Court of Appeals unanimously, with Judge Gorsuch concurring, found the police seizure of the stopped persons gun for purposes of safety to have been lawful under the Fourth Amendment, and not an infringement of the Second Amendment.

Some in the gun community have characterized Rodriguez and Robinson as holding that a person who exercises his Second Amendment rights is now required to sacrifice his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search. I disagree with that view. While we must always be vigilant against substantive infringement of our Second Amendment rights and we know that those intent on such infringement will never cease their attacks we also need to acknowledge that all constitutional rights are subject to reasonable limitation, particularly when that reasonable limitation is transient.

The Fourth Amendment, for example, does not protect us from all government searches it protects us from unreasonable government searches. Similarly, the Second Amendment does not provide an absolute right to keep and bear arms under any circumstance.

Most in the gun community, for example, would agree that violent felons and the mentally deranged should be denied the right to arms and that doing so does not infringe the Second Amendment. Even in the context of law-abiding gun owners, few would consider a prohibition against carrying a gun into the Oval Office when meeting with President Trump to be an infringement of the Second Amendment, so long as our right to be armed could be asserted immediately afterward.

The transient seizure of a gun in the course of a lawful police stopa seizure, that is, based on reasonable suspicion that a crime is underwayand under circumstances in which the police do not know whether the person stopped is armed lawfully is, in my view, not an infringement of the Second Amendment. Requiring the officer making a lawful stop to presume that the person stopped stopped on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity is law-abiding and is armed lawfully strikes me as unreasonable.

The rationale for such a transient taking the safety of the officer, his partners, the public, and even the person stopped is compelling and reasonable. Guns are, in fact, dangerous thats why those of us who concealed-carry them for personal protection do so in the first place: to make ourselves more dangerous to criminal predators.

As a strong Second Amendment advocate and someone who has concealed-carried a firearm for pretty much every day of my adult life (so, for most of the last 30 years), I find it difficult to get too worked up over a temporary seizure of my handgun during a lawful police stop so long as my gun is returned once the reasonable suspicion of criminal activity has been dispelled and the stop completed.

I, for one, welcome Judge Gorsuchs nomination to the Supreme Court, with great optimism for the Courts future Second Amendment jurisprudence.

Andrew F. Branca is an attorney and the author of The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide for the Armed Citizen.

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Neil Gorsuch -- Second Amendment Would Be Safe with Him on ...

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has asked congressional leaders to take action to protect Second Amendment rights of Social Security beneficiaries, according to a news release.

A group of 13 state attorneys general, including Schmidt, Wednesday urged congressional leaders to repeal an overreaching federal regulation that they said denies certain Social Security beneficiaries the right to keep and bear arms, according to the release.

In late December 2016, the Social Security Administration under then-President Obamas direction published a final rule that broadened a previously narrow prohibition for those adjudicated as a mental defective or who have been committed to a mental institution to include numerous individuals that Congress never intended to cover with this exclusion, such as program beneficiaries with representatives or alternate payees, according to the release.

This new rule allows the Social Security Administration to designate an individual a mental defective by its own discretion and relies heavily on overly broad definitions included in previous guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the release.

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13 attorneys general seek Second Amendment protections | Local ... - Ottawaherald.com

SALISBURY, NC (FOX 46) - There's renewed optimism among those in the gun business as gun owners say this new administration brings a better sense of stability to their second amendment rights.

It's a feeling those at the Salisbury Gun & Knife show say they haven't felt in nearly a decade.

"I'll think you'll see what the second amendment supporters feel is a repair on their rights and what they feel was tarnished over the last eight years," said promoter, BrandonCupp.

"I think everybody feels safe at least for the next four to eight years that they aren't going to have any problems getting any guns or buying any guns that they want," said Adam Ervin of Pistol Pop's Firearms.

Vendors are looking forward to the end of panic buying that took place during the Obama Administration. Those feel that over the next four years this will be a positive change for those that are pro second amendment.

"I think the gun industry is going to get better. People still want to protects themselves. One man, one administration is not going to keep crime down. It may help keep it down, but it won't totally be snuffed out," said Todd Edwards with Gold Rush Carolinas..

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Optimism over second amendment rights on display at Salisbury Gun & Knife Show - FOX 46 Charlotte

This week, President Trump kept one of his most important campaign promises by nominating an originalist judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalias death last February. Scalia was the courts foremost practitioner of originalism and textualism, judicial philosophies that seek to resolve constitutional questions by reference to the language of the document, as publicly understood at the time of its enactment.

This approach led Scalia to author the historic opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which confirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for defensive purposes.

Judge Gorsuchs embrace of originalism is a bulwark for our Second Amendment rights. When given the opportunity to consider the matter in his professional capacity, Judge Gorsuch has made clear that he understands the importance of the right to keep and bear arms.

In a case concerning a technical question of what the government must prove to establish a violation of the Gun Control Act, Judge Gorsuch noted that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly. His statements in that case strongly indicate that he would hold the government to a high standard before allowing it to strip someone of the right to keep and bear arms.

Its hardly a secret that many in the federal judiciary have not shown the Second Amendment the respect it deserves. Justice Thomas, another originalist on the Supreme Court noted as much in 2015 when dissenting from the courts refusal to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a San Francisco ordinance requiring firearms in the home to be kept locked away or disabled with a trigger lock. Despite the clarity with which we described the Second Amendments core protection for the right of self-defense, Thomas wrote, lower courts, including the ones here, have failed to protect it.

Opposition to Judge Gorsuchs confirmation has already started amongst gun control supporters, and they are once again proving that dishonesty is no impediment in pursuing their agenda. Addressing Judge Gorsuchs nomination, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claimed that Judge Gorsuch favors felons over gun safety. This claim was nothing more than a desperate attempt to smear the distinguished jurist, which is why it has already been found to be false by the fact-checking (and left-leaning) website Politifact.

Disappointed supporters of Hillary Clinton are wailing, gnashing their teeth, and vowing to obstruct Judge Gorsuchs confirmation. Their tactics, as usual, are heavy on hysteria and short on facts or reason.

Yet both sides understood that the 2016 presidential election was largely a referendum on the future direction of the U.S. Supreme Court. The American people spoke loudly and clearly in favor of respecting the original meaning of the Constitution. The Senate should therefore do its sworn duty and swiftly confirm Judge Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Trump Supreme Court Nominee Neil M. Gorsuch Would Respect the Second Amendment - NRA ILA

In a racist ruling that primarily functioned as a way to disarm black residents while protecting white Southern paramilitary groups, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment applied only to the federal government. Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote for the majority:

The most frequently-cited Second Amendment ruling in U.S. history has been United States v. Miller, a serious but challenging attempt to define the Second Amendment's right to bear arms on the basis of how well it serves the Second Amendment's well-regulated-militia rationale. As Justice James Clark McReynolds wrote for the majority:

In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court decidedfor the first time in U.S. historyto strike down a law on Second Amendment grounds. Justice Scalia wrote for the narrow majority:

The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a 'right of the people.' The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase 'right of the people' two other times, in the First Amendments Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendments Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology ('The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people'). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not 'collective' rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body ...

We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.

The opinion the Court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons. Unable to point to any such evidence, the Court stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the Amendments text; significantly different provisions in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and in various 19th-century State Constitutions; postenactment commentary that was available to the Court when it decided Miller; and, ultimately, a feeble attempt to distinguish Miller that places more emphasis on the Courts decisional process than on the reasoning in the opinion itself ...

Until today, it has been understood that legislatures may regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do not interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia. The Courts announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms for private purposes upsets that settled understanding, but leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible regulations ...

The Court properly disclaims any interest in evaluating the wisdom of the specific policy choice challenged in this case, but it fails to pay heed to a far more important policy choicethe choice made by the Framers themselves. The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons, and to authorize this Court to use the common-law process of case-by-case judicial lawmaking to define the contours of acceptable gun control policy. Absent compelling evidence that is nowhere to be found in the Courts opinion, I could not possibly conclude that the Framers made such a choice.

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Second Amendment and Gun Control Supreme Court Cases

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to push to relax gun laws when he takes office, but significant changes in the firearms industry began as soon as he was elected and some put the law of unintended consequences squarely in the cross hairs.

For instance, while Trumps unapologetic pro-Second Amendment stance may be good for gun owners, it has already dealt a blow to manufacturers, who enjoyed record sales throughout President Obamas eight years in office. Stocks in companies like Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. plunged on Nov. 9, and experts say it is because Trumps election erased fears that guns would become harder to get.

A lot of people were buying guns simply because they were worried Hillary Clintons regulations would make it more costly and more difficult to buy guns, and people are not going to feel quite the need to go out and buy guns now, Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott told FoxNews.com. I think the stock market is a pretty good predictor of whats going to happen, and the fact that you see drops in stock prices by almost 20 percentage points I think thats pretty significant.

While the government does not publish an official number of gun sales, background checks, a gauge of how many people try to buy guns, skyrocketed under President Obama. In 2008, 12.71 million background checks were conducted, a number on pace to double this year, to set an all-time record.

The prospect of a pro-gun control administration of Hillary Clinton following Obama, together with a campaign that put gun rights in the spotlight, was the likely driver of the firearms boom, acknowledged Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. But he was skeptical that a rise in 2016 gun sales or an anticipated dip in the coming year will have a major effect on crime.

Gun violence is obviously a complicated issue and doesnt just turn around because of a month or two of different sales, Horwitz said. There are so many guns in America that a blip in the sales rate is not going to change the death and injury rate in any meaningful fashion, and its just too early to tell.

The weekend following Trumps election, arms vendors from all over the country set up their exhibits in Oklahoma for the semi-annual Wanenmachers Tulsa Arms Show, the largest gun and knife show in the world. Show founder Joe Wanenmacher told FoxNews.com sales were steady, but wouldve been through the roof if Clinton had won.

Had Secretary Clinton been elected, it would have been panic sales, because gun shows were in her sights to either be eliminated, or make it so difficult to sell that they wouldnt be effective, Wanenmacher said. When there is complacency, there isnt the motive to buy guns in anticipation of something bad happening.

One attendee agreed.

I think if Trump hadnt won, it would have been chaos, she said. It was a relaxed atmosphere and everyone was upbeat.

Fear of new gun control laws was not the only sales driver in recent years, said National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman Mike Bazinet. He said local crime also spurred people to buy guns, and does not expect that factor to diminish in the near future.

There is no question that the concern over political situations over the past several years, where people may have feared additional restrictions of access to firearms was a motivator, but it wasnt the only one, Bazinet said. Our retailers tell us that a more important factor is local crime.

Trump has said he intends to work with state and local governments to repeal gun-free zones, do away with the special tax on silencers, encourage expansion of conceal carry laws and carry out a host of other pro-gun industry initiatives. Advocates of gun control say such measures will put more people at risk of becoming victims of gun violence, but Trump and other Second Amendment stalwarts disagree.

If you get rid of gun-free zones and make it easier for people to carry, you will deter criminals, Lott told Fox News. You will be able to reduce crime.

The irony is that an administration more sympathetic to the gun industry could hurt its bottom line.

There is no doubt that the firearms industry will not be treated as a social disease by the Trump Administration, Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told Fox News. The president-elect will make the Second Amendment great again.

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Trump's pro-Second Amendment platform could end gun sales ...

Donald Trump would not commit Wednesday night to accepting the results of the presidential election if he loses on Nov. 8, in a striking moment during his final debate with Hillary Clinton that underscored the deepening tensions in the race as the bitter rivals defined the choice for voters on an array of issues not three weeks from Election Day.

The debate in Las Vegas, moderated by Fox News Chris Wallace, started with a measured discussion on policy disputes ranging from gun rights to abortion to immigration. But it ended with the candidates hurling a grab-bag of accusations and insults at each other.

Trump called Clinton a nasty woman. Clinton called Trump the most dangerous person to run for president in modern history.

The most pointed moment came when Trump who for weeks has warned of a rigged election was asked whether he will commit to accept the results of the election.

I will look at it at the time, Trump said, citing his concerns about voter registration fraud, a corrupt media and an opponent he claimed shouldnt be allowed to run because she committed a very serious crime with her emails.

Pressed again whether hes prepared to concede if he loses, Trump again said: I will tell you at the time. Ill keep you in suspense.

Clinton delivered a sharp rejoinder: Thats horrifying.

That is not the way our democracy works, she said. He is denigrating, hes talking down our democracy and I for one am appalled.

Trump responded by calling the Justice Departments handling of her email probe disgraceful.

The exchange was among many contentious moments at Wednesdays debate, which covered several issues including the national debt that have gotten little attention in the race so far but flared with arguments between the candidates over WikiLeaks, over Russia, over the Clinton Foundation and over womens allegations of groping against Trump.

Through the thicket of accusations and personal animus they never shook hands on stage the candidates tried generally to mount a closing debate-stage argument about experience.

For 30 years, youve been in a position to help. The problem is you talk, but you dont get anything done, Hillary, Trump said. If you become president, this country is going to be in some mess, believe me.

Clinton countered by contrasting some of her experiences against Trumps. She said when she was monitoring the Usama bin Laden raid in the Situation Room, He was hosting The Celebrity Apprentice.

Im happy to compare my 30 years of experience with your 30 years, and I will let the American people make that decision, Clinton said.

Trump, meanwhile, again disputed the multiple allegations of groping that women have leveled against him since the candidates last encounter. He also said he thinks the Clinton campaign is behind the claims, charging, They either want fame or her campaign did it.

Clinton said, Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. Trump repeated that nobody has more respect for women than him.

Trump then shifted to blast the Clinton Foundation as a criminal enterprise. He pointed to donations from countries like Saudi Arabia to question Clintons commitment to womens rights. He asked her if she would return money from countries that treat certain groups of people horribly, which she did not answer directly.

The candidates third and final debate now sets a bitter tone for the homestretch of the 2016 presidential campaign a race that already stands out as arguably the most personal, caustic and unpredictable White House battle in modern politics.

Trump, slipping in the polls amid various campaign controversies, said at the last debate that Clinton should be in jail. Clinton has blasted Trump all along as temperamentally unfit for office.

Since the second debate, numerous women have come forward to accuse Trump of groping them, allegations he denies. WikiLeaks also has embarrassed the Clinton campaign by releasing thousands of hacked emails purportedly from her campaign chairmans account. FBI files alleging a State Department official sought a quid pro quo to alter the classification on a Clinton server email added to the campaigns and Obama administrations woes.

The WikiLeaks controversy came up Wednesday night when Clinton asked if Trump would condemn Russian espionage. He denied knowing Vladimir Putin but said the issue is the Russian president has no respect for her.

Thats because hed rather have a puppet, Clinton shot back.

Trump responded, Nope. youre the puppet.

Trump later said he condemns any interference by Russia in the election.

The candidates also sparred over gun rights, with the Republican nominee charging that the Second Amendment is under absolute siege and would be eroded if his opponent wins.

We will have a Second Amendment which will be a very, very small replica of what we have now if Clinton wins, Trump said.

The Democratic nominee countered, I support the Second Amendment.

In a graphic exchange, Trump said Clintons position on abortion is nearing a point where one could rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month. Clinton accused him of scare rhetoric.

They also clashed on immigration, with Trump saying they need to deport drug lords and deal with bad hombres in the country. Clinton said violent offenders should be deported but then mocked Trump for not pushing his controversial border wall proposal during his high-profile meeting with the Mexican president. He choked, she said.

Trump said Clinton wanted a wall when she voted for an immigration overhaul a decade ago and now wants open borders, which she denied.

To date, the mounting controversies facing both campaigns have appeared to hurt Trump more than Clinton, who gradually has expanded her lead over the GOP nominee in recent polls.

A Fox News national poll released on the eve of the Las Vegas debate showed Clinton with a 6-point, 45-39 percent lead over Trump in a match-up that includes Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Trump, in the final three weeks, is thought to be zeroing in on several key battlegrounds including Florida, Ohio and North Carolina but the polls suggest his path to the presidency remains narrow, as even once-reliably red states like Texas are being contested by the Clinton campaign.

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Trump, Clinton Clash Over Second Amendment At Debate

At last nights presidential debate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made all kinds of attacks on each other. But on one notable issue, they were in complete agreement: they both think people on the federal governments no fly list should be categorically denied their right to buy guns under the Second Amendment. Both candidates have repeatedly said so for months. Trumps stance on this issue should be deeply troubling to those who care about gun rights and also to people concerned about constitutional rights generally, even if they dont care much about this one.

As both the ACLU and conservative commentators point out, the no fly list is notoriously inaccurate. It is also provides little or no due process protections. The process is secret, people are not told the reasons why they were placed on the list, and they are not given any advance opportunity to challenge the designation. And, once on the list, even a completely innocent person might find it difficult and time-consuming to get off it.

If Trump is committed to the idea that your Second Amendment rights can be stripped on such a flimsy basis, with so little due process, then virtually any other politically feasible limitation on gun rights is also acceptable. The sort of reasoning that would uphold this restriction on gun ownership would permit pretty much any other. That should give pause to people supporting Trump because they think he is going to protect Second Amendment rights. It is also yet another reason to doubt that he would appoint originalist judges committed to protecting important constitutional rights generally. Most such judges are unlikely to uphold these kinds of gun regulations (as well as many other items on his political agenda).

Trumps disdain for Second Amendment rights is not limited to the no fly list. At last nights debate, he also said he wants police to use stop and frisk searches to take away guns from bad people. Its not entirely clear what he means by this remark (it could be interpreted as being limited to people the police believe to be felons or gang members whom he also mentioned in the same part of the debate). But, at the very least, its another example of him advocating gun confiscation without due process. It also indicates a disturbing level of confidence that the government can identify bad people and take away their guns without victimizing the innocent.

Even people who do not care much about gun rights and the Second Amendment have reason to be concerned about Trumps position on this issue. As liberal legal commentator Mark Joseph Stern (who is no fan of gun rights), points out, if this constitutional right can be taken away with so little due process, others can be as well:

If the government can revoke your right to access firearms simply because it has decided to place you on a secret, notoriously inaccurate list, it could presumably restrict your other rights in a similar manner. You could be forbidden from advocating for causes you believe in, or associating with like-minded activists; your right against intrusive, unreasonable searches could be suspended. And you would have no recourse: The government could simply declare that, as a name on a covert list, you are owed no due process at all.

Stern believes that the Second Amendment should not be interpreted as protecting an individual right to bear arms. But so long as the Supreme Court continues to hold otherwise, revoking this right on the basis of a secret list with no due process sets a dangerous precedent for other constitutional rights.

In fairness to Trump, Hillary Clinton is no better than he is on the no fly issue. It is, as already noted, one of the few things they agreed on last night. While I believe that she is, on balance, a lesser evil than Trump, this is not one of the issues that makes her so. On other gun control issues, she almost certainly favors more extensive regulation than he does.

But there is this difference: Hillary Clinton and many other liberals make no bones about the fact that they believe either that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to bear arms at all, or that the right in question is an unimportant one that should be relegated to second-class status compared to what they see as more significant parts of the Bill of Rights. I think theyre badly wrong about that. But their reasoning at least creates the possibility that they and the judges they pick could approve the no-fly list gun ban without creating too much of a dangerous precedent for other constitutional rights. Like Stern, I believe that many liberals seriously underrate the risk of dangerous slippery slope effects in this area. But at least they are making some effort to contain them.

By contrast, Trump repeatedly claims that hes a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. If hes nonetheless willing to undermine it so blatantly, that does not bode well for the many constitutional rights for which he has (even) less regard.

UPDATE: Commenters on Twitter point to Trumps seeming support of a GOP bill sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn that would allow the government to ban people on the no fly list from buying guns for only 72 hours, after which they would have to go to court to provide evidence of links to terrorism, in order to extend the ban. Its a fair point, and one I should have addressed in the original post. But I dont think it much changes the bottom line on the dangerous implications of Trumps position on this issue.

While it is entirely possibly that Trump would sign the Cornyn bill if it passes, he has never clearly stated that he supports it. Much more significantly he has never said that he will only support the no fly, no buy policy if it includes a right to a judicial hearing. And, in the debate last night, he suggested the contrary by emphasizing his essential agreement with Hillary Clinton on the issue. He even said he quite strongly agrees with her. This implies he would be just as happy to sign a bill with no such judicial safeguards (which is the approach Clinton advocates). Trump did indicate that there should be a legal way for people to get off the no fly list if they should not be there. But, of course, that is no different from the status quo. People can already entirely legally get off the no fly list by asking the federal government to remove them. It just often takes many months or even years to happen.

The important broader issue here is not whether Trump would sign the Cornyn bill. It is Trumps cavalier approach even towards those constitutional rights, such as the Second Amendment, that he claims to strongly support.

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Trump and the Second Amendment - The Washington Post