Outdoor commentary and legislative issues.
Now on A1F.com: The Biden administration is telling us they want to disarm law-abiding American citizens, but, as you’ll see in this investigation at A1F.com, they are also doing all they can to avoid any substantive debate about their desired policies. The political implications exposed in this feature should interest every gun owner.
Find this and other articles related to your right to keep and bear arms at A1F.com. Read more
“Here, the Court finds sufficient evidence that SB 264 and SB 915 have a viewpoint-discriminatory purpose…”
BELLEVUE, WA – A federal judge in California has granted a preliminary injunction in a Second Amendment Foundation challenge of two California statutes prohibiting gun shows at the Orange County Fairgrounds and on state-owned property, while denying a requested stay to allow the state time to file an appeal.
“This a huge victory for both the First and Second Amendments,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We believe the court has sent a clear message to the State of California, Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta that the constitution trumps their personal animus toward gun owners and the Second Amendment.” Read more
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”…Daniel Webster.
Washington, D.C. — Today, Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) filed a notice of appeal with the 5th Federal Circuit in their lawsuit challenging de facto waiting periods for NICS background checks on gun buyers under the age of 21.
This new policy is a result of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, also known as the Cornyn-Murphy gun control package, which passed last summer. Under the law, unconstitutional waiting periods are being imposed on young adults because a review of juvenile justice records, state mental health records, and those from local law enforcement where the buyer resides is now required. This review is in addition to those records already held by the FBI background check system. Because state and local agencies are not equipped or prepared to provide this new information in a timely manner, young gun buyers are simply forced to wait with no recourse, which is a clear violation of their Second Amendment rights.
Below is a selection from the brief filed by GOA and GOF today: Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez which struck down California’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” should have a direct impact on a similar ban in Washington, because both states are in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court, the Second Amendment Foundation says.
“If a gun ban in California is unconstitutional,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb observed, “it is just as unconstitutional in Washington. We are eager to see this case through to what may become a Supreme Court confrontation, because we are confident that we will prevail. People who support gun bans, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, are wrong on this important constitutional issue.”
The case is known as Miller v. Bonta, filed by SAF, the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and four private citizens, including James Miller, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys George M. Lee at Seiler Epstein, LLP and John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group, APC.
In his 79-page ruling, Judge Benitez wrote, “While criminals already have these modern semiautomatics, the State prohibits its citizens from buying and possessing the same guns for self-defense. At the same time these firearms are commonly possessed by law-abiding gun owners elsewhere across the country. Guns for self-defense are needed a lot because crime happens a lot. A recent large-scale survey estimates that guns are needed defensively approximately 1,670,000 times a year. Another report, originally commissioned and long cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there are between 500,000 and 3,000,000 defensive gun uses in the United States each year.”
“Judge Benitez’ ruling is a stinging rebuff to the gun prohibition movement,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “His detailed discussion of the history of firearms regulation, along with his dismantling of the state’s arguments and assertions of its experts sends a signal that the days when gun banners could simply attack the Second Amendment without challenge are finished. We will take this challenge to the Supreme Court if necessary, as part of our commitment to restore firearms freedom, one lawsuit a time.” Read more
By Glen Wunderlich
Charter Member Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA)
California’s longtime ban on “assault weapons” has been overturned by Federal Judge Roger T. Benitez of San Diego. Judge Benitez writes, “Falling back on an old, recycled justification, the State says that its ban should stand because a person can have as many other rifles, shotguns, and pistols as one wants…Heller demolished that argument.
The same argument – that a handgun ban might be justified because government-approved alternatives are available – was rejected in Heller and it is rejected here. Heller said quite clearly that it is no constitutional answer for government to say that it is permissible to ban some guns so long as other guns are allowed.
This is not the way American Constitutional rights work. It is not permissible for a state to ban some books simply because there are other books to read, or to close synagogues because churches and mosques are open. In their normal configurations, the so-called “assault weapons” banned in California are modern firearms commonly-owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes across the nation. Under Heller, McDonald, Caetano, and Bruen, they may not be banned.”
Before anyone takes a victory lap, understand that in such a contest, the finish line is mere mirage, because the trend to win votes with window-dressing legislation shows no signs of letting up – with the exception of Florida (covered below). It doesn’t matter the outcome, as long as government can bleed Constitutional opponents dry.
Meantime, the irrationality of government’s misguided mandates is effectively in place, as time marches on to appeal – this time the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco, where liberals are typically on friendly turf.
More taxpayer dollars will be injected into the foray of follies, but that’s only half of the equation. The Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb pegs the costs of contesting legislation in the courts at $250,000 to get started. Double that for an appeal and again when venturing into Supreme Court jurisdiction.
All the while government has no issue with funding, because it has unlimited access to other peoples’ money through taxes. Yes, one can fight city hall, but not without deep pockets.
The Constitutionally circumventing maneuvers by government are nothing new. Consider the words of Justice Benjamin Cardozo who wrote in The Nature of the Judicial Process, New Haven 1921, “The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles, by enshrining them in constitutions, and consecrating to the task of their protection a body of defenders.”
Duplicitous legislators, who violate their oaths of office to support and defend the Constitution and then foist assaults of opportunism on their constituents, now have to think twice before jumping on the bandwagon of expediency in Florida. In a 4-1 decision, its Supreme Court reiterated the State’s preemption statute that prohibits cities and counties from passing their pet gun laws. The ruling also confirmed the financial penalties that public officials are subject to if they attempt to violate the state’s supremacy in all matters related to guns and ammunition. So there!
In any event, at this stage in the perpetual marathon for liberty, it’s refreshing to know that some judges carry the torch of our Founding Fathers’ wisdom yet to this day.
The Second Amendment Foundation is celebrating a victory in California as a U.S. District Court judge has declared the state’s decades-old ban on so-called “assault weapons” to be unconstitutional.
Federal Judge Roger T. Benitez’ ruling will almost certainly be appealed to the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, but for the moment, SAF and its partners in the lawsuit known as Miller v. Bonta are celebrating a victory. SAF is joined in the case by the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and four private citizens, including James Miller, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys George M. Lee at Seiler Epstein, LLP and John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group, APC.
In his 79-page decision, Judge Benitez writes, “Falling back on an old, recycled justification, the State says that its ban should stand because a person can have as many other rifles, shotguns, and pistols as one wants…Heller demolished that argument. The same argument – that a handgun ban might be justified because government-approved alternatives are available – was rejected in Heller and it is rejected here. Heller said quite clearly that it is no constitutional answer for government to say that it is permissible to ban some guns so long as other guns are allowed. This is not the way American Constitutional rights work. It is not permissible for a state to ban some books simply because there are other books to read, or to close synagogues because churches and mosques are open. In their normal configurations, the so-called “assault weapons” banned in California are modern firearms commonly-owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes across the nation. Under Heller, McDonald, Caetano, and Bruen, they may not be banned.”
“We’ve known all along the state ban could not hold up under constitutional scrutiny,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “and we were encouraged by last year’s Supreme Court ruling in the Bruen case, which rejected the notion of ‘interest balancing’ when it comes to Second Amendment challenges. Judge Benitez came down on the side of the Constitution and history.”
“Judge Benitez has once again affirmed what we have argued since the beginning of this case,” SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut stated. “California’s ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ is, and always has been, unconstitutional. Despite the Supreme Court’s clear directive as to how these challenges are to be examined, the State of California did everything conceivable in an attempt to interject interest-balancing into the analysis. The Court, as required, ignored these attempts and correctly concluded that based on the text of the Second Amendment, as informed by this nation’s history and tradition, such arms are constitutionally protected. We are pleased with the Court’s decision and are proud to have vindicated the rights of millions of Californians.” Read more
The Second Amendment Foundation has filed its opposition to a motion by California Attorney General Rob Bonta for summary judgment in a December 2020 case challenging the state’s one-handgun-per-month limit. The case is known as Nguyen v. Bonta.
Joining SAF in the lawsuit are the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, North County Shooting Center, Inc., PWGG, L.P., a limited partnership, and six private citizens. Defendants are California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Luis Lopez, director of the state Department of Justice, Bureau of Firearms in their official capacities. The original lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego, and so was SAF’s new opposition document. Plaintiffs are represented by attorney Raymond M. DiGuiseppe of Southport, N.C.
As noted in the response, SAF and its partners tell the court, “After almost three years of litigation, three rounds of dispositive briefing, and being on the cusp of yet another expansion of the 30-day commercial firearm purchase ban at issue here (the “OGM law”), a proper resolution is not just long overdue but of pressing need. The right outcome was clear way back before Bruen, when this case was first filed…the OGM law must be stricken as unconstitutional.” Read more
— Larry Keane
Keane is Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the NSSF
President Joe Biden’s got a gun problem – one that’s much bigger than the federal charges his son Hunter Biden faces in court.
The surprise terror attacks by Hamas into Israel were made possible, in part, because of U.S. arms left behind in Afghanistan by the Biden administration. Those arms have found their way to another battlefield. Startling images showed Hamas terrorists rampaging through Israeli villages. Some images appeared to show Hamas terrorists armed with U.S.-made military arms. Some of the hundreds of thousands of small arms abandoned to Taliban terrorists in 2021 have been smuggled to Hamas terrorists and were used to kill innocent men, women and children.
President Biden has been myopically focused on stripping gun rights from law-abiding American citizens. Meanwhile, his own failed policies, coupled with diplomatic mistakes, are proving deadly. President Biden has surrendered his authority to wag his finger from Rose Garden lecterns at the firearm industry. His lies that the firearm industry is responsible for illegal international arms smuggling with Mexican narco-terrorists were always untrue. Now, however, the entire world can see. Gun control’s darling president who gave them an office in The White House is America’s largest illicit arms trafficker. His deadly mistakes have cost American lives and hundreds of lives of America’s closest ally in the Middle East and empowered terrorists that chant “Death to America.”
Stage Set
Just a little more than two years ago, President Biden pulled the last U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. Within moments of the last American C-17 lifting off from Kabul International Airport, Taliban forces were seen on international television collecting military weapons – from helicopters and armored vehicles to hundreds of thousands of small arms. One report described the seizure of U.S.-supplied guns as “enormous.” Taliban fighters are swapping worn AK-47s for U.S.-made M-4s and M-16s.
Later reports detailed that The White House left $7 billion in weapons and equipment in the wake of the ill-fated Afghanistan withdrawal. That consisted of 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M-4 and M-16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns and 25,000 grenade launchers. That’s on top of the 23,825 Humvees in Afghanistan, including armored gun truck variants, and nearly 900 combat vehicles, all of which are in the hands of the Taliban, a terror organization that is the avowed enemy of the United States.
Some of them were used by Hamas terrorists invading from Gaza to kill Israeli soldiers and civilians and used to force hundreds of Israelis into captivity as hostages. As recently as June, Palestinian news agencies admitted that U.S. arms captured by Taliban forces were smuggled into Gaza and were being used by terrorists there. NBC News reported on the illicit arms supply to terrorists in Pakistan in January 2023 and Middle East Monitor reported in June that U.S. and Israeli intelligence were aware that U.S. arms were being carried by terrorists in Gaza. Newsweek also reported in June that U.S. arms seized by Taliban forces were arriving in Gaza, along with U.S.-made missiles reportedly being smuggled back to Iran to potentially supply both Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trading Gun Smuggler
This isn’t the first time President Biden and his gun control allies have been duplicitous when it comes to denying Americans their Second Amendment rights but playing fast-and-loose with supplying arms to sworn enemies, mercenaries and terrorists who target the United States and allies. In October 2022, President Biden made a prisoner swap deal with Russia. In exchange for the freedom of Brittney Griner, a WNBA star arrested in Russia on drug charges, the president authorized his State Department to free Viktor Bout, a convicted international arms smuggler from Russia, also known as “The Merchant of Death.”
Bout is a former Soviet-era military officer who was arrested in 2008 in Thailand by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in a sting for proposing a sale of tens of millions of dollars to the Colombian narco-terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The illicit sale was for $20 million worth of “a breathtaking arsenal of weapons — including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles, machine guns and sniper rifles — 10 million rounds of ammunition and five tons of plastic explosives.”
Bout’s history runs much deeper. He was identified as an illicit arms dealer by the United Nations in 2000. He was moving arms to African warlords, Middle East dictators and Central American narco-terrorist groups. His attempt to arm the FARC was what ultimately put him in prison for charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, U.S. officers and employees, conspiracy to acquire missiles to destroy aircraft and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Senate Corruption
President Biden’s longtime Capitol Hill gun control ally, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), was just indicted for a corrupt bribery scheme involving, among other things, greasing the skids for small-arms sales to Egypt, which has its own troubled history of support for Hamas terrorists. Sen. Menendez is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible and home mortgage payments.
Sen. Menendez has been a critic of the U.S. Munition List to Commerce Control List (USML-CCL) export reforms that were finalized under the Trump administration that put greater safeguards around defense items and ensured end-to-end verifications for U.S. manufacturers exporting firearms.
President Biden started out his presidential campaign by calling the firearm industry “the enemy.” NSSF said at the time that the comment was appalling. His presidency has focused on demagoguing the industry that continues to support law-abiding Americans who exercise their right to keep and bear arms. This industry equips our law enforcement to keep communities safe and arms our military to protect the United States against enemies. Meanwhile, arms blithely abandoned in Afghanistan are being wielded against U.S. allies.
President Biden has surrendered his moral authority to lecture the firearm industry when he lets arms slip into the hands of terrorists.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Prof. William English, Ph.D., have submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in a Texas case challenging a federal law which denies Second Amendment rights to all people who may be subject to domestic violence restraining orders.
English is a political economist and assistant professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. He has held teaching and research positions at Brown University and Harvard University before joining the faculty of Georgetown. In 2021, English conducted the largest-ever nationally representative survey of firearms owners, which estimated how frequently firearms are used for self-defense. The National Firearms Survey was the subject of an amicus brief submitted in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.
CCRKBA is not a party to the case, known as United States v. Rahimi. The amicus brief was submitted by attorneys Craig L. Uhrich and Serge Krimnus at Bochner PLLC in New York.
As noted in the brief, Domestic Violence Restraining Orders (“DVROs”), such as the one at issue in this case, are a relatively recent addition to the American legal landscape. The standards for obtaining DVROs vary by jurisdiction, and multiple studies have shown that such orders are widely abused, often in an effort by a party to obtain a tactical advantage during divorce and child custody cases. Though DVROs are often part of the legal process in such cases, the empirical evidence that restrictions on firearms ownership accompanying such orders are effective at preventing domestic violence is weak. The federal statute is known as § 922(g)(8). Read more