BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation confirmed today its federal lawsuit against the Illinois State Police that compelled the agency to hire additional personnel in order to clear a backlog of applications for Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) cards because the issue has been resolved, and dismissed. The case was known as Marszalek v. Kelly.

Joining SAF in the legal action, which was filed in July 2020, were the Illinois State Rifle Association and several individual plaintiffs. The lawsuit was also supported by the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix, Ariz. Plaintiffs were represented by attorneys David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill., Gregory Bedell of Chicago, Ill., and Timothy Sandedur with the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix.

“The issue was quite simple and we’re glad it is resolved,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “In 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, restrictions were put in place in Illinois that caused the Illinois State Police to completely fail in its statutory responsibility to process applications for FOID cards in 30 days. However, the state was taking up to six months, and sometimes more, to complete this process, and the result was Illinois citizens were being denied the exercise of their Second Amendment rights.” Read more

12500 N.E. Tenth Place • Bellevue, WA 98005 • www.ccrkba.org

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today blasted President Joe Biden and Democrats for rushing to exploit the mass shooting tragedy in Raleigh, N.C. by calling for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” when the teenage suspect used a shotgun.

“Even before the investigation had really started,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “Democrat politicians were clamoring for more gun control. Biden quickly renewed his crusade for a ban on ‘assault weapons’ and others followed his lead. To exploit such tragedies by immediately calling for additional gun control laws that would not have prevented this crime, and will not prevent other crimes, is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

“It is this kind of callous capitalization that drives gun owners away from voting for Democrats,” he continued. “The party and its president have once again revealed they will use any tragedy to promote their agenda of public disarmament.”

Published reports quote Biden demanding “action to get weapons of war off our streets,” while at the same time noting witness calls to police said the suspect was armed with a shotgun. Read more

TRENTON, NJ — Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) issued the following statement in response to today’s vote on A4769, which is deliberately crafted to defy the United States Supreme Court’s decisions regarding the right to keep and bear arms.

The New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee advanced a measure today that creates a complicated, subjective, and expensive system of hurdles to receive a government permission slip to exercise a right. Disturbingly, it also goes much further than that, creating a farcical list of prohibitions on where and how to carry arms, creating a de facto ban on effective armed self defense—in clear defiance of the natural and enumerated rights guaranteed to the People as outlined by the Supreme Court’s decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). Read more

Now on A1F.com is the truth about four myths gun-control groups continuously push. With an election looming, as all of us need to be able to challenge these claims with the facts.

Find this and other stories related to your right to keep and bear arms at A1F.com.

Contact: Brook Chiasson

bchiasson@nrahq.org

(703) 267-1327

BUFFALO, NY – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it has filed a new Second Amendment lawsuit challenging New York’s law banning guns in “any place of worship or religious observation.” The complaint in Hardaway v. Bruen, which was filed one month after FPC filed a lawsuit challenging multiple other “sensitive location” bans in New York, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“The challenged Place of Worship Ban operates to deny Plaintiffs and other typical law-abiding individuals from carrying loaded, operable handguns on their person in case of confrontation for immediate self-defense in a place of worship that would otherwise permit them to carry,” argues the complaint “As Defendant Bruen’s subordinate, the First Deputy Superintendent of the State Police, has said, state ‘troopers ‘are standing ready’ to ensure the new laws are followed.’ The State Police further added ‘an easy message’ for individuals like Plaintiffs who seek to carry their firearms: ‘We have zero tolerance. If you violate this law, you will be arrested. It’s as simple as that.’”

“That New York would even consider, let alone enact, the pernicious banning of peaceable concealed carry in houses of worship goes to show how out of touch their lawmakers are with the rest of the population,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “Particularly at a time when houses of worship have increasingly become the targets of unlawful violence, the idea that people should be disenfranchised of their right to protect themselves, simply because they choose to exercise their right to congregate, is grotesque and immoral. Peaceable individuals need not waive some of their fundamental rights to exercise others.” Read more

SAN DIEGO, CA– Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of additional supplemental briefing in its Miller v. Bonta lawsuit, which challenges California’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.” The brief, which was requested by Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California after an initial round of supplemental briefing in light of NYSRPA v. Bruen, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“By now, this Court well understands the point: the State’s ban on firearm features finds no relevant analogue in the founding era, or otherwise,” argues the brief. “Repeating firearms themselves have existed from the founding era on, and the State has pointed to no evidence indicating that the Founders would have understood banning such firearms to be consistent with the right to keep and bear arms.”

“Despite what the California legislature may believe, the Second Amendment protects all bearable arms, even those with the ‘features’ that the state has arbitrarily prohibited,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “And because these arbitrary feature-based prohibitions are creatures of modern invention that have no root in the history and tradition of the country at the time of the ratification, they must be struck down under the Heller/Bruen analysis.” Read more

BUFFALO, NY – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it has filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in Hardaway v. Bruen, its lawsuit challenging New York’s law banning guns in “any place of worship or religious observation.” The motion can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“After Bruen, there is no doubt that the Second Amendment’s text ‘presumptively protects’ Plaintiffs’ intent to ‘carry[] handguns publicly for self-defense,’ including on the premises of places of worship and religious observation when those places would permit Plaintiffs to carry,” argues the motion. “And the only way the Place of Worship Ban can be found constitutional is if New York can demonstrate this outright ban is ‘consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation’ with ‘relevantly similar’ restrictions with roots in the Founding. New York cannot meet its burden.”

“The peaceable people of New York, including those who congregate at houses of worship deserve nothing short of an immediate restoration of their rights,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “Today’s Motion is an important step towards that end and we look forward to a prompt response from the Court.” Read more