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2nd Amendment Tag

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 15, 2015 42 Comments
Dr. John R. Lott Jr., who runs the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), today released yet another of the Center's outstanding reports, entitled: "Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the US". (The full report is embedded at the bottom of this post.) The report's biggest takeaway was the continued acceleration of concealed carry licensing across the country. Those familiar with Dr. Lott's seminal book "More Guns Less Crime" will not be surprised to learn that murder rates in the United States continue to plummet even as concealed carry continues to skyrocket: murder rates v. CC The report revealed a change in demographics behind this ongoing acceleration of concealed carry licensing.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 12, 2015 4 Comments
New York's unpopular SAFE Act takes another hit this week as Cuomo suspends a plan to require background checks for the purchase of ammunition.  The New York Times reports:

The decision, which the administration did not publicize, was the result of an unusual deal the governor’s office reached with the State Senate’s Republican majority. The Senate’s Democratic minority and the speaker of the State Assembly condemned the move.

The background-check system was approved as part of the Safe Act, the set of tough gun control measures that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, persuaded lawmakers to pass in January 2013, shortly after the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Apparently, the suspension is based on the lack of an acceptable database:

On Friday, a top aide to Mr. Cuomo signed a memorandum of understanding suspending the portion of the Safe Act related to the background checks. The memorandum, citing “the lack of adequate technology,” said the database “cannot be established and/or function in the manner originally intended at this time.”

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 11, 2015 17 Comments
Constitutional carry is the means by which Americans are pushing back against government interference with their right to bear arms.  By eliminating the permitting process, Maine has passed a constitutional carry law that makes it legal for residents to carry concealed without a permit. Reuters reports:
Maine will allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit, a practice called "constitutional carry" by Second Amendment advocates, under a bill signed into law on Wednesday by Republican Governor Paul LePage. The measure will make Maine the fifth state to pass a law legalizing the carrying of a handgun, either openly or concealed, without the requirement of a government permit. Maine joins Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming and Kansas in voting to allow the practice, according to National Rifle Association spokesman Lars Dalseide. Vermont has never required a permit. Arkansas and Montana also allow more limited forms of constitutional carry.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 10, 2015 24 Comments
Today, South Carolina's confederate flags were lowered for the last time, thus ending the long and drawn out battle over what the flag means, what it doesn't mean, and whether or not it should be flown above the state's capitol building. After Dylann Roof allegedly killed 9 people at a church in Charleston last month, many activists came out of the woodwork to blame not Roof's mental state, or his admitted racism, for the massacre, but the pernicious influence of the Civil War, the race wars, and the continued unfurling of the Confederate Flag. It was a field day for social justice warriors. Even President Barack Obama was quick to blame the country as a whole for the murder of innocents; but as it turns out, he needn't look further than the front door of FBI Headquarters if he's still in search of a more controversial scapegoat. As it turns out, as per the federal government's own procedures, Roof shouldn't have been able to buy a gun at all. The New York Times explains:
Mr. Roof first tried to buy the gun on April 11, from a dealer in South Carolina. The F.B.I., which conducts background checks for gun sales, did not give the dealer approval to proceed with the purchase because the bureau needed to do more investigating about Mr. Roof’s s criminal history.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 28, 2015 20 Comments
I don't know about you, but I need some good news this week.  And there is a happy crumb to report: the House Appropriations Committee has rejected an amendment that would allow the CDC to "study the underlying causes of gun violence" (not that guns are violent in and of themselves, but you know the drill). In doing so, House Republicans stopped Democrats from funding Obama-directed CDC research designed as subterfuge for laying the foundation of an attack on our Second Amendment rights.  Instead of turning gun control into a national health issue, Obama and his bureaucrat cronies are back to having to fight the Second Amendment on emotional pleas and using victims as political pawns. Politico reports:
The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday rejected, 19-32, an amendment from top Democratic appropriator Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) that would allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the underlying causes of gun violence.
The CDC hasn’t done any such research since 1996, when the National Rifle Association accused it of trying to use science to promote gun control. Congress threatened to totally defund the agency if the work continued, and appropriators ever since have included a prohibition on funding that kind of research with spending bills.
A House GOP staffer said the existing provision technically doesn’t bar gun-violence research. Rather, it blocks any gun-control advocacy by the CDC. However, Republicans would consider any CDC findings that recommend limitations on guns to be gun-control advocacy.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 26, 2015 17 Comments
After the Charleston shootings, there was a renewed push by President Obama for restricting access for law-abiding citizens to guns. Scott Walker wasn't having any of it. He signed into law a loosening of waiting periods that have been on the books for decades. From FOX News:
Wisconsin Gov. Walker ends decades-old waiting period for handguns Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills loosening his state's gun laws on Wednesday, including one ending the state's 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases. The timing of the bill signing comes amid a renewed debate over gun control and race relations after the fatal shootings at a Charleston, S.C., black church on June 17; a white man faces multiple murder charges. But the measures on Walker's desk predated the massacre and passed earlier this month in the GOP-majority Legislature with bipartisan support. The second measure would allow off-duty, retired and out-of-state police officers to carry firearms on school grounds.
CNN covered the topic too, and to their credit, they were fair:

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 24, 2015 12 Comments
We last saw Attorney Alan Gura just last week, when we covered his oral arguments in front of the 9th Circuit en banc on the matter of "good cause" concealed carry requirements in California (see Full 9th Circuit hears “Good Cause” 2A Ruling and Analysis: Government’s laughable arguments in 9th Circuit 2nd Amendment case, both of which include video of the arguments as well as a rough transcript). Today, we catch up with Gura again as he enjoys a favorable Second Amendment decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the case of Dearth v. Lynch (previously, Dearth v. Holder).  (The full decision is embedded at the bottom of this post) This case has had a long and tortuous history, as noted today on Twitter by Gura himself: Alan Gura Twitter 6-23-15 Of course, the case is far from over.  Indeed, what Gura has just won after fighting for this case now for more than six years is merely the right to take the case to trial. (The original complaint was filed March 27, 2009, and is also embedded below; indeed, it more clearly sets out the basic facts than does today's ruling)

Posted by New Neo on June 23, 2015 53 Comments
Here's an interesting article about how it might have been a good thing if the attendees at the Bible study meeting in Charleston had been armed. That's not just a fanciful thought. Mass murders, even mass murders at churches, have been thwarted before by a good guy wielding a gun and stopping the bad guy (and here I use the word "guy" in the completely non-PC sense that includes "woman"):
Murray had already shot and killed two people in the parking lot when he burst into the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Before he could pull the trigger again, however, the 24-year-old shooter was gunned down by Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard with a concealed-carry permit. That was eight years ago, but even though Ms. Assam was credited for saving as many as 100 lives that day, a dozen states continue to restrict the carrying of concealed firearms in churches — including South Carolina.
There have been quite a few similar cases of a law-abiding citizen with a gun (often an ex- or off-duty police officer, but not always) stopping or even preventing a mass shooting. A list of similar incidents can be found here. That there are not even more is probably due to the fact that mass shootings are actually quite rare to begin with---despite our perceptions that they are common, and despite the fact that even a single one is too many---and so it is not surprising that there are not so very many cases where a witness pulled a gun and even tried to stop such a shooting. Another reason is likely to be that mass murderers understand that they will be more likely to achieve their goals if they attack people in a gun-free zone, and so many attacks occur in such places. But the shoot-em-up fantasy of someone like MSNBC's Bob Shrum appears to lack any real-world precedent:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 22, 2015 14 Comments
Self-described socialist and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has a record of being remarkably supportive of the Second Amendment.  (Remarkable because he's a favorite among progressives.)   Considering the leftward movement of the Democratic party and their avid support for all sorts of gun control, this could be a potential problem for Sanders. In the wake of the Charleston shootings, Sanders was asked about gun control, and despite the president's latest push, he was very cautious in his response.  CNN reports:

Two days after a white man walked into a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and killed nine people, the Vermont senator and presidential candidate took a cautious approach on gun control Friday when speaking with reporters after an event in Las Vegas.

"I think the people of Vermont understand that guns in Vermont are different than guns in Chicago or guns in Los Angeles," Sanders said, telling the assembled journalists that he thinks "it is wrong" when people are "in some cases suicidal and in some cases homicidal" are "still being able to purchase guns."

Sanders, saying his home state of Vermont has "zero gun control," acknowledged that different parts of the country have different outlooks on guns.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 21, 2015 23 Comments
Gun control has never been a winning issue for Democrats but that hasn't stopped them from trying. In the wake of the Charleston shootings, Obama is pursuing the issue with renewed vigor. Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico reports:
Obama: I'm not giving up on guns SAN FRANCISCO—Wrapping together his frustrations with the country’s continuing problems with racism and his own inability to make progress on gun control in the wake of the South Carolina church shooting, President Barack Obama stood before a bipartisan gathering of mayors here Friday and declared, “It is not good enough simply to show sympathy.” “The apparent motivations of the shooter remind us that racism remains a blight that we have to combat together. We have made great progress but we have to be vigilant because it still lingers,” Obama said. There must be a popular outcry for gun control, Obama said, to change the minds of a Congress that he said he knows right now won’t touch the issue. “I refuse to act as if this is the new normal or to pretend that it’s simply sufficient to grieve and that any mention of us doing something to stop it is somehow politicizing the problem,” he said.
FOX News pointed out Obama's political conundrum on Friday night:

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 19, 2015 14 Comments
This past Tuesday, the 9th Circuit held oral arguments en banc on two consolidated Second Amendment cases, Peruta v. County of San Diego and Richards v. County of Yolo. For a bit of background on this matter, please refer to yesterday’s post, “Full 9th Circuit hears 'Good Cause' 2A Ruling,” in which we provide this relevant background as well as a discussion of the pro-Second Amendment side of the argument as presented by Attorneys Paul Clement and Alan Gura. In this post we cover the gun control side of the argument as presented by Attorneys Edward Dumont, for the State of California and San Diego County, and John Whitesides, for Yolo County. We also include the three-minute rebuttals each by Clement and Gura, thus completing the entirety of the en banc hearing. Video of the full-length en banc hearing can be viewed in here, if you’ve the inclination. Also, a full-length rough transcript of the hearing is embedded at the bottom of this post.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 18, 2015 14 Comments
This past Tuesday, the federal 9th Circuit held oral arguments on a re-hearing en banc on two consolidated gun control cases, Peruta v. County of San Diego and Richards v. County of Yolo. Both Peruta and Richards involve a provision of California gun control law that allows county Sheriffs to deny the issuance of a concealed carry permit unless the applicant can demonstrate “good cause” for the permit—typically a showing of some extraordinary risk of danger to the applicant, rather than a mere generalized interest in self-defense. Most California county Sheriffs define “good cause” broadly, such that a mere generalized interest in self-defense is sufficient to qualify an otherwise qualified applicant for a concealed carry permit. The Sheriffs for the Counties of San Diego and Yolo, however, define “good cause” so narrowly as to effectively preclude nearly all applicants from receiving a concealed carry license. The video of the entirety of the hearing, from gavel to gavel, below.  A rough transcript of the portion of the hearing in which the appellants attorneys, Paul Clement and Alan Gura, argue for their clients’ Second Amendment rights also is embedded below.  Both do an outstanding job, but I expect that won't help much before this Circuit.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 16, 2015 17 Comments
For anybody who loves their civil rights, the dismantling of unconstitutional gun control schemes across the United States has been a marvel to behold. Today, only a handful of states continue to substantively restrict the ability of law-abiding residents to carry concealed handguns. One of those "states" still aggressively crushing fundamental civil rights is, ironically enough, the nation's capital, the District of Columbia. Pro-gun advocates suffered a modest and rare setback yesterday, according to Hotair.com and other sources, when a federal appeals court re-instated a gun control provision that that is used to effectively deny gun permits to almost all applicants. The District has long operated under some of the most oppressive gun control laws in the country, at one point even requiring the few guns legally owned to be dismantled while within the District. (These rules were upheld in spite of the fact that DC was also one of the "murder capitals" of the country, and practically awash in illegally owned guns used by criminals.) In recent years, however, the District's gun control scheme has come under assault in the form of a pro-2nd Amendment attack led by civil rights attorney Alan Gura. Last July, as part of a suit brought by Gura, Federal Judge Frederick Scullin ordered that the District begin issuing concealed carry permits to qualified persons.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 16, 2015 14 Comments
A new Rassumussen poll released last week suggests Americans prefer living in neighborhoods with where they're allowed to arm themselves over gun-free locals. According to Rasmussen:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% of Likely U.S. Voters would feel safer living in a neighborhood where nobody was allowed to own a gun over one where they could have a gun for their own protection. Sixty-eight percent (68%) would feel safer in a neighborhood where guns are allowed, while 10% are not sure.
The survey was conducted over a group of 977 likely voters. The results are consistent with other polling conducted by Rasmussen.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 04, 2015 42 Comments
Last November Cleveland Officer Timothy Loehmann shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a city park.  The investigation by law enforcement has now been completed, and the case is being handed over to prosecutors and a Grand Jury, reports CNN and other sources. The Cleveland police officers had been dispatched to the scene by 911 because of calls received that someone--ultimately determined to be Tamir Rice--was walking around the park pointing a gun at people. At least one call to 911 reported "a guy with a pistol" walking around the park. The same caller purportedly also told 911 that the gun was "probably" fake, but according to dispatch recordings released by law enforcement this additional information was not communicated to the responding officers.  Even if it had, no police officer could reasonably be expected to risk his life on the firearm identification skills of an anonymous caller to 911. Indeed, the surveillance video (below the fold, and annotated by the author) clearly shows Rice openly handling an apparent pistol (seemingly spinning it on his finger cowboy-style at the 1:20 mark), placing and removing it from his waistband (e.g., at 2:00 mark), and even apparently pointing the gun-like object at passersby. There are at least 10 occasions captured by the grainy footage of the surveillance video in which Rice is openly displaying the apparent gun in some fashion.  To an actual observer at the scene, the handling of the gun would have been far more apparent.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 31, 2015 23 Comments
Obama has famously (infamously?) long been enamored of the idea of fundamentally transforming America, and one of the foundational aspects of American culture that he has in his sights is the Second Amendment and Americans' firmly held belief in their right to keep and bear arms. His former attorney general, Eric Holder, went so far as to proclaim—back in the 1990's—that "we really need to brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way." At least he understood that it's the American people who resist infringement of this right.  The administration has tried to pass gun control legislation, most notably in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, but such attempts fail. Completing missing the fact that Americans are strongly supportive of their right to bear arms, Obama and his assortment of anti-Second Amendment zealots blame the NRA:
“But the power of NRA and the gun lobby in Congress is formidable,” Obama said. “And you know, we’re going to keep chipping away at this, but until you get intense public demands for this, it’s probably not going to happen because some special interests and lobbyists in Washington are really, really strong and their membership feels very intensely about the issue. Whereas the general public is concerned about it, but doesn’t make it their top priority.”
He also recognizes that Congress—even when Democrats held supermajorities in both houses—is unable to pass the sort of sweeping gun control legislation he seeks.  In his 2014 State of the Union address, he promised gun control "with or without Congress," and it seems he's working on multiple fronts to make that happen. From taxing bullets, to gun locks, to gun recalls / buyback programs, to targeting children's pop-tarts and otherwise controlling the narrative about guns, Obama and other anti-Second Amendment advocates are working overtime in their frantic bid to disarm the American people.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 18, 2015 32 Comments
As some of you may be aware, Attorney Alan Gura has been waging a legal battle against the District of Columbia (as well as other jurisdictions) based upon their unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment generally, and DC residents concealed carry rights in particular. Having already won a court decision compelling the District--and in particular, its Police Chief Cathy Lanier (pictured above)--to issue concealed carry permits to lawful, qualified residents, Gura naturally ran into the usual anti-gun rearguard position: "Sure, we'll issue permits--on terms of our own choosing. Terms that nobody except our rich friends and political comrades will ever be deemed to have satisfied." And those terms invariably require that the applicant have some special and unusual reason to be granted a concealed carry permit.  This is the kind of restriction still being employed in liberal states like New Jersey and New York, and which was being employed in California until the recent Peruta decision by the 9th Circuit. Gura responded to Lanier's demand that applications show some special reason--above and beyond simply being law-abiding Americans with civil rights--by filing a motion for an injunction with the US District Court for DC, to prohibit Lanier from imposing those special conditions. Today that Court handed down its decision on the requested motion--and Gura was the big winner, again:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 18, 2015 11 Comments
Color the rest of the country shocked: Texas is one of the few states in the nation (six, to be exact) that hasn't yet approved the open carry of handguns in some form. That all could change this legislative session, though, if Republicans in the legislature have their way. Yesterday, members of the Texas House of Representatives voted 96-35 to approve House Bill 910 by Republican Larry Phillips. HB 910 would allow anyone holding a concealed carry license to also also openly carry a weapon in a hip or shoulder holster. (In Texas, it's already legal to openly carry a long gun.) According to the Houston Chronicle, lawmakers worked through almost 20 amendments before finally moving the measure on to the Senate, including one that would have allowed for campus carry. (That issue, unfortunately, is another blog post entirely.) The Senate has already passed its own version of the bill, which means that the two chambers will have to reconcile their differences before the bill is sent to Governor Greg Abbott for his signature.
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