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Concealed weapons on campus? HB 102 directly raises that issue. But in spite of arguments to the contrary this is not a Second Amendment issue as it relates to campuses. What is at issue is the Regents constitutional right to manage Montanas university system.

Our history is rife with examples where politics and vested interests have interfered with our higher education system. In 1915, at the behest of the Legislature and the Anaconda Company (ACM), University President Craighead was fired for not towing the ACM line. Later a law professor was terminated for the same reason and a popular teacher was forced out for documenting the blatant favorable taxation granted to mining interests. Throughout the 1950s and 60s mineral and timber interests in the state exercised considerable control in the Legislature. Eventually the people had enough.

The frustration of Montanas people about politics in higher education resulted in the 1972 Constitution creating Montanas Board of Regents and granting it full authority over the higher education system: The government and control of the Montana university system is vested in a board of regents of higher education which shall have full power, responsibility, and authority to supervise, coordinate, manage and control the Montana university system That broad power underwent judicial review and was affirmed in 1975 by the Montana Supreme Court in State ex rel. Judge. That opinion forms the basis for the Regents sole authority over the university since that time.

The Regents and the University are responsible for more than 50,000 students, faculty and staff statewide. Many students are under the age of 18, making the University responsible to a degree for these minors. How to manage weapons within this large and diverse population is a serious responsibility, and one which the Regents have embraced to the apparent consternation of certain members of the legislative branch.

With the concealed carry law, the Legislature attempts to substitute its judgment for that of the Regents. Knowing that implementing concealed carry will impose costs on the University a million dollars was added to the budget bill in a transparent attempt to bribe or extort their way out of their unconstitutional overreach. A caveat to the budget provides that the right to the extra money is void if the Regents challenge the constitutionality of HB 102. Not win the case, just challenge the Legislature. The Legislature does not want the Regents to oppose HB 102, apparently hoping to buy their way out of a constitutional challenge.

The Legislature is going about this backward. The Regents are constitutionally charged with management of the University. If the Legislature believes the Regents policies regarding guns on campuses are unconstitutional, as some have asserted, their path is to challenge the Regents and Universitys rules in court, not to simply substitute their judgment for that of the Regents. If a court determines the Universitys current gun policies must be revised the Regents will follow the orders of the court. The Legislature has no legitimate role in this process.

The long-term efforts of Montanans to remove politics from higher education came to fruition in the Constitutional Convention in 1972. HB 102, along with the million-dollar bribe, invades the province of the Regents to manage the University. If the Regents exercise their legal right to challenge HB 102 they are punished. This intrusive precedent should not be tolerated. If the budget amendment and HB 102 are not constitutionally challenged the Regents and the University can anticipate that future legislative overreach coupled with blackmail funding amendments will become commonplace. The hard-earned and longstanding constitutional independence of the University from political control is at stake. We shouldnt let that happen.

Steve Barrett is former chairman of the Montana Board of Regents.

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Open carry on campus is not a 2nd Amendment issue - Daily Inter Lake

Its been well over a decade since the Supreme Court last decided a meaningful Second Amendment case. That wait is about to end.

AlthoughDistrict of Columbia v. Heller(2008) andMcDonald v. City of Chicago(2010) answered some foundational questions about the right to keep and bear arms, the Supreme Courts decade of silence enabled lower courts to undermine these core cases routinely. This in turn allowed states to run roughshod over the Second Amendment.

Weve gotten our hopes up before that the Supreme Court finally would stop treating the Second Amendment as a second-class right, unworthy of consistent legal review. Just last term, the high court excited millions by taking upNew York State Rifle & Pistol v. City of New York, which was about New York Citys incredibly restrictive laws on transporting firearms.

That excitement came to a crushing end when New York City enacted minor changes to its laws and the Supreme Courtdeclared the case moot, declining in the interim to take up any of the remaining Second Amendment challenges for the term. Many suspected we might go another decade without seeing the court hear another challenge to gun control laws.

But last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hearNew York State Rifle & Pistol v. Corlett, a case that could have much broader implications for the future of strict gun control than its mooted predecessor.

Here are three important things to know about the high courts latest Second Amendment case.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett provides the Supreme Court with the opportunity to address a very important question it so far has declined to answer: When the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, does it mean a right to bear a handgun in public for purposes of self-defense?

According to New York and a handful of other gun control-friendly states, the answer has been a resounding no. In these states, the right to bear arms has been effectively restricted to a right to possess and handle a gun in your home, and nothing more.

If you want to protect yourself with a firearm in public, the state considers it a privilege you can exercise only after showing good cause above and beyond a desire to protect yourself from crime in general.

In essence, law-abiding citizens in these states have no right to bear arms outside their homes.

The petitioners in the new case include two New York residents who have extensive experience and training with firearms. Both applied for and were denied carry permits for their firearms because they did not face any special or unique danger to [their] life.

It appears the Supreme Court finally has five justices willing to vindicate the rights of these petitioners. We know that Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh havepublicly decriedthecourts reluctanceto take up cases involving similar good cause laws and affirmed that there is, indeed, a right to bear arms.

Meanwhile,Justices Samuel AlitoandAmy Coney Barretthave evidenced a faithful adherence to the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment in different types of gun control cases. They would seem unlikely candidates to side with New Yorks interpretation that the right to bear arms is only a privilege for the select few determined to meet arbitrary good cause requirements.

For the first 70 or so years after the Constitution was ratified, Americans undeniably maintained a general right to bear arms in public, with perhaps some state authority to regulate the mode of carry.

Aminority of stateseventually prohibited or heavily regulated the act of carrying a concealed firearm in public. But no state completely eradicated an ordinary citizens ability to carry some type of firearm in public in some manner without first having to seek permission from the government.

Well, all white Americans enjoyed a right to bear arms in public.

Laws heavily regulating the public carry of firearms were, like all early forms of restrictive gun control,reserved for the subjugation of slavesand other individuals who were, at the time, legally considered as falling outside of the People of the United States.

Even after slavery was abolished and the 14th Amendment forbade race-based gun restrictions, many southern states looked to racially neutral but highly discretionary gun control laws to effectively disarm black citizens.

AFlorida Supreme Courtcase in 1941 provides some insight into just how blatantly and openly states used discretionary permit systems to depriveblack Americans of their rights. The court overturned a white mans conviction for carrying a handgun in public without a permit, in apparent violation of state law.

Justice Rivers Buford nonchalantly explained the racist origins and enforcement of the law in his concurring opinion:

The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State. The Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to give the white citizens in sparsely populated areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied.

The reality is that todays good cause requirements may not be overtly racist, but in practice they serve to disproportionately exclude people of color from the ability to protect themselves in public with firearms. Constitutional implications aside, this makes discretionary licensing poor public policy.

Who ends up getting concealed carry permits in the most restrictive good cause jurisdictions? Overwhelmingly, the permits go towealthy white menespecially those who arewell connected to whatever public officialhappens to have sole discretion over granting permit applications.

Its also little wonder that such incredibly discretionary schemeslend themselves torampant corruption.

Many gun control advocates insist that if the Supreme Court strikes down good cause requirements then the nation will be turned into a Wild West of gun violence.

In other words, the Second Amendment shouldnt protect a right of ordinary citizens to bear arms in their own defense, because ordinary citizens largely are incapable of acting in a reasonable manner when armed in public.

Decades of plain data show just the opposite.

Between 1990 and 2000,16 states changedtheir concealed carry laws from either no issue or may issue to shall issue permitting. During that time, national rates for violent crime, homicide by gun, and other gun crimeplummeted.

Since 2000, the trend toward more permissible public carry laws not only continued (42 states and the District of Columbia are either constitutional carry or permitless carry), but public interest in obtaining permits skyrocketed.Over 19 million American adultsnow possess a concealed carry permit, up from roughly 3 million adults in 2000.

If gun control advocates were correct about their Wild West hypothesis, surely the last two decades would have been an increasingly violent mess.

But the data clearly do not bear that out. Violent crime ratescontinued a general downward trendwhile gun homicide and other gun crime ratesremainedconsistently lowafter plateauing around 2011.

It turns out that ordinary, law-abiding citizens absolutely can be trusted to bear arms in public, just like the plain text of the Constitution envisions.

Hopefully, the Supreme Court soon will vindicate the tens of millions of American citizens currently deemed to have insufficient cause to exercise their constitutional rights.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

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3 Things to Know About Second Amendment's Return to Supreme Court - Heritage.org

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The Republican-led effort to allow Texans to carry handguns without any kind of license cleared what is likely its biggest remaining hurdle in the Capitol on Wednesday, when the Texas Senate moved in a nail-biter vote to bring the measure to the floor and then passed it.

The measure already passed by the Texas House heads to a conference committee for the two chambers to hash out their differences, unless the House accepts the Senate amendments. Then, the bill heads to Gov. Greg Abbott, who said last week he would sign the permitless carry bill into law.

House Bill 1927 would nix the requirement for Texas residents to obtain a license to carry handguns if theyre not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun. The Senate approved the bill in a 18-13 vote along party lines, less than a week after it sailed out of a committee created to specifically to tackle the legislation.

Proponents of what Republicans call constitutional carry argue that Texas should follow the lead of at least 20 other states with similar laws on the books. Meanwhile, gun control advocates are sounding the alarm about making it easier to carry firearms after repeated instances of gun violence including 2019s massacres in El Paso and Midland-Odessa.

Under current state law, Texans must generally be licensed to carry handguns openly or concealed. Applicants must submit fingerprints, complete four to six hours of training and pass a written exam and a shooting proficiency test. Texas does not require a license to openly carry a rifle in public.

This bill, to me, is a restoration of the belief in and trust of our citizens, said state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, who is carrying the legislation in the upper chamber. We cannot allow another session to come and go where we pay lip service for the Second Amendment by failing to fully restore and protect the rights of citizens granted by the Constitution.

The bills fate remained uncertain heading into debate on Wednesday morning and led to a rare case of the GOP-controlled Senate taking up a bill with unclear odds at passage. Ultimately, every Republican supported the bill, but a handful of key senators admitted in debate that they have reservations about certain provisions namely a lack of support from law enforcement.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other Republicans who were initially noncommittal had been under immense political pressure from conservatives and gun rights advocates, who have for years lobbied the Texas Legislature for permitless carry but historically struggled to win support.

State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, told colleagues she was worried about protecting domestic violence victims.

I have struggled with this, and I am a strong, strong supporter of the Second Amendment, Nelson said Wednesday before voting in favor of the bill.

Leaders in both chambers previously held permitless carry at arms length, but the cause quickly gained momentum this year, during the state's first legislative session since 30 people were killed in the back-to-back 2019 shootings.

Patrick has expressed reservations about permitless carry in the past. Ahead of the 2015 session, he said he did not think there was enough support among lawmakers or the public, a sentiment he reiterated in 2017 while citing law enforcement concerns with anyone being able to walk down the street with a gun and they dont know if they have a permit or not."

A solid majority of Texas voters don't think permitless carry should be allowed, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.

During Wednesdays debate, several Democratic senators raised concerns that repealing the licensing requirement would allow people to carry handguns without a background check or training. Texas does not require background checks for private gun sales.

This will be the first time that we will not look to training or background checks or law enforcement or the authorities to know who they are dealing with, said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, adding that permitless carry is a huge departure from where weve been before.

Schwertner argued that gun safety is a personal responsibility.

The [licensing] requirement is what is being set aside; the obligation on the part of the citizen who owns a potentially dangerous weapon to understand gun laws, to become proficient in their handling of their gun, is not absolved, Schwertner said.

Other Democratic lawmakers said the measure would hinder law enforcement officers ability to do their jobs. Some law enforcement groups and license to carry instructors have come out against the measure this year, citing safety concerns.

If I sit down at a restaurant with a gentleman or a woman who has a holster on their side and a gun in it, I want to know that person is well-trained in the use of that gun, and I know that police officers across the state of Texas want to understand that, said state Sen. Beverly Powell, D-Burleson. We owe [law enforcement] every single tool in the toolbox, and a seat at our policy making table, as we make decisions like this one about public safety issues.

The Sheriffs Association of Texas signaled tepid support on Wednesday when they sent a letter to Schwertner that outlined three key areas of the bill that required critical, must-have clarifications and amendments. Those tweaks, offered by Schwertner on the floor, strike from the bill a provision that wouldve expunged certain weapons-related charges on Texans criminal records, allow law enforcement officers to temporarily disarm a person who is detained and temporarily strip the permitless carry rights of people accused of certain violent crimes.

With this language in the final version of the bill that protects law enforcement officers and the rights of law-abiding citizens, SAT supports HB 1927, the sheriffs wrote.

Lawmakers approved an amendment barring permitless carry from people convicted in the past five years of making a terroristic threat, deadly conduct, assault that causes bodily injury or disorderly conduct with a firearm.

Senators rejected a number of amendments by state Sen. Csar Blanco, D-El Paso, that would codify gun safety provisions Abbott proposed after the 2019 shootings by requiring background checks for gun sales between strangers and requiring courts to notify criminals that they may no longer possess a firearm, among other changes.

Blanco said such amendments were necessary so we're making sure if we're going to go down this road we're keeping guns out of the hands of actual criminals.

We need solutions, Blanco said. How many more lives have to be robbed?

During final debate on the proposal, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, collapsed on the Senate floor and received medical attention from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Spokesperson Erin Daly Wilson tweeted that Creighton was involved a car accident on Thursday and sustained minor injuries.

"He spent the last few days resting, and returned to the Capitol for the critical work of the legislature and to ensure a majority approve H.B. 1927," she said.

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Permitless carry of a handgun in Texas nearly law, after Senate OKs bill - The Texas Tribune

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) notified the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2021 which seeks to amend the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018.

In Regulation 282, in sub-regulation (3), the words Institutional Trading Platform shall be substituted with the words Innovators Growth Platform.

In Regulation 282 after sub-regulation (3), the new sub-regulation shall be inserted, namely if an issuer has issued SR equity shares to its promoters/ founders, the said issuer shall be allowed to make an initial public offer of only ordinary shares for listing on the Innovators Growth Platform subject to compliance with the provisions of this Chapter and continued compliance with the provisions for SR equity shares in accordance with sub-regulation (3) of regulation 6.

The notification seeks to insert a new Regulation 290A in respect of exit of issuers whose securities are listed and trading on the Innovators Growth Platform pursuant to an initial public offer.

Under Regulation 290A, the provisions of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2009, in respect of the matters not specifically dealt or excluded under this regulation, shall apply mutatis mutandis to delisting of specified securities under these regulations.

An issuer company whose specified securities are traded on the Innovators Growth Platform pursuant to an initial public offer may exit from the Innovators Growth Platform, ifsuch an exit is approved by the board of directors of the company in its meeting; such an exit is approved by the shareholders of the company by a special resolution passed through postal ballot or e-voting, after disclosure of all material facts in the explanatory statement sent to the shareholders in relation to such resolution.

Provided further that the special resolution shall be acted upon only if the votes cast by the majority of public shareholders are in favor of such exit proposal.

Delisting price is based on a floor price determined in terms of regulation 8 of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011, as may be applicable, and an additional delisting premium justified by the acquirer / promoter;

The post offer acquirer / promoter shareholding (along with the persons acting in concert with the acquirer / promoter), taken together with the shares tendered reaches seventy five per cent of the total issued shares of that class and at least fifty per cent shares of the public shareholders as on date of the meeting referred to in clause (a) of this sub-regulation are tendered and accepted; and

Recognised stock exchange(s) where its shares are listed approves of such an exit. in regulations 292, the existing sub-regulation (3) shall be substituted with the following, namely, A company not satisfying the conditions laid down under sub-regulation (2) of regulation 292, shall, as on date of application for migration under the regular category, have fifty per cent of its capital held by Qualified Institutional Buyers.

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SEBI notifies Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2021 - taxscan.in

The Herald

Herald Reporter

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of Zimbabwe came into force yesterday following the required assent by more than two thirds of the National Assembly, two thirds of the Senate and the consent of the President.

The Amendment Act, gazetted yesterday, deals with a number of issues: The selection of vice-presidents and who fills a presidential vacancy, the number of non-parliamentary technocrats in Cabinet, the retention of the specially elected extra women members of the National Assembly for another 10 years with more detail given of who must be in that group, the addition of 10 specially elected extra youth members, the terms of office of judges and other matters concerning their conditions, the appointment of the Chief Secretary to the Office of the President and Cabinet, matters relating to how the independent Prosecutor General can be removed, the make-up of the provincial and metropolitan councils, and the addition of extra women councillors in local authorities.

Under the Constitution there was a temporary arrangement for the first two Presidential terms, whereby the President would appoint up to two vice presidents and basically they served on the same terms as other Cabinet members.

When there was a Presidential vacancy, through death, resignation or impeachment, the political party that had nominated the winning candidate who had just died or left office would name the successor to serve out the rest of the term.

From 2023 the system was supposed to change to an arrangement where every Presidential candidate would select in advance the two candidates for First Vice-President and Second Vice President and the three would stand as a single ticket. There was to be automatic promotion in the event of a Presidential or First Vice-Presidential vacancy, with arrangements set out for a new Second Vice-President.

Under the Second Amendment Act the temporary arrangement has been made permanent.

There were arguments that this system now made permanent allowed a President to name their successor. In fact the opposite is true. Under the default 2023 new system the President would, in effect, be naming theirsuccessor in advance. Under the temporary system now made permanent, the party that won the Presidency makes that choice, with the only condition being that the successor must meet the constitutional qualifications for President.

The only time in independent Zimbabwe when there was a vacancy in the Presidency, in 2017 after the resignation of Robert Mugabe, the winning party, Zanu PF through a central committee vote, chose Emmerson Mnangagwa to serve out the term to mid 2018.

In the 2013 Constitution there was a provision for the life of two Parliaments, 10 years, for an additional 60 women members of the National Assembly to join the 210 members elected in constituencies. These 60, six from each province, would be elected by proportional representation based on the votes cast for each party during the constituency elections in that province.

The time limit was set on the assumption that over a decade parties would be nominating more women for constituency seats and that something close to gender parity would be obtained without the extra seats.

This is now considered to be work in progress rather than attainable soon, so the arrangement has been extended for another two Parliaments, that is another 10 years.

However, the amendment does now require that the party lists used for elections ensure that at least 10 of the extra women are under 35, that women with disabilities are represented on the lists, and that an Act of Parliament is passed that gives the terms of how young women with disabilities are represented on the lists.

This is likely to be an amendment to the Electoral Act.

The constitutional amendment, besides ensuring that there must be at least 10 young women, also adds an extra 10 seats to the National Assembly for people aged 21 to 35, one from each province but elected by proportional representation using the national constituency vote for each party.

Each partys list must have men and women alternating in the list. The result of the two clauses will produce a minimum of 20 MPs under 35, five men and 15 women, although younger people can still win constituency seats or be nominated for more of the special womens seats.

A batch of clauses deal with the judiciary. For initial appointment to the bench, the amendment retains the present system of nomination, interviews, and a short list of three names submitted to the President. But this system no longer applies for promotions on the bench.

The President, acting on the recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission, can promote a judge to a higher court.

The retirement age of judges is now set at 70 but they can elect to serve, so long as they decide before their 70th birthday, until they are 75 although must submit a medical report that confirms they are mentally and physically fit to remain in office.

Constitutional Court judges now serve a single 15-year term and cannot be reappointed. But if they are still under 75 at the completion of that term they have the option of returning to the Supreme or High Court.

In a brief clause the Civil Service is now called the Public Service, but more importantly 10 percent of new appointments to the Public Service must now be people with disabilities.

The post of Chief Secretary to the Office of the President and Cabinet is now a Constitutional post with the holder and their deputies appointment by the President after consulting the Public Service Commission.

But the Constitution now formally names the Chief Secretary as the most senior member of the Public Service, which has been the case but not formally, and makes it clear that Permanent Secretaries shall report to the Chief Secretary on any matter affecting them as a class.

That basically also makes the group of top public servants a constitutional class that can act together.

The Prosecutor General in the 2013 Constitution basically served on the same conditions as a judge, with the same dismissal procedure to ensure independence.

The amended section retains the independence and the need for a tribunal, consisting of two present or past Supreme Court judges and a High Court judge or a person qualified to be a judge. The President appoints the tribunal if he considers the question of removal needs to be investigated.

The slight differences from the procedure for a tribunal investigating a judge, where the Judicial Service Commission needs to make a recommendation before the President appoints a tribunal, was to make it clear that while the Prosecutor General is the leading lawyer who appears in court, they are still below a judge in status.

With the Second Republic taking devolution seriously, such as granting budgets to local authorities, and wanting effective provincial councils as the top tier of the devolved structures, the amendment Act goes into the membership of these councils to ensure that the members come from the bottom up with no one moving in from the top down.

So MPs and senators are barred from sitting on councils, largely because Parliament is expected to oversee the councils and no one can be a judge of themselves.

There is a small naming change; the provincial councils for metropolitan provinces are now called metropolitan councils.

The members of each council are the chairperson, who is chosen by the rest of the council from two candidates submitted by the political party that won the most National Assembly seats in the last general election, or if there is no single party in that position, then the party that won the most National Assembly votes. This was already in the Constitution.

This means that while the winning party in a province names the chairperson, the rest of the council members can have an input into which person from that party they would prefer in the centre chair.

Every mayor and chairperson of every urban and rural local authority in the province, regardless of what they are called, sits by right as a member of the provincial or metropolitan council.

Then in addition, there must be 10 women members elected from party lists on the basis of how their parties performed in the last Parliamentary election. But women with disabilities must now be included on those lists. The details will be set in amendments to the Electoral Law.

Local authorities now also get specially elected extra women councillors. An Act of Parliament is now needed to allow at least 30 percent extra seats reserved for women using proportional representation on party lists based on how the party candidates performed in the last general election for the council.

To clear one slightly ambiguous area over international agreements with financial commitments, the amendment Act now states that except for loan agreements and guarantees, already dealt with in the Constitution, any agreement not an international treaty but which is concluded or executed by the President with foreign organisations or entities and which imposes fiscal obligations on Zimbabwe does not bind Zimbabwe until approved by Parliament.

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2nd Amendment now part of Constitution - The Herald