Archive for the ‘Second Amendment’ Category

Gun control and the new administration | Opinions | frontiersman.com – Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman

If you are one of the more than five million first-time gun owners in this country, you may have just become an undesirable in the eyes of our new presidential administration. If youre already a firearms owner, then you already know how the new administration views you.

With the months-long rioting literally all around the country in 2020 and the widespread call to defund the police, millions of Americans became first-time gun owners while fearing for their families and their own safety. The Biden-Harris administration did not approve of this and, with their election, have proposed legislation to curtail these types of activities.

For those who supported Biden, heres what you have brought on the country regarding firearms. I found this information on the Joe Bidens Gun Control Plan webpage. The administration wants to ban the new manufacture of so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. They want to control the firearms and magazines already in personal possession by requiring registration of both the firearm and the magazine, including a $200 tax for the right to continue owning these items. That tax is for each item. If you own five high-capacity magazines, thats $200 per magazine!

Theyre talking about a buyback program to get firearms off the streets. If this happens, you might be forced to sell your new $600 handgun to the federal government for $50! This administration wants to require gun owners to have a firearms owners license. They want to limit the stockpiling of weapons by limiting you to buying a maximum of one firearm per month. They want universal background checks by anyone selling a firearm. This would effectively eliminate the private sale of guns, period!

Biden-Harris proposes ending the sale of firearms over the internet. That would make acquiring a firearm here in Alaska difficult and problematic. My ability as an FFL dealer to do firearms transfers would be greatly reduced, and for certain types of firearms like blackpowder cartridge guns, folks would have a difficult time buying them. I dont know of any dealer in Alaska who specifically handles this type of firearm in any quantity.

Firearms confiscation is being discussed to keep firearms away from those considered dangerous. They would like to see a national red flag law in effect, which would allow the confiscation of firearms, without due process, from anyone reported as dangerous by anyone for any reason. Guess what that would mean for you conservative types out there!

Another major item in the Biden-Harris firearms agenda is to rescind the current law which holds the manufacturer of an item innocent of responsibility for the illegal and unlawful use of that product. If this law is repealed, Smith and Wesson could be sued for some dirtbag using one of their firearms to rob the local gas station. The Biden-Harris administration is only proposing this for the firearms industry. Think how this would affect our economy if this law was repealed for the automobile and liquor industries!

I have not listed everything itemized on the Biden Gun Control webpage. Look it up for yourself and imagine the impact all these items would have on your daily life and personal safety if they would be enacted.

I have read that if this gun-control legislation is successful in passing Congress, the next step would involve eliminating all semi-automatic firearms private ownership, whether they be rifle, handgun or shotgun. Yet, according to FBI statistics, more people are killed in this country each year with knives and baseball bats than with so-called assault rifles!

Four states and 37 counties within other states have declared themselves to be Second Amendment sanctuary jurisdictions. Texas is in the process of possibly becoming the fifth state to do so. The first four states to adopt this approach are: Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, and Wyoming.

"Non-binding resolution" resolutionsthat prohibit or impede the enforcement of certain "Gun control" gun controlmeasures (considered to be) a violation of the Second Amendmentsuch as magazine bans, "Red flag laws" red flag laws, etc., basically allowing people (to do) what the constitution allows them to do.

Make no mistake about it, this is the worst assault on our Second Amendment in my lifetime. The progressives have already launched a major assault on the First Amendment, including the ability of people to worship as they choose. If the Second Amendment falls, you can kiss the rest of our Constitutional protections good-by as well.

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Gun control and the new administration | Opinions | frontiersman.com - Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman

Fortunato Files State Constitutional Amendment Expanding Protections for Citizens Right to Bear… – Auburn Examiner

While many policies that emanate from Olympia concerning the right to bear arms focus on restricting Second Amendment protections, state Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-Auburn, 31st-LD) is pushing to expand them.

Hes filed a state constitutional amendment to enshrine an individual right to own high-capacity magazines, a popular target for anti-gun advocates. Senate Joint Resolution 8205 would amend Article 1, Section 24 of the Washington Constitution by adding, The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state includes the right to possess firearm magazines and firearm loading devices of any size.

Arguments for banning high-capacity magazines focus on preventing a mass shooting. However, banning these magazines only puts the public at more risk, said Fortunato. An outright ban ignores the number of magazines already on the market. A conservative estimate based on gun ownership of the types of rifles that use them is about 50 million with each owner having an average of 5 magazines. Add handguns and the total number of magazines is over 250,000,000. The reality is that a person intent on killing innocent people is not going to be concerned about a law that bans some kinds of magazines.

A 2019 study on shootings shows that trained police officers have about a 25 percent accuracy rate with firearms, typically using a 9mm due to the larger magazine capacity. With the highest accuracy rate of 35 percent, about 14 rounds would need to be fired to stop one threat. Fortunato argues that average citizens exercising their rights deserve every tool to protect themselves as outlined in the state constitution.

All citizens deserve to have every means of protection at their disposal, Fortunato added. In no other area do we have a conversation about restricting rights enshrined in our constitutions. This should be no different. As technology advances, we should be looking at ways to expand protections for law-abiding citizens, not constrain them.

The above is a press release from Sen. Phil Fortunato. The Auburn Examiner has not independently verified its contents and encourages our readers to personally verify any information they find may be overly biased or questionable. The publication of this press release does not indicate an endorsement of its content.

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Fortunato Files State Constitutional Amendment Expanding Protections for Citizens Right to Bear... - Auburn Examiner

The Second Amendment and the Inalienable Right to Self …

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.Amendment II

Modern debates about the meaning of the Second Amendment have focused on whether it protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms or a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations like the National Guard. This question, however, was apparently never even raised until long after the Bill of Rights was adopted. Early discussions took the basic meaning of the amendment for granted and focused instead on whether it added anything significant to the original Constitution. The debate later shifted because of changes in the Constitution and in constitutional law and because legislatures began to regulate firearms in ways undreamed of in our early history.

The Founding generation mistrusted standing armies. Many Americans believed, on the basis of English history and their colonial experience, that governments of large nations are prone to use soldiers to oppress the people. One way to reduce that danger would be to permit the government to raise armies (consisting of full-time paid troops) only when needed to fight foreign adversaries. For other purposes, such as responding to sudden invasions or similar emergencies, the government might be restricted to using a militia that consisted of ordinary civilians who supplied their own weapons and received a bit of part-time, unpaid military training.

Using a militia as an alternative to standing armies had deep roots in English history and possessed considerable appeal, but it also presented some serious problems. Alexander Hamilton, for example, thought the militia system could never provide a satisfactory substitute for a national army. Even those who treasured the militia recognized that it was fragile, and the cause of this fragility was just what made Hamilton disparage it: Citizens were always going to resist undergoing unpaid military training, and governments were always going to want more professionaland therefore more efficient and tractableforces.

This led to a dilemma at the Constitutional Convention. Experience during the Revolutionary War had demonstrated convincingly that militia forces could not be relied on for national defense, and the onset of war is not always followed by a pause during which an army can be raised and trained. The convention therefore decided to give the federal government almost unfettered authority to establish armies, including peacetime standing armies. But that decision created a threat to liberty, especially in light of the fact that the proposed Constitution also forbade the states from keeping troops without the consent of Congress.

One solution might have been to require Congress to establish and maintain a well-disciplined militia. Such a militia would have had to comprise a large percentage of the population in order to prevent it from becoming a federal army under another name, like our modern National Guard. This might have deprived the federal government of the excuse that it needed peacetime standing armies and might have established a meaningful counterweight to any rogue army that the federal government might create. That possibility was never taken seriously, and for good reason. How could a constitution define a well-regulated or well-disciplined militia with the requisite precision and detail and with the necessary regard for unforeseeable changes in the nations circumstances? It would almost certainly have been impossible.

Another approach might have been to forbid Congress from interfering with the states control of their militias. This might have been possible, but it would have been self-defeating. Fragmented control of the militias would inevitably have resulted in an absence of uniformity in training, equipment, and command, and no really effective national fighting force could have been created.

Thus, the convention faced a choice between entrenching a multiplicity of militias controlled by the individual states, which would likely have been too weak and divided to protect the nation, or authorizing a unified militia under federal control, which almost by definition could not have been expected to prevent federal tyranny. The conundrum could not be solved, and the convention did not purport to solve it. Instead, the Constitution presumes that a militia will exist, but it gives Congress almost unfettered authority to regulate that militia, just as it gives the federal government almost unfettered authority to maintain an army.

This massive shift of power from the states to the federal government generated one of the chief objections to the proposed Constitution. Anti-Federalists argued that federal control of the militia would take away from the states their principal means of defense against federal oppression and usurpation and that European history demonstrated how serious the danger was.

James Madison, for one, responded that such fears of federal oppression were overblown, in part because the new federal government was to be structured differently from European governments. But he also pointed out another decisive difference between Europes situation and ours: The American people were armed and would therefore be almost impossible to subdue through military force, even if one assumed that the federal government would try to use an army to do so. In Federalist No. 46, he wrote:

Implicit in the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two shared assumptions: first, that the proposed new constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and the militia and, second, that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry. The disagreement between Federalists and Anti-Federalists was only over the narrower question of whether an armed populace could adequately assure the preservation of liberty.

The Second Amendment conceded nothing to the Anti-Federalists desire to sharply curtail the military power that the Constitution gave the federal government, but that very fact prevented the Second Amendment from generating any opposition. Attempting to satisfy the Anti-Federalists would have been hugely controversial and would have required substantial changes in the original Constitution. Nobody suggested that the Second Amendment could have any such effect, but neither did anyone suggest that the federal government needed or rightfully possessed the power to disarm American citizens.

As a political gesture to the Anti-Federalistsa gesture highlighted by the Second Amendments prefatory reference to the value of a well-regulated militiaexpress recognition of the peoples right to arms was something of a sop. The provision was easily accepted, however, because everyone agreed that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion.

A great deal has changed since the Second Amendment was adopted. The traditional militia fell fairly quickly into desuetude, and the state-based militia organizations were eventually incorporated into the federal military structure. For its part, the federal military establishment has become enormously more powerful than 18th-century armies, and Americans have largely lost their fear that the federal government will use that power to oppress them politically. Furthermore, 18th-century civilians routinely kept at home the very same weapons they would need if called to serve in the militia, while modern soldiers are equipped with weapons that differ significantly from those that are commonly thought to be appropriate for civilian uses. These changes have raised new questions about the value of an armed citizenry, and many people today reject the assumptions that almost everyone accepted when the Second Amendment was adopted.

The law has also changed. At the time of the Framing, gun control laws were virtually nonexistent, and there was no reason for anyone to discuss what kinds of regulations would be permitted by the Second Amendment. The animating concern behind the amendment was fear that the new federal government might try to disarm the citizenry in order to prevent armed resistance to political usurpations. That has never occurred, but a great many new legal restrictions on the right to arms have since been adopted. Nearly all of these laws are aimed at preventing the misuse of firearms by irresponsible civilians, but many of them also interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals.

Another important legal development was the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Amendment originally applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit. During the 20th century, the Supreme Court invoked the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause to apply most provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states and their political subdivisions. The vast majority of gun control laws have been adopted at the state and local levels, and the potential applicability of the Second Amendment at these levels raised serious issues that the Founding generation had no occasion to consider. It is one thing to decide that authority over the regulation of weapons will be reserved largely to the states. It is quite another to decide that all regulations will be subjected to judicial review under a vaguely worded constitutional provision like the Second Amendment.

Until recently, the judiciary treated the Second Amendment almost as a dead letter. Many courts concluded that citizens have no constitutionally protected right to arms at all, and the federal courts never invalidated a single gun control law. In the late 20th century, however, the judicial consensus was challenged by a large body of new scholarship. Through analysis of the text and history of the Second Amendment, commentators sought to establish that the Constitution does protect an individual right to have weapons for self-defense, including defense against criminal violence that the government cannot or will not prevent.

In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court finally did strike down a gun control regulation, in this case a federal law that forbade nearly all civilians from possessing a handgun in the District of Columbia. A narrow 54 majority adopted the main conclusions and many of the arguments advanced by the revisionist commentators, ruling that the original meaning of the Second Amendment protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense.

The dissenters interpreted the original meaning differently. In an opinion that all four of them joined, Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that the Second Amendments nominally individual right actually protects only the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. In a separate opinion, also joined by all four dissenters, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that even if the Second Amendment did protect an individual right to have arms for self-defense, it should be interpreted to allow the government to ban handguns in high-crime urban areas.

Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court struck down a similar law at the state level, again by a 54 vote. The four-Justice McDonald plurality relied largely on substantive due process precedents that had applied other provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment but rejected the Courts long-standing doctrine of substantive due process, which he concluded is inconsistent with the original meaning of the Constitution. Instead, he set forth a detailed analysis of the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendments Privileges or Immunities Clause and concluded that it protects the same individual right that is protected from federal infringement by the Second Amendment.

Notwithstanding the lengthy opinions in Heller and McDonald, their holdings are narrowly confined to invalidating bans on the possession of handguns by civilians in their own homes. Neither case provides clear guidance on the constitutionality of less restrictive forms of gun control, although Heller does set forth a non-exclusive list of presumptively lawful regulations that include bans on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, bans on carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, laws restricting the commercial sale of arms, bans on the concealed carry of firearms, and bans on weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.

In the short period of time since Heller was decided, the lower courts have struggled to divine how it applies to regulations that the Court did not address, such as bans on carrying weapons in public and bans on the possession of firearms by violent misdemeanants. At the moment, the dominant approach in the federal courts of appeals can be summarized roughly as follows:

The application of this framework has varied somewhat among the courts, and Heller left room for other approaches to develop. One important outstanding issue is the scope of the right to carry firearms in public. Heller laid great stress on the text of the Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, while also giving provisional approval to bans on the concealed carry of firearms.

A ban (or severe restrictions) on both concealed and open carry would seem to conflict with the constitutional text. It would also seem hard to reconcile with the Courts emphasis on the importance of the right to self-defense against violent criminals, who are at least as likely to be encountered outside the home as within it. Heller, however, did not unambiguously recognize any right to carry weapons in public. Some lower courts have concluded that no such right exists, while others have disagreed. The Supreme Court may eventually have to address the issue.

A more general question concerns the scope of the governments power to inhibit the possession and use of firearms through regulations that impose onerous conditions and qualifications on gun owners. In the analogous area of free speech, courts have struggled endlessly to draw lines that allow governments to serve what they see as the public interest without allowing undue suppression of individual liberties. If the Supreme Court is serious about treating the right to arms as an important part of the constitutional fabric, we should expect the Justices to encounter similar challenges in its emerging gun control jurisprudence.

Nelson Lund is University Professor at George Mason University School of Law.

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The Second Amendment and the Inalienable Right to Self ...

Twenty-second Amendment | United States Constitution …

Twenty-second Amendment, amendment (1951) to the Constitution of the United States effectively limiting to two the number of terms a president of the United States may serve. It was one of 273 recommendations to the U.S. Congress by the Hoover Commission, created by Pres. Harry S. Truman, to reorganize and reform the federal government. It was formally proposed by the U.S. Congress on March 24, 1947, and was ratified on Feb. 27, 1951.

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The Constitution did not stipulate any limit on presidential termsindeed, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 69: That magistrate is to be elected for four years; and is to be re-eligible as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence. (Hamilton also argued, in Federalist 71, in favour of a life term for the president of the United States.) George Washington, the countrys first president, opted to retire after two terms, setting a de facto informal law that was respected by the countrys first 31 presidents that there should be rotation in office after two terms for the office of the presidency.

There is no clear indication that the decision to pursue the amendment was triggered by any single event or abuse of power. Indeed, throughout U.S. history, few presidents ever expressed the desire to serve more than the traditional two terms. Ulysses S. Grant sought a third term in 1880, but he was denied his partys nomination. Theodore Roosevelt sought a third term in 1912 but lost (it would have been his second elected term).

In the 1930s, however, the national and global context brought forth an interruption to this two-term precedent.

In the midst of the Great Depression, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt had won election in 1932 and reelection in 1936. In 1940, as Europe was engulfed in a war that threatened to draw in the United States and without a clear Democratic successor who could consolidate the New Deal, Roosevelt, who had earlier indicated misgivings about a third term, agreed to break Washingtons precedent. A general disinclination to change leadership amid crisis probably weighed heavily on the minds of votersmuch more so than the perceived deep-seated opposition to a third term for a presidentand Roosevelt romped to victory in 1940 and again in 1944.

Following on the heels of the establishment of the Hoover Commission and with Republicans winning a majority in Congress after the 1946 elections, they introduced an amendment to limit the president to two terms. The amendment caps the service of a president at 10 years. If a person succeeds to the office of president without election and serves less than two years, he may run for two full terms; otherwise, a person succeeding to office of president can serve no more than a single elected term. Although there have been some calls for repeal of the amendment, because it disallows voters to democratically elect the president of their choice, it has proved uncontroversial over the years. Nevertheless, presidents who win a second term in office are often referred to as lame ducks, and the race to succeed them often begins even before their inauguration to a second term.

The full text of the Amendment is:

Section 1No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

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Second Amendment Sports sued for $2.5 million over alleged failure to pay minimum and overtime wages – KGET 17

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) Second Amendment Sports is being sued for $2.5 million for allegedly failing to pay minimum and overtime wages as well as not allowing rest or meal breaks as provided for under state law.

The gun shop that operated in Bakersfield until its sale in December had the financial ability to pay such compensation, but willfully, knowingly, recklessly, and/or intentionally failed to do so, according to the lawsuit. It says the shop violated state Labor Code by not allowing a meal break of at least 30 minutes for a work period in excess of five hours, or a 10-minute rest break for every four hours worked.

Additionally, the lawsuit says Second Amendment Sports didnt pay compensation owed to employees who resigned, and provided inaccurate wage statements.

Employers in the state of California violate employment and labor laws every day, says the suit filed on behalf of former employees by the Lex Opus firm in Santa Ana. Current employees are often afraid to assert their rights out of fear of direct or indirect retaliation.

Former employees are fearful of bringing actions because they believe their former employers may damage their future endeavors through negative references and/or other means. The nature of this action allows for the protection of current and former employees rights without fear for retaliation or damage.

The suit seeks a trial by jury and at least $2.5 million in damages.

Attorneys with Belden Blaine Raytis, LLP, representing Second Amendment Sports, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The next hearing in the suit, filed nearly a year ago, is scheduled Feb. 17.

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Second Amendment Sports sued for $2.5 million over alleged failure to pay minimum and overtime wages - KGET 17