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ATLANTA (AP) Joe Biden is resisting calls from President Donald Trump and even some fellow Democrats to release his list of potential Supreme Court picks seven months after he pledged to name the first Black female justice.

Some on the left suggest that outlining potential picks would help Biden build enthusiasm in the final weeks of the campaign, particularly after he already selected California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first Black woman on a major presidential ticket. Trump, meanwhile, is eager to comb through a list to find possible nominees who would bolster his false depiction of Biden as an extreme liberal.

Trump helped insert the Supreme Court squarely into presidential politics in 2016 by taking the unprecedented step of releasing a list of potential nominees before he was elected, a move that helped rally the conservatives who ultimately carried him to victory.

But some of Bidens allies say a list wont provide the same payoff for him and could hurt him by distracting voters from Trumps handling of the coronavirus and give the president fuel to suggest Bidens choices are too far left.

Why play into Trumps hands? asked Karen Finney, a prominent Black Democratic strategist.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Biden protg and confidant, pointed to the former vice presidents 36 years in the Senate and his brand as a liberal pragmatist as assurance enough for voters.

He doesnt need to issue some lists in order for Democrats to be comfortable that they know his values and his priorities, Coons said, arguing that voters of all stripes know Biden would elevate highly qualified, mainstream jurists.

Still, the issue represents a familiar tightrope for Biden. Hes a center-left establishment figure aiming for a broad ideological coalition to defeat Trump in an era when the loudest voices come from the political poles. On issues from health care to the climate crisis, progressives hammer Biden as too incremental while conservatives cast him as too liberal. A Supreme Court nomination is certain to amplify those dynamics.

Trump offered a preview last week, challenging Biden to match his list of choices while sketching a caricature of radical justices he insisted would gut Second Amendment rights, remove under God from the Pledge of Allegiance and declare the death penalty unconstitutional. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a former Senate Judiciary chair, followed up Wednesday by urging Biden not to hide his intentions for the court.

On the left, the group Demand Justice wants to match the rights intensity on judicial politics, while a second group, She Will Rise, is raising awareness about the possibility of a Black woman joining the high court.

Demand Justice has assembled a list of 17 Black women it says would make ideal justices. The list includes law professors, leading civil rights attorneys and jurists from lower federal courts and state supreme courts. But there are no names as prominent as the headliners on Trumps list: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

Demand Justice has launched a $2 million ad campaign targeting voters in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin around the Supreme Court and Bidens promise of a Black female nominee. But executive director Brian Fallon argued that Biden could do more.

Whatever good is achieved by making a general commitment like that would only be expanded and furthered if he put out some names of people hes considering, said Fallon, an adviser on Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign.

Pew Research found in August that 66% of Biden supporters identified Supreme Court nominations as a very important issue, more than the 61% of Trump supporters who said the same. Thats a reversal from 2016, when Pew found Trumps supporters were 8 percentage points more likely than Clintons to consider the court a key issue.

There were key differences in 2016. Most important was a vacancy: Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon, had died and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider President Barack Obamas nominee, Merrick Garland, who would have tilted the courts majority to the left. There is no vacancy now, despite considerable attention on the health of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal wings 87-year-old leader.

Further, Trump in 2016 faced distrust among many conservatives, including white evangelicals, because of his support as a private citizen for Democratic politicians and public statements in favor of abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Trump turned that to his advantage by accepting help from the Federalist Society and other conservative legal advocates to compile a public list of would-be justices. Hes since nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch, who appeared on a preelection list in 2016, and Brett Kavanaugh, who appeared on a post-election list.

Without that list, he wouldnt have won, Coons said.

There is some irony in Supreme Court politics being such a potentially prominent variable in Bidens presidential hopes.

The conservative political movement on the judiciary blossomed after Biden, as Senate Judiciary chair, helped scuttle the nomination of conservative firebrand Robert Bork submitted by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Biden angered some women four years later during the confirmation hearings of another conservative, Clarence Thomas, because of senators treatment of Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Biden voted against Thomas, but he was confirmed.

Even a 5-4 Supreme Court majority deciding the 2000 presidential election in favor of Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore did little to shift campaign dynamics concerning the court. All five justices in the majority were nominated by Republican presidents.

Kitchen-table issues, health care and economics have always resonated more with our voters, said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic Party chair and Gores campaign manager.

Fallon acknowledged, much to my chagrin, that it would be a first for Democrats to leverage the court as a key presidential issue more effectively than Republicans.

Finney said part of the challenge is the Democrats are mostly protecting existing precedent, while conservatives have spent decades trying to reclaim lost turf, from the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide to decades of rulings on civil rights and the expansion of federal power. In short, its harder to get voters on the left to understand potential threats to rights they already take for granted.

Republicans have been better at using fear as a motivator, Finney said. A board member of NARAL, an abortion-rights group, Finney added: Ive had people say to me, Do we really need NARAL anymore? Arent our abortion rights safe? No!

Another example: A divided Supreme Court in 2013 gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, but Democrats didnt make that an issue in 2016 even with the vacancy from Scalias death.

If theres a shift in 2020, Finney predicted it wont come from Biden or his promise of a historic nomination. Trumps list is a motivating factor by itself, she said. There is no Democrat who wants to see Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court.

___

Associated Press writer Alexandra Jaffe in Washington contributed to this report.

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Biden under pressure to unveil list of potential court picks - The Associated Press

Second Amendment Activist Protest Activism Take Action

United States -(AmmoLand.com)-Why might Second Amendment supporters want to push a fight over a piece of legislation that may have no chance of passing? Sometimes, it can be a way to gauge what elected officials think of our rights. That is the case with any concurrent resolution in this Congress, given the current landscape in the legislative branch.

Democrats generally hostile to our Second Amendment rights control the House of Representatives. Republicans, who have supported our Second Amendment rights, control the Senate. This means that much legislation is caught in the middle of a standoff neither side can push through what it wants.

So, why are we looking at S Con Res 40? The thing is, this concurrent resolution, introduced by Senator Kelly Loeffler, can be used to clarify where your elected officials stand, particularly on the ability of Americans to exercise the bear arms portion of their Second Amendment rights.

While many states have enacted shall issue or constitutional carry laws, some still cling to the very discriminatory may issue standard notably New York, New Jersey, and California. To date, these laws have been standing against court challenges, and these states are not likely to change those laws legislatively any time soon.

Loefflers concurrent resolution would put Congress squarely against undue restrictions on the carrying of firearms. The actual text is very strong, citing Federalist 46 and the text of the Second Amendment. If passed, this resolution would place Congress foursquare against the highly restrictive carry laws in place in the few discretionary issue states which in many cases have been non-issue in the application of those laws.

But concurrent resolutions do not become law. If anything, they are a sense of where the entire Congress stands, just as House and Senate resolutions are where that portion of the Congress stands. But the value of a concurrent resolution doesnt just lie in getting politicians to take a stand one way or another, although, in this case, it would be interesting to see just how they explain how the application of carry laws in New Jersey and California (among other places) wouldnt fall under that standard.

In this case, the concurrent resolution would also be a means by which to help bolster other rounds of legal challenges to the discretionary issue laws. By placing Congress on record against them, especially in terms of undue restrictions, this resolution can make the next round of legal challenges more likely to succeed, even if that improvement is slight.

Second Amendment supporters should contact their Representative and Senators and politely urge them to back S Con Res 40. It is well past time to get Congress to voice its objections to discretionary carry laws.

About Harold Hutchison

Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.

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Below the Radar: S Con Res 40 - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

From Judge Patrick Bumatay's dissent from denial of rehearing en banc today in Mai v. U.S. (9th Cir.), joined on this point by Judge Vandyke; you can ready the contrary view in the panel opinion:

[A.] Today, our court advances an extraordinarily sweeping view of government power. Against the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, we hold that the government may forever deprive a person of the individual right to bear armsif that person spends even one day committed involuntarily, even as a juvenile, and no matter the person's current mental health soundness. Of course, we only adopt this view for the Second Amendment. For other, more fashionable constitutional rights, we would not countenance such an abridgment.

By all accounts, Duy Mai is an American success story. Mai was born in a Thai refugee camp to a Vietnamese family and moved to the United States at the age of two. As so many immigrants have, Mai has flourished in this country. [Details omitted. -EV] Mai has been a productive member of society for nearly 20 years.

But like most people, Mai has faced his share of challenges. At the age of 17, he suffered from depression, for which he was involuntarily committed to a mental health hospital for a little over two months total after a Washington state court determined that he might be a harm to others. But since Mai's commitment order expired in August 2000, he has not been re-committed and his medical record shows no reoccurrence of serious mental illness. He has no criminal history or substance abuse issues.

In 2014, Mai successfully petitioned the State of Washington to remove the state-law barrier [to possessing guns]. Mai submitted his medical history showing that he's been free of depression since at least 2010 and that, based on the opinions of multiple psychologists, he is not considered a significant risk of suicide or harm to others. Based on this evidence and declarations from his friends and family, the Washington court agreed that Mai doesn't present a substantial danger to himself or to the public and that the symptoms that led to his commitment are not reasonably likely to reoccur. Thus, today, under state law, Mai's right to possess a firearm has been fully restored.

[But] federal law prohibits an individual who has been "committed to a mental institution" from possessing a firearm [so Mai sued] . Without bothering itself with the text, history, or tradition of the Second Amendment, [our court's panel opinion] decided that, due to Mai's brief commitment, he was not a "law-abiding, responsible" citizen and, therefore, not protected by the Second Amendment's "core." In so ruling, the court compared Mai's past commitment to a conviction for domestic violence. The court also concluded that Washington's adjudication of his mental soundness and subsequent restoration of his gun rightsand Mai's present-day mental health statuswere irrelevant to the constitutional analysis. Finally, with the help of studies from Sweden, Australia, Italy, and other countries, the court ruled that the permanent deprivation of Mai's fundamental right cleared intermediate scrutiny. We should've corrected the layers of errors in this decision through en banc review.

[B.] If operating on a clean slate, I would hew to Heller's and McDonald's fidelity to the Second Amendment's history, tradition, and text. The precise contours of such a review should be subject to further refinement; but we might, as Justice Scalia suggested in Heller itself, look to the original meaning . Under this view, a law may only constitutionally prohibit the core right to keep arms in the home for self-defense if the prohibition falls within an exception understood to be outside of the Amendment's scope at the time of the Founding.

[S]cholars have "search[ed] in vain through eighteenth-century records to find any laws specifically excluding the mentally ill from firearms ownership." Such laws would be highly unusual in a context where regulations focused on use rather than ownership. Not until 1930 do we see laws specifically touching on gun ownership and mental health, after the ABA-approved Uniform Firearms Act prohibited delivery of a pistol to any person of "unsound" mind.

Given the paucity of Founding-era laws specifically prohibiting gun ownership by the mentally ill, we are better served by exploring the dominant thinking on mental illness in that period. On this, the evidence is clear: temporary mental illness didn't lead to a permanent deprivation of rights.

Influential philosophers of the day understood that rights attach with the attainment of "reason" and, correspondingly, the loss of rights persisted only through the loss of reason. This understanding accorded with a deeply rooted common law tradition recognizing that mental illness was not a permanent condition. Thus, an "insane" person

was one who "by disease, grief, or other accident hath lost the use of his reason." 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *304. But "the law always imagines, that the[] accidental misfortunes [that caused the lunacy] may be removed" and at that point the person's rights restored.

These views on the mentally ill were reflected in historical practices and laws. Even as Virginia sought to ratify its constitution with a limitation on the civil rights of "lunatics," such limitation was only "during their state of insanity." .

From this historical record a clear picture emerges: mental illness was considered a temporary ailment that only justified a temporary deprivation of rights. Heller's observations about "presumptively lawful regulatory measures" does not change this analysis. Heller's reference to firearm prohibitions for the "mentally ill" as being "presumptively lawful," apply to those who are presently mentally ill. {As the Sixth Circuit held, "Heller's presumption of lawfulness should not be used to enshrine a permanent stigma on anyone who has ever been committed to a mental institution for whatever reason."} .

[C.] [The following portions of the opinion were also joined by Judges Ikuta, Bade, and Hunsaker. -EV]

As I have shown, 922(g)(4)'s application to Mai has no basis in the text, tradition, and history of the Second Amendment. But until our court agrees to apply such a test to Second Amendment claims under en banc review or the Court provides us with further guidance, we remain bound by the Chovan test. First, we determine if the law "burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment," "based on a historical understanding of the scope of the [Second

Amendment] right[.]" Second, we decide what level of scrutiny applies based on our assessment of "(1) how close the law comes to the core of the Second Amendment right and (2) the severity of the law's burden on the right."

The [panel] erred by incorrectly identifying intermediate scrutiny as the proper standard. As we have recently explained, step two of Chovan "is a simple inquiry: if a law regulating arms adversely affects a law-abiding citizen's right of defense of hearth and home, that law strikes at the core Second Amendment right" [and must be subject to strict scrutiny].

Under this framework, the application of 922(g)(4) to Mai strikes at the core Second Amendment rightand guts it. Indeed, 922(g)(4) completely deprives Mai of the ability to possess a firearm, even within the home, where protections are "at their zenith." In any other context, laws that burden the core of a fundamental right are invariably analyzed under heightened scrutinye.g., restrictions on the "content" of speech rarely survive strict scrutiny, nor do laws that restrict "core" political speech. We should not treat the Second Amendment any different.

[The panel] evaded any form of strict scrutiny, despite admitting that 922(g)(4)'s "lifetime ban" on Mai's Second Amendment right was "quite substantial," by minimizing the law's burden as falling on only a "narrow class" of individuals.

In doing so, the court seemingly pulls new doctrine out of its hat and magically transforms a fundamental right that belongs to an individual, into one that is class-based. Rather than face the total and permanent deprivation of the core Second Amendment right for Mai (and the class of people like him), the court refocused the inquiry on the size of the class. And ta-da!, the court holds, intermediate scrutiny applies. Like most magicians, the court refused to explain its act.

Because the law deprives only a "narrow class" of individuals their Second Amendment right, ipse dixit, it is analyzed only under intermediate scrutiny. Such reasoning is even more perplexing given that heightened scrutiny was originally announced as a method to protect the rights of "discrete and insular minorities." Today, according to the court, the fact that Mai belongs to a "narrow class" is, paradoxically, the very reason to lower the level of scrutiny applied to him. We should have corrected this jurisprudential sleight of hand.

Next, the court justified its decision to apply intermediate scrutiny by refusing to recognize Mai as a "law- abiding, responsible citizen." But its refusal to do so is baffling. Besides a brief involuntary commitment as a youth, nothing in the record shows that Mai is anything but a "law-abiding, responsible citizen." Instead, it shows that Mai is a person of advanced education and demonstrated professional achievement, with strong community and family support and no history of criminal activity or substance abuse.

Yes, he suffered from significant depression as a teen, but recent psychological evaluators and Washington state have concluded he is not currently mentally ill and presents no risk of violence to others or himself. Nor is that reasonably likely to change in the future. Washington, in turn, restored his right to possess firearms under state law.

But this court decided it knows better, holding that, "[r]egardless of [Mai's] present-day peaceableness," Mai is not a "law-abiding, responsible citizen" because of his brief commitment 20 years ago. The court, with no analysis, held that "[t]he same logic" used to prohibit a domestic-violence convict from possessing a firearm applied hereto a person like Mai. But a criminal conviction is not the same as mental illness. Unless pardoned, expunged, or set aside, a conviction always remains a conviction under the law. And, at least for felony convictions, there is historical support for a law resulting in forfeiture of property and rights. See 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries *377 (describing the possible punishments of serious crime as including "confiscation, by forfeiture of lands, or moveables, or both, or of the profits of lands for life: others induce a disability, of holding offices or employments, being heirs, executors, and the like").

So, while the law may hold that "once a convict, always a convict," tradition, history, and elementary psychology teach us that "once mentally ill, not always mentally ill." This is the distinction that the court ignores. Indeed, under the court's extreme reading of the law, any person falls outside of the Constitution's core protection if that person spends even one day in commitmenteven as a youth! Nothing in the text, history, and tradition of Constitution supports this view. The proper inquiry would have recognized that the lifetime ban imposed by 922(g)(4) on Mai is unequivocally a complete deprivation of his core right to home gun ownership. As such, the law is unconstitutional.

[D.] [The following portions of the opinion were also joined by Judges Ikuta, Bade, Hunsaker, Bennett, Collins, and Bress.-EV]

Even accepting the court's error and analyzing Mai's claim under intermediate scrutiny, we still got it wrong. In justifying the "reasonable fit" between the government's objective here, the court relies on several ill-suited studies, many compiling data from foreign countries. One of the primary studies relied on by the court analyzed suicide risk after release from involuntary commitment, but offered no information about suicide risk for someone like Mai20 years past his commitment and free of mental health issues. {Of the patients considered, 98% were considered for only a year following their commitment, and the remaining 2% were studied from 2.5 to 8.5 years post-commitment.} But undeterred, the court offers additional studies, perhaps even more inapplicable, such as a study focused on patients from Sweden {[which] involved all types of psychiatric diagnoses, not just depression},"community care" patients from Italy and Australia {[t]he court doesn't even define "community care," much less its relevance to Mai},an"[o]ut-patients" study with a meager 34 observations,and another study of predominately foreign patients (with some U.S. data from 1969).

Many years ago, judges took a turn as pseudo- psychologists and waded into whether a woman's mental health may be balanced against her constitutional rights. That case is generally not treated kindly today. I fear the court goes down the same path.

Heller's endorsement of text, history, and tradition as the proper lens for evaluating the scope of the Second Amendment was not accidental. There, the Court emphatically disapproved of courts determining on an ad hoc basis whether certain individuals were undeserving of the full complement of fundamental rights. Duy Mai deserves better. Our Constitution deserves better.

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The Second Amendment and People Who Had Been Involuntarily Committed 20 Years Ago - Reason

Recent political protests and associated gun violence in Wisconsin have put a spotlight on vigilantism and the rights of Americans under the Constitution to both peaceably protest and bear arms freely.

These topics, inextricably linked these days, were the focus of a Tuesday discussion by two Duke law scholars who took part in a virtual media briefing with journalists.

Watch the briefing on YouTube.

Here are excerpts:

ON GOVERNMENT POWER UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Nicole Ligon, First Amendment expert

The government has the authority to make and enforce rules for public health, safety, welfare such as the shutdown orders earlier this year. At the same time, the First Amendment protects peoples rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble. But very few constitutional rights are absolute.

The government is able to regulate the time, place and manner of speech in public forums as long as the restriction is narrowly focused to serve a significant government interest.

ON RECENT PERVASIVE VIGILANTISM

Darrell Miller, law professor

We as a sort of society have somehow drifted to a position where persons can cross state boundaries, sometimes heavily armed, appear on the streets again heavily armed, and theres very little that can happen beforehand in terms of an ability to stop it, with sometimes violent and calamitous results.

We dont have hard statistical data on this, but it should be noted that this is quite in contrast to absolutely innocuous events that turn out very, very badly with the deaths of young black men in America. Tamir Rice in Cleveland wasnt even a teenager, he was a young boy out on a playground playing with a toy gun. The police rode up and shot him dead.

It seems like theres two trigger fingers. Theres the trigger finger for African-Americans with guns and theres the trigger finger for whites with guns.

ON INTERPRETING THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Darrell Miller

Were operating in an environment in which the constitutional law is still not very clear as a matter of judicial rulings. Lots of people are making claims about what the Second Amendment does or does not permit in a highly tense environment.

Its always important to remember the Second Amendment is a floor, not a ceiling. It does not say whether a state, for example, can allow more guns in more places. That becomes a policy matter. There are tradeoffs. If you have lots of people in a highly charged political environment, armed, it makes the ordinary, peaceful process of politics much more difficult.

ON IMPOSING CURFEW ORDERS UNEQUALLY

Nicole Ligon

To the extent that curfew orders are being differentially enforced based on viewpoint, that is viewpoint discrimination. That is not going to be permitted by the First Amendment.

Youre not going to be able to differentially apply a curfew order to someone based on viewpoint. Youre not going to be able to say Black Lives Matter protesters cant be out past a certain time, but pro-police protester can.

ON USE OF LEGAL OBSERVERS DURING PROTESTS

Nicole Ligon

Legal observers are not unique to the US. They exist all over the world and frequently document police interactions with citizens. They serve a check function. The idea is that if they are there, maybe then there will be less biased reactions, there will be more clean arrests.

We have so many examples of important protests that have happened. Legal observers help to insure that protests occur in a safer way but also that everything is being documented and reported.

They act as these neutral third-party observers. Theres a really important role they serve for the commission of justice.

These are really critical roles, and theyre good for everyone.

ARE THE FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENTS INCOMPATIBLE WITH EACH OTHER?

Darrell Miller

I think there is at least a challenge with trying to reconcile these two things. The right in the Second Amendment is a right to keep and bear arms so people who think you have a right to have guns anywhere you happen to be, focus on the bear part. The right in the First Amendment is the right to peaceably assemble. You have the right to assemble in a way that does not disturb the peace.

The fundamental challenge is trying to square these two things where to some people, the mere presence of lethal weaponry in private hands at a protest terrifies and therefore is a potential challenge to the peace.

In a densely populated urban area where people are showing up with firearms, the norms and behaviors and expectations and the perceptions of what is happening are going to be totally different.

Do you fear going to a place to register your political views if you think there are going to be armed private individuals there?

Nicole Ligon

Its very likely that there is some element of chilling that will occur if you have protesters that are going to be met with counter-protesters who are bearing arms, brandishing weapons.

The question is not so much that these people have weapons, its why do they have them. Is it necessary to their speech for a counter-protester to be holding that weapon?

There is this element of chilling that could definitely occur. Thats something that really needs to be examined and looked at.

ON WHAT PRIVATE MILITIAS ARE ALLOWED TO DO IN PUBLIC

Darrell Miller

It really depends on what state youre in. Some states have a long track record of actually forbidding this kind of activity. For example, the state of Washington in the early part of the 20th century outlawed private organizations of armed men in part because what had happened was big moneyed interests were using private military to engage in labor suppression.

The bigger challenge here is that in some ways, a combination of beliefs about the Second Amendment and what it stands for, fairly generous laws about open carry and Stand Your Ground, and self-defense, and the low, low barriers to coordinating lots and lots of people through social media has made it plausible to have many, many armed individuals show up in the public square and not really be members of a private militia as much as a group of individuals with firearms that show up. It has the same, potentially pernicious effect in terms of risk of injury and risk of confrontation.

We have to understand that the tolerance or the norm of having your political position in the public square supported by arms is not something we think of in a well-ordered society. This is something you see in other countries that have fragile democracies.

ON WHAT CAN BE DONE TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION RIGHT NOW

Nicole Ligon

A greater appreciation for viewpoint diversity. These protests again are so incredibly personal, but I do wish as a society we werent so quick to say, I know what that protest is about and I dont support those people.

I think were doing a lot of blending of things we dont like and were conflating them with messages we decide offhand we dont agree with.

It has been really disappointing to see how some people talk about these Black Lives Matter protests. I really wish we did a better job of understanding why are these viewpoints necessary to be heard, where people are coming from and being able to differentiate who is really involved in a moment and who is opportunistically engaging in something that is completely separate.

Darrell Miller

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in its early years recognized violence in the public square, or threats of violence, has the damaging feature of undermining the message youre trying to send. If youre trying to send a message that police brutality is unacceptable, it undermines your message to engage in violence or threat of violence.

If youre concerned that the reopen (movement) is not happening fast enough, it feels like it undermines your moral position to not engage with others as equal citizens but to threaten violence in order to persuade others about your political position.

Faculty Participants

Nicole LigonNicole Ligon is a lecturing fellow and the supervising attorney of the First Amendment Clinic at Duke Law School, where she teaches First Amendment law. Before coming to Duke, she litigated First Amendment issues in private practice.

Darrell MillerDarrell Miller is a law professor who specializes incivil rights, constitutional law, civil procedure and state and local government law at Duke University. He also co-directs theCenter for Firearms Lawat Duke Law School. His scholarship on the Second Amendment has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

--

Duke experts on a variety of topics related the election and politics can be found here.

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How First and Second Amendments Apply in Protests - Duke Today

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

President Donald Trump remarked that a Joe Biden presidency would mark an end for your Second Amendment rights. He said this at an event in Jupiter, Fla., on Tuesday.

Well uphold your right to hunt, and we will protect your right to keep and bear armsyour Second Amendment, said President Trump. If Joe Biden gets in, your Second Amendment is gone. Its goneeither obliterated to a point of being gone or gone itself.

Joe Biden clearly supports some of the most anti-freedom proposals ever placed on an official platform by a major partys nominee for president. His anti-gun wish list includes bans on the most-popular firearms and magazines, gun registration, licensing schemes and much more. When Trump said Biden would either obliterate the Second Amendment or render it functionally ineffective, he is clearly just pointing to Bidens official record.

Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, has also made her stances on the Second Amendment clear. Like Biden, she supports a long list of gun-control measures, but she didnt stop there.

While running for the very nomination Biden secured, Harris said that if Congress did not pass her desired anti-Second Amendment legislation within her first 100 days in office, she would take executive action to make it happen. She even advocated for the confiscation of firearms, which she euphemistically referred to as a mandatory buyback; a position Biden has also said he supports while campaigning.

Meanwhile, Biden said Beto ORourke would help him take care of the gun problem. ORourke, another failed presidential candidate, said Hell, yes were going to take your AR-15, at a primary debate last fall.

President Trump, meanwhile, has remained steadfast in his defense of our rights. And the pressure put on me in the last four years to make massive changes to the Second Amendment, which would have really rendered it worthless. Trump said if he is reelected, Your Second Amendment will remain powerful, will remain strong, will remain with you.

Trumps comments come as Americans are choosing to arm themselves in record-setting numbers. Whether it is due to uncertainty or the potential of a Biden presidency, given what Biden would do with your rights if elected, it is clear that the Second Amendment is being exercised now more than ever.

Such is why the NRA-PVF endorsed President Trump for reelection.

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Trump: The Second Amendment Will Be Gone if Biden Elected President - America's 1st Freedom