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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.

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

The opinion holds that even if butterfly or balisong knives are protected by the Second Amendment of the Constitution, a state law banning any possession, manufacture or transport of such knives is constitutionally valid.

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- The Hawai'i Federal District Court has issued an opinion in Teter v. Connors that guts the Second Amendment.

The opinion holds that even if butterfly or balisong knives are protected by the Second Amendment of the Constitution, a state law banning any possession, manufacture or transport of such knives is constitutionally valid. From the opinion:

The popularity of an all-encompassing class of weapon (the knife, or even the folding knife)is immaterial when only one narrow subset of the class (the butterfly knife) is banned here.The Court declines to treat the ban on butterfly knivesa relatively obscure weaponthe same way the Heller Court viewed the ban on handgunsthe quintessentialself-defense weapon. Doing so would neglect the Supreme Courts emphasis on the regulated weapon at issueand by extension much of the Courts reasoning that led to its ultimate holding. This case simply does not amount to the same level of destruction of the [Second Amendment] right as Heller.

The plaintiffs are appealing the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals.

The Supreme Court has been deadlocked and unable or unwilling to protect the exercise of those rights. Without the election of Donald Trump and the appointment of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, the Second Amendment would be dead letter law across the United States. Instead, federal appeals courts in circuits hostile to the Second Amendment have been using the lack of SCOTUS action to slice away most meaningful Second Amendment protections in several Circuits, notably the Ninth and the Second Circuits.

The first salami slice is the claim that Heller is a very narrow decision, only protecting the defense of self and others in the home with commonly available handguns.

The Supreme Court has not corrected this extreme position, allowing lower courts to claim Second Amendment protections do not extend outside the home; do not cover semi-automatic rifles; do not cover magazines; do not cover ammunition; do not cover the ability to sell guns, do not cover the ability to store unlocked firearms in the home, ready for use.

This is the core of the argument used in the Hawai'i District Court opinion.

In this extreme view, handguns in the home are the only core of what is protected by Second Amendment rights.

In this view, knives are not mentioned in Heller, therefore the court is free to declare that certain knives are not as protected as handguns.

The particular Hawaii law only bans a particular type of knife. The Court's opinion in Teter v. Connors is the law is Constitutional because it does not ban all knives. Heller rejected this viewpoint with Caetano, unanimously clarifying the Second Amendment applies to all bearable arms.

With the salami approach to the Second Amendment, laws banning all magazines which hold more than one round of ammunition, all ammunition of greater power than a .22 short, and all knives except for butter knives, could be banned, bit by bit, and pass Constitutional muster.

Laws banning carry outside the home are already in effect in New York City and Hawaii.

It is absurd. It shows the arrogance of the District Court, and its belief the Supreme Court will do nothing to prevent a wholesale ban of most weapons in most circumstances, as long as it is done salami slice by salami slice.

The District Court mentioned the Caetano decision, which makes clear knives are protected by the Second Amendment. The Hawai'i opinion defines the protection of the Second Amendment as so close to zero, in its view, as to be effectively meaningless.

The logic, as such, is this: even though butterfly knives are covered by the Second Amendment, they are not part of the core right: therefore they may be banned by the state.

The District Court goes on to say intermediate scrutiny applies; it cites appellate courts where intermediate scrutiny has devolved to a mere rational basis.

The Court repeatedly cites the N.Y.State Rifle & Pistol Assn, Inc. v. City of N.Y., N.Y., (N.Y.S.R.P.A.). The N.Y.S.R.P.A. case was so certain of being overturned by the Supreme Court, the City of New York and the State of New York changed their law and regulatory framework, to moot the case, so the Supreme Court would not hear it.

The opinion in Teter, from Hawai'i, cites N.Y.S.R.P.A. no less than nine times.

For those unfamiliar with the scrutiny framework, strict scrutiny means the court can deny the exercise of the right in only the most extreme circumstances. For example, the exercise of Second Amendment rights can be denied to a prisoner.

The next level is intermediate scrutiny. This is supposed to be a somewhat lower standard. The law or regulation being considered is supposed to affect the Constitutional right in a peripheral way. Intermediate scrutiny is supposed to require the government to prove the particular law serves an important government objective, and the law is substantially related to achieving that objective. In intermediate scrutiny, the government is to bear the burden of proof.

The lowest level of scrutiny is rational basis. Almost all laws pass this level. At this level, the plaintiff, not the government, must prove the law is not related to any rational objective in any way. It is an almost impossible burden.

Several appellate court decisions have degraded intermediate scrutiny, as applied to the Second Amendment, to a mere rational basis, which Heller explicitly forbids. The Circuit courts avoid the ban on the use of rational basis, by calling their rational basis scrutiny intermediate scrutiny.

An important government interest is safety. Safety has become a catchall reason in any Second Amendment case. No court has required the government to show whether safety is actually improved with a law infringing on the Second Amendment. As for whether the law is substantially related to achieving the objective of greater safety, the court simply takes the government's word for it.

For infringements on the Second Amendment, no proof has been required. In the Hawai'i case, the government did not show a single crime where a butterfly knife was used.

The opinion cites several appellate court cases to justify its definition of intermediate scrutiny as no more than a different name for rational basis.

If intermediate scrutiny were to have any actual bite in this case, the government would have to prove banning butterfly knives, while leaving the vast majority of knives unregulated, would have an actual effect on crime. The opinion does not require proof. It assumes the government knows best.

If these definitions are accepted as the correct way to determine what level of regulation is permissible under the Second Amendment, it is difficult to imagine what arms are forbidden for the government to ban. Perhaps we would be allowed five shot .22 revolvers, which would be required to be unloaded and locked up, separate from any ammunition, when not actually carried on our person, in our home.

These arguments make the Second Amendment dead letter law, by reducing the limits on government power to irrelevant and minuscule restrictions, which have little practical effect.

It is the long-running dispute between two philosophical views of the Constitution.

Progressives state the Constitution is living document, the meaning of which is whatever a set of judges wants it to mean, at any given time. Words mean whatever they wish them to mean. In the view of Progressives, the Constitution is an impediment to government power, which can easily be worked around with sufficient legislative wordsmithing.

The corrosive effect of the Supreme Court refusing to correct the obvious error by the lower courts is well illustrated by the opinion in Teter v. Connors, citing of the N.Y.S.R.P.A. case. All parties understood N.Y.S.R.P.A. was a terrible decision, obviously violating Second Amendment protections.

By refusing to hear the case after the City and State went to great lengths to make it moot, the case is now being cited to restrict and degrade Second Amendment rights in the Ninth Circuit case in Hawaii.

The appellate courts showing open hostility to the Second Amendment must be corrected. Teter v. Connors may be a way for the court to correct them. The case involves knives, not guns. The court was willing to hear Caetano, which was about electric stun guns, not firearms.

It is possible a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit will reverse Teter.

Both avenues of redress become moot if President Trump loses the election. Supreme Court justices hostile to the Second Amendment will be added to the Supreme Court. The court will start hearing Second Amendment cases, in order to reverse Heller.

If the Senate is flipped to Democrat, the court will likely be packed with six more Progressive judges to bring the total to 15 justices. Both the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, and the electoral college will be effectively destroyed.

Unfortunately, our liberties rest on the outcome of the 2020 election.

This is what happens when a philosophy hostile to the idea of limited government has been taught in the schools for three generations.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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Second Amendment Knife Case in Hawaii: Dangerous Opinion - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

This weeks publication of Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption, Greed, and Paranoia Within the Most Powerful Political Group in America is a new blow to the reeling organization.

Written by Joshua L. Powell, the former second-in-command to Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre, the book is a full-throated indictment of the National Rifle Association and its leader, who is likened to a con man.

Wayne abandoned the advocacy of the Second Amendment years ago and became exactly what he himself had once railed against in countless speeches and commercials the elite, the Establishment, lost in a made-up dystopian world that he had created and sold to our members, writes Powell, whom the NRA fired last winter, allegedly for improper spending.

In August, New York State Attorney General Letitia James brought a complaint against the NRA that seeks the gun groups dissolution. Powell and LaPierre are named in the complaint, which details years of waste, fraud, and self-enrichment implicating NRA leadership.

In an interview with USA Today, Powell disputed some of the allegations in Jamess complaint and expressed desire to cooperate with her. In an interview with The New York Times, Powells attorney suggested that his clients expenditures only became an issue after the organization turned on Powell and that restitution was made.

The National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful special interest groups in America.We're investigating how it spends its money.

Im neither the villain nor the hero of this story, Powell writes. Instead, I feel like Im kind of a pilgrim who lost his way, who abandoned his principles and lost his footing, for a time.

The NRAs default approach to raising money and rousing the faithful, he writes, has been to stoke anxiety and fear of stricter gun laws, violent crime, civil disorder while remaining defiant. We only knew one speed and one direction: Sell the fear, Powell writes. LaPierre used the tactic time and again to boost flagging donations. A boogeyman, like a Democrat in the White House, always helped. It was a crazy time, Powell writes of President Barack Obamas eight years in office. The membership money and donations were an open spigot at that point. And if we needed more, Wayne would just pour gasoline on the fire, as he put it.

Powell describes the NRA as dysfunctional. I saw incredible incompetence, a culture of political backbiting and a Game of Thrones atmosphere that people outside our Merchants of Death bubble would never believe. Rather than being a well-oiled, data-driven lobbying machine, we were stuck back in the Dark Ages. There was no war room at the NRA, no coordinated effort between our lobbyists. There was no data machine that kicked out metrics the way a top-notch lobbying shop would have. As Wayne said to me on many occasions, Josh, come on, you know its all smoke and mirrors. The Wizard of Oz, just pull back the green curtain.

LaPierre is intelligent and shrewd about politics, according to Powell, but an abysmal leader. He fears confrontation, Powell says, and is unable to manage the organizations many egos, allowing crises of all sorts to fester. Powell describes La Pierre as temperamentally ill-suited to his post, and writes that he would often disappear, to God knows where, for a few days, or a week or two at a time, checking in but not divulging where he was. LaPierre feels little duty to others, Powell suggests, and has failed to acknowledge how his own missteps have contributed to the NRAs current predicament. Wayne feels that he has sacrificed everything to the NRA, Powell writes. That he is the NRA. That he is owed something, somehow. That he is the Jesus Christ of the Second Amendment, hands nailed to the cross. And that is how he justifies his actions in his mind. Why do I think that? Because I heard it from him for years.

Most surprisingly, Powell faults the organization for its reluctance to give even modest ground in the debate over firearms in America. In the book he states his support for a slew of measures, from improved data collection and research on gun violence to implementing universal background checks, which he predicts could move the debate in a more productive direction. At the top of Powells list however, is regime change at the NRA, which he alleges has fueled a toxic debate by appealing to the paranoia and darkest side of our members, in a way that has torn at the very fabric of America.

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NRA Tell-All Says Wayne LaPierre Sees Himself as Jesus of the Second Amendment - The Trace