Archive for the ‘Second Amendment’ Category

Gun Enthusiasts Fired Up For Second Amendment Tax Free Weekend – www.localmemphis.com

MISSISSIPPI - Gun enthusiasts are fired up for the magnolia state's second amendment tax free weekend.

Today and tomorrow you won't have to pay sales tax when you buy guns, ammo, and accessories.

Mississippi's first tax free holiday kicked off in 2014 in an effort to support second amendment rights and trigger a boost in the economy.

Gun store owners say the event is always successful because people like saving money.

"Sales tax in Mississippi is 7% so say you came in and bought a gun for $500 you're gonna save $35 well that equates to dinner out with your family depending on where you go or a tank of gas," says Jeff Duncan, Owner of the Gun Exchange

You must be 18 years old to buy a long gun and 21 to buy a hand gun.

You also must pass the FBI mandated background check.

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Gun Enthusiasts Fired Up For Second Amendment Tax Free Weekend - http://www.localmemphis.com

ALABAMA JOINS 21-STATE COALITION URGING SUPREME COURT TO PROTECT SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS – Shoals Insider

MONTGOMERY Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Alabama has joined a 21-state coalition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the rights of gun owners against efforts to ban certain firearms typically used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.

In their amicus brief in the case Kolbe v Hogan, the states asked the Supreme Court to hear arguments against, and ultimately strike down, a Maryland weapons ban that infringes on the rights of legal gun owners by prohibiting the sale, transfer and possession of certain semiautomatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines.

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, in this case, must not stand since it would set case law in five states and potentially set the stage for a federal ban by a future Congress, said Attorney General Marshall. These firearms are already protected under existing case law relating to weapons that are lawfully carried by gun owners.

Alabama and the other states argue the lower court ruling inappropriately limited the scope of the Second Amendment by taking an earlier Supreme Court ruling out of context.

Alabama, joined West Virginia, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming in filing the brief Friday.

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ALABAMA JOINS 21-STATE COALITION URGING SUPREME COURT TO PROTECT SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS - Shoals Insider

D.C. attorney general wants federal judges to look at city’s strict gun … – Washington Post

The Districts top lawyer on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to rehear a challenge to the citys strict limits on carrying concealed firearms.

Attorney General Karl A. Racines decision follows a ruling last month from a three-judge panel that blocks the Districts requirement of a good reason to obtain a permit because the requirement prevents most residents from carrying guns in public places.

City officials say the restrictions are common sense gun rules needed to promote public safety in the nations capital. Racine wants a full complement of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the panels ruling against the city.

Review by the full court is necessary due to the importance of this question, which affects the safety of every person who lives in, works in, or visits the District, according to the new court filing. Through their elected representatives, District residents have decided that public carrying without good reason is inconsistent with public safety.

The citys permitting system remains in effect while the appeal is under review. If the court declines to revisit the panels decision, the order to permanently block enforcement of the good reason requirement would take effect seven days later.

In its 2-to-1 ruling last month, the panel found the D.C. law in violation of the Second Amendment.

Bans on the ability of most citizens to exercise an enumerated right would have to flunk any judicial test, wrote Judge Thomas B. Griffith, who was joined by Judge Stephen F. Williams.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented, siding with the city and finding that the regulation passes muster because of the Districts unique security challenges and because the measure does not affect the right to keep a firearm at home.

[Appeals court blocks enforcement of D.C.s strict concealed-carry law]

The Supreme Court in 2008 used a D.C. case to declare for the first time an individual right to gun ownership apart from military service. But the high court has shown little interest in going further to decide whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home.

In June, for instance, the Supreme Court declined to take up a California case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said the Second Amendment does not protect the right to carry a concealed weapon in public.

[Gun ruling raises an issue the Supreme Court has been reluctant to review]

Under the Districts law, residents who want a permit to carry a concealed firearm must show that they have good reason to fear injury or a proper reason, such as transporting valuables. The regulations specify that living or working in a high crime area shall not by itself qualify as a good reason to carry.

As of July 15, D.C. police had approved 126 concealed-carry licenses and denied 417 applicants, according to the police department.

The Districts requirement is similar to rules in other states, including Maryland, New York and New Jersey.

Petitions for rehearing by a full complement of judges on the D.C. Circuit are filed frequently, but the court rarely grants such requests, taking up less than a handful each term.

A single judge may call for a vote on such a petition, but a rehearing requires sign-off from a majority of the 11 active judges on the court.

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D.C. attorney general wants federal judges to look at city's strict gun ... - Washington Post

Breyer: Second Amendment Not About ‘the Right of an Individual to Keep a Gun Next to His Bed’ – PJ Media

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said in an interview aired Tuesday that judges make poor politicians, that he misses late Justice Antonin Scalia, and that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to a citizen keeping a gun next to their bed.

In a wide-ranging interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Breyer said he thought Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the 1857Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that found blacks could not be American citizens, "tried to be a politician."

"And he thought that -- perhaps he thought, that by reaching a decision saying a black person was not a person, that's roughly what he held, unbelievable. But, he thought he would help prevent the Civil War...if anything, he helped bring about the Civil War because Benjamin Curtis wrote a great dissent showing, I think, at the time, his decision was wrong. It's not using hindsight, but really wrong. Abraham Lincoln picked it up, read Taney's decision and said this is a shocker, then used the dissent in his speech at Cooper Union," Breyer noted.

"Which was the speech that propelled him to the head of the Republican Party, and helped get him the nomination and then all followed. He was really an abolitionist at heart. They knew that in the South and then, the Civil War followed," he added. "So, if that was Taney's idea, he was wrong. Judges are not good politicians. They may have some exposure to politics, but that's what I mean when I say junior league."

Breyer recalled Scalia being a masterful writer. "The job of a judge in an appellate court is, in an opinion, to explain the reasons why he or she reached this opinion," he said. "Now, I don't think that that calls for or requires what you might be able to do in terms of great phrasing but if you can do that, it can be an advantage. But what I meant because people -- when Nino and I use -- I miss him, I do."

Breyer stressed that "it's a big country" with 320 million people who "think a lot of different things," thus "it is not such a terrible thing, if on the Supreme Court, there are people who have different, somewhat different jurisprudential outlooks."

"You know, Scalia probably likes rules more than I do. He tends to find clarity in trying to get a clear rule. I have probably more of a view that life is a mess," the justice said, adding that it comes down to "basic outlook about the Constitution, how it applies today to people who must live under it."

"Those are where the differences come up. It's not politics."

Breyer said people shouldn't look at the High Court as a political arbiter. "It is not the Supreme Court that tells people what to do. [The Constitution] sets boundaries. We are, in a sense, the boundary commission," he said. "...But don't make the mistake of confusing a tough question at the boundary with the fact about what the document is like, because the document leaves vast space in between the boundaries for people themselves through the ballot box to decide what cities, towns, states, what kind of a nation they want. That's what this foresees, and if you do not participate, it won't work."

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Breyer: Second Amendment Not About 'the Right of an Individual to Keep a Gun Next to His Bed' - PJ Media

LA Times: Restrict the Second Amendment at First Amendment rallies – Hot Air

The LA Times published an editorial Wednesday titled Dont restrict free speech. Restrict the right to carry guns at potentially explosive public events. The argument is that free speech is too important to restrict but, for safetys sake, police should be willing to tell people no guns allowed at outdoor rallies. And as the Times points out, its not just right-wing gun owners bringing weapons to these rallies.

Virginia is a preemption state that also allows open carry, and the nation saw the results at Charlottesville, where paramilitary militias men heavily armed with military-style weapons and in some cases battle gear appeared as part of the Unite the Right rally. But far-left groups, including the so-calledRedneck Revolt, a liberal pro-gun group, have alsoparaded aroundwith their firearms at various demonstrations.

That last link is a reference to armed members of Redneck Revolt who showed up in Phoenix last night, but the same group was also present in Charlottesville. The groups own report on the situation says they had 20 members on the street, most carrying rifles:

Today, with hundreds more white supremacists expected to converge on Charlottesville, our Redneck Revolt branches worked together with local organizers to create and secure a staging area at Justice Park, within a short distance of the planned Unite the Right rally location, Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park). Approximately 20 Redneck Revolt members created a securityperimeter around the park, most of them open-carrying tactical rifles.

Im not sure why the Times failed to point out that there were armed, left-wing militia members in Charlottesville except perhaps that it tends to support what Trump said about there being violence (or the potential for it) on many sides. In any case, the Times suggests this is too dangerous to allow it to continue:

This is a problem that the nation must resolve. A group of self-organized, trained and heavily armed men (and these groups are predominantly male) is a paramilitary organization, and giving it megaphones and parade banners doesnt magically transform it into something peaceful. Adding open carry to a contentious event can put public safety at risk, and thepresence of visible firearmscreates unique problems for the police

Its not the right to speech and assembly that should be restricted; its the right to carry guns in certain potentially explosive situations. Gun advocates like to argue they have the right to bear arms as a bulwark against tyrannical government, but government has a responsibility here as well: to keep people safe.

I suspect the editorial writers for the LA Times are not gun owners and, maybe, dont know any gun owners. But its worth noting that despite having two ostensibly opposing groups of armed people in Charlottesville, no shots were fired. It wasnt the gun owners who got violent, it was the kids with flagpoles and onenutwith a muscle car.

Im not a lawyer so maybe there is some sort of time and place exception that could be used by local police when doling out permits. But it seems to me that, ultimately, the state cant dole out one constitutional right to be exercisedat a time. We dont get to have the First Amendment only if we agree togive up the Second, at least I hope not.

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LA Times: Restrict the Second Amendment at First Amendment rallies - Hot Air