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The restoration of Second Amendment-protected rights in the states is happening so quickly that its hard to keep up. On Friday, the Georgia legislature sent a bill to Governor Nathan Deal that would allow concealed handguns on public college campuses, with some exceptions built in to appease Deal, who vetoed a similar but stronger measure last year. Jerry Henry, executive director of GeorgiaCarry.org, a pro-gun rights group, was realistic: Its not the bill that we wanted but its the bill we got. It gives [us] a foot in the door. If Deal signs the bill, Georgia would become the 11th state with this kind of campus-carry law.

Georgia legislators also sent to Deals desk a bill that improved a number of the states existing gun laws, including giving individuals moving to the state from reciprocal carry agreement states a 90-day grace period to obtain a Georgia Weapons License (GWL) while continuing to carry legally using their previous states license. That bill also explicitly prohibits any probate judge from suspending, extending, delaying, or avoiding the process of approving a GWL application made by a citizen of the state.

In addition, it would protect firearms instructors from civil liability for any injuries caused by the failure of one of their students to use a firearm safely.

A third bill sent to Georgia Governor Beal would allow Virginia concealed handgun permit holders to enjoy permit reciprocity with Georgia.

The next day, multiple pro-gun and pro-hunting bills moved ahead in Virginia, including a measure that would allow any law-abiding person to carry a firearm in any state, county, or municipal park or other recreation area. Another bill would allow law-abiding Virginians to carry a firearm onto school property while dropping off or picking up students. Still another would protect shooting ranges from frivolous lawsuits and noise complaints as long as they are operating lawfully. This bill is a direct pushback against anti-gun groups that have filed such lawsuits and complaints in attempts to shut those ranges down.

Last week, North Dakota became the 14th state to allow constitutional carry, just weeks after New Hampshire passed similar legislation. Other constitutional-carry bills are pending in Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

A Michael Bloomberg-funded move in New Mexico to set up a gun registration system was rejected last week, following voter rejection of such a proposal in Maine last November.

On the national level, gun owners are celebrating House Speaker Paul Ryans withdrawal of his anti-gun ObamaCare Lite bill because of its hidden potential to invade Second Amendment-protected rights. Gun Owners of America (GOA) refused to back the bill unless it contained language that prohibited insurance companies from discriminating against gun owners, doctors from entering patients gun ownership information in any federal database, and federal agencies from trolling Medicaid and other federal health databases in order to add names to the NICS background-check database. GOAs demands were ignored, and so the group rallied its members against the passage of Ryans bill.

Also on the national level, Second Amendment supporters are still celebrating the move by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on his first day in office, which revoked a last-second move by former President Obama to phase out the use of lead ammunition for bird hunting on federal land. Under normal circumstances, such a directive wouldnt have rated a footnote, but in the present environment it showed that President Trump was not only determined to respect the Second Amendment but to put people in place in his cabinet with a similar determination.

And, just days later, President Trump himself repealed the so-called Social Security gun ban, under which certain Social Security beneficiaries would have had their Second Amendment-protected rights arbitrarily revoked without due process.

Another hopeful sign at the federal level is Trumps nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. After reviewing the available background of Gorsuch, 30-year defense attorney Andrew Branca, writing in National Review, stated:

As a strong Second Amendment advocate and someone who has concealed-carried a firearm for pretty much every day of my adult life I, for one, welcome Judge Gorsuchs nomination to the Supreme Court, with great optimism for the Courts future Second Amendment jurisprudence.

Restoring Second Amendment-protected rights after decades of efforts to abrogate them is an inch-by-inch process, and that process is being helped along greatly by a president who is determined to keep his promises in this area. On the importance of the Second Amendment, Trump wrote:

The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans. The Constitution doesnt create that right it ensures that the government cant take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendments purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own.

These victories, taken one at a time, dont appear to amount to much. Taken together, however, they indicate not only the momentum shift in favor of the Second Amendment, but a better understanding of it. The language does confuse some: 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.

The following statement concerning the importance of books in a well-educated culture, offered by Stephen Halbrook, a senior fellow at The Independent Institute, is instructive in clarifying the Founders meaning: A well-educated citizenry, being necessary to the culture of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.

An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Second Amendment Victories Continue to Pile Up - The New American

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GOA suggests the choice of confirming or not confirming is so clear cut that it boils down to one thing: Do you support the Second Amendment?

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Gorsuch is President Trumps nominee to fill the vacancy left behind by Second Amendment bulwark Antonin Scalia. And Gorsuchs nomination proves Trump true to his promise to put forward a justice very much in the mold of Justice Scalia.

GOA executive director Erich Pratt said, Gun Owners of America is urging people to contact their Senators and ask for an aye vote for the Senate.

GOA executive director emeritus Larry Pratt said, [Gorsuch] supports the Second Amendment as it was written [and] as it was understood at the time. So were pretty comfortable getting Mr. Gorsuch on the court, that he is going to be pretty much in line of Antonin Scalia.

Larry also said, This is going to be a whole lot better an appointment that if Hillary Clinton had been making it, that is for sure.

Breitbart News reported that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned Gorsuch during the confirmation hearings and used that opportunity to try to discover even a chance that he would be open to more gun control. What she found was Gorsuch standing on the law and the precedent of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Gorsuch said, Whatever is in Heller is the law and I follow the law.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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Gun Owners of AmericaVote on Gorsuch Comes Down to This: 'Do You Support 2nd Amendment?' - Breitbart News

This is a sad second amendment handgun carry case, Young v. Hawaii. The saddest fact is nothing can be done at this late stage to salvage it, thanks to the lawyer who represented Mr. Young on appeal.

Mr. Young represented himself in the district court. He is not a lawyer which is obvious by his complaint (and no offense to Mr. Young intended as you shall see). Nonetheless, in his 53 page complaint Mr. Young did one thing right. He stated that he had been denied a license to carry a handgun openly or concealed AND he asked for a license in his Prayer for Relief that he be given a license to carry a handgun openly or concealed.

Mr. Young no longer has standing to obtain a concealed carry permit but he did have standing to seek a handgun Open Carry license. The denial of a state license always confers standing on the party denied the license in this circuit.

Unfortunately, Mr. Young found himself an attorney for his appeal.

Instead of simply asking for a license to carry a handgun in public, his attorney asked the court to do something it cannot do and that is issue an Order compelling the law to be rewritten.

Courts cannot issues orders compelling a legislature to take a coffee break let alone write a new law. In the alternative, Mr. Youngs attorney, Alan Beck, asked the court to strike down Hawaiis licensing law but not the laws which prohibit Mr. Young from carrying a handgun in public without a license.

I kid you not.

The court of appeals can, with the stroke of a pen, strike down Hawaiis licensing law but if it did, Mr. Young would still be prohibited from carrying a handgun in public.

Mr. Youngs attorney sought various other things, such as striking down Hawaiis prohibitions on switchblade and butterfly knives and Hawaiis long gun Open Carry ban but since Mr. Young did not seek to carry a long gun in the district court that claim is forfeited on appeal as is Mr. Youngs desire to carry other weapons, including switchblade and butterfly knives, because Hawaii does not issue licenses to carry switchblades, butterfly knives or stun guns and the courts can not force Hawaii to write a licensing law which would permit Mr. Young to even possess these items let alone carry them in public.

Mr. Youngs appeal was stayed pending the disposition of another of Mr. Becks appeals which likewise went down in flames nearly three weeks ago (Baker v. Kealoha).

Ironically, had Mr. Young continued to represent himself on appeal without the benefit of an attorney then the court of appeals would have had to liberally construe Mr. Youngs briefs in his favor.

That is no longer possible.

California Open Carry Appeal Charles Nichols v. Edmund Brown, Jr., et al

Six years ago this May, I announced that I would be filing a lawsuit which seeks to overturn Californias 1967 ban on openly carrying loaded firearms in public. California would subsequently ban the Open Carry of unloaded handguns and long guns as well. I amended my complaint to challenge those bans as well as challenge two California handgun carry license laws which prohibit the issuance of handgun Open Carry permits in counties with a population of 200,000 or more people and limits the validity of the licenses to the county of issuance.

These same past six years I have watched concealed carry lawsuits fall like flies across the nation because the lawyers in those cases argued that when the US Supreme Court said that concealed carry is not a right and can therefore be prohibited, what the high court actually said is that Open Carry can be banned in favor of concealed carry.

As such, all of these cases lost on appeal.

Unlike Baker v. Kealoha or Young v. Hawaii, there are no standing or jurisdictional problems with my appeal and the states attorney does not claim that there are any. The Second Amendment questions in my appeal resolve into one simple question Does the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms extend even one inch outside the doors to our home?

I argue that it does. If the panel of 9th circuit judges assigned to my appeal agrees, then I win.

The California states attorney argues that there is no right to carry outside of the home and he especially argues that there is no right to openly carry a firearm for the purpose of self-defense outside of ones home.

If the state wins then it creates multiple SCOTUS Rule 10 splits which is something no Second Amendment cert petition to SCOTUS has been able to claim and SCOTUS rarely grants a cert petition without a Rule 10 split.

The Only Second Amendment Win in 9th Circuit is by a Non-Lawyer

This June marks the 9th anniversary of the landmark Second Amendment decision by the Supreme Court, District of Columbia v. Heller. In all of that time there has been but one Second Amendment win in the 9th circuit and that case was won by Paul Murphy, who is not an attorney.

Mr. Murphy succeeded in striking down the handgun Open Carry ban in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI).

In the same lawsuit, Mr. Murphy succeeded in striking down the CNMIs: 1) Registration of firearms, 2) Ban on long gun calibers above .223, 3) Ban on Assault Rifle Attachments to semiautomatic rifles and, 4) The $1,000 excise tax on pistols.

The judge would have struck down the CNMIs storage restrictions on firearms in the home and ban on large capacity magazines but didnt because she was prevented from doing so because of a 9th circuit court of appeals decision argued and lost by NRA lawyers.

The Second Amendment is too important to be trusted to lawyers.

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The Next Second Amendment Handgun Carry Case to Go Down in Flames - NewsBlaze (registration) (blog)

Imagine carrying a gun in Texas without a government-approved license.

Sound far-fetched? Impossible? It is not - and the unlicensed carrying of firearms is not all that unique.

An organization advocating restrictive gun laws appeared before the Texas Legislature Tuesday. The group opposes legislation that would allow for the carrying of handguns without a license and to related offenses and penalties. (This is from terminology of House Bill 375.)

According to the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, HB 375 and a similar bill are dangerous permitless carry bills that would dismantle Texas permitting system, allowing people to carry loaded handguns in public without a permit or safety training.

What these two bills would do would be similar to what already exists in a dozen states - the unlicensed carrying of guns. There is legislation in Wisconsin allowing concealed handguns to be legally carried without a license. North Dakota approved similar legislation last week.

So, in other words, the state of Texas is not exactly creating its own version of the Second Amendment - other states have or are considering similar legislation.

We are not yet ready to advocate for the so-called constitutional carry law in Texas - meaning the unlicensed carrying of firearms. Let the debate begin.

However, as lawmakers consider the legislation, keep in mind that Texas has had some form of a concealed carry handgun law since 1995 - and there has not been bloodshed in the streets, as many predicted. And other states already allow the unlicensed carry of firearms.

Other laws related to gun control currently in the Texas Legislature give us pause, such as laws that would penalize private businesses which do not allow firearms. It is preferable to allow private business owners to decide for themselves whether to allow the carry of firearms on their property rather than have government dictate what they must do. (This is what clearly-posted signs are for - to inform the public of whether firearms are permitted on the property of a private business.)

Lawmakers in Texas should take a look at how the unlicensed carry of guns is working in other states. Are there similarities with Texas as far as population? What about the rate of crime? Economic factors?

Proceed with this information and research before automatically assuming that Second Amendment is dangerous.

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Editorial: Second Amendment is not 'dangerous' - Amarillo.com

The Right-to-Carry revolution continues to sweep across the country. With Gov. Doug Burgums signing of HB 1169 last week, North Dakota became the latest state to adopt a permitless/constitutional carry law. New Hampshire passed its own permitless carry law earlier this year, while other states like South Carolina are still considering similar legislation. (South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed a constitutional carry bill passed by the legislature earlier this month.) There are now more states that have constitutional carry laws than there are states with restrictive may-issue policies for carrying firearms. In other words, more state laws look like New Hampshires than New Jerseys, and thats a very good thing.

Judges have been considering the right to bear arms in courtrooms across the country, and a few of them have come up with some pretty extraordinary interpretations of the Second Amendment to justify restrictive gun control regimes. Many of them try to seize upon Antonin Scalias comment in Heller that not all gun control laws would be found to be unconstitutional as evidence that governments should have broad leeway in passing laws restricting the Second Amendment rights of their constituents. Others claim that as firearms have changed over the years, the meaning of the Second Amendment must have changed as well. Because the Founding Fathers never could have envisioned semi-automatic rifles, or multi-shot pistols, laws banning rifles and restricting the carrying of firearms are therefore fine and dandy. But few courts have considered what states around the country have actually been doing for the past few decades.More state laws look like New Hampshires than New Jerseys, and thats a very good thing.

In 1987, there were only nine states that were shall-issue in regards to concealed-carry licenses, and only Vermont expressly allowed carry without a permit. Twenty-four states authorized broad discretion in terms of who could carry, and 16 didnt allow any concealed carry at all. Just 30 years later, there are no states left with complete bans on carrying firearms. Twenty-nine states now have shall-issue laws, 13 now have permitless carry, and only eight (nine, if you include Washington, D.C.) still have the may-issue laws on the books. Constitutional carry isnt clustered in just one region of the country, either. In the northwest, Idaho adopted its permitless carry law in 2016; in the southeast, Mississippi did the same; while in the mid-Atlantic, West Virginia also adopted constitutional carry. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed constitutional carry into law in 2010, and Maine and New Hampshire recently joined Vermont in becoming permitless carry states. This is a broad movement, but good luck getting many judges on the 4th or 9th Circuits to notice.This is a broad movement, but good luck getting many judges on the 4th or 9th Circuits to notice.

Even if you view the Constitution as a living document, changing with the times without any need to actually amend it, its pretty clear that this country supports the individual right to keep and bear arms as much or more than we did at the time of the nations founding. Yes, there are a handful of states where anti-gun attitudes dominate legislatures and the public square, but the momentum is on the side of the Second Amendment. While dozens of states have adopted shall-issue or constitutional carry measures over the past three decades, not one state has reversed course. No state has instituted a ban on the carrying of firearms, or even switched from a shall-issue to a may-issue law. The country has been moving in one direction when it comes to the right to carry, and its in the direction of a full recognition of our Second Amendment rights.

Cam Edwards is the host of Cam & Co., which airs live 2-5 p.m. EST on NRATV and midnight EST on SiriusXM Patriot 125.He lives with his family on a small farm near Farmville, Va. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @camedwards.

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Continuing Down The Road To Second Amendment Freedom - America's 1st Freedom (press release) (blog)