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TOMBSTONE This Old West town, known for its legendary shootout at the OK Corral, gun-packing locals and gunfight shows, has been proclaimed Americas Second Amendment City.

Tombstone Mayor Dusty Escapule read the proclamation at last weeks City Council meeting to a round of applause and an approving council.

The citizens of Tombstone are accustomed to having firearms around, Escapule said. Just stop and look up and down Allen Street. Most of the guys are carrying a gun.

The idea of a formal proclamation was pitched to the mayor by local business owner Gordon Anderson.

This represents a great day in our history, Anderson said. Right now, were Americas only Second Amendment City. It fits into our past, present and future. I was very pleased to see that Mayor Escapule was able to issue the proclamation with no objections.

Johnny Rowland, a media spokesman for Gun Owners of America a gun advocacy organization with 1.5 million members attended the meeting.

Gun Owners of America is in complete support of this proclamation for Tombstone and in support of Arizona as the most gun-friendly state in America, he said.

A call placed to the National Rifle Association Tuesday morning for comment was not returned.

As a tourist attraction, a large part of Tombstones draw is based on the towns historic gunfights from its years past, Escapule said. He also mentioned the list of venues in Tombstone that have evolved around guns.

We have SASS (Single Action Shooting Society), daily gunfight shows in various locations and the National Fast Draw Contest, Escapule said.

In addition, every third weekend in October, the town celebrates Tombstone Helldorado Days with three days of action-packed street entertainment and gunfight shows.

As soon as word about the proclamation got out, I was getting calls from everywhere, Escapule said. In this part of the country, most residents support the Second Amendment. I felt the proclamation is something I should do for the citizens of Tombstone as well as our neighbors along the international border.

At Tuesdays council meeting, Escapule made it clear the proclamation is not intended to advocate gun violence but simply reinforces the citizens rights under the Second Amendment. Proclaiming Tombstone as Americas Second Amendment City is not intended to alter or change the citys long-standing slogan, The town too tough to die, the mayor said.

We have one of the old pioneer, true West cities in America, and thats what I want people across the country to know.

See the rest here:
Tombstone proclaimed 'America's Second Amendment City' - Eastern Arizona Courier

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that Chicago had once again violated the Second Amendment, this time with its regulations for gun ranges.

The process is basically the same every time.

First, Chicago enacts some uniquely stupid gun control regime. And when we say uniquely, we mean that nobody else would even try it, not even gun-hating officials in other crime-ridden cities.

Next, a federal court says, in effect: Hey, Chicago, remember when you single-handedly ensured the incorporation of the Second Amendment against all states and localities with your handgun ban? The right still applies. You cant just suppress it for any or no reason at all.

Chicago then loudly insists that against its better judgment it has changed its laws to comply with the court ruling, when it fact everyone knows it really just shuffled the rules around to make whatever it formerly banned outright technically legal but practically impossible.

This provokes further litigation, during which the city will change this or that aspect of its regulations as the case bounces up and down between the trial and appellate courts.

Needless to say, all this happens on the publics dime, as if Chicago with a staggering 762 murders last year -- has no better way to spend money than by enacting and futilely defending useless gun control for which the city cannot produce any evidence of efficacy.

This weeks opinion in Ezell v. Chicago recounted how the Seventh Circuit had previously held that the city could not ban ranges, provoking the above described scenario.

Chicagos response to the prior appellate ruling, according to Wednesdays opinion, was to enact an elaborate scheme of regulations governing shooting ranges. While those rules were in litigation, the city amended them multiple times. Finally, the trial court ruled on the measures upholding some and invalidating others and the litigants appealed the worst of the surviving rules to the appellate court.

These rules included banning anyone under age 18 from so much as entering a range and zoning requirements that eliminated almost 98% of the city as possible locations, with the remaining choices of questionable commercial viability. No range, as the city intended, had managed to open for business.

Circuit Judge Diane S. Sykes, writing for a three-judge panel, called out the city on its charade in very plain terms.

To justify its zoning restrictions, the city claimed firing ranges attract gun thieves, cause airborne lead contamination, and carry a risk of fire. Yet according to the court, the city failed to provide any evidentiary support for these claims. As in none.

The court noted, The Citys own witnesses testified to the lack of evidentiary support for these assertions. They repeatedly admitted that they knew of no data or empirical evidence to support any of these claims. And the citys zoning administer conducted no investigation, visited no firing ranges in other jurisdictions, consulted no expert, and essentially did no research at all.

The city also failed to explain why commercial ranges needed to be regulated so much more strictly than police and private security ranges, which have long operated without incident in areas where commercial ranges are banned under the zoning rules.

In other words, Chicago put forth an embarrassingly sloppy and unsupported case. The city, Judge Sykes wrote, cannot defend its regulatory scheme with shoddy data or reasoning or with mere lawyers talk.

The court also held that the city failed to support its claim that minors have no Second Amendment rights at all, and so can be categorically banned from firearm training. Theres zero historical evidence that firearm training for this age group is categorically unprotected, the court stated.

Chicago fared no better with its weak argument that preventing older adolescents and teens from training in the controlled atmosphere of a range is common sense. The court again cited testimony from the citys own witness to rebut this claim. Somewhat incredulously, Judge Sykes pointed out that the witness had testified: my own son took a shooting class when he was 12, so Im well aware of the fact its okay to teach a young person how to shoot a gun properly.

That the case was an embarrassing failure to Chicago and its lawyers, however, is not likely to change the citys tactics. Stringing things along and keeping the regulatory environment in flux is, for the citys purposes, the next best thing to a ban. No business can operate in an environment where the rules that govern its activities are unknown or unknowable. And as long as no range opens in the city, its gun ban bureaucrats can continue to claim victory.

What Chicago cant claim, however, is that any of its gun control schemes which require the publics treasure to uselessly defend time and again have done anything to stem the bloodshed in its streets. Law-abiding Chicagoans will have to wait for their rights, but the criminals committing these crimes remain, apparently, unhindered.

More here:
NRA-ILA | Federal Appeals Court: Chicago Violates Second ... - NRA ILA

Wisconsin Court SystemOn Wednesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit handed Second Amendment advocates a major victory when it struck down multiple gun range regulations imposed by the city of Chicago as unconstitutional infringements on the right to keep and bear arms. The majority opinion in the case, Ezell v. Chicago, was written by Judge Diane Sykes, whose name appears on Donald Trump's short-list of possible Supreme Court nominees.

The underlying issue in Ezell v. Chicago is the Windy City's hostile reaction to the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in McDonald v. Chicago, in which the Court struck down the city's handgun ban for violating the Second Amendment. In response to McDonald, Chicago enacted a new handgun permitting scheme which, among other things, required permit holders to complete one hour of training at a gun range. Yet Chicago also outlawed the existence of all gun ranges within city limits, thereby placing a rather significant obstacle in the path of any Chicago resident seeking to exercise his or her constitutional rights. In 2011 that city-wide gun range ban was struck down by the 7th Circuit. Judge Sykes also wrote that decision.

Yesterday's ruling follows on the heels of the 2011 case. After losing in federal court five years ago, Chicago adopted another new regulatory scheme for gun ranges. But once again the city tried to smother the Second Amendment with red tape. For example, it imposed new zoning regulations that would only allow gun ranges within manufacturing districts while also forbidding gun ranges from being built within 100 feet of each other and within 500 feet of residential districts, schools, or places of worship. In addition, the city forbid anyone under the age of 18 from lawfully entering a gun range.

Writing yesterday for the majority, Judge Sykes invalidated all three of those regulations. As she points out, under the new zoning laws,

only 2.2% of the city's total acreage is even theoretically available, and the commercial viability of any of these parcels is questionableso much so that no shooting range yet exists. This severely limits Chicagoans' Second Amendment right to maintain proficiency in firearm use via target practice at a range. To justify these barriers, the City raised only speculative claims of harm to public health and safety. That's not nearly enough to survive the heightened scrutiny that applies to burdens on Second Amendment rights.

Furthermore, "the age restriction also flunks heightened scrutiny." That's because the Second Amendment, Judge Sykes writes,

protects the right to learn and practice firearm use in the controlled setting of a shooting range. The City insists that no person under age 18 enjoys this right. That's an extraordinarily broad claim, and the City failed to back it up. Nor did the City adequately justify barring anyone under 18 from entering a range. To the contrary, its own witness on this subject agreed that the age restriction is overbroad because teenagers can safely be taught to shoot and youth firearm instruction is both prudent and can be conducted in a safe manner.

In short, Chicago tried to bypass the Second Amendment and the 7th Circuit benchslapped the city down.

The decision in Ezell v. City of Chicago is available here.

Related: What Trump SCOTUS Short-Lister Diane Sykes Had to Say About John Roberts and Judicial Deference

See more here:
Federal Judge on Trump's SCOTUS Short-List Issues Major 2nd Amendment Decision - Reason (blog)

We caught up with former Benghazi security contractor Mark Oz Geist, who said pro-gun Americans have won a battle against liberalism with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, but the war is far from over.

Austin, Texas, they got a small bastion of liberalism down there is a state that is 100 percent conservative, Geist said. But its a foothold and if we dont keep active and keep going after, keep our defenses up and on the offense theyre going to have that foothold and grow with it.

Pro-gun advocates still have to contend with statewide initiatives, like the recent ammunition registration scheme in California and Colorados magazine ban.

Criminals are gong to be criminals and theyre going to break the law and what we need to do is make sure that people are empowered to defend themselves that have the rights and most importantly the Second Amendment is the most important amendment that we have to the Constitution because thats what gives us and protects all the others.

See the article here:
Mark Oz Geist talks Shadow Warriors, Hillary Clinton, the Second Amendment and Islam (VIDEO) - Guns.com

Heres a pro tip for government lawyers: You shouldnt endeavor to eliminate indirectly those constitutional rights you cant eliminate directly.

Someone needs to explain this rather basic legal reality to the city of Chicago. Yesterday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down yet another series of Chicago laws that transparently and clumsily attempted to circumvent the Second Amendment and controlling legal precedent protecting the rights of Chicago citizens to own handguns for self-defense.

Its a battle thats been raging for almost a decade. It began in 2008, just after the Supreme Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, the case that recognized the rather obvious fact that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. In light of the Heller decision, Otis McDonald and three other plaintiffs filed suit to challenge Chicagos near-total ban on private possession of handguns.

In 2010, McDonald won his case. The Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment was fully applicable to the states and protected the right to keep and bear arms from intrusive state and local laws. Chicagos handgun ban was thus plainly unconstitutional.

But rather than comply with the Constitution, Chicago went back to the drawing board, this time constructing a new, indirect ban. As summarized by the Seventh Circuit, the city allowed residents to possess a handgun if they had a lawful permit, required range training as a prerequisite to getting a permit, and then banned firing ranges from operating in the city.

Rhonda Ezell and two other Chicago residents sued, and in 2011, they won. As Judge Ilana Rovner wrote, Chicagos range-training requirement was not so much a nod to the importance of live-range training as it was a thumbing of the municipal nose at the Supreme Court. The city could not create a requirement for exercising a right and then ban from the city the means of meeting that requirement.

Chicago, however, was hardly done defying the judiciary. In response to the 2011 case, the city created yet another elaborate series of regulations, this time allowing firing ranges only in manufacturing districts, banning them from operating within 100 feet of each other or 500 feet of a residential district, school, or church, and banning anyone under age 18 from entering them. As a result, Only 2.2 percent of the citys total acreage is even theoretically available for a shooting range and the commercial viability of any of these parcels is questionable so much so that no shooting range yet exists.

Yesterday, Rhonda Ezell won again. The Court was particularly unimpressed with the fact that Chicago simply states that it has interests in preventing crime, protecting the environment, and preventing, without bothering to prove that ranges cause increased crime, airborne lead contamination, and a greater risk of fire.

The citys bad faith was obvious:

The Citys own witnesses testified to the lack of evidentiary support for these assertions. They repeatedly admitted that they knew of no data or empirical evidence to support any of these claims. Indeed, Patricia Scudiero, the Citys zoning administrator, conceded that neither she nor anyone else in her department made any effort to review how other cities zone firing ranges. She conducted no investigation, visited no firing ranges in other jurisdictions, consulted no expert, and essentially did no research at all.

At every turn, the city merely asserted that its regulations were justifiable without actually bothering to justify them, because it couldnt justify them.

When it comes to the Second Amendment, Chicago is hardly unique. The District of Columbia has waged its own long battle against Heller, and even after the Supreme Courts decision, it has remained extraordinarily difficult to legally possess a handgun in the city. The result is a citizenry that largely lacks the capacity to defend itself against a criminal class that is killing men and women by the hundreds.

Cities can engage in this kind of long-term resistance, losing case after case with little consequence, because of a quirk in the law that other liberal institutions exploit with impunity: Its difficult to quantify the monetary value of a constitutional right, so damage awards for constitutional violations are often low or nonexistent. Yes, plaintiffs can obtain injunctions, but significant monetary awards are rare. The only real financial penalty is the requirement that losing cities pay the plaintiffs attorneys fees, which are insignificant sums given the vast size of city budgets.

Thus, cities treat gun rights like universities treat rights to free speech, free association, due process, and religious liberty. They defy the law, wait to be sued, fight for years, write small attorney-fee checks when they lose, and wait to be sued again. Not even the judiciary possesses the tools necessary to truly check abusive government power.

Its time to close the loophole. Its time to impose real costs for violations of our most fundamental constitutional rights. The most important task of government at any level in the United States is to protect the liberty of its citizens. A government or public entity that repeatedly violates the rights secured in the Bill of Rights simply doesnt deserve taxpayer support, and its past time to link federal funding to the protection of individual liberty.

There is a new Congress, and tomorrow there will be a new president. Will there be new resolve to defend the Constitution? Lets hope so.

David French is a staff writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and an attorney.

Link:
Urban Leftists Can't Stop Violating the Constitution - National Review