Mediaboss Marketing

UMKC Law School professor Allen Rostron did not begin his legal career intending to work in the area of Second Amendment rights, or be a full-time law professor. After graduating from Yale Law School, he worked as a tax attorney. He soon found, however, that he did not enjoy the work. At the time of his change of focus, gun control was getting a lot of media attention and when an opportunity presented itself, he took a position at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The decision began a path that he still follows today.

Rostron was recently invited to be part of a planning team on former New York City Mayor Michael Bloombergs gun control group, Everytown for Gun Safety. As part of this group, Rostron focuses on recent decisions about the Second Amendment made by the Supreme Court after many years of the court not having any significant opinions about it.

When the Supreme Court decides something and you think well, that answers the question, it raises just as many questions, Rostron said.

That leaves lower courts around the country trying to figure out which laws are fine as they are written and which laws need some adjustment or even to be struck down. Groups on both sides of the issue gather to strategize to influence those decisions.

According to its website, Everytown is a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities. Their voices of the movement are moms, mayors and survivors.

There are groups that oppose gun control because they see it as an infringement upon the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Rostron said that in the recent Supreme Court decisions, the court has said that there needs to be a historical point of view taken. If a gun law is being decided on, a modern public policy perspective should not be the only perspective. The Supreme Court says that these decisions should begin by looking at what the right to keep and bear arms traditionally meant.

That creates a real need to know the history, Rostron said. There is a real need for historians to delve back into what was the situation with guns 200 years ago or more. What kind of laws did they have and what did they think you had a right to do and what did the right not cover. Its a very rich, interesting, historical exploration.

The courses Rostron teaches at UMKC have a healthy amount of discussion. He teaches a Seminar on Gun Law & Safety, but all of his courses have some amount of discussion about rights that citizens hold.

Students are willing to debate the gun control issue because its not as personal as more hot-button issues like abortion or affirmative action.

I have found guns to be in the category of some other things like maybe religion very controversial and people have very strong views about it, but theyre not afraid to get into it a little bit with other students or with the teacher, Rostron said.

Read the original post:
Law professor focuses work on Second Amendment

Gun Lobby Organizes Open Carry March In St Louis Smith Wesson And Bushmaster
Gun Lobbyist explains gun owners don #39;t have the same rights as the elderly or the disabled because they are singled out in spite of their Second Amendment Rights To Bare Arms. Lobbyist states...

By: IBWC KC

Read more:
Gun Lobby Organizes & Open Carry March In St Louis Smith & Wesson And Bushmaster - Video

Giveaway Winners for November 16 2014
Second Amendment Giveaway A brief film highlighting the winners for our November 16 2014 giveaway. Prizes won during this giveaway: A Call of Duty "Advanced Warfare" Atlas Professional Edition...

By: Second Amendment Giveaways

The rest is here:
Giveaway Winners for November 16 2014 - Video

On Monday, the long-running debate over gun laws is moving to center stage, out in San Francisco.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments concerning whether an unusual gun law passed by voters in Sunnyvale, Calif., late last year is constitutional.

A coalition of gun-rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, claims the law, which bans anyone from owning gun magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Sunnyvale, on the other hand, claims the law does not impinge on Sunnyvale residents Second Amendment rights to own a firearm within the home for self-defense because such large-capacity magazines are neither necessary nor even useful for self-defense because defenders seldom fire more than two shots. Restricting such magazines makes sense, Sunnyvale argues, because theyre frequently used in mass shootings, including the massacre at Newtown, Conn., at the end of 2012.

So who is right?

A U.S. District Judge in San Jose, Calif., in March upheld the law, finding that while the Sunnyvale law implicated the Second Amendment, the burden placed by the law on a Sunnyvale residents Second Amendment rights is relatively light.

Wrote Judge Ronald M. Whyte:

The Sunnyvale law passes intermediate scrutiny, as the courtwithout making a determination as to the laws likely efficacycredits Sunnyvales voluminous evidence that the ordinance is substantially tailored to the compelling government interest of public safety.

Still, the caselaw concerning firearm restrictions has been developing for a relatively short period of time. In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark case called District of Columbia v. Heller, ruled that the Second Amendment protects ones right to own a firearm in ones own home.

But the court left for another day (and, until then, lower courts) a variety of issues, including whether and to what degree firearms can be carried outside the home, and the degree to which semi-automatic weapons can be regulated as well. The law on these issues is not well settled, meaning the judges of the Ninth Circuit have leeway in the Sunnyvale case to chart their own path.

Here is the original post:
California Towns Unusual Gun Law to Get Federal Appeals Court Ruling

Why We Must Preserve the Second Amendment
Quick and simple explanation of the value of the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

By: Nathan Miller

The rest is here:
Why We Must Preserve the Second Amendment - Video