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MANHATTAN (CN) A group of New Yorkers who claim their rights to openly carry firearms on the New York City subway are protected by the Second Amendment faced a skeptical Second Circuit panel Tuesday morning.

Represented by Scarsdale-based attorney Amy Bellantoni, the trio of gun owners from Westchester and Orange counties sued New York City in 2021 because their state-issued concealed carry handgun licenses are invalid in New York City due to the citys regulations under the Concealed Carry Improvement Act.

The Concealed Carry Improvement Act took effect in September 2022 in rapid response to the U.S. Supreme Courts landmarkSecond Amendment rulingthat struck down the state's requirement for applicants to prove they had proper cause for a permit.

The new law, among other things, bans guns from designated "sensitive places" such as schools, playgrounds and Times Square.

On appeal the gun owners claim the regulations are inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of firearm regulation, and they seek reversal of the lower courts denial of a motion for preliminary injunction of firearm bans on public transportation such as the MTA, subway, and train cars and in Times Square.

One plaintiff-appellant, William Sappe, says he wants to openly carry a firearm for self-protection in the gun-free Times Square because his business involves transporting substantial amounts of cash, diamonds, and jewelry for high-end jewelers in Midtown Manhattan's Diamond District.

Another plaintiff-appellant, Jason Frey, says he wants to carry a gun while he travels to New York City from Westchester County in order to get goodies at Juniors, travel to Murrays Bagels in Manhattan, and visit friends in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Challenging the denial of their motion for injunction, the gun owners claim in their appeals brief that the historical argument proffered by the state and city of New York for gun restrictions not only falls outside of the founding era, they also conflict with the plain text of the Second Amendment.

Formal licensing did not in the founding era, Bellantoni said during oral arguments on Tuesday morning. I believe our founding fathers would have deemed that repugnant to the Constitution to go Britain and asked for permission to be armed, I dont think wed be standing here as America if that was the case.

The three-judge panel on Tuesday referred to New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that changed how states determine who may carry a concealed weapon in public. Under Bruen, a historical analogue must exist a similar law restricting firearms at the time the Second Amendment was ratified for a present-day firearms restriction to pass muster.

Bruen says we should ask how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizens right to armed self-defense, U.S. Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco raised. The question is how and why, in modern times, does that affect the law-abiding citizens right to self-defense where sensibilities may have change from being terrorized by someone whos concealing versus the sensibilities now being terrorized by someone whos openly carrying.

What about historically, railway cars were subject to regulations of that type, the Trump-appointed judge asked.

Bellantoni responded that historically those railway cars were private companies rather than government.

We also have a body law that says the government can control the carrying of firearms on its own property, U.S. Circuit Judge Reena Raggi interjected. Why isnt this the circumstance with the subway, this is basically a government-provided means of transportation, this is government property.

There is a tradition of the government being able to limit the carrying of firearms on its property courthouses, government buildings, etc., the George W. Bush-appointed judge continued. Why doesnt that tilt this in favor of the city and the state?

Raggi also asked about vulnerable populations on the subway, specifically schoolchildren who ride the New York City subway on weekday afternoons.

I think the vulnerable population is a blanket thats been recently created by the anti-Second Amendment faction, Bellantoni replied.

Taking an interpretation of historical analogue even further back, Bellantoni told the judges: There isnt one case the state or the city has shown that supports the idea that there is a tradition of regulating or banning open carry open carry has been around since the cave man.

The gun owners motion to enjoin the states firearm laws was denied last year, with U.S. District Judge Nelson Roman finding they are unlikely to succeed on the merits of theirSecondAmendment claims.

Both Raggi and Bianco suggested directly to Bellantoni that the appellants had again not demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of success for the panel to grant the injunctive relief they sought.

New York assistant solicitor general Philip Levitz similarly noted during oral arguments on Tuesday that the record here is clearly insufficient for the plaintiffs to prevail.

Elina Durker, an attorney for the city of New York, wrote in an appeals brief the public interest tips decidedly against a preliminary injunction, which she said would dispense with important public safety provisions, potentially leading to panic and deaths.

Bill Clinton-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Sack rounded out the panel, which did not indicate when a ruling will be issued.

Bellantoni said that if the case returns to the lower court, she will make a motion for summary judgment.

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NY gun owners take fight over ban on firearms in subway and Times Square to 2nd Circuit - Courthouse News Service

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Augusta County is so, so lucky that a rando named Jeremy Nance appointed himself the book czar for the county school system.

This Nance fellow, per a story in the News Leader, is responsible for three of the four books that have been banned from public schools in Augusta County.

Interesting note here: Nance doesnt have any children in the school system.

He says hes speaking up for single moms, single parents who dont have time to go to the school board and teachers who are afraid of retaliation.

Of course he is.

What this Nance dude is, actually, is a far, far right political activist.

A quick Google search tells us that Nance, back in 2019, threatened a boycott of Mill Street Grill, a Downtown Staunton restaurant owned by City Councilman Terry Holmes, because Holmes signaled that he wouldnt support a Second Amendment sanctuary resolution being pushed by the local far, far right.

Guns, guns and more guns, but books like the award-winning Golden Boy, by Abigail Tarttelin, about an intersex teenager books are dangerous.

The objection that Nance has to Golden Boy is a pages-long graphic rape scene involving an adult and the teen protagonist.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by an adult, the problem I have here is, not the book with the rape scene, but the political activist guy who thinks that just pretending the bad stuff that is perpetrated upon kids doesnt happen means, you know, it doesnt happen.

We see this phenomenon with another book that this Nance fellow objected to, The Swallows, by Lisa Lutz, which challenges the boys will be boys hierarchy in a fictional high school, the problem here being, if youre a far, far right activist, boys will be boys is your favorite ex-president raping a woman in a department store dressing room and then claiming she isnt his type.

Its a shame books like this are still in there,Nance told the Augusta County School Board as he raised his objections.

Sure, it is.

But the real shame is that we have a school board here that gives a guy like a Jeremy Nance the power that he has.

This is your daily reminder that elections matter. The school boards chair, David Shiflett, is leading an effort to review the school systems guidelines to make sure that the materials that are in our libraries are age-appropriate for the students that have access to them.

That review is on the agenda for the Augusta County School Board meeting on Thursday night.

You can bet that the review will end with the board empowering more Jeremy Nances to make sure that kids in Augusta County are protected from the uncomfortable realities of the world that we live in.

Well, except for the uncomfortable reality of gun violence.

It boggles the mind that theres a Jeremy Nance who thinks its more traumatic to read a book than it is to have to walk through a metal detector at the entrance to the school and have armed deputies patrolling the halls, but thats where we are.

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Augusta County Second Amendment guy wants to protect schoolkids from books? - Augusta Free Press

Let me take a moment to educate the masses, so to speak not to exclude constitutionalists who spend the vast majority of their time analyzing and dissecting each word and phrase in every amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

There exists a formal and dignified principle that, although unstated, is nevertheless etched in stone. Its non-negotiable. Its cold-blooded, hard-boiled fact. The Second Amendment protects all the rest.

Write that on the bedroom mirror so its the first thing you see when you get out of bed in the morning. Attach it to the door of the refrigerator within which is stored the nutrients nutrients that not only nourish your body but also give you the ability to exercise your mind. Nail it to the blackboard (OK, traditionalist I am) in the classroom that your kids attend so that no socialist-indoctrinated chowderhead can erase it and replace it with some sort of Mandan manifesto hogwash.

Understand, please, that once the Second Amendment is toast (done and dusted, to cite an old Scottish clich) and your right to possess and use firearms is effectively gone, the United States spontaneously becomes Cuba or North Korea or Venezuela or China or Argentina or Australia or Canada? OK, omit the last one, although the tyrannical Trudeau delights in shoving his weight around clamping down on freedoms once naturally assumed by Canadians.

No, I dont claim to be an oracle in any sense, able to see into the future and predict the unraveling of events. That is risky business. But, when my wife said to me, Congratulations, you were certainly right about that, her tone reflected a hint of disappointment that precluded my taking her comment as praise. Her reference, incidentally, was to my prediction that the $80 billion in weaponry left in Afghanistan would end up being used against us perhaps in the Middle East.

Despite claims to the contrary by Biden administration officials, including Jake Sullivan (who knows less about foreign policy than does your average CNN or MSNBC pundit) and John Kirby (who manages to come up with a feeble excuse for every boneheaded decision the Biden crew makes), documentation proves that Hamas gunmen had access to that very arsenal. Anyone who is surprised about that result is much too stupid to deserve a cabinet position in the US military.

But, unabashed ignorance appears in vogue nowadays especially on college and university campuses where liberal professors have corrupted the minds of helpless students whose (im)moral compass knows not which way to turn. The rising tide of anti-semitism (taking the side of terrorists who delight in raping women, burning people alive, and beheading mere children) should stand as a clarifying moment for the country. Its a sign of sheer irrationality. Still, why expect anything different given evidence that recent graduates cant read (beyond fifth-grade level), cant write (aside from crude text messages), cant add (absent computer assistance), and cant subtract (5 - 2 = 4)? Critical thinking skills? In your dreams.

Yes, the rot that defines higher education has been made possible by Harvard-type elites and corporate CEOs (Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.) who are complicit in its destruction (financial contributions and woke foolishness run amok). Public institutions K-12 are failing, also evidenced by poor performance (near the bottom) in key subject areas compared to other industrialized nations ... which may have something to do with the prolonged disinvestment in history and civics education (averaging $0.05 per pupil).

Frankly, what I find most incredibly shameful and alarming is this. At a time when politics (and politicians?) are more divisive than ever, when America is being torn apart by a myriad of societal issues, when the (social) media is a hotbed of impassioned (misinformed and disinformed) opinion, and when youth are more visible as advocates and activists than ever before (incomprehensible Hamas demonstrations notwithstanding), the knowledge of and appreciation for our countrys history is demonstrably at a dangerously low ebb.

Which tells me that our gratitude and gratefulness for constitutional amendments (freedom of speech, especially) is fleeting if not in dire peril and makes it more crucial than ever that folks understand that the Second Amendment protects all the rest.

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Second Amendment protects the rest | Commentary | norfolkdailynews.com - Norfolk Daily News

It is hard to tell which of the following Colorado Democrats hate more: the Second Amendment, or local control of government. A newly drafted bill sponsored by Dems allows them to continue to attack both.

Fewer than three years ago, Sen. Sonja Jaquez Lewis of Longmont, Sen. Chris Kolker of Littleton and Sen. Tom Sullivan of Centennial, all Democrats, voted with their party to blow up Colorados long-standing law which ensured a predictable, statewide approach to firearm regulation. Senate Bill 21-256, passed by all Democrats, created a patchwork of local gun laws that create confusion for law-abiding gun owners. The change in the law did not change the behavior of gun-toting criminals, but that is not the goal of the modern Democrat blame-the-guns approach to governance. Purportedly libertarian-ish Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law without hesitation.

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SB 21-256 made clear the General Assembly believes (o)fficials of local governments are uniquely equipped to make determinations as to regulations necessary in their local jurisdictions and to make determinations as to where concealed handguns can be carried in their local jurisdictions.

Fewer than 30 months later and without any data to support a change Jacquez Lewis, Kolker and Sullivan have changed their minds and now believe local governments are too stupid to determine what laws are necessary in their communities and too untrustworthy to determine where concealed handguns can be carried. No legislator has yet explained what happened to the uniquely equipped local governments. Once again, Democrats show up to save the day with a solution in search of a problem.

Sans any data let alone new data justifying the need for change the bill drafters hijack local control of the regulation of firearms at parks, playgrounds, rec centers, stadiums for any sport and at every level of competition, amusement parks, carnivals, circuses, water parks and any property in any way connected to local government or the grounds next to it. No joke.

This bill draft is the equivalent of the energy-company-crushing setbacks for oil rigs in Colorado. Remember that one? The proposed ballot measure excluded drilling from so many places by creating setbacks from so many sensitive areas that oil production could have lawfully only occurred in Weld County Sheriff Steve Reamss driveway and nowhere else.

This bill draft seeks to push Colorado toward becoming a statewide sensitive space.

Current law prohibits the open carrying of firearms at a polling place, because it may intimidate, threaten, or coerce voters The new law prohibits concealed carrying of weapons for the exact same reasons. To be clear: these gun-hating Dem law makers believe voters may become intimidated, threatened, scared to death, or worse by firearms they cannot see and do not know are there.

After the property owners suck approach of the special legislative session last year, this years legislature and Polis continue their assault on private property rights with this bill. This would-be legislation would ban carrying firearms at numerous private businesses, organizations and on private property, to include: private colleges; churches, synagogues, or other places of worship unless expressly authorized; private nursing homes; any private hospital or place at which medical or health care services are provided, and others.

The most insidious and potentially life-threatening provision of the law is the intended elimination of local school districts authority to protect the children in their charge. For 20 years, rural districts across Colorado the ones with schools 25-plus minutes from law enforcement response to emergencies have had the ability to provide an on-site, immediate response through highly-trained school faculty. Faculty Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response (FASTER) has trained more than 400 people to carry concealed in their schools across 41 districts in Colorado. The participating schools and school districts have eagerly jumped on the opportunity to better protect their students and faculty. But that is not enough, when it comes to those who hate guns.

Despite not a single bad incident having occurred in the seven years FASTER has been training faculty, the Dems under the Gold Dome appear poised to eliminate it as an option for those communities whose law enforcement protectors are relative eons away.

What could be the penalty for the commission of such damning acts with firearms at sensitive places? In 2021, a concealed carry holder who ran afoul of local gun regulations faced only a civil penalty of no more than $50. The new bill by the same folks who voted in the 2021 bill ups the ante to a criminal misdemeanor and a $250 fine. That's 500% more than the just-enacted bill. There is a bigger question here: If carrying concealed in places prohibited by local or state law is a matter of such supreme importance, that as the bill claims it is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, why a small fine? Why no chance for jail and there is none no matter how many times the law is violated?

The answer is obvious. The Democrats in the legislature (and Polis) hate guns and do not value the Second Amendment. Instead, they take any and every opportunity to chisel away at that right.

Whether this draft bill becomes official or not, the one constant in Colorados experience with Democrat-dominant rule in state government is the gun-hating ends always justify the hypocritical means when it comes to hating firearms and infringing on Second Amendment rights.

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. He hosts The George Brauchler Show on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter(X): @GeorgeBrauchler.

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Dems bow to local control on guns then take it away | BRAUCHLER - coloradopolitics.com

As they ring in 2024, New Yorks concealed-carry pistol permit holders will have a little something to celebrate besides the start of the New Year.

A panel of federal judges recently struck down key parts of the states misnamed Concealed Carry Improvement Act, thus giving these law-abiding gun owners some of their constitutional rights back.

Unfortunately, though, in upholding other sections of the draconian law, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals split a baby that never should have been birthed in the first place.

Still, if youre a gun owner in New York, where Democrats control all three branches of executive and legislative power, you take your victories where you can get them.

This one comes in the 2nd Circuits ruling striking down part of the law prohibiting concealed-carry in so-called restricted places open to the public. That catch-all provision would have banned permit holders from carrying their weapons anywhere in the state without the expressed consent of property owners, turning on its head the idea of a constitutional right actually guaranteeing the right to do something.

The three-judge panel also knocked down a ban on bringing guns into houses of worship.

On the other hand, the court upheld prohibitions on carrying in so-called sensitive locations such as government buildings, schools, theaters, parks and other places in a list too long to enumerate here but which includes practically anywhere people might congregate. The law, and the 2nd Circuits concurrence, means that only criminals will be able to carry guns in such places.

This split-the-baby approach could also be seen in other aspects of the ruling. For instance, it struck down a requirement that people applying for a permit give licensing officers access to their social media posts, including pseudonyms. The judges said such overreach violates Second Amendment rights while also presenting serious First Amendment concerns because it is uncontroversial that the First Amendment protects the right to speak anonymously.

Yet the judges upheld the laws requirement that applicants be of good moral character. While a lower court judge had struck down that provision as unconstitutionally vague, the appeals court judges deemed it a proxy for dangerousness.

In fact, a district court judge had excoriated practically the entire law, but let it stand on purely technical grounds pending appeals. The 2nd Circuit judges agreed in part and disagreed on other parts all of which underscores the ideological fragility of what are supposed to be fundamental American rights.

The cases stem from last years U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down New Yorks prior law that required law-abiding citizens to show proper cause before being allowed to carry a concealed weapon for protection outside the home.

That decision in the so-called Bruen case, named for one of the government defendants, prompted Hochul and the Legislature to ram through the draconian CCIA in response, stripping New Yorkers of practically any ability to carry a concealed weapon. They took such steps despite clear warnings from the justices against using the latitude granted in Bruen to go to such extremes.

Now the 2nd Circuit panel has knocked down at least of some those unconstitutional restrictions on law-abiding gun owners who just want a chance to protect themselves against criminals who, by definition, will ignore any such law.

With the appeals court doing only half the job, it will be up to the Supreme Court to strike down the rest of Hochuls prohibitions, once the case reaches its docket again.

Mike Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, said that in restoring the rights of law-abiding gun owners to carry their weapons in some public places such as gas stations and grocery stores it seems the 2nd Circuit judges were sensitive to events like the massacre at the Tops supermarket here. Even though the stores armed security guard was thwarted by the fact that the killer had scouted the site and had on body armor, most such murderers will not be so well-prepared.

GOA, which has been out front helping plaintiffs oppose laws like the CCIA, will back an appeal, but is still deciding whether to ask the full 2nd Circuit to take up the case or to take it directly to the Supreme Court.

The Hochul administration did not respond to a request for comment. But Hammond said that if gun rights advocates appeal the parts of the ruling they dont like, the administration would probably file a cross-appeal opposing the restoration of some Second Amendment rights which New York Democrats obviously dont believe in.

That means the Supreme Court could end up revisiting the whole issue all over again. In fact, it already is considering another case resulting from its Bruen framework, which determined that current gun laws have to be consistent with the nations historical tradition of firearm regulation. That has led to some obviously misguided lower court rulings, such as ones allowing domestic abusers to own guns because there were no domestic violence laws when the Constitution was written.

But New York officials should take little confidence from that limited reconsideration, given that the CCIAs overreach is so clearly at odds with the entirety of what the justices laid out in restoring meaning to the Second Amendment.

It would be nice if the governor and state legislators would just make a New Years resolution to respect the Constitution and the rights of law-abiding gun owners not to mention respect taxpayers by not making them pay state lawyers to defend the indefensible.

But dont hold your breath waiting on that. Instead, wait for a more thorough judicial restoration of the right to defend yourself once New Yorks misguided law again reaches the high court.

In the meantime, when confronted by a mugger in one of New Yorks so-called sensitive places, you can just call the police. They will do a very thorough job of collecting evidence, after drawing a chalk outline around your body.

Or you can hire security, like the governor does, if you think your life is as valuable as hers. The only difference is, you wont be able to charge the taxpayers for having someone else defend what you should be able to defend yourself.

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Rod Watson: In gun ruling, court splits a baby that should never have been birthed - Buffalo News