Ninth Circuit Panel Rules Nonviolent Felons Don’t Lose Their Gun Rights
A Ninth Circuit panel Thursday ruled that a blanket prohibition on convicted felons possessing firearms violates their Second Amendment rights, at least when it comes to nonviolent offenders who served out their sentence. In a split decision, the three-judge panel threw out firearm possession conviction of a Los Angeles member of a street gang who had […]
Filipovic: Originalism Makes Banning Guns Much Too Difficult
For all that Heller did to rewrite the modern interpretation of the Second Amendment, Scalia’s opinion still didn’t go quite far enough for the most aggressive gun rights activists. It did not, for example, offer a clear path for courts to evaluate (and strike down) other gun laws. So lower courts implemented a test for those new […]
The Horror: Bruen is Coming for Washington’s New Gun Control Laws
When a Cowlitz County judge ruled last week that Washington’s ban on high- capacity magazines is unconstitutional, he added one line, on Page 43 of his 55-page opinion, that could just be a little-noticed throwaway, or could prove shockingly prescient. There are, Judge Gary Bashor wrote, “few, if any, historical analogue laws by which a state […]
Has Gun Innovation Been ‘Frozen’ by the Heller and Bruen Rulings?
Heller imposed a “common use” test, saying that a gun law is unconstitutional when it affects guns that are in common use for lawful purposes. Bruen enshrined a similar test, saying that gun laws must be grounded in the “text, history, and tradition” of the country — i.e. the law stands if it has an analog in the nation’s […]
Pro Gun Control Scholars: Rejecting Racist Historical Gun Laws Reveals a Troubling Double Standard
Conservative jurists and gun rights advocates have strongly backed the Supreme Court’s originalist view of 2nd Amendment law, which gives modern deference to the intentions of the nation’s founders at the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. They bristle over the fact that many of the laws at the time took for granted […]
Kentucky State Rep Sets a Standard for Legislators in Other States to Follow
A recent bill in Kentucky shows us how state legislators should be responding to the NYSRPA v. Bruen decision. Instead of looking for ways to undermine it, delay it, get around it, or keep things in limbo until new judges are on the bench, Rep. Savannah Maddox introduced a bill to comply with it in […]
Law Journal Article Destroys Argument That Civilians Should Not Own Weapons Of War
A recent article in the Wyoming Law Review by Chuck Michel and Kostas Moros of the Michel & Associates law firm makes a very valid and compelling point about the right to keep and bear arms, as well as our defense of it. It’s common on social media and on gun websites for pro-gun people […]