10 Incidents That Highlight the Importance of the Second Amendment for Women

COMMENTARY BY

Amy Swearer@AmySwearer

Amy Swearer is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Since 1987, the United States has recognized March as Women’s History Month to celebrate the vital role of women in American history. Unfortunately, far too often we find that the armed women of history are overlooked or completely forgotten, and the vital role of the Second Amendment in the lives of American women is ignored.

Women long have availed themselves of the right to keep and bear arms in defense of life, liberty, and property—from Harriet Tubman, the famed “conductor” of the underground railroad who was known to carry loaded pistols, to Mary “Stagecoach Mary” Fields, the first black woman to be a mail carrier, who notoriously kept a .38 revolver in her apron to fend off bandits and wild animals alike.

Tubman and Fields haven’t been alone.

Almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For this reason, The Daily Signal each month publishes an article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other accounts here from 2019, 2020, 2021, and so far in 2022.)

To honor Women’s History Month, we decided to highlight 10 incidents from last month in which the Second Amendment made all the difference for women, either because they were armed or because another armed person came to their defense.

The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use that we found in March. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. (The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.)

• March 1, Atlanta: Five teens—at least two armed—tried to carjack a woman as she sat in her vehicle, police said. The woman drew her own gun and exchanged fire with the would-be carjackers, who fled. Although she was injured, her car was not stolen. Police said they arrested the teens just hours later, after a police chase in which they crashed a car stolen during a second carjacking.
• March 4, Longview, Texas: A woman armed with a rifle shot and wounded a man who forced his way inside her home, police said. The woman had told the man—who neighbors say had a history of criminally trespassing in area homes—to get off her porch. But he refused and tried to smash in her sliding glass door with his fist, according to police, who arrested the wounded man. The county sheriff praised the woman’s actions as “an excellent example of the importance of our Second Amendment.”
• March 5, Lincolnton, North Carolina: Police said a woman’s estranged husband showed up at the residence where she was staying, forced his way inside, and threatened her and the male homeowner. During the altercation, the homeowner retrieved a firearm from a bedroom and shot the intruder in self-defense before running to a neighbor’s home to call 911. Police charged the wounded husband with multiple crimes.
• March 9, Nashville, Tennessee: After her boyfriend physically assaulted her earlier in the day, a woman returned to their shared home to gather her belongings and retrieve her three young children, police said. A female friend accompanied her for support. When they arrived, the boyfriend argued with the woman, then assaulted her again. She saw that he was armed, so she drew her own gun and exchanged fire with him in self-defense. The woman, her friend, and the boyfriend were all injured, but the three children weren’t harmed, police said. The boyfriend faces several felony charges, including being a felon in unlawful possession of a firearm.
• March 10, Dayton, Ohio: A woman’s ex-boyfriend ignored a protective order against him, scaled the roof of her home in the middle of the night, and tried to climb through her bedroom window, police said. When the woman heard the intruder, she grabbed a firearm to protect herself and her daughter and shot the man in the arm as he descended into her bedroom. She told police she realized it was her ex-boyfriend as he ran from the house. He was arrested later that day after calling paramedics for his gunshot wound, and faces several criminal charges.
• March 16, Reading, Pennsylvania: A woman and her boyfriend were about to get into their car at a local park when a man approached them and fired two rounds, police said. The woman drew her own gun and shot back, giving her wounded boyfriend time to take cover behind their car. Police later arrested their assailant and charged him with attempted homicide and unlawfully possessing a gun as a felon.
• March 22, Orlando, Florida: A female veteran working as an Uber driver arrived at a customer’s pick-up location and saw him physically assaulting his girlfriend, police said. The driver decided to give them a ride despite the man’s violent actions because she didn’t want to leave the girlfriend alone with her assailant. When the couple got into the car, the man passed out drunk in the back seat while the Uber driver spoke with the girlfriend. When the man woke up and assaulted both his girlfriend and the driver, police said, the driver stopped the car and demanded that he get out. The driver shot and wounded the man after he shoved his girlfriend to the ground and advanced on the driver in a threatening manner.
• March 23, Paradise, Nevada: A woman was with her boyfriend and three children when an ex-boyfriend broke into their home, police said. The woman armed herself and called 911, and the ex-boyfriend left. However, he returned a short time later armed with his own gun, which he pointed at the current boyfriend’s head. The woman fired one shot, striking him in the head and killing him, police said. No one else was harmed.
• March 24, Lansing, Michigan: When a man with two prior convictions for domestic violence began assaulting a woman inside her  home, police said,  her son came to her defense, shooting and wounding her attacker. Police arrested him at a nearby hospital. The woman was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
• March 25, Montgomery, Alabama: When a woman called police after being assaulted by her husband, officers advised her to pursue a protective order against him. The woman was on her way to the police station with her two adult sons when the husband rammed his car into hers, drove them off the road, and approached them while brandishing a handgun. One son, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, told his brother and mother to run when his father opened fire. Despite being shot five times, the son was able to draw his own gun and fatally shoot his father before anyone else was harmed. He was hospitalized in critical condition, but expected to survive.

Some gun control advocates like to claim that the Second Amendment was written by and for men, and that it leaves women to suffer as victims of gun violence.

But these claims ignore the countless cases such as the ones above, where the right to keep and bear arms was used by women or for the sake of protecting women—often from male aggressors against whom an unarmed woman would have been effectively helpless.

Women’s History Month may be over, but the importance of the Second Amendment in the lives of American women continues every day of the year.

No matter the month, the constitutional right to keep and bear arms remains in force, with no asterisk or small print excluding women.

Historic Leaders Understood Second Amendment's Importance

 Posted at 10:00 am on December 28, 2020 by Tom Knighton

For Second Amendment advocates, the right to keep and bear arms is paramount. It’s a bulwark against encroaching tyranny from a government that forgets that it serves the people and that the people do not exist to serve the government. Advocates for that right also understand it’s under assault and has been for quite some time.

However, various leaders of the past knew what the Second Amendment was for, including a couple held in high esteem by the left.

A post at the Foundation for Economic Education highlights some of these.

The Second Amendment was not limited in scope at the time of inception, in part because it was put in place as a bulwark against the despotism and tyranny that could arise out of an all-powerful government and standing army. Any cursory review of the writings of many of the founding fathers would support that.

However, we don’t need to hearken back to the colonial era to understand the importance of the Second Amendment. One of America’s most revered Democratic Presidents, John F Kennedy, stressed the importance of an armed citizenry during a commemorative message on Roosevelt Day in 1961:

“In my own native state of Massachusetts, the battle for American freedom was begun by the thousands of farmers and tradesmen who made up the Minute Men―citizens who were ready to defend their liberty at a moment’s notice. Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of America, cannot succeed with any lesser effort.”

It’s important to note that JFK preserved the link between the “Minute Men” of America’s Revolutionary period and ordinary modern-day American citizens. Unfortunately, that linkage tends to be broken whenever there is a debate over the “true meaning” of the Second Amendment.

…

With that in mind, securing our individual rights has always been inextricably linked to our ability to collectively defend them. We need look no further than Samuel Adams.

“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can,” said Adams.

This sentiment has become even more relevant today as we struggle through draconian lockdowns and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. State governments around the country have taken extreme actions that include closing businesses, infringing upon the right to worship, and even restricting the amount of people allowed inside one’s own home.

…

The great American social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who having escaped the horrors of (government-sanctioned) slavery, understood the vital role firearms played in preserving individual freedom.

“…the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box; that without these no class of people could live and flourish in this country, Douglass wrote in his autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

It has been said that these three boxes, combined with the “soap box“ of free speech, make up the foundational rights of a free people.

Now, I don’t actually disagree with any of the quotes by these men. I may think JFK was a scumball as a husband, but he was right with regard to the need for armed individuals to be prepared to sacrifice their lives for the cause of freedom. It’s the surest way to make damn sure our rights aren’t erased.

All around the world, gun rights are essentially non-existent. While at least one other nation pays lip service to gun rights, no one else actually acts as if the right to keep and bear arms is actually a thing. What’s more, that right is under constant attack, an attack that will intensify in January to unprecedented levels.

Yet people like JFK, Sam Adams, and Fredrick Douglas knew damn good and well that our rights matter. They’re the very thing that preserves our liberty.

Take a look at the UK. They gave up their guns and then what happened? Slowly but surely, they’re losing their right to speak up as well. Folks are being investigated for hate crimes because they misgendered someone. A man was prosecuted for teaching a dog to raise its paw as part of a joke. Numerous other examples of people not really being free to speak, and they can do absolutely nothing about it.

And some want that to happen here.

The thing is, as long as Americans have the ability to resist, there will always be an unspoken threat. Lawmakers have to consider that even if the courts were to uphold some bit of tyrannical law, the American people may not be interested in allowing it to stand. It’s an additional check and balance on the government.

Our Founding Fathers weren’t fans of standing armies or of government in general. They recognized that if one isn’t very careful, the fire that keeps you warm can also burn your house to the ground. They wanted the citizens of this great land to be prepared to resist the government if it goes too far.

And men like Douglas and Kennedy understood that. They understood that governmental authority is not automatically good and decent and that we may need to fight back against that governmental authority.

The same governmental authority some who claim to be their spiritual descendants say we should capitulate to now regardless of what is demanded.

There Is Nothing Wrong With Clinging To Your Values and Your Property

The notion that Prayer, or the Second Amendment is ever improper borders on tyranny. Politicians have no delegated or legitimate power to close down either one. Our Founders armed you to help prevent this.

In the coming weeks, months and more you may—no—you will be bombarded with what used to be recognized as mass brainwashing, regardless of whether either party has total control, designed to make you believe:

-- Guns are bad, even evil (though they are not);

-- Only people on government payrolls should have them (it won’t be framed that way of course but that’s the false message): police, military, FBI, secret agents, DEA, ICE, BATFE, the whole alphabet soup are all OK—you’re safer if they all have these dangerous nasty guns and you don’t;

-- You never had a real right to arms anyway, or good arms, or military-quality arms, or arms that could provide a balance of power... the very reason the Second Amendment exists. This, despite the evidence of your own eyes—namely, gun stores in every hamlet and a heavily armed populace that got that way somehow—in two-and-a-half centuries with no government paperwork until lately;

-- If we tell you to give up this gun, or that gun, big ones small ones black ones long ones, hi suds lo suds no suds some suds, you will obey or the chance of you catching the virus will get worse, and we’ll take your money through legal problems. If we jail you for gun something you won’t even get the mask, wash, distance and hy-droxy-chlor-o-quine which we disavow, so obey.

JPFO says—You are not some armed “privileged person” to be hated. You are living the American Dream and to be admired and copied. Your freedom to own the means of self defense and resistance to tyranny sets you apart and is to be honored. It is at the root of why so many people seek to emigrate here instead of to communist dictatorships from which people flee. Even if many of our own citizens no longer recognize the value of arms, or even unwittingly seek to undermine this core significance, firearms anchor liberty. The source of tyranny is government. The Founders knew this, and today our own government decays that way. Factions within it work to disarm us, and discourage training even in the proper use of arms—which would be a great benefit.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership understands what the Founding Fathers understood. We understand from the lethally hard lessons of history. All peoples—your own lineage, of whatever religious or other roots—all peoples were slaves or unfree at some point in history. It is the judicious use of force that sets humanity free. Possession of the means to exercise that force is why America is the shining city on the hill. Never forget that.

Don’t believe these deniers, the misanthropes (people who hate people and civilization), the America haters. The ones with such hypnotic maniacal control over mass media. You’re supposed to be free to become a privileged person, with wealth beyond what you were born with, earned by your own hand, not a marxist. feudal color-coded system of ranks determined by someone else for you. Work your butt off, make something of yourself, like your peers. Don’t hurt others in the process. Hint: The big secret: “The more other people you help, the faster you move up.”

Try it now. Start today. Help someone else and see where it gets you. Even money works, give something, it won’t hurt you. Might be hard at first, gets easier, you get better at it, target the giving better, enjoy the results.

“Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, http://www.jpfo.org is America’s most aggressive civil-rights organization, dedicated to destroying the notion of 'gun control' as any kind of credible public-policy position. So-called 'gun control' does not control guns and doesn’t control criminal behavior. What it does is disarm the innocent, leaving them helpless in the face of criminals, tyrannical governments and genocide. History repeatedly proves this fact. Founded in 1989 by Aaron Zelman as a response to the Holocaust, JPFO speaks with the moral authority and tenacious commitment of survivors of persecution, and knows that surrendering your personal and family safety to government protection courts disaster. You don’t have to be Jewish to fight by our side, you just have to love liberty.” Watch for our new programs in 2021.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

12500 NE 10th Pl
Bellevue Washington 98005
USA

On the Second Amendment

Our right to keep and bear arms, recognized and guaranteed by the Second Amendment, is more disputed than ever.

Here's some of the latest thinking from the JFPO:

Second Amendment: What Are the Facts?

Law Professors Make Case for 2A Rights in Uncertain Times

From some vantage points, it seems the behind-the-scenes strategies and judicial shenanigans are making it more difficult to exercise our rights, especially the right to self-defense and resistance to tyranny.

After you read the linked articles, let me know what you think.

It Could Never Happen Here, Right?

I wouldn't hold my breath on that point.

Registration (Or Failure Thereof) Leads to Confiscation in South Africa

Just a snippet:

The effects of yesterday's ruling are far-reaching. It is estimated that there are at least 300 000 firearm owners who - either negligently or intently - failed to renew their firearm licences. These people will have to hand their firearms in at their nearest police stations, from where they will be destroyed.

And people wonder why Second Amendment activists are so determined. Well, wonder no more.

Wearing My Preacher Hat Again

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." 

~ Noah Webster, “An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution,” October 10, 1787


Now ask yourselves again, why are there some 200,000 Federal bureaucrats with firearms?

“Open the Books, a taxpayer watchdog group, released a study Wednesday [June 22, 2016] that finds domestic government agencies continue to grow their stockpiles of military-style weapons, as Democrats sat on the House floor calling for more restrictions on what guns American citizens can buy.

“The ‘Militarization of America’ report found civilian agencies spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between 2006 and 2014. Examples include IRS agents with AR-15s, and EPA bureaucrats wearing camouflage.

“‘Regulatory enforcement within administrative agencies now carries the might of military-style equipment and weapons,’ Open the Books said. ‘For example, the Food and Drug Administration includes 183 armed “special agents,” a 50 percent increase over the ten years from 1998-2008. At Health and Human Services (HHS), “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” are now trained with sophisticated weaponry by the same contractors who train our military special forces troops.’

“Open the Books found there are now over 200,000 non-military federal officers with arrest and firearm authority, surpassing the 182,100 personnel who are actively serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.

“The IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment for its 2,316 special agents. The tax collecting agency has billed taxpayers for pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns, semi-automatic Smith & Wesson M&P15s, and Heckler & Koch H&K 416 rifles, which can be loaded with 30-round magazines.

“The EPA spent $3.1 million on guns, ammo, and equipment, including drones, night vision, ‘camouflage and other deceptive equipment,’ and body armor.”

Bloomberg Counting on Gun Owners' Stupidity

Wayne LaPierre: Bloomberg Banking On The ‘Stupidity’ Of Gun Owners

Remember the firestorm that erupted last year when Obama administration consultant and MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber revealed the deception at the heart of the White House’s strategy to pass Obamacare? According to Gruber:

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass. … Look, I wish … we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

There you have it. The end justifies the means, no matter if it takes outright lies or sleight of hand to “have this law.”

Poll after poll showed that Americans were satisfied with their health care plans. The only way President Obama and his cohorts could sell Obamacare was to conceal the law’s true ramifications and convince those who were already content with their health insurance that they wouldn’t be affected.

You remember the lie: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

Now, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the gun-ban crowd are hoping a “lack of transparency” combined with the “stupidity” of the American gun owner, will help them pass so-called ”universal background checks” in states around the nation.

Obama, Bloomberg, and the national gun-ban media frequently exploit tragedy, using fear and lies to sell their agenda to non-gun owners, especially when it comes to election season. This is their traditional playbook. They target folks who have very little understanding of the Second Amendment, and who have never been exposed to firearms or our hunting and shooting traditions, in their quest to raise money and win votes.

As gun ownership continues to grow in popularity, however, the anti-gunners have increasingly turned to trying to sway actual gun owners to advance their anti-freedom, anti-civil rights agenda.
Sounds incredible, doesn’t it? What gun owners would support policies that are blatantly designed to strip them of their constitutional freedom?

To put it bluntly: gullible gun owners. Uninformed folks who believe Obama and Bloomberg when they say that law-abiding gun owners have nothing to fear with a universal background checks system because it’s only aimed at preventing “gun violence.”

These are outright lies. You know it and I know it. Simply put, violent criminals break the law—any law—every day with impunity.

It’s already a federal crime to engage in the business of selling firearms or ammunition without a federal firearm license. It’s already a crime for licensed firearm dealers to sell a gun at retail without conducting a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check on the purchaser. And, of course, federal law also prohibits felons, those adjudicated mentally ill, drug users and others from purchasing a firearm.

We don’t have to guess how hardened criminals will get their guns if universal background checks are passed, because we already know how they get them now: through theft, black market purchases, criminal associates, and straw purchasers. Background checks cannot and do not stop any of these things.

The plain truth is that universal background checks are designed to put the government squarely in the middle of virtually every firearm transaction that takes place between law-abiding adults. Such proposals seek to criminalize lawful, everyday transfers of firearms just because they happen without a government bureaucrat first rendering his approval and documenting the event. They put nearly every transaction under the thumb of the government.

So if you wanted to lend a shotgun or rifle to your hunting buddy for the weekend, or hand down a cherished family heirloom to a cousin, or even if you wanted to lend a firearm to a loved one in danger, you would be forced to get permission from the government, or face criminal charges. Under the measure recently passed in Washington State, participants in the classroom portion of a gun safety class can’t even hand unloaded firearms to each other. How does that prevent gun violence?
Worst of all, the only way universal background checks can be enforced is through mandatory gun registration. In fact, Obama’s own Justice Department reported that a viable background check system for private sales “depends” on “requiring gun registration.”

You read that right. The whole scheme is a Trojan horse for mandatory gun registration. [Emphasis added - Ed.] According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the only way to fully enforce universal background checks is to force all law-abiding gun owners to document and register their firearms in a government database. Think about it. How else are they supposed to know when the background check requirement has been triggered, unless they can match every firearm to a documented gun owner.

That’s why Bloomberg and his billionaire buddies spent millions upon millions of dollars to pass Initiative 594 in the state of Washington last November. At its core, I-594 is nothing more Obama’s backdoor gun registration scheme that NRA members like you fought so hard to defeat just two years ago in the U.S. Senate.

It’s also why Bloomberg announced a major offensive to pass this scheme state-by-state, with Nevada the next target, until universal background checks and mandatory gun registration become an inescapable reality for all Americans.

It’s a nightmare for every law-abiding gun owner and should serve as a wake-up call for every one of us to say “never in my state.”

As an NRA member, I know that you’re well-informed and won’t be duped.

But gun owners who are not NRA members don’t read our magazines, nor do they receive our legislative alerts and e-mails, leaving them vulnerable to falling for Bloomberg’s and Obama’s lies.
You and I must expose the truth about universal background checks to every gun owner we know  to make certain that a “lack of transparency” and “stupidity” don’t end up costing us our freedom!

Wayne LaPierre is the Executive Vice-President of the National Rifle Association. Wayne’s column appears in the NRA publications American Rifleman, American Hunter and America’s First Freedom.

Reprint: Firearms and Ignorance in Smalltown, USA

This is a true story; I know some of the people involved. Names have been changed for obvious reasons.

In Smalltown, Missouri, there is a city employee - let's call him Joe. Joe is a legal gun owner, and occasionally transports his gun inside his vehicle. When he's on duty, he leaves his pistol locked up in his personal vehicle, in a city-owned parking lot.

Smalltown has a mayor who fancies himself to be A Big Deal. Joe and Mayor Bigdeal occasionally have a difference of opinion. While it's not advisable to advertise that difference of opinion with the official who is your boss, it does happen.

Most recently, said difference of opinion resulted in a phone call to the police, and Joe being arrested for concealing a weapon on city property.

Joe spent a night in jail, and faced criminal charges involving a weapon. If convicted, Joe would also face the loss of:

1. his job,
2. his weapon, and
3. his hunting privileges.

He would thereafter have a weapons charge on his record, meaning he could never again get a permit to own or carry a weapon.

The city attorney was cooperating in this process, up to this point. Then something happened. Somebody talked. People asked questions.

The Board of Aldermen got involved. THEY asked questions.

They called upon the city attorney. And - gasp - FACTS began to be revealed.

Those facts, in short, were these:

1. The city has no ordinance against weapons in personal vehicles, on - or off - city property.
2. Approximately 75% of city employees carry concealed weapons.
3. Most of those weapons are actually brought into the city's property (a building, in this case), where those employees show their weapons off to other employees.
4. These weapons have occasionally been left in the break room.
5. It has even occurred that the supervisor had, in his possession and inside city-owned vehicles, a personally-owned weapon.
6. The mayor reasonably should have known this.
7. The police reasonably should have known this.
8. The city attorney certainly should have known this.
9. The mayor is a jackass, and NONE OF THIS SHOULD EVER HAVE HAPPENED.

The city attorney has contacted Joe, saying words to the effect of "We'll forget about this, if you will."

Joe is now considering his options. Forgetting about it isn't one of them.

Every Man Should Have a Rifle

So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb,
Seeing visions “over yonder” of the war I know must come.
In the corner – not a vision – but a sign for coming days
Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize.
And in this, the living present, let the word go through the land,
Every tradesman, clerk and peasant should have these two things at hand. 
No – no ranting song is needed, and no meeting, flag or fuss -
In the future, still unheeded, shall the spirit come to us!
Without feathers, drum or riot on the day that is to be,
We shall march down, very quite, to our stations by the sea.
While the bitter parties stifle every voice that warns of war,
Every man should own a rifle and have cartridges in store!

Henry Lawson (1907)

Found at Theo's place

Justice Denied: Second Amendment

Justice Denied:Second Amendment Case Delayed for Years in D.C.

After the historic decision where the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applied to individuals in the Heller decision, the victorious attorney Alan Gura filed another suit in the District of Columbia.   The object of this lawsuit was simple: Require the D.C. government to allow a person to carry a handgun for defense outside of the home. From The Washington Times:

The lawsuit argues that the District’s “laws, customs, practices and policies generally banning the carrying of handguns in public violate the Second Amendment” of the U.S. Constitution. It asks that the District issue licenses to carry guns in public to legal gun owners in the city and to people with valid carry permits from outside the city.

The issue is a simple one: Does the Second Amendment apply outside of the home?  Alan Gura's argument is summarized by an observer who posted on opencarry.org here:

Alan Gura went first. He said this case is pretty simply (sic). He emphasized the Heller decision's definition of bear as to carry on the person a weapon for offensive or defensive use in the event of confrontation. He pointed out that the District has offered no other definition. He pointed out that this is a complete ban on carrying outside the home and is thus very similar to Heller which completely banned possession of handguns. He pointed out that handguns are protected under the second amendment as commonly used arms. He explained that Heller said that the right of self defense is protected by the second amendment and that the DC law bans persons from having handguns for self defense outside the home.

 The case was filed on August 6th, 2009.  Early in the case, a decision was expected by the end of April, 2010.    Judge Kennedy did not rule by April of 2010.

In July of 2010, Alan Gura filed cases concerned with the Second Amendment right to bear arms in New York and in Maryland.

Judge Kennedy did not rule in 2010 at all.   The plaintiffs waited.   Then they waited some more.  The Chief Justice said that all the justices were heavily burdened.   In July of 2011, Palmer v. DC was reassigned to Judge Frederick J. Scullin by Chief Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court.

 Judge Scullin did not rule on the case in 2011.  The case had now been in the courts for two and a half years.

In March, 2012, the Maryland case was favorably ruled on by the original court.

Judge Scullin did not rule on the case in 2012.  However, he did schedule a hearing, cancel it, and reschedule it.  There was a hearing held on October,1, 2012.  The judge said that he would rule quickly, though that is a subjective judgement.

The Maryland case, Woolard, was scheduled to be appealed and heard in the 4th circuit in October, 2012.

In March of 2013, the Fourth Circuit reverses the Woolard District Court ruling.

September 11, 2013.  More than four years have passed since the case was filed.  The Maryland case  has been heard, ruled on, appealed, and ruled on appeal.  The New York Case has been heard, ruled on, appealed, and ruled on appeal.  Both cases were filed nearly a year after the Palmer case was filed in the District of Columbia.

Speculation abounds that the delay in the District court in D.C. is deliberate. From opencarry.org:

This delay is intentional. Why, you ask? It is because there is no States rights issue in the Federal Disttrict (sic) to balance againmst (sic) the rights of citizens. Delaying this case, and bringing only flawed other cases to SCOTUS means they are playing the waiting game. Wait until one of the 5 conservatives dies, then bring in cases to roll back Heller.

Four years is a long time for a simple ruling.  Perhaps this is  a "hot potato" that the judges do not want their name attached to.  Perhaps they have hoped for another case in the courts to overtake this one and render it moot.

Since the case was filed, Illinois was forced by a ruling in the Seventh Circuit to pass a shall issue concealed carry permit law, leaving the District of Columbia the only jurisdiction in the nation that has a complete ban on the carry of handguns outside of the home.

It is clear that Justice has long been delayed in this case.  Actions such as this, though they may be innocent, give the impression of corruption, of a lack of concern for the Constitution.    They erode public confidence in the judicial system.   The time for a decision in this case is long, long, overdue.   To paraphrase the famous quote, justice has long been delayed, and has thus been denied.


 ©2013 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

Gov. Parnell, Alaska Continue to Support Self-Defense

From an Associated Press story:

JUNEAU, Alaska—

A spokeswoman for Gov. Sean Parnell says he continues to support a so-called "Stand Your Ground" law in Alaska.

Sharon Leighow says Parnell's position hasn't changed since last month, when he signed legislation allowing for use of deadly force in self-defense in any place a person has a legal right to be. At that time, Parnell said Alaskans' way of life depends on their ability to carry firearms to defend themselves, provide for their families and "live freely."

Read the whole story at the link.


It would be sad indeed if Alaska is the last bastion of common sense & personal freedom. You sure all y'all don't want to move here?

Why Gun Owners Are Right to Fight Against Gun Control

The anti-gun crowd doesn't want "compromise."They want confiscation and control.

In April, the Senate rejected the Toomey-Manchin gun control proposal. In the wake of its defeat many asked why gun owners and their organizations resisted so limited a measure. Granted, it would have had little but symbolic benefit. Its core was to require background checks at gun shows (which Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded involved a whole 0.8 percent of crime guns) and on Internet gun sales (a miniscule proportion, most of which probably go through licensed dealers anyway). But why not accept something so modest, in light of the draconian ideas then being floated as alternatives?

Understanding the rejection requires understanding gun owners' shared experiences. Compromise requires that both parties relinquish something. If your counterpart's position is "give me this now, and I'll take the rest later," there is no real compromise to be had. Over decades, that has been precisely the experience of American gun owners.

Back in 1976, Pete Shields, chairman of what is today the Brady Campaign, candidly laid out the blueprint for The New Yorker:

We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily … given the political realities … going to be very modest. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal … total control of handguns in the United States … is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition … except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors … totally illegal.

As the years passed, it became apparent that this was going nowhere; a different first "slice" would have to be found. In 1990, Violence Policy Center (VPC) announced that it had found it. The debate must be switched from small handguns to large "assault rifles."

Handguns, VPC explained, had become a media and political nonissue, while calls to outlaw "assault rifles" would benefit from mistaken impressions, i.e., "the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons…anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun." That rifles of all types were involved in about 300 homicides a year was beside the point. The search was for a target of opportunity, not a solution to crime.

The major gun control organizations bought the idea, to the point of changing their names to replace "handgun" with "gun." Pete Shields' group, Handgun Control, Inc., became the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The National Coalition to Ban Handguns became the Coalition To Stop Gun Violence.

The change underscored a lesson gun owners had already learned. Their opponents would go for any target of opportunity…if handgun restrictions didn't fly, try to restrict rifles…and use that as a foundation to take more in the future. Any "reasonable compromise" would simply be a first step in a long campaign to make firearm ownership as difficult, expensive, and legally risky as possible.

Take the example of California. There, 1920s legislation required a permit for concealed carry of a firearm, required dealers to report handgun sales to the state, and imposed a one-day waiting period for handgun sales.

The one-day wait was meant to impede "crimes of passion," but in 1955 it was increased to three days, in 1965 to five days, and in 1975 to 10 days.

Open carry of a firearm was initially allowed. In 1967, open carrying of loaded guns was prohibited. In recent years, open carrying even of unloaded guns was forbidden in incorporated areas. The mere sight of an unloaded gun was apparently too much for the California legislature to tolerate.

In 2001, dealers were forbidden to sell handguns that were not approved by the government, after rigorous laboratory testing, funded by the manufacturer. Every slight variation, even changes in color or finish, required a new certification. The tests actually had nothing to do with reliability or safety, as evidenced by the exemption of law enforcement firearms from them.

Along the way, the state banned "assault weapons," magazines holding more than 10 rounds, and private gun sales that didn't go through dealers. In 1999, "one gun a month" was enacted, for no discernible reason (why would a gun runner pick the most tightly regulated state in the West as his source?)

Today, the weapons regulation portion of the California Penal Code Annotated spans over 1,050 pages, yet at last count 68 more gun control measures are pending in the legislature. No matter how much the advocates of gun control get, it will never be enough.

Or try New Jersey, which requires a license to own guns, plus a separate permit for each handgun. Carrying open or concealed is in practice forbidden (the legal standard for a permit is "urgent necessity"), carrying of hollow-point bullets is subject to complex rules, and magazines are limited to 15 rounds.

That's not enough, apparently, since the New Jersey legislature is considering bills to cut the magazine limit to five rounds, and to require psychiatric evaluations and home inspections before issuance of the firearm ownership license. Recently three legislators had an embarrassing "hot mike" problem after a gun bill hearing, in which someone proclaimed, "We needed a bill that is going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate."

Or try New York, long considered to have the strictest gun laws in the country, including requiring pistol possession permits (issued at the sole discretion of police, with application fees as high as $340), carry permits limited in some jurisdictions to government officials and celebrities, and a 10 round magazine limit. Then came the Newtown slayings, and the legislature decided it must do something more. The legislation it rushed through reduced the allowed magazine capacity to seven rounds (effectively outlawing the many firearms for which seven round magazines have never been made), required background checks to buy ammunition, and greatly broadened its "assault rifle ban."
New York's Attorney General described this as "modest first step."

So much for compromise.

David T. Hardy is a Tucson, Arizona attorney and author. He has published 21 law review articles on the right to arms, two of which have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, and produced the documentary film In Search of the Second Amendment. He is also a long time friend of JPFO.

 Copyright © JPFO 1999 - 2013. All Rights Reserved.
P.O. Box 270143 | Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745 | Fax (262) 673-9746 | jpfo@jpfo.org

Rifle Range Responds to Giffords' Anti-Gun Visit

I recently wrote about how former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband visited Alaska to campaign for further depredations against the Constitutional rights of gun-owners.

When they went shooting (to prove how they're just like us - a blatant lie), they used the rifle range of which I'm a member.

Now the Board of Directors of the Birchwood Recreation & Shooting Park (BRSP) has issued a statement:

"July 9, 2013

Attn BRSP Membership

On July 2nd, an organization dedicated to Congressional approval of significant additional restrictions on gun ownership, entered and used our Park. They were escorted in by a [full 24-hour access] member, apparently for the purpose of creating stock footage in support of their cause. This use of the BRSP facilities without the knowledge or consent of the BRSP Board. The BRSP Board did not and would not have consented to such a use of our facilities. We have taken steps to insure that such a use does not happen in the future. Shoot Safe.

Gary Peters
Board President"

To be "escorted in" by a full-access member means they visited outside of normal hours of operation, when the Park was closed to the average members and the public.

Can you say "slimy"?  Good, I knew that you could.

Fairbanks North Star Borough Considers Arming Its Employees

The Associated Press reports:

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Fairbanks North Star Borough employees would be allowed to carry firearms on the job under an ordinance under consideration by the borough assembly.

Assemblyman Lance Roberts proposed the ordinance and says it's a matter of safety. He says the current gun ban leaves employees unable to defend themselves.

. . . The Fairbanks North Star Borough is a local government that covers 7,361 square miles and has 82,840 residents. It's similar to a county government in other states.

It is not wise to force their employees, working in one of the most remote & harsh environments on earth to roam the wilderness while unarmed. There are bears and other predators, some of whom have only two legs, and even polar bears have been found in that area.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Unbelievable

You remember what happened to TJIC a few years ago? It's happened again, in the state that once was the cradle of liberty.

Here's another take on it.

Read the stories, and then tell me if you think this is still the "land of the free". 

A Cool Reception

Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelley are in Alaska, in a vain attempt to convince one of the most heavily-armed populations that stricter background checks & more gun control are a good idea.

Sorry. I don't take advice from people (cough Mark Kelley cough) who've been turned down for handgun purchases because of wrong I.D. and suspicion of "straw man" purchases.

Apparently they're meeting with little success.

Darn.

"Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire"

Assaulted Documentary Premiers July 18th (Anchorage)

The documentary movie Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire is scheduled for a premier at Century 16 in Anchorage. This is a 2013 documentary about the second amendment as a civil right. 

Unfortunately this movie is not being screened by normal methods. The Anchorage Second Amendment Task Force has set up a www.tugg.com premier of the movie so the people in the Anchorage area can see it. The way it works is if the theater gets enough ticket sales they will show the movie. If they don't sell at least 93 tickets prior to the date, they won't show the film.

Go to this website to preview & reserve tickets.

Weekend Quotes

"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion . . . in private self-defense. " 

~ John Adams

"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. "

~ Samuel Adams

" . . arms discourage and keep invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ... Horrid mischief would ensue were [the law-abiding] deprived of the use of them. " 

~ Thomas Paine

"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...[where] the government s are afraid to trust the people with arms." 

~ James Madison

What If ..?

Alaska Legislative Update

Last week, the Alaska Legislature sent three bills of interest to the Governor's office, for signature into law.

A modification to the self-defense law. The law includes a list of places (like one's residence or place of work) where a person is exempt from the duty to retreat. HB 24 adds the phrase, "or in any other place where the person has a right to be."

An act prohibiting State or municipal agencies from using assets to implement any Federal regulations which would infringe on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

An act giving the Alaska Attorney General the authority to review federal Executive Orders for compliance with the U.S. Constitution, and authorizing the A.G. to recommend to the State Legislature that any such orders be countermanded, and that the A.G. can sue the Federal government to block such orders.