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| LEGAL & LEGISLATION NEWS Pivotal Case on "Bearing" Arms in Public Heard by Federal Appellate Court in California | |
| The never-ending battle against defiance of the Second Amendment saw another skirmish yesterday with oral arguments in the rehearing of the critically important NRA-supported case of Peruta v. San Diego County. As we reported earlier this year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had initially ruled favorably for the plaintiffs. The panel decision held that the San Diego County Sheriff's policy of refusing to issue licenses to carry firearms in public unless an applicant could demonstrate a special need – the so-called "good cause" requirement – was a violation of the Second Amendment. | |
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| NEWS Americans Comfortable Living Around Guns, Despite Decades–long Fear Campaign | |
| The results of a Rasmussen Reports poll released June 12 provide further evidence of just how out-of-step the gun control movement is with the American people. In a survey of 977 likely voters, Rasmussen found that an overwhelming majority of Americans would rather live in a neighborhood where residents are allowed to own firearms than one that is completely disarmed. Specifically, the survey asked "Would you feel safer moving to a neighborhood where nobody was allowed to own a gun or a neighborhood where you could have a gun for your own protection?" Armed neighborhoods were favored in landslide, with 68 percent of those polled choosing a neighborhood with guns. A further 10 percent answered that they were not sure which option they preferred, while a mere 22 percent felt safer in a disarmed area. | |
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| LEGAL & LEGISLATION NEWS SECOND AMENDMENT Appellate Court "Temporarily" Reinstates Discretionary Concealed Carry Licensing in D.C. | |
| The wheels of justice ground to a halt again for D.C. gun owners on Friday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia temporarily blocked a lower court's order that had previously mandated the District process concealed carry applications and disregard its "good" or "proper" purpose requirement. The lower court's order arose in the case of Wrenn v. District of Columbia, in which the judge made a preliminary finding that the "good" or "proper" purpose requirement likely offends the Second Amendment and ordered the District to stop enforcing it. | |
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| NEWS SECOND AMENDMENT Were Guns "Much More" Strictly Regulated in the 1920s and 1930s? | |
| This week, Time magazine published a piece that pushes the narrative that today's firearms laws are permissive in comparison to those of the early 20th century. Titled, "Guns Were Much More Strictly Regulated in the 1920s and 1930s than They Are Today," the piece contends that "Those who look to America's past to extol a time when nothing stood between an American and a gun need to look again." The obvious goal of the work is to convince the uninformed that any notions they might have about America's long-standing culture of gun ownership should pose no barrier to future restrictions, particularly on the ownership of semi-automatic firearms. | |
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| LEGAL & LEGISLATION "Lawful Purpose and Self Defense Act of 2015" Introduced to Curb BATFE Abuse | |
| Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources Rob Bishop (R-UT) introduced H.R. 2710, the "Lawful Purpose and Self Defense Act of 2015." This bill would remove BATFE's authority to interpret or reinterpret the "sporting purposes" clauses in federal law, which only serve to undermine the core purpose of the Second Amendment. Under Chairman Bishop’s legislation, all lawful purposes – including self-defense – would have to be given due consideration and respect in the administration of federal law. | |
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| LEGAL & LEGISLATION Fanciful "Smart Gun" Bill Seeks to Make Law Out of Wishful Thinking | |
| We all have our hopes for the future. In that regard, we're not so different from Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren (both D-Mass.). Where we're just a little bit different, however, is that while we recognize some people might wish to replace travel by automobiles with on-demand flight via pollution-free unicorns, we're not sure a law to that affect is really necessary. Similarly, while some people might want guns to be designed like "Kitt," the taking car in the David Hasselhoff series "Knight Rider," it takes a special kind of dreamer to turn that dream into federal legislation. Enter the senators from Massachusetts. | |
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| LEGAL & LEGISLATION Federal Bill Seeks to Use Your Taxes to Bribe States to Require Gun Licenses | |
| It's bad enough that antigun members of Congress want to enact federal legislation to impose the elitist views of their coastal enclaves on the entire country. What's worse is that in typical Big Government fashion, they want to use your tax dollars to accomplish their schemes. The latest example of this is the "Handgun Purchaser Licensing Act," which at least has the distinction of having an honest title, a rarity for antigun legislation. Rather than establishing the licensing mandate at the federal level, however, this bill would create a federal grant program to bribe states to do it themselves. | |
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| LEGAL & LEGISLATION "Collectible Firearms Protection Act" Introduced | |
| U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) introduced H.R. 2611, the "Collectible Firearms Protection Act." This bill would aim to reverse a State Department decision blocking the importation of wildly popular and historic M1 Garand rifles and M1 carbines from South Korea. The United States exported these firearms to South Korea at the onset of the Korean War in the 1950s. The M1 Garand and M1 carbine have become collector's items and are perfectly legal to manufacture in the United States and, like all firearm imports, they would be subject to the federal rules and regulations governing retail firearm sales. | |
VIDEOS
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In this News Minute from the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, Jennifer Zahrn reports on legislation introduced in Congress by lawmakers from Maryland and Connecticut to create handgun licensing laws similar to those in their own states. |
| STATE GRASSROOTS ROUND-UP |
