The NRA is about to lose yet another fight — this time hoping to stop Elena Kagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. But Ms. Kagan’s confirmation is all but certain. The NRA is simply using the Senate’s vote as yet another shameless opportunity to throw it’s weight around. According to the Los Angels Times [...]
The Philadelphia Inquirer published an editorial on March 4th about the Supreme Court’s new Second Amendment case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, about the city’s handgun ban. A gun-rights decision by the Supreme Court two years ago threatened to make it more dangerous to walk the streets of Washington. Now the top court’s conservative voting [...]
Oral Arguments to Supreme Court On Chicago’s Handgun Ban Supreme Court Releases Transcripts Of Oral Arguments In McDonald v. City of Chicago. Analysis: Second Amendment Extension Likely. The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed poised to require state and local governments to obey the Second Amendment guarantee of a personal right to a gun, but with [...]
(We strongly urge you to read Josh Sugarmann’s new piece on the Huffington Post published on March 1st. Sugarmann is the Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, DC.) Tomorrow “Sport Shooting Ambassador Award” winner Antonin Scalia will hear oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago, a case that will decide whether the opinion [...]
According to the Washington Post on March 1st: As a member of the Junior ROTC, teenager Antonin Scalia toted his rifle on the subway ride back and forth to Queens. As a hunter, he speaks lyrically of stalking wild turkeys. And as a justice, he may have reached the pinnacle of his more than two [...]
(We are pleased to post the following press release from our Freedom States Alliance affiliate, the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence). Press Release: Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence Nov. 13, 2009 Toledo, OH: On Nov. 12th the Eighth Appellate District Court of Ohio released their ruling deciding that Ohio’s firearms preemption statute, R.C. 9.68, is [...]
(We are pleased to post the following commentary from Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence in response to the Indy Star’s investigative report about Indiana’s broken and flawed CCW permit system). The Indy Star’s exceptional investigative report, “Should these men have been allowed to carry a gun?†on Oct. 11, should force state lawmakers to reform [...]
According to the News Observer on Oct. 12th: RALEIGH The N.C. Supreme Court attracted national attention a few weeks ago as the first court in the nation to rule that a convicted felon has a right to own a gun. What drew little notice is that Edward Thomas Brady, the justice who wrote the 5-2 [...]
(We are pleased to post the following essay from Josh Horwitz, Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and was originally published in the Huffington Post). On Monday, it was national news when a man (identified only as “Chris”) appeared at a health care rally in Phoenix, Arizona, openly and legally carrying an [...]
(We are pleased to post the following press release from CeaseFire PA). For Immediate Release June 18, 2009 Contact: Joe Grace, joe.grace@ceasefirepa.org Victory For Other PA Cities that Have Passed Lost Or Stolen Handgun Ordinances HARRISBURG – A Pennsylvania appellate court today allowed Philadelphia’s lost or stolen handgun reporting ordinance to stand, rejecting a challenge [...]
(We are posting the following “fact check” from the Senate Democratic Communications Center from Sen. Harry Reid’s (NV) office. Today, Republican senators continued their fear and smear campaign against Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor by attacking her record on Second Amendment cases. Judge Sotomayor faithfully follows the law in cases concerning the Second Amendment. [...]
Freedom States Alliance Press Release March 27, 2009 Contact: Scott Vogel, scott@freedomstatesalliance.org State Senate Resolution 1611 To Amend Constitution On Guns Now Moves To Voter Referendum In Nov. 2010 General Election (Chicago) – Despite a downward spiral in the economy where Kansas citizens are losing jobs, home values, health insurance and other vital state services, [...]
(We are pleased to post the following press release from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence). For Immediate Release Thursday, March 12, 2009 Washington, D.C. – A federal appeals court has ruled that the Georgia Legislature can’t force Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport to allow people to carry concealed weapons on airport property. The United [...]
The Philadelphia Daily News reported a major setback for the residents of Philadelphia who vainly appealed for the right to strengthen local gun laws to reduce gun violence, lower crime and save lives. But the Pennsylvania State Commonwealth Court ruled that state pre-emption of gun laws took precedence over local control. According to the New [...]
Dick Heller, who was the lead plaintiff in overturning the D.C. handgun ban isn’t done yet. After being one of only two people to register a handgun with the Washington, D.C., police after the ban was overturned by the Supreme Court, Heller vowed to fight on: Dick Heller, whose legal challenge prompted the Supreme Court [...]
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court, headed by conservative justice Antonin Scalia who wrote the majority opinion, overturned the District of Columbia’s handgun ban by asserting that the ban violated the Second Amendment. In doing so, Scalia reversed over 200 years of legal precedent and ignored the robust history of gun control since the founding of [...]
A fascinating article by Adam Liptak in the New York Times on Dec. 3rd noted: Robert A. Levy, a rich libertarian lawyer who has never owned a gun, helped create and single-handedly financed the case that may finally resolve the meaning of the Second Amendment. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the [...]
Freedom States Alliance is proud that one of its recipients, the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, — which has been promoting gun violence prevention for more than 30 years – has kept the gun lobby in Illinois from passing a CCW law and from passing a state preemption law on guns. Illinois is the only [...]
Much has been discussed about the Washington D.C. federal circuit court ruling overturning the ban on handguns in that city. In fact, the case is now being appealed by the city to the Supreme Court, which may or may not choose to hear the appeal. What was most striking about the original 2-1 ruling by [...]
After a panel of three D.C. federal judges overturned the Washington D.C. ban on handgun ownership, there was uncertainty as to whether or not the city would appeal to the Supreme Court. On July 16th, the city of Washington ended speculation by announcing that it would indeed appeal the adverse ruling: The DC government will [...]
Finally, some sign of life from legislators in Harrisburg, PA. The Philadelphia Legislative Black Caucus there has finally stood up for their citizens rather than the gun lobby– they’ve announced they’re going to withhold any votes for the state budget until their bills to fight crime and gun violence get considered. Anger about the lack [...]
The NRA is going another step farther in their battle not against illegal guns (you’d think, as supposed Americans, they’d be fighting them with the rest of us), but instead against the people fighting against illegal guns. Mayor Michael Bloomberg from New York City has been running a successful campaign against guns from gun dealers [...]
The New Hampshire Supreme Court has overturned a slightly obscure case involving a firearms purchase. The Court ruled that one of their judges shouldn’t have dismissed a case where a man pled guilty for filling out fake information on a background check form, and they called for the case to be reopened and retried. The [...]
There’s a new player in Cleveland, OH’s lawsuit against a state law that keeps them from passing stronger gun legislation– Cleveland’s Plain Dealer says we can say hello, once again, to the NRA. Cleveland’s challenge of a state law that prevents Ohio cities from making their own gun laws faces a new opponent — The [...]
Justice is being served today against a gun guy who clearly crossed the line. Darren Morrison is like most gun guys– he’s strongly passionate about the NRA’s imagined “right” to own firearms, and he’s been convinced by the NRA that his gun “rights” are under siege. Factually, nothing could be further from the truth– because [...]
The man we reported on a while ago, who shot a young boy crossing his yard (after the boy was told not to), has received life in prison. A man who fatally shot a teenage neighbor because he walked on the man’s carefully tended lawn was sentenced to life in prison. Charles Martin, 67, must [...]
The Philadelphia Weekly has a short and to-the-point piece up about the situation on stronger gun laws in Pennsylvania now. As our good friend Bryan Miller says (seems he’s everywhere these days), stronger gun laws are certainly necessary. But Philadelphia is having a hard time trying to convince the legislators in its state of that. [...]
Looks like Pennsylvania’s Senator Bob Regola is headed on trial for the felony charges brought against him after his gun was used to kill a young boy. A district judge yesterday dismissed arguments from defense attorneys and ruled there was enough evidence to hold state Sen. Robert Regola III for trial on perjury and other [...]
The DC Court of Appeals announced yesterday that it will refuse to hear arguments about the DC handgun ban. A clearly conservative 2-1 court overturned the ban earlier this year, and now the full 10 person court has declined to hear the case at all. A federal appeals court in Washington refused yesterday to revisit [...]
The New York Times has a very interesting article up about how the courts have viewed the Second Amendment in the past, and how that view is changing. For years upon years (ever since the Constitution was actually written), academics have seen the Second Amendment as granting a collective right to own firearms. The Founding [...]
Congratulations are in order to our friend Saul Cornell, author of “A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America” (which you can buy an autographed copy of right now with a donation of $50 or more to Freedom States Alliance). He’s the winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. [...]
The Washington Post is reporting that the city of Washington, DC will appeal that politically motivated ruling issued by a judge at a District Court there. As well they should– that ruling would invalidate the DC handgun ban, as well as give the gun lobby ammunition to fight years upon years of reasonable gun legislation [...]
Here’s a really interesting opinion piece from the LA Times that condemns what’s called “Constitution worship.” Our founding fathers created the Constitution to be a “living, breathing document.” It’s meant to serve the people, not the other way around. But when a group like the gun lobby (or any other group that advocates the suffering [...]
Here’s an interesting article from one of the central figures in the DC gun ban case, showing a rift between two sides. On one side is the author, Robert A. Levy, who’s currently attempting to take down a publicly-supported firearms ban in the District of Columbia (he’s one of the attorneys in the Parker case [...]
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel checks in on the D.C. Circuit Court decision, and they echo nearly every intelligent thing we’ve heard about the case yet: no matter what the courts decide about the Second Amendment, those rulings should not be allowed to hamstring reasonable firearms legislation in America. The drafters of the U.S. Constitution get much [...]
Here’s another editorial speaking out against that DC Circuit Court decision the other week. If you’ve been following the site, you already know the deal: a conservative judge wrote up a 2-1 decision that went against years of judicial precedent (and common sense to boot). In doing so, he gave the gun guys the fuel [...]
Saul Cornell checks in with another commentary about the seeminly politically motivated decision that came out of that D.C. Court of Appeals last week. The Parker case decision was written by conservative judge Lawrence Silberman, and went directly against years and years of judicial precedent– including the other big case in the issue, US v. [...]
Finally today, here’s a strange case that’s a capsulized version of the conflict at the center of the gun debate. Richard Seruga is a gun guy in Jersey, who’s filing suit against the county, the town and his neighbors over what he feels is his inalienable right. He wants to fire his handguns off in [...]
The acting chief of DC’s metro police department checks in on the politically motivated decision made about the handgun ban in that city last week. The decision, made by a 2-1 conservative Court of Appeals, went against not only common sense and years of judicial precdent, but against the handgun ban– a law that the [...]
Two gigantic editorials dropped today about the politically motivated ruling that came out of the D.C. Circuit Court’s appeals court. Judge Lawrence Silberman ruled, against years of precedent, that the Second Amendment supposedly grants gun guys the “right” to own any and all firearms they wanted. Of course, the NRA has jumped on the ruling [...]
Looks like Jesse Jackson has been reading our site. He publishes an editorial about the D.C. Court ruling in the Chicago Sun-Times, and pretty much echoes our thoughts exactly. Like many cities, the District of Columbia has a crime problem. It is getting worse, not better, as a new wave of drugs drives new gang [...]
While Friday’s ruling has been hailed by many news outlets as the most important news on the gun debate in decades, many news outlets are still ignoring the real issue: when a conservative judge on the D.C. Circut’s appellate court wrote a 2-1 decision that the Second Amendment somehow guaranteed an individual right to own [...]
An appellate District of Columbia Circuit Court has made an unprecedented and dangerous decision involving the Second Amendment in the case of a Washington, DC handgun ban. The majority opinion of the three person court concluded that the Capital’s handgun ban is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, and that the Amendment supposedly grants an “individual [...]
Cops and district attorneys in Tennessee have the right idea, but not quite the right plan to implement it. They say they want to deal with their gun problem by dealing with their weak gun laws, but when it comes down to the specifics, they’re only opting for punishment, not prevention. Davidson County District Attorney [...]
New evidence has come to light in the case of the gun of Pennsylvania Senator Bob Regola. You’ll remember that last Fall, Senator Regola was out of town when a boy was found dead in the woods near his house– it was a next door neighbor who’d been housekeeping while Regola was away, and Regola’s [...]
Earlier this week, we wrote about Steven Bixby, who killed two police officers when they came to his house on the business of widening the highway in front of it. The media has obtained hundreds of pages of letters written by Bixby, giving us an insight into why he did what he did, and as [...]
The latest state to see an NRA push for its heinous License to Murder law is Texas. You’d think that “self defense” would already be on the lawbooks in Texas, and it is– all Texans already have the legal right to attack someone who’s attacking them, with deadly force if necessary. But the NRA is [...]
The NRA has a new enemy, and a new tactic in their embattled fight to put more and more firearms in yet another place where they don’t belong: workplace employee parking lots. The American Bar Association is going to make known next week that they agree with what most commonsense business owners have said so [...]
In Philadelphia, even the mayoral candidates are following the public’s lead– candidate Michael Nutter is planning to sue two gun shops in the city. Taking a game plan straight from Michael Bloomberg, Nutter says he’s holding these gun dealers responsible for the violence Philly is seeing. In reaction to a recent report issued by the [...]
Bloomberg and his mayors are meeting in Washington this week, and the actions they’re taking to keep weapons out of criminal hands are making press all over the country. -From Boston, Mayor Tom Menino spoke out about school shootings, and echoed the thoughts of many Americans: the violence has got to end. Menino and other [...]
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