For many supporters of the Second Amendment, it’s been easy in recent weeks to despair over the ways in which gun control advocates are successfully undermining the right to keep and bear arms. Virginia’s ban on future sales of standard-capacity magazines and so-called assault weapons is set to take effect on July 1, with state courts thus far appearing reluctant to intervene. New York and Connecticut became the latest states to pass “Glock bans,” which prohibit residents from buying one of the nation’s most widely available handgun brands.
But not everything has been doom and gloom for lawful gun owners in other parts of the United States. The last few weeks have also featured some bright spots. In West Virginia, for example, law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds may now enjoy their right to bear arms on equal footing with all other adults after legislation passed in April to expand the state’s permitless-carry protections finally went into effect. Down in Florida, meanwhile, state Attorney General James Uthmeier joined forces with Second Amendment advocacy groups, agreeing with them that the state’s mandatory three-day waiting period on gun purchases is unconstitutional and asking a federal court to strike down the law. And the Second Circuit struck down New York’s “vampire rule” in what is almost certainly a precursor to the Supreme Court’s imminent decision in Wolford v. Lopez regarding Hawaii’s version of the rule.
All of these are victories for the right to keep and bear arms, which Americans rely on to defend themselves and others far more often than many people realize. Even the notoriously anti-gun Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that most studies on the issue find that between 500,000 and several million defensive gun uses occur every year in the United States. An extensive 2021 national survey conducted by a Georgetown professor further substantiated this reality, concluding that Americans used their firearms defensively an average of 1.2 million times a year.
Hellbound and Down 