Tag: 2nd amendment

Democrats Demand “Assault Weapons” Ban After Trans Mass Shooting In Minneapolis

In the US, gun deaths are often the focus of progressive and international criticism, with claims that the nation is a wellspring of violence and murder that could be solved simply by banning firearms.  The disdain of the political left for the 2nd Amendment is no secret and their efforts to erase gun rights from the Constitution is a constant point of contention within American society.  

Of course, this means that Democrats are required to ignore every other contributing factor to any shooting and deflect when they are confronted with inconvenient truths.  Leftists are, once again, attempting to redirect public discourse as yet another trans shooter has hit the news feeds.  The Minneapolis killer is one of at least five active shooters since 2018 that were confirmed as transgender. 

Multiple other active shooter events have taken place in which the trans status of the killers was suspected but never revealed by authorities (authorities tried to hide Audrey Hale’s trans status and her manifesto, for example).

In the case of the Robert Westman, a male posing as a female, notes from a manifesto and other evidence indicates that the trans ideology was central to his decision to murder two children and injure 17 others at a Christian school.  It was the direct inspiration for the attack.

However, Democrat leaders and media figures like former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki argue otherwise.  They claim that the availability of “assault rifles” is the real cause, not the insane political philosophy that ruled over Westman’s every waking moment.  Psaki shed alligator tears for the children of the Church of the Annunciation, while simultaneously denying that the trans ideology had anything to do with it and blaming conservatives for not supporting a firearms ban.

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MSNBC Panel Talks Banning All Firearms After Trans Shooter Targets Catholic School: ‘Do What Australia Did’

When modern liberals casually reveal their true authoritarian natures, believe them.

They did it during the COVID scare, when they embraced lockdowns, masks, and vaccine mandates. And they do it in the wake of every mass shooting.

Rarely, however, do they go as far as journalist Mike Spies of the anti-gun outlet The Trace.

Wednesday on MSNBC, Spies appeared in a round table discussion with host Katy Tur and others. Earlier in the day, a transgender murderer had opened fire at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing two children and injuring 17.

Thus, the panelists discussed the shooting and how to prevent such violence moving forward. Naturally — this being MSNBC — they focused on the weapons and not the mental-health crisis at the root of transgender ideology.

“You have to be honest and say what will actually work, which is what nobody wants to hear, which is that there are just simply way too many firearms, and they are way too accessible,” Spies said.

“And they’re too powerful?” Tur asked.

“And they’re too powerful,” Spies replied, “even handguns too. Again, that’s why in Australia — it doesn’t matter if it’s not politically acceptable to say it. I’m not here as a politician or anyone who works in politics. I’m a journalist — whether or not you like it, the only thing that really works, if you really wanted to bring down gun violence, was to do what Australia did and to do what many other countries in Europe do.”

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The 10th Circuit Agrees That Prosecuting Cannabis Consumers for Gun Possession May Be Unconstitutional

On a Friday in May 2022, Jared Harrison was on his way to work at an Oklahoma medical marijuana dispensary when a police officer stopped him for running a red light. When Harrison rolled down his window, the officer smelled marijuana. A search of the car discovered a loaded revolver, a pill bottle containing a few partially smoked joints, another joint in a console tray, and a backpack containing marijuana, THC gummies, and two THC vape cartridges.

Because Harrison did not have a state-issued medical marijuana card, he was charged with illegal possession of cannabis under state law, a misdemeanor. But he also faced a felony charge under 18 USC 922(g)(3), the federal law that bars illegal drug users from possessing firearms. That charge, he argued, violated the Second Amendment. A federal judge agreed, ruling in February 2023 that the government had failed to show Harrison’s prosecution was “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed that ruling and remanded the case for further consideration. The 10th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Harrison, because it endorsed U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick’s reasoning in nearly all respects, nevertheless represents another in a series of blows to a policy that affects millions of peaceful Americans, depriving them of the constitutional right to armed self-defense for no good reason.

As it has in other Section 922(g)(3) cases, the government argued that cannabis consumers are not part of “the people” whose “right to keep and bear arms” is guaranteed by the Second Amendment because they are not “law-abiding.” Wyrick made short work of that claim, noting that the Supreme Court has said “the people,” as used in the Bill of Rights, “unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.”

The government’s argument amounted to “an outright declaration of the federal government’s belief that it can deprive practically anyone of their Second Amendment right,” Wyrick added. “Who among us, after all, isn’t a ‘lawbreaker’? For sure, there
may well exist some adult[s] who [have] never exceeded the speed limit, changed lanes without signaling, or failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, but they are few and far between.”

The three-judge 10th Circuit panel unanimously agreed with Wyrick on this point. “A contrary conclusion would defy law and logic,” Judge Veronica Rossman, a Joe Biden appointee, writes in the majority opinion, which was joined in full by Judge Michael R. Murphy, who was nominated by Bill Clinton, and in part by Judge Paul J. Kelly Jr., who was appointed by George H.W. Bush. “The First and Fourth Amendments also refer to the ‘people,’ and nobody contends only ‘law-abiding citizens’ enjoy the rights protected by these constitutional guarantees….Restricting the Second Amendment to ‘law-abiding’ citizens—as the government urges us to do—would make it harder to administer and would risk turning it into ‘a second-class right.'”

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Federal Appeals Court Says Government Must Prove Marijuana Users ‘Pose A Risk’ Of Danger To Justify Gun Ban

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government must prove that people who use marijuana “pose a risk of future danger” if it wants to justify applying a law banning cannabis consumers from owning firearms.

In its opinion on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms, known as 922(g)(3), violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The Justice Department appealed that ruling in 2023, sending it to the Tenth Circuit. That three-judge panel said they “agree with much of the district court’s analysis” of the legal considerations, including its challenge to the federal government’s claims that there is historically analogous precedent substantiating the firearm ban for cannabis consumers.

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Pirro: Those carrying rifles or shotguns in D.C. will no longer face felony charges

United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has announced that federal prosecutors will no longer pursue felony charges for mere possession of rifles or shotguns in Washington, D.C.

This change means that, except in certain cases, felony charges will no longer be implemented under a D.C. law that made it illegal to carry rifles or shotguns within its boundaries.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office will, however, continue to seek charges whenever a person is accused of committing a violent crime with a shotgun or rifle, or if the individual has a criminal record that prohibits them from possessing a firearm. The new policy also includes large-capacity magazines, but excludes handguns. Officials are also able to prosecute individuals in possession of unregistered rifles and shotguns in the district.

Pirro made a statement explaining that the policy change is in alignment with Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rulings protecting gun rights, and was enacted under the guidance of the Justice Department and the Office of Solicitor General.

The first SCOTUS ruling the former Fox News host referenced overturned a New York gun law in 2022 and held that Americans have a right to carry firearms I public for self-defense. She asserted that a blanket ban on the possession of shotguns and rifles violates this opinion. The second ruling cited was from 2008, where the court blocked D.C.’s ban on handguns within the home.

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Federal Appeals Court Gives Medical Marijuana Patients Who Want To Own Guns A Win

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers a series of cases challenging the current ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana, another federal appeals court has ruled in favor of medical cannabis patients who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights to possess firearms.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District, in a opinion authored by Judge Elizabeth Branch, departed from the ruling of a district could that upheld the federal statute, Section 922(g)(3), that precludes any “unlawful users” of controlled substances from owning or purchasing firearms.

While the Justice Department has repeatedly argued that people who use cannabis, in compliance with state law, are uniquely dangerous—and that there are historical analogues in U.S. gun laws that justify the ban—the appeals court disagreed, vacated the prior ruling and remanded the case back to a lower court.

The federal government’s “allegations in the operative complaint do not lead to the inference that the plaintiffs are comparatively similar to either felons or dangerous individuals.”

The plaintiffs in the years-long case are Vera Cooper and Nicole Hansell, who are registered medical cannabis patients denied gun purchases over their admission to participating in the program, and Neill Franklin, a former police officer who wants to access medical marijuana without jeopardizing his right to own a firearm.

Former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) initially led the suit against the federal government, but she was removed from the case after leaving her state office. The Republican commissioner who replaced her declined to become involved in the legal proceedings.

One of the most controversial aspects of the many active firearms and marijuana cases deals with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 where justices generally created a higher standard for policies that seek to impose restrictions on gun rights. The ruling states that any such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the Second Amendment’s original 1791 ratification.

To that end, the Justice Department has argued that the two medical cannabis patients in the Florida case should be deprived of their gun rights due to their alleged felonious activity and dangerousness.

After reviewing the district court ruling on appeal, the Eleventh Circuit said “nothing in the [complaint] indicates that [plaintiffs] have committed any felony or been convicted of any crime (felony or misdemeanor), let alone that their medical marijuana use makes them dangerous.”

“Thus, the government failed to meet its burden—at the motion to dismiss stage—to establish that disarming medical marijuana users is consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation,” the opinion says.

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Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Revives Case Challenging Gun Ban for Florida Medical Marijuana Patients

In a decision issued Wednesday, a three-judge panel said the government had not met its burden of showing that disarming state-legal medical marijuana patients aligns with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The case was brought by several Florida medical marijuana patients, joined initially by former Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who argued the restriction is unconstitutional given their lawful conduct under state law.

The court’s ruling nullifies a district court decision from November 2022 that threw out the challenge

The court noted that the individuals involved had not been convicted of crimes or shown to pose a danger that would warrant taking away their gun rights. Under federal law, marijuana use remains a misdemeanor offense, but Florida voters legalized medical marijuana in 2016. The panel ruled that this conflict was enough to allow the case to move forward.

U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch, writing on behalf of the panel, noted that at most the plaintiffs were guilty of a federal misdemeanor for marijuana use. She emphasized that they had not been convicted of a crime and there was no showing at this stage that their drug use made them dangerous enough to justify stripping them of gun rights.

“Accordingly, the Federal Government has failed, at the motion to dismiss stage, to establish that disarming Appellants is consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation,” she wrote.

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Ninth Circuit Overturns California’s ‘One-Gun-Per-Month’ Restriction

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a mandate Thursday overturning California’s “one-gun-a-month” restriction.

The case is Nguyen v. Bonta and the plaintiffs include the Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, two FFL gun dealers, and six private citizens including Michelle Nguyen.

The Second Amendment Foundation noted the “one-gun-a-month” restriction allows law-abiding citizens to purchase only one handgun or semi-automatic centerfire rifle (or combination thereof), from a licensed dealer within a 30-day period.

The August 14th mandate overturning the restriction follows a June 20, 2025, Ninth Circuit three-judge panel decision which affirmed a lower court ruling against the “one-gun-a-month” restriction.

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Trump DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Uphold Ban On Marijuana Users Owning Guns

Amid a series of legal challenges, the Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case on the federal government’s ban on users of marijuana and other illegal drugs from owning firearms and uphold the prohibition, saying it is consistent with the 2nd Amendment.

To that end, the DOJ solicitor general is urging SCOTUS to hear one of five relevant cases to resolve conflicting lower court decisions on gun rights for cannabis consumers.

With the multiple competing legal cases resulting in differing rulings in federal appeals courts across the country, DOJ last week requested that SCOTUS review one in particular that it described as “archetypal” of the issue related to federal code 922(g)(3), which precludes users of unlawful drugs from having guns or ammo.

The case “presents an important Second Amendment issue that affects hundreds of prosecutions every year: whether the government may disarm individuals who habitually use unlawful drugs but are not necessarily under the influence while possessing a firearm,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said.

The solicitor general reiterated his position that, despite recent appeals court decisions calling into question the constitutionality of the firearms ban for people who use cannabis—even in compliance with state law—the restriction is nevertheless lawful.

Some lower courts have said the government’s blanket ban on gun and ammunition possession infringes on the Second Amendment—at least as applied to certain individual cases—because there’s no historical justification for such a broad restriction on an entire category of people.

But over recent years, various federal district and appeals courts have take differing approaches to the issue. As DOJ argued in its latest filing in the case, “the question presented is the subject of a multi-sided and growing circuit conflict.”

“The petition for a writ of certiorari [filed by Sauer in June] identified three sides of that conflict: The Seventh Circuit has upheld Section 922(g)(3); the Eighth Circuit has held it violates the Second Amendment unless the government can make a case-by-case showing justifying the drug user’s disarmament; and the Fifth Circuit has held that it generally violates the Second Amendment unless the drug user was intoxicated while possessing the firearm.”

“Since then, the conflict has deepened,” it said, referring to several other cases on the issue that are pending before the high court. And DOJ wants SCOTUS to focus on one case in particular to resolve what it called a “four-way circuit conflict”: U.S. v. Hemani.

One reason DOJ could be focused on the justices taking up Hemani in particular is that the defendant in that case is not only a cannabis user but also a user of cocaine who’s sold drugs in the past, according to court findings, which could make him less sympathetic in the eyes of the court. Defendants in the other cases were merely found in possession of both a firearm and marijuana.

Lawyers for the defendant in Hemani argued in a brief last month that the high court should decline the case.

But in its reply brief submitted to SCOTUS this week, the Justice Department said that “this case is the best vehicle available.”

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Making the World Freer with Homemade Guns

Recently, while touting gun seizures in a city that has some of the most authoritarian gun laws in the United States, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch lamented, “the number of illegal guns that we’ve seen used in New York City has exploded since 3D technology has come about.” She’s not alone. Homemade guns are increasingly sophisticated and available almost everywhere. That’s a good thing.

Americans, Armed and Scary

American dedication to privately owned weapons alarms observers from more restrictive countries—much to the amusement of many Americans, it should be noted, whose ancestors fled those places in search of greater freedom and found it, in part, in the ability to arm themselves and to generally flip the bird to government. That means that from the foundation of the U.S., privately owned weapons and their protection by the Second Amendment have had a strong ideological component. Now, innovators around the world are embracing private arms as expressions of liberty and creating simple designs that can be built in home workshops with commonly available tools and parts.

Critics argue that 3D-printed DIY firearms and their enthusiasts are spreading libertarianism around the world. Let’s hope they’re right.

Summarizing events at June’s MoneroKon conference in Prague, an annual meeting devoted to “privacy-enhancing technologies and distributed systems,” security expert Zoltán Füredi described a presentation by the pseudonymous Zé Carioca, designer of the recently unveiled Urutau, a 9mm select-fire firearm designed to be constructed with a 3D printer and components purchased at any hardware store. Rather than focus on his creation, Zé Carioca instead championed 3D-printed firearms as companions to cryptocurrency in challenging the power and reach of governments.

“His speech blurred the lines between technology, ideology, and extreme libertarian politics,” commented Füredi. He added of the speakers’ message, “Just as the freedom to transact (via cryptocurrency) is now seen as a fundamental human right, so too should be the right to bear arms—worldwide.”

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