Tag: 2nd amendment

Resurfaced Video Shows Democrat PA Congressional Candidate Dreams of Disarming Citizens and Police

Democrat Scranton, PA, Mayor Paige Cognetti is hoping to flip a red congressional seat blue by unseating Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA). But a resurfaced video from 2020 exposes a gun-grabbing posture that some voters may not be aware of.

In the video, taken from a virtual town hall, Cognetti supports disarming police and emulating Japan’s gun-control laws to take away guns from citizens.

Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the developed world.

The Firearms and Swords Control Law 1958 states that no one shall possess a firearm except under narrow, strictly regulated exceptions. Handguns are banned with almost no exceptions for ordinary citizens.

Cognetti told the town hall audience, “I would love to get to a world where a country where we don’t have or police don’t have firearms and where we don’t have firearms that citizens aren’t carrying them either.”

“I’ve lived in Japan for a couple years. There are no guns there and it’s lovely.”

She continued, “We don’t have to worry about some of these things because there are no guns there. That would be something that would be a great reality for us to live in.”

Cognetti repeated her fantasy during an interview with the Black Scranton Project, saying, “I do want to get to a point where we don’t have to worry about any officers having holsters or guns in them.”

“That is ideally where we get in our whole country.”

National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Reilly Richardson told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “Political opportunist Paige Cognetti wants to rip firearms away from law-abiding citizens while simultaneously making life easier for criminals.”

“Pennsylvanians know Cognetti will go to great lengths to strip them of their constitutional rights.”

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Armed Self-Defense Incidents Show Why Second Amendment is Worth Safeguarding

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.

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The Burden Of History: Justice Jackson’s Curious Call To Overturn Critical 2nd Amendment Precedent

Since her confirmation in 2022, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson has established a legacy that is fast becoming one of the most radical in the Court’s history. Her sole dissents have drawn sharp criticism from both her conservative and liberal colleagues. However, for critics of some of these decisions, Justice Jackson continues to publish opinions that are not just, as she describes it, cathartic but chilling. Worse yet, the latest judicial jump scare was shared by her colleague, Justice Sonya Sotomayor, in her concurring opinion in United States v. Hemani..

At issue in the case was an effort to prosecute Ali Hemani for recreational use of marijuana, a prosecution that threatened up to 15 years and to strip him of his gun rights under  18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch ruled that the provision was not “consistent with the Second Amendment.” Gorsuch noted that Hemani was not alleged to be a drug addict or to have used his guns in a menacing manner.

Gorsuch wrote that the “historical laws on which it relies targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways.”

However, Jackson used the concurrence to argue for overturning NYSRPA v. Bruen, a case critical to laying the foundation for interpreting the Second Amendment based on historical precedent. Jackson lashed out at the”‘history and tradition’ metric” and called for the Court to “revisit” the case.

Declaring Bruen “unworkable,” Jackson called for the restoration of the “means-end scrutiny – the approach courts applied before we adopted Bruen’s ‘history and tradition’ metric – offers a more rational way of assessing the constitutionality of firearm regulations.”

The reason for undoing Bruen? According to Jackson, “it imposes on judges the unfamiliar and difficult tasks of sifting through centuries-old evidence in order to answer ‘contested historical questions,’ and ‘applying those answers to resolve contemporary problems.'”

Justice Jackson added that “Given those challenges, it is unsurprising that Bruen’s test is vulnerable to inconsistent and arbitrary application, as judges draw different conclusions from the same historical evidence and reach divergent assessments of the same laws.”

The burden of actually seeking to understand the intended meaning of a constitutional provision is certainly greater than the more free-style approach of Jackson who focused on how to “resolve contemporary problems” under a living Constitution. However, to suggest that her outcome-determinative approach is less inconsistent and arbitrary is only true when you control the Court with justices who have like-minded “solutions” for contemporary problems.

That is precisely what many Democrats have in mind as they openly pledge to pack the Court with an insistent liberal majority if they can retake power. Moreover, Jackson is often cited as the model of the left, a justice who is unburdened by the language and history of constitutional provisions.

Just last week, liberal Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices heralded Jackson’s approach in arguing for the restoration of race-based gerrymandering. The state jurists lamented not being able to interpret the Constitution to address the “harms this country has caused to those who are marginalized, disempowered, or disenfranchised,” including the “preference for White Americans and to burden Black Americans and those of other disadvantaged races or backgrounds.”

These federal and state Supreme Court opinions are a glimpse into what awaits the country if Democratic leaders carry out their threat to take over the Supreme Court by adding four liberal justices in the image of Justice Jackson.

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Colorado Gun Owners Sue Over New Law Allowing Warrantless Access to Dealer Records

A new Colorado law has raised the hackles of a coalition of gun owners in the state, leading them to challenge its constitutionality in federal court.

Signed into law on June 2 by Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, the Requirements for Firearms Dealers Act requires all gun sellers in the state to allow any “duly authorized peace officer” to inspect their sales records “at all times.”

The bill follows in the footsteps of 11 other states and Washington, D.C., by extending the state’s record-keeping requirements for firearms dealers to all retail transactions, including transfers. Dealers will be required to note the customer’s name, age, and address, as well as the firearm’s serial number, letters, make, and caliber. Failure to comply could result in a fine of up to $75,000, the loss of a dealer’s license, and up to a year in jail. 

Gun owners in the state are pushing back against this overreach. Ten days after Polis signed the bill into law, three firearms dealers and two firearms associations filed a joint civil suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, arguing that the bill is a “warrantless-inspection scheme for firearms dealers” that violates the Fourth Amendment because it includes no stipulations for warrants or probable cause and no restrictions on time or frequency.

Colorado’s law would make it easier for law enforcement to engage in fishing expeditions. Under the law, a Colorado police officer could presumably demand that a dealer provide records of firearms sales for the last month, with no mention of a crime being committed or a suspect in mind. While the bill does prohibit law enforcement from creating or maintaining a firearms registry, that provision seems moot if firearms dealers are themselves forced to maintain the registry for cops. 

While the court challenge is ongoing, it’s difficult to see how Colorado’s law complies with the Supreme Court’s precedents on warrantless searches. 

In New York v. Burger (1987), the Court ruled that a warrantless search of a “closely regulated” industry violates the Fourth Amendment unless it satisfies three criteria: the state must have a substantial interest in regulating the industry; the warrantless inspections must directly serve that interest, be necessary for the regulatory scheme; and the statute must offer a constitutionally adequate warrant substitute, such as notification and limits on “time, place, and scope,” to “impose appropriate restraints” on an officer’s discretion. 

Colorado’s law might satisfy the first criterion. But it appears to fall short of the other two entirely, especially since the law is broad enough to allow sheriffs and campus security alike to inspect the records of any firearms dealer in the state.

Even when the law permits the government to inspect a business without a warrant—an administrative search—the Supreme Court ruled in Los Angeles v. Patel (2015) that the subject must be afforded a review by a “neutral decisionmaker” for the search to be constitutional. Colorado law does not provide firearms dealers with an opportunity for such a review before inspection.

Aside from the record-keeping provisions, the bill adds new administrative burdens for firearms dealers by requiring businesses in the state to provide the Department of Revenue with a “comprehensive security plan.” It also tasks the department with adopting rules on acceptable security measures that dealers must comply with. Those requirements will go into effect in October 2027.

State Sen. Cathy Kipp (D–Fort Collins), a cosponsor of the bill, told Complete Colorado the new law “builds on a new bureaucracy established in 2024” to stop “preventable shooting deaths” and reduce gun violence. But another outcome is far more likely: treating gun owners and firearm dealers like de facto criminals.

Colorado lawmakers have created an environment ripe for confrontation between law enforcement and legally armed Americans, all while violating Coloradans’ right to privacy.

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Supreme Court Upholds Marijuana Users’ Gun Rights, Rejecting Trump DOJ Arguments In Major Second Amendment Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously sided with a man who was prosecuted for possessing a gun while being a regular consumer of marijuana, ruling that the government’s actions violate the Second Amendment.

The opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch is narrow in scope and does not entirely strike down the federal law known as 922(g)(3) that prohibits people who illegally consume controlled substances from possessing or purchasing firearms.

But it does say that as applied to the man in the current case, Ali Danial Hemani, it is unconstitutional to automatically bar people from lawful gun ownership just because they happen to use marijuana occasionally.

It also says that the broad ban and the government’s effort to defend it are “at odds with” the Trump administration’s move to federally reschedule cannabis.

The government “asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing,” the opinion says. “All based on little more than its current say-so, one at odds with its own regulatory actions. And affording the government that kind of ‘broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun’ would risk allowing it to ‘quickly swallow’ the Second Amendment.”

The court’s opinion in U.S. vs. Hemani does not address “efforts to ban addicts, or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm,” it says. “We do not address other prophylactic laws Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms. We do not address 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1)’s provision disarming individuals convicted of felonies (often including drug-related ones).”

“We do not even address whether the government could bring a prosecution under §922(g)(3) accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant’s use of marijuana (or any other drug) renders him a danger to himself or others. Or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous because of its potency or for some other reason. None of those issues is before us and we do not pass on them either way.”

“All that is before us is one, if surely ambitious, theory. The government maintains that it may automatically strip Mr. Hemani of his Second Amendment right to possess a firearm because he uses marijuana a few times a week,” Gorsuch wrote. “More than that, because he possessed a gun despite this prohibition, the government insists it may imprison him for up to 15 years and disarm him for life.”

“According to the government, none of this turns on how much marijuana Mr. Hemani uses or what effect it has on him. It makes no difference either if he keeps a firearm only in his home for selfdefense, never misuses a gun while intoxicated, and never poses a danger to himself or others as a result of his marijuana use. The only thing the government must show, it says, is that an individual like Mr. Hemani regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance.”

The court’s opinion details recent large-scale federal policy changes concerning marijuana, and how they undermine the broad statute seeking to strip cannabis consumers of their Second Amendment rights.

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Gun Shops File Lawsuit Against Colorado’s ‘Warrantless Searches’ and Gun Registry Requirements

A lawsuit brought by firearms dealers in Colorado is challenging a new law which implements “warrantless searches” and requires Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs) to maintain a gun registry.

The Courthouse News Service noted that the plaintiffs in the suit includes “the Centennial Gun Club, five firearms dealers and organizations.”

Defendants are Gov. Jared Polis (D), Attorney General Phil Weiser (D), and Colorado Department of Revenue executive director Heidi Humphreys.

The suit centers on HB26-1126, which Polis signed into law on June 2, 2026. The new law requires an FFL to also have a state firearms permit in order to transfer guns and broadens record-keeping requirements, so as to “apply to all retail transactions.” The record must contain “the name of the person that received the firearm and the recipient’s age and address.” This record-keeping becomes the registry and partial motivator for the current lawsuit.

Under HB26-1126, law enforcement can visit the FFL’s store and check the records and “the dealer shall make the records…available at all times for inspection by a duly authorized peace officer.”

The Courthouse News Service noted that “dealers who refuse to allow their records to be inspected can be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor.”

Moreover, in the lawsuit filed by the Centennial Gun Club and others, plaintiffs claim the searches violate privacy rights: “The Fourth Amendment broadly protects businesses from warrantless searches, including businesses engaged in commerce with customers who exercise no independent constitutional rights.”

Additionally, the lawsuit says: “The regime…injures plaintiffs’ customers, who face the prospect that their lawful firearms purchases will be surveilled without warrant protections, chilling the exercise of constitutionally protected rights.”

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James Talarico: ‘Common Sense’ to Lock Up Guns in the Home, Criminalize Private Sales

During an appearance on the Unity Over Division podcast, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D) suggested it was “common sense” to mandate how guns are stored in homes and to ban private sales.

Talarico said, “I am a believer in the Second Amendment. I don’t pick and choose between the Bill of Rights, I believe in the Second Amendment just as much as I believe in the first.”

He went on to state his conviction that you need to get a permit to exercise the First Amendment right to assemble, then outlined gun controls that he described as “common sense.”

Talarico said, “We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got safe storage laws and background checks so that we’re keeping everybody safe.”

On May 29, 2026, Breitbart News reported that on Talarico’s campaign website, under the heading Public Safety & Justice, it is clear that securing universal background checks is one of Talarico’s “priorities.” Such checks criminalize the private gun sales Americans have enjoyed since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, and while doing so, they do not prevent determined attackers from getting their hands on guns.

Case in point: California has had universal background checks since the 1990s but they led the nation in “active shooter incidents” from 2020-2024.

Talarico’s campaign website also makes clear that another gun control he plans to pursue is raising the minimum purchase age for AR-15s and other wildly popular semiautomatic rifles.

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Virginia Judge Delivers Win for Gun Owners, Smacks Down AG and Governor on Background Checks

Lynchburgh, Virginia Circuit Court Judge F. Patrick Yeatts has sided with Gun Owners of America and Virginia Citizens Defense League and rejected the attempt by Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Attorney General Jay Jones to resume requiring background checks on the private transfers of firearms. 

In a ruling delivered from the bench after a hearing on Thursday, Yeatts declared that his previously-issued injunction on Virginia’s universal background check scheme is still intact, despite Democrats’ efforts to do an end-run around the injunction. 

As we discussed ahead of today’s hearing, Yeatts has been dealing with this issue for several years now, and has previously ruled that adults under the age of 21 have the right to possess a handgun. Under newly passed HB 1525, though, that right has been stripped from them in an attempt to impose a NICS check on all private transfers. Any NICS check on a handgun purchase is going to be flagged by the system given the federal prohibition on commercial handgun sales to under-21s, and the state of Virginia had previously tried to get around that by running checks on private sales of handguns to young adults through a system administered by the Virginia State Police. 

Yeatts previously held that to be a violation of equal protection laws, so Democrats responded by making it a crime for an adult younger than 21 to purchase a handgun under any circumstances. GOA and VCDL argued that by doing so, the state is still running afoul of the judge’s previous rulings, and the judge appears to agree with that argument, as well as the plaintiffs’ contention that the “emergency” clause in the legislation that allowed HB 1525 to take effect immediately instead of on July 1 is null and void because it did not receive the 4/5ths approval by lawmakers as required under Virginia’s constitution. 

Yeatts did deny GOA and VCDL’s request to hold the head of the Virginia State Police in contempt for resuming background checks on private transfers while the injunction was still in place, but according to VCDL President Philip Van Cleave, the judge warned the Attorney General’s office that further attempts to enforce background checks on private transfers would lead to a finding of contempt. 

Attorney General Jay Jones has been quiet on today’s defeat, at least so far, but expect him to appeal the judge’s decision in short order. Once this case reaches the appellate court, I have no idea what will happen, but there are a number of issues at play, including whether or not Virginians under the age of 21 can be prohibited from purchasing firearms given their status as full, legal adults under the state constitution. The legal fight is far from over, but VCDL and GOA won a major battle in court today, while Spanberger and Jones are the big losers. 

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Virginia: At Least 10 Commonwealth Attorneys Refuse to Enforce ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

At least ten Commonwealth’s Attorneys have made clear that they will not enforce the “assault weapons” ban scheduled to take effect in Virginia on July 1, 2026.

On May 27, 2026, Breitbart News pointed to a WAVY 10 report showing that three Commonwealth’s Attorneys had made clear they would not be enforcing the ban.

Over the weekend, Virginia state Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim (D), the “assault weapons” ban sponsor, told the prosecutors to quit “tough guy posturing.”

Salim used an X post to address prosecutors who are standing against his ban, saying, “I know these Republican prosecutors see this as an opportunity for tough guy posturing and amateur constitutional lawyering, but ending the sale of assault weapons in Virginia isn’t something an individual prosecutor can do anything about.”

But the number of Commonwealth’s Attorneys who are adamant about not enforcing the ban continued to grow until, on June 1, 2026, WJLA noted the number of Commonwealth’s Attorneys refusing to enforce it had reached ten.

One of those prosecutors is Clarke County Commonwealth Attorney Matthew E. Bass. Moreover, Breitbart News explained that Clarke County Sheriff Travis Sumption also made clear his office will not be enforcing the ban either.

In a joint statement, both Bass and Sumption made clear there will be no enforcement of the new controls against “non-violent offenders.”

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Three Stories You Missed While The White House Parades The UFC On The Front Lawn

The second century Roman satirical poet Decimus Junius Juvenalus once famously said “Give them bread and circuses, and they will never revolt”. An astute observation of how the Roman populace became complacent in the face of abuses by their government, placated with free grain and spectacles rather than exercising their civic duties.

This phrase has been oft repeated in the centuries since, applied to numerous governments across the world. But perhaps nowhere is it more prevalent than in present-day America.

In the lead up to the much anticipated 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation, and in the midst of a wave of the worst presidential scandals in over 100 years, the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to shift attention away from the disastrous Iran War and the fact that The sitting president of the United States is implicated hundreds of times in the sexual exploitation and abuse of minors.

Whether it be by continuing the limited hangout of selective UFO disclosure, or by hosting the Ultimate Fighting Championship on the White House front lawn in some sort of weird hyper-masculine MAGA charade, the political theatrics only continue to intensify.

That being said, here are a few worthwhile stories that actually matter.

Pro-2A Pushback In Virginia

In March, the Free Thought Project reported on a massive anti gun crusade being pushed by legislators in Virginia under the new Democrat administration of former CIA analyst Abigail Spanberger. Among the myriad of infringements to Virginia’s Second Amendment rights were proposals seeking civil liability for firearms manufacturers, expansions of the already blatantly unconstitutional red flag laws, attempts to prohibit 3D printed firearms, the implementation of gun buyback programs, ending the right to open carry, and an outright ban on so-called “assault weapons”.

The most egregious of these, the “assault weapons” ban, was signed into law on May 14th, 2026. 

Thankfully, however, this callous disregard for the Constitution was immediately challenged, with several gun rights groups including the Second Amendment Foundation as well as the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and the Virginia Citizens Defense League have all filed lawsuits in response to the new legislation.

Additionally, at least four Virginia prosecutors have publicly come out in opposition to the new legislation, signaling their intent to refuse to enforce the law. According to the Washington Times:

Prosecutors in Spotsylvania, Smyth, Powhatan and Pulaski counties argued that it violates Second Amendment protections, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022.

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