Tag: gun control

Blue State AGs Tell Biden To Block Sale Of Lake City’s 5.56 Ammo To Civilians

New York Attorney General Letitia James led a multi-state coalition of 20 attorneys general calling on the Biden administration to halt the sale of 5.56 caliber ammunition to civilians by the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, a Missouri-based supplier for the U.S. military.

“Billions of rounds of military-grade ammunition manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant have been sold on the commercial market, leading to their use in many of the most tragic mass shootings in recent history,” the AGs stated in a Jan. 9 letter to the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. “We ask your Office to conduct an investigation into the contracting processes that led to this situation, and to take action to ensure that military-grade and military-subsidized ammunition stays out of civilian hands.”

The letter was signed by AGs from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. While many of these states have been enacting restrictions on firearms, others, including Arizona and Vermont, maintain a tradition of relatively permissive gun laws.

However, all signatories expressed their desire to restrict civilian access to ammunition commonly used in semi-automatic AR-15-style rifles, citing in their letter mass shootings in which the 5.56 caliber was used.

“Ammunition from Lake City is manufactured for military use and does not belong in our communities,” the AGs stated, “We ask the White House to ensure that future production contracts prohibit the sale of military weapons and ammunition to civilians.”

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South Dakota Lawmakers Vote To Fine Medical Marijuana Dispensaries That Don’t Warn Patients About Federal Gun Ban

A South Dakota legislative panel advanced two bills on Friday aiming to better inform patients about federal restrictions on firearm ownership for people who use marijuana. One would require that medical cannabis patient applications include a written warning about the gun ban, while the other would mandate that informational signs be posted on-site at dispensaries while instituting daily fines for businesses that don’t comply.

Lawmakers in the state’s House Judiciary Committee approved both proposals, unanimously passing the measure to include a written warning on patient applications and voting 8–4 on requiring dispensary signs.

Both bills were introduced earlier this month, led by Rep. Kevin Jensen (R) in the House and Sen. Jim Stalzer (R) in the Senate, with multiple additional co-sponsors.

Jensen began his comments to colleagues at Friday’s hearing by saying he wanted to make it “perfectly clear that nothing in this bill precludes anyone from getting a medical marijuana card or using the card for whatever purposes.” But he pointed to federal rules prohibiting unlawful users of marijuana from obtaining guns, which he noted stretch back to 1968.

Pointing to a release from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) official in St. Paul regarding Minnesota’s legalization of adult-use cannabis, Jensen said federal law “does not provide any exception” for state-legal medical or recreational use.

“People are just totally unaware, and they could get caught,” Jensen admonished. “I almost hate to say this, but right now, if under Biden’s administration they wanted to enforce this law universally across the country, they would probably have 40 million people that they could arrest and confiscate all their firearms and ammunition.”

“That law already exists. If they enforced it right now, that could happen,” he added. “But that’s kind of a side note. The main issue with this bill is just a notification.”

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US Appeals Court Blocks California From Banning Guns in Most Public Places

A U.S. appeals court on Jan. 6 allowed a judge’s ruling that blocked California from enforcing a new gun-control law that bans the carrying of firearms in most public places on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved an order by a different 9th Circuit panel from a week earlier that suspended an injunction issued by a judge who concluded that the Democrat-led state’s law violated the right of citizens to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

“The administrative stay previously entered is dissolved,” the court wrote in May v. Bonta. “The emergency motion under Circuit Rule 27-3 for a stay pending appeal and for an interim administrative stay is denied pending further order of the court.”

Last week’s order temporarily stayed the injunction. It allowed the law to take effect on Jan. 1. Gun rights groups then asked the 9th Circuit to reconsider, and on Jan. 6, a different panel of judges dissolved the order, suspending the injunction.

“So the politicians’ ploy to get around the Second Amendment has been stopped for now,” C.D. Michel, a lawyer for the gun rights groups, said in a statement.

California’s appeal of the injunction will now be heard in April. The state’s attorney general, in court papers, had argued that “tens of millions of Californians will face a heightened risk of gun violence” if the law were blocked.

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South Dakota Bill Would Force Medical Cannabis Dispensaries To Warn Patients About Federal Gun Ban For People ‘Addicted To Marijuana’

South Dakota Republican lawmakers have filed a bill to mandate that state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries post a sign at their businesses warning patients that federal law prohibits cannabis consumers from possessing firearms.

The legislation, led by Rep. Kevin Jensen (R) and Sen. Jim Stalzer (R) and 10 other legislators, comes at a time when the constitutionality of the underlying federal gun ban for marijuana consumers is being challenged in multiple courts.

Under the bill, South Dakota medical cannabis dispensaries would need to post at each entrance to their business and at each register or point of sale a sign that reads:

“WARNING: Federal law prohibits the possession of a firearm by certain individuals who are users of or addicted to marijuana. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).”

The measure, HB 1036, states that the warning requirement would be suspended if the attorney general certifies that “federal law no longer prohibits the possession of a firearm by certain individuals who are users of or addicted to marijuana.”

Until then, businesses that fail to post the notice would be subject to a civil penalty of $250 per day, with those fees going to state general fund.

The GOP lawmakers also filed a separate bill, HB 1024, that would require state application forms for medical cannabis cards to contain a notice of the federal restrictions on gun possession by marijuana consumers. Patients would have to sign to specifically acknowledge the warning.

The Justice Department has insisted on the necessity of the ban in numerous federal courts, arguing at points that people who use marijuana and possess guns pose a unique danger, akin to permitting people with serious mental illness to own firearms.

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California’s ‘Repugnant’ Restrictions on Public Gun Possession Just Took Effect

California’s sweeping new restrictions on public possession of firearms, many of which a federal judge enjoined this month after deeming them “repugnant to the Second Amendment,” took effect today thanks to a stay that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued on Saturday. That means Californians with permits that notionally allow them to carry concealed handguns will have to think twice before using them, because the state has declared a long list of locations they routinely visit to be “sensitive places” where firearms are prohibited.

Senate Bill 2, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 26, makes it a crime for permit holders to carry their handguns in 26 categories of places, including parks, playgrounds, zoos, libraries, museums, banks, hospitals, places of worship, public transportation, stadiums, athletic facilities, casinos, bars, and restaurants that serve alcohol. The list also covers any “privately owned commercial establishment that is open to the public” unless the owner “clearly and conspicuously posts a sign at the entrance” saying guns are allowed.

S.B. 2 “turns nearly every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public,” U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney noted on December 20, when he issued a preliminary injunction that barred the state from enforcing 15 provisions of the law. “California will not allow concealed carry permitholders to effectively practice what the Second Amendment promises. SB2’s coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”

Carney was referring to the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which upheld the right to carry guns in public for self-defense. Under Bruen, states may no longer demand that residents demonstrate a “special need” before they are allowed to exercise that right. Accordingly, S.B. 2 eliminates California’s “good cause” requirement for carry permits, along with a similarly amorphous “good character” criterion. By limiting the discretion of licensing authorities, the bill notes, those changes could have opened the door to “broadly allowing individuals to carry firearms in most public areas.” Deeming that outcome intolerable, legislators instead decreed that guns may not be carried in most public areas.

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These are the most controversial laws that went into effect across the U.S. today

A raft of new laws that have immediate — and possibly fundamental — impact on the lives of Americans went into effect Monday.

Among them was state legislation that dealt with guns, marijuana, voting rights, minimum wage and a controversial Texas law that bans diversity programming at public colleges.

The New York Times gave a rundown of the New Year’s Day changes across the country.

Gun Ownership

In California, a law that went into effect on January 1 bars the carrying of guns in most public places. It lists more than two dozen locations where the weapons can’t be carried, including libraries and sports venues.

In Minnesota, a new law gives officials the power to take firearms away from people deemed dangerous. A similar law will take effect in Michigan next month.

Washington State will require all gun buyers to have a 10-day waiting period and to have passed a safety training program, while in Illinois high-powered semiautomatic rifles have been banned.

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2nd Circuit Rejects New York’s Default Rule Against Guns in Businesses

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently upheld New York’s requirement that applicants for handgun carry permits demonstrate “good moral character,” deeming it consistent with the Second Amendment. But the appeals court enjoined enforcement of the state’s demand that applicants submit information about their social media accounts, deeming it inconsistent with the First Amendment as well as the Second.

The 2nd Circuit also delivered a mixed verdict on New York regulations that prohibit even permit holders from carrying guns in specified locations. The court rejected the state’s default rule against carrying guns in businesses open to the public while upholding several other bans on firearms in places that legislators deemed “sensitive.”

The decision by a unanimous three-judge panel, published on Friday, addresses four challenges to regulations that New York enacted after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which upheld the right to carry guns in public for self-defense. In Bruen, the Court rejected New York’s requirement that residents show “proper cause” for bearing arms, which it said was not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

New York legislators responded by eliminating the “proper cause” criterion while retaining a reference to “good moral character,” which they defined as “the essential
character, temperament and judgement necessary to be entrusted with a weapon
and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself or others.” That requirement, U.S. District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby concluded last year in Antonyuk v. Hochul, “is just a dressed-up version of the State’s improper ‘special need for self-protection’ requirement.”

Suddaby found “historical support for a modern law providing that a license shall be issued or renewed except for applicants who have been found, based on their
past conduct, to be likely to use the weapon in a manner that would injure themselves or others (other than in self-defense).” That standard, he wrote, “is objective, easily applied, and finds support in numerous analogues that deny the right to carry to citizens based on their past conduct.” By contrast, he said, New York’s “good moral character” requirement gave licensing officials “open-ended discretion” to reject applicants based on a subjective standard—precisely the situation that the Supreme Court had deemed unconstitutional in Bruen.

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Gun Owners Of America Defeats Hidden Gun Control In Military Funding Bill

When laws are debated in Congress that are too controversial to pass on their own, oftentimes sneaky politicians will attempt to place similar language into must-pass bills.

One of those must-pass bills is the National Defense Authorization Act, also known as the NDAA. The annual NDAA creates new programs, strategies, and authorizes the Department of Defense to procure new technologies.

This year, thanks to Gun Owners of America and the support of our grassroots members, we are happy to report that the proposed gun control amendments to the NDAA have been defeated.

So, you might ask, what gun control did the anti-gun politicians in Congress try to sneak into this year’s bill?

The answer is a permanent reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act.

Gun Owners of America is the only pro-gun lobbying organization to historically oppose the Undetectable Firearms Act since its passage into law in 1988. 

The act itself began as an attempt to ban handguns like the Glock 17 when they were first introduced to the market in the mid-80s. At this time, polymer-framed handguns were a very new idea, and a misunderstanding about the Glock’s polymer frame prompted an idea that even though the Glock had a metal slide, its polymer frame would somehow make it undetectable to metal detectors and, therefore, be the weapon of choice for criminals.

When the act was finally passed through Congress, a compromise was made – so it did not affect any existing handguns.

Nowadays, with the advent of 3D printing, the Undetectable Firearms Act stifles manufacturers from producing smaller, lighter, and higher-performing handguns because they must meet the UFA’s weight requirement. This issue is compounded for the consumer handgun market because of the massive demand for concealed carry firearms, especially in light of the recent landmark NYSRPA v. Bruen decision.

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New York can’t stop churchgoers from bringing guns to worship: appeals court

An appeals court panel has ruled against a New York law that prohibits the carrying of firearms into houses of worship, upholding a lower court decision that blocked the law from taking effect.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit released a 261-page opinion regarding four cases centered on multiple challenges to New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act.

Regarding the Act’s provision banning concealed carry in places of worship, the panel ruled that “Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that the CCIA burdens their sincerely held religious practice.”

“CCIA is not neutral because it allows the owners of many forms of private property, including many types of retail businesses open to the public, to decide for themselves whether to allow firearms on the premises while denying the same autonomy to places of worship,” stated the ruling.

“By adopting a law that applies differently as to places of worship (alongside the other enumerated sensitive places) than to most other privately owned businesses and properties, the CCIA is, on its face, neither neutral nor generally applicable.”

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