Professional Soldiers ® - Protecting the Second Amendment – Why all Americans Should Be Concerned

Professional Soldiers ® (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/index.php)

- The Soapbox (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=93)

- - Protecting the Second Amendment – Why all Americans Should Be Concerned (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40772)

Although actually a First Amendment argument...

Quote:

Federal Court Strikes Down California Law That Bans Handgun Signs, Advertising by Gun Dealers

SACRAMENTO, CA (September 11, 2018)****** – Today, federal Judge Troy Nunley ruled that a California law banning licensed gun dealers from displaying handgun-related signs or advertising is unconstitutional and violates their First Amendment rights. The lawsuit, Tracy Rifle and Pistol v. Becerra, is supported by Second Amendment civil rights groups The Calguns Foundation (CGF) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) as well as industry association California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAL-FFL).

California Penal Code section 26820, first enacted in 1923, banned gun stores from putting up signs advertising the sale of handguns — but not shotguns or rifles. “But,” the court held today, quoting from the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s landmark Second Amendment 2008 opinion in D.C. v. Heller, “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.”

While the law completely banned handgun-related signs, the “Plaintiffs could display a large neon sign reading ‘GUNS GUNS GUNS’ or a 15-foot depiction of a modern sporting rifle, and this would be permissible,” Judge Nunley explained in his order, highlighting how unreasonable and under-inclusive the law was. And even after four years of litigation, “the Government has not demonstrated that § 26820 would have any effect on handgun suicide or violence.”

The government defended the law on the theory that it “inhibits people with ‘impulsive personality traits’ from purchasing a handgun,” but Judge Nunley held that this cannot justify restricting free speech rights: “[T]he Supreme Court has rejected this highly paternalistic approach to limiting speech, holding that the Government may not ‘achieve its policy objectives through the indirect means of restraining certain speech by certain speakers.’” “California may not accomplish its goals by violating the First Amendment. . . . § 26820 is unconstitutional on its face,” Judge Nunley concluded.

“This is an important victory for our clients and for the First Amendment,” said lead counsel Brad Benbrook. “Judge Nunley decided that the State could not justify its censorship of our clients, and we are delighted with the opinion. As the Court explained today, the government cannot censor commercial speech in a paternalistic effort to keep citizens from making unpopular choices – or choices the government doesn’t approve – if they are told the truth.”

“Under the First Amendment, the government may not restrict speech on the theory that it will supposedly lead a few listeners to do bad things, or even to commit crimes,” explained Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who has written and taught extensively about the First and Second Amendments. “The Supreme Court has held this in the past, and has indeed often struck down restrictions on supposedly dangerous commercial advertising—including advertising for products that some people abuse, such as alcohol. It’s good to see the district court recognizing that the First Amendment has no gun advertising exception.”

“Today, the Court correctly ruled that the First Amendment protects truthful, non-misleading speech about handguns protected under the Second Amendment,” commented CGF Executive Director Brandon Combs. “People have a fundamental, individual right to buy handguns and licensed dealers have a right to tell people where they can lawfully acquire those handguns. Today’s ruling means that the government cannot prevent people, or gun dealers, from talking about constitutionally protected instruments and conduct.”

“This decision will serve as a reminder that firearms dealers have First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights, even in California,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said. “The bottom line is that a state cannot legislate political correctness at the expense of a fundamental, constitutionally-enumerated right. We are delighted to offer financial support of this case.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Benbrook and Stephen Duvernay of the Sacramento-based Benbrook Law Group as well as Professor Volokh. They expect that today’s order in the long-running lawsuit, which was filed in 2014, will be appealed by Attorney General Becerra to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

A copy of the order can be viewed at https://www.calgunsfoundation.org/tracy-rifle-v-becerra.

The Calguns Foundation (www.calgunsfoundation.org) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that serves its members, supporters, and the public through educational, cultural, and judicial efforts to advance Second Amendment and related civil rights.

Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

California Association of Federal Firearm Licensees (www.calffl.org) is California’s advocacy group for Second Amendment and related economic rights. CAL-FFL members include firearm dealers, training professionals, shooting ranges, collectors, gun owners, and others who participate in the firearms ecosystem.

Well done Judge Nunley. :cool:

LINK to original article

As long as we have competent judges we do not have to worry that we may have to exercise the 2nd amendment to preserve the 2nd amendment

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarriorDiplomat (Post 645947)

As long as we have competent judges we do not have to worry that we may have to exercise the 2nd amendment to preserve the 2nd amendment

True - as long as we continue to elect politicians that don't appoint activists to the bench

Go after the parent...

Parent/holding company that is.

Quote:

American Outdoor Brands, the parent company of U.S. gun-maker Smith & Wesson, lost its bid to block a proposal from a group of nuns and religious educators to increase efforts to promote gun safety.

At its shareholder meeting this week, investors sided with the resolution put forth by the Ontario-based Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in the wake of multiple high-profile mass shootings.

The plan will require American Outdoor Brands (AOBC) to put together a report regarding its efforts to both monitor gun violence associated with its products and to look into safer gun products.

The religious group got majority support – nearly 70 percent shareholder approval – to pass the same proposal at Sturm Ruger earlier this year, which garnered backing from shareholders BlackRock and Vanguard.

It was not immediately made public what percentage of American Outdoor Brands' shareholders supported the initiative. BlackRock and Vanguard are also large shareholders in American Outdoor Brands.

Never forget that the war comes from many fronts.
Main LINK to story.

The Moral Right to Self-Defense, and the Right to Bear Arms

The Moral Right to Self-Defense, and the Right to Bear Arms

Some historical support for the right to keep and bear arms - 169,000,000+ and counting - complete article at link - excerpts below.

“While details may vary from country to country, any government that respects the full scope of human rights won’t deprive citizens of the tools to save their own lives.”

“University of Hawaii professor R.J. Rummel estimated in 1994, the total number of victims of mass murders by governments from 1901 to 1987 at 169,198,000. The figure doesn’t include deaths of soldiers or civilians from war. With 169 million deaths due to mass murder by government, the risk to life from criminal governments is overwhelmingly larger than the risk to life from lone criminals.”

“Genocide is almost never attempted against a well-armed population.”

The Moral Right to Self-Defense, and the Right to Bear Arms

THE EPOCH TIMES
BY DAVID KOPEL
September 27, 2018 Updated: October 1, 2018

Commentary

Do humans have an inherent right to self-defense? The answer doesn’t depend on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights preamble recognizes the right to forcible resistance to criminal governments: “Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”

Rather than creating a new right, the U.N. declaration was acknowledging an ancient one. Long ago, the “Analects” of Confucius sanctioned popular revolution: “The head of the Ji family was richer than a king, and yet Ran Qiu [a disciple of Confucius and statesman] kept pressuring the peasants to make him richer still. The master said: ‘He is my disciple no more. Beat the drum, my little ones, and attack him: You have my permission.’”

Mencius, the most influential developer of Confucian thought, equated rapacious governors and ordinary robbers, saying, “Now the way feudal lords take from the people is no different from robbery.” So, according to Mencius, killing a tyrannical emperor (namely the “outcast Tchou”) was not “regicide,” but merely punishing a criminal.

Around 140 B.C., the “The Masters of Huainan” explicated Taoist political thought. Expressing the same principles that would later be stated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Taoists argued that governments are instituted for the good of the people; so if government itself destroys security, the people have a right to overthrow the government.

“The reason why leaders are set up is to eliminate violence and quell disorder. Now they take advantage of the power of the people to become plunderers themselves. They’re like winged tigers—why shouldn’t they be eliminated?” the text states.

Western Views on Self-Defense

Similar truths were recognized in the ancient West. As Aristotle explained in “Politics,” when citizens are disarmed, they become “in effect, the slaves of the class in possession of arms.” Thus, “tyranny” is based on “distrusting the masses … consequent upon it, of depriving them of arms.”

The fundamental Roman law was the Twelve Tables, which were literally 12 bronze tablets set up in the Forum. Table VIII affirmed the lawfulness of killing a night-time home invader. In the daytime, killing a thief was lawful only if the thief defended himself with weapons.

According to Cicero, the great Roman lawyer and orator of the first century B.C., self-defense against lone criminals and against tyrants were both applications of the natural “instinct of self-preservation.” So “if our life be in danger from plots, or from open violence, or from the weapons of robbers or enemies, every means of securing our safety is honorable.”

Later, the Corpus Juris, a compilation of all Roman law, became the foundation of the legal systems in most of continental Western Europe. Under these laws, “it is permissible to repel force by force” and “arms may be repelled by arms.”

Later, Thomas Aquinas elaborated on Gratian’s insights. Self-defense isn’t murder, because the defender’s key intention is to save his or her own life. Likewise, overthrowing a tyrant isn’t “sedition.” “Indeed, it is the tyrant rather that is guilty of sedition,” because tyranny disturbs the proper harmony of society.

Recognizing the right of the people to lawful government, England’s Magna Carta of 1215, Hungary’s Golden Bull of 1222, and the Spanish Castile’s Pact of 1282 all detailed the structures of lawfully armed resistance to a monarch who violated the people’s rights.

The modern system of international law began in the 16th century. Leading theorists such as Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez of Spain were followed by Hugo Grotius of Holland and Samuel Pufendorf of Germany. All of them extrapolated the international law of war from the natural laws of self-defense.

For example, one may not kill a person who is no longer a threat—such as a home invader who has been apprehended and tied up, or a foreign invader who has become a prisoner of war.

Pufendorf approvingly repeated Grotius’s point that a people would never enter into a social compact that forced the surrender of the right to resist an unjust and violent government. It would be better for people to suffer the “Fighting and Contention” of a state of nature than to face “certain Death” because they had given up the right to “oppose by Arms the unjust Violence of their Superiors.”

The genocides of the 20th century would provide deadly confirmation of this point.

Disarmament and Genocide

University of Hawaii professor R.J. Rummel estimated in 1994, the total number of victims of mass murders by governments from 1901 to 1987 at 169,198,000. The figure doesn’t include deaths of soldiers or civilians from war. With 169 million deaths due to mass murder by government, the risk to life from criminal governments is overwhelmingly larger than the risk to life from lone criminals.

Genocide is almost never attempted against a well-armed population. Bosnia, Cambodia, China, Guatemala, Rwanda, the Soviet Union, Sudan, Uganda, and Nazi Germany are among the places where genocidal tyrants made very sure that the victim populations were first disarmed. When genocide is initiated against populations that have been incompletely disarmed, as by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians during World War I, many were able to fight and survive.

Everyone is familiar with the problem of mass shootings by extremists and by persons who are dangerously mentally ill. (The two groups significantly overlap.) The vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated in so-called “gun-free zones.” This continues a historical pattern.

Initially, genocide was carried out by the Nazis using mass shootings. As soon as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, special SS units called Einsatzgruppen were deployed for mass killings. All the Jews or Gypsies (Roma) in a town would be assembled and marched out of town. Then they would all be shot at once.

The mass shooting of a million people would not have been so easy if the intended victims hadn’t been long-disarmed by Communist and Tsarist arms-control decrees.

To the extent that the European Jews in the Holocaust were able to obtain arms, they fought. They participated in partisan resistance at a far higher rate than any other group in Europe. Armed Jews shut down the extermination camps at Sobibor and Auschwitz. The Jews who did fight, usually by escaping into the woods, had a much higher survival rate than did those who stayed behind in the ghettos.

Because there is a right of self-defense, there must necessarily be a right to possess some defensive arms. Otherwise, the right would be a practical nullity. How can a small woman defend herself against a pair of large rapists if she is unable to arm herself?

The most thorough study of defensive arms use, by professors Jongyeon Tark and Gary Kleck, found that “[a] variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury.” Thus, “the best available evidence indicates that victim resistance to crimes is generally wise.” Further, “armed and other forceful resistance does not appear to increase the victim’s risk of injury.”

While social scientists have many disagreements about firearms issues, the above results haven’t been challenged.

As for resistance to criminal governments, the utility and necessity of defensive arms against genocide are well established—including by the assiduous efforts of genocidaires to disarm their intended victims.

The sanctity of the home against violent and unexpected invasion is a widely expressed fundamental human right all over the world. Accordingly, the self-defense right and its auxiliary right to arms are at their apex in the home. Laws that impede home defense are especially egregious violations of human rights.

The inherent, global auxiliary right to arms isn’t necessarily as broad as the U.S. Second Amendment. In some situations, chemical sprays or stun guns might be sufficient. For defense against a murderous government, firearms would be necessary.

While details may vary from country to country, any government that respects the full scope of human rights won’t deprive citizens of the tools to save their own lives.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-mo...s_2663983.html

David Kopel is an associate policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington. His most recent book is “The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Perspective.”

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tonyz (Post 646657)

[B] entire post.

Good read. Thanks.

Funny, Politicians and Leftist Morons talk about repealing the 2nd Amendment but really fail to realize it's our right as American Citizens to bear arms. Issues with gun violence that need to be addressed are about criminals who illegally obtain weapons who commit the most crime/murders with guns. What a shit show, go downtown Baltimore and there are guns everywhere. The cops won't look for them because of the issues in the past unless they have too. Just yesterday there was 8 shootings; 8.....and the leftists and media F's talk about mass shootings when 3 are killed. Look at the statistics; it's not the normal "by the law" citizens; it's the low-life criminals who are protected by the law and the idiot lawyers and judges. BS.....who in the hell are they protecting? Not you, not me....F'tards the lot of them......Blah....Hump Day.....:D

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsdengler (Post 646776)

My right to bear arms is not because I'm an American citizen, but because a human being inherently has the right to self defense.. The 2nd Amendment acknowledges the basic human right to bear arms in self defense (and other events) but the right is not bestowed upon me by the Constitution.

Otherwise, I agree with you. I believe that government bodies at all levels understand the problem is not guns, but they the elected representatives are too gutless to address the real problems. Between that and those pursuing the communist agenda of disarming the people through any means necessary puts law abiding citizens in the cross hairs of the anti-freedom crowd.

Stating the obvious

Just had to pick up one of these....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ret10Echo (Post 646786)

Just had to pick up one of these....

LOL....Nice:D

For those who Mentor an SF or other Active Duty

These one of the web sites and programs I use when mentoring young SF and Active Duty personnel.

https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/...nline-courses/

I tell the to start with the Constitution 101. I mean how many times did all of us raise the right hand but really had no idea what it says.

The 2A is the long pole in the tent and the Constitution is in the way of those who wish to change this country.

We have to win the political war at the local level to win the overall war. So lets arm ourselves correctly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uman (Post 648114)

Good sources given that I question what (if any) Civics is taught in schools today.

The Federalist Papers are also a must read in order to place the issues associated with the content of the Constitution into the context of the period. It becomes much easier to understand the why, and also to understand the current day relevance and applicability.

Hillsdale is not cheap, but worth every penny for those who care. They brook no PC/SJW krap and a student will get the stuff (that us FOGs were taught in grade-school & junior high when it was called things like "civics" and "citizenship"), and more. They also have lots of free online courses that may be worth one's time.

I have a friend there (who I came to know through love of instrumental surf music) who is an Econ prof (besides being a scary-good guitarist). He's originally from Yugoslavia (Dad & family brought him over), still speaks Croat, and is not bashful about his stance. He did a wonderful little video of one of his seminars where he completely disembowels Socialism as an economic model. Not specifically 2A related, but a good listen. I'll see if I can find the link... ahhh:

For those who have an attention span longer than the average political-activist snowflake, it's about an hour and :eek: yeah, you're seeing right - he gave it at UC-Berkeley, in the belly of the beast. He gets kudos & beers from me for that.

Oh, yeah; it's not all about personal self-defense either, so maybe it is related. Because with aspiring socialists around, the 2A enables me to literally keep what's rightfully mine because without personal property rights, there is no liberty.

I think it's important that the current (as of this date) goings-on in the failed Socialist state of Venezuela are memorialized here, with link to CURINTEL on the actual ramifications of gun confiscation (and consenting to it). The article tonyz links to here, with it's 2nd page in the following post is a read that should not be missed. If the Venezuelans' own words don't serve to ring the bell, you are deaf & numb & should just shut up & get on the fuckin' boxcar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badger52 (Post 648278)

I think you're going to need a lot more boxcars. Besides - given the years of indoctrination inflicted on this country; I don't think there are enough vacant Walmarts to process the contents of those boxcars. (Though the Walmarts were originally supposed to be for the anti-establishment types ;).)