VSSA Life Member Steve Halbrook on Big Banks Denying Services to Gun Companies

Gun control activists, frustrated by their inability to pass federal gun control laws, are pressuring the nation's largest banks to refuse to do business with firearms manufacturers and retailers. Such policies circumvent the Constitution and federal law.  VSSA Life Member, Second Amendment attorney and scholar Steve Halbrook is taking part in a pro-con debate on the issue in several newspapers. On Friday, Halbrook appeared on NRATV's Cam and Company to discuss his OP/ED and the issue.  He describes Aristotle's warnings about oligarchs - the consequences of concentration of power in the hands of a few. He said that's what's happening with banks like Bank of America and CitiBank, taking it upon themselves to supersede federal and state laws. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is doing something similar in New York, punishing insurance companies in an effort to suppress the lawful First Amendment speech of the National Rifle Association. The ACLU agrees. Steve says the gun control radicals don't care how their goals are achieved.

The Lawless 4th Circuit Decision on Maryland "Assault Weapon" Ban

Earlier this week, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision that guts both the Heller Decision and the 2nd Amendment.  As conservativereview.com noted after the decision:

Inevitably, the courts overlook the most foundational of rights that are written in plain English — the ones that serve as the foundation of our republic. Last week, it was a state court in Washington violating the property and conscience rights of those who don’t service homosexual ceremonies. Today, it is the courts infringing upon the one right that pre-dated the Bill of Rights and is written in the most unambiguous and absolute terms: “shall not be infringed.”

As is always the case, after conservatives secured a 2-1 victory at the Fourth Circuit last year against Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban, the full en banc panel upheld the law. In a 10-4 ruling – one which was full of vengeful rhetoric over Sandy Hook and ignorance of the distinction between a machine gun and a ‘scary looking’ semi-auto — the court ruled that Maryland could ban 45 commonly held weapons as well as magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. “We have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage,” wrote a brazen Judge Robert B. King. Every Democrat appointee except for Judge William Traxler (who wrote the dissent) and one GOP appointee joined the majority opinion.

The 4th Circuit used to be one of the most constitutional constructionist of the 11 circuits but the eight years of Obama have completely destroyed this court that covers the part of the nation that includes Virginia.  Yesterday, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz discussed the lawless nature of the decision at the annual CPAC conference.

VSSA Life Member and Second Amendment Attorney Steve Halbrook also discussed the decision on NRATV.com on Wednesday.  Halbrook said that no military in the world uses the rifles banned by Maryland; they are sporting rifles. He explained that the decision is filled with errors. There is a fundamental distinction between fully automatic and semi-automatic. Further, the en banc review abandoned strict scrutiny in favor of the intermediate scrutiny balancing test. It completely rejects the Heller decision. 

Once again we see the importance of elections and why we need to get behind President Trump to undo the damage done to the lower courts in the last eight years.

Steve Halbrook: Peruta Appeal Decision Ignores Context of the Law

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals over ruled an earlier three 9th Circuit three judge panel decision and upheld the lower court decision in Peruta v. County of San Diego, ruling that the Second Amendment does not include the right to carry a concealed firearm.  San Diego appealed the three judge panel decision to the full court which heard the case about a year ago.  The summary of the ruling begins: “The en banc court affirmed the district courts’ judgments and held that there is no Second Amendment right for members of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public.” VSSA Life Member and Second Amendment attorney Steve Halbrook told NRANews yesterday that the decision completely ignores the context of the law. The judges have virtually covered their eyes while reaching it. He notes that the longest part of the decision is a discussion of the decrees of English kings, while ignoring today’s realities. 

Before the death of Scalia this was probably going to be the case that had the best chance of getting us a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court because California not only prohibits open carry but the may issue carry varies from locality to locality.  But now that the court is maybe split 4-4 (one or more of the five judges in Heller and McDonald have not wanted to hear additional cases so who knows if we can even get four on our side), I agree with Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned that the plaintiffs should not appeal this decision:

If Hillary wins this election, there will be no judicially enforceable Second Amendment of any meaning. That’s not hyperbole, it’s what’s going to happen. I also am very skeptical that losing three national elections in a row is going to make a lot of GOP and Dem politicians start whispering among themselves that NRA and the gun vote isn’t such the big deal they think they are.

This is one more illustration of why we must do everything we can to defeat Hillary Clinton this fall.

The Trace: Is Merrick Garland Anti-Gun

This morning, Bloomberg's anti-gun mouthpiece The Trace asks the "Is Merrick Garland Anti-Gun" then sets out to tell us that everything that we heard from pro-rights groups after President Obama announced his new Supreme Court pick doesn't really mean anything:

This critique, foreshadowed by gun rights proponents over the past few weeks as Garland’s name surfaced as a possible candidate to replace Antonin Scalia, is largely premised on a procedural vote Garland made in a 2007 case that centered on whether Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban was unconstitutional.

But those who denounce Garland in the name of gun rights might be misreading that 2007 vote, which was in favor of allowing more judges on his court to review a decision made by a three-judge panel, says Joseph Blocher, a constitutional law professor at Duke University.

Rather than definitive evidence that Garland would like to curtail gun rights, the vote may simply be an indication that he is a jurist who is especially deferential to rulings made by previous courts, Blocher says.

“It is impossible to tell” what Garland meant by voting for rehearing, Blocher tells The Trace. “It may well be that he just wanted the whole court to weigh in on such a major decision. That would not be particularly unusual.”

With all due respect to Professor Blocher, I'll take VSSA Life Member Steve Halbrook and  Dave Kopel's insight on the issue. Halbrook appeared on NRANews yesterday to discuss the nomination.

Kopel wrote back in 2008 in America's First Freedom:

Merrick Garland is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He could be counted on not only to oppose Second Amendment rights in general, but even to nullify explicit congressional statutes that protect those rights.

In 2007, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled against the D.C. handgun ban in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia (which was the name of the case that eventually became District of Columbia v. Heller when it went before the Supreme Court). The D.C. government asked for a rehearing of the case, before all 10 judges of the D.C. Circuit.

Six judges voted not to rehear the case, while four judges voted for a rehearing, presumably because they disagreed with the three-judge panel that had ruled against the handgun ban. Garland was one of the four judges who wanted a chance to validate the handgun ban.

In 2000, Garland was on a three-judge panel that heard the case of NRA v. Reno. In that case, the Janet Reno Department of Justice had flouted the congressional statutes that prohibit the federal government from compiling a registration list of gun owners, and which required the destruction of national instant check (NICS) records of lawful, approved gun purchases.

Judge Garland voted to let Reno get away with it. He said that registering all the people who were approved by NICS was permissible because Reno was not registering every gun owner in the country. And he said it was fine for Reno to keep gun buyer records for six months because although Congress had said the records must be destroyed, it did not say “immediately.”

It is expected that Virginia's Senators Warner and Kaine will stay in lock step with Obama on this nominee but it won't hurt for gun owners to register their opposition and point out the above as reasons that anyone who claims to support the 2nd Amendment, as both Warner and Kaine do, should oppose Garland for the Supreme Court.

Hat tip to Shall Not Be Questioned.

D.C. Goes the Maryland Route on Concealed Carry

VSSA Life Member and Second Amendment attorney Steve Halbrook predicted it and the Washington Times reports today that DC has gone the Maryland road in the draft of their ordinance allowing its residents to carry:

Mr. Nathan said the city modeled its “may issue” approach to permits, which is virtually certain to face a lawsuit, on states such as New York and Maryland, where such statutes have withstood challenges in federal courts. But a similar requirement in California stating that a person seeking the permit prove they were confronted with a “clear and present danger” was struck in February. That ruling is on hold pending appeals.

DC residents may have to wait to see if Peruta vs. San Diego makes it to the Supreme Court to get a real chance at carrying outside their home.

Halbrook: Should Not Read Anything Into Court's View of Carry With Abramski Ruling

VSSA Life Member and Second Amendment Attorney Steve Halbrook appeared on NRANews' Cam and Company on Wednesday to provide some additional analysis of the Abramski vs. US ruling where Virginia resident Bruce Abramski, Jr.'s, conviction of making a so-called "straw purchase" was upheld by a divided U.S. Supreme Court. Cam Edwards asked whether gun owners should read anything into Justice Kennedy's siding with the anti-rights justices on the court and whether that spells bad news for the carry cases like Peruta vs. San Diego, that are possibly headed to the Supreme Court.  Halbrook said we shouldn't read Monday's ruling as bad news (he didn't say it was good news either) because it was a totally different  question before the court.

VSSA Life Member Steve Halbrook on Peruta V. San Diego

Second Amendment Attorney and Author Steve Halbrook (also a VSSA Life Member) spoke with Cam Edwards on NRANews last Friday about the Peruta case. Halbrook discusses the possibility that the case will head to the Supreme Court and notes that the ruling is a great victory for the Second Amendment.