Second Amendment Foundation

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Wow! DOJ Settles With Cody Wilson And Defense Distributed

July 10, 2018 by 5 Comments

Less than 24 hours after President Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice comes to an agreement with the Second Amendment Foundation regarding their lawsuit on behalf of Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed. I know I say that actions have consequences but this one is a “Wow!”

From Josh Blackman’s blog with some more details:

BELLEVUE, WA – The Department of Justice and Second Amendment Foundation have reached a settlement in SAF’s lawsuit on behalf of Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed over free speech issues related to 3-D files and other information that may be used to manufacture lawful firearms.

SAF and Defense Distributed had filed suit against the State Department under the Obama administration, challenging a May 2013 attempt to control public speech as an export under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a Cold War-era law intended to control exports of military articles.

Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint.

Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber – including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms – are not inherently military.

“Not only is this a First Amendment victory for free speech, it also is a devastating blow to the gun prohibition lobby,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “For years, anti-gunners have contended that modern semi-automatic sport-utility rifles are so-called ‘weapons of war,’ and with this settlement, the government has acknowledged they are nothing of the sort.

“Under this settlement,” he continued, “the government will draft and pursue regulatory amendments that eliminate ITAR control over the technical information at the center of this case. They will transfer export jurisdiction to the Commerce Department, which does not impose prior restraint on public speech. That will allow Defense Distributed and SAF to publish information about 3-D technology.”

Blackman’s blog has all the major pleadings in this case. SAF and Wilson had submitted a petition for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court after losing in the 5th Circuit. This writ had not been denied as it was still in the pleading and reply process. Cert was denied in January 2018.

This is a win for free speech, a win for gun rights, a loss for prior restraint, and a giant FU to the State of California and their paranoia over “ghost guns”.

WIRED Magazine goes into great detail about what Cody has been up to the last few years, the why of Defense Distributed, the gnashing of teeth by the antis, and the blurred line between the First and Second Amendment.

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SAF On Kavanaugh Pick

July 10, 2018 by

There seems to be genuine across the board approval of the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy by pro-gun rights organizations.

From SAF:

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation this evening applauded president Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court created by the looming retirement of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“We’re encouraged by this nomination,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “because by adding Judge Kavanaugh, we might see the high court become more willing to accept and rule on important Second Amendment issues, such as right-to-carry.

“While the Supreme Court has twice affirmed in the last ten years that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental, individual right to keep a firearm for home defense,” he continued, “but the court has yet to even begin defining the right to bear arms outside of the home or business, in public.

“We know that the Court will face enormous challenges on other rights issues,” Gottlieb observed, “but the right to keep and bear arms is a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights that has set this nation apart as a beacon of freedom and liberty. It is time for the court to examine the constitutionality of various state laws that restrict the right to carry, for example, and make arbitrary decisions about who can exercise that right.

“Our courts should be the place that we can trust to safeguard our rights and promote freedom,” he added.

“We’re hoping that the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the court will be quickly affirmed by the Senate,” Gottlieb concluded.

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Good News – A Win In Illinois

June 13, 2018 by 2 Comments

Daniel Easterday, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Illinois State Rifle Association scored a win today in Lake County Circuit Court when they were granted a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of Deerfield’s assault weapon (sic) and magazine ban. The ban which was scheduled to go into effect tomorrow (June 13th) would have levied an up to $1,000 a day fine plus surrender of the firearm for each day the person violated the ordinance.

Congratulations to Glen Ellyn (IL) attorney David Sigale who served as second chair in the monumental McDonald v. Chicago case.

Both SAF and ISRA issued releases on this win.

First, from SAF:

A circuit court judge in Lake County, Illinois has granted an injunction against the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, blocking the village from enforcing a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and handing a victory to the Second Amendment Foundation.

SAF was joined in the lawsuit by the Illinois State Rifle Association and Deerfield resident Daniel Easterday, who is a lawful firearms owner. SAF and ISRA had challenged the ban on the grounds that it violates the state’s preemption law that was adopted in 2013. That change amended state statute that declared “the regulation of the possession or ownership of assault weapons are exclusive powers and functions of this State. Any ordinance or regulation, or portion of that ordinance or regulation, that purports to regulate the possession or ownership of assault weapons in a manner that is inconsistent with this Act, shall be invalid…”

There was a short grace period during which municipalities in the state could change or adopt their gun laws, and Deerfield maintained that its ban was merely an amendment to an earlier ordinance that regulated firearms.

“We moved swiftly to challenge this gun ban because it flew in the face of state law,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The village tried to disguise its extremism as an amendment to an existing ordinance. The ordinance bans possession of legally-owned semi-auto firearms, with no exception for guns previously owned, or any provision for self-defense.

“Worse, still,” he added, “the ordinance also provided for confiscation and destruction of such firearms and their original capacity magazines. It was outrageous that the ban would levy fines of up to $1,000 a day against anyone who refused to turn in their gun and magazines or move them out of the village. This certainly puts the lie to claims by anti-gunners that ‘nobody is coming to take your guns.’”

Plaintiffs were represented by Glen Ellyn attorney David Sigale.

And now from ISRA:

The Illinois State Rifle Association is pleased to announce the issuing of a Temporary Restraining Order preventing Deerfield Illinois from enforcing their anti-gun ordinance. We will now seek a permanent injunction.

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Lawsuit Against Deerfield (Illinois) AWB Makes Fox And Friends

June 5, 2018 by 2 Comments

Richard Pearson, Executive Director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, was interviewed this morning on Fox and Friends regarding the lawsuit that ISRA and the Second Amendment Foundation have filed against the Village of Deerfield, Illinois. The lawsuit seeks a restraining order against the village’s recently enacted assault weapons (sic) and high capacity (sic) magazine ban on the grounds that village doesn’t have the authority to do so under Illinois state law.

You can see the video of the interview here.

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Deerfield Sued Over Gun Ban By ISRA And SAF

April 5, 2018 by 4 Comments

The Village of Deerfield, Illinois passed an ordinance on Monday, April 2nd, that would ban “assault weapons” (sic) and standard capacity magazines. The ordinance contains a $1,000 a day fine for each day the items remain within the limits of the village. According to the ordinance posted on the village’s website, it becomes effective immediately but gives residents 60 days to remove the firearms and magazines.

As reported by CBS News:

The ordinance states, “The possession, manufacture and sale of assault weapons in the Village of Deerfield is not reasonably necessary to protect an individual’s right of self-defense or the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.”


So, beginning June 13, banned assault weapons in Deerfield will include semiautomatic rifles with a fixed magazine and a capacity to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, shotguns with revolving cylinders, and conversion kits from which assault weapons can be assembled. And those are just a few of the firearm varieties banned. The list is long and includes all the following models or duplicates thereof: AK, AKM, AKS, AK-47, AK-74, ARM, MAK90, Misr, NHM 90, NHM 91, SA 85, SA 93, VEPR, AR-10, AR-15, Bushmaster XM15, Armalite M15, Olympic Arms PCR, AR70, Calico Liberty, Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle, Dragunov SVU, Fabrique NationalFN/FAL, FN/LAR, FNC, Hi-Point Carbine, HK-91, Kel-Tec Sub Rifle, SAR-8, Sturm, Ruger Mini-14, and more.

You will note that the Ruger Mini-14 is included in the ban. Many other earlier bans specifically excluded it.

In response, the Illinois State Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation have filed suit against the Village of Deerfield in state court. According to their email alert:

The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) have filed a lawsuit against the Village of Deerfield this morning, April 5, 2018. This legal action is a challenge to the Defendant’s Ordinance O-18-06, passed on April 2, 2018, which bans assault weapons (used specifically as that term is defined in O-18-06) within the Defendant’s municipal limits.

The suit was filed In the Circuit Court of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Lake County, Illinois, Chancery Division.

If you want to donate to the ISRA Legal Assistance Committee, you can donate here. ISRA’s LAC is a 501(c)(3) so it would be tax deductible.

I will have more up on the suit once I can get a copy of the complaint.

UPDATE: Below is the release from the Second Amendment Foundation on the lawsuit, Easterday et al v. Deerfield.

BELLEVUE, Wash., April 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a lawsuit against the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois seeking an injunction against enforcement of the ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines” adopted by the Village Board of Trustees earlier this week.

Joining SAF in the legal challenge is the Illinois State Rifle Association and a private citizen, Daniel Easterday, who resides in the village and is a gun owner. The lawsuit was filed in the 19th Judicial Circuit Court in Lake County. Plaintiffs are represented by Glen Ellyn attorney David Sigale.

The lawsuit challenges the village ban under a 2013 amended state statute that declared “the regulation of the possession or ownership of assault weapons are exclusive powers and functions of this State. Any ordinance or regulation, or portion of that ordinance or regulation, that purports to regulate the possession or ownership of assault weapons in a manner that is inconsistent with this Act, shall be invalid…”

“We moved swiftly to challenge this gun ban because it flies in the face of state law,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “While the village is trying to disguise this as an amendment to an existing ordinance, it is, in fact, a new law that entirely bans possession of legally-owned semi-auto firearms, with no exception for guns previously owned, or any provision for self-defense.

“The new ordinance also provides for confiscation and destruction of such firearms and their original capacity magazines,” he added. “What is particularly outrageous about this new law is that it levies fines of up to $1,000 a day against anyone who refuses to turn in their gun and magazines or move them out of the village by the time the ordinance takes effect in June. This certainly puts the lie to claims by anti-gunners that ‘nobody is coming to take your guns.'”

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Declining “Gun Violence” Tax Revenue In Seattle

March 19, 2018 by 1 Comment

Who’d a thunk it? Collections of the Seattle, WA “gun violence” (sic) tax are down again. Did any of the politicians on the Seattle City Council not figure out that buyers could vote with their feet and buy their ammo and guns outside the city limits?

I guess not given their original estimates of annual revenue was expected to be in the $300-500,000 range and actual 2017 collections were $92,220.74. We only know these real numbers thanks to the efforts of Dave Workman and the Second Amendment Foundation who had to sue to force the original disclosure of the 2016 numbers.

The Second Amendment Foundation released this statement regarding the tax collections:

BELLEVUE, WA. – Seattle’s “gun violence tax” revenue has once again failed to meet predictions, demonstrating once again that this was really a thinly disguised gun control scheme that was sold to the public as an effort to reduce so-called “gun violence,” the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

Figures released by the city under a Public Records Act request by the senior editor of SAF’s monthly magazine TheGunMag.com show the city collected $93,220.74 last year, a decline of nearly $10,000 from the amount collected in 2016 and far below the $300,000 to $500,000 revenue originally predicted by its proponents on the Seattle City Council when the tax was hastily passed almost three years ago.

“Once again,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “Seattle’s pie-in-the-sky gun tax revenue forecast has been proven to be a complete failure, essentially like other gun control fantasies. The revenue data only reinforces our claim in a lawsuit against the tax that this was a gun control scheme to drive firearm sales and gun stores out of the city, which it obviously did.

“It is important to remember that the city would never have released this data if it hadn’t been for our lawsuit in 2016 that forced Seattle to come clean and turn over the revenue figures,” he observed. “Otherwise, we believe the city would have continued to conceal this information because it is embarrassingly short of their prediction.”

“This was, and remains, a First Amendment issue,” said TheGunMag.com Senior Editor Dave Workman. “The public, and especially Seattle taxpayers, have a right to this information.”

“The city probably spent more on legal bills to keep the information confidential, and on manpower to comply with the Public Records Act and last year’s court order than it has so far collected,” Gottlieb estimated. “But this is a pretty good example of what gun control is all about. It always begins with grandiose promises, it invariably hurts the wrong people, it doesn’t stop criminals, and in the end those responsible stubbornly refuse to admit their real goal was to further erode gun rights. And the public winds up essentially worse off than they were before.”

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Gun Store Zoning Case Appealed To The Supreme Court

January 10, 2018 by

Alameda County, California includes cities such as Oakland, Pleasanton, and Berkeley. It also plays fast and loose with its zoning laws and how they interpret distances. John Teixeira and some associates wanted to open a gun store in an unincorporated area of Alameda County back in 2012. The zoning law there forbids gun stores within 500 feet of a residence, school, or liquor store. Teixeira met those requirements and was given a conditional use permit and variance from his local zoning board of adjustment. Then the Alameda County Board of Supervisors decided to change how distance was measured for zoning purposes. Thus, a survey of all empty lots showed that Teixeira could not meet the “new and improved” standards anywhere in the unincorporated areas of the county.

What the county did was institute a variant of “redlining”. In this case it was used to ban gun stores. In the past it was used to make sure that blacks and other minorities were restricted to living in certain areas. Both are a violation of civil rights.

Given this, Mr. Teixeira sued and was joined in his suit by the Second Amendment Foundation, the California Association of Federal Firearm Licensees, and the Calguns Foundation along with two other individual plaintiffs. The case was lost in US District Court but was initially a win before a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story. The anti-gun judges of the 9th Circuit forced it into an en banc hearing in which they agreed with the District Court and negated the win.

Yesterday the plaintiffs in the case filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court asking for a writ of certiorari. The attorneys on the case are Don Kilmer and Alan Gura. The brief can be found here.

The plaintiffs issued the following statement of the appeal:

Supreme Court Asked to Review Alameda County Gun Store Ban

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 9, 2018)­­­­­­ – Attorneys for three civil rights advocacy organizations and three individuals have filed a petition seeking United State Supreme Court review of a controversial 2017 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld an Alameda County, California law effectively banning gun stores within the unincorporated area of the county. A copy of the petition (and other case documents) can be viewed at https://www.calgunsfoundation.org/teixeira.

The lawsuit, first filed in 2012, challenged a county ordinance that prohibits gun stores from being located within 500 feet of places that include residentially zoned districts. But, according to a scientific study conducted by the plaintiffs that included a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) evaluation of all parcels in Alameda County, there are no lots within the unincorporated county that meet the ordinance’s 500-foot-rule requirements.

On appeal, the plaintiffs won before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. But that opinion was vacated and reversed following an en banc rehearing before the full appeals court. Now the case is being appealed to the nation’s highest court.

“You simply cannot allow local governments to ignore the Second Amendment because they don’t like how the Supreme Court has ruled on the amendment twice in the past ten years,” noted Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “You shouldn’t be able to zone the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights.”

“Local neighbors who live eight lanes across an interstate and the anti-rights politicians that cater to them can’t redline gun stores and the right to buy arms out of existence,” noted The Calguns Foundation’s Chairman, Gene Hoffman. “Since this case was filed multiple local city and county governments have used unconstitutional zoning laws to stop new gun stores from opening and close down existing gun stores. If this was a book store or an abortion clinic, the Ninth Circuit would not have hesitated in striking this zoning regulation unanimously.”

“The Supreme Court declared that the Second Amendment was not a second-class right, but lower courts are ignoring that and holding otherwise—and so far, they’ve been getting away with it. We hope this case gets individual liberty back on track,” added California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees’ founder and Executive Vice President Brandon Combs.

“The federal courts exist, in part, to protect fundamental rights that might not be popular in certain jurisdictions,” noted California attorney Don Kilmer, who represents the plaintiffs. “Today, in the Ninth Circuit, those are gun rights. Tomorrow, who knows? One question presented by this case is whether our rights are subject to only one Constitution, or do those rights change from state to state?”

Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is joined in the case by California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAL-FFL), The Calguns Foundation (CGF), and three businessmen, John Teixeira, Steve Nobriga, and Gary Gamaza. They are represented by Virginia attorney Alan Gura and California attorney Don Kilmer.

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California Sued Over New AWB Regulations

December 1, 2017 by

A coalition of gun rights organizations plus three individual plaintiffs have sued California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the California Department of Justice over newly adopted regulations concerning the assault weapons ban on bullet buttons. The suit was filed in California Superior Court for the County of Riverside.

The CalGuns Foundation has this summary of the case:

Summary: Holt, et al. v. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is a constitutional, statutory, and Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenge to the DOJ’s “bullet-button assault weapon” regulations. The DOJ’s regulations expose people to criminal liability that would not otherwise exist under the actual laws regulating firearms in California.
Individual Plaintiffs/Petitioners: George Holt, Irvin Hoff, Michael Louie, and Rick Russell are all law-abiding, tax-paying residents of California who lawfully own firearms potentially subject to the DOJ’s illegal regulatory scheme. 
Institutional Plaintiffs/Petitioners: Firearms Policy Coalition; Firearms Policy Foundation; The Calguns Foundation; Second Amendment Foundation
Defendants: Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California; Stephen J. Lindley, Chief of the Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms; the California Department of Justice; Debra N. Cornez, Director of the Office of Administrative Law; Betty T. Yee, California State Controller; Does 1-50,
Litigation Counsel: George M. Lee; Douglas A. Applegate; Raymond M. DiGuiseppe

The complaint can be found here.

The institutional plaintiffs – SAF, CalGuns Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Firearms Policy Foundation – released a joint statement on the lawsuit.

Gun Owners & Civil Rights Groups File Legal Challenge to California’s “Assault Weapon” Regulations

The lawsuit argues that the State’s “bullet-button assault weapon” regulations are largely unlawful, should have been subject to the Administrative Procedure Act process, waste taxpayer dollars, and should not be allowed to stand.

SACRAMENTO, CA (November 30, 2017) — Today, attorneys for four individual gun owners as well as advocacy organizations The Calguns Foundation (CGF), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), and Firearms Policy Foundation (FPF) filed a new lawsuit and petition for writ of mandate that challenges more than a dozen new “assault weapon” regulations ramrodded into effect by the State of California’s Department of Justice (DOJ).

Named as defendants are California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Chief of the DOJ Bureau of Firearms Stephen Lindley, the California Department of Justice itself, Director of the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) Debra Cornez, and State Controller Betty Yee.

Plaintiffs’ attorney George M. Lee said that the lawsuit was focused on protecting law-abiding people from illegal regulatory and enforcement actions.

“By making and enforcing unlawful rules, and going around the rules to do it, the DOJ is putting tens if not hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people at risk of serious criminal liability,” said Lee. “This case seeks to make the DOJ follow the same laws they impose on others and protect law-abiding gun owners in the process.”

“The DOJ is acting like an out-of-control bullet train that’s running off the rails,” said plaintiffs’ attorney and former Deputy Attorney General Raymond DiGuiseppe. “Our plaintiffs want to get the State’s agencies back on the tracks and following the law.”

CGF Chairman Gene Hoffman notes, “The DOJ has used every trick in the book to avoid good faith rulemaking action, and we cannot allow that to go unchallenged. California laws are bad enough without piling on unlawful and harmful regulations, so we seek here to restore the rule of law—and some sanity.”

“The government agencies responsible for enforcing the law must also follow the law,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said. “This case is an important step in protecting law-abiding gun owners from an out-of-control regulatory state.”

“The DOJ is playing a dangerous game with the law, and it needs to stop,” observed FPF Vice President Jonathan Jensen. “Tens of thousands of people could face potential felonies in just a handful of months, and meanwhile the DOJ has moved the goalposts with the registration clock ticking.”

“The State of California is nothing short of bipolar with its gun control policies,” commented FPC President Brandon Combs. “On one hand, the State is requiring people to register virtually all of their guns. On the other hand, the DOJ is doing everything it can to suppress compliance and prevent people from registering their guns.”

A copy of the complaint and petition for writ of mandate can be viewed or downloaded at http://bit.ly/holt-v-becerra.

CASE BACKGROUND:

Last July, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a number of new gun control bills into law, including two (SB 880, Hall; AB 1135, Levine) expanding the State’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

“The Legislature ignored every rule in the book to fast-track their civilian disarmament agenda and herd the people into a state-wide gun-free-zone,” said FPC Spokesperson Craig DeLuz in a statement at the time.

Following that, last December, the California DOJ submitted its first attempt at “assault weapons” regulations under the OAL’s “File & Print” process, which means that the DOJ claimed the regulations were not subject to the public notice or comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

However, DOJ withdrew the regulations near the end of OAL review period after receiving thousands of opposition letters from FPC members and Second Amendment supporters.

Then, in May of this year, the DOJ re-submitted regulations under the same “File & Print” process. FPC, FPF, CGF, and Craig DeLuz sued the DOJ over the Department’s actions of blocking access to public records concerning its promulgation of these regulations. The regulations were completely rejected by OAL a little more than a month later.

Following that, the DOJ submitted a virtually-identical set of regulations under the “File & Print” process, again claiming “APA-exempt” status. The OAL approved those regulations in July, allowing the DOJ to go forward with its new “assault weapon” regulatory process.

Then, just before closing doors for the Thanksgiving holiday, the DOJ notified FPC and other Institutional Plaintiffs that it had filed yet another proposed rulemaking on “bullet-button assault weapons” (that would create new 11 CCR § 5460) for the purpose of bootstrapping its prior July regulations into effect for all purposes including criminal prosecutions.

FPC published the new proposed regulations and prior regulatory updates at BulletButtonBan.com, a Web site it established in 2016 for tracking the new California assault weapon laws and regulations. Members of the public can use FPC’s Grassroots Action Tools to submit responsive written comments to DOJ regarding the new proposed regulations.

A public hearing on the new regulations is scheduled for 10 a.m. on January 8, 2018, at the Resources Building Auditorium in Sacramento.

ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL PLAINTIFFS:

Plaintiffs George Holt, Irvin Hoff, Michael Louie, and Rick Russell are all law-abiding, tax-paying residents of California who lawfully own firearms potentially subject to the DOJ’s illegal regulatory scheme. This scheme would retroactively deem their firearms “assault weapons” that either must now be registered as such through a burdensome and wasteful registration process or that cannot be registered all, effectively rendering any continued possession unlawful. The DOJ’s regulations expose them to criminal liability that would not otherwise exist under the actual laws regulating firearms in California.

The plaintiffs have joined this lawsuit to stand against the illegal regulatory actions of the DOJ and protect their rights and the rights of countless other law-abiding California gun owners being placed in jeopardy.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS:

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.

Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, through advocacy, legal action, education, and outreach.

Firearms Policy Foundation (www.firearmsfoundation.org) is a 501(c)3 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPF’s mission is to defend the Constitution of the United States and the People’s rights, privileges and immunities deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition, especially the inalienable, fundamental, and individual right to keep and bear arms.

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Video Of The 2017 Gun Rights Policy Conference By Panel

October 1, 2017 by

Matt of LFD Research has been doing really great work of putting together videos of each individual panel at this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference.

Given their large size and the slow and costly internet at the Westin, they are going up bit by bit (no pun intended). So far he has most of the Saturday morning panels uploaded and more should be coming soon.

You can find all the videos on his LFD Research YouTube page. The link to it is here.

I am embedding the one featuring Dr. Jennifer Stuber of the University of Washington School of Public Health. Her organization, ForeFront, has partnered with SAF, the NRA, mental health professionals, gun dealers, and more on ways to prevent suicide. She, herself, became a widow at age 38 when her husband committed suicide with a firearm.

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A Great Win To Kick Off GRPC 2017

September 29, 2017 by

The 2017 Gun Rights Policy Conference starts this evening in Irving, Texas. For those that don’t know, it is sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. And what could be a better way to start this conference than a win in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the Wrenn case.

The Court of Appeals has refused to hold an en banc review of Wrenn v. DC which is a win for gun rights in the District of Columbia. The Wrenn case invalidated the District’s requirement that a citizen show “good reason” in order to obtain a carry permit. The question is now whether the District of Columbia will appeal this to the United States Supreme Court. The last time they appealed such a loss in a gun rights case was in DC v. Heller and we know how that turned out for them.


From SAF on their win in DC:

BELLEVUE, WA — The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has turned down a request from the city for an en banc hearing on the concealed carry case of Wrenn v. District of Columbia, amounting to a strategic win for the Second Amendment Foundation.

According to the court, not a single judge on the court requested a hearing. Earlier, a three-judge panel had ruled in favor of plaintiffs Brian Wrenn and SAF. The case challenges the District’s carry permit policy that requires citizens to provide a “good reason” to be issued a permit. The Appeals Court struck down that requirement.

“Ten years ago, Washington D.C.’s political leadership tried to extinguish Second Amendment rights before the Supreme Court,” noted attorney Alan Gura, who represents the plaintiffs. “The result was D.C. v. Heller, a tremendous victory for the rights of all Americans. With the court of appeals again confirming the people’s right to bear arms, Washington, D.C.’s politicians must once again ask themselves whether it makes sense to keep resisting our fundamental rights.”

Gura successfully argued both the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case and 2010 McDonald v. City of Chicago case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Both cases dealt directly with Second Amendment issues. Heller affirmed that the amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and McDonald incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14thAmendment.

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb was delighted with the court’s decision not to grant the en banc hearing.

“We are grateful,” Gottlieb observed, “that the court has shown considerable wisdom, and this should help advance the effort to assure reasonable concealed carry for District residents. It represents one more advancement in our effort to win firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time.”

The victory comes on the eve of the 32nd annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Dallas, Texas. The event is co-sponsored by SAF and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.