Gun Rights:
When It’s Too Good, That’s Bad
By now, you’ve heard of the Bruen case at the Supreme Court. It overturned NY State’s 100-year-old Sullivan law — which effectively banned legal carry in public — with obviously little effect on rampant violence. Widely heralded as a spectacular win for the pro-rights gun community, like everything, there are other sides. Anti-gun-rights people along with agenda-driven constitution-less politicians don’t think it’s a win. They believe this case is awful and it’s generating unintended consequences. Anti-rights bigots have been pushed over the edge, kicked in the face and have abandoned principles and constraints our Constitution is designed to provide.
State v. Federal
Similarities to the recent abortion decision are startling. Dobbs v. Jackson did not “overturn” Roe v. Wade. It corrected the error in Roe, returning power to states where it belongs, because there is no legit federal authority on the matter. Feds had usurped power they did not have. Conversely, Bruen clarifies power over arms is not in states’ hands — they must abide by the Constitution.
Now the worst anti-gun-rights states have their backs up. In both cases (guns and abortion), there’s a push to amend the Constitution (unlikely), calls for civil disobedience (happening) and plans to subvert what SCOTUS has determined (by governors). In editorials and actions, opposition to the rule of law is vigorous and dangerous. That is the real takeaway from these new seminal cases.
Rights Restoration
Bruen is so good for our side it is hard to fathom. The ancient Sullivan law, that arbitrary grant of power over freedom to officials, is kaput. It will ripple massively through the states — goodbye unreasonable permit denials. Arbitrary “proper cause” clauses for denying peoples’ right to arms, which had morphed into near-total bans, are over — theoretically. It resembles Heller (2008), which stated unambiguously the U.S. right to arms, nearly two-and-a-half centuries strong, belongs to individual citizens. That’s essential truth, willfully obscured by power brokers holding mass-media levers. Leftist and communist assaults calling 2A a “collective right” — meaning no individuals had it — got demolished.
Followed shortly by McDonald (2010), your rights exist outside your home, not just within your four walls, another shibboleth promoted by anti-Americans to limit or eliminate this precious right, ceding more power to government. Many illogically feel safer when the government is powerful and feel threatened when you are. This is the opposite of how our Founders established the freest nation on Earth.
Now comes Bruen, accurately declaring concocted schemes to restrict your right to arms cannot stand. Antis are rendered powerless and rightly so — if law matters.
And there’s the rub. Those defeated in their totalitarian efforts to wrench power from us — that’s you folks who like this magazine and everything it stands for — are left naked and defeated. If it were you, you’d fight back. They are.
Fighting Back
In the coming months and years, we can expect actions like we’re seeing in New York State. Unelected Kathy Hochul became the anti-gun-rights governor. She is driving a 10-part set of rules, with legislative backing, to neuter the SCOTUS decision. Before you can go armed from your home, you’ll need to satisfy this woman and her abusive demands — like show us your online search passwords to qualify. It’s precisely what SCOTUS ruled cannot be done — bureaucratic judgments. Will online Trump enthusiasts qualify? Imagine needing your governor’s permission, in writing, plus tests with miles of red tape to get a book.
Hochul’s 10-bill package outlaws what they’re calling loopholes — a euphemism for freedoms they dislike — requiring non-existent micro-stamping on new sidearms, banning normal-capacity magazines, expanding who can declare you guilty of red-flag infractions, mandating social-media reporting on “hate speech,” license requirements for people under 21 buying semi-auto rifles and bans on defensive body armor. Let me ask, how much of this will stop mass murderers?
This is bad for the country, very bad. Recognition and restoration of repressed rights should not lead to civil manipulation from establishment operators. It should be grounds for removal from office. Propagandized New Yorkers may lack the cojones to do that — they’re convinced guns are evil, and government must save them.
Falsely calling crime this new thing “gun violence,” Hochul signed legislation to “immediately strengthen” the state’s gun laws. They already have America’s strongest draconian repressive gun laws but leave them unenforced, allowing lethal perpetrators out on the street.
New York’s case to deny rights is so weak the three dissenting justices resort to hyperbole and scare tactics rather than reasoned legal argument. Read the dissent; it’s revealing and embarrassing. Compiled statistics on how many people are murderers do not make a case against fundamental rights. But it’s all they have. Gun control is not crime control. Anti-gunners don’t know this.
Award-winning author Alan Korwin has written 14 books, 10 of them on gun law, and has advocated for gun rights for nearly three decades. See his work or reach him at GunLaws.com.
