Posts Tagged lawfare

SCOTUS Creates Dangerous Precedent By Declaring NY Gun Case Moot

From Bearing Arms:

The 6-3 ruling saw Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh siding with the liberal wing of the court, while Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the opinion, arguing that the decision “permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced.”

, , , , , , , ,

No Comments

CA Ammo Background Check Rejected By Judge

From NBC San Diego:

A federal judge on Thursday blocked a California law requiring background checks for people buying ammunition, issuing a sharply worded rebuke of “onerous and convoluted” regulations that violate the constitutional right to bear arms.

, , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Opinion: New York Gun Case Is Silly

From The New York Times:

I don’t know how the Second Amendment case the Supreme Court heard this week will turn out, but I do know this: If the subject weren’t so serious, the case in its current posture, with substantial doubt about whether there is even a dispute left for the court to decide, would be downright funny. For a window into the dynamics of today’s Supreme Court, look no further than the transcript of the argument in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York.

, , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Supreme Court To Hear NY Gun Case

From The Truth About Guns:

The Supreme Court is turning to gun rights for the first time in nearly a decade, even though those who brought the case, New York City gun owners, already have won changes to the regulation they challenged.

, , , , , , ,

No Comments

Second Amendment Battle Continues In Courts

From The Federalist:

In Worman, district court judge William G. Young upheld Massachusetts’ ban not by disputing whether the firearms and magazines in question are “in common use,” but on the notion that semi-automatic rifles are close enough to fully-automatic rifles that they might as well be considered one and the same. That idea originated in the first chapter of a 2003 publication by the anti-gun activist group that in 1988 proposed that gun control activists adopt “assault weapons” as a “new topic” to “strengthen the handgun restriction lobby.” A representative of the group was one of the Democrat witnesses during Democrats’ House Judiciary Committee hearing on “assault weapons” in September. (See items 5, 8, and 9 here.)

, , , , , , ,

No Comments

Colorado Mag Ban Fails

From Reason:

However, some gun dealers noticed that the bill made no mention of magazine components and capitalized on the omission. Dealers throughout the state began selling “parts kits” that contain everything a gun owner needs to assemble their own large-capacity magazine at home. In fact, some gun stores throughout the state now sell magazines only in parts kit form.

, , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Judge Says There Should Be A License For 3D Printing Software

From Reason:

This week, Judge Robert A. Lasnik of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, in deciding on motions for summary judgment in that suit, State of Washington et al. v. U.S. Department of State et al., agreed that removing those files from the USML was unlawful based on the APA arguments (though not the 10th Amendment ones), and reversed the federal government’s choice to allow free distribution of the files.
As discussed in Lasnik’s decision, the federal government’s initial reaction to the states’ suit “justified the deregulation of the CAD files [that could help make weapons]…by pointing to a Department of Defense determination that the items ‘do not provide the United States with a critical military or intelligence advantage’ and ‘are already commonly available and not inherently for military end-use.'”

, , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Massachusetts’s Ban On Defensive Firearms

From Cato Institute:

Massachusetts law currently prohibits ownership of “assault weapons,” the statutory definition of which includes the most popular semi-automatic rifles in the country, as well as “copies or duplicates” of any such weapons. As for what that means, your guess is as good as ours. A group of plaintiffs, including two firearm dealers and the Gun Owners’ Action League, challenged the law as an unconstitutional violation of their Second Amendment rights. Unfortunately, both a federal trial judge and appellate court upheld the ban—though they could not agree on why.

, , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Court Dismisses Case Against Gun Manufacturers

From NSSF:

“This decision by the federal judge to dismiss with prejudice this frivolous case is pleasing, if not unexpected,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs and General Counsel. “These are lawful and federally-regulated AR-15 modern sporting rifle manufacturers that make semiautomatic rifles for lawful purposes. The judge was absolutely correct to assert that the proper venue to establish public firearms policy is through the legislature and not the courts.”

, , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Heller Is Being Ignored

From National Review:

The McDonald Court declared that the Second Amendment is not a “second-class right,” to be “singled out for special — and specially unfavorable — treatment.” In 2019, however, Heller is in a precarious situation: There have been numerous victories for gun rights, but many lower courts have in practice nullified the Second Amendment. Later this year, the Supreme Court may hear a case involving egregious Second Amendment infringements by the New York City government. The Court should take the opportunity not only to strike New York’s abuses, but also to firmly remind lower courts that the Second Amendment is a first-class civil right.

, , , , , , ,

No Comments

Lawsuits Can Threaten Rights

From Overlawyered:

The brief emphasizes two lines of argument that I find exactly to the point. First, under the right circumstances, the workings of tort lawsuits can impinge on individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution: exorbitant libel verdicts can menace freedom of speech, and similarly stretching of tort and public nuisance law can endanger Second Amendment rights. It is worth making explicit the parallels between the Supreme Court’s acknowledgment of the first in New York Times v. Sullivan and Congress’s recognition of the second in its passage of PLCAA.

, , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Lawsuits Threaten Gun Industry

From National Review:

In 2005, a wave of lawsuits threatened to bankrupt the gun industry. These suits were based on — pick your adjective — “creative,” “novel,” “inventive,” and “imaginative” legal theories that rarely held up in court, and they did their damage primarily by forcing gun companies to incur the costs of defending against them. Congress, seeing the problem, stepped in to put a stop to it — or at least tried to — by passing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
A decade and a half later, anti-gun activists have responded with yet more new legal theories, and the Connecticut courts have bought one of them. Some families victimized by the Newtown massacre are being allowed to pursue a wrongful-death claim against Remington, which owns Bushmaster, the company that made the rifle used in the attack.

, , , , , ,

No Comments

Second Amendment Deserves Same Protections As First

From Reason:

Should gun manufacturers be liable for misuse of guns? Should printing press manufacturers be liable for misuse of presses? The answer to both questions is “no,” according to an amicus brief I filed today in support of a Supreme Court cert. petition.

, , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Bill Introduced To Sue Gun Manufacturers

From Bearing Arms:

The Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act aims to repeal federal protections blocking firearm and ammunition manufacturers, dealers and trade groups from most civil lawsuits when a firearm is used unlawfully or in a crime.

, , , ,

No Comments

NY Law Headed To Supreme Court

From USA Today:

Gun rights groups are using New York City restrictions that may be repealed as a rallying cry to press the Supreme Court for a major expansion of its Second Amendment precedents.

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments