Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

This is a case that literally begs for Supreme Court attention. When the Court ruled in the 2008 Heller case that the Second Amendment protected a fundamental right, it was clear that this right belongs to everyone, not just the residents of an individual state. The Seventh Circuit held in Moore v. Madigan that the carrying of firearms in public for self-defense is a fundamental right, but under existing Illinois restrictions, that right has been limited to Illinois residents and citizens from only four other states.

All the plaintiffs in this case are asking for is to be treated equally to Illinois residents. They’re not asking for special treatment. They will take the training required by state law and abide by all the other rules.

Alan M. Gottlieb
October 11, 2019
SAF SEEKS SCOTUS REVIEW OF IMPORTANT ILLINOIS CARRY CASE
[From a constitutional point of view one has to ask, “What other specific enumerated right requires you to get a background check and undergo training before you can exercise it?”

But, as a practical matter, what is more important at this point is to get the existing oppressive laws struck down. This is how we went from concealed carry only allowed in a few states in the 1980s to now with some form of concealed carry in essentially all states and constitutional carry in 15 states. In the mid 1990s I was skeptical. How, I wondered, would we get from licensed carry to “Vermont Carry” as it was called then? Well, no we know how it is done. Incremental legislative and judicial action.

By taking relatively small easy steps (see also New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. City of New York) to SCOTUS we are building a judicial wall that makes it easier and easier to win the next prize ahead of us.

Had we gone with “Shall. Not. Be. Infringed!” and stuck with that in the 1980s today I believe things would be much different now. I suspect we would be grumbling about needing to apply for a permit to purchase and background checks to acquire one Airsoft gun a month. And a few people, near end of life, futilely telling their grandkids about a few real guns buried underground or in caves.—Joe]

Share

2 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

  1. Or if Civil War 2.0 turns out to have been inevitable, maybe it would have been fought under more favorable terms. We can’t say.

    What we can say is that every firearms appeal after McDonald sent to the Supreme Court was denied cert prior to this case, including one from California after Kavanaugh was seated. This even includes reversing one of Heller’s most important findings, that the state can’t outlaw making guns accessible for self-defense in the home (the San Francisco “lock up your safety” law). Given that this case can be decided on extremely narrow grounds, because it’s about a law that prohibits transporting your firearm outside of the city limits of NYC, it is ludicrous to say “we are building a judicial wall that makes it easier and easier to win the next prize ahead of us.” A wall requires more than 2-3 bricks.

  2. Pingback: AR-15 lowers are not firearms | The View From North Central Idaho

Comments are closed.