NRA Applauds Neil Gorsuch’s Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court
The National Rifle Association (NRA) applauds the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the United States Supreme Court.
“President Trump has made an outstanding choice in nominating Judge Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court. He has an impressive record that demonstrates his support for the Second Amendment,” said Chris W. Cox, Executive Director, NRA-ILA. “We urge the Senate to swiftly confirm Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, just as it did in confirming him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit by a unanimous voice vote.”
During his tenure on the Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch has demonstrated his belief that the Constitution should be applied as the framers intended. To that end, he has supported the individual right to self-defense. Specifically, he wrote in an opinion that “the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly.”
“On behalf of our five million members, the NRA strongly supports Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. We will be activating our members and tens of millions of supporters throughout the country in support of Judge Gorsuch. He will protect our right to keep and bear arms and is an outstanding choice to fill Justice Scalia’s seat,” concluded Cox.
National CCW Reciprocity Bill Introduced for 2017
Ask any concealed carry license holder who does any appreciable amount of travel and they can tell you that the United States can be a patchwork of state and local laws. Can you have a loaded firearm in your car? Are rifles and handguns treated differently? Does a loaded magazine count as “loaded,” or must a round be chambered? Do No Guns Allowed signs carry the force of law? Can you carry in restaurants which serve alcohol? Is your concealed carry permit even good in your destination state?
These issues might represent a lot to consider when traveling with firearms, but a new bill introduced in the House might solve at least one of them.
Yesterday marked the first day of the 115th Congress and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC-8) kicked it off with a piece of pro-gun legislation in the form of The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. HR38 would eliminate the confusing hodgepodge of laws across the nation by allowing individuals who legally carry a concealed firearm in their home state to exercise the same right in any other state that does not prohibit concealed carry – a concept known as National Reciprocity.
NRA-ILA Executive Director, Chris Cox, supported the bill, saying “the current patchwork of state and local laws is confusing for even the most conscientious and well-informed concealed carry permit holders. This confusion often leads to law-abiding gun owners running afoul of the law when they exercise their right to self-protection while traveling or temporarily living away from home.”
The official Congressional summary of HR38 is still pending as of this writing; however, Rep. Hudson has released this text of the bill, a one-pager summary, and a brief Q&A.
Hudson, a strong advocate of Second Amendment rights, has introduced similar legislation in the past, including last session’s HR986 during the 114th Congress. Despite decent support from among his congressional peers, this bill failed to make it through the legislative process. Now, with republican control of the House, Senate, and White House – along with at least one Supreme Court seat to be filled by the incoming President Trump – the new iteration of the national reciprocity bill has a chance at passing. It is already off to a good start with a bi-partisan field of more than 60 co-sponsors. Continue reading
Miss Sloane: America Votes “NO” Once Again
via NRA-ILA
“You can’t win them all,” as the old saying goes, but when it comes to the Second Amendment, gun control advocates can’t even come close. Such is clearly the case with Miss Sloane, the latest of Hollywood’s repeated attempts to push a gun control narrative on the American people. Of course, they didn’t see this coming, any more than they saw a Donald Trump victory coming. But that’s because they refuse to acknowledge the basic simple truth about the American people when it comes to our firearms freedom. Well, we’ll say it again, the American people aren’t buying your anti-gun narrative.
Miss Sloane features Jessica Chastain as a Washington lobbyist who takes on “the establishment” to push for passage of gun control in the U.S. Congress. As reported by Stephen Gutowski at FreeBeacon, the “political thriller” opened last weekend to much buzz and fanfare among gun control groups, but tanked completely at the box office, making one industry list of the worst openings of the past 35 years for a movie with a national release.
Incredibly, Gutowski reports that a representative of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence actually said, “… I can tell you that its production alone, with our input, is the success.” In other words, it is of little consequence that nobody wants to see a movie that pushes for gun control, its mere existence is what matters.
This very telling admission provides great insight into the base motive and method of those in the gun control movement and their view of policy-making in the United States. What the American people want is irrelevant, gun control elites know better, and they will continue to push their message through all available means. They certainly have willing accomplices in the media and entertainment industry.
But we will warn those in the gun control movement not to take box-office losses lightly. Because Hollywood does not. Lest anyone forget, it is middle-America that provides the means which afford so many in the entertainment industry extraordinary wealth and lavish lifestyles. Continue reading
Corporate Lawyers Can’t Tell the Truth about Gun Laws
via NRA-ILA
The newly formed anti-gun Firearms Accountability Counsel Task Force was featured in a National Public Radio interview with attorney Mike Schissel of Arnold & Porter, one of the big corporate law firms that has joined together with other firms to provide free legal services to anti-gun groups. Mr. Schissel openly bragged about the “collective talent and collective manpower” of his group and that “the brute force of the major law firms in this country” would use “novel and aggressive thinking … to put a full-court press on the gun lobby.”
This “novel and aggressive thinking” clearly does not involve telling the truth about the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), since Mr. Schissel claimed “There’s no other law – no other law at all – that shields consumer products from safety regulation.” He further alleged that “there are state laws that literally immunize a gun seller of any liability even if that gun seller knows he’s selling a gun to a criminal.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Schissel, literally every part of his claim is untrue. The firearms industry is not the only industry to enjoy the type of protection the PLCAA affords, and it most certainly does not provide blanket immunity from lawsuits. Any honest lawyer would also understand that it is a federal crime to knowingly sell a firearm to a criminal. There is no law which can immunize against this action in such cases.
The truth is that gun manufacturers have been found liable for defective firearms and gun dealers have been held both criminally and civilly liable for selling guns to prohibited persons. While spurious claims like the Connecticut suit against Remington Arms and the Brady Campaign’s lawsuit against Lucky Gunner were dismissed, Badger Arms was found liable for selling guns to an obvious straw purchaser – a case Brady Campaign attorneys were forced to leave after violating Wisconsin Supreme Court rules on pretrial publicity.
The truth about the PLCAA cannot be clearer. It was passed after anti-gun activists partnered with big-firm plaintiffs’ lawyers, big-city mayors, and the Clinton administration to bring an avalanche of lawsuits against the firearm industry and force them to either settle or go bankrupt from legal fees. The PLCAA only prohibits lawsuits for injuries “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of firearms – the same way that car manufacturers and auto dealerships are not liable for injuries caused by drunk drivers.
Schissel’s other “novel and aggressive” strategy is to claim that state carry laws infringe on the rights of private property owners because they have to post “No Gun” signs to exclude people who are legally carrying a concealed firearm. Following this line of reasoning, business owners must be equally burdened by having to post signs to exclude other legal activity – like “No Smoking,” “No Pets,” and “No Shirt-No Shoes-No Service.” It is laughable to think that the effort to post these signs is so terrible and onerous that it can only be remedied by the courts. Continue reading
Trump: The Official NRA Q&A
via NRA-ILA
This year’s race for the White House is like no other in our history. Hillary Clinton has made it clear that, if elected, she will come after our firearm freedoms on her very first day in office. So it’s no exaggeration to say that the Second Amendment is on the ballot this November. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, to discuss our right to keep and bear arms and what’s at stake for America’s gun owners in this election.
Chris W. Cox: Mr. Trump, I’d like to begin with an issue of concern to many gun owners. In your 2000 book, The America We Deserve, you stated that while you oppose gun control, you support the federal ban on semi-automatic firearms—the so-called “assault weapons” ban—and also support a longer waiting period to purchase a firearm. During this election, however, you’ve repeatedly pointed out you oppose gun and magazine bans and only support background checks that are instant, accurate and fair. Would you say your position has evolved on these issues?
Donald J. Trump: Absolutely. Over the past 15 years I’ve learned a great deal about how we can protect the good people of this country from those who mean to do us harm. Gun control is not the answer—protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens is the answer. Furthermore, gun bans don’t work. Studies were done after the 1994 “assault weapons” ban expired. They clearly showed that the ban didn’t protect anyone, didn’t reduce crime. It just made it harder for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves with the firearm of their choice. Like with all things, I believe in what works, and gun bans don’t work. I have two sons who don’t just believe in the Second Amendment, they live it. They hunt, target shoot, shoot competitively and carry firearms for personal protection. They’re NRA members, and so am I. I also have a concealed-carry permit. Our commitment to the Second Amendment is unshakable.
CWC: As you know, the future of our firearm freedoms hangs in the balance with the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia—the author of the Heller decision—which held that the Constitution guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms. I have a couple of questions related to the Supreme Court, but first, do you agree that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental, individual right to own and use firearms for lawful purposes? Continue reading
Vote Now to Get the Second Amendment into the Debate Discussion
The NRA-ILA is helping to spread the word about Americans’ opportunity to shape the direction of the 2016 Presidential Debates.
The Open Debate Coalition website allows users to vote for questions that are important to them and ABC and CNN debate moderators have agreed to consider the top 30 questions as chosen by voters for use in the Sunday, October 9, debate.
One of those questions, posed by Tim S., is gaining ground with nearly 20,000 votes. Tim’s question reads “How will you ensure the 2nd amendment is protected?“. The question follows up by noting that “[t]oo much crime is blamed on the tool, not the person. How will you protect law abiding citizens to protect themselves.“
If you watched the first debate between Presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, you may have thought that the debate was a little lopsided in what many considered to be a 2-on-1 tag team match against one candidate. This is the American people’s opportunity to have the candidates get to the point and talk about what matters.
VOTE NOW to take the Second Amendment question to the debate stage next Sunday and see where the candidates stand. One candidate’s name is already on one of the most egregious abrogations of the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. The other candidate’s official 2A platform plans to “defend the Second Amendment of our Constitution“, saying that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.” Trump’s specific plan includes “nominate United States Supreme Court justices that will abide by the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States,” “enforce the laws on the books,” “empower law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves,” and “defend the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”
Let’s put the question to them directly and see what they have to say about it. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to Stand and Fight for Second Amendment rights by joining or renewing your NRA membership today.
