Free Republic

The wheels of justice in the District of Columbia are turning exceedingly slowly in enforcing the second amendment of the Constitution.  It was shortly after the Heller decision in 2008, that Alan Gura and SAF filed suit in what has become the Palmer case in the District of Columbia.    That suit was filed in August of 2009, only a little more than a year after Heller was decided in June of 2008.   It took almost exactly five years to get a ruling in the Palmer case.  Alan Gura, during that period, filed two petitions for a writ of mandamus....

In the ongoing legal battle by Alan Gura to force the District of Columbia City Council to respect the second amendment of the Constitution, a request that the City government be held in contempt was file on Tuesday, the 18th of November, 2014.  It seems to come as a response to the city claiming that the Court lacked jurisdiction, because no request for a finding of contempt was fired. Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr gave the DC government until the 4th of December, and Gura's reply by the 11th of December.  From us.archive.org: TEXT SCHEDULING ORDER: regarding the #...

Alan Gura The District of Columbia recently passed an emergency measure to allow for the issuance of concealed carry permits within the District.   The measure is one of the most restrictive in the nation, combining the most restrictive features of existing state law along with a couple of new wrinkles.   The Washington Post has graciously posted a copy of the law online.   The law is only valid for 90 days, to meet Judge Scullin's order.   The council has already stated that it intends to revisit the law after that time, apparently to make it more onerous.  From the Washington...

There have been rumors flying about on what Alan Gura has agreed to on a stay on the Palmer v. D.C. case.   These were fueled in part by the wording in the District's request for a stay, which originally claimed that it was unopposed.  According to Alan Gura on his blog, that is not the case: I have a better understanding of what the city will now do. The city will probably file an appeal — that’s within their right. The city would ask for a stay pending the resolution of the appeal — they can ask for that,...

Kachalsky v. Cacace was the second case filed by the Second Amendment Foundation after their Supreme Court win in McDonald. It challenged the State of New York's requirement to show "good cause" before the issuance of a carry permit. Judge Cathy Seibel using intermediate scrutiny found for the defendants and against the plaintiffs saying that the State of New York had an important governmental interest in regulating carry. She also said that the Second Amendment protections as affirmed in Heller only applied to "hearth and home." Alan Gura filed a notice of appeal on September 12, 2011 to the 2nd...

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson released the text of his emergency legislation to make the District a federal firearms licensee, able to sell and transfer guns to citizens. The resolution calls on Mayor Vince Gray to appoint an agency to act as the FFL for the city, which currently has none and therefore no way to legally transfer handguns into the city since proprietor Charles Sykes closed the sole gun shop in D.C. in April. Federal and district laws require handguns crossing the D.C. border to be shipped to an FFL before the owner can take possession of them. But critics...

The Washington Times editorializes against Washington, D.C.’s continuing refusal to respect the Second Amendment in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller: In its ruling, the Supreme Court smacked down D.C. gun-control measures and reaffirmed the constitutional protection for the individual’s right to own a handgun. Since then, the District has cooked up a labyrinth of pointless restrictions and rules crafted to ensure this fundamental right would rarely be exercised. The city may have gone a step too far, as it is now impossible for any law-abiding citizen to obtain a gun in...

Maryland -–(Ammoland.com)- Here is a video of an excellent presentation by Attorney Alan Gura on the topic of gun rights in a Post-Heller and McDonald world. You’ll remember that Mr. Gura is the lead attorney on the Woollard suit being brought by the Second Amendment Foundation against the State of Maryland. Alan Gura at the Grass Roots North Carolina Gala for Gun Rights discusses recent gun rights litigation and the Supreme Court wins for Heller and McDonald. He discusses strategies that work, and his experience when the National Rifle Organization joined the McDonald case. All those interested in preventing the...

Associated Press Sacramento, Calif. (AP) - The nationwide debate over liberalizing gun laws spilled into a federal courtroom in Sacramento on Thursday as gun-rights groups challenged how much discretion California's law enforcement officials have in issuing concealed weapons permits... --snip-- That gives Prieto arbitrary discretion over a fundamental right to bear arms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, said Alan Gura, an attorney from Alexandria, Va. Gura is representing gun rights groups in California and groups that have filed similar lawsuits in Maryland, Massachusetts and New York...

BELLEVUE, Wash., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Acting on behalf of a Georgia resident and honorably discharged Vietnam War veteran, the Second Amendment Foundation today filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over enforcement of a federal statute that can deny gun rights to someone with a simple misdemeanor conviction on his record. The lawsuit was filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. SAF and co-plaintiff Jefferson Wayne Schrader of Cleveland, GA are represented by attorney Alan Gura, who successfully argued both the Heller and McDonald cases before the U.S....

BELLEVUE, Wash., July 29 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation and a Baltimore County, MD man today sued Maryland authorities in federal court because the man's handgun permit renewal was turned down on the grounds that he could not demonstrate "a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger." Read more: http://www.sunherald.com/2010/07/29/2367852/saf-sues-in-maryland-over-handgun.html#ixzz0v6Jz2IeU

Jackson, WI --(AmmoLand.com)- Another milestone here at AAR THIS week! 4 new stations join the Armed American Radio family as we continue our relentless march of freedom across America’s airwaves! This Sunday I will be welcoming WDJA in Delray Beach FL, KAAA in Kingman AZ, KZZZ in Bullhead City AZ and WWNS in Statesboro GA. Not bad for a fledgling radio show in one city back in September now turned into one of the fastest growing radio broadcasts in America! Coming up this week I will be speaking to lead attorney Alan Gura who not only won the historic Heller...

You can buy a car from an out-of-state dealer and pick it up there. You can buy a house in another part of the country, as speculators unwisely did during the real estate bubble, sight unseen. But even though the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms -- and presumably to buy them -- you can't purchase a handgun while you're visiting another state. A gun rights group has sued the Justice Department to overturn this prohibition, which became law as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the case is now in front of U.S....

Application of Second Amendment to be decided by Supreme Court Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll Lawyer Alan Gura says that owning semi-automatic guns is constitutional. The man who successfully challenged a prohibition against handguns in the District of Columbia before the Supreme Court said last night during a local debate about the Second Amendment that some states have gone too far. That's what happened in the District of Columbia, which required that firearms either be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, said Alan Gura, a lawyer from Alexandria, Va., who argued the Supreme Court case. "If you have a...

Heller lawyer Alan Gura revived the Second Amendment. Can he do the same for the 14th? It has been only a year and a season since the Supreme Court shook the world of Second Amendment jurisprudence with the historical D.C. v. Heller decision. In that case, the court declared for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms against infringement by the federal government — at least commonly used arms, for self-defense in the home. Heller opened the gates for a flood of new lawsuits by gun-rights friendly attorneys and organizations, most prominently the...

D.C. Attorney General Peter J. Nickles filed a motion in U.S. District Court Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit brought by four gun advocates who are seeking the right to carry their weapons outside their homes. Mr. Nickles argues that current city gun laws, which allow licensed gun owners to keep weapons in their homes for their personal protection, fall under the category of "reasonable restrictions" permitted by the court. The current laws were enacted after the Supreme Court struck down the District's decades-old gun ban in its June 2008 ruling on the District v. Heller case. "The District's regulation of...

One question left unanswered by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Second Amendment ruling last year is this: When do law-abiding Americans have the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense? In a lawsuit filed against the city of Washington, D.C. on Thursday, the Second Amendment Foundation aims to find out. The plaintiffs are four gun owners who were denied licenses to carry firearms in public on their person, which nearly all states permit. All U.S. states except Illinois and Wisconsin grant licenses for concealed carry, and 36 states require local police to issue the licenses unless there's a valid...

BELLEVUE, Wash. - (Business Wire) The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a lawsuit on behalf of three residents of the District of Columbia and a Florida resident, seeking to compel the city to issue carry permits to law-abiding citizens. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of Tom Palmer, George Lyon and Amy McVey, all District residents, and Edward Raymond, a New Hampshire resident. SAF and the individual plaintiffs are being represented by attorney Alan Gura, who successfully argued the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case in 2008 that overturned the District’s handgun ban on the...

Damon W. Root | July 9, 2009, 4:49pm Writing in the Virginia Law Review last fall, conservative federal appeals court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III took aim at the Supreme Court's landmark gun rights opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. According to Wilkinson, "Heller encourages Americans to do what conservative jurists warned for years they should not do: bypass the ballot and seek to press their political agenda in the courts." In fact, Wilkinson went so far as to compare Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in Heller with the Supreme Court's famous abortion rights decision in Roe v. Wade,...

Last week was the first anniversary of the District of Columbia v. Heller, where the Supreme Court for the first time declared that the Second Amendment indeed protects an individual right to own guns in the home for self-defense. It was a great victory for individual rights, but by no means a final one. The lawyer who successfully argued that case, Alan Gura, has remained a dedicated opponent of all sorts of gun regulations that still stand post-Heller. Senior Editor Brian Doherty talked to Gura by phone earlier this week about the various legal challenges Gura is fighting against state...