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California Solidifies its Status as Irrationally Anti-Second Amendment
Townhall.com ^ | December 15, 2021 | Bob Barr

Posted on 12/15/2021 8:08:56 AM PST by Kaslin

Neither California nor California-based judges miss an opportunity to display their anti-Second Amendment bias, most recently in a pair of federal court rulings upholding the state’s bans on so-called “assault weapons” and on firearms magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds.

The state’s anti-firearms laws, and their support from the still-liberal Ninth Circuit panel of judges, highlight a problem that continues to bedevil Second Amendment supporters – that is, defending the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms” in terms of need rather than principle.

In a report I authored for the Heritage Foundation earlier this year, I argued that defending the Second Amendment by asserting individuals have a need to own a particular type of gun or accessory – which is how many conservatives frame their arguments against gun-control laws – leaves advocates of the Amendment vulnerable to precisely what the federal appellate courts have done in so many recent opinions declaring such “needs-based” restrictions to be constitutional.

For example, in the 7-4 decision upholding the magazine ban, the Ninth Circuit deemed the measure constitutionally acceptable because it “interferes only minimally” with the Second Amendment, and because “there is no evidence that anyone ever has been unable to defend his or her home and family due to the lack of a large-capacity magazine.”

Neither California nor California-based judges miss an opportunity to display their anti-Second Amendment bias, most recently in a pair of federal court rulings upholding the state’s bans on so-called “assault weapons” and on firearms magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds.

The state’s anti-firearms laws, and their support from the still-liberal Ninth Circuit panel of judges, highlight a problem that continues to bedevil Second Amendment supporters – that is, defending the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms” in terms of need rather than principle.

In a report I authored for the Heritage Foundation earlier this year, I argued that defending the Second Amendment by asserting individuals have a need to own a particular type of gun or accessory – which is how many conservatives frame their arguments against gun-control laws – leaves advocates of the Amendment vulnerable to precisely what the federal appellate courts have done in so many recent opinions declaring such “needs-based” restrictions to be constitutional.

For example, in the 7-4 decision upholding the magazine ban, the Ninth Circuit deemed the measure constitutionally acceptable because it “interferes only minimally” with the Second Amendment, and because “there is no evidence that anyone ever has been unable to defend his or her home and family due to the lack of a large-capacity magazine.”

As Samuel Adams, one of our Founders wrote in The Rights of the Colonists, the “natural rights of the Colonists” are life, liberty, and property, along with the overarching right of the Colonists “to support and defend them in the best manner they can.”

This “duty of self-preservation” as Adams called it, is vested not in the government, but in individuals themselves. Now, just as in 1772, there is not and should not be, a requirement that any law-abiding citizen must justify a need for how he or she chooses to exercise that fundamental right, any more than a reader of the Washington Examiner should be forced to justify his or her “need” for that magazine in order to defend against government censorship of it.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: banglist; california; gavinnewsom; guns; kalifornia

1 posted on 12/15/2021 8:08:56 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

A criminal syndicate runs the Californication political machine The very last thing they want are citizens who can defend themselves or who can rise up and restore institutional representative government


2 posted on 12/15/2021 8:30:51 AM PST by faithhopecharity (“Politicians are not born. They’re excreted.” Marcus Tillius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: Kaslin

Each state must guarantee a constitutional republican form of government. This includes enforcing all aspects of the constitution. It cannot pick and choose.


3 posted on 12/15/2021 8:31:07 AM PST by DownInFlames (P)
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To: Kaslin

Guns don’t kill people, Communism kills people


4 posted on 12/15/2021 8:45:08 AM PST by cowboyusa (America Cowboy up! )
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To: Kaslin
Deja vu.
5 posted on 12/15/2021 8:48:27 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (THE ISSUE IS NEVER THE ISSUE. THE REVOLUTION IS THE ISSUE.)
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To: Kaslin

Where is the nra? Many of the laws passed in Cali over guns can’t be constitutional (znd they certainly violate inalienable rights!).


6 posted on 12/15/2021 8:48:51 AM PST by Bob434
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To: Kaslin

Well, it’s a darn good thing that we hold dear to and utilize our 2nd Amendment rights to hold back tyranny! Otherwise, they’d lock up patriots in solitary confinement in DC jails without just cause, they’d let thugs smash & grab our hard earned property, they’d enforce bureaucratic mandates and restrict our rights in order to inject experimental mRNA substances into our bodies, they’d mentally assault our children with Marxist indoctrination and sexualization - while also controlling their bodies in exchange for pizza...

Yeah, that there is called sarcasm.

Why send our youth to foreign countries to give limbs and lives - or defend matters of the 2nd Amendment here, when too many of us already blithely comply to local and national tyranny? “Insurrection”? What a joke. The only way we’ll “insurrect” is when they’re literally at our door, as they’ve already taken control and destroyed everything else.


7 posted on 12/15/2021 8:54:36 AM PST by LittleBillyInfidel (This tagline has been formatted to fit the screen. Some content has been edited.)
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To: Kaslin
Newsom the Vile would love to outlaw guns, preferring instead his latest weapon of choice to control American citizens who suffer the misfortune of living under his reign of pain and terror in California, the covid needle (a weapon that damn near off-ed his sorry arse!). He's launched his latest salvo against 5-year-olds; next target, infants and toddlers. (I despise Newsom for what he has done -- and what he continues to do, deliberately -- to this state!)
8 posted on 12/15/2021 9:00:38 AM PST by glennaro (Although I don't believe in "big conspiracies", neither do I believe in "big coincidences")
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To: Kaslin

He just sees his path to the Dem nomination. Newsom bravado to win points with their base nationwide. 2024 or 2028.


9 posted on 12/15/2021 9:38:23 AM PST by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: glennaro

“I despise Newsom for what he has done — and what he continues to do, deliberately — to this state!”

I despise his voters even more...especially after they had a chance to rectify their mistake in the recall.


10 posted on 12/15/2021 10:28:12 AM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Kaslin

So I’m guessing that the binary trigger and drum magazine for my AR and the same for my little Ruger 10/22 would get me thrown in jail in Cali. LOL. One more reason not to live there.


11 posted on 12/15/2021 10:36:58 AM PST by centermass_socrates (Look into a conservative and see hope and virtue, look in a liberal and you only see meat.)
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To: Kaslin

A judicial ruling in our favor, is only the next Communist
judge away from being reversed.

Our side seems to say, “Oh, okay. We won’t push anymore.”

The Left says, “Okay, now we try harder.”


12 posted on 12/15/2021 10:48:42 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Democrats, fixing things that haven't been broken, so they don't work, for over 197 years.)
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To: Kaslin

Simply put, government is a gun.


13 posted on 12/15/2021 10:50:11 AM PST by DPMD ( )
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To: Kaslin

As those Californians that still have any sense in their heads continue to move out of the state, CA will continue to spiral downward into the depths of a collectivist utopian hell.


14 posted on 12/15/2021 11:35:47 AM PST by Tom Tetroxide
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