2A Newsletter: June 24th

Bipartisan Gun Control… Where is it now?

Updates will be posted here accordingly as the news comes in real-time, however, at this time S.2938 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act has passed through both the House, the Senate, the House again and is now on its way to Biden’s desk for signature (which will happen at any point now). As many as 29 Republicans signed this bipartisan gun control bill which is incredibly disappointing. It’s no surprise that many supporters of the 2nd Amendment are calling for these politicians to be tarred and feathered as traitors to the Constitution.

As we’ve mentioned in previous week’s newsletter there are a lot of new gun control bills on the table so which one is S.2938? The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act addresses a variety of issues not only pertaining to firearms but also mental health, prescription drug rebates and funding for grants.

Obviously, we’re most concerned with the firearms portion which has us all up in arms because this bill enacts a new federal standard for “red flag laws,” which have already proven to be ineffective and a deadly affair for both law enforcement and civilians alike. The second issue is the closing of the “boyfriend loophole” which refers to when a person who is prohibited from legally purchasing firearms uses their significant other to buy a gun for them. Essentially, this is a useless provision that doesn’t really solve illegal firearm transfers AKA straw hat purchases. If a person who is able to legally purchase a gun, illegally sells or gives that gun away there is nothing the authorities can do until well after the fact.

Not to mention, most states won’t allow a person to legally purchase a firearm after even receiving a misdemeanor offense in a domestic violence situation, even more so if the supposed buyer has previously received a temporary restraining order. In that regard, this part of the bill seeks to create a federal standard since many states allow for private citizens to legally conduct a private party transfer of firearms between each other without the need for a background check.

Although the bill says “gun owners will lose their gun rights for five years for a domestic violence misdemeanor” and that sounds good in theory… It's a risk that gun advocates are concerned about due to the potential loss of due process for those who may be wrongfully accused.

The third issue is that this law changes who would need to have a federal firearms license (FFL). It’s vague but basically this will lead to future legislation that, as an example, may require gun collectors or anyone who sells over an X number of firearms a year to need the license to legally “do business” in this way. Many people often buy firearms knowing that they can turn a profit later on and it would appear that is what the anti-gunners are after in this case.

The fourth and final issue is that gun buyers under the age of 21 will now need to undergo enhanced background checks. What does that mean? Going forward, whenever someone between the ages of 18-20 attempts to buy a gun, they will have to have their juvenile records checked prior to being approved by the NICS system. You might think, “whew, at least it was a full on Under-21 ban.” Well, we’ve given our political opponents this inch now, who’s to say they won’t take that mile within the next year or two?

Ironically, this bill was championed by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) so if you’re a Texan be sure to give him a lot of grief and vote for someone else when election season comes around.

There are many so many bills to stay on top of — you can keep up today with Congress’ .gov bill tracker website to see all the progress for anti-gun bills that we’re currently concerned about in our June 4th Newsletter.

At this time, only S.2938 has progressed this far forward which is why it’s being called the most expansive gun control legislation that has been passed in almost 30 years.

NYSRPA v Bruen Supreme Court Decision Released

As much as we are biting our nails over what’s happened in Congress this week, the Supreme Court just delivered a massive win with the landmark NYSRPA v. Bruen case ruling that we’ve been waiting for and boy, was it sweet. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that set an impossibly high bar for regular civilians to obtain concealed carry permits, calling it unconstitutional (Justice Clarence Thomas).

To get a scope of how asinine NY gun laws are, see the full set of requirements of how to buy a handgun in the state of New York, check out this thread on Reddit. It’s literally insane. As for CCW’s, the state required that applicants prove they faced unique dangers compared to others when out in public — using this “good cause” requirement, it has proven to be virtually impossible for almost all civilians to obtain a CCW permit in NY.

States including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington D.C., will all have to change their laws for what they require from citizens applying for CCW permits. Although this ruling eliminates the good clause as part of the CCW application process, it doesn’t rule out other tools that individual states could use to maliciously de-facto ban people from acquiring said permits.

*For all we know, Gavin Newsom could be frothing at the mouth while working with his team in drawing up plans for the CCW qualifications to be able to hit 1 MOA at a 500 yard target with mismatched reloads ten times under 8 seconds. Or, maybe he’ll have the only qualifying training course be held at the top of the mountain without a paved road to reach the range - and its operating hours could be only from 2am to 3am. (Must use the rental Hipoint C9’s to qualify and rental fees are $1000 per seven minutes made payable in Roubles).

Oh look. He’s dangling 16 of those bills on his desk right now. Probably new requirements for buying into an insurance scheme that you can’t even use in an actual shooting defense case and is only designed as a poor people’s tax to create an immoral financial barrier.

In short, this ruling doesn’t immediately change anything too drastic. Shall-issue is now mandatory for all states but we’ll have to wait and see how the states respond so that their laws and rulings will be consistent with SCOTUS. Please note that this does not mean permitless carry is now legal everywhere. You can’t just start legally concealing a KSG-12.

If you haven’t already, you might want to start applying for your CCW’s and donating to FPC because counties that insist on keeping “good cause” as a requirement would be on the chopping block for a class action lawsuit.

All that being said, this was a net-win for us and a net-loss for the gun control community. Through this Supreme Court case, the court’s opinions upheld precedents set by the District of Columbia v. Heller case (protected Americans’ right to self-preservation within the home); rejected the “two-step” framework developed by the Court of Appeals for analyzing the 2nd Amendment. That framework is what was used to overturn Judge Benitez’s decision last year in the 9th Circuit which will force the lower court to revisit both the Miller v. Bonta and Duncan v. Bonta cases (extremely exciting). Now, the Bruen ruling expands American’s right to self-reservation to outside of the home.

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