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June 22, 2023 - Epoch Times
21:59
Supreme Court’s MAJOR Pro-Gun Ruling Followed By 100+ Federal Lawsuits
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Almost exactly one year ago today, the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, they handed down a monumental ruling on American gun rights.
A ruling that has spawned, quite literally, hundreds of lawsuits across the nation, aiming to peel back decades or sometimes even centuries of anti-gun legislation.
And all those lawsuits are beginning to actually bear fruit, meaning that the advocates for gun rights are beginning to win.
Now, to start with, the Supreme Court decision which started all this was the famous Bruin case, which, for your reference, was the first gun rights-related case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in well over a decade.
Now, let me give you a brief refresher on what that case was all about as well as how it relates to today.
You see, up until last year, up until 2022, if you happen to be a resident of New York, well, it was almost impossible to get a concealed carry permit.
That's because the state of New York has been, for the past 111 years, it's been forcing people to prove that they had a quote-unquote special need for self-protection if they wanted a concealed carry permit.
Now, the relevant statute in New York was the Sullivan Act of 1911.
And that particular law, which was, again, on the books for well over 100 years, it made it such that concealed carry permits were issued at the sole discretion of local law enforcement.
And so, in order for a citizen to obtain one of these permits, here's what they had to do according to the statute.
Quote, Meaning, in plain English, that within the state of New York, only if the local police agreed that you had a special need for self-protection would you be given a license to conceal carry a gun outside of the home.
And proving that you had a special need was not easy.
It did not matter whether you lived in a high-crime area, and it did not matter if you'd been robbed multiple times in the last year.
Unless you were quite literally a celebrity or some type of a security guard, you were just out of luck.
Now, eventually, in the year 2018, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, they filed a lawsuit against the superintendent of the New York State Police Force, arguing that the gun laws that were on the book were unconstitutional.
And after several years of legal back and forth, the case finally wound up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, where, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, the conservative majority ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
Specifically, Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, they all ruled that, for one, New York's law was indeed unconstitutional, and that, secondly, the ability for a person to carry a pistol in public was a constitutional right under the Second Amendment.
Furthermore, in the opinion statement that was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, well, there was a sentence which opened the door for other gun-restricting laws to be rolled back.
Here's specifically what Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion of the court.
Quote, Only the people who hit the like and subscribe buttons below this video are entitled to conceal carry.
Now, I am of course just joking about that.
Everyone in the whole country has equal rights.
However, if you do wish for this type of honest news content to reach ever more people, well, I do hope you take a super quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons that are below this video so that the algorithm, so that the YouTube algorithm, will suggest this video to an ever wider audience.
Getting back to the majority opinion, here's what Clarence Thomas actually wrote.
Quote, And so you see, with that opinion statement, Clarence Thomas established a new legal precedent.
Moving forward, local governments will have to prove in court that their restrictive gun laws are, quote, And so, with this decision, as well as with this new legal standard that was established by the U.S. Supreme Court, the door was just flung wide open for other gun rights organizations to challenge restrictive gun laws across the whole country, in the hope of having them overturned.
And indeed, that is exactly what happened.
Lawsuits began to spring up across the nation.
Even the left-leaning New York Times, they were forced to admit, just earlier this year, that the Bruin decision is likely to overturn gun restrictions across the whole country in the months and years ahead.
In February, they published this article right here titled, quote, And the subhead for that article, it reads this, quote, A Supreme Court decision overturning century-old New York gun regulations has produced scores of new lawsuits as jurists and citizens sort out what's legal.
And in the body of that article, they mention that more than 100 federal lawsuits have now been filed.
Now, one of the organizations that's leading the charge in these types of lawsuits is an organization called the National Association for Gun Rights.
Now, in case you've never heard of them before, the National Association for Gun Rights is the second largest gun rights organization here in America.
In terms of membership numbers, they're right behind the NRA. The National Association for Gun Rights has 4.5 million members, while the NRA has 5 million.
And in terms of what makes them different from the NRA, well, I had the opportunity to speak with the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, and here's how he explained it.
Well, I like to tell people, we're the organization that does what you think the NRA does.
We're the second largest gun rights group in America and we're The group that holds politicians accountable is the best way to describe it.
When you see constitutional carry laws passing around the country in state legislatures or large opposition with a swelling grassroots support in Congress, like opposing red flag laws, that's our organization.
That's what we do is activate the grassroots within the 2A community.
And how does your organization differ from the NRA specifically?
We don't send Gucci loafers lobbyists to Capitol Hill to wine and dine politicians.
Frankly, if we can't say anything bad about a politician, we don't say anything at all.
You're not going to catch my organization cutting deals with politicians or endorsing half a loaf of gun control.
We're the only organization that really stakes a line and says we're not going to compromise on the Second Amendment.
It means what it says.
We're going to fight.
No matter who's trying to assault it, whether it's Republicans or Democrats.
And indeed, since the Bruin case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, the National Association for Gun Rights has been incredibly active in filing lawsuits across the entirety of the country.
As of today, they have actually filed lawsuits in almost half of America's federal appellate court circuits, with each of these lawsuits seeking to overturn gun control laws that they claim are in violation of the Second Amendment.
They currently have cases in the federal district courts representing the First Circuit, that's their case out in Massachusetts, the Second Circuit, that's the case out in Connecticut, the Seventh Circuit, that's the case out in Illinois, the Ninth Circuit, that's the case out in Hawaii, as well as the Tenth Circuit, that's the case out in Colorado. as well as the Tenth Circuit, that's the case out However, there's a lot more...
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And all these different lawsuits are possible because of the Bruin decision.
Well, last summer's Bruin decision really rocked the courts and the Second Amendment world and even the gun control advocates most of all because it totally reset the debate that happens in courts all around the country on gun control issues.
Instead of using a balancing test where the court can look at the Second Amendment and then largely discard it and then say, oh, now we're going to hear from local law enforcement who are advocating for gun control and how gun control makes places safer, which, of course, we reject.
They don't have to do that anymore.
In fact, Clarence Thomas wrote that that balancing test was already done by our founding fathers when they wrote the Bill of Rights.
And so all we have to do is look back at the text history and tradition of the Second Amendment.
Now, when I say we have to look back, I mean the courts do, but it's not the burden of gun owners to prove that a gun control is unconstitutional.
In fact, the opposite is true.
It's government's job to prove that their gun controls fit within the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment.
If they can't do that, the gun control is invalid.
And indeed, as we mentioned earlier, Dudley's organization, the National Association for Gun Rights, has begun filing lawsuits across the entirety of the country in order to force the court system To use the new legal precedent that was established in the Bruin case to essentially throw out unconstitutional gun laws.
For instance, the National Association for Gun Rights, they recently filed a lawsuit against three different counties over in Colorado in order to overturn the assault weapon and magazine bans that were enacted there.
That's correct.
In fact, we started filing against a little town in Colorado, very close to where I'm recording from our studios, and this town of Superior With about 14,000 people enact some pretty broad gun controls, including magazine ban and semi-automatic so-called assault weapons ban.
And we went out last summer right after the brewing decision and started challenging it.
We've got a Obama-appointed judge to agree and approve our temporary restraining order in that case.
Now think about that for a minute.
It's a temporary restraining order, the kind of thing you put on a rapist or a stalker.
Or a potential murderer or somebody who you know has criminal intent against you.
And I think that's appropriate.
Clearly they're trying to rape our rights if you really look at what they've been doing.
And just as Dudley referenced, in the 10th Circuit, the judge who was appointed by President Obama, he went ahead and he issued a temporary restraining order against the state of Colorado, effectively stopping their ban on semi-automatic rifles.
Here was what the judge issued in the form of a statement from the court.
And notice something.
In this court order, the judge specifically said that he is unaware of a historical precedent which would give the local government the authority to ban semi-automatic rifles.
And this reference to a historical precedent Well, that's a direct reference to the Supreme Court decision in the Bruin case, because now, starting essentially last year, having a historical precedent is the new legal standard that must be met for gun restrictions and gun-restricting pieces of legislation to stand.
Furthermore, besides the Bruin decision, well, there's another precedent that both Dudley as well as his organization are relying upon while filing all these different lawsuits.
Here's a short statement that was released by the National Association for Gun Rights, which kind of lays it out.
Quote, These laws and ordinances ban firearms that are in common use throughout the United States in violation of the rule set forth in Heller.
Now, the reference there to Heller at the end of that statement refers to the 2008 Supreme Court decision in Heller v.
District of Columbia.
In that earlier case, the Supreme Court ruled that, for one, the Second Amendment does in fact guarantee the right of individuals like you and me to possess firearms in our own homes, and that, secondly, the government cannot ban a class of weapons that are in common use throughout the country.
And it's that second point in that Heller decision that Dudley and his organization are using atop the Bruin decision to overturn the so-called assault weapon bans.
But what's interesting about all of these court cases is that we really have to go back to the Heller decision in which it said that firearms in common use cannot be banned.
And of course, we make the case in all our pleadings that the AR-15 is the most widely sold and popular rifle in America, and obviously in common use.
In fact, we estimate that in 1993, back when the assault weapons ban was being debated, the Feinstein ban, and incidentally when I started representing gun owners, that there were about two to two and a half million Privately owned AR-15s in America.
Well nowadays, there's somewhere between 40 and 50 million of those firearms in Americans' hands.
Now compare that to the most common vehicle driving on the roads today.
That's the Ford F-Series pickup truck.
In fact, the AR-15 is three times more common than the most common vehicle on American roads.
What does that tell you about the commonality of that firearm?
Well, Heller says you can't ban those if they're common, and they're clearly common.
Now, one of the strategies that the National Association for Gun Rights is using is to utilize the unique nature of these circuit courts, meaning how one circuit represents multiple different states.
And so when I asked Dudley during our conversation about my own situation here in New York City, he told me that what I should be doing is watching his organization's lawsuit over in the state of Connecticut, because New York and Connecticut are in the same circuit, the Second Circuit.
If you're a citizen of New York, You should really pay attention to our case in Connecticut, which has, frankly, the commies over there just screaming mad.
Their leadership held a news conference in the steps of the state capitol screaming and yelling about our lawsuit, which, of course, tells you, yeah, you're doing the right thing because the lefties are freaking out.
And we're challenging them in court, and frankly, if we win there in the second, and it applies to that whole second, That applies to New York, and it's going to have broad implications to the city of New York.
You know, you're a real American.
People who live in New York City are real Americans, just like somebody who lives in South Dakota.
And they shouldn't have to go to Big Brother for permission for the tools for self-defense.
Can you tell us a bit more about this Connecticut case?
Can you give us some of the details?
Well, Connecticut's been around for a little bit longer than many of them, but Connecticut essentially banned AR-15s and magazines greater than, I believe it's 10 round capacity.
And of course, there were broad implications after the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
Well, of course, the young man who his mom bought the rifle, none of those laws would have stopped him from obtaining that firearm and accept a complete and utter ban.
And we all know that doesn't really work either.
Look at states that ban assault rifles.
You still see firearms of all types being used in crime.
It really isn't doing anything to crime.
We have 10 years of an assault weapons ban passed on a federal level.
It really didn't do anything to crime.
In fact, some make the case that it increased crime because, of course, only people to have those kind of firearms were criminals who don't care about the laws.
But the Connecticut case, which we just pleaded two weeks ago before the judge, it was interesting because the judge, who was, I believe, a Bush appointee, compared firearms in the Second Amendment to the fentanyl crisis, which kind of tells you how they're going to rule.
But we all knew when we filed this, we're not going to give great rulings Out of judges who basically operated in gun control land forever and been advocates themselves.
We're going to have to end up in appeals courts and maybe even the U.S. Supreme Court to win some of these.
And our goal is to put them there.
And that takes a commitment.
You can't be willing to give up.
You can't be willing to cut deals.
And as I said earlier, our organization will not compromise.
That's our rule.
So it sounds like, from what you're saying, basically, if I hear it right, is that right now, in terms of gun rights advocates, it's something like a golden hour opportunity, right?
Where you have a lot of left-leaning judges in courts throughout the different municipalities, but because the US Supreme Court right now has shown signs of being very much in favor of doing away with assault weapon bans and Magazine restrictions and magazine bans, right now is an opportunity to essentially just raise these cases up to the US Supreme Court so you can get them ruled on right now while the US Supreme Court is filled with, I guess for lack of a better word, ideologically pro-Second Amendment justices.
Is that the case?
Because otherwise, like you said, if you wait a few more years, maybe the court's configuration will actually change.
Is that the case?
Well, you make haywire the sun shines.
And I'm no attorney, but I've had enough legal action with the organizations that I lead to know that when you have a majority of judges who are in your favor and a great precedent in the Bruin decision, and frankly, written by Judge Clarence Thomas, which we consider the GOAT, the greatest of all time, And you really have no choice but to push it now.
In fact, we started pushing these cases before we even funded them, which is violating one of my rules, which is don't start building a tower before you count the cost.
But we know we've got no choice but to push these.
So part of my task is to raise the money to actually support them.
We've got a great legal team.
We're pushing it very hard.
We've got good experts, witnesses in this.
And so we really...
We don't think...
That it will take many more than a few years to bring these into fruition.
And frankly, we want to make the cities who hold on to these gun control laws, the states that hold on to them, like Illinois, or for that matter, the magazine ban here in Colorado, we want to make them pay.
They need to pay because they're denying people their civil rights.
And if it's a civil rights action, they need to pay the court costs.
And so, I think once they start paying some of those court costs because they've been ruled against, I think some are going to raise their hands in the air and say, this is not worth it.
This is not worth the state budget because it's going to cost them significant.
Of course, the other side of that coin is if we get rulings by a Supreme Court that are against us, yes, it could very well affect us and our members.
So, So, it's a gamble.
No question.
Now, if you'd like to learn more about either the National Association for Gun Rights or about the many lawsuits that they have filed across the entirety of the nation, I'll throw several reference links down into the description box below.
You can click on them and learn more about the organization as well as about the lawsuits.
And then lastly, on a totally unrelated topic, over on Epic TV, which is our awesome no censorship video platform, I just published a new episode.
Detailing what can only be described as a bombshell that the CDC just dropped on those people who took the vaccine.
Now, even though everything in that particular episode is completely 100% factual, well, because of the regime of censorship here on YouTube, I can't discuss anything related to that topic.
And so if you'd like to check out that awesome exclusive episode, Simply click on that link that's right there at the very top of the description box below.
You'll be taken to Epic TV, where you can watch that episode right away.
Again, that link at the top of the description box below.
Click on it, and you can watch that exclusive episode about the CDC without any of the YouTube censorship getting involved.
And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times.
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