#Constitution – Page 13

Gun Owner’s Insurance

A new bill in the New York State Senate proposes all firearm owners be required to buy and maintain an insurance policy in an amount not less than one million dollars “to cover any damages resulting from the use of such firearm” prior to obtaining a firearm. Even though no such policy exists or would ever be offered by any insurance company, even it if were, the costs would be beyond the reach of most New Yorkers – which of course, is the main purpose. It is just another attempt to prevent them from owning firearms in the first place.

Under justification, New York Senate Bill S2857A lists:

“Injury and death by gun has increasingly become a problem in U.S. and in New York State. In the wake of recent mass shooting incidents in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut; there has been a nationwide attention on gun control and public safety.”

Of course, the acts listed were all intentional crimes committed by those who had no intention of following the law. For someone who intends to commit mass murder, exactly how important does anyone believe it will be for them to carry the statutory level of firearm insurance? Yet all the law abiding firearm owners will be expected to.

So if there’s no chance in hell a mass murderer is going to carry insurance for his or her illegal acts, what is the real intent of this proposed law? Well, the first part of the bill reveals it rather clearly.

“Failure to maintain such insurance shall result in the immediate revocation of such owner’s registration, license and any other privilege to own such firearm.”

You probably noticed that word “privilege” in there. New York politicians, being the anti-gun/anti-Second Amendment zealots they are, consider owning a firearm a “privilege”. In other words, a restricted benefit enjoyed by a special elite class. By considering firearm ownership and use a “privilege”, the state can regulate, tax, control and ultimately eliminate it for all except the state and the chosen few.

Like all of the other licenses, permits, taxes and fees placed on the purchase and ownership of firearms and now ammunition, the purpose is two fold: First, to make owning a firearm so expensive that people will be prevented from owning them based on the cost alone. Second, to set up yet another so-called legal means of stripping firearms away from someone who does not comply with the exact letter of the law.

But then there is the other side of the coin. The State of Washington just joined New York in banning the NRA branded insurance product “Carry Guard”.

The NRA Carry Guard website states: “NRA Carry Guard teaches you how to avoid and de-escalate conflict situations. But should you ever have to defend your life, you could face serious criminal or civil liability—even when you are completely innocent. In those devastating circumstances, NRA Carry Guard provides access to important resources.” The program provides up to $1,500,000 of civil protection and $250,000 in criminal defense costs.

This, according to Washington and New York officials, makes the insurance product illegal because it insures unlawful activity. After all, insurance covers unintended acts, in other words accidents, actions that are not deliberately committed. A simple example: Burn your house down accidently, covered. Burn it down on purpose, not covered. While the rest of the world might consider even an unsuccessful self-defense shooting a non-intentional criminal act, Washington and New York consider this a deliberate criminal act not deserving of insurance coverage.

So let’s go back to the justification for New York Senate Bill S2857A. Because of the deliberate criminal acts of mass murders, the State of New York is going to require all firearm owners carry liability insurance, insurance that does not now and can never exist and is strictly forbidden since the state will not allow any insurance to cover anything it considers a criminal act, even if unintentional.

As with California’s flawed microstamping law, just because something doesn’t exist or would never work if it did, doesn’t mean your federal, state or local government can’t pass a law requiring it. New York is working to require something that they themselves forbid, a catch-22 for firearm owners who cannot own a firearm without it, but can’t buy it to own a firearm. In other words, no insurance = no guns.

Do you still think it doesn’t matter whom you elect as your local, county, state or federal representatives?

Bob

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Hope From The Supreme Court?

You’ve probably heard the United States Supreme Court has finally decided to hear a Second Amendment case after refusing to do so in the 11 years since Heller and McDonald. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York case involves a unique to the nation law severely limiting the ability of New York City residents to transport firearms outside their homes. While 2A advocates around the country are hoping this will be THE case to finally break the gun control zealots back, there is an equally good chance it will not.

The case is about a New York City law called a “premises license”. With it, the very few New Yorkers who are lucky enough to get it are allowed to posses their registered firearm ONLY at their home or be transported, unloaded, locked and separate from ammunition, to one of seven NYPD approved shooting ranges within the City of New York. The firearm cannot be taken out of the city to any other range or property, even if the owner owns the other property.

New York City used to issue a “target license” in addition to the nearly impossible to get “carry license”, issued only to retired law enforcement, celebrities and other favored persons. However the City reported widespread abuses of the target license with licensees traveling out of state, attempting to take their firearms out of the city on airplanes and being in possession of their firearms in areas and at hours when no NYPD approved shooting ranges were open. Thus the more restrictive “premises license” scheme was put into place.

Even the most skeptical of us can see glaring Constitutional issues with this type of licensing. Only being able to possess your legally owned and registered firearm at your residence – the single premises listed on your license – or back and forth to one of seven shooting ranges within the city is so restrictive that you would not even be able to secure your firearm elsewhere should you leave on vacation, to say nothing of sanctioned shooting events, training or lawful self defense anywhere except the one licensed premises.

Yet, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled this law was Constitutionally valid under the McDonald precedence that “the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home.” While this is one purpose of the Second Amendment, it is not the only one.

One of the major issues with rulings like this is the level of scrutiny applied by the courts. In this case, like most others by courts hostile to the Second Amendment, intermediate scrutiny was used as opposed to strict scrutiny. While most of us would probably agree that determining whether something is Constitutional valid is going to be the same no matter how you look at it, that’s not the way the courts see it.

In the absolutely briefest of terms, under intermediate scrutiny, it must be shown that the law or policy being challenged furthers an important government interest by means that are substantially related to that interest. In this case, that guns on the streets of the city are bad and having less of them makes the city safer. As we’ve seen in any number of other Second Amendment cases, the government doesn’t even have to prove that their logic is valid, only that they are pursuing this interest.

Strict scrutiny on the other hand requires a narrowly tailored and least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest. Most First Amendment cases are decided under strict scrutiny and very few First Amendment restricting laws have been able to pass this test.

So where does this leave us? Well, it’s very unlikely the current Supreme Court, with two new Constitutional originalist Justices, was willing to accept this case to uphold it. To do so would essentially relegate the right to keep and bear arms to your own home. However, as with all court challenges, nothing is a sure thing.

Many gun rights advocates are looking at this case as being the one that finally affirms the right to bear arms outside the home, just as Heller and McDonald did for firearm possession inside the home. However that may be a little bit optimistic. Supreme Court rulings are more often than not very narrowly focused, impacting only the case at hand or ones nearly identical to it. With this being a one of a kind law, even if the appeal is successful, it may not easily translate into extended Second Amendment rights elsewhere.

Potentially the best-case scenario would be a ruling that all Second Amendment challenges be interpreted using strict scrutiny. While highly unlikely, this would signal that the Supreme Court is finally ready to consider the Second Amendment a first class right.

While I am cautiously optimistic, it’s worth noting that even with the Heller and McDonald decisions, politically motivated activist judges around the country have been upholding Constitutionally invalid laws that fly in the face of these Supreme Court rulings for years.

Why? Quite simply it’s a numbers game. The gun control lawmakers and judges know the US Supreme Court only hears arguments on about 80 cases per year, and decides about 50 more without oral arguments. This is out of the roughly 7000 requests to hear cases per year. And that 7000 represents the best of the best cases with the highest likelihood of success before the court, thus worthy of the time, money and effort needed to litigate them. Knowing this, it would take the Supreme Court decades of hearing nothing but Second Amendment cases to reverse all the Second Amendment infringements across the nation.

With this, I’m going to repeat what I’ve said time and time again. Getting your rights restored through the courts AFTER they have been taken away is a fool’s game. Once your rights are gone, there is no guarantee and only a fair chance AT BEST that you will ever have these rights again. The ONLY way to positively keep your rights is to stop electing the people who write and support the laws designed to strip away your rights in the first place.

Bob

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Eliminating Firearm Retailers

Following the lead of other gun hating / gun control states, the freshly elected Democratic Governor of Illinois has signed a new Gun Dealer Licensing law. Not content with firearms retailers already being one of the most heavily regulated industries, closely monitored by the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives), the new governor has created a licensing scheme guaranteed to do one thing and one thing only, eliminate firearm retailers in the State of Illinois.

The purported intent of this law is to enhance “responsible business practices” and uses as justification that the ATF is far too busy to keep a close enough eye on Illinois’s approximately 2400 Federal Firearm Licensees (FFLs). It also claims the ATF lacks the authority to enforce the kind of “responsible business practices” the State of Illinois thinks should be implemented on the state’s firearm retailers.

Among the many things the $1500 five year state license gets a firearm retailer are increased record keeping requirements including electronic inventory and sales records linked to the State, the need for increased security systems including 90 days storage of video surveillance – reviewable by law enforcement at any time, mandatory training and annual in-service training for the owner and all employees, interviews for approval from the State, the right of denial by the local law enforcement agency, specifically worded legal signage in one inch high letters, state mandated zoning limitations and of course, unannounced inspections and review of all business operations. All additional cost and administrative burdens firearm retailers must now bear.

Like most gun control measures, this is being sold as a “public safety” law without any proof that any of the things it requires will actually increase public safety. It all plays into the myth that firearm retailers are the cause of violent crime solely because they legally sell firearms.

Ignored are numerous statistics proving criminals don’t buy their guns legally. Even the recent study by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has found that the vast majority of criminals armed with firearms obtained their guns from a place other than a gun shop or gun show. The evidence revealed that only 1.3 percent of prisoners who committed crimes with firearms had obtained them through a retail sale.

The Illinois State Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association have called this unprecedented and have promised a lawsuit. Unfortunately, it’s a little too little, a little too late. The precedent has already been set by other states.

For those of us who work in the firearms industry in California, this is old news. The State has long since licensed firearm retailers and by implementing its electronic DROS (Dealer Record of Sale) system has registered the buyer, seller and firearm information of every transaction for years.

But wait, there’s more!! The Illinois Gun Dealer Licensing law specifically calls out that there is nothing that prevents local jurisdictions from implementing further restrictions and regulations. Again, this is nothing new to those of us in California.

Local anti-gun cities have been enacting their own firearm retailer licensing schemes, each with redundant or additional security, record keeping and inspection requirements. All of which require local political approval and additional costs. The justification being used is that the ATF and the State licensing agencies are far too busy to keep an eye on all the FFLs in the area.

But that’s not all!! The latest trend in the most progressive anti-gun municipalities – my hometown included – is to funnel any new firearm retailers through the local Conditional Use Permit process, a politically based ‘feel good’ process that has no clear definitions of what is needed to be approved and can be denied just because the local NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) crowd doesn’t want a new gun store in town.

All of this has one purpose and one purpose only. By making it so costly, so complex and so easy to make an administrative mistake in the myriad regulations from so many licensing authorities that firearms retailers will simply be run out of business.

The City of San Francisco, CA is held up as a model city when it comes to firearm dealers. Its comprehensive package of ordinances, designed to “ensure that local firearms dealers utilize common sense and responsible business practices”, has had the exact impact intended – the last firearm retailer in the city closed in 2015.

The San Francisco supervisor who wrote the ordinance that finally drove the store to close had this to say: “From my perspective, if the last gun store in San Francisco wants to close its doors because of my legislation, so be it,” he said. “This store sold over 1,000 guns each year. I would much rather have a preschool or coffee store in the neighborhood than a gun shop.”

So there you have it; firearm retailers are being driven out of business one by one, state by state, community by community. Does this impact your Second Amendment rights? So far the courts have said no since you have other buying options in other communities. But what happens when they are gone too? What happens when your entire state has been purged of firearm retailers and the law says you can’t buy firearms out of state?

If you think it can’t happen, look to our neighbors to the south. Mexico has one, and only one legal firearm retailer. The Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales is outside Mexico City and run by the Mexican Army. Funny thing is Mexico’s Constitution also guarantees the right to bear arms. But years and years of limitations and regulations – all in the name of “public safety” have restricted firearms so heavily that almost nobody can buy one legally. And you can see for yourself the type of “public safety” the Mexican people now enjoy.

How “safe” do you have to feel before you help stop the erosion of your Second Amendment rights?

Bob

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