Tag: #GunRights

The Rise Of The Fudds

Once beloved as Saturday morning cartoon’s loveable but hapless hunter, Elmer Fudd has come to represent all the things that are wrong with American’s modern day firearm owner and Second Amendment supporter. Some of this is well deserved and some merely accidental. Nonetheless, welcome to the Rise Of The Fudds. 

Unlike the animated Elmer Fudd who was “hunting wabbits”, I see several different types of Fudd in our modern society.  

The first is the classic, the Hunter Fudd.  Hunter Fudd heads out to the fields and woods a couple of times a year in search of his favorite prey. He grabs his trusty rifle or shotgun, does his hunt and goes back home. He’s not involved in politics or controversy, and if you didn’t see him in flannel or a bright orange vest once a year, you’d never know he owned any firearms at all. He is vewy, vewy quiet. 

Then there is Curmudgeon Fudd. Curmudgeon Fudd’s image of firearms ownership is everyone should be just like him. With his GI standard 1911 in God’s caliber, a M1 Garand in God’s other caliber and his trusty side-by-side 12 gauge, he sees no reason for anyone to need any other firearm. In between his five-times-a-day prayers while facing Camp Perry, he rips into anyone who owns and shoots anything else. All modern firearms are an abomination and as long as nobody tries to take away his, he doesn’t care what the politicians do. 

Next comes the Anti-Gun/Gun Owner Fudd. Anti-Gun/Gun Owner Fudd actually owns firearms, maybe one or two, maybe a dozen. But he’s out there making sure that others won’t be buying, carrying or using firearms.  Nobody, and he means NOBODY, knows firearms and firearm law better than him and he supports all the latest and greatest gun control laws. Keeping guns out of the hands of others makes him feel safer because he knows he will never give up any of his.  

Last but not least, there is the Hypocrite Fudd. Hypocrite Fudds tend to be politicians more times than not, but are also known to be ex-law enforcement administration and former ranking military officers – in other words, also politicians. These Fudds will go out to pro-Second Amendment communities and proudly claim to be gun owners. They often release photos of themselves at a range or in hunting apparel and proudly proclaim they “Support the Second Amendment, but… “. The “but” is follow-up where they say they also support “common sense public safety measures”. Back in front of their home gun control fanatic audiences, they go into great detail about how they will ban and take away guns they don’t like while working to eliminate everything the Second Amendment stands for.  All while standing behind walls of heavily armed security and government agencies. Their motto is — Do as I say, not as I do. 

Are the Fudds a problem? Yes and no in my opinion.  Just as it should be, firearm owners in this country cross all demographics of life. Knowing this it’s going to be impossible to get everyone to agree on everything, and sometimes anything at all.  So while the diversity of America’s firearm owner population is a great strength, it is also a great weakness.  

I can understand and appreciate the Hunter Fudds as the backbone of the firearm community. While they aren’t out helping to preserve our – as well as their own –Second Amendment rights, they are living proof that millions of Americans CAN and DO own firearms safely and responsibly every single day. 

While the Curmudgeon Fudds may be full of piss and vinegar, and love to spread their wisdom/grief around, what harm are they really causing? Yes, I get it, nobody likes to hear the 1911 vs. < any other gun in the world > argument every day, but who really cares? These Fudds are a vocal part of the firearm community, even if an annoying part.  At least they are out there voicing an opinion. 

It’s the last two Fudds I have the biggest problem with. The Anti-Gun/Gun Owner Fudds are themselves firearm owners, taking advantage and being limited by the very same nonsensical gun control laws the rest of us are. Yet they seem to feel that because they already own what they want, they don’t care about new laws limiting others. Somehow they feel they are either exempt or will be magically grandfathered into any new restrictions.  

Sadly, their attitude is very short sighted. As we’ve all come to realize, grandfathering provisions in gun control laws are just deferred confiscation plans. At some point, that grandfather clause will go away and they will be subject to the same restrictions the rest of us are.  

It’s also pretty damn selfish to think that it’s okay to take away the next generation’s Second Amendment rights if it means temporarily keeping some of your own. What kind of society are we turning over to our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren if they won’t even have their basic Constitutional rights? 

As for the Hypocrite Fudds, they are exactly what you would expect of politicians. They lie and tell people what they want to hear in order to progress their own agenda. Like the politicians with badges and disgraced ex-military officers they surround themselves with, they have long forgotten their oaths of office and the intent and meaning of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. To them, these are just old pieces of paper that they can pick and choose the parts they like while disregarding the parts they don’t.  And they do this while enjoying the safety and security they want to take away from the rest of us. 

While it would be nice to get all of the Fudds in line with those who are actively working to protect and retain our Second Amendment rights, we know it’s never going to happen. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same rights we are fighting for. When we win, our entire nation wins. 

In the mean time, the rest of us need to be the opposite of vewy, vewy quiet and keep working as hard as we can. 

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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