The Wolford decision comes immediately on the heels of Hemani, which is shortly after cases like Bruen. This particular court has come down heavily in favor of the right to keep and bear arms, particularly as an individual right and one that should not be relegated to second-class status.
It's a glorious thing to experience, especially after decades of absolute silence from the Supreme Court on gun rights. We had Heller and McDonald a while back, which suggested that things were changing, but then back to silence.
Now, we're seeing action, and almost all of it has been good for us. There are some hiccups along the way, of course, such as Rahimi, but even that wasn't as bad as it could have been.
And the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is pleased as punch by this.
From a press release:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s newest Second Amendment ruling once again shows that proponents of restrictive gun control policies are on the wrong side of history as well as the Constitution, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.
“For the fifth time since the landmark Heller decision in 2008, the Court has upheld the individual right to keep and bear arms,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, who added even more context to the importance of the 6-3 ruling in Wolford v. Lopez, striking down Hawaii’s concealed carry restriction for private property open to the public. “Before this newest ruling, Supreme Court decisions have invalidated 78 restrictive gun control laws and policies around the country. Now, the score has risen to 79, and could go as high as 83 as it applies to similar restrictive laws in California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. That record amounts to a monumental legal smack down.”
Supreme Court decisions restoring the Second Amendment to its rightful place as the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights started with Heller and continued with the 2010 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago, striking down that city’s handgun ban. In 2022, the Court nullified so-called “may issue” gun permit regulations in New York State Right & Pistol Association v. Bruen. And this year, the Court yet again reinforced the individual rights of gun ownership in United States v. Hemani, striking the federal ban on gun possession by habitual marijuana users, without any evidence they are dangerous. Now the Wolford decision has protected gun rights even more.
“The perennial losers in these cases, the people and organizations which have steadfastly and deliberately misrepresented the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb stated, “include Everytown for Gun Safety, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Democrat attorneys general in several states, and others in the gun prohibition movement. They have consistently been wrong about everything when it comes to gun rights.
“And here’s the good news,” he added. “This is obviously just the beginning as we continue the fight to unravel the web of unconstitutional gun control laws which have been adopted over the past several generations, constantly chipping away at our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. The Court isn’t expanding gun rights, it is fully restoring rights which decades of unconstitutional gun control have eroded. In the process, these court decisions have been proving we’ve been right all along about what the Founders intended.”
That last sentence really kind of sums it up perfectly.
Of course, a different court would rule quite differently, and thus possibly present the other side with the proof they've been right all along. However, we don't have a different court, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over that possibility, at least right now.
The truth of the matter is that the gun control crowd is kind of slow, all things considered, at least in understanding that the Supreme Court will not be on their side in this. While none of the rulings have been precisely what I wanted, they've all upheld the right to keep and bear arms. They've shot down gun control laws left and right, especially when challenged under the Second Amendment, and in the end, that's all we can hope for, but anti-gunners keep trying to push it.
Now, some are considering their workarounds for Wolford. And yes, they're as vile as you can imagine.
But for now, we've got the initiative. We're getting the results. We're winning at the Supreme Court, and the anti-gunners are hating life because of it.
And yet, it should be remembered that despite the doomsaying we repeatedly heard after Bruen, the homicide rate dropped like stock prices at the start of the Great Depression. We're safer than we were, and things are so good they have to manipulate the data to make it sound like things are terrible, such as the lie that guns are the leading cause of death for children.
Life is good.
We should be celebrating, and not just Wolford or Hemani.
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