GOC PARTNERS WITH CRPA TO FILE A CRUCIAL AMICUS BRIEF TO SCOTUS
Could be a Gamechanger for Second Amendment Rights Nationwide!
An absolute gamechanger for 2nd Amendment rights in California began in one of the least likely places on the planet: New York. This week Gun Owners of California proudly joined the California Rifle and Pistol Association to file an amicus curiae with the United States Supreme Court regarding New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York. Our joint brief supports the parties challenging New York City’s restrictive handgun licensing scheme, which prohibits any city resident from traveling outside the city limits while in possession of a licensed handgun, as a violation of the Second Amendment and other constitutional rights.
The CRPA/GOC brief was one of the hardest hitting of the 25 briefs submitted to SCOTUS, criticizing how district and appellate courts have blatantly thumbed their collective noses and ignored the warnings from the Supreme Court from using judicial “balancing tests” when deciding Second Amendment cases.
This is the first case accepted by the high court since the Heller v DC 2008 and McDonald v Chicago in 2010, landmark decisions that clearly stated the right to keep and bear arms is an individual, as opposed to, collective right. Further, this individual right was deemed so important to “ordered liberty” that the court ruled neither state nor local governments could infringe upon it.
Our brief asserts “Following watershed decisions from this Court like those in Heller and McDonald, one would expect legislatures to revisit their existing laws and amend them in deference to the Second Amendment. Not only have few, if any, jurisdictions undertaken such an effort, but several have instead substantially increased those burdens… courts have not only mostly upheld laws challenged under the Second Amendment, but have done so in a manner that telegraphs to legislatures hostile to the Second Amendment that there will be no repercussions for infringing the Peoples’ right to keep and bear arms.”
GOC is therefore asking the Supreme Court to address the issue of review and direct lower courts to use nothing more than textual, historical and traditional analysis of the meaning of the words used in the Constitution.
If the court addresses this issue and rules clearly and affirmatively that courts cannot use traditional balancing tests to decide gun control cases, the legal door will swing open for the 2ndAmendment community to challenge all of California’s unconstitutional gun control laws.
We cannot do this without your help. We need your faithful and generous support to carry this fight to its ultimate conclusion…the restoration of the Second Amendment in California.
To read the amicus briefs filed by GOC & CRPA, CLICK HERE
To read the one filed by Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation, CLICK HERE