Originally published June 8 2013
Citizens sue to restore their Second Amendment rights in Colorado, Connecticut
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) Left-wing, anti-Second Amendment lawmakers and governors have been working overtime throughout 2013 to take away the supposedly unimpeachable right of their citizens to "keep and bear arms" of their choice.
That has especially been the case in Connecticut (home to the dreadful Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, despite already having some of the nation's toughest anti-gun laws), Colorado and New York.
But gun owners have had enough of the constitutional abuse and are fighting back in court with lawsuits aimed at overturning these infringements upon the Second Amendment - and they have recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings as ammunition, so to speak.
Emily Miller of The Washington Times wrote May 23:
Individuals, retailers, gun-rights groups and manufacturers joined together in Connecticut and Colorado this week to take the 2013 gun-control laws to court.
On Wednesday, plaintiffs filed suit in U.S. District Court in Connecticut challenging the constitutionality of Gov. Dannel Malloy's dramatically-titled "Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety." The National Rifle Association (NRA) is one of the plaintiffs.
'Anyone who walks into a classroom with magazines of 10 rounds will just as easily kill'
Plaintiffs, including Scott Wilson, the president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, are especially critical of the way in which the Connecticut law was passed. Malloy used "emergency" procedures to rush it through the Legislature without much debate, just four months after the Sandy Hook shootings.
Worse, Wilson says, the law will actually put more citizens in danger.
"They are trying to legislate utopia. They think passing a law and putting up these magical 'gun-free zones' will work," he told Miller. "But it's just an invitation for a killer to come in because there will be no resistance."
Notes Miller: "The parts of the law that went into effect immediately include government background checks for private gun transfers and bans on an additional 100 firearms models deemed 'assault weapons' for having certain cosmetic features and ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds."
Wilson went on to point out the futility of magazine and bullet limitations: "Anyone who walks into a classroom with magazines of 10 rounds will just as easily kill - it's just a couple seconds different than what Adam Lanza did."
Membership in Wilson's organization, begun in 2009, exploded after the Sandy Hook shootings (or, more accurately, after state lawmakers began threatening to pass restrictive new gun laws), rising from about 2,500 members to more than 7,700 today. Right now he says the group is focusing efforts of raising funds to mitigate costly litigation (while the state will, of course, use taxpayer funds to defend itself).
Meanwhile, several hundred miles to the west in Colorado, a "powerful coalition of plaintiffs" including the NRA, 54 county sheriffs, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Magpul Industries and disabled persons, filed suit in federal District Court May 17 challenging that state's new gun-control regulations.
They include a ban on magazines in excess of 15 rounds and the implementation of "universal background checks" for all gun sales and transfers beginning July 1. Gun buyers will have to pay for the checks as well; a fee will be imposed for each new gun sale.
'We expect few, if any, licensed retailers to participate'
"Colorado's federally-licensed firearms retailers are being asked to process private-party transfers as if they were selling from their own inventory. They're being told to monitor both seller and buyer through a state-administered check process that can take hours or even days," Lawrence Keane, NSSF's general counsel, told Miller in a separate interview. "Our retailers won't be able to recoup the actual cost of providing the service - which is capped at $10 - but they will be liable for paperwork errors and subject to license revocation."
So in other words, the Colorado law is punitive, in that it seeks to punish a lawful business selling otherwise legal products as another way of putting the screws to the firearms industry in the state.
"Not surprisingly, we expect few, if any, licensed retailers will step forward to provide this service," Keane said.
Additional lawsuits have been filed in New York State challenging strict new gun laws there, Miller said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Constitution's Second Amendment guarantee of citizens' right to keep and bear arms, but the high court has not considered any legal limitations to that right. And it generally takes years for the court to hear such cases, if it hears them at all. So the bad news is, citizens in these states will have to endure limitations to their Second Amendment rights or vote with their feet and move to a more gun-friendly state.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.ccdl.us/
http://www.naturalnews.com/038970_gun_control_backfired_America.html
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