Defenders of the Second Amendment rejoiced when Donald Trump, who has been outspoken in his support of gun rights, defeated the decidedly anti-gun Hillary Clinton and marked the end of the equally gun-hostile Obama administration. But, while Trumps election may have helped stop the bleeding and given some momentum to pro-2A advocates, at least at the federal level, there are still too many restrictions on gun ownership and carry, which infringe on constitutional rights and impair the basic, fundamental human right to self-defense.
There are still too many cases, for example, like that of William Johnson, a disabled Marine Corps veteran who was denied custody of his grandson unless he registered his firearms with the state of Michigan. This happened, by the way, after the state had requested that Johnson and his wife become foster parents to their grandson. Yet, when Johnson agreed and went to pick up the boy from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, caseworkers demanded the serial numbers for all of his firearms, and allegedly told him, If you want to care for your grandson, you will have to give up some of your constitutional rights.
A Gogebic County Court judge made an equally egregious statement, telling the Johnsons, We know we are violating numerous constitutional rights here, but if you do not comply, we will remove the boy from your home.
The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Johnsons, as well as another gun-owning couple that would like to be foster parents, alleging violations of not only the Second Amendment, but also the equal protection provision of the 14th Amendment.
Californians also suffered a setback this summer when the U.S. Supreme Court, with a newly reconstituted conservative majority, somewhat surprisingly declined to hear the Peruta v. San Diego County case concerning the states often restrictive requirements for obtaining a concealed carry permit. Under state law, county sheriffs have wide latitude in setting and interpreting the rules, and while some places, particularly in the more rural parts of the state, have rather permissive standards, coastal counties, where the vast majority of the population lives, typically require a special good cause over and above the general desire for self-defense, thus constituting a de facto ban for the vast majority of citizens.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, called the decision of the full panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned a prior three-judge panels ruling in favor of Peruta, indefensible, and asserted that the petition raises important questions that this court should address.
The courts decision to deny certiorari in this case reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right, Thomas added, noting the courts willingness to hear many more First Amendment and Fourth Amendment cases, despite the fact that law surrounding these rights is much more developed. The Constitution does not rank certain rights above others, and I do not think this court should impose such a hierarchy by selectively enforcing its preferred rights. I do not think we should stand by idly while a state denies its citizens [the right to bear arms for self-defense], particularly when their very lives may depend upon it.
But the news is not all bad. Just one month after the courts decision not to hear Peruta, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit barred Washington, D.C., from enforcing the same kind of restrictive concealed carry permit policy. At the Second Amendments core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions, the D.C. Circuit ruled. These traditional limits include, for instance, licensing requirements, but not bans on carry in urban areas like D.C. or bans on carrying absent a special need for self-defense.
And it seems more and more citizens are clamoring to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Baltimore citizens erupted with anger at City Hall last month when the city council voted to advance a gun measure that includes a mandatory one-year jail sentence for those found carrying a gun illegally.
In deep-blue Maryland, whose gun laws are nearly as suffocating as Californias, many desperate people in places like Baltimore one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, and on pace to have the highest homicide rate in the country this year have resorted to carrying guns illegally for their own safety. The residents know that laws like this are going to disproportionately harm the otherwise innocent, law-abiding public not the violent gang members and other criminals.
This recognition of the failure of anti-gun laws to protect people, as well as a climate of rising political and racial tensions, has prompted a particular increase in gun ownership among African Americans, and especially black women, in recent years. A pair of Pew Research Center polls shows the dramatic change in attitudes toward guns within the community. In 2012, less than one-third of black households saw gun ownership as positive, but a 2015 survey found that 59 percent of black families viewed owning guns as a necessity.
A recent Associated Press story spotlighted Marchelle Tigner, a Georgia woman, and domestic violence and sexual assault survivor, who teaches other women how to handle firearms. Its important, especially for black women, to learn how to shoot, Tigner said, especially since black women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. We need to learn how to defend ourselves.
Texas graduate student-turned-campus carry activist Antonia Okafor similarly spoke of the empowerment that gun ownership can impart in a column last month for the New York Times. I have met so many women through my gun advocacy who felt helpless in the face of sexual assault before they carried a weapon they felt that no one would listen to them and they didnt have any options, Okafor wrote. Many liberals including many female professors my organization approached as potential sponsors for Empowered dont support a womans right to choose when it comes to her own self-defense. They cant get behind a vision of female empowerment that doesnt match their own.
And, to see an extreme example of female empowerment through gun ownership, consider the case of Chern, a town of 20,000 people in Mexico. Its residents led by women took up arms and expelled the drug traffickers and illegal loggers, along with the police and local politicians, who had been tainted by corruption and collusion with the illicit groups. With the aid of armed patrols by community members, the town, located in the state of Michoacn, one of the most dangerous in the country, boasts that it hasnt had a homicide since 2011.
Yet, here in California, citizens are burdened by laws prescribing which kinds of guns they may own (that are perfectly legal almost everywhere else), how many rounds magazines may hold, how guns and ammunition must be stored, and how and where firearms may be carried if one is lucky enough to obtain a permit in the first place. But, as Justice Thomas noted in his dissent on the Peruta hearing, I find it extremely improbable that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen.
If we have a right to our own lives, then we must also have the right to defend our lives even if that requires the use of a tool such as a gun, and even if we have the temerity to leave the house. Unfortunately, for those in California and a handful of other states, citizens may have to wait until the Supreme Court finally finds the energy and vigor to arouse itself enough to reiterate and protect these rights.
Adam B. Summers is a columnist with the Southern California News Group.
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Second Amendment, self-defense rights are still under attack - OCRegister