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To the editor:

I think most people would hope and expect our government officials to put aside their political agendas in these difficult times and concentrate on defeating the COVID-19 crisis. Apparently that is not the case and I am not referring to the idiots in Washington. Our own Massachusetts attorney general recently misused her position of political power to accuse the Second Amendment community of being a threat to "police officers, first responders, and domestic violence victims." These false and derogatory accusations regarding lawful firearm owning residents should require an apology. Apparently our Attorney General feels she is above the law and our governor is unwilling to correct her.

The Baker administration has further utilized the crisis to discriminate against our Constitutional Second Amendment rights. In mid-March, the administration announced an emergency loan program for small businesses. The program is being run through the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation (MGCC). Only five types of businesses were declared ineligible for Massachusetts emergency small business loans and firearm retailers are one of them! This is pure discrimination against family owned firearm retailers who have bills to pay and families to raise. These businesses pay local property taxes and employ local citizens. I am sure the goal of this discrimination is the hope that these businesses will promptly go out of business.

Thousands of law-abiding firearm owners are facing the expiration of their FID and LTC licenses. New applications and renewal requests are being denied due to social distancing requirements and other priorities of the police. The Baker administration has no plans in place to extend these permits as they have for numerous other licenses. Imagine the public outrage if you could not register a new vehicle, renew a vehicle registration or renew a business license. Apparently the governor wants to discriminate against our Second Amendment rights and create a whole new group of unlicensed firearm owners.

Please call Gov. Baker's office at 617-725-4005 and give him this simple and straight forward statement: "Continue the fight against COVID-19, but end this vendetta against the Second Amendment Civil Rights community!" In addition, do not forget who violated our Second Amendment rights when it comes time to vote!

Richard Ladd,

Pittsfield

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Letter: 2nd Amendment rights violated by state - Berkshire Eagle

Chief Justice Roberts has drawn a sharp rebuke for condoning the Supreme Court majoritys April 27 decision refusing to take up a Second Amendment case. But the critique of the decision as politically motivated is deeply misguided and potentially harmful to the perceived legitimacy of the federal bench and the rule of law itself. The decision was not an enormous abdication of judicial prerogative, as some have irresponsibly claimed but, rather, a routine and proper refusal to take up an issue that had been rendered moot.

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. New York, the Court in a per curiam opinion (meaning there is no attributed author) effectively dismissed a case challenging a New York City handgun law, which had prevented handgun owners from carrying firearms to second homes or shooting ranges outside of the city. Recall that in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court in 2008 recognized a Second Amendment right to own a handgun in the home for self-defense. The question raised in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association case was whether that right extended to the transport of firearms outside of the home.

The lower courts upheld the law. But while the case was pending before the Supreme Court, the State of New York amended its firearm licensing statute, and the City amended the rule so that petitioners may now transport firearms to a second home or shooting range outside of the city, which is the precise relief that petitioners requested in the prayer for relief in their complaint. The Court thus found the case moot.

In arguing against mootness, the petitioners claimed that it is still conceivable under the new law that they may not be allowed to stop for coffee, gas, food, or restroom breaks on the way to their second homes or shooting ranges outside of the city. The City responded that those routine stops are entirely permissible under the new rule.

If it turns out that the City nonetheless decides to enforce the rule for routine stops in the future, the petitioners could file a new case. But for now, that scenario is entirely hypothetical. There is no concrete injury for the Supreme Court to remedy based on the allegations of the original complaint, which challenged a now-defunct law.

The Supreme Court reviews cases just like courts of appeals. The job of any court on appeal is to review what a lower court did with the precise issue before it. In this case, that issue had totally changed. Whatever the lower court had said about the ordinance which was no longer in effect by virtue of amendments to the law became beside the point. The case clearly needed to be reframed at the lower court level, if at all, under the revised ordinance. Although there are exceptions to the so-called mootness doctrine, appellate courts routinely step away from cases when the underlying problem that was complained about has changed. The case gets remanded for further proceedings.

Mootness serves a very important function in our system of separated government. It keeps courts out of the business of lawmaking, which belongs to the elected branches. Article III of the U.S. Constitution confines federal courts to resolving cases and controversies that is, live disputes between the parties before it. It is the job of the legislature, by contrast, to identify hypothetical scenarios that need fixing and to pass prospective laws attempting to address those scenarios. Judges decide disputes that arose in the past and affect only the parties before the lawsuit not the public in general.

In his dissent, Justice Alito takes pains to outline numerous hypotheticals to make his point that the case is not moot. But Justice Alitos exercise only underscores what mootness is all about: Federal courts are not in the business of resolving hypotheticals. In this case, the actual dispute ended when New York changed the law which is presumably a good result for the plaintiffs leaving nothing for the courts to do.

To attack Chief Justice Roberts for joining his colleagues in refusing to craft prospective limits on New York gun laws from the bench in the absence of a live dispute is wrong as a matter of bedrock constitutional law. It also does gratuitous damage to the publics perception of the court system. With few exceptions, judges work every day to resolve cases based on facts and law and not on politics and its important to underscore this reality so that the public can have confidence in our system of laws.

The majority reached the proper result in this case. It would be highly unusual for an appeals court to move forward with a case where the underlying pleadings do not accurately reflect the current facts and state of affairs.

Kimberly Wehle is a visiting professor of Law at American Universitys Washington College of Law, and a member of an advisory consulting group on judicial independence sponsored by the Rendell Center for Civics & Civic Engagement and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of the book, How to Read the Constitutionand Why. Follow her on twitter @kim_wehle

Read the rest here:
Mootness is not about politics | TheHill - The Hill

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed as moot (a.k.a. legally pointless our words, not the Courts) a case filed by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association.

The group argued that a New York City gun rule prevented their transport of firearms to a second home or shooting range outside of the city, per the Courts summary, and that the city rule therefore violated the Second Amendment. In the midst of the litigation, New York State and New York City both amended their gun licensing laws, in essence giving in to the core of the groups demands.Hence the mootness of the case.

[P]etitioners may now transport firearms to a second home or shooting range outside of the city, which is the precise relief that petitioners requested in the prayer for relief in their complaint, the Court ruled in a terse two-page per curiam unsigned order of the Court (citations omitted):

Our ordinary practice in disposing of a case that has become moot on appeal is to vacate the judgment with directions to dismiss. However, in instances where the mootness is attributable to a change in the legal framework governing the case, and where the plaintiff may have some residual claim under the new framework that was understandably not asserted previously, our practice is to vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings in which the parties may, if necessary, amend their pleadings or develop the record more fully.

Its easy to unravel who is on what side of the argument, however, because three justices dissented.Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas all wanted to keep the case alive because the group tried to pile other claims into the original claim. For instance, it is up for debate whether the amended laws prevent stops for, e.g., food and bathroom breaks between home and another destination. The gun owner group also sought to insert a damages claim into the original case. The majority noted that the case would need to be relitigated from the ground up, but the dissenters said, This case is not moot. The City violated petitioners Second Amendment right, and we should so hold.

The majority, we know, must have been John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan.

Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the majority on procedural grounds while extolling the need for additional Second Amendment litigation.

I agree with the per curiam opinions resolution of the procedural issues before us namely, that petitioners claim for injunctive relief against New York Citys old rule is moot and that petitioners new claims should be addressed as appropriate in the first instance by the Court of Appeals and the District Court on remand, Kavanaugh wrote in a short concurrence.

Kavanaugh went further, however.

I also agree with J[ustice] A[lito]s general analysis of Heller and McDonald, Kavanaugh wrote. And I share [his] concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.

Kavanaugh was referencing District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that functioning guns could be kept inside the homes of people who were not members of a militia, and McDonald v. Chicago, which held that the Second Amendment applied to the states.

Alito said the dismissal of the New York case as moot permits [the Courts] docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced. He went on to issue a de facto litigation of the case in a 31-page dissent.

[T]he lower courts have decided numerous cases involving Second Amendment challenges to a variety of federal, state, and local laws. Most have failed, Alito said, bemoaning the chance to issue another decision against a state or local government which attempted to restrict firearms rights.

Then, Alito chided the litigation:

[T]he Citys travel restriction burdened the very right recognized in Heller. History provides no support for a restriction of this type. The Citys public safety arguments were weak on their face, were not substantiated in any way, and were accepted below with no serious probing. And once we granted review in this case, the Citys public safety concerns evaporated.

[Image via Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images]

Originally posted here:
Justice Kavanaugh Is Eager to Address Rollback of Second Amendment Rights in Upcoming Cases - Law & Crime

DATE:May 1, 2020TO:USF & NRA Members and FriendsFROM:Marion P. HammerUSF Executive Director

NRA Past President

Nikki Fried, Florida's anti-gun Commissioner of Agriculture clearly violated Florida law and pretended to have authority she is specifically denied by statute [f.s.790.06(15)]. She knew it. She was evenformally asked to stop it by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. Imagine the waste of State tax dollars if Nikki Fried's conduct results in a lawsuit against the State when the Attorney General is already on record warning Fried against such actions.

ByRyan Lovelace

Washington Times

April 30, 2020

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/30/florida-threatened-lawsuit-over-cancellation-onlin/

Young Americans for Liberty president Cliff Maloney is pursuing litigation against a Florida official for thwarting his ability to obtain a firearm amid social distancing restrictions in response to coronavirus.

Mr. Maloney sent a letter on Wednesday to Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services commissioner Nikki Fried threatening litigation because of the commissioners decision to suspend online applications for concealed weapons licenses amid the coronavirus outbreak.

While Ms. Fried, Florida Democrat, closed off online applications for concealed carry licenses, she was scheduled to appear in an online town hall with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden on Wednesday evening.

Ms. Fried was listed as moderator of a discussion with Mr. Biden during the virtual rally on Wednesday, according to Mr. Bidens campaign website which has since removed the webpage. Mr. Maloneys letter was sent to Ms. Fried when she was moderating the discussion, according to Mr. Maloney.

Its truly sad to see Nikki Fried exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to further her anti-Second Amendment agenda, said Mr. Maloney. She can host an online fundraiser for Joe Biden, but she cant accept online applications for concealed weapons licenses? Commissioner Fried needs to stop infringing on the constitutional right of Floridians to protect themselves and their families.....READ MORE

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/30/florida-threatened-lawsuit-over-cancellation-onlin/

Here is the original post:
Florida Alert! Florida Threatened with Lawsuit over Nikki Fried's Cancellation of CW Applications - NRA ILA

A national gun rights group has filed a federal lawsuit against Attorney General Maura Healey and Governor Charlie Baker in an effort to allow firearms dealers to reopen during the COVID-19 crisis, the organization announced Thursday.

The Gun Owners of America, based in Virginia, joined more than a dozen other gun stores and manufacturers in suing Baker and Healey, claiming their Second Amendment rights have been violated and their businesses are suffering immediate, irreparable, injuries, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint, filed Wednesday in US District Court in Boston, is the second federal lawsuit in a week filed by gun shop owners seeking to reopen their businesses amid the pandemic. State officials have said the closings are necessary to slow the spread of coronavirus.

The Department of Homeland Security designated the firearms industry as essential but Baker removed the firearms industry from the states list of essential businesses, forcing them to close until at least May 4.

Governor Baker and AG Healey must do an about-face and uphold their oaths of office by respecting the Constitution and Bill of Rights, Senior Vice President of GOA Erich Pratt said in a statement from the organization. Many jurisdictionseven anti-gun states like New Jerseyhave reopened gun stores and are now following the federal guidance. Its time that Massachusetts follows this guidance as well.'

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to lift the restrictions.

Spokespersons for Baker and Healey did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday night.

Andrew Couture, the Lemonister-based lawyer who filed the complaint, said the purpose of the suit is to protect small, family owned firearms stores. Theyre struggling because they are not only closed, but they are not eligible for state programs providing financial assistance to other small businesses, he said.

These are these are mom and pop stores that operate on a shoestring budget to begin with, he said in an interview. Under the cloak of the COVID-19 scare, this is one way to bankrupt the entire gun industry in Massachusetts. All these mom and pop stores that service the Second Amendment community. . .they cant get through this.

Stephanie Purifoy can be reached at stephanie.purifoy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @steph_purifoy

Original post:
National gun groups sues Mass. over shop closings - The Boston Globe