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Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation.

The Second Amendment Foundation, one of the largest gun advocacy groups in the country, has come out and said they can no longer support the carrying of firearms at protests.

While the foundation has represented gun owners in some major cases in recent years, founder and executive vice president Alan Gottlieb told the Washington Times this week that armed public protests are something they cant defend.

We are not a fan of armed protests and highly discourage that, said Gottlieb. Firearms serve a purpose, and the purpose is not a mouthpiece. Its to defend yourself. If you are carrying it to make a political point, we are not going to support that.

Gottliebs statement comes in the aftermath of the violent Charlottesville protests, in which groups of neo-Nazis and white supremacists clashed with counter protesters earlier this month. The protests took a deadly turn when aneo-Nazi drove a car into a group of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.

Though no one was shot at the rally, some have said protesters openly carrying firearmsonly escalatedan already tense situation.

There are many in the gun community who believe the open carriers pose a big threat to gun rights because they are so aggressive and so in the face of other people in controversial settings that it could lead to a backlash, saidAdam Winkler, a gun rights expert and constitutional law professor at the UCLA.

After the mayhem in Charlottesville, the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the Unite the Right organizers as they sought a permit for their rally, announced they would no longer represent white supremacist groups planning to protest with firearms.

Lawmakers in Virginia and Pennsylvania have also vowed to take action against armed protesters, saying they would introduce legislation to ban guns at public demonstrations.

While Gottlieb and the SAF wont support armed protests, he said the foundation would still consider defending someone who was lawfully carrying a firearm for self-defense at a rally and was disarmed or arrested by law enforcement.

Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said that while his organization does not specialize in First Amendment issues and so has not brought any legal cases regarding armed protests, they would publicly defend a groups right to protest with guns, so long as the group had peaceful intentions.

Pratt also said that GOA would oppose any legislation that aims to ban guns from public demonstrations.

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Second Amendment Foundation won't support armed protests - Guns.com

MISSISSIPPI - Gun enthusiasts are fired up for the magnolia state's second amendment tax free weekend.

Today and tomorrow you won't have to pay sales tax when you buy guns, ammo, and accessories.

Mississippi's first tax free holiday kicked off in 2014 in an effort to support second amendment rights and trigger a boost in the economy.

Gun store owners say the event is always successful because people like saving money.

"Sales tax in Mississippi is 7% so say you came in and bought a gun for $500 you're gonna save $35 well that equates to dinner out with your family depending on where you go or a tank of gas," says Jeff Duncan, Owner of the Gun Exchange

You must be 18 years old to buy a long gun and 21 to buy a hand gun.

You also must pass the FBI mandated background check.

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Gun Enthusiasts Fired Up For Second Amendment Tax Free Weekend - http://www.localmemphis.com

MONTGOMERY Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Alabama has joined a 21-state coalition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the rights of gun owners against efforts to ban certain firearms typically used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.

In their amicus brief in the case Kolbe v Hogan, the states asked the Supreme Court to hear arguments against, and ultimately strike down, a Maryland weapons ban that infringes on the rights of legal gun owners by prohibiting the sale, transfer and possession of certain semiautomatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines.

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, in this case, must not stand since it would set case law in five states and potentially set the stage for a federal ban by a future Congress, said Attorney General Marshall. These firearms are already protected under existing case law relating to weapons that are lawfully carried by gun owners.

Alabama and the other states argue the lower court ruling inappropriately limited the scope of the Second Amendment by taking an earlier Supreme Court ruling out of context.

Alabama, joined West Virginia, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming in filing the brief Friday.

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ALABAMA JOINS 21-STATE COALITION URGING SUPREME COURT TO PROTECT SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS - Shoals Insider

The Districts top lawyer on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to rehear a challenge to the citys strict limits on carrying concealed firearms.

Attorney General Karl A. Racines decision follows a ruling last month from a three-judge panel that blocks the Districts requirement of a good reason to obtain a permit because the requirement prevents most residents from carrying guns in public places.

City officials say the restrictions are common sense gun rules needed to promote public safety in the nations capital. Racine wants a full complement of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the panels ruling against the city.

Review by the full court is necessary due to the importance of this question, which affects the safety of every person who lives in, works in, or visits the District, according to the new court filing. Through their elected representatives, District residents have decided that public carrying without good reason is inconsistent with public safety.

The citys permitting system remains in effect while the appeal is under review. If the court declines to revisit the panels decision, the order to permanently block enforcement of the good reason requirement would take effect seven days later.

In its 2-to-1 ruling last month, the panel found the D.C. law in violation of the Second Amendment.

Bans on the ability of most citizens to exercise an enumerated right would have to flunk any judicial test, wrote Judge Thomas B. Griffith, who was joined by Judge Stephen F. Williams.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented, siding with the city and finding that the regulation passes muster because of the Districts unique security challenges and because the measure does not affect the right to keep a firearm at home.

[Appeals court blocks enforcement of D.C.s strict concealed-carry law]

The Supreme Court in 2008 used a D.C. case to declare for the first time an individual right to gun ownership apart from military service. But the high court has shown little interest in going further to decide whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home.

In June, for instance, the Supreme Court declined to take up a California case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said the Second Amendment does not protect the right to carry a concealed weapon in public.

[Gun ruling raises an issue the Supreme Court has been reluctant to review]

Under the Districts law, residents who want a permit to carry a concealed firearm must show that they have good reason to fear injury or a proper reason, such as transporting valuables. The regulations specify that living or working in a high crime area shall not by itself qualify as a good reason to carry.

As of July 15, D.C. police had approved 126 concealed-carry licenses and denied 417 applicants, according to the police department.

The Districts requirement is similar to rules in other states, including Maryland, New York and New Jersey.

Petitions for rehearing by a full complement of judges on the D.C. Circuit are filed frequently, but the court rarely grants such requests, taking up less than a handful each term.

A single judge may call for a vote on such a petition, but a rehearing requires sign-off from a majority of the 11 active judges on the court.

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D.C. attorney general wants federal judges to look at city's strict gun ... - Washington Post

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said in an interview aired Tuesday that judges make poor politicians, that he misses late Justice Antonin Scalia, and that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to a citizen keeping a gun next to their bed.

In a wide-ranging interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Breyer said he thought Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the 1857Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that found blacks could not be American citizens, "tried to be a politician."

"And he thought that -- perhaps he thought, that by reaching a decision saying a black person was not a person, that's roughly what he held, unbelievable. But, he thought he would help prevent the Civil War...if anything, he helped bring about the Civil War because Benjamin Curtis wrote a great dissent showing, I think, at the time, his decision was wrong. It's not using hindsight, but really wrong. Abraham Lincoln picked it up, read Taney's decision and said this is a shocker, then used the dissent in his speech at Cooper Union," Breyer noted.

"Which was the speech that propelled him to the head of the Republican Party, and helped get him the nomination and then all followed. He was really an abolitionist at heart. They knew that in the South and then, the Civil War followed," he added. "So, if that was Taney's idea, he was wrong. Judges are not good politicians. They may have some exposure to politics, but that's what I mean when I say junior league."

Breyer recalled Scalia being a masterful writer. "The job of a judge in an appellate court is, in an opinion, to explain the reasons why he or she reached this opinion," he said. "Now, I don't think that that calls for or requires what you might be able to do in terms of great phrasing but if you can do that, it can be an advantage. But what I meant because people -- when Nino and I use -- I miss him, I do."

Breyer stressed that "it's a big country" with 320 million people who "think a lot of different things," thus "it is not such a terrible thing, if on the Supreme Court, there are people who have different, somewhat different jurisprudential outlooks."

"You know, Scalia probably likes rules more than I do. He tends to find clarity in trying to get a clear rule. I have probably more of a view that life is a mess," the justice said, adding that it comes down to "basic outlook about the Constitution, how it applies today to people who must live under it."

"Those are where the differences come up. It's not politics."

Breyer said people shouldn't look at the High Court as a political arbiter. "It is not the Supreme Court that tells people what to do. [The Constitution] sets boundaries. We are, in a sense, the boundary commission," he said. "...But don't make the mistake of confusing a tough question at the boundary with the fact about what the document is like, because the document leaves vast space in between the boundaries for people themselves through the ballot box to decide what cities, towns, states, what kind of a nation they want. That's what this foresees, and if you do not participate, it won't work."

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Breyer: Second Amendment Not About 'the Right of an Individual to Keep a Gun Next to His Bed' - PJ Media