gun store sales counter AR-15 customer
Shutterstock

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a New York law limiting the concealed carry of handguns in public areas, there has been an increasing lack of clarity on gun restrictions, experts told ABC News.

“The [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen] decision really opens up a whole new way of analyzing the legality of firearm regulation and so there is no experience really to go by, so it’s essentially a free for all,” Michael Siegel, a faculty member at Tufts School of Medicine who studies firearm violence, told ABC News in an interview.

Siegel said the Bruen decision created a new system for how the constitutionality of firearm laws are to be judged where “nothing is really clear” and it is a trial and error situation.

The Bruen decision was “monumental” for gun rights and gave them a lot of key victories in the last few months, Alan Gottlieb, the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, told ABC News in an interview.

“We’ve knocked out some laws in California, we’ve got restraining orders against some of the ones in New York, we just got the temporary restraining order against the one in New Jersey,” Gottlieb said.

There are currently close to 50 cases in federal court challenging gun control laws across the country, Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb criticized lawmakers for passing what he said are more restrictive laws that are not drawn narrowly enough, despite the Bruen decision.

— Nadine El-Bawab in Supreme Court decision creates confusion over which firearm restrictions are constitutional

65 COMMENTS

  1. “Shall not be infringed” Is as complicated for the Left, as the constitutional right to Alcohol is for the right.

        • Why wouldn’t you support the natural right of any adult to ingest anything they want?

          If dacian wants to snort meth until xer heart explodes, more power to xer.

        • The debate about whether or not to have a bill of rights among the founders was instructive; One side was concerned than absent a bill of rights government would claim that any particular right did not exist when they wanted to violate it. The other side was concerned that people would think the enumerated rights were the only ones that existed, and all other rights would be left open to violation.

          Clearly they were both right.

          You have a NATURAL GOD GIVEN RIGHT to do anything you want to do that isn’t harmful to other people or their property. Driving is a right. Consuming anything you want to consume is a right. Anything that doesn’t harm another person or their property is a right. It does not need to be listed in the CON-stitution, a document arrived at by closing the doors, locking out the public and the media, and overstepping the authority of the men involved and violating the rights of the people and the states.

          RepubliCONs and DemocRATS have created an ejukashun system that deprives you of this knowledge.

      • The feds control the manufacture of alcoholic beverages and it’s sales , & many (most?) states the sales of alcoholic beverages is controlled by the state.
        That’s the “A” in BATFE………..

        We need a “right to keep and bear alcohol” amendment it appears.

        • “We need a “right to keep and bear alcohol” amendment it appears.”

          “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

        • “We need a “right to keep and bear alcohol” amendment it appears.”

          It’s already legal at the federal level to manufacture something like 75(?) gallons of wine or beer a year at home, if memory serves…

    • technically speaking, there is no constitutional right to procure or consume alcoholic beverages.

      There was a prohibition against alcoholic beverages that occured due to the ratification of the 18th Amendment, which was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

      The legality of alcoholic beverages is the purview of the States just like abortion

      • “no constitutional right to procure or consume alcoholic beverages.”

        Uhhhh – Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness!

        Many people pursue happiness to the bottom of a bottle, don’t you know?

      • “technically speaking, there is no enumerated constitutional right to procure or consume alcoholic beverages.”

        FIFY

      • “English. Does she understand it?”

        Actually understand, and agree that Bruen does have one notation of uncertainty: “sensitive places”. What are they, precisely, absolutely, and without question?

        Bruen is clear that “everywhere” cannot be declared “sensitive places”, yet it leaves open whether “sensitive places” are only those that were declared in 1791 (which, and by whom), or whether it is permissible to use an analog more recent, such as when the supreme court decided that the Second Amendment is applicable only in “non-sensitive places”?

        The only actually “clear”, “certain”, “unmistakable” application of the Second Amendment is “absolute”.

        • “Actually understand, and agree that Bruen does have one notation of uncertainty: “sensitive places”. What are they, precisely, absolutely, and without question?”

          I imagine Justice Clarence Thomas as ‘Jules’ in this scene, as to what he’d really like to do about games being played with the 2A :

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc8-G7gbkms

    • C’mon man…dope and booze has its place but no place around The Second Amendment…Show some class.

      On the other hand A. Gottlieb needs to clarify for everyone exactly what Gun Control is according to its history of rot. A. Gottlieb’s continued failure to do so continues to provide standing for Gun Control.

      • By the time the 18th A was ratified, roughly half of the states already had some form of ‘prohibition’. In Arizona (the 48th State – 1912) “wet/dry” by county went into effect on Jan. 1, 1915. One county remained “wet”, Cochise County, with an 80 mile common border with Mexico. Guess where all the smuggling occurred.

  2. There isn’t any “lack of clarity”.

    That’s just the gun controller’s way of saying “we do not want to follow the Bruen decision”.

    The test that Justice Thomas spelled out in Bruen prohibits most gun control laws because there is no historical analogs. There were simply very, very few gun laws in the Founding era (for good reason).

    And citing English law doesn’t work either because of that little thing called the American Revolution. i seem to recall that it was the attempt to confiscate the Colonist’s arms (powder stores) that caused the “shot heard around the world”.

    • The powder alarms. Yes The american revolution was started when the british started confiscating ammunition components.

    • I think there is a lack of clarity for which Bruen prescribes the way through to find the answers.

      The 2A includes several key terms, of which I think the most important are: “the Right”; “the People”; “keep”; “bear”; “arms” and “infringed”. Perhaps the most important is “the Right”. Just what were, and therefore are today, the metes and bounds of “the right”?

      “Any one, anywhere, any time, under any circumstance”? Does a man condemned to death have the right to bear his side-arm to his execution? If not, is this the singular exception? Or, might there be a second exception? If a man is arrested can be be disarmed lawfully? If so, to what further extent can a man be disarmed without “infringing” upon his right?

      The gun controllers would have us believe that the right to arms can be constrained to the narrowest possible bounds. To render the 2A as near as possible a nullity. But this simply isn’t rational.

      We PotG don’t hold a consensus. Most of us would disarm the man condemned to death. Almost as many would disarm the man arrested. And plenty of us would disarm others, but without agreement on precisely whom and under what circumstances. Courtrooms? Jails? Within the White House? How to get out of this ambiguity?

      Exactly how do we decide who may – and who may not – bear arms within a jail? May a lawyer visiting his client bear arms? A wife visiting her husband?

      Bruen gives us a formula: text, history and tradition. If a keeping or bearing activity seems to have been indulged as lawful during the critical time period ~ 1790 – 1870, then it was presumptively lawful then and fell within “the right”. If it was widely enough regulated in that period, then it might have been outside the right; and if so, might be regulated today.

      We have as much as we could hope for in Bruen. Let’s work the analytical method in Bruen to the best of our ability.

      The result is apt to be development of a widespread public recognition of the role of guns in personal self-defense. That will deliver the greatest security to the 2A. It will likely constrain the GFZs to the narrowest possible space (e.g., perhaps airports/planes will be among the few GFZs).

      • A human has the God-given right to self-defense in all circumstances. The state may have been granted power to arrest and temporarily disarm a suspect, but once incarcerated, a human has a natural, human and civil right to re-arm for self-defense (via whatever means available).

        As with everyone, the state cannot defend life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, even those in prison. Thus, people rightfully protect themselves with whatever weapon is available, when the need arises.

        When an individual is imprisoned, the state has the obligation to either not infringe on the right of the prisoner to be armed, at all, or the state is obligated to find a means to disarm prisoners, continually. Denying prisoners the right to be armed is simply a cost reduction effort on the part of the state.

  3. “The [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen] decision really opens up a whole new way of analyzing the legality of firearm regulation and so there is no experience really to go by, so it’s essentially a free for all,”

    No the bruen decision just *reestablishes* the Founding Fathers original intent and application of the 2nd A as they intended the 2nd A to be.

    • They are on a fishing expedition to find Founding era gun laws that simply don’t exist.

      Gun control really wasn’t a thing until Jim Crow.

      • Not quite true. Gun control for Indians and Blacks was commonplace and accepted at the founding and thereafter until the end of the Civil War. It was stopped for a term during Reconstruction and resumed under Jim Crow.

        The question is: What does gun control for Indians or Blacks tell us about the power of government to circumscribe the right of the People today?

        We would hold that the 14A strips this history from today’s law books. Not one shred of pretext remains of the power of government to regulate on race.

        The gun controllers will likely argue that of “dangerous people” could be stripped of their arms in the relevant period (~1790 – 1870). Therefore, they can be so barred today under Bruen. In the relevant era the only means our ancestors identified to distinguish between dangerous and non-dangerous was skin color. Now, in a more enlightened period, Progressives have a much more sophisticated metric. Generally, if you are not a government employee or in the employ of a man-of-means, you are dangerous.

        If, by chance, I’ve described the gun controllers’ reasoning correctly, then this is the nonsense we need to expose. Whether discrimination is by skin color or by employment, it is discrimination without due process of law. And, such discrimination is unConstitutional after the 14A. There is no getting around this bright line: deprivation of right without due process of law.

        • I suspect the case currently before the Court dealing with the man who lost his 2A rights for tax or welfare fraud may prove instructive on what the Justices consider to be inalienable rights. Coney-Barret indicated in a dissent awhile back her interest in dealing with the subject…

    • As mentioned “shall not be infringed”. It matters not what Dimscum© or RINO decides what’s best for us. It matters not what SCOTUS decides. Shot heard ’round the world??? In ILL annoy that may happen(hide yer braces too).

  4. There is no more ‘lack of clarity’ than there is for any other law. I mean, you can’t write a law to specifically address every person, in every situation he might encounter in life. The law books would require a couple million Libraries of Congress – just to fit the catalog, never mind the actual texts of the law.

    Bruen really isn’t complicated. If you can find historical judicial decisions that justify weapon restrictions, then your law MIGHT pass muster. The problem is, there weren’t many restrictions from the time frame stated by the Supreme Court. And, pretty much all of those restrictions were placed on slaves and/or Black people. Since we no longer have slavery in this country, there go pretty much all weapons restrictions!

    Real gun control will be mostly achieved when criminals are prosecuted and punished for their crimes, with few criminals slipping through the cracks and loopholes. Make it clear that a life of crime is unprofitable, and crime will largely disappear.

    What does it matter if every person in sight is armed? If they are honest citizens, none of them will harm you.

  5. It cracks me up when so called journalists cite “experts”. It seems to me that they can call anyone an expert if the point of view agrees with the spin being presented. In this case, using someone that is a medical researcher is just bogus. At least find a lawyer…

    Oh I know, I’ll get on Twitter and claim to be an expert and maybe I can get a paying job for quotes on something I know next to nothing about!

    • Having been quoted as an “expert” on numerous occasions, I can tell you there’s no money in it.
      So I don’t do it anymore. As an old boss told me years ago, “why educate the chumps?”

    • Or eat bugs.
      Nevermind that these morons apparently never took the Boy Scout Wilderness Survival merit badge, where I was taught that chitin, a major component of jumpy bug exoskeletons, is toxic and should only be ingested in emergencies.

  6. Hmmm…..
    27 words + 3 commas + 1 period = clarity

    It is in fact disingenuous to try and litigate any part of the last 4 words:
    “…shall not be infringed.”
    And it was written that way with clarity, on purpose, by people with sound minds utilizing logic.

    Molon labe
    We shall see…

  7. We will fight this battle till judges stop writing decisions with legal gobbledygook.
    The United States government and its political subdivisions shall not make any laws, ordinances or rules limiting the keeping, owning, bearing, carrying, concealing, transferring, manufacturing arms and their accessories whatsoever.
    OK what did I leave out?

  8. …” bounds of “the right”? There are no bounds to a RIGHT…hence the 2nd A ends with “shall not be infringed”.
    And yes I am an EXPERT.

    A self appointed one yet still an expert in context with 2023…..LOL

    • The problem with the fake and dishonest assessment of the grabbers above; Thomas majority opinion ruling states that nothing, nada, zilch beyond the creation of the BoR in 1791 legitimately overrides.

      Their false claims of ambiguity are laid bare as disinformation by only reading the majority opinion ruling. Which largely is writ in plain, clear, and concise common English.

  9. There’s no lack of clarity in Bruen…at all. What there is, is willful non-compliance with a SCOTUS ruling the leftist ruling class doesn’t like.

    Control freak leftist politicians and bureaucrats are using the color of authority to deprive citizens of their rights.

    They are less worried about the inner city thugs who cause most of the mayhem in our society than they are about ordinary citizens. The ruling class leftists both despise and are deeply afraid of the population they seek to control.

    Plus, to pass laws that would single out the mostly minority criminals responsible for the violence would be, in their minds, racist and not “equitable.”

    We live in a Country where the vast majority of the political class don’t believe in the Constitution, it’s an impediment to them. They don’t see themselves as bound by any limits, only their “good intentions.”

    Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it… It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.
    Daniel Webster

    • Not only was carry outside the home in public places addressed in McDonald, Heller, and Bruen – and then very clearly decided again in Bruen – the clowns in Maryland felt left out of the ‘supposed’ ‘lack of clarity’ excuse being used and decided to introduce a bill to restrict/prohibit carry outside the home.

  10. Lol
    It’s crystal clear.

    The only people confused by Bruen at this point are the ones used to living under tyranny.

  11. No one at Tufts University has spent any time at all actually studying the causes of violence. All they are doing is studying ways to enhance tyranny and punish anyone who disagrees with their far left dogma. They do strongly approve the phrase “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

  12. WELL I QUIT DRINKING AND SMOKING , THANK GOD , MORE $$ FOR AMMO …
    HEALTH SOOO MUCH BETTER … NEVER WAS INTO DRUGS … ALL WASTE OF TIME N $$ ..
    RIGHT TO MY LTC , ALLS GOOD IN LAND OF OZ …

  13. “Where nothing is clear”
    Here let me wipe the mud off your glasses.
    -The Right To Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed.-
    Did that help?

  14. @Geoff “I’m getting too old for this shit” PR”
    “I imagine Justice Clarence Thomas as ‘Jules’ in this scene, as to what he’d really like to do about games being played with the 2A :”

    WHAT?

  15. There’s no lack of clarity. Bruen is blaringly obvious. What isn’t clear is how any antigun law can be justified. They can’t see a way around the dead end of gin control and won’t accept ‘no’ as an answer. In the meantime, they’re throwing temper tantrums and passing laws that obviously won’t stand.

  16. Nadine El-Bawab – ” a twenty something alien can’t understand clear English from the SCOTUS”

  17. @Duhplicitous
    “Nonsense.”

    The state which can eliminate an unalienable right, can properly eliminate any human, any human activity it likes. “Due process” is whatever the state deems it to be.

  18. More nonsense. You (willfully, imo) ignore the fact that citizens necessarily have hierarchy. Status is determined by process, and in the US, process is determined by the Bill of Rights, not “whatever the State wants”. Therefore, Ted Bundy had no right to self-defense.

    Why pretend otherwise?

  19. “Status is determined by process, and in the US, process is determined by the Bill of Rights, not “whatever the State wants”.”

    BOR confers, grants nothing; period.

    If, “…all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” is true, “unalienable” means cannot be denied, or surrendered. If the state can deny “unalienable” rights through man-made law, the state can do as it pleases (and does so).

    If a human in prison does not have a right to life (self-defense), then prison is state-endorsed assault, battery, grevious bodily harm, and murder.

    If the state can deny the unalienable right to life through self-defense, then we are left with “…shall not be infringed, except….”. “Except is an opinion as to which exceptions properly allow infringement; all opinions are equally vaild until the state establishes the exceptions most beneficial to the state.

    Ted Bundy was a human, endowed with certain unalienable rights.

    • “then prison is state-endorsed assault, battery, grevious bodily harm, and murder”

      Yep. So?

        • One could argue that Bundy had an inalienable right to resist his executioners. I would likely agree.

          But he had no civil right to do so, nor any civil right to arms, those being temporarily stripped by arrest. Conviction made that permanent.

          Civil and inalienable are not synonyms.

  20. @Duhplicitous
    “Civil and inalienable are not synonyms.”

    Zackly. Inalienable rights are superior to civil rights; cannot be altered, crippled, eliminated by “civil” law.

    The inalienable right to life is not subject to the opinions of civil legislation. The right to life includes defending that life by any means necessary. If a prisoner is attacked by an armed assailent, the defender must be allowed to possess the same level of weapon available to the attacker.

    All unalienable (vs. inalienable) rights are absolute. Which presents a problem for “liberty”, as well.

  21. Not really. You are conflating “inalienable” with “inviolable”.

    Not the same.

    Whole civilizations have been built, and in my opinion, fallen, by violating inalienable rights as systematically and thoroughly as possible.

    • “You are conflating “inalienable” with “inviolable”.”

      from mirriam webster online

      “inalienable”:
      incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transfered
      (“incapable” generally meaning not possible)

      “unalienable”:
      impossible to take away or give up
      (“impossible” generally meaning not possible)

      “inviolable”:
      secure from assault or tresspass

      from “impossible” to “secure from”; which is superior?

      The use of “unalienable” in the DOI is intentional, coherently, and conclusively a statement that no human government has a right to violate such rights.

      I agree governments always violate unalienable rights, but that does not mean those rights do not exist, even while being suppressed. The proposed remedy for government interference with “unalienable” rights is overthrow.

  22. You wanna overthrow the gummint because bundy’s right to a gun in prison? Lol.

    Again, I will mention due process (sensu Americanum). You know, innocent till proven guilty, probable cause, right to face your accuser/accusation, right to trial, prejudice against retroactive law, ect. Old-fashioned stuff.

    • “You wanna overthrow the gummint because bundy’s right to a gun in prison?”
      – unalienable rights are absolute, however, there are few, if any, attacks in prisions where the attacker uses a firearm. the target of an armed attack (armed=anything used as a weapon) has a natural and human right to defend with a weapon of equal power.

      “Again, I will mention due process (sensu Americanum). ”
      – another state construct; “due process” is whatever a legislative/judicial body (both agents of government) says it is, or isn’t. “Due Process” is not an immutable, unalterable, cosmic standard.

      The founders cited a “Creator” of all things as establishing unalienable rights. Thus, only the Creator can infringe/waive such rights. Humans do not have the authority, or celestial power, to trample on unalienable rights. Humans are mere usurpers, blown about by political winds.

      Consider: the right to trial is identified first in Amendment 6. What is an amendment? The will of the powerful; and greater political/physical power can alter the 6th Amendment, or abolish it. But, maybe the right to trial isn’t an inaleinable right deriving from the authority of the Creator. On the other hand, maybe the right to liberty isn’t established by “the laws of nature, and nature’s God”, either.

      Humans suffer imprisonment. Under the whim of the people (and the state), the right to life, the right to self-defense is in constant jeopardy. By any rational thought, denying a human of the right of self-defense is an abomination under “the laws of nature, and nature’s God”.

Comments are closed.