THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
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Showing posts with label Asset Forfeiture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asset Forfeiture. Show all posts
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Obey me or pay me! That pretty much sums up the rhetoric coming from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer who continues to defy the Constitution and chide anyone who might dare to imply that her authoritarian power is limited by that archaic document.
Of course, if you didn’t catch the sarcasm in that, let me help. She’s a tyrant who has no regard for the law and limits on government overreach. None.
Recently, Whitmer apprised her peasants that she alone had the power to determine when, what, and where the economy can reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic asserting that her executive shutdown orders are “not suggestions,” “not optional,” and “not helpful hints.” Nevermind that pesky outdated First Amendment thing:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
That, according to Whitmer, is “not appropriate in a global pandemic.” She continued, “This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic,” comparing protests in the Michigan Capitol to Naziism.
“I do think that the fact of the matter is these protests, in a perverse way, make it likelier that we’re going to have to stay in a stay-at-home posture.”
So let’s get this straight — Whitmer believes she has the sole authority to lockdown an entire state, prevent people from practicing their Constitutionally-protected right to protest the lockdown, slander people by calling them names for doing so, and punish them with an extended lockdown if they refuse to grovel at her divine feet.
By the way, this peaceful protest you see below is what Whitmer says is so
racist, misogynistic, and Nazi-like.
Right. In the words of the great pastor and teacher John MacArthur,
Michigan Gov. @gretchenwhitmer calls some protests in her state “racist and misogynistic” and urges others “to stop encouraging this behavior because it only makes it that much more precarious for us to try to reengage our economy.” http://abcn.ws/2RiH3wd
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The Supreme Court has ordered the City of San Jose, Calif., to explain why police, seven years ago, confiscated the legal firearms from the wife of a man who was hospitalized for a mental health issue.
The San Jose police haven’t returned the wife’s firearms from the incident which predated the national debate over ‘red flag’ laws by several years.
“Her firearms were seized seven years ago after her husband was taken to a hospital on a mental health issue,” the Second Amendment Foundation said. “At the time, a San Jose police officer advised Rodriguez he had authority to seize all firearms in the residence, including those belonging solely to her, which were all locked in a California-approved safe.”
“The guns were taken without a warrant, and over Rodriguez’s objection.”
The wife, Lori Rodriguez, sued the city in federal court after officials declined to return the firearms despite them being re-registered in her name alone and after the California Department of Justice cleared the release of her firearms.
One of the guns in particular was a handgun Rodriguez personally owned before her marriage, and she asserted community property ownership on the other firearms.
“Lori argued that the court had no power to interfere with her Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms because, even if [husband] Edward was prohibited from possessing and owning guns, she was not prohibited,” the suit read. “In support, she emphasized that she had obtained a notice of eligibility to own and possess guns from the Calif. DOJ Bureau of Firearms.”
‘Red flag’ laws are open to scrutiny due to their encroachment of due process protected by the Constitution, but this is perhaps the first time someone had her guns confiscated due to her association with someone else.
And it foreshadows how other municipalities could use ‘red flag’ laws to confiscate guns from entire households over the detainment of only one person of interest to police, which explains the Supreme Court’s interest in the case.
“Lori Rodriguez is not a criminal, nor is she prohibited by law from owning firearms. Yet she’s essentially been robbed by the city of San Jose and its police department, with the cooperation of lower courts, including the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb, referring to the courts that so far ruled against her.
The City of San Jose has until May 20 to respond to the Supreme Court.
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U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden has plans for American gun owners that are spelled out in a 3,100-word agenda found on his campaign website that includes a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” background checks on all gun sales and transfers, restrictions on the number of firearms someone can buy in a month, “safe storage” and enough other red tape to turn the right to keep and bear arms into a heavily-regulated privilege.
This coming Saturday, April 25, “Team Joe” is planning a “Service Outreach Unity Leadership (S.O.U.L.) of the Nation” event to recognize the efforts of “our communities’ heroes.”
A message on his website says, “When Joe launched our campaign a year ago this Saturday, he said that this election is about more than just politics – it’s about the soul of this country. That is true now more than ever before.”
The former vice president, now said to be considering a female running mate since he is virtually assured of winning the nomination—which a majority of Democrats appear to favor, according to a recent Rasmussen survey—insists he will follow “constitutional, common-sense gun safety policies.”
Here are some of the highlights found in his campaign literature:
Put America on the path to ensuring that 100% of firearms sold in America are smart guns. Biden believes we should work to eventually require that 100% of firearms sold in the U.S. are smart guns.
End the online sale of firearms and ammunitions. Biden will enact legislation to prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts. (This could be a direct threat to such places as Midway and Brownells, Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s.–ed.)
Ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Joe Biden will enact legislation to once again ban assault weapons, his agenda says. This time, the bans will be designed based on lessons learned from the 1994 bans. For example, the ban on assault weapons will be designed to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor changes that don’t limit the weapon’s lethality. While working to pass this legislation, Biden will also use his executive authority to ban the importation of assault weapons.
Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act. Currently, the National Firearms Act requires individuals possessing machine-guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles to undergo a background check and register those weapons with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Due to these requirements, such weapons are rarely used in crimes. As president, Biden will pursue legislation to regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.
Buy back the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines already in our communities. Biden will also institute a program to buy back weapons of war currently on our streets. This will give individuals who now possess assault weapons or high-capacity magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act.
Reinstate the Obama-Biden policy to keep guns out of the hands of certain people unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons, which President Trump reversed. In 2016, the Obama-Biden Administration finalized a rule to make sure the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends to the background check system records that it holds of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms because they have been adjudicated by the SSA as unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons. But one of the first actions Donald Trump took as president was to reverse this rule. President Biden will enact legislation to codify this policy. (Critics of this policy say it went after military veterans who had problems with finances.)
There is much more in Biden’s scheme, such as holding firearms manufacturers responsible for illegal acts committed by people using one of their firearms. Another provision will “Give states incentives to set up gun licensing programs…to require individuals to obtain a license prior to purchasing a gun.”
It’s all spelled out in detail, in 3,167 words, and there is nothing in this narrative about Biden “hoping” to do anything. At several points, the document says “Biden will.”
To accomplish this, he’s going to want a running mate who agrees with, and will adhere to, his policies. The recent Rasmussen survey, conducted April 12-13 with a margin of sampling error at +/- 3 percentage points, says 61 percent of likely Democratic voters “believe it is important for Biden’s running mate to be a woman or person of color, with 35% who say it is Very Important.”
Does that mean most Democrats are more interested in political correctness than they are in performance? Here’s an excerpt from the Rasmussen report:
“But when given a list of seven top potential vice presidential nominees, Democrats rate most about the same. The possible candidates and their levels of support are: Bernie Sanders (15%), Kamala Harris (14%), Elizabeth Warren (13%), Amy Klobuchar (12%), Stacey Abrams (11%), Michael Bloomberg (7%) and Pete Buttigieg (5%). Thirteen percent (13%) of Democrats prefer someone else, and 11% are undecided.” By no small coincidence, Klobuchar is being touted as Biden's “safe pick” in a Washington Examiner piece.
In its introduction, the Biden doctrine emphasizes that he “has taken on the National Rifle Association (NRA) on the national stage and won – twice. In 1993, he shepherded through Congress the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established the background check system that has since kept more than 3 million firearms out of dangerous hands. In 1994, Biden – along with Senator Dianne Feinstein – secured the passage of 10-year bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. As president, Joe Biden will defeat the NRA again.”
Perhaps “victory” means different things to different people. Since 1993, the NRA reportedly raised its membership by at least 50 percent, and that era has seen the emergence of other rights organizations as powerhouse groups, specifically the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and various state-level organizations. Millions of gun owners were energized during the Clinton and Obama administrations when Biden and his Capitol Hill colleagues went after gun rights.
Indeed, it was a SAF case—McDonald v. City of Chicago—that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, providing the opportunity to incorporate the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment. That opened the legal floodgates allowing dozens of legal actions challenging the kinds of gun laws Biden and his contemporaries favor.
Near the top of his agenda, Biden says he will “Get weapons of war off our streets.” There are all kinds of proposals to make it more difficult for law-abiding gun owners to remain “law-abiding.”
There is little, if anything, about locking up criminals. Instead, one finds this:
“There are proven strategies for reducing gun violence in urban communities without turning to incarceration. For example, Group Violence Intervention organizes community leaders to work with individuals most likely to commit acts of gun violence, express the community’s demand that the gun violence stop, and connect individuals who may be likely perpetrators with social and economic support services that may deter violent behavior.”
On the heels of a mass shooting rampage in Canada, a nation with some of the strictest gun laws in the hemisphere—laws the gun prohibition lobby would like this country to emulate, were it not for the pesky Second Amendment—Biden’s gun control agenda is unlikely to win any converts in the firearms community, and it will give U.S. gun owners plenty to think about as November draws closer.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
In this episode of Behind the Deep State, host Alex Newman explains how the privately owned Federal Reserve System is exploiting the Communist Chinese Coronavirus to loot the American people. Alex also breaks down how this is happening: Basically, the Fed is creating trillions of currency out of thin air and using "Special Purpose Vehicles" (better known as front companies) to buy up real assets including stocks and bonds. It is time for Congress to audit and then abolish the central bank and restore a sound monetary system.
NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO'S ENDGAME: ASSET FORFEITURE, STEALING & REDISTRIBUTION USING THE NATIONAL GUARD
THE COMMUNIST METHODOLOGY
REPORT BY SARAH CORRIHER
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, is using military soldiers to remove potentially critical ventilators from private hospitals. He is another leftist politician who believes that our civil rights and property rights can be abolished at his decree; even if it means killing his own people to achieve political ends. Fidel Castro would be watching this state-sponsored crisis ecstatically.
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Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
1 in 5 Americans have been ordered to stay home. Major states and cities have been shut down.
Our response to the coronavirus represents the biggest challenge to the relationship between individuals and the government in this country since the Civil War, WW1 or WW2. These decisions will likely be debated by scholars and historians the way that the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, the Espionage Act, Japanese internment camps, and other emergency decisions continue to be litigated.
A generation ago, the ACLU might have had something to say about the civil liberties implications of shelter-in-place orders. That was a different ACLU that at least pretended to care about civil liberties as an objective value, defending the civil rights of people it disagreed with. The new ACLU is an identity politics zombie whose only civil liberties concerns for the coronavirus response is that illegal aliens won’t be able to enter the country and that prison inmates should be released as quickly as possible.
The ACLU's position on the coronavirus is that, "individual rights must sometimes give way to the greater good. After all, when it comes to disease, we are not just individuals but also one big bio-mass."
"A disease cares little for our notions of individualism," the former civil liberties organization argues.
That is no doubt true. But we don't run our society from the perspective of a disease. And we don’t ask civil libertarians to mind-meld with viruses. Once upon a time, the ACLU might have asked what the Constitution thought of a policy. Now it asks what a disease thinks of the United States of America. And to the disease, the ACLU, and the Left, we're one big bio-mass collective with no room for individualism.
Meanwhile the ACLU has missed the civil liberties debate over what an “essential” establishment is. Shelter-in-place and other variants of the same term list the local definition of what is considered an essential or non-essential establishment. There is, as of yet, no formal federal definition.
Are liquor stores essential? They are in New York, New Jersey, St. Louis and Michigan. But not in Pennsylvania. Pot stores were deemed essential in California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
And in Pennsylvania.
But the “essential” debate is really blowing up when it comes to firearms.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva freed 1,700 criminals from county jails and launched an aggressive push to force gun stores to shut down as non-essential.
“We will be closing them, they are not an essential function,” Villanueva insisted. "You have the mixture of people that are not formerly gun owners and you have a lot more people at home and anytime you introduce a firearm in a home... it increases fourfold the chance that someone is gonna get shot.”
Whether or not that’s true, it has nothing to do with whether gun stores are essential or not. Villanueva is wrongly conflating a gun control risk argument with defining what is an essential business.
And when thousands of criminals are set loose, firearms become more essential than ever.
While Illinois had deemed firearms businesses to be essential, Pennsylvania did not. The state’s version of “essential” or “life-sustaining”, like California, covers marijuana, but not firearms. That’s a problem since Philly authorities had announced that they wouldn’t be arresting “non-violent offenders”.
Non-violent offenders, a highly misleading term for a wide variety of some, potentially quite hostile and dangerous criminals, includes car theft, burglary and other threats to personal property.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard a case by a gun shop owner and split, with the majority upholding the Democrat shutdown of gun stores in the state, while a minority dissented, arguing, that it's, “an absolute and indefinite prohibition upon the acquisition of firearms by the citizens of this commonwealth — a result in clear tension with the Second Amendment”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the political dial, Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas classified abortions as non-essential, though Ohio abortion facilities don’t appear to actually be obeying orders to close down.
Are gun stores or abortion clinics essential?
To people on one side, one of them is the footprint of a murderous industry that shouldn’t even exist and on the other is a constitutionally protected right. Litigation over both sides and both industries has been fought endlessly, but is now being settled by fiat under the guise of emergency measures.
That’s the civil liberties problem with giving government unlimited emergency powers to shut down everything it wants to with very little scrutiny and no meaningful appeal against its decisions.
There is an emergency. But civil rights don’t disappear in emergencies. They matter more than ever.
The use of emergency powers allow government to strip away individual rights with very little oversight. And it’s inevitable that, as in Los Angeles County, those powers will be used for self-serving reasons.
In an emergency, it’s vital to keep government honest by questioning how it uses its powers, examining its motives for using those powers, and pushing to set limits on these emergency powers. The tension between emergency powers and civil liberties is the cauldron out of which freedom is constantly reborn.
When the government is gifted with the power to shut down anything in an emergency, its officials will make those decisions along the lines of their preconceived cultural, moral, and political views.
Even when the effect is to override existing civil liberties.
The debate over the shutdowns has been presented as a utilitarian contest between lives and the economy: balancing the risk to people and the risk to their ability to earn a living. But beyond the utilitarian debates and the numbers, of unemployment figures, and projected casualties, are the intangible moral and cultural factors that may well mark this nation even generations afterward.
Every emergency violation of civil liberties has left its scars on America. Including the Civil War. If this time is to be different, we must learn the lessons of those pasts before they turn into the new present.
No society is free all the time. But the difference between a free and unfree society is that a free society keeps asking challenging questions even during periods when civil liberties have been suspended. And by asking questions, its citizens work to keep this state of affairs an aberration, not the new normal.
When people become reflexively used to obeying orders, to jumping without asking any questions, then the crisis response becomes a new cultural norm. That’s why the fight to protect civil liberties from shutdown orders should not wait until the crisis is over. Even now may already be too late.
This is not the time to stop asking questions, but to start asking them.
President Trump can take an important first step by adopting a definition of essential businesses that includes gun stores: sending the message that the government stands behind the Second Amendment.
Because civil liberties don’t stop mattering during a pandemic. They matter now more than ever.
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U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- As NRA is actively fighting gun store closures across the country, President Trump’s newly-updated DHS guidance echoes what the NRA is arguing in court: that firearms and ammunition retailers are “critical infrastructure.”
On March 28, DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency(“CISA”) updated its guidance on the critical infrastructure that the agency determined should remain open during state shutdown orders due to Covid-19.
The new guidance identifies the following firearms and ammunition industry workers as critical infrastructure:
“Workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors, and shooting ranges.”
Several states relied on CISA's failure to include firearms retailers in prior guidance as a reason to order those businesses to shut down.
The Free Beacon reported that New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal (D) cited the DHS guidance as support for Governor Phil Murphy's (D) decision to completely shut off firearm transfers in the Garden State.
“The governor's executive order tracks every other executive order that has a stay-at-home provision and none of those—none of those—contain an exemption for firearm stores and nor does the federal guidance from Homeland Security contain that type of exemption when it comes to essential facilities and nonessential facilities,” Grewal said.
NRA looks forward to a speedy reversal by New Jersey and other states who have claimed to rely on CISA's guidelines in determining what businesses are “essential” and can therefore lawfully remain open during “shelter-in-place” orders.
Please join us in thanking President Trump and his administration for once again keeping his promise to protect the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans.
Visit nraila.org/coronavirus to learn more about what NRA is doing to protect your rights from “emergency” gun control measures.
About:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
Editor Note: Readers, please share this article with your state, local and federal representatives, police departments and sheriffs as well local firearms retailers to make them aware of the new guidance so we can get our local business back to work and fellow Americans the products they need to remain safe.
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Under the Trump Administration's guidance, the Department of Homeland Security has declared firearms manufacturers and retailers “essential businesses,” possibly driving a spike through the heart of various state and local “emergency powers” declarations that had classified gun stores to be “non-essential” during the current Coronavirus panic, and had ordered them closed.
The document released by DHS simply says that “Workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors, and shooting ranges” are considered essential.
DHS Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce 03-28-2020
The announcement came after several days of often conflicting and confusing arguments about which businesses are necessary for public safety and security, and which are not. The controversy reached a point of ridiculousness when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s emergency order listed employees at marijuana shops, breweries and winemaking facilities as part of the essential workforce, but omitted firearm and ammunition retailers and distributors.
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy was sued in federal district court for ordering gun shops to close. One of those lawsuits, filed by the Second Amendment Foundation, is already in motion and was covered by AmmoLand News here.
Friday morning in North Carolina, a federal lawsuit was filed against Wake County Sheriff Gerald M. Baker for refusing to accept new applications for pistol purchase permits or concealed handgun permits until April 30, 2020, using the COVID-19 outbreak as justification. SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and Grass Roots North Carolina joined forces on that lawsuit on behalf of Wake County resident Kelly Stafford.
A few hours later, SAF and FPC joined forces with the National Rifle Association, California Gun Rights Foundation and several others in a federal lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. They are also alleged to be using the COVID-19 pandemic to close down gun stores.
“Every freedom loving American owes President Donald Trump and his administration a very big thank you for protecting our Second Amendment rights,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb in reaction to the DHS announcement. “This is another Trump promise made and promise kept.”
Gottlieb noted “a lot of people have done incredible work…to make it happen.”
He suggested that images of citizens rushing to gun stores “reminded government officials what the Second Amendment is really about.”
“Even people who never before owned a firearm rushed to buy one as the pandemic has spread,” Gottlieb stated. “Instinctively, people headed to those places where they could buy guns and ammunition, which underscores just how essential those businesses really are.”
A new CISA memo from the Department of Homeland Security says “Workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors, and shooting ranges” are considered part of the “essential infrastructure workforce.”
In some states, local governments have tried to get in on the gun ban action. SAF had hinted strongly that it would be considering several lawsuits against states and political subdivisions that tried to close gun stores and even prohibit the carrying of firearms outside the home.
The announcement came on the heels of a decision in the State of Delaware to back away from a gun shop closure order. Faced with a federal lawsuit threat from SAF, the NRA, and FPC, Delaware revised the language of its emergency declaration, Gottlieb said in a telephone conversation. The order had come from Democrat Gov. John Carney earlier in the week.
That order now reads: “Firearms dealers may conduct sales of firearms, ammunition, and other goods directly related to responsible firearm storage and maintenance, by appointment only. No more than two appointments per half-hour shall occur, and sellers are limited to operating during normal working hours they operated on prior to the State of Emergency. Any seller who violates such directive may be subject to criminal prosecution or other civil enforcement remedies up to and including arrest or the involuntary closure of the business.”
“After we sued New Jersey, our threatened lawsuit against Delaware…played a key role in bringing about this change of heart,” SAF’s Gottlieb said. “We can think of no more essential endeavor outside of health care and emergency services during a time of crisis than a business that enables citizens to exercise their fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment.”
It is not known what, if any, immediate impact the DHS declaration will have on the recently-filed legal actions.
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books #add on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
SAF Applauds Trump Admin. For ‘Essential’ Ruling On Gun Shops
Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- Declaring that American gun owners owe President Donald Trump a “very big thank you,” the Second Amendment Foundation today is cheering the announcement from the Department of Homeland Security defining firearms manufacturers and retailers as “essential businesses.
“Every freedom-loving American owes President Donald Trump and his administration a very big thank you for protecting our Second Amendment rights,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb in reaction to the DHS announcement.
“This is another Trump promise made and a promise kept.”
Gottlieb, who has been busy preparing lawsuits against several potential states and even local governments for ordering gun shops to close their doors during the COVID-19 crisis—defining them as “non-essential businesses” while okaying such things as breweries and marijuana shops—was delighted at the news.
“A lot of people have done incredible work this week to make it happen,” he confirmed. “A number of people, including governors and even mayors and at least one California sheriff appear to have let their personal politics get in the way of common-sense public policy. During a time of crisis, we can think of no more essential endeavor outside of health care and emergency services than businesses that enable citizens to exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms.
“It could be that the American public, by heading to gun shops and sporting goods stores as the Coronavirus panic spread, reminded government officials what the Second Amendment is really about,” Gottlieb observed. “Even people who never before owned a firearm rushed to buy one as the pandemic has spread. Instinctively, people headed to those places where they could buy guns and ammunition, which underscores just how essential those businesses really are.
“The president and his administration have done the right thing,” Gottlieb said. “They are dealing with a national emergency while remembering that no malady, however severe, can nullify or even temporarily suspend the exercise of a constitutionally delineated fundamental right.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.
Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
NSSF Thanks Trump Administration for Industry’s Critical Infrastructure Designation
Department of Homeland Security includes firearm manufacturing, distribution, retail and ranges as essential critical services.
NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearm and ammunition industry, is grateful for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inclusion of the firearm industry’s manufacturing, distribution, retail and range businesses as essential critical services that should remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic. NSSF has been working closely with the Trump Administration and DHS to convey the important role the firearm and ammunition industry performs for national security, public safety, and the ability for continued exercise of individual constitutional liberties and self-protection.
“We are deeply appreciative to the Trump Administration and Department of Homeland Security for recognizing the vital role our industry fulfills in our nation,” said Lawrence G. Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for NSSF.
“We have seen over the past week hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans choosing to exercise their right to keep and bear arms to ensure their safety and the safety of loved ones during these uncertain times. Americans must not be denied the ability to exercise that right to lawfully purchase and acquire firearms during times of emergency. This guidance from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is crucial to governors and local officials as they craft the orders to preserve public health.”
The firearm industry continues to provide small arms to the U.S. military, even during times of crisis. The national security mission remains and U.S. Armed Forces, with rare exceptions, rely upon domestically manufactured small arms. Most law enforcement departments rely on local firearm retailers to supply them with their firearms to perform the critical duty of providing for community safety. Law-abiding individuals also rely on these retailers for the ability to purchase their firearms and ammunition. It is also where retailers are able to explain the responsibilities of safe firearm ownership and storage and new gun owners are able to access ranges to learn to safely handle their firearms.
About National Shooting Sports Foundation
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports.
Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen's organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, log on to www.nssf.org.
GOA and GOC Thank the Trump Administration for Designating Firearms Industry as Essential
USA – President Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has revised its guidance of critical infrastructure to include the firearms industry as part of the Essential Critical Infrastructure. This revision comes shortly after Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners of California (GOC) sent a letter to the administration urging inclusion of the firearms industry.
The guidance specifically includes “[w]orkers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors, and shooting ranges” as part of the Essential Critical Infrastructure.
GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt said, “It is very encouraging to see CISA include the firearms industry as essential. In these uncertain times, the ability to protect yourself — and to acquire firearms, magazines and ammunition — should not be ignored. GOA/GOC thanks the Trump Administration for listening to our letter and ensuring that Americans can protect themselves in these difficult times.”
Erich Pratt, or another GOA spokesperson, is available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists.
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BELLEVUE, WA – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation declare victory today when New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy backed away from his earlier position on gun shop operations in the state during the current COVID-19 panic, and will now allow operations by appointment.
The Second Amendment Foundation sued Murphy and acting State Police Supt. Col. Patrick Callahan in U.S. District Court last week, seeking a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.
They were ultimately joined by the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Legacy Indoor Range and Armory LLC and the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), Racing Rails LLC d/b/a Legend Firearms and several private citizens. Plaintiffs were represented by noted civil rights attorney David Jensen of New York and Adam Kraut of California.
“We’re delighted that Gov. Murphy has reversed course on this matter, even if it took a lawsuit to get him to do it,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Our lawsuit cut right to the heart of what the Second Amendment is all about, which is personal protection during emergency situations like the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has gripped the nation.”
Murphy found himself in the uncomfortable, and untenable, position of having to defend his armed protection detail while having closed down Garden State gun shops, making it impossible for average citizens to by even ammunition, much less a firearm.
“While we pursue litigation elsewhere,” Gottlieb said, “we’re happy that the situation in New Jersey has changed. Regardless of what some politicians might think, the Second Amendment is not subject to emergency orders, same as the First, Fourth, Fifth or other constitutional protections.
“This is one more example of SAF’s ongoing mission to win back firearms freedom, one lawsuit at a time,” he concluded.
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
The Second Amendment Foundation (
Erich Pratt, or another GOA spokesperson, is available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists.