24th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference
'Challenges Ahead'

Photos and Report by
Dave Workman
Senior Editor

Our GRPC 2009 report is divided into sessions for easier reading.
Click on the desired section to read.

September 26, 2009
September 27, 2009

“The issue is freedom.”

Building on Heller
Gura was back at the microphone to discuss how the gun rights movement can build on the Heller ruling. Noting that he is now involved in about a half-dozen cases for the Second Amendment Foundation, Gura revealed that even anti-gunners with whom he has debated the Second Amendment issue believe that incorporation is inevitable.

“I predict that we are going to see the Second Amendment apply to all levels of government,” he said, “and a year from now I don’t believe that Chicago is going to have a handgun ban.”

The next step to take, he suggested, is to make sure that laws recognize the right to bear arms as well as keep them. That is behind the most recent SAF lawsuit in Washington, DC. Gura said he has filed several cases with SAF assistance that challenge restrictions on the right of people to carry guns.

Gura reminded the audience, though, that “governments have always been allowed to regulate the way in which you carry a gun.” In the 19th Century, society looked at people who carried concealed handguns as “sneaky, dastardly people” and that honest citizens carried their guns openly. Things have reversed and nowadays, open carry is the exception rather than the norm.

He credited SAF for having a litigation program unlike anything done by anyone else, and he encouraged the audience to support that program with contributions.

Gene Hoffman, chairman of the CalGuns Foundation, told the audience that “One of the things about being a gunowner in California, it is a little like being an African American in Birmingham in 1962.”

He detailed the history of gun rights legal challenges in the Golden State, challenging the state’s approved handgun roster, going after concealed carry restrictions and filing a carry case with the Pink Pistols, a gay gun rights organization. To fight these battles, CalGuns began raising money and started what amounts to the “French Resistance” in California.

He cautioned the audience to “keep an eye on California, it is where all the bad ideas start.”

“Help us stop them there,” he said.

Also from California, attorney Don Kilmer then took the podium to explain the long history of the Nordyke case, which resulted in a 9th Circuit Court panel ruling earlier this year that said the Second Amendment is incorporated to the states through the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

The case began as a challenged to a gun ban on county property in Alameda County in 1997. As the case wound its way through the courts, it suffered setbacks and then resurrection after the 2008 Heller ruling. Nordyke provided a disagreement between appeals courts on whether the Second Amendment is incorporated, and now the case has been re-heard by request of a 9th Circuit judge. However, that en banc ruling was put on hold almost immediately after the second hearing in September, pending the outcome of the McDonald Chicago case before the Supreme Court.

“Incorporation is eventually going to happen,” Kilmer predicted.

Author David Young followed with a scathing critique of a brief filed in the Heller case by 15 historians. Asserting that this brief was riddled with historic inaccuracies and errors of fact, he recalled that the high court rejected the brief. Young said it was “a disgrace” for professional historians to present such a brief to the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, he said, pro rights activists were not in a position to refute the claims in that document, which he impolitely called “a steaming pile of tripe.” Young said the brief completely misrepresented how the Second Amendment came into existence. He told the audience that “knowledge is power, but knowledge of a name to call someone is not going to help us.”

Guns, 10th Amendment
The next panel explored a growing controversy over state’s rights versus federal authority, and focused specifically on new laws in Montana and Tennessee that defy the federal interstate commerce laws.

Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA), offered an overview of his state’s new Firearms Freedom Act, which holds that guns made in Montana that never leave the state are not subject to interstate commerce requirements. MSSA is currently involved in a lawsuit over the legislation, with support from the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).

“The idea that states are sovereign has been sweeping the nation,” he commented. “The issue is freedom.”

Marbut observed that the states had essentially created the federal government, and “Our message to the states is to get your creature on a leash.” The new law is aimed specifically at “taking a swipe at the interstate commerce powers of Congress.”

He said it is time to get the federal government “under control.”

Later in his presentation, Marbut noted that the Montana legislation has been copied successfully in Tennessee, and that other states had introduced similar bills.

“People are tired of the heavy hand of the federal government,” he stated. “We just want to be left alone.”

CalGuns’ Hoffman was also on this panel, and he noted that the movement by states to reassert their authority was ignited by their opposition to the Real ID Act. Calling it an unfunded mandate, Marbut said 37 states opposed that federal legislation.

Helping fuel this states’ rights movement, he indicated, is the reaction to federal health care mandates.

Tennessee State Sen. Doug Jackson explained how the law worked in his state. A pro-gun Democrat, he cautioned the audience that “government is after your rights and you are called unpatriotic if you don’t support that.”

He recalled one bill filed in Tennessee this year that would have enabled district attorneys to issue their own search warrants, which traditionally require the signature of a judge. Quoting Mark Twain, he noted that “I don’t tell jokes, I just look at government and report.”

Jackson said there is “a lot of fear in society” right now and cautioned the audience that “Unsettled times bring risks to our freedoms.” He expressed concerns that too much power has been given to the federal government.

Marbut closed the panel discussion advising that people can follow the Montana case at: firearmsfreedomact.com.

Campus Safety
The next afternoon panel discussed campus safety and the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) movement at colleges and universities.

Olivia Alexander, Kansas coordinator for SCCC, led the discussion, noting that she was a novice who knew nothing of firearms until getting involved in this group.

“I’ve always believed that the best way to combat a tragic incident is to be prepared for anything, and that is what concealed carry is all about,” she said.

Acknowledging that she had been “uncomfortable around guns,” Alexander said there is a fear of the unknown that contributes to opposition to gun rights.

“What (anti-gunners) should fear,” she said, “is people coming to great harm without the means to defend themselves.”

Alexander noted that anyone with a concealed pistol permit must complete a background check and meet all the other requirements.

“We are not recruiting gunslinging vigilantes to enforce the law on campus,” she said.

SCCC will continue to press for personal protection rights on campuses by staging empty holster protests and working on legislative efforts, she indicated.

She was followed to the podium by Jonathan Ratliff, SCCC Missouri state director. He told the audience that politicians must be held accountable because they frequently promise action on legislation, don’t fulfill that promise, and then come back the following year with the same promise.

“Year after year,” he lamented, “they will promise us the world.”

A campus concealed carry bill had been introduced in the Missouri House, and it passed by a wide margin, only to die in the Senate due to what he called “political maneuvering.”

“The same thing happens in states all across the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, campus crimes continue, Ratliff indicated, recalling that not long ago there was an attempted rape on a Missouri campus coed who fended off her attacker with pepper spray.

“The most important thing we can do,” Ratliff said, “is demand accountability. Maybe it’s our fault that we have not done it enough.”

Closing out the discussion, Paul Ready, founder of the Missouri University SCCC chapter who is now attending law school at the University of Houston, TX, recalled an incident at Houston where someone was shot while standing at a campus bus stop. He said there are frequent campus e-mail alerts about robberies and assaults, and that campus police have advised students to “be alert and remain calm.”

“I think that’s insufficient,” Ready observed.

After students organized a meeting on campus safety, he said a standing-room-only crowd gathered, and all but one supported the SCCC movement. There are currently some 40,000 SCCC members across the country and there has been legislation introduced in 13 states to allow the carry of concealed handguns on campus by students who have valid permits.
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