2nd Amendment – Page 4 – In-Gauge of Polk County

County Commission Recognizes the National Rifle Association for 150 Years of Service

The Board of Polk County Commissioners Recognizes the National Rifle Association for 150 Years of Service

November 17th established as NRA Day in Polk County, Florida

Tuesday, September 7^th, the Board of Polk County Commissioners, issued a proclamation recognizing the National Rifle Association for its 150 years of dedication to promoting firearms safety education. The proclamation establishes November 17, 2021 NRA Day in Polk County.

The proclamation recognizes the National Rifle Association for 150 years of protecting Second Amendment freedom, teaching marksmanship and gun safety, and passing self-defense laws across the nation.

Since its founding on November 17, 1871, by two Union Civil War officers, the National Rifle Association has served firearm owners across the nation through training and other initiatives aimed at promoting firearm safety, the shooting sports and hunter education.

The proclamation was initiated by In-Gauge of Polk County, of Winter Haven, Florida, a non-profit organization chartered by the National Rifle Association. The stated mission of In-Gauge of Polk County is to preserve and promote the shooting sports through firearms training and safety education.

In-Gauge has been carrying out its mission in Polk County since 2015 and has been celebrating the NRA’s 150^th anniversary by conducting free firearm safety training classes, giving away free NRA memberships and free commemorative, 1 ounce silver, collector’s coins to class participants.

In 2017, In-Gauge of Polk County became a proud sponsor of the Polk Senior Games when it petitioned Polk Senior Games, Inc. to include a pistol competition as an event. Although the Polk Senior Games conducted rifle, trap and skeet and archery competitions, it did not have a pistol competition. In 2017, for the first time in its 25-year history, the Polk Senior Games conducted a pistol competition sponsored by In-Gauge of Polk County. The pistol competition continues to be a regular event in the Polk Senior Games annual program.

In-Gauge will be conducting other public events commemorating the NRA’s 150^th anniversary through the month of November.

Biden Administration Bans Importation of Russian Ammunition

Biden Administration Bans Importation of Russian Ammunition

AUGUST 22, 2021 : NRA-ILA

The Biden Administration’s Department of State announced that it will soon prohibit the importation of Russian ammunition into the United States. According to a release on the Department of State’s website, “[n]ew and pending permit applications for the permanent importation of firearms and ammunition manufactured or located in Russia will be subject to a policy of denial.”

While the new policy appears to prohibit the importation of both firearms and ammunition, the importation of Russian origin firearms was already heavily restricted under past executive policies. The primary effect of this new policy will be on Russian origin ammunition.

The State Department claims that it is imposing these “sanctions on the Russian Federation over its use of a “Novichok” nerve agent in the August 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition figure Aleksey Navalny.” While that may be a viable reason for the United States government to sanction the Russian Federation, the ammunition import restriction seems more aimed at punishing American gun owners and businesses than as a foreign policy tool to influence the Russian Federation.

Ammunition exports to the United States are only a small percentage of the GDP of the Russian Federation, but Russian origin ammo makes up a large part of the American ammunition supply. American gun owners were already suffering from a market where demand was exceeding available supply. This new move by the Biden Administration will severely worsen the present supply problems.

The release goes on to note that the new policy:

will take effect upon the publication of a Federal Register notice expected on September 7, 2021, and they will remain in place for a minimum of 12 months. The sanctions can only be lifted after a 12-month period if the Executive Branch determines and certifies to Congress that Russia has met several conditions . . . including (1) providing reliable assurances that it will not use chemical weapons in violation of international law, (2) it is not making preparations to use chemical weapons in the future, (3) it is willing to allow international inspectors to verify those assurances, and (4) it is making restitution to Mr. Navalny.

While this delayed implementation date may seem to make a rush to approve new ammunition shipments possible, it’s not clear that ATF will provide any type of rush approval for the Form 6s necessary to lawfully import ammunition into the United States. These forms often take six or more weeks to get approved, so ATF delays may prevent any new shipments being approved for importation.

It appears that importers will be able to continue to import ammunition that was already approved prior to the publication of the notice in the Federal Register. That ammunition will likely be rapidly consumed due to present demand for ammunition in the United States.

The full effect of this new policy will likely not be realized for a few months, but it will certainly lead to more ammunition shortages, higher prices, and therefore fewer Americans excising their fundamental rights. It may also result in the shuttering of American small businesses that rely heavily on the importation of Russian ammunition. All of this is of course by design for the Biden Administration.

We will continue to keep all NRA members informed of this newest overreach by President Biden on his crusade against law-abiding American gun owners. NRA is reviewing all political, legislative, and legal options to fight this new policy.

2nd Amendment rights collide with law enforcement leaders desire to reduce crime

Police opposition doesn’t stop conservative gun law rollback

Associated Press – Lindsay Whithurst – August 9, 2021

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The latest push to loosen gun laws in states across the U.S. has put police officers at odds with Republican lawmakers who usually trumpet support for law enforcement.

In states like Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana, police opposed pushes to drop requirements for people to get background checks and training before carrying handguns in public, plans that came as gun sales continued to shatter records during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We feel it was just another opportunity to get our officers hurt,” said Fabian Blache Jr., executive director of the Louisiana Chiefs of Police Association. “It was a danger to law enforcement.”

There, a last-ditch public plea by dozens of Louisiana law enforcement officers helped narrowly avert a push to override the Democratic governor’s veto of legislation dropping concealed-carry permit requirements. But he expects the proposal to come back next year, and in several other conservative-leaning states police opposition didn’t stop laws dropping permit requirements.

Gun violence is on the rise across the country and law enforcement agencies are struggling with how to manage the spikes, especially in cities. The federal government has stepped in with strike forces and other measures help to stop the sale of illegal weapons. Cops are already working at a disadvantage in many cities over forces winnowed by retirements and difficulty attracting new officers following the massive police protests in 2020, and many see looser gun laws as one more challenge.

Not knowing who might be carrying a gun heightens the potential danger in any encounter, and less required training means more people who don’t know how to properly handle a weapon, Blanche said.

“Police officers are trained around the country, and they make mistakes,” he said. “So why are we going to give opportunity to people who are not trained to be able to carry a firearm and use it at will?”

In Tennessee this year, warnings from police chiefs and sheriffs didn’t stop a push to drop permit requirements in the GOP-controlled state Legislature. That law passed months after another measure cracking down on protesters camping out for police reform, a vote that was framed as a support for law enforcement.

Though several polls have found public support for gun permits, arguments that they undermine Second Amendment rights have gained favor in conservative-leaning state governments in recent years.

“There is something of a disjunction between repeating the political slogan of ‘back the blue’ versus supporting policies that rank-and-file police and leaders of police organizations actually support,” said Robert Spitzer, a professor at The State University of New York-Cortland and author of “The Politics of Gun Control.”

Police opposition hasn’t stopped a push to drop permitting requirements that’s passed in about 20 states, Spitzer said. While their positions carry authority, they don’t have the ad campaigns and lobbyists that overtly political interests often do.

“Their voices and opinions have been known, but they haven’t been a real megaphone in public political terms because that puts them in a real bad spot. They’re public servants and their job is to enforce the law, no matter what the law is,” he said.

And permitless carry has supporters in law enforcement, including sheriffs, many of whom are in elected positions and oversee more rural areas. In Utah and Iowa, police groups were more divided generally stayed out of the debate this year.

Discussions about police reform dominated the conversation in Iowa, as well as how to stem the rise in violent crime, said Sam Hargadine, the Iowa Police Chiefs Association executive director. He doesn’t see the permit question as a big piece of the violent-crime discussion, especially since chiefs already couldn’t deny people permits.

“I think there’s extremes on both sides. But there’s got to be some compromises made, because we’re having far too many shootings,” he said.

Not all police oppose the legislation, and gun-rights advocates don’t see a conflict between combating crime and making it easier for people to carry firearms. They argue that people generally don’t get permits for guns used in violent crimes, so the change will make it easier for those who do follow the law to get a gun and many measures also tougher penalties for some gun crimes.

For Texas Republican James White, his party’s differing with the chiefs of the state’s largest cities on permit-less carry was part of the give-and-take of the legislative process.

“There were some things this session … where we were consistent with where law enforcement would want to be, and there were sometimes that we just had to tell them we have to look a different direction,” said White, an outgoing state lawmaker now running for agriculture commissioner.

He also touted the stronger penalties contained in the law for felons who carry guns illegally. “It was a very strong on crime, tough on crime deal,” he said.

White argued the new law didn’t represent a massive shift in a state where guns were allowed in cars without permits and licenses weren’t required for long guns. Texas became the largest state to drop handgun licensing requirements this year, a move applauded by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates.

Alan Gottlieb with the Second Amendment Foundation argued that policing is already inherently dangerous and dropping permits won’t make a big dent but will enhance gun rights. “I shouldn’t need a permit to exercise my constitutional rights,” he said.

Police opposition had helped keep the idea from gaining traction even in firearm-friendly Texas, but with a change in legislative leadership support swelled over the span of a few weeks this year. It passed over objections from survivors of the mass shooting that killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart two years ago.

“One thing I’ve learned in my many years of working with police is, you can rely on them to tell you what’s going to put the public at danger,” said Everytown For Gun Safety President John Feinblatt. “I think that what police know is that crime is rising around the country and this is the worst possible moment to pass laws like this.”

Joe Biden Admits He Wants 9mm Pistols Banned

‘I’m Continuing To Push To Eliminate The Sale Of’ Things Like ‘9mm Pistol,’

CNN Town Hall: Joe Biden Suggests a 9mm Pistol Ban

https://newsbinding.com/news/cnn-town-hall-joe-biden-suggests-a-9mm-pistol-ban/

07-21-2021
During his Wednesday night CNN town hall, President Joe Biden talked about a “push to eliminate” 9mm pistols that have an ammunition capacity beyond that of which the left approves.

Biden said, “The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a 9mm pistol or whether it’s a rifle, is ridiculous. I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things.”

Up until now, Biden has pushed “assault weapons” ban legislation and moved executively to have the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) take regulatory action against AR-pistols with stabilizer braces.

On June 7, 2021, Breitbart News reported the DOJ moved to place certain AR-pistols under the purview of the National Firearms Act. But those AR-pistols are chambered in 5.56 or .223, not 9mm. Biden’s mention of going after 9mm pistols opens the door to regulating wildly popular Glock, Heckler & Koch, Smith & Wesson, Sig Sauer, Kahr, Taurus, and Springfield Armory pistols, among many others.

Biden: ‘I’m Continuing To Push To Eliminate The Sale Of’ Things Like ‘9mm Pistol,’ ‘Rifle’

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-biden-indicates-he-wants-to-ban-the-sale-of-handguns

Jul 22, 2021 DailyWire.com

President Joe Biden suggested during a CNN town hall on Wednesday night that he is pushing to eliminate the sale of high-capacity pistols and rifles.

“I’m the only guy that ever got — passed legislation when I was a senator to make sure we eliminated assault weapons,” Biden said. “The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a, whether it’s a 9mm pistol or whether it’s a rifle, is ridiculous.”

“I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things, but I’m not likely to get that done in the near term,” Biden added.

TRANSCRIPT:

QUESTION: So how will you address gun violence from a federal point of view to actually bring about change and make our local cities safer?

BIDEN: Now, I’m not being a wise guy, there’s no reason you [inaudible], have you seen my gun violence legislation I’ve introduced? As you know, because you’re so involved, actually, crime is down. Gun violence and murder rates are up. Guns. I’m the only guy that ever got passed, legislation when I was a senator, to make sure we eliminated assault weapons. The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a, whether it’s a 9mm pistol, or whether it’s a rifle, is ridiculous. I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things. But I’m not likely to get that done in the near term. So, here’s what I’ve done. The people who, in fact, are using those weapons are acquiring them illegally, illegally. And so what happens is, I’ve gotten ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, I have them increase their budget and increase their capacity along with the Justice Department to go after the gun shops that are not abiding by the law of doing background checks. For real, that’s number one. Number two, number two, we are in a position where you, most of the cities, and I don’t know enough, I think you’ve had a lot of gun violence here in Cincinnati, I think it was up to what, how many, how many dead? 500 over a period? Don’t hold me to the number, whatever it was. But my point is all across the country. And it’s not because the gun shops in the cities are selling these guns. They are either shadow gun dealers and or gun shops that are not abiding by the law. So we’re going to do major investigations and shut those guys down and put some of them in jail and for what they’re doing, selling these weapons. There’s also a thing called ghost guns that are being sold now and being used. And so but in addition to that, what we have to do is we have to deal with a larger problem of the whole issue of law enforcement generally, we’re in a situation where as much as we need to pass the Floyd Act and all that, but here’s the deal. Cops are having real trouble. They’re not all bad guys, there are a lot of good guys. We need more policemen, not fewer policemen. But we need them involved in community policing, community policing. And when we did that, violent crime went down, all the criticism about the original crime, but guess what, crime went down until we stopped doing community policing. So it’s about getting, we have availability now, of over, billion, lots of money, for cops to be able to hire psychologists, psychiatrists, as well as social workers to be engaged in the process.
DailyWire.com – Jul 22, 2021

Federal Appellate Court Rules: Age Ban On Purchasing Handguns “Unconstitutional”

Judges say they won’t relegate ‘the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status’

By Todd Ruger – July 13, 2021

https://www.rollcall.com/2021/07/13/appeals-court-finds-aged-based-handgun-purchase-ban-unconstitutional/

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the long-standing federal ban on sales of handguns from licensed dealers to 18- to 20-year-olds is unconstitutional, because Congress in the 1960s did not demonstrate a good enough reason for the law.

In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., found that the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is no different from other constitutional rights that start at age 18, so the government must have a justification to restrict that right.

“Despite the weighty interest in reducing crime and violence, we refuse to relegate either the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status,” Judge Julius Richardson wrote for the majority.

Richardson, a President Donald Trump appointee, was joined in the majority opinion by Judge G. Stephen Agee, a President George W. Bush appointee.

Judge James Wynn Jr., a President Barack Obama appointee, wrote a dissent that said the panel had overstepped its role as a court, and that “the majority’s decision to grant the gun lobby a victory in a fight it lost on Capitol Hill more than 50 years ago is not compelled by law.”

The Justice Department will almost certainly appeal the decision, which comes during an incendiary national debate over gun control laws prompted by everyday shootings as well as a series of mass shootings over the years at concerts, schools and other public spaces.

The Supreme Court, with a newly expanded 6-3 conservative majority, has teed up a major case about state concealed carry laws for the term that starts in October that will be a test of how far the justices might extend constitutional gun rights outside the home.

Meanwhile, Congress stands at a partisan deadlock over numerous gun control proposals backed mostly by Democrats, and President Joe Biden has issued executive orders and taken other actions to combat what he calls an “epidemic” of gun violence.

The decision recounts how in 1964, Congress, concerned about increasing gun violence, began a “field investigation and public hearings” and concluded among other things that juveniles getting handguns without consent of parents “is a significant factor in the prevalence of lawlessness and violent crime in the United States.”

In 1968, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, which prohibited licensed dealers from selling handguns to anyone under age 21 but permitted the sale of shotguns and rifles to those individuals, the decision states.

Later that year, Congress changed that law through the Gun Control Act of 1968, which prohibited licensed dealers from selling any firearm to those under 18 and maintained the ban on the sale of handguns for 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds

The 4th Circuit majority found that Congress, when banning the sale of handguns and handgun ammunition to that age group, used “disproportionate crime rates to craft over-inclusive laws that restrict the rights of overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens.”

“And in doing so, Congress focused on purchases from licensed dealers without establishing those dealers as the source of the guns 18- to 20-year-olds use to commit crimes,” Richardson wrote for the majority.

The law restricts the rights of more than 99 percent of that age group because “a fraction of 1% commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime,” the majority wrote, and it is already illegal for felons, fugitives, drug users and immigrants who entered the country illegally to buy firearms from licensed dealers.

“So the laws at issue by their nature prevent a more law-abiding, less dangerous subset of 18- to 20-year-olds from purchasing from a more regulated market,” the majority wrote.

“The irony does not escape us that, under the government’s reasoning, the same 18- to 20-year-old men and women we depend on to protect us in the armed forces and who have since our Founding been trusted with the most sophisticated weaponry should nonetheless be prevented from purchasing a handgun from a federally licensed dealer for their own protection at home,” the majority wrote.

There is no ban against 18- to 20-year-olds owning, possessing or using a gun, the opinion states. Dealers can sell guns to parents or guardians who can gift them to minor children, but not when the children provide the money.

If it stands, the decision would mean 18- to 20-year-olds could buy a handgun from a licensed dealer but not cigarettes or alcohol.

The majority also wrote that it’s unclear whether the ban has been effective, something Wynn cautioned against in the dissent.

Wynn wrote that “doing so will place the nation and its lawmakers in a formidable catch-22: pass too onerous a regulation and see it struck down for violating the Second Amendment; pass too permissive a measure and suffer the same result.”

“This heads-I-win, tails-you-lose approach is a recipe for national inaction on gun violence,” Wynn wrote.

The plaintiff in the case is a 19-year-old woman who got a protective order against her abusive ex-boyfriend who, after that order, had been arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm and controlled substances, the decision states.

She also works as an equestrian trainer and often finds herself in remote rural areas where she interacts with unfamiliar people, and she considers a handgun as the most effective tool for protection from those risks, the decision states.

Pandemic gun violence surge was not linked to rise in gun sales, study finds

New Study Delivers a Kill Shot to Another Anti-Gun Narrative

Research suggests looking at role of job loss, economic change, closure of schools and community organizations and civil unrest

The Guardian – 2021-07-09

Gun homicides surged across the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, in the same year that Americans bought a record-breaking number of guns.

But some of America’s leading gun violence researchers have concluded that what might seem like an obvious cause-and-effect – a surge in gun buying leads to a surge in gun violence – is not supported by the data.

Through July of last year, there was no clear association between the increase in firearm purchases and the increase in most interpersonal gun violence at the state level, according to a new study published in Injury Epidemiology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

A peace march 6 March 2020 in Oakland to showcase the impact of Oakland’s lifesaving gun violence reduction programs.

The findings suggest that “we need to be looking at other factors, like job loss, economic change, the closure of schools and community organizations and nonprofits, and civil unrest,” in order to understand last year’s increase in gun violence, Julia Schleimer, the lead author of the new study, said.

There did appear to be some association between the increase in gun purchasing and an increase in domestic violence gun injuries in April and May, but that correlation might also be explained by other factors, including increased substance abuse or the decreased access to domestic violence support services during the early months of lockdown, Schleimer said.

The results of the new study are an unexpected addition to the fierce political battle over how to explain last year’s estimated 25% increase in homicides, which experts say they expect will be the worst single-year increase in killings since the 1960s. While official government data is not yet available, experts are projecting that the US saw an additional 4,000 to 5,000 homicides nationwide in 2020, and the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive recorded nearly 4,000 additional gun homicides last year compared with 2019.

Even though the homicide rate across big cities remains close to half of what it was in the 1990s, some politicians have used the single-year jump in killings to paint Democrats and the Biden administration as soft on crime, using an old political playbook of stoking anxiety over crime and violence in order to win elections.

Joe Biden has responded by focusing on firearms access and calling for new gun control laws, as well as supporting increased funding for police and community violence intervention programs.

The findings of the new study from the state-funded Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, do not fit tidily into either of these partisan political narratives. While the new study raises doubts about a correlation between last year’s spike in gun purchases and the increases in shootings, it doesn’t address the underlying risk of easy access to guns in the US, Schleimer said.

While official government crime data is not yet available for 2020, roughly three-quarters of US homicides annually are committed with guns, and experts estimate nonfatal shootings injure 100,000 people a year, often leaving survivors with serious, life-altering injuries.

There is a large body of research demonstrating the correlation between gun access and increased risk of gun injury, Schleimer said, an association that is particularly clear when it comes to the risk of gun suicide. The increase in shootings during 2020 may have been driven by Americans who already owned guns before the pandemic, not by the people who bought guns for the first time last year – but that does not mean that gun access is irrelevant, she said.

At the same time, the lack of any clear correlation between what the researchers estimated as 4.3m additional firearm purchases nationally from March through July 2020, and a 27% increase in firearm injuries over that time, suggests that other factors besides gun access and gun control laws deserve more attention, and more research, Schleimer said.Advertisement

“There are a lot of strategies that can address some of the more social determinants of violence,” Schleimer said, including supporting violence interrupters and other community-based violence intervention programs, and focusing on economic policies that might help reduce gun violence, which is deeply correlated with poverty and concentrated disadvantage. “There’s some good evidence on youth summer job programs and young people’s risk for violence.”

It made sense that politicians and other public figures would point to the increase in gun buying in 2020 as a potential reason shootings had increased last year, Schleimer said.

But, she said, “Our findings, from this current study, in this particular context, are not supporting that.”

The new study has several limitations, including the complexity of factors that might have influenced gun violence during 2020, and the lack of official data on both gun sales and gun injuries. The researchers estimated gun sales using federal background check data, and relied on shooting incident data collected from media reports by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, said the study followed “rigorous statistical methods,” and that it raised interesting questions about whether the increase in gun violence might be more closely connected to some Americans’ willingness to carry their previously purchased guns during the pandemic, rather than a spike in first-time gun purchases.

It was possible that in some states, many of the additional gun sales in 2020 went to people who had already owned multiple firearms – meaning that the surge in sales did not necessarily contribute to an increase in the overall prevalence of gun ownership, Webster said in an email.

“Data from Chicago and some other cities suggest that we have seen a sharp increase in illegal gun carrying,” he wrote. “The role that guns are playing in the increased levels of homicides may have more to do with increases in illegal gun carrying than with the number of incidents in which people buy guns legally, especially in the short-term.”

In general, Webster wrote, the relationship between gun ownership and the increased likelihood of a shooting depended a lot on who was acquiring the gun. “In places and among individuals who are particularly low risk, more guns may have little impact on rates of lethal violence, but in places and among individuals of high risk, gun ownership can greatly increase risks of lethal violence,” he wrote.

Schleimer also cautioned that it’s possible that there might be some connection between gun purchasing and gun violence in 2020 that was masked by other factors the researchers were not able to measure or control for.

“Last year was such a unique year in many ways, and the context was continually evolving, and there were a lot of factors changing all at once, both locally and at the state level and nationally in the context of the pandemic and social and civil unrest,” Schleimer said. “That really complicated what we were able to do analytically.”

To examine the possible link between gun sales and shootings, the UC Davis researchers looked at trends in gun purchasing, and gun injuries, across 48 states, and then examined whether there was a correlation between the number of additional guns purchased and the number of additional gun injuries during the spring and summer. They controlled for a range of state-level factors that might influence the number of gun injuries, including stay-at-home orders, coronavirus cases and deaths, unemployment, measures of racial tension and civil unrest and seasonal variations in rates of gun injury.

While an early analysis from the same researchers, looking only at March through May, had found a correlation between increased gun purchases and gun injuries, their final analysis did not find any clear pattern between how many additional guns were purchased in a state through July 2020 and how much of an increase the state saw in non-domestic violence firearms injuries. The study did not analyze gun suicides or suicide attempts.

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NRA Adding Members At A Rate Of 1K Per Day

By Eric Mack -Tuesday, 30 March 2021

The National Rifle Association has faced some challenges with bankruptcy proceedings and a move to Texas after New York Democrats sought to engage in politically motivated investigations, but its membership growth is strengthening.

The NRA has seen 150,000 new members this year alone, averaging about 1,000 new members a day, NRA Director of Media Relations Amy Hunter told The Epoch Times.

Mass murder events and President Joe Biden’s administration’s talk of gun-control measures have also led defenders of the Second Amendment to join the nation’s top gun lobby.

“We’ve had two federal bills that have been passed in the House, and they’re going to be heard in the Senate soon,” Hunter told the Times. “You have Biden talking about executive action that he’s going to take, and it’s been pretty steady throughout history that when you have an anti-gun president in office, and he’s passing laws, signing executive action, that usually causes a surge in NRA interest in membership.”

The NRA now boasts 5 million members after a summer surge, she added.

“There was a real surge during COVID,” she continued to the Times. “People were looking around at what was going on, they’re scared, all of the services, everything’s being shut down and being told to stay in their home. The only outlet they have is to watch TV and on TV they’re seeing riots and unrest happening across the country; they’re seeing that their politicians are closing gun stores, using emergency powers to sort of shutdown the Second Amendment.

“I just think people react as they always do when there’s periods of uncertainty. They want to make sure that they can keep their families safe. We’re also seeing headlines about police furloughs and calls to defund the police. Law-abiding people feel like, ‘well, worst-case scenario, I better make sure I can protect my own family.’ So we have seen a surge throughout COVID and it’s continued through this year and it continues into the Biden administration.”

President Biden has vowed to pass more gun laws after the supermarket shooting in Colorado, despite Republicans and gun-rights advocates noting mass murders ignore laws.

“I’m the only one who has ever got them passed, man,” Biden told reporters Monday about a 10-year ban on semi-automatic weapons in 1994.

The tough talk to take away gun rights of law-abiding American citizens has new members signing up for the NRA.

“We’re able to change things, we’re able to get laws changed, we’re able to prevent bad laws from going into action,” Hunter told the Times.

“We have a better membership, we have a stronger base, we have people who really believe in liberty and freedom and the Constitution, but we never underestimate our opponents.”

A gun-collecting Kansas judge is leading a new crusade to save the NRA from two existential threats: New York’s attorney general and the executives who currently run the organization.

Phillip Journey, a family court judge in Wichita and member of the NRA’s board, inserted himself into the group’s bankruptcy to try and block New York’s top law enforcement official from dissolving the 150-year-old group and distributing its $200 million in assets to other, less controversial gun-rights organizations. To do so, he says he must take on a culture of subservience and alleged financial misdeeds that has sprung up around the group’s top executive, Wayne LaPierre.

“A lot of times, bankruptcy looks like a dog pile,” Journey, who sold about 100 weapons from his personal collection to fund his successful campaign for the NRA board last year, said in an interview. “All I want is to open the door, let in an examiner and see where to go. Restore corporate governance and let the NRA operate like it’s supposed to.”

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Gun Tax – Pay or Have Your Guns Confiscated

Gun owners in San Jose, California, will soon face a yearly tax and be required to carry additional insurance after their city council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to impose the new measures.

San Jose to tax gun owners, will confiscate firearms for noncompliance

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/san-jose-tax-gun-owners-city-confiscate-firearms-noncompliance

By Breck Dumas FOXBusiness – July 1, 2021

Gun owners in San Jose, California, will soon face a yearly tax and be required to carry additional insurance after their city council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to impose the new measures.

The forthcoming fee for gun ownership in the city has not yet been determined, but officials said that anyone found to be in noncompliance will have their weapons confiscated.

The city council’s aim is to try to recoup the cost of responding to gun incidents such as shootings and deaths. According to the Pacific Council on Research and Evaluation, which studied the issue and sent a representative to testify before the panel, gun-related incidents cost the city roughly $63 million every year in the way of paying for police officers, medics and other expenses, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The new measures come just weeks after a disgruntled Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority employee gunned down and killed nine colleagues at a San Jose railyard.

San Jose-based FOX 2 reported that citizens weighed in on the proposal, with some praising the council for the measure and others condemning the move as unconstitutional.

“I strongly oppose more taxation on legal gun owners,” San Jose resident Sasha Sherman told the council. “Each time a gun owner buys ammunition, they pay an 11% tax, plus a background check fee.”

Another speaker argued, “It puts a financial burden on a constitutional right, which is the right to bear arms.”

While the council directed staffers to draft up the law for a final September vote, the dollar amount on the new tax for gun owners has not yet been determined. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo suggested the new annual fine will likely be “a couple dozen dollars,” and claimed insurers assured the city that firearms owners adding gun liability coverage to existing policies would cost the affected citizens little or nothing.

But with no official registry of gun owners either locally or federally, officials recognized that enforcement of the forthcoming taxes and insurance requirements could be difficult if not impossible. So, they said they would authorize any law enforcement officers to confiscate the firearms of any gun owner they stumble upon who does not provide proof that they have complied.

“Crooks aren’t going to follow this law,” Liccardo told reporters. “When those crooks are confronted by police and a gun is identified, and if they haven’t paid the fee or insurance, it’s a lawful basis for seizure of that gun.”

CONCEALED WEAPONS IN CHURCHES – Florida Gov. DeSantis Signs Bill Allowing Concealed Weapons In Religious Institutions Into Law

Today, June 30, 2021 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that allows persons holding a valid Florida concealed carry weapons license the right to possess a concealed firearm or other weapon on property owned by a religious institution that shares property with an licensed educational facility.

HB 259 was signed into law by Governor DeSantis today, June 30, 221. The bill takes effect immediately.

Updated 06/30/2021 – 2:08 PM

DeSantis signs ‘Church Carry’ bill, legalizing guns at places of worship

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law will let concealed carry permit holders to have their guns with them at churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious institutions, as well as property owned, leased, or rented by them.

HB 259, called a “Church Carry” bill by some, took effect immediately upon becoming law.

Going forward, if you’ve got a concealed carry permit and own a gun, you can now take it with you to church. The bill allowing the carry restriction at religious institutions was short, just over a page long.

The new law says that it does not limit the private property rights of churches, synagogues, or other religious institutions to exercise control over their property regarding firearms. The institutions will still be allowed to control whether or not firearms are allowed on their property.

While HB 259 expands Second Amendment rights for gun owners of faith, even supporters say the bill “doesn’t go far enough.”

Pro-gun organization Florida Gun Rights says the law doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t make Constitutional Carry the law of the land, though the new legislation is “a step in the right direction.”

Constitutional Carry is the right to legally carry a handgun, openly or concealed, regardless of permit or license. 21 states have Constitutional Carry currently, Florida is not one of them, according to Florida Gun Rights.

In-Gauge of Polk County’s Church Guardian Training Program click on this link to learn more.

Texas Supreme Court Rules Gun Store Can’t Be Sued for Selling Gun Under Law Biden Wants To Eliminate

Friday’s ruling was a major victory for gun-rights advocates. It’s also a dire warning: If the Biden administration is allowed to repeal the PLCAA, it doesn’t need to change the Constitution or overturn landmark Second Amendment rulings like District of Columbia v. Heller to implement the kind of gun control it wants.

C. Douglas Golden, The Western Journal
June 27, 2021

On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the San Antonio-area store couldn’t be sued by victims of the 2017 Sutherland Springs, Texas mass shooting because the store was protected by the PLCAA when it sold a Ruger AR-556 rifle, an additional 30-round magazine and ammunition to a Colorado man who allegedly killed 26 individuals at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. The shooter later killed himself during a police chase.

According to The Associated Press, Devin Kelley purchased the rifle with a Colorado ID from Academy Sports and Outdoors in 2016. While he should have been precluded from buying the gun after a bad conduct discharge from the U.S. Air Force in 2014 after he was court-martialed in 2012 for abusing his wife and stepson and served 12 months confinement, the AP reported, the Air Force failed to notify the FBI of the conviction.

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However, the plaintiffs in four lawsuits against the store claimed Academy Sports and Outdoors wasn’t protected under the PLCAA because Kelley provided the store with a Colorado ID, the AP reported. Under the federal Gun Control Act, they alleged that meant Academy had to comply with both Colorado and Texas gun laws — and in Colorado, magazines that hold more than 14 rounds are banned.

Two lower courts allowed the lawsuits to go ahead. However, the Texas Supreme Court ruled unanimously that PLCAA protections applied to Academy since the Gun Control Act narrowly applies to the sale of firearms only.

“Indeed, although the transaction between Academy and Kelley on April 7, 2016, encompassed the sale of two Magpul large-capacity magazines — one packaged as a stand-alone product and one packaged with the Ruger AR-556 rifle — the plaintiffs do not contend that the sale of the stand-alone magazine along with the rifle rendered the transaction unlawful even though it could not have taken place legally in Colorado,” wrote Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lehrmann in her opinion.

“And the statutory text does not allow us to treat the magazine packaged with the rifle any differently. Plaintiffs essentially seek to rewrite [the law] to apply to ‘the sale or delivery of any rifle and any bundled component parts.’ This we cannot do.

“In sum, the sale of the Ruger AR-556 rifle to Kelley complied with the legal conditions of sale in both Texas and Colorado. Because the Gun Control Act did not regulate the sale of the magazines, the Colorado law prohibiting their sale was immaterial.”

Lehrmann also noted that “[l]itigation against the Air Force for failing to collect, handle, and report the required information is ongoing in federal court.”

Academy’s lawyers called it a “landmark” decision, according to The Texas Tribune.

“Our thoughts and prayers continue for the victims of this tragedy,” the lawyers said. “We feel the entire Supreme Court opinion applied the law carefully and thoughtfully in this situation.”

Back in February, on the third anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, President Joe Biden announced three major gun control initiatives he wanted to pursue, including “eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”

That empurpled language was code for repealing the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields firearm manufacturers and retailers for gun crimes committed with weapons that were legally produced or purchased. Of the three legislative proposals he floated, this was the one that raised the least alarm among gun rights advocates, with universal background checks and bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines” getting a lot more play.

And yet, repealing the PLCAA would be the most pernicious of the three. If you don’t believe me, just ask the owners of Academy Sports and Outdoors.

In terms of setting precedent that the maze of regulations blue states continue to impose on magazines, ammunition and other firearm accessories aren’t covered under the reciprocity provisions of the Gun Control Act, yes, the decision the decision Friday could end up being more important inasmuch as it illustrates what would happen if Democrats were to repeal the PLCAA.

During an April 8 speech on his gun control executive orders, Biden claimed “the only industry in America, a billion-dollar industry, that can’t be sued, has exempt from being sued, are gun manufacturers.”

“Imagine how different it would be had that same exemption been available to tobacco companies, who knew and lied about the danger they were causing, the cancer caused and the like,” the president said, according to a Rev.com transcript.

“Imagine where we’d be. But this is the only outfit that is exempt from being sued. If I get one thing on my list, the Lord came down and said, ‘Joe, you get one of these.’ Give me that one, because I tell you what, there would be a come-to-the-Lord moment these folks would have real quickly. But they’re not, they’re not, they’re exempt.”

First, consider what an admission that is. Democrats have wanted — yearned for — the return of a ban on so-called “assault weapons” since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004. They’ve been clamoring for universal background checks since time immemorial.

Yet, if divine intervention gave Joe Biden one of the things on his checklist, he’d ask for legislation that would allow people to sue firearms manufacturers — in other words, the repeal of the PLCAA. It’s not difficult to figure out why.

If the PLCAA were to be repealed, firearms dealers would also have to receive some protection from the Democrats who would, presumably, be the motive factor behind killing the law. You have a better chance of finding Jimmy Hoffa alive and well and and managing a Baltimore-area Quiznos.

In 2021, the easiest way to hollow out our Second Amendment rights is to repeal legal protections for everyone in the industry and subject gun manufacturers and firearms dealers to death by a thousand nuisance-lawsuit paper cuts.

All it needs is enough greedy lawyers and enough partisan juries.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.