Austin Tong was charged with a hate crime by Fordham University for simply posting a photo of his new AR rifle..
This is NRA member Austin Tong. He was charged with a hate crime by his school, Fordham University, for simply posting a photo of his new AR-15 he bought for home defense. The University accused him of owning an “automatic weapon” and they’re doing everything they can to silence his political views, but this NRA member is not backing down. This is his message.
The NRA is America’s preeminent gun rights organization, comprised of millions of patriotic, law-abiding, freedom-loving citizens. Together, we defend the Second Amendment rights of all Americans, and work to protect and preserve our hunting and shooting traditions for future generations. NRA also offers the best firearms education programs in the country and trains millions of Americans each year to be safe and responsible gun owners.
See special ‘Distinguished Life Member‘ offer below for those 65 years of age and older.
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Location: Gander Outdoors, Bartow, Florida
7400 SR 60, East (Rifle Range Road & SR 60)
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3 Year Official NRA Membership
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A federal judge has refused to dismiss the National Rifle Association’s challenge to a 2018 state law that blocked people under age 21 from buying guns.
JUDGE CLEARS WAY FOR CHALLENGE TO GUN LAW
JUDGE CLEARS WAY FOR CHALLENGE TO GUN LAW May 4, 2020Jim Saunders TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge has refused to dismiss the National Rifle Association’s challenge to a 2018 state law that blocked people under age 21 from buying guns. Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office argued that Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker should dismiss the case, which challenges a law that the Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott approved after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. But Walker, in an eight-page decision Friday, denied the state’s request to dismiss the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in January. Walker made clear that he was not ruling on the NRA’s underlying arguments that the law violates constitutional 2nd Amendment and equal-protection rights — only that the case should be allowed to move forward. “It is important to keep in mind the narrow issue before the court at this stage of the proceedings. This court is not asked to, and does not, decide whether (the law) is constitutional. Rather, the question is whether plaintiffs’ complaint contains ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,’” he wrote, quote a legal precedent. The law, which the Legislature rushed to pass after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre, says that people under age 21 cannot buy firearms, including rifles and shotguns. A federal law already banned licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns to people under 21, and the state law broadened that to also prevent private sales of handguns to people under 21, according to court documents. “Consequently, 18-to-20-year-old adult citizens in Florida are now prohibited from purchasing any firearm from any source,” Walker wrote. In a Jan. 21 motion to dismiss the case, attorneys in Moody’s office argued that the measure “follows a long tradition of laws conditioning the purchase of firearms on the purchaser’s having obtained the traditional age of majority — 21 years of age.” Also, the motion said that while the law prevents people ages 18 to 20 from buying guns, it doesn’t prevent them from having guns that, for example, they received as gifts. “Florida’s age qualification is reasonably calculated to advance the state’s interest because it applies only to the purchase of firearms,” the motion said. “Any law-abiding person over the age of 18 may gift, loan, or allow the use of a firearm to an otherwise qualified person over the age of 18, who may in turn keep and use that firearm for any lawful purpose, including home defense, hunting, sport and practice shooting. The sale-gift distinction is aimed at a uniquely dangerous problem — the purchase of firearms by 18-to-20-year-olds absent the judgment of a parent, guardian, or other law-abiding adult that the individual is prepared for the responsibility of gun ownership.” But in a memorandum filed April 17 opposing the motion to dismiss, NRA attorneys described the law as “draconian” and said it infringes on the constitutional rights of people ages 18 to 20 to keep and bear arms. Also, NRA attorneys contended that the law is not the “least restrictive alternative to achieve a compelling government interest.” “The ban prevents the ability of all 18-to–20-year-olds to purchase firearms to exercise their Second Amendment rights — even for self-defense in the home,” the NRA memorandum said. “If the compelling interest is limiting gun violence on school campuses, the ban is not the least restrictive means because the ban encompasses all 18-to-20-year-old adult Floridians, including those who no longer have any connection to school campuses. Nor have defendants demonstrated the unavailability of less restrictive alternatives.” Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz was 19 at the time he was charged with using a legally purchased semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 students and faculty members at the school. Cruz continues to await trial. The NRA filed the lawsuit immediately after the law was passed in 2018, but the case has moved slowly, at least in part because of a dispute about an NRA attempt to allow two opponents of the law to participate in the case anonymously — an idea that ultimately was dropped, with a named plaintiff, Radford Fant, joining the case. While Walker denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit Friday, he agreed to a request to dismiss Moody as a defendant. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen remains a defendant.
Contact In-Gauge of Polk County directly for CLUB membership information and benefits at: ingaugeofpolkcounty@gmail.com
See special ‘Distinguished Life Member‘ offer below for those 65 years of age and older.
If you do not want the monthly magazine, we can sign you up for as little as $10 for a one year NRA membership.
One Year $10 Official NRA Membership
This $10 membership does not include monthly publication
$10.00
One Year Regular Official NRA Membership
1 year official NRA membership. Includes official NRA monthly publication.
1 year official NRA membership. Includes official NRA monthly magazine.
Class date: Sunday, August 15, 2021 1:00 PM
Location: Gander Outdoors, Bartow, Florida
7400 SR 60, East (Rifle Range Road & SR 60)
$45.00
3 Year Official NRA Membership
3 year official NRA membership. Includes official NRA monthly publication.
$100.00
5 year official NRA membership.
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$150.00
Official NRA Lifetime Distinguished Membership
Must be 65 years of age or older. One time payment
Official NRA Distinguished Lifetime Membership. Includes official NRA monthly publication and all other membership benefits,
$600.00
Official NRA Lifetime Membership
Official NRA Lifetime Membership. Includes official NRA monthly publication and all other membership benefits,
The Polk County Commission on Tuesday reversed
course from its Friday meeting and approved a resolution affirming its support
for gun rights, including language declaring the county a sanctuary.
BARTOW — Polk County is a Second Amendment sanctuary.
The Polk County Commission on Tuesday reversed course
from its Friday meeting and approved a resolution affirming its support for gun
rights, including language declaring the county a sanctuary.
The vote came after 12 people spoke out in favor of the
sanctuary measure. Several commissioners also indicated they received phone
calls and emails from gun-rights supporters over the weekend.
Although the commission could not take an official vote
during its Friday workshop, four commissioners clearly indicated they had
trouble with the sanctuary language while maintaining they supported Second
Amendment rights. Only Commissioner John Hall supported the entire resolution,
including the language declaring Polk a Second Amendment sanctuary.
That changed Tuesday as the commission initially voted
4-1 to approve the sanctuary resolution with Commissioner George Lindsey
opposing it. Later, Lindsey asked for a reconsideration of the resolution and
switched his vote to affirm the commission was unanimous in supporting the
Second Amendment, he said.
“I don’t want this to be a divisive issue,” Lindsey said.
Commission Chairman Bill Braswell said he changed his
mind because he hadn’t realized the word “sanctuary” was the label adopted by a
Second Amendment movement.
“The word ‘sanctuary’ to some of us wouldn’t be our first
choice,” he said. “When I hear ‘sanctuary,’ I think of ‘sanctuary city,’ and
that’s bad.”
Braswell was referring to the sanctuary city movement
asking local officials not to support some of President Donald Trump’s harsh
immigration and deportation policies.
Commissioner Rick Wilson agreed he reacted against the
word because of its association with immigration policies.
“I don’t like the word. I wish we could change it,” he
said.
Yet Wilson and the other three commissioners declined to
support Lindsey’s proposal to substitute “pro-Second-Amendment county” for
“Second Amendment sanctuary.”
Before the first vote on the resolution, Lindsey said he
opposed including the sanctuary language because one historical definition of
the word is “immunity from the law.”
“That’s the part that bothers me,” he said. “I can’t do
that if there’s an implied immunity from the law.”
Lindsey pointed out he supports the Second Amendment as a
life member of the National Rifle Association, a handgun owner and holder of a
state concealed weapons permit. But immunity from the law “is not what we stand
for,” he said.
Several of the resolution supporters appeared motivated
by the so-called “red flag” law passed by the Florida Legislature following the
Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
That law allows local law enforcement to seek a temporary
court order, called a “risk protection order,” to seize firearms from persons
it believes might use them against themselves or the community. Law enforcement
can get an emergency order to seize weapons immediately followed by a final
order at a court hearing within 14 days.
The law was passed because the Parkland shooter and many
other perpetrators of mass shootings had shown behavioral signs of violence
before the incidents.
“Polk County has a Second Amendment problem,” said Royal
Brown III of Winter Haven, president of Winter Haven 912 Project, a gun rights
group. “We lead the state in the use of the unconstitutional risk protection
order, or RPO, which allows an ex parte seizure of firearms and ammunition
without prior notification, without the right to be represented by a public
defender and without due process based on a judge’s fear of what might happen
in the future. This also violates the legal precedent of being innocent until
proven guilty.”
Brown cited information from the Polk County Clerk of
Courts office, which The Ledger also obtained.
The statistics show Polk did lead the state in seeking
risk protection orders between March 2018 and October.
Polk sought 501 orders during that time followed by
Pinellas County with 429 cases and Broward County with 393 orders sought. Only
five other counties had more than 100 risk protection order cases during that
time, and the state total was 2,933 cases.
The Clerk of Courts also reported a total of 525 risk
protection cases filed in Polk from March 2018 through Nov. 20 with no
additional state data.
Among those Polk cases, 15 petitions were denied an
emergency order, or 3%. Among the 510 emergency protection orders granted, the
court denied a final order in 49 cases, or 10%.
“We ask you to declare Polk County a Second Amendment
sanctuary county and to be aware of the problems with the risk protection
order, including conducting oversight of the RPO process until such time as it
is challenged in the courts and declared unconstitutional or changed or deleted
from law by the Florida Legislature,” Brown said.
Other speakers made more general arguments that the
sanctuary language was needed to “send a message” to the Legislature and
Congress on passing further gun restrictions. Several speakers warned of a
looming socialist or communist threat to take away Second Amendment rights
gradually.
“Florida came within 1% of becoming a socialist state,”
said Glynda White, a Winter Haven 912 member, referring to Republican Gov. Ron
DeSantis’ narrow victory margin over Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum.
“The gun grabbers are coming,” said Danny Krueger of Lake
Wales.
Bob Grimes of Lakeland compared the gradual diminution of
gun rights to livestock being herded into a corral.
“What happens to sheep or cattle when they’re herded into
a corral? They’re headed to slaughter,” he said.
After the meeting, Braswell told The Ledger the
resolution was a symbolic affirmation of the Second Amendment because state law
prohibits local government from passing any legislation dealing with firearms.
For that reason, he doesn’t anticipate the commission acting on any gun-related legislation, Braswell said. “I don’t think we have any authority there,” he said. “This today was a symbolic proclamation.”
