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Tactically Inept

Gun Laws


kuhla

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Some milquetoast legislation is about to be passed. 

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/21/1106466279/senators-reach-final-bipartisan-agreement-on-a-gun-safety-bill

The parts that caught my eye:

  • $1 billion for safe schools and citizenship education, with $500 million set aside for school-based mental health grants and another $500 million for grants to mental health professional development.
  • Expand background checks for prospective gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21. The new process would incentivize states to provide access to previously sealed juvenile records and could add several days to the waiting period before a purchase can be completed.
  • Various additional funding for mental health including $150M for the suicide prevention hotline and $250M for community mental health
  • Expansion of an existing law that prevents people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun - they added dating partners, this was previously referred to as the "boyfriend loophole"
  • Allow people who are restricted from gun access under the legislation to have their gun rights restored if their record remains clean for five years.
    Curious how broad that will be applied, if violent felons would in theory be allowed gun ownership and if this would include time being paroled in that 5 years.  Also curious if domestic abusers could get off the prohibited list.  I can't tell if this is counting on our country's stupidly high recidivism rate or a small bone being thrown to "white collar" criminals that want their rights back. 
     

I'm interested in additional background check requirements for 18-21 year olds.  I agree with the idea behind certain juvenile records being made available for consideration in those background checks, normally juvenile records are sealed so this might be useful.  But they're leaving this up to states which doesn't sound great, I also suspect that states like CA or NY might use this as an excuse to delay firearm purchases from 10 to 30+ days just to make it obnoxiously and deter firearm ownership. 

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The big SCOTUS case of New York State Rifle and PIstol Association v. Bruen was decided today, which is a big deal mostly because the last time the SCOTUS decided a 2nd amendment case was way back in 2008. 
PDF WARNING: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf

Since I'm sure plenty of people will read too far into this case from both a pro-gun and anti-gun point of view, I'll instead try and simplify it as best as possible. 

New York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington D.C. all had what was colloquially known as "may issue" - meaning if you a private citizen wanted a concealed carry permit, there was discretion on the part of the issuing authority (usually the police or sheriffs) on if they would give you one.  After this ruling, all of those states will have to be "shall issue" (the other 43 states were already shall issue) meaning if you apply for a concealed carry permit, they need to give it to you (unless you're prohibited from owning firearms).  That's it.  You still need to apply for a permit, and I bet it will still take weeks/months before they process that permit. 

Sidenote: The dissenting justices were predictably mad about this, but justice Alito correctly pointed out:
"[H]ow does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo?" he wrote. "The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator."

Yea... even in a state with very strict gun regulations the majority of mass shootings are perpetrated with legally acquired firearms, the last major one that happened with illegal guns was the San Bernadino shooting, where that terrorist got his guns from an equally crazy neighbor.  I'm not sure restricting concealed carry permits does anything to stop mass shootings. 

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California DOJ fucked up and released a bunch of personal information of CCW holders and gun owners.  Here's Cal DOJ's response:
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/california-department-justice-alerts-individuals-impacted-exposure-personal

tl;dr - oops, we'll send you a letter confirming we posted your info on a government website sometime in the next year

The timing on this couldn't have been worse, because it looks vindictive, even if I suspect it was caused by stupidity and not malice. 
If you ever wonder why so many gun owners are so heavily opposed to states/feds keeping databases regarding gun ownership, this is one of the many reasons why. 

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Double posting

Supreme court had a large number of other 2nd amendment cases pending, including the California magazine limitations, assault weapons bans etc.  They all got kicked back down to the various lower courts and told to reissue the opinions based on the Bruen case that just passed last week.  This could suggest that many of the aforementioned cases will need to be re-litigated but considering the Bruen ruling I'm not sure how most of these restrictions stand up. 

If the courts respect Bruen and rule these laws unconstitutional we could see a fair bit of legislation overturned. 
If the courts decide not to respect Bruen they just buy themselves more time before it invariably makes its way back to SCOTUS and could potentially leads to an even stronger ruling. 
Both of these scenarios aren't fast, I suspect we won't get anything finalized before the end of the year, and if cases get sent back to SCOTUS we might be looking at another 2+ years before anything moves. 

Sidenote - California is mad about Bruen and trying to pass laws limiting where you can carry concealed weapons (so you can get a CCW but it will be useless) however I'm fairly certain that's not going to stand up at all, but just so you can understand some of the legislation CA is proposing in SB918:
Additional fees (which will rise with cost of living), potential psych evaluations, needing 3 references that are non-family members to apply for a CCW - and these are the proposed areas CA doesn't want you to carry a firearm in/around:
Courts, schools, churches, airports, bus stations, train stations (and parking lots associated with those stations), "buildings under control of the government", hospitals, nursing homes, medical offices, urgent care, anywhere liquor is sold or consumed, public or special events that require permits, playgrounds, athletic facilities, colleges, stadiums, libraries, zoos, amusement parks, museums, financial institutions, AND any business open to the public UNLESS they have a sign allowing firearms. 
Yea they're not trying to ban carrying a concealed weapon at all, not one bit...

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