Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is a non-profit working to restore, defend, and expand 2nd Amendment rights through litigation. #2A
Nov 12 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
Our motion for summary judgment makes two main sets of arguments. First, the NFA's regulations of untaxed "firearms" exceeds Congress's constitutional authority. Second, the NFA's regulation of suppressors and SBRs violates the Second Amendment.
A thread on the highlights of our motion for summary judgment.
The NFA has always been justified as an exercise in the taxing power. That is how then-Attorney General Homer Cummings explained it in 1934, and it's how every court since has upheld it.
Oct 15 • 45 tweets • 6 min read
We are live in the Third Circuit, which started a couple of minutes early. Erin Murphy arguing for Plaintiffs currently.
Jul 24 • 32 tweets • 15 min read
In a case we are closely watching:
A Ninth Circuit panel has overturned California’s burdensome and error-prone ammunition background check regime in a case we have been watching closely, Rhode v. Bonta. We congratulate our friends and frequent litigation partners at CRPA on this significant win.
Besides such background checks being unprecedented, the other big problem with California’s system is it does not even work well, worsening the constitutional concerns with it. By the state’s own admission, it wrongly denied over 10% of applicants who tried to use it, and the State did not bother to tell those people why they were denied, so many did not subsequently purchase ammunition. Data that Judge Benitez forced the State to disclose showed that of the 7,342 people wrongly rejected in January of 2023, only 62.9% managed to successfully purchase ammunition by July 1, 2023. Over a third, around 2700 people, were either denied their rights or forced to purchase ammunition through illegal means.
To make matters worse, this background check costs a dollar each time you do it, and it will now be increasing to $5. If you do not have a firearm registered at your current address, then you have to do a costlier $19 background check to purchase ammunition.
We are relieved the panel ruled correctly, but of course given this is the Ninth Circuit, en banc review is certainly possible.
🧵👇
For some more background, here is a chart submitted by California DOJ showing the data for the first six months of 2023.
Look at the ratio between people denied ammunition because they are a prohibited person, compared to people denied due to a records mismatch. 141 vs. 58,057. For every prohibited person the system stops from buying ammunition, it blocks about 411 law-abiding citizens from their purchases.
Even setting aside constitutional concerns (and we certainly do not!), this system simply does not work.
