Pick a gun fight with California

• Posted on 8 August 2017
• By Write Winger
• 0

California is likely home to the largest number of gun owners in the country, yet we are still politically outnumbered...

Earlier this year, former California Assembly Member, Gubernatorial candidate, political commentator, and patriot Tim Donnelly penned an open letter asking the incoming President Trump to pick a fight with California over a litany of issues. I'd like to expand on this in regards to the right to keep and bear arms.

California is likely home to the largest number of gun owners in the country, yet we are still politically outnumbered due to demographic changes, conservatives moving to more liberty-minded pastures in neighboring states, or general apathy at the polls.

California gun owners bought over 1.3 million guns in 2016, not counting unregistered and unserialized homemade rifles and handguns which have become popular due to the state's desire to ban and confiscate ones currently owned and registered as so-called "assault weapons".

While we are a sizable minority, we are nonetheless a minority which the state believes it has the power and authority to deny us our fundamental rights. We have no representative power in the State Legislature, nor do we have much luck in the courts as most decisions end up not going in our favor once they're appealed to the 9th Circus. They famously ruled back in 2002 that the Second Amendment did not guarantee individuals the right to keep and bear arms (Silveira v Lockyer, challenging the 1999 assault weapons ban), and even after the Supreme Court overruled that interpretation of the 2A in the 2008 Heller decision, the 9th Circus hasn't much changed their tune, finding in case after case that restrictions to our fundamental right need only pass "intermediate scrutiny" rather than "strict scrutiny".

There leaves few options for California gun owners: comply with unconstitutional restrictions to our rights, ignore them and face potential criminal prosecution, hope the Supreme Court takes up another gun case some time this decade, pass a State Constitutional Amendment as a ballot initiative, or plead to the only pro gun rights California representation we have in Congress to support a federal preemption law that supersedes and nullifies California gun control laws, per the Supremacy Clause.

California gun owners want their pro gun rights U.S. Representatives to pick a gun rights fight with the State on their behalf for denying us our rights. U.S. Representatives from California should be the first ones lining up to sign onto HR 3576, the Second Amendment Guarantee Act (SAGA), which will prevent States from enacting regulations on rifles and shotguns that are stronger than federal regulations, and they should be leading the charge along with U.S Representatives from states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland to get support from the rest of the representatives from Free America. Gun owners from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Hawaii have no federal representation.

And President Trump can finish that fight by signing it into law.

While it won't undo all the restrictions on our rights, it's the best thing we have going for us while we continue to collectively fund and fight these lawsuits up the judicial ladder.

Contact your representative, and tell them to support HR3576.