The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the court with jurisdiction over the Western United States) released a decision today (PDF) in Peruta v. San Diego striking down a California requirement for showing "good cause" to obtain a firearm carry permit, affirming that to "bear arms" is as much of a protected right as keeping them.
There is a state Senate Committee hearing (General Laws) today for SB 613 (Second Amendment Protection Act or "SAPA") 2014 Regular Session. The Lawrence County Sheriff's Auxiliary submitted written testimony for the bill, primarily concerning the provisions creating the role of a School Protection Officer and its potential interaction with armed volunteers under law enforcement.
[Update 21 February 2014: This bill has passed the Missouri Senate 23-10.]
That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons.--- Mo. Const. Art. I, § 23
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.--- U.S. Constitution, 2nd Amendment
The Lawrence County Sheriff, along with several other Missouri Sheriff's, has sent a letter to President Obama regarding current gun control iniatives. The original letter was drafted by Sheriff Charles Heiss of Johnson County, which each Sheriff has personalized.
This letter underscores the position of the Lawrence County Sheriff's Auxiliary regarding the Right To Keep and Bear Arms.
As I was preparing to write this article on an event twenty years ago today, I noticed the headline that a shooting has just occurred in a Connecticut elementary school with 28 dead, 20 of them children.
I was laid up in bed with my still swollen ankle propped up on a pillow, a zip-lock bag of now melted snow pressed against it. A much-abused copy of Billy Joel's Kohept played on the stereo across the room. The room was sweltering, the window next to me open wide and the snow long-since melted from the overhang, but I wasn't going to limp down the stairs to adjust the thermostat back down again. A knobbed stick lay propped against my milk-crate nightstand surmounted by an ugly lamp, which was now off, the room lit dimly by the lamp-posts of the small cluster of upper class modular apartments, Mods, nestled in the snowy woods. A stack of untouched textbooks lay between me and the window, a Weis and Hickman novel closed and marked on the sill itself.
Johns Hopkins University recently published a White Paper entitled "Case for Gun Policy Reform In America"[bib]201[/bib]. This article will respond to that paper and comment on the larger issues from the context of an organization like the Sheriff's Auxiliary.