BELLEVUE, WA – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation and Calguns Foundation have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a review of their challenge to California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act,” a part of that state’s penal code that violates the Second Amendment by banning handguns of the kind in common use for traditional lawful purposes.
Second Amendment Foundation and Calguns are joined by private citizens Ivan Pena, Dona Croston, Roy Vargas and Brett Thomas. They are represented by attorneys Donald Kilmer of California and Alan Gura of Virginia. The case is known as Pena v. Horan.
“Our challenge of the California Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA), if the high court accepts it for review, could be a critical wake-up call to lower federal courts that continue to employ what they call an ‘interest-balancing approach’ to deciding gun control cases because that strategy is forbidden by the 2008 Heller decision,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.
“It is time to bring a halt to what is essentially a revolt by the lower courts against the landmark Heller opinion, and the Pena case could provide that vehicle.”
California’s Unsafe Handgun Act generally prohibits the manufacture, import or distribution of handguns that do not meet the state’s extremely restrictive design requirements under the state penal code. The result, as the plaintiffs contend in their petition for high court review, is that the state is gradually achieving a handgun ban because they cannot meet the impossible requirements, which include microstamping. That technology is not offered by any handgun manufacturer because it cannot be practically implemented, the petition notes.
“The landmark Heller ruling cannot become just a footnote in history,” Gottlieb observed, “but that appears to be the ultimate goal if such laws as California’s are allowed to stand. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court, with the benefit of fresh perspectives from two recently-seated associate justices, agrees that it is time to once again visit the Second Amendment and further restore its rightful place as a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
Only in California where the bureaucrats determine what’s a safe gun. According to the safe gun act a handgun must not discharge if dropped. The only morons dropping their guns are criminals and of course the idiots at the CADOJ.
@ No Filter; Now at 70 I to like to make what I think are some good comments, while at times throwing out some off the wall comments just to see if anybody is really paying attention or not. I have a decent collection of firearms and shoot regularly, and still always looking for collector caliper guns. I do hold to the saying if it is junk don’t waste your money because you are only going to get a junk price when you go to sell it, buy quality , sell quality!!! Good luck and have a very good year
Now in my 60’s, l’ve come to value and appreciate the collecting of modern firearms. They are all SAFE and no idiot will change my mind on that. I hope the SC steps up and puts this nonsense to rest for good. Now, l sometimes stay away from Ammoland just to lower my blood pressure and anxiety level. Then l come back to it as the great source of information it offers. Then there’s you guys! OMG, l’ve had some great laughs so l try to bring some of my own, slightly warped and sarcastic humor to these threads. But… Read more »
Hey gang has anybody heard if the universal carry has passed or is it DOA at the senate??????? I know that it passed at the House but did the Senate act on it, or were they to busy to do anything about it one more time as usual!!!!!!!
It was DOA in the Senate. I don’t think it ever even got a committee vote and definitely not a floor vote…
I think we can thank turkey neck Mitch McConnel for holding that up. I also read somewhere that The Donald shot down an attempt to attach it to another bill, which was probably its best chance for passage. The item I read said Trump said it should come up in time, just by itself, not as a rider to whatever bill they were thinking of attaching it to. Thanks for another sellout, Mr President!
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. These 27 words of the Second Amendment is one sentence of a complete thought, and are not individual phrases. Politicians are interpreting the Second Amendment sentence into phrases to promote their meaning of the Second Amendment. There is only one meaning of the gift our Founding Fathers gave us within the Second Amendment, the Citizens can keep guns and bear the guns necessary to protect and defend our freedoms under this Nation. It… Read more »
@RB, What the governments, bureaucrats, politicians, and justices are ignoring is the pre-emptive character of Second Amendment. The Second Amendment pre-empts all future Congress’s, State Legislatures’ s, bureaucratic agencies, judges, city councils from instituting any infringements on “arms”.
All of you people are fucking stupid Democrats are striving to abolish the CONSTITUTION AND TAKE FREEDOM AWAY!
“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION” CAN GO TO HELL ! FIRST AND FOREMOST. 1. You. Can NOT be a citizen of a CORPORATION ! So. 2. There is no such thing as a “U.S. Citizen” all a fictitious Lie! So with that being said they want to take my 2nd amendment they better hand over every penny of my TREASURY DIRECT ACCOUNT!
@JAMES; Not for long you got Demo-Rat Wolf in Harrisburg and he doesn’t like Guns!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read the second admendment conservative morons! It is not an individual right, but a right to have an Army to protect us. The People and Arms are plural not singular. Hell, even the forefathers said the military needed regulation back 240 odd years ago in the amendment itself. A Well Regulated Militia! AMENDMENT II 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.
What part of “the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed upon” do you not get?? English, plain and simple.
@Neil, Greg’s notions of the Second Amendment are so far from the interpretive literature that he must be a low level propagandist, who gets paid per response. No one could be that stupid on their own. That level of stupidity requires a committee.
Greg, the people are the Militia. Full stop.
Greg. Your knowledge of the English language is questionable. First there is only on coma in the sentence between the descritive and declarative sections of the sentence. Also the word state in the sentence is always non capitalized. It is a descrivetive declaring a state of freedom as was common grammatically in Colnial times. Please refer to an Webster’s unabridged Dictionary for clarification.
I would also recommend that you start reading more and educate yourself in order to stop embarrassing yourself.
@hippy, I don’t think that the propagandist, calling himself Greg, is interested in self improvement. He is just writing what the daily sheets tell him to write. He communicates in an outrageous manner so that he gets more responses and ergo more pay.
Ooh, ooh!!! You mean to tell us here that there’s money to be made on make on outrageous, poorly written and otherwise grammatically incorrect statements. I’m in!!! Who do l seek for my compensation? I could use the spare change for ammo. Thanks!!!
When the 2nd Amendment was written, the millitia was every male in the community, as there was not a “national guard”. The Amendment says “the right of the people…….”, not state, colonies, or government. The Bill of Rights limits the governments powers and lays out the people’s rights, not the other way around.
Greg, Consider the words of some of the Founders below on what and who are the militia. As an aside, you’ll not convince anyone of the rightness of your claim by starting with name calling. A question to go along with this, if the 2A is not an individual right then why use the same term, the people, as in other rights that are readily accepted by even gun grabbers as being individual rights? “I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.” –George Mason “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the… Read more »
Hey Greg, So in every Supreme Court ruling for every other so-called constitutional right for individuals, where the court has rendered the phrase “the right of the people” pertains to individuals as contextually accurate, except of course in your view for the Second Amendment? The straight contextual fact of the matter, speaking strictly to the language of the article itself, is that a militia is made up of individual citizens, who are not actively part of the militia until military action is required against some opponent, domestic or foreign. They are singularly distanced from a standing army, which in the… Read more »
“District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S. 570 (2008), . is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual s right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home,…”
The right of the people!!! Moron
“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.” Greg, go back to school and study English. A well regulated Militia, (the “People”, actually able bodied people) being necessary to the security of a free State, (it’s needed to defend freedom, to defend our God given rights) the right of the people to keep and bear arms, (the people, not the government, it’s so simple a liberal can understand it) shall not be infringed. (hands off) Here, read a book and enlighten… Read more »
Greg, if you were to but read relevant writings by others around the time of the Revolution, you would find that your statement is built on a false premise. If you looked studied relevant history of the period you would learn that the militia members brought what they had. Without private ownership, they would not have had the arms. Also, if you were a student of history, you would know that without private ownership of firearms there would be no obstacle other than “pitchforks, shovels, sharpened implements, clubs and torches with which to resist military forces should communists, socialists or… Read more »
Greg, You should do some research on the meaning of the Second Amendment before you post any comments. Not trying hurt your feeling, but your just shows that you are either really that vacuous or you just don’t comprehend what you read. 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. In this 27 word complete sentence there is word that determines a Government Army, it only states ‘The People”, meaning the citizens of this Nation, have right to form a militia.… Read more »
@Greg, are you and David Hogg by any chance smoking crack together?
So you are giving your own “Moral Interpretation.” Here’s the rub; in order to understand the Founders intent, you must read their various writings on the subject. May I be so bold as to suggest the “Federalist and Anti Federalist papers” as a primer? From there you may or may not be interested in some of the various other historical documents available online…
In 1792, the organized militia of the states was privately armed by each militiaman according to federal law. Thus the individual and states rights cannot be separated in this case, not if the framer’s original intent that the militia be privately armed is adhere to. https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Large/Volume_1/2nd_Congress/1st_Session/Chapter_33
All the rights in the Bill of Rights are individual rights
Libtard political hacks tell all of us bitter clining deplorable pee on’s that the Bill of Rights especially 2A is obsolete. The 2A is an 18th century anachronism that no longer applies to America today. Libtard Judges claim the 2A is not unlimited. Demacrats tell us that the guns we can own today would be useless to defend against a modern military. If that’s so than why do they desperately want to take them away from us? Simple answer, 2A protects the entire Bill of Rights that Demacrats want to take away from us. It’s that big rock in the… Read more »
I hoping that Me.Putin lands a Nume in Sacremento possibly Losangeles. This would give all Angelenos something to think about as they are kicking their wounds realizing they should have never s po iken the words Clkusion 9r Gun Control. And I really believe with two Russian Blackjack Nuclear Bombers that fly super Sonic f iu ve minutes LosAngeles will be gone. And all the wimps in Eashington will run home never to be seen again.Then we can reopen our Government under the Origii al Constituti9n and B iu ll of Rughts. I figure 88 million Pooiticians and Illegals are… Read more »
Your ineducation is showing. You are doing the cause more harm than good. Please utilize proper spelling, grammar, and refrain from using the term “libtard”. People like you are the reason 2A supporters are seen as illiterate, uneducated, redneck hicks.
@Anon Amos, but openly scolding a 2A supporter in a public forum such as this doesn’t project the very same?
Just say f@#k it and move to Ohio you can have any gun you want for reasonable prices….
Come to PA… gun friendly.
California is a plauge that will infect all the states around it unfortunately. Californians are going to move out of their states because their local government has gone extreme but the Californians that move will also take their mentality with them. The Dems have to be gone to be cured of this plauge.
Almost all gun owners don’t care. The leftists know that we do not support those fighting for us. We are our own worst enemy.
The fact of the matter is this… We all like our firearms we’re law abiding citizens. These gun bans and strict laws do nothing to curb criminals or lower our crime rates. What they are good at is disarming US citizens and keeping them from lawfully defending themselves. When a government be it your local or the State itself fears it’s people having legally owned firearms really sounds an alarm yet we allow them to keep there jobs. It’s time to get em out. This is where we come together and vote them out.
No one has taken my guns or prevented me from buying more. Where’s the problem ?
Amen brother they care more about criminals than honest working Americans look at every country which the government takes the guns away even our indians
When the morons on the Dem. Left let illegal aliens vote and get a driver’s license, and don’t protect law abiding citizens it’s time to leave the fukd up state. All they really care about is power, money and v o t e s period. Even her own dauther said she wiould cut your head off and you wouldn’t know it. Bitch ….
When the morons on the Dem. Left let illegal aliens vote and get a driver’s license, and don’t protect law abiding citizens it’s time to leave the fukd up state. All they really care about is power, money and v o t e s period. Even her own dauther said she wiould cut your head off and you wouldn’t know it. Bitch ….
Gun control is always followed by confiscation,look at Europe! We are the ONLY COUNTRY with freedom to own firearms and carry firearms Remember why the JAPENESE didnt invade after Pearl Harbor! Deer season in Wisconson brought out 600,000 hunters! That’s just one state,think about that! Never give up your guns or allow restrictions because like Europe and others you will never get that right back.Resist Globalism and Socialism which are only controls the E.U ,UN ,SOROS ETC WANT ,LOOK AT VENEZUELA VOTE FREEDOM 2020
Similar issue in Massachusetts… where we started a revolution to keep our right to arms that has been petering out for several decades. Here the state has an approved list of firearms that is meaningless because the separately elected attorney general can arbitrarily set her own rules for handgun safety clearly aimed at taking mainstream guns off the market. So even though Glocks are popular police weapons which are purchased by state and local police in Massachusetts, many models have been banned because of ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ type safety requirements like a load indicator that didn’t… Read more »
These are the the kind of people who have never read the Constitution and paid attention to what it says and how it is said. If these people have would read it and pay attention to the way it’s written they would learn something. Pay attention to the capitalisation and punctuation they might even wind up with a brain to think with. Read the preamble and they understand that the CONSTITUTION is a contract and that it is ironclad! It is not the Constitution of, it is the Constitution for the United States of America so let’s get it right… Read more »
Reality check. Bozo anti gun Calif. politicians do not want law abiding citizens to have access to sny type of firearm. They distort the truth. Imagine that. Our leaders lying to us for selfserving ourposes and to pay back there special interest who donated to their currupt campaign. Politicians don,t live on their salary, they live on monies paid to them for pushing soecial interest agenda,s. CA politics want yo close down hunting. They could care less about law abiding citizens right. It,s fine for them yo issue our young serviceman a wespon to defend our rights and freedoms. It,s… Read more »
To
Democrats
Read the USA
Constitution
2nd amendment
Just like
First amendment
Free speech
You shit head
California turds
And HYPOCRITICAL
Loser Democrats
Go trump
Guns
Capitalism
Morons
As a native San Franciscan, I have seen the city change from a place that I was proud to live in to that of a cesspool. The city government coddles the homeless, illegal aliens and felons. High Bridge Arms, the last gun shop in San Francisco, closed its doors in September 2015 because all transactions had to be videotaped and the tape was to be provided to the police. Rather than violating the privacy of its customers, the shop closed its doors. The liberals were elated. Market Street was a great place to shop and stroll. Now one cannot walk… Read more »
You can do it. It’s easy. I was born a raised Californian. Did 20yrs Navy, retired and moved back home. I couldn’t stand how the state became so I got a contract gig out of state and never turned back. I miss my family, but the politics, prices, and crowds made me sick. Glad I made the move before uhaul got too expensive to escape. Seriously compare the prices, it’s unnerving.
Good luck on your decision.
EASY: leave California to Burn!!
Do not move to Washington state, not welcolme!! You California idiots have ruined your state, STAY AWAY from the sane people in Eastern wa. Freedom to speak how A lot feel about your fukd up state!!
The same state that just banned gun sales to anyone under the age of 21? Yeah…your state is real healthy. Do your homework before becoming a keyboard warrior. And that new law in your state was voted in…the law in question in this article was put in place by the government without a vote. As was the age requirement. You guys actually voted for yours. Yeah, you’re so right…you guys have have it all together up there. Idiot.
Wa is next
You’re a fucking idiot. I’m one of the many Californians that think California gun laws are way too stringent. I’ll see u in Washington next month when I move asshole.
You sound INsane buddy.
Why tf would anyone leave Kalifornia only to go to the Pacific northwest which is slowly but surely turning the same way? I know so many people leaving Washington for Idaho. The people who are leaving California are not the same people who ruined it. Glass houses brother. Know your facts.
Because sane people just Rant and rave like you just have. Pathetic.
Very true. Good luck Washington.
Glad you said eastern wa. The west side is already ruined with imported Californians.
Yeah, Californians who frequent this website and bothered to read your comment are really going to vote for liberal policies…
Well, you succeeded in persuading me from moving to your part of the country as long as it is full of people like you. Enjoy your granola.
Good plan.
While I do believe Kamela Harris is a fine lawyer and is extremely on the side of the people but her opinion and her action as the Attorney General of California was jaded by her “blame the firearm” thought process. A Law abiding US Veteran in California cannot purchase a Goverment surplus hand gun that was last manufacturered in 1945 because they have/are not on the approval list.
While I think the “unsafe” handgun law is ridiculous and needs to be removed, it does exempt C&R pistols from needing to be on the roster in order to be sold or transferred to you by an FFL. A gun is C&R if it is either 50+ years old (the gun itself, not the design) and/or if it is on the ATF’s C&R list. I’ve had a CA FFL refuse to transfer a C&R pistol because it scared them that it wasn’t on the roster. I took my business to another and my transfer was approved by the CA DOJ… Read more »