By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Sept. 29 passing of career gun control crusader Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is one of the most important stories in the gun rights saga of 2023, a year which also saw the Second Amendment Foundation and other organizations rack up a string of court victories.
The legal achievements might well be considered a partial fulfilment of SAF founder Alan Gottlieb’s long-standing goal of “Winning firearms freedom, one lawsuit at a time.”
Senator Feinstein’s career in the U.S. Senate started with her victory in a 1992 special election, becoming California’s first female senator, after having served as San Francisco’s mayor from 1978 to 1988. She was curiously described by the Associated Press as “a centrist Democrat and champion of liberal causes.”
When it came to gun control, she was considered by Second Amendment activists as an extremist.
She once famously stated, about so-called “assault weapons” during an interview with Leslie Stahl on “60 Minutes” on CBS, “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,’ I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here.”
Feinstein earlier this year once again submitted legislation to ban modern semi-autos, and following her death, colleagues in the Senate tried to move the bill, but failed.
During her 30 years on Capitol Hill, Feinstein came to be known as a supporter of virtually every gun control measure that came along. But during her final years, she saw the gun control measures for which she had often crusaded fall under judicial scrutiny thanks to legal actions by SAF and other organizations, including the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, Firearms Policy Coalition, National Association for Gun Rights, and various state-level groups.
Indeed, the firearms community overall has scored some significant victories, not the least of which were the Supreme Court rulings in 2008 (Heller), 2010 (McDonald) and 2022 (Bruen), which affirmed and strengthened the individual right to keep and bear arms, and found some restrictive gun laws to be unconstitutional. California’s ban on semi-autos and original capacity magazines has been struck down by a federal district court judge and is currently in the appeals process with possible consideration by the high court.
The Bruen ruling of 2022 is having a significant impact on those restrictive laws, much to the obvious chagrin of anti-gun politicians such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, many of Feinstein’s political colleagues and even President Joe Biden. Even the lower federal courts appear split on the Second Amendment even now, after three consecutive high court rulings which many advocates say have restored, rather than expanded, Second Amendment rights that have been eroded over decades of gradual infringement.
Feinstein had opposed the nominations of conservative Supreme Court justices, perhaps seeing the proverbial “writing on the wall” that they would be considering cases which would lead to a dismantling of the very gun restrictions she had championed.
