By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Following the landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which set new history-based guidelines for determining the constitutionality of Second Amendment cases, anti-gun state legislatures refused to acquiesce, and instead adopted even tougher laws in defiance.
“I expected after Bruen they would pass laws that would be a little less restrictive…to see what they could get away with,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. “They didn’t do that. They doubled and tripled down and passed laws that are worse.”
Gottlieb was speaking during a discussion about gun rights and litigation at the Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC). He was joined by Florida Republican Congressman Cory Mills, and moderator Carl Higbie, host of “Frontline” at Newsmax.
CPAC attracts hundreds of conservative activists from across the country. The annual event is held in Maryland, near the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. The 18-minute discussion was headlined “Shooting from the Hip.”
The veteran gun rights advocate, who also chairs the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, told the audience SAF currently has 59 active cases in progress, challenging various state laws. The group is involved in lawsuits in California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Connecticut, Illinois and Maryland. Indeed, the latter two—Maryland and Illinois—are currently seeking certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court. The cases challenge bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity” magazines. SAF is waiting to learn whether the high court will grant hearings in either case.
Gottlieb took a jab at the far left’s gun control crusade, which is being advanced by the Biden administration.
“It is so blatantly political, their agenda of socialism and controlling peoples’ lives,” Gottlieb said. “I mean, gun control isn’t about controlling guns, it’s about controlling people. That’s what their agenda really is. Facts and figures don’t matter to them. All they care about is taking away our rights.”
He also criticized the establishment media for virtually ignoring cases in which private citizens defend themselves and family members with semiautomatic rifles. Gottlieb asserted the media “carries the agenda for the gun ban movement. It’s actually disgusting.”
Rep. Mills, first elected in 2022, said the gun control movement “is not about policing, it’s about politics.” “They are trying to do everything they can to weaken the American people to make us dependent upon the administrative state,” Mills said.
The freshman congressman described himself as a constitutional conservative, and said he would like to see the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives abolished.
There were no flattering remarks for Joe Biden or his administration. Biden came into office more than three years ago promising gun control, and he has worked feverishly to accomplish that mission. He has pushed Congress to ban so-called “assault weapons,” but when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, albeit by a thin margin, it became clear such a ban was doomed.
The current wave of pro-rights litigation was made possible more than a decade ago by the Supreme Court’s affirmative ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago, a SAF case which was joined by the Illinois State Rifle Association. The ruling not only nullified Chicago’s 30-year handgun ban, it also incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment.
