Coronavirus gun sales store
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
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The COVID-19 pandemic is slowly drawing to a close. Fortunately, few precedents were set. Most governments recognized that the right to keep and bear arms was essential. And most governments that tried to shut down firearm stores quickly relented.

Still, courts in California and New York were content to treat the Second Amendment as a “second-class right.” These decisions were abetted by Chief Justice Roberts’s South Bay framework, which treated the Free Exercise Clause as a second class right. Subsequently, the Supreme Court interred South Bay. But the lower-court precedents concerning the Second Amendment remain.

As the pandemic fades in our rear-view mirror, legislatures should become proactive. They should define the sale of firearms as essential. And states should prohibit governors from restricting sales of guns during declared emergencies.

The laws from Kentucky and Nevada should serve as models. The COVID19 pandemic has illustrated once again that in times of crisis, the government is content to stand between people and their arms. The people must be vigilant to protect this essential right.

— Josh Blackman in The “Essential” Second Amendment

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51 COMMENTS

  1. Federal laws ALWAYS override the state. The solution has to come from a fully patriotic congress and President. We don’t have that and are not likely to in our lifetimes, if ever. That is the reality. The “second amendment sanctuaries” passed by the various locales were urinating in the wind. Meaningless. Sorry to be a Debbie downer but I’m too damned old now to fool myself about our future. I have NO faith in the election process anymore. 2022 will be another exercise in democrat treason vote production.

    • Folks, this is what full retreat looks like. Study it so that it never darkens your door. Don’t ever allow this mindset in your life. Fight it every day at every turn.
      America will win.
      The Republic will be strong.
      Freedom will reign.
      You and your family will be free and strong, right next to me and mine.

      • I agree, but at the same time we need to be realistic about what we are up against. I don’t understand how it is possible for gun laws to be inconsistent in different states and even in different counties within states when we are talking about an enumerated right in the Constitution. I think it highlights how important it is to vote for officials at all levels that will protect the 2A. Any talk about how the system is rigged, causing people not to vote, is detrimental and how we ended up with the Senate 50 – 50. We need to vote the Dems out in Nov.

      • JW, the republics was destroyed in 1865. IT does need to restored. Amerika’s problem is a lack of back bones, real men and to many breathing communist

    • The power has always resided within the states. Not the federal government. Governor DeSantis in Florida has shown the strongest leadership at a state level in modern history. And of course he is called all kinds of names. A racist. A homophobe. A misogynist. Blah blah blah.

      People need to start electing folks that are at least as close to DeSantis as possible. And the best states to be in during this “scan pandemic” have been be more the conservative republican-led States. Except the RINO who runs Maryland. Gun stores and gun ranges never closed in the state of Tennessee. If they closed it was because it was a done voluntarily. State law does not allow the government to force gun businesses to close.

      DeSantis will not be Florida Governor forever. The voters are going to have to find people of good moral character. They are out there. I’m glad there were people of good moral character who were registered to vote. Because those people got on the Kyle Rittenhouse jury.

      • people of good moral character are getting more rare everyday. The lies are even being pushed and accepted in the church of Jesus Christ today. GOD is watching…. so am I

    • “2022 will be another exercise in democrat treason vote production.”

      You apparently missed the passing of legislation in Georgia and Arizona designed to deal with such bullshit.

      The fake outrage after Georgia passed theirs is a clue as to how pissed-off they are that they will no longer be able to stuff the ballot boxes there :

      “The House voted 98-73 along party lines to pass House Bill 1464, which would give the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the ability to investigate election fraud without an invitation from other officials, would create extensive new chain-of-custody requirements for handling ballots, would allow only the State Election Board to accept private donations for election administration and would let people inspect paper ballots after an election.”

      https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/georgia/articles/2022-03-15/georgia-republicans-seek-further-changes-to-election-laws

      Georgia isn’t giving up, they are fighting the Leftist Scum like their lives depended on it, because *it does*…

    • M.A.C.,

      Cannot agree. Half of the States in this union have implemented some form of Constitutional Carry. Others, like PA, have strong laws supporting th ewe 2A. In this regard, we are winning.

      Don Trump, Jr. has just started a 2A advocacy group (he is Trump, so he wouldn’t just throw his full support to the existing groups — LOL). The 2A support movement is growing.

      States like TX, FL, NV, and even GA are passing election reforms to minimize cheating. Some cynicism regarding these reforms may be justifiable, but States are moving in the right direction.

      Despite the mainstream news blithering, most State houses are now controlled by the GOP. That means gerrymandering…ummm, redistricting…..will slant toward Republicans.

      81 million of us voted for Trump in 2020. The real numbers for the demmocommies was half that. The Trump folk are still here, are mightily pissed-off, and a lot of us are actively working to win.

      No matter how loudly the media shrieks about Biden’s success, us common folk are losing ground financially. When folk get poorer, they do not vote for the incumbent POTUS or his cronies.

      In Oregon, the GOP gubernatorial candidate has a 9 point lead over the Dem…yes, Oregon!

      Something is going to break open due to the Durham investigation. I was highly skeptical that Durham would be effective. I am glad to see I may have been wrong.

      Folk are getting loud against CRT and child transgender grooming. There is a 55k member Mom’s group organizing against these perversions, all across the country.

      We pray. The DemoCommies do not take God seriously. They seem to be possessed. We pray to God. That is a winning advantage.

      We only lose when we stop fighting.

      • Amerika is evil, rigged and corrupt. Durham is a joke… where is he going to get someone to arrest the criminals? The DOJ? FBI? ha ha ha We the People need to secede from this evil empire. STOP funding the abuse like in 1776 and 1861. “Fear is the passion of slaves”. DON’T be a victim

    • @MAC

      Balderdash!

      Try reading the Constitution…especially the Tenth Amendment.

      You may choose to place your head deep in the sand and to signal your defeat by wriggling your buttocks…I choose to affirm and to re-affirm my Rights on a daily basis…

    • MICHAEL A CROGNALE…I am a Debbie who can lift your spirits…Cut the snot nosed whining soldier, polish up your boots and get ready today to vote in November. The socialist, marxist, woke democRat Party Jim Crow Gun Control clown show is self-destructing. Their sht ain’t selling. Man you’ve got the ratbassturds in DC in a choke hold and you don’t even know it…Cheer up and get out the vote.

    • You take a bunch of shit for this comment but, honestly, I can’t disagree that much in reality.

      The history of the last 30 years is the Democrats running Left as fast as they can and the Republicans then moving to the center as it moves Left. Conservatives themselves haven’t changed much but the political parties have. It’s not really that much of a stretch to believe that in 10 years the GOP will be the party of pedos and freebies while the DNC is doing god-knows-what in the Metaverse.

      Personally, I’d say Mr. Crognale is mostly right on this once you take into account the lack of balls in the GOP and the power of the administrative state. I doubt rather strongly that changing the party in power will do much more than nibble around the edges.

      Is the GOP really going to cut the nuts off the administrative state? No. Rein in the CMIC? No. Get the Fed to do anything remotely intelligent? No. Really fight on major issues where the country is being dragged far Left? No.

      I could make that paragraph of things the GOP won’t do pages and pages long without even touching my personal preferences.

      You could argue that these things are possible starting at the local level, as some Conservative “organizers” would like you to believe. Technically they are surely correct. But half of them are hucksters who will take the money and run. The other half will be tarred with that brush.

      But really, if you want to see where the real problem lies, look at schools. We have the best university system in the world. We used to have one of the better K-12 systems too. But we let K-12 go to total shit because parents didn’t do their due diligence. They didn’t talk to their kids daily, attend PTA and School Board meetings and just generally do their job of oversight.

      Instead, they let the entire system be run by “experts” and it ended up just like the NRA did. And what happened then? Well, it was easy for charlatans to sow division. Racial division, generational warfare, all the weird sex stuff… it’s all the same thing; Identity Politics.

      And it works extremely well when the public is lazy, uneducated, selfish and disconnected because they are therefore very, very easy to propagandize. And, sorry to say it, that’s the majority of everyone under the age of about 80 these days.

      And both parties prey on this. So, pray tell, when is there going to be a paradigm shift in the public where people put in the month to month work of oversight for years on end and truly feel that their duty to do this only ends when they die?

      Are you going to put in 30 years on this the way Cocaine Mitch has? Statistically, probably not. Half the country is so lazy and dumb that they’re obese. Get healthy while you have all that time away from the office? Nope, it went in the other direction. The fatties got fatter and the people on the margin when from chunky to obese. Statistically, was only the people who were already fit or already serious about working on fitness that did anything intelligent in the last two years.

      And then there’s that whole organization thing that the Left has down. Where’s your answer to that? The last article I read about Trump Jr. starting his own Gun Rights Organization was just crapping on him because it was “redundant” due to MuH nRa! already being a thing.

  2. “With COVID Fading, Now is the Time to Ensure Gun Stores Aren’t Shut Down Again in Future Emergencies”

    Too late; that horse is already out of the barn, and far across the countryside.

    Remember, McConnel declared there is no republicrat agenda for 2022-2024. Just more talk about lowering taxes, and losing with grace. The recent resumption of “talks” on immigration policy states the quiet part out loud; Repubs still don’t get it about the culture war, the Dim hatred of what was once America.

  4. Stores and restaurants shut down because they CHOSE to. The government has not been given the power to tell private owners what they can and cannot do with their businesses. Those owners chose to comply with illegal directives instead of fight. Liberty is ours, if we choose to fight for it.

  5. One of the most amazing irrational and illogical things I have ever heard, is to hear an atheist, say it is not worth voting. These are the people who laugh at Christians and any people of faith. The world of freedom and liberty the Atheist desire so much, they seem to expect, it will magically appear out of thin air. But yet these are the same people who don’t believe invisible beings who walk on water???

    Liberty comes from a group of like-minded individuals who come together for a common cause. And work together as one unit to create that Liberty and keep it.

    And the people who don’t vote, don’t attend meetings, are not working whatsoever to keep Liberty. They are simply riding inside the wagon, as others work to push and pull, and do the work create and keep Liberty.

    And there are a number of atheists who I like and agree with on many things. Unfortunately few of them are voting and attending meetings.

  6. Gotta do it now during the eye of the storm. This lockdown/fear-mongering circus worked out so well for regime they’re eager to do it again whether it’s for the hypermegaglobalcron strain, the bird flu or now ebola or maybe the ebolabirdcovid.

    Moments of relative sanity are fewer and further than seemingly ever before.

    • They’re laying the groundwork for the 2024 strategy (insurrection!), but I’m not sure what the 2022 strategy is. The current priorities seem to be pretending that Covid tyranny never happened, import as many illegals as physically possible, and grant more funding for Ukraine on a weekly basis.

      • keep funding the socialism and expect things to change…. moron Keep thinking you are free, cuz yo massa told you so. April 15th ?

  7. Every time anything happens like 9-11, Katrina, Covid, school shooting, etc. sneaky Gun Control zealots use the tragedy as an excuse for them to attempt to seize Control of The Second Amendment. Well Gun Control zealots can pitch a fit, blow their smoke and then go pound sand.

    • strange you left out Waco Texas, Ruby Ridge Idaho, Nov. 22 1963 (insurrection) and the housing scandals of 1974 and 2008. Tell me how free you are again? I bought my AR-15 with my “take home pay” (after taxes). The gov’t wants to buy it back with my tax money? I will have paid twice for the same weapon, and now I don’t own it? This is bad math, for a stupid sheeople

  8. Similar happened in Louisiana and New Orleans. Blatantly illegal and un-Constitutional actions against gun owners during a natural disaster. Followed by lawsuits, followed by new laws to restate and reinforce the obvious meaning and intent of the laws that already existed.

    Bummer it has to be this way but this is the nature of panic.

  9. I would like to see some logic or consistency to these lock down orders. Here in CA you could go to a liqour store but not a beach. Tittie bars were open but churches were not. My outdoor archery range was closed.

    How are people to have confidence in their .gov under these circumstances?

  10. As with everything else in life…I’m going to keep moving forward till I can’t. Then I’ll just find another way.

  11. If Waffle House and the pot store are open, the gun stores should be open. If Waffle House and pot stores are closed then we need the gun stores open because shit got real.

    • how bad does it have to get? Have you been asleep for the last 55 years? 75 years WWII? Death of the republic 160 years ago? Know no military history? Parents not love you?

  12. “With COVID fading”

    Cases up over 50% in the last two weeks, to over 50,000 a day. You red hatters are so arrogant you think you have the right to define reality however you want. Just like the leftists who think Bruce Jenner is a woman. No daylight.

    • cgray, The scamdemic is over — you don’t have the right to define reality however you want.

      “Cases” is the most worthless metric to measure a pandemic. Why don’t you tell us how your mask protects us, or how the vaccines confer immunity, or how effective a ventilator is at saving a Wuhan Flu patient.

      But you know that. It’s tough to give up your fantasy after you’ve invested so much into it.

      You ARE still hiding in your basement, social distancing, and double-vaxxing, aren’t you?

    • Comments like this make me wonder what critical thinking skills the poster has.

      Obviously <1 on a scale of 1-100 but… how far below 1? Can you reach 0?

  13. The COVID19 pandemic has illustrated once again that in times of crisis, the government is content to stand between people and their arms.

    The COVID19 pandemic has illustrated once again that in times of crisis, the government is content to stand between people and human rights in general.

    FTFY there boss, since you forgot about freedom of speech, assembly, travel, bodily autonomy etc etc etc.

  14. I support the OP.

    The gun-shop shut-downs might be discounted as old-news and minor cases of infringement. There is some truth to this. Nevertheless, this issue is one of opportunity.

    First and foremost, the infringement REALLY DID HAPPEN. That means that there is a cause of action to which the courts must respond. We can get cases into courts where we can get rulings. These alone don’t mean anything. We need to get rulings in appellate level courts; especially supreme courts in the states. And, then, further the Federal Circuit courts and possibly SCOTUS.

    Seemingly, the decisions to come out of these courts would simply be: “Governments can’t shut down gun shops.” But that’s not true. The opinions issued by appellate courts will explain the principles upon which they reached their decisions. That We the People have rights to arms and shutting down gun shops infringe on those rights. As these opinions flesh-out what it means to have rights to arms we are bolstering the judicial meaning of the 2A. We are weaving a tapestry of nuanced rights which collectively tend to support one another. This is why it’s important to support all litigation which is prudently chosen by such organizations as SAF and FPC.

    • But this is why a lot of people don’t like the 2A community.

      I get what you’re saying and I’m not coming at you but that’s mostly because we’ve both been here a while and I know a bit about how you think.

      To an outside person who’s concerned about government overreach however, this seems like a comment that is extremely myopic and plays into the preconceived notion that 2A people only care about MuH gUnZ!

      Other people’s priority may be free speech, censorship of actual facts, data and science or the quashing of freedom to assemble unless you have the right political views. We should try to build bridges to such groups.

      Keep in mind that many of these people, not being gun folk, probably don’t even know about the attempts to shut down gun stores. But they do know about the lies from .gov and the other violations. We should try to be clear that those mean something to us to so that we can broaden their views by bringing 2A things to their attention.

    • MarkPA Minor to some, maybe but not to the owner of the store or the people who want to buy a gun. There was absolutely NO JUSTIFICATION for shutting down gun stores. The entire shut down was counter productive.

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