Second Amendement Foundation Press Release:
BELLEVUE, WA – A federal district court judge in North Carolina has just struck down that state’s emergency power to impose a ban on firearms and ammunition outside the home during a declared emergency, ruling that the provision violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The case, Bateman v. Purdue, was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Grass Roots North Carolina FFE and three individual plaintiffs. Defendants in the case were Gov. Beverly Purdue and Reuben F. Young, secretary of the state’s Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, in their official capacities. In his opinion, Judge Malcolm J. Howard [above], senior United States district judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina, wrote . . .
“the court finds that the statutes at issue here are subject to strict scrutiny…While the bans imposed pursuant to these statutes may be limited in duration, it cannot be overlooked that the statutes strip peaceable, law abiding citizens of the right to arm themselves in defense of hearth and home, striking at the very core of the Second Amendment.”
“When SAF attorney Alan Gura won the Heller case at the Supreme Court,” noted SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “the gun ban crowd said that we were a one-trick-pony’ and that we would never knock out another gun law. Well, SAF has now knocked out gun laws in Maryland, Illinois and North Carolina.
“We filed this lawsuit on the day we won the McDonald case against Chicago,” he added, “extending the Second Amendment to all 50 states. This was part of our strategy of winning firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time.”
Gottlieb pointed to language in Judge Howard’s ruling that solidifies the Second Amendment’s reach outside the home. The judge noted that the Supreme Court in Heller noted that the right to keep and bear arms “was valued not only for preserving the militia, but ‘more important(ly) for self-defense and hunting.”
“Therefore,” Judge Malcolm wrote, “the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms ‘is not strictly limited to the home environment but extends in some form to wherever those activities or needs occur.”
“Under the laws at issue here, citizens are prohibited from engaging, outside their home, in any activities secured by the Second Amendment,” Judge Malcolm wrote. They may not carry defensive weapons outside the home, hunt or engage in firearm related sporting activities. Additionally, although the statutes do not directly regulate the possession of firearms within the home, they effectively prohibit law abiding citizens from purchasing and transporting to their homes firearms and ammunition needed for self-defense. As such, these laws burden conduct protected by the Second Amendment.”
Another nail (pray it is the final nail) in the coffin of a Katrina-like gun confiscation.
The judge noted that the Supreme Court in Heller noted that the right to keep and bear arms “was valued not only for preserving the militia, but ‘more important(ly) for self-defense and hunting.”
If I was a SCOTUS I would say that 2A was more for keeping a citizen militia as a check and balance on an out of control government.
You know, my Daughter is on the academic team and the subject for her section is the Revolutionary War this semester. We were discussing the Revolution and the John Adams mini-series and she is against gun control because what you will have is a government dictatorship. A lot of the reasons for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights can be seen graphically in the John Adams mini-series.
It’s difficult to think of events when Second Amendment rights would be more crucial than in a state of emergency, whether a natural disaster, riot or Mumbai-style terrorist attack. Seems like anyone who wants to disarm you in circumstances like that is probably your enemy. Thank God for victories like this, but the fact that it’s even a question is troubling itself.
Great news here in NC.
I see one point in this article that is BIG news for other 2A cases if it goes up the chain of courts or is cited in other cases: The application of “strict scrutiny”!
Congratulations to you and everyone living in North Carolina.
That raised my eyebrows, too, in a good way. If the Second Amendment were to generally get strict scrutiny, it would be extremely difficult for anti-gun laws to stand.
Now if they will only open up Concealed (and Open) Carry so it actually means something in NC. Nowhere with admission, no ‘events occurring in public’, etc.
I call for a moratorium on all this gun stuff till TTAG removes that phony-baloney PC Speed Test ad from all of its pages. That crapware generally is used to fool people using Windows into wasting money and to end up with malware and botnet back doors loaded on their computers.
TTAG, please find a legitimate ad sponsor!
All you ever do is complain and criticize against how this blog is managed and the comments regulars post here.
Looking into it today. Thanks for the heads-up.
you should also be aware, a add service tracks you via various cookies, monitors your on-line browsing habits and serves you adds accordingly. The adds I am seeing are probably not what you see and vice versa. I am seeing adds for Glock, Ruger, Dodge and the new John Deer Gator. However if I went browsing the “red light” district of the web, the adds you would get then would change.
I read the opinion, and I was kind of disappointed. The plaintiffs raised two challenges to the law–as to themselves in specific circumstances (called an “as applied” challenge) and as to everyone (called a “facial” challenge to the constitutionality of the statute. Despite all the wonderful language, the fact of the matter is that this court invalidated this statute only as to these plaintiffs. It specifically denied the facial challenge to the statute, which I understand to mean that the statute is still valid as to everyone else in N.C.
Mark N, don’t overread the opinion. The court ruled that the law was invalid as applied to the plaintiffs, which also covers everyone in the same shoes as the plaintiffs under the same circumstances. In other words, law abiding citizens going about their business peacefully during a storm cannot have their rights restricted. The court decided that there might be situations where restrictions would be permitted. I’m not sure that I agree with that, but I can see the point.
It’s a very good decision and opinion for gun rights.
For those who are still interested, it took four days, but the story finally made newspapers here in NC.
The Winston-Salem Journal has the best coverage so far.
The Raleigh News & Observer has a pathetic blurb sourced to the AP. Raleigh is the state capitol.
The Charlotte Observer also used the AP feed.
The Wilmington StarNews and Asheville Citizen-Times haven’t found it to be news-worthy yet.
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