Alan Gura (left) and the late Otis McDonald (courtesy guns.com)

“Americans are not required to justify their need to exercise a fundamental right. If the government can force you to provide a reason to exercise your right, then it’s no longer a right.” – Lawyer Alan Gura, quoted in Is This the Supreme Court’s Next Big Gun Case? [via reason.com]

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33 COMMENTS

  3. I think we have heard this before, but nice to have proof even educated/smart people are on our side sometimes. (Note there is some sarcasm here)

  4. Everyone today should say a small prayer that SCOTUS takes on the case Drake v. Jerejian, a challenge to New Jersey’s Handgun Permit Law. (read the link)

    And for my NJ brothers and sisters of the gun, I will say two.

  6. This statement of Mr. Gura should be received as “Ho Hum…yep, everybody knows that…”, so the fact it is received as sort of a “relief” or minor revelation/clarification attests to how deep in the proverbial “doo” we have sunk under the present Federal and many State governments…

  7. It is a sad truth that what many of us have-myself included- in our wallets is a privlidge card authorized by our state legislatures, not a true recognition of our civil right to keep and bear arms (vis a vis CCW permits).

    Here’s to hoping that’ll change someday.

    • Yep; if a person needs a license to practice a right; it ain’t a right, it’s a privilege. That card proves who is really the master and who is the servant.

    • I held my nose and jumped through their hoops – they are the ones with the power, and the guns to enforce their power, after all, at least until we find the proper avenue to take back the power which is rightfully ours.

      Until that time I do not consider their unconstitutional regulations as “permission” from the government to exercise my RKBA, I consider it a “get out of jail free” card – nothing more.

  8. Government only reason to restrict lawful self defense is to insure rape, murder, & assault continues to fund their existence. This must end. Governments fear is if citizens are armed then, whole sectors of our government is no longer needed. Citizens don’t need permission to protect themselves.

  10. Isn’t Maryland in the same situation with it’s “good and substantial reason” clause? Here’s hoping the dominos start falling.

  12. “May issue” is worse than “no issue.” I’d rather have a government take away a right outright so the injustice is clear, rather then tell me they are going to grant it if a bureaucrat thinks I have “a need.”

    I would rather be in Washington DC having a no issue than in Maryland where I can go through the process and be declined because I cant prove my need (read: didn’t give large campaign contributions or am not in some other more equal than others class)

  13. The Bill of Rights, not the Justifiable Bill of Needs.

    If it were, air, water and food, in that order, would be all that would be listed.

    Rights are rights and are seperare of needs.

  14. But we ARE required to register our allergies and nasal colds….
    Because… you know….
    for the children???….

    …..and making meth from scratch is just impossible….
    …especially in Mexico….

    • Excellent point, Dr. V. May I please have some more of that stuff that enables me to breathe, sir/ma’am/whatever?

  15. Love the pocket square on Otis and prayers are going out that he is in heaven spreading the word

  16. So far, Mr. Gura is doing a pretty good job of getting our rights re-affirmed.
    Fingers crossed here.

  17. “inalienable”

    “The word inalienable is often linked to human rights — you’ve probably heard the term “inalienable rights.” In the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson (using the un- variant) wrote that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The spelling may vary but the meaning is clear: an inalienable right is something that can’t be given or taken away by a government or another legal power.”

    There.

    • …or rights (or property) which a person cannot sell or give away. Hence a person cannot give away his rights even if he wishes to. OED, = inalienable a.

         1611 Cotgr., Inalienable, vnalienable; which cannot be sold, or passed away.    1641 Earl of Monmouth tr. Biondi’s Civil Warres v. 125 Those countries‥which for safety and reputation ought to be unallienable from the Crowne of England.    1688 Answ. Talon’s Plea 27 This Monsieur Talon maintains to be an unalienable right of the Crown of France.    1743 J. Morris Serm. vii. 197 God‥gives all men their being, and has an unalienable claim to their obedience.    1771 Goldsm. Hist. Eng. II. 307 Giving these petty tyrants a power of selling their estates, which before his time were unalienable.    1841 Stephen Comm. Laws Eng. (1874) II. 13 Personal chattels cannot in any instance be rendered unalienable beyond the period prescribed.    1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xvii. IV. 115 That all men were endowed by the Creator with an unalienable right to liberty.

  18. It is beyond annoying the amount of legal gymnastics that so many courts and judges will engage in, in their attempt to deny that at one time in our recent history, nobody went anywhere WITHOUT a gun. Not if they wanted to live beyond next week, or even the next day. Where did any of them get the foolish notion that just because we eventually organized and paid for the police to carry guns and fight crime, that the public should/could no longer carry guns?
    I wish we could all live in an advanced and enlightened world where even the thought of committing a crime is considered abhorrent and unthinkable, much less doable, but in the here and now, that world is beyond our lifetimes. Sad as that reality is, we always have had a protected Constitutional right to prevent anyone who wants to, to intentionally and/or negligently shorten our all too short lifespans. It’s all a giant steaming pile of socialist-Fabian, Utopian crap!

    • +1000 for the use of “Fabian”, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen used here before.

    • Supporting the memory that a gun was, not so long ago, considered an absolutely essential item, consider Jacob Riis, the Danish immigrant who landed in 1870, and went on eventually to produce the excellent social history exposing conditions in NYC’s Lower East Side tenements: “Riis disembarked in New York on June 5, on that day spending half of the $40 his friends had given him on a revolver for defense against human or animal predators.”

  19. Could not have said it any better myself. There are other quotes similar to this, something or other about a right delayed…

    Oh yeah! Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that, “A right delayed is a right denied.”

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