Second Amendment Society of Texas

If you actually run the numbers, the percentage of 18-20-year-old mass shooters is 0.00006% of the entire group; the percentage of modern sporting rifles used in mass shootings is 0.0003% of the National Shooting Sports Foundation's estimated total of about 29 million. Moreover, those eight shooters go all the way back to 1994. So it's actually eight shooters over 30 years. The use of modern sporting rifles goes back to 1977, when a killer used a Heckler & Koch HK41 imported by SACO in a mass shooting in New Rochelle, New York. Yet Florida stripped hundreds of thousands of young adults of their Second Amendment rights because of the actions of one of them. A number of Texas legislators wanted to raise the legal age to purchase a long gun from a dealer to 21 because of a single shooter - in the entire history of the state, including the years it was an independent republic. This is the insanity of gun control and the mainstream media. And yet, when a 20-year-old took a rifle his father purchased ten years ago and attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, the same groups started the same old chant, demanding the same old laws, even though none of them would have done anything to prevent the incident. It's like Sandy Hook all over again. When the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Minnesota's ban on concealed carry for those under 21 yesterday, Judge Duane Benton's opinion noted that, with the ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, those Americans aged 18 years or older were part of "the people" whose rights were protected by the Second Amendment. The Fifth Circuit also declared Texas' minimum-age-to-carry law unconstitutional and the state elected to not appeal. Equally absurd is hysteria over modern sporting rifles. Eighty-six rifles over 47 years is not the existential threat Joe Biden says it is, especially when one considers that figure includes the 22 rifles stockpiled by the Las Vegas shooter and rifles that were at the scene of a mass shooting but not used. Gun control zealots have been creating monsters out of thin air, hoping to frighten the American public. It's time to shut the demon-makers down.

When you hear the word violence, the first thing that comes to mind is the use of force - usually malicious - to harm another person, right? Up until a few years ago, that was the dictionary definition of the word. Unfortunately, political pressure from a variety of very biased sources with vested interests in demonizing a particular type of force, firearms, persuaded the dictionaries to expand the meaning to include self-harm, meaning suicide or attempted suicide. Even gun control zealots admit the majority of gun-related deaths are suicides. However, they ignore the fact that firearms are used in only slightly more than half of all suicides. In 2022, there were 1,272 more suicides than deaths from "gun violence". Over the ten years from 2013 to 2022, there were 459,799 suicides in the United States, according to the CDC. Guns were used in 237,396 of those suicides; 222,403 people ended their own lives by some other method. With 122,617 fatalities, hanging was the second-most popular method, accounting for 55% of all non-gun suicides. How about gun control's beloved red flag laws? Over that ten-year period, the use of firearms in suicides actually increased more in red flag states than it did in states without red flag laws. Universal background checks? There is no data about firearm suicides that includes when the gun used was acquired, so any evidence the gun control zealots claim to have is anecdotal, at best. The same is true of claims that people who have had their guns seized don't commit, or attempt to commit, suicide by some other means. Only three of the red flag states had a reduction in the number of suicides and only one, Rhode Island, had a reduction in the number of suicides and the number of suicides committed with a firearm. It's pretty clear that gun control isn't an answer to suicide. It's also pretty clear red flag fans don't care. Suicide is not gun violence any more than it's belt or extension cord violence or opiod violence.

Two of Giffords' A" states, Illinois and Maryland, are in the top ten, along with New Mexico, while four of the "F" states, Idaho, Iowa, North Dakota, and Wyoming, all constitutional carry states, along with "D-" states New Hampshire and Maine, which are also constitutional carry states, are among the ten with the lowest homicide rates. Vermont, which has been been heavily impact by refugees fleeing New York, is also among the ten states with low homicide rates. Like so many gun control claims, the Giffords system depends on the inclusion of firearm-related suicides. Since gun control laws don't seem to have an impact on suicides, we exclude them.

The suicide rate in the U.S. rose 15% from 2012 to 2022. Among young people ages 10-14, the rate soared 59%, nearly four times higher. However, trying to treat it as "gun violence" is stupid: 56% of suicides in this age group are committed by suffocation - usually by hanging. Suffocation and poisoning accounted for 64% of all suicides in the 10-14 age group. In the 15-24 group, the suicide rate rose 23% and in 2020, 2021, and 2022, firearms were used in the majority of suicides. Since most of the members in this group were of legal age to buy firearms, it would seem that states with more gun laws, including red flag laws, would see a reduction in suicides. California has just about every law the surgeon general recommended - and a few hundred more. They're addicted to Dr. Bloomberg's wonderful elixir. Yet the suicide rate for Californians ages 15-24 also grew faster than the national rate. In addition, while suffocation suicides are more common than gun suicides, the percentage of suicides committed with a firearm rose seven percent while the percentage of hangings dropped by five percent. Dr. Murthy really ought to have has license yanked for malpractice.

Well, the 2023-2024 Supreme Court session has ended pretty much as expected. Cases involving the constitutionality of the lifetime firearms ban on non-violent felons and users of marijuana, along with a challenge to New York state's Bruen-defying Concealed Carry Improvement Act, were punted back to the Circuit Courts. Given that it's going back to the 2A-friendly Fifth Circuit, the Daniels case (marijuana use) seems likely to see the first action. The Range case, involving gun rights for non-violent felons, could also have some legs, especially since Range wasn't convicted of a felony: He was convicted of a state misdemeanor that just happened to have a maximum sentence that triggered 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1). Rahimi, leaves a pile of questions and we will see judges in certain states go wild. The court really should consider making their rulings more "circuit-proof". This would involve being more detailed because the people who are going to be using, and trying to get around, the court's holdings, are attorneys. Look at all the fun they have already had with "dangerous and unusual", "sensitive places", and everybody's favorite, "the Second Amendment is not absolute". Cargill and Loper Bright were spike-the-ball touchdowns. Not only was the ATF judges to have exceeded its powers but a favorite shield, the Chevron Deference, was consigned to the trash heap of history. Range, Daniels, and Antonyuk were frustrating. Range and Daniels were especially unfortunate because they were cases involving critical questions about the rights of non-violent felons and those convicted of the wrong misdemeanors and users of marijuana, which is a misdemeanor even by federal standards. Antonyuk is important because the court really needs to address states like New York, California, and Illinois, which quickly passed laws that violated the court's holding in Bruen. It would have been a welcome, though unexpected, surprise if the court would have at least GVRed the Illinois cases but it was nice to see Clarence Thomas commenting on the Seventh Circuit's absurd ruling to uphold Illinois' assault weapons ban. There's a link below if you would like to read his entire statement. As of right now, we have to hope the court will grant certiorari to cases involving some critical issues, like assault weapon and magazine bans, in the next session, which opens in October. https://lnkd.in/gfas4Y53

Like pretty much everyone else, I am waiting to see whether Santa Court brings a puppy or coal to friends of the Second Amendment. I am expecting the court to GVR (punt) a number of these cases back to the various circuits, meaning we're back to waiting on those courts to sit on the cases or ignore Heller, Bruen, and Cargill altogether and rule the same way gain. Perhaps somebody should remind the justices that justice delayed is justice denied.