Readers might be surprised to learn that this case emerged from Texas, a state the population of which often is depicted by pop media as being mostly supportive of right to keep and bear arms. But an August 25 ruling in the Fort Worth Division of the Northern Texas Federal District Court reveals the fact that state leftists had attempted to infringe on the rights of adults under the age of 21 to carry guns in public.
Kaelene Deese writes for the Washington Examiner that the state's ban on gun-carry imposed on adults under 21 was shot down, but will be allowed to stand for 30 days until the state’s appeal is heard in the Fifth Federal Circuit Court.
“U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, found that the Second Amendment, ‘as informed by Founding-era history and tradition,’ did not exclude 18- to 20-year-olds from the right to bear arms. Pittman ordered the injunction stayed for 30 days, pending appeal, meaning it won't immediately go into effect, according to court records.”
Given the June SCOTUS ruling in the NY State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen case affirming a person's right to carry in New York without obtaining a permit from the government for “proper cause,” it comes as no surprise to many observers that Judge Pittman should come to this conclusion.
Writes Deese:
“The high court's decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen also ordered the federal judiciary to apply a ‘history-only’ test when considering legal challenges to gun regulations. The new standard holds that regulations on the Second Amendment are constitutional only if it (sic) was similar to those around in the 18th century, when it was ratified.”
Which means: no restriction. Deese’s use of the term “regulation” when he means “government restriction” buys into leftist contemporary language misuse and is wildly incongruous with the Founders’ meaning of “regulated,” which meant well-trained and “regularly” practiced and recognized the inherent natural right, without infringement, just as the Second Amendment says.
The suit against the government of Texas was brought last year by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC, which has similar cases pending in California and Pennsylvania), on behalf of two adult plaintiffs who were under 21.
Notes Deese:
“Cody Wisniewski, an attorney with FPC, told several news outlets in a statement that the ruling marks ‘a significant victory for the rights of young adults in Texas and demonstrates for the rest of the nation that similar bans cannot withstand constitutional challenges grounded in history.’"
And even CNN quotes Wisniewski after the victory:
"’Texas cannot point to a single Founding Era law that prohibited 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying a functional firearm for self-defense, because not only did no such law exist, but those individuals are an important reason why we have a Bill of Rights in the first place,’ said the coalition's Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation, Cody J. Wisniewski. ‘And young people have just as much a right to keep and bear arms in public as adults over the age of 21.’"
Indeed. Pop media employees, and politicians on every level, might want to consider those words in combination with the legendary story of Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale.
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On September 22, 1776, British military occupiers of New York hanged Connecticut-born Hale for the crime of spying on behalf of the American rebels. Witnesses noted that, on the gallows, Hale was composed and dignified, and he is, of course, purported to have uttered the timeless statement: “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
Though, as well-known pro-freedom writer Becky Akers (who passed away April 18, the anniversary of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride) has explained, the line likely is apocryphal, embellished years later by a close friend of Hale’s, and though Akers also warned against mistaking the line as blind advocacy for nationalism -- or “my country, right or wrong” – rather than a promotion of the eternal fight for liberty against tyranny, Hale’s struggle and heroism remain.
As does the fact that he was only 21 years of age by June of 1776.
For most of the period that Hale risked his life for the American Revolution, the period he carried and fired arms as a patriot, he would have been breaching the statute of Texas that supposedly “conservative” Governor Gregg Abbott used tax money to defend in court.
As one lets that sink in, one also can consider that people far younger than Hale fought beside him. The fundamental right to keep and bear arms for self-defense against any aggressor – be it a thug, a gang, or a gang calling itself “government” – is universal, and is supposed to be untouchable by any political agency or agent.
People of the Founding Era understood that.
Perhaps, with rulings such as this, more contemporary Americans will take the time to learn about the moral core of human rights and see how statutes like those infringing on the right to keep and bear arms are such towering insults to their neighbors and to those who sacrificed so much to be free.
Practically, the criminally-minded don’t pay attention to so-called “gun prohibitions” and license requirements, anyway. But the key, the absolutely essential, part of this issue, is the morality of not infringing on the rights of one’s neighbor. Even IF a judge had ruled it okay to prohibit public gun-carry for adults under 21, or even if the Constitution said it was permitted such a political move would not be okay.
It would be immoral. Period.
Related: BEHOLD: The Craziest (and Dumbest) Takes From Libs Outraged Over SCOTUS' Gun Ruling | MRCTV
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