By Dave Workman’
Editor-in-Chief
With Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of Capitol Hill, it’s been a big year for gun news, and surprisingly most of it was pretty good, and there were five major stories which could make 2021 go down as a turning point in the Second Amendment battle.
When Biden took office, he was promising quick action on guns, but as things turned out, those plans lost momentum fast. As the president put it in remarks on the ninth anniversary of Sandy Hook, “We came close to legislation, but we came up short.”
David Chipman and ATF. Biden spent a lot of political capital to no avail when he nominated David Chipman, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who had worked as a senior advisor to gun control organizations following his retirement, to head the agency. Red flags immediately went up, and Congress was deluged with calls, emails and letters opposing the nomination. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chipman reiterated his support for a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and other gun control measures.
Clearly, the administration had not anticipated the degree of opposition from gun owners. It was clearly a victory for gun rights organizations that had encouraged their members to contact Congress. Chipman’s nomination was withdrawn in mid-summer.
Supreme Court Takes Case. The U.S. Supreme Court announced it would review a case filed by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association challenging the Empire State’s “good cause” requirement to obtain a carry license for handguns. An earlier case filed by the same gun rights group also reached the high court, but as soon as the court announced it would hear that case—challenging a handgun ordinance in New York City that forbade licensed gun owners from taking their handguns outside the city for any purpose—city officials scrambled in a panic to change the law. The prevailing wisdom at the time was that New York officials knew their law was unconstitutional, and they did not want the court to strike it down, setting a gun rights precedent.
The current case before the high court—the first one in more than a decade since the Second Amendment Foundation’s 2010 victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago—could have a dramatic impact on similar laws in seven other states including Maryland, New Jersey and California. These so-called “discretionary issuance” laws more often than not are used to arbitrarily deny as many applications as possible.
When the high court heard oral arguments on Nov. 3, it became clear the New York scheme is probably in trouble, the degree of which will not be known until the court hands down a ruling, probably sometime in late June 2022. The current makeup of the court will likely go down as one of Donald Trump’s most significant achievements, and the fact that so many Capitol Hill anti-gunners have made murmurs about expanding the court to establish a liberal majority says plenty about the fear liberals have of pro-Second Amendment rulings.
Kyle Rittenhouse Acquitted. When the jury verdict of “not guilty” came down in a Kenosha, Wis., courtroom, anti-gunners grimaced. It wasn’t just the 18-year-old on trial for two counts of murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder, it was the right of self-defense.
Rittenhouse fatally-shot two men in August 2020 during a riot in Kenosha. He wounded a third who had rushed up and pointed a handgun at the then-17-year-old’s head. The far left and many in the media quickly demonized the teen as a white supremacist, and the media falsely reported Rittenhouse had “crossed state lines” with an assault rifle. When the truth emerged in court that the rifle had always been in Wisconsin rather than where Rittenhouse lived in northern Illinois, there was barely an effort outside of Fox News to clarify the record.
Other facts emerging during testimony included the revelation Rittenhouse’s dad lived in the community, and he had other ties there. But the key question was whether he had the right to defend himself with lethal force, and after more than two days of deliberations, the jury said he did.
One of the men Rittenhouse killed had earlier threatened to kill him, and was in pursuit of the teen through a car lot when he was shot. The second man had just struck him on the head or neck with a skateboard, which could be considered a “blunt instrument” capable of killing someone.
Virginia Government flips. November was a big month for sending messages. Not only was Rittenhouse set free, but voters in Virginia put Republicans back in the governor’s office, lieutenant governor’s office and the Secretary of State. They also returned control of the House of Delegates to the GOP.
It is now up to Republicans to roll back the entire Ralph Northam/Democrat gun control agenda pushed through in January 2020. Erasing Northam’s extremist gun control would send a message across the Potomac River to Democrats on Capitol Hill that their anti-Second Amendment crusade is finished.
Five States Adopt Permitless Carry. Five states adopted permitless carry of firearms legislation, what is known generically as “constitutional carry.” The list includes Texas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee and Utah. Texas may have been the most significant victory because of fierce opposition.
However, Ray Hunt, executive director of the Houston Police Officer’s Union, was quoted by the Texas Tribune observing, “We were completely opposed to ‘license to carry’ when it happened, and we said all of the same arguments that we’re saying now. And nothing happened, so we’re hoping that we’re overreacting. We’re just concerned because anytime there’s more guns, there’s a problem.”
Gun rights activists, on the other hand, hailed this as a great victory.
Perhaps by no coincidence, Texas is seeing a lot of newcomers who have been fleeing restrictive, high-tax states including California, New York, Oregon and Washington.
