San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed (D) flinched. The very nature of American freedom forced her to formally pull back from parts of a municipal resolution, from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, that threatened to blacklist contractors associated with the NRA.
Once upon a time the left focused much of its attention on expanding rights to disenfranchised peoples. Somewhere along the way they began to only see the individuals they were supposed to be fighting for only as representatives of groups. The expansion of rights they wanted thus began to succumb to identity politics, to grievance politics, to gender politics…as it sank into a worldview that only sees groups in a power struggle with other groups. Such is how their once expansive views of individual liberty became exclusive.
This way of thinking led them to the decision that there are groups they want to protect and help, and there are groups they want to shun, harm and even ban.
This is the basic line of thought that turned them against individual rights, such as the individual’s right to own and carry a firearm, as protected by the Second Amendment of our U.S. Bill of Rights.
It must now be very shocking and upsetting for them to realize what they’ve become.
They see themselves as open, inclusive, moral human beings, but then they find themselves gleefully calling an association of Americans that’s fighting to protect an individual right, a “domestic terrorist organization.” They even find themselves opposed to a right that, when left unfettered, empowers every law-abiding citizen.
San Francisco’s elected officials, in this case, even threatened to curtail the First Amendment right of freedom of association of those connected in some way with the NRA.
In its filing, the NRA called the resolution a “blacklisting” measure, and urged San Francisco’s federal court to “step in and instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.”
Before the court could act, San Francisco Mayor Breed put out a formal memorandum to City officials that “no [municipal] department will take steps to restrict any contractor from doing business with the NRA or to restrict City contracting opportunities for any business that has any relationship with the NRA.”
Meanwhile, and perhaps even more importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court should decide this week whether to proceed with New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York.
As this was being written the case was scheduled to be heard in on Dec. 2. This is the first major Second Amendment case the high court said it would hear since McDonald v. Chicago (2010).
This case challenges New York City gun laws that regulate where licensed handgun owners can take even a locked and unloaded handgun.
After the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear this challenge to New York City regulations, which prevented licensed gun owners from even taking their handguns to ranges or their private homes located outside New York City, the city tweaked its laws in an attempt to kill the case. The city changed its regulations by allowing licensed handgun owners to transport their guns to other locations “including second homes or shooting ranges outside of city limits.”
The thing is, if the U.S. Supreme Court drops this case, the city could just change the laws back. Also, as Paul Clement, an attorney representing the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, wrote: the “revised regulations demand continuous and uninterrupted transport (forbidding a stop at a gas station or a coffee shop enroute), require written permission before a handgun can be taken to a gunsmith, and preclude transport to a summer rental house.”
U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco also argued, in a friend-of-the-court brief, that “New York City’s transport ban infringes the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the 2nd and 14th Amendments.”
This pending case is so scary to politicians who’re opposed to American freedom, that five Democratic U.S. senators, headed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-R.I.), that insinuated that, if the high court rules in a way they don’t like, they might move to pack the court with justices who will vote against Second Amendment-protected rights.
We’ll keep you posted on these and other important cases as the NRA, the association solely focused on defending and augmenting your freedom, fights these and other battles.
(Frank Miniter’s latest book is The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide to the Workplace.)
