Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation
A federal court ruled Wednesday that the state of Pennsylvania violated the Second Amendment by effectively barring 18-to-20-year-old residents from carrying firearms outside of their homes.
Three Pennsylvania residents sued Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Robert Evanchick arguing that the combined effect of the state’s law barring people under 21 from carrying a concealed firearm, and another law prohibiting residents from openly carrying a gun during a state of emergency, effectively banned them from possessing firearms outside their homes in violation of the Second Amendment. The Third Circuit Court ruled 2-1 in favor of the trio of plaintiffs, reversing a previous lower court ruling, according to a court document.
Pennsylvania had been under an uninterrupted state of emergency for nearly three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the court documents. During this period, the plaintiffs were effectively barred from carrying guns in public, which Pennsylvanians are allowed to do during ordinary times.
In its decision, the court found that individuals between the ages of 18 and 20 are entitled to constitutional rights, including those enumerated in the Second Amendment, and that the combined effect of Pennsylvania’s laws deprived the plaintiffs of their rights.
The lone dissenting judge argued that the “public in 1791 did not understand those under 21 to be part of ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment” and that Pennsylvania’s laws are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition.”
The majority addressed these concerns by pointing out that, if 18th-century standards are applied too rigidly, “the people” who are entitled to rights would only include “white, landed men.”
The judges ruling in favor of the gun owners, Kent A. Jordan and David Brooks Smith, were appointed by President George W. Bush, while the dissenting judge was appointed by President Barack Obama.
Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, called the ruling “a major win for gun rights” on Twitter.
He predicted that the case is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which could have implications for other states.
New Mexico, another Democrat-run state, is currently using a public health emergency to stop residents from carrying guns in public, The Associated Press reported.
The Pennsylvania State Police declined to comment on the case when reached by the Daily Caller News Foundation, saying that their attorneys are reviewing the ruling.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: For America’s ruling elites, nothing is more precious, wonderful and life-giving to their great cause than the Jan. 6, 2021 “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol. It’s irrelevant that the events didn’t come remotely close to constituting an actual “insurrection,” or that both police and over 200 undercover FBI assets provoked the riot – which Tucker Carlson calls a “set-up.” Yet Vice President Kamala Harris still insists the minor riot was just as horrific as the 9/11 terror attacks and Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
WHY are the elites doing this?
It’s not just because convicting, imprisoning, torturing and destroying the lives of hundreds of Trump supporters is meant to terrify and intimidate millions of Americans into submission. And it’s not just because activist judges and bureaucrats in over 30 states are absurdly trying to keep Trump off their state’s election ballots by citing the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against anyone who “engaged in insurrection” from holding elective office.
It’s because the elites’ destruction of America is so rapid, horrendous and obvious that they feel compelled to turn their opponents into monsters – or lose power at the next election. But that doesn’t mean just calling conservatives and Christians “racists,” “white supremacists,” “radical extremists” and “domestic terrorists” as they do continually. They know much more is needed.
Question: What if, far from being horrified by a half-baked riot they absurdly claim is worse than any domestic disturbance since the Civil War, the left actually LOVES the idea of violence on the right – the worse the better – since it perfectly serves their agenda? Increasingly, all the evidence strongly suggests today’s power-mad leftist elites not only intend to intimidate and discredit their political opponents by calling them terrorists, they mean to provoke actual violence.
The secret strategies and shocking tactics of today’s ascendant far-left elites are exposed as perhaps never before in the January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, headlined “INCITING VIOLENCE: DEMS’ SECRET STRATEGY FOR STAYING IN POWER.”
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