CCRKBA: THIRD CIRCUIT RULING A SIGNAL TO ANTI-GUN STATES

BELLEVUE, WA – Friday’s ruling by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down New Jersey’s ban on modern semiautomatic rifles and original-capacity magazines should send a signal to other states with similar bans that a reckoning is looming, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says.

“The majority opinion, authored by Joe Biden-appointed Circuit Judge Arianna Julia Freeman, amounts to a warning shot across the bow of anti-gun-rights lawmakers that their years of eroding the Second Amendment, one restriction at a time, may be about to hit the proverbial brick wall,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “It also signals that what they’ve been doing has been unconstitutional all along, and we’re encouraged by today’s ruling that the Supreme Court will spell that out in plain language when it takes up the issue this fall.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear arguments in two very similar gun ban cases when it convenes in October. Bans on semiautomatic rifles in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, are being challenged by CCRKBA’s sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation. CCRKBA will likely submit an amicus brief in early September, supporting SAF and its partners.

“We have been working toward this fight for several years,” Gottlieb stated. “While we were disappointed the Supreme Court declined to hear our own challenge of Maryland’s similarly egregious ban last year, Friday’s ruling against New Jersey adds momentum to the upcoming cases.

“There is something more which needs to be said,” he added. “The gun prohibition lobby and their allies in Congress and state legislatures have been drowning us in rhetoric designed not only to demonize modern rifles, but also the people who have chosen to exercise their right to own such firearms. Rather than holding criminals accountable for their actions, anti-gunners have deliberately and systematically attempted to transfer blame to the firearms they misuse.

“It is tragic that the media has allowed itself to be manipulated by the gun ban movement,” Gottlieb said. “Today’s ruling by the Third Circuit should help remind everyone that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental right, not a government-regulated privilege.”