On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the federal ban on interstate handgun sales violates the Second Amendment.
CQ Almanac noted that the ban on interstate handgun sales was put in place via the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The ban was then fleshed out and expanded in the Gun Control Act of 1968 which was signed into law by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson.
The Fifth Circuit surmised: “The government’s theory of the Ban’s historical justification centers on its contention that ‘when it enacted the Omnibus Crime Control Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968 [which contains all of the provisions comprising the Ban], Congress sought to address concerns about public safety and that individuals deemed dangerous might evade state laws designed to ensure only law-abiding citizens could acquire firearms by purchasing them outside the jurisdiction.’”
But the government’s theory did not survive the Bruen (2022) test.
The Firearms Policy Coalition, a plaintiff in the case, noted that the Fifth Circuit “held that the constitutional right to keep firearms necessarily includes the right to purchase them” and a prohibition against buying a handgun in a state outside one’s state of residence interferes with that right.
The First Circuit ruled, “The Ban sullies the plain text of the Second Amendment and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation, dating back to the founding era, under that Amendment.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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