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How the NRA protects your Rights
The National Rifle Association was established by General Ambrose Burnsidein 1871 in order to 'promote and encourage rifle shooting'. General Burnsidein's main purpose was to improve the accuracy of shooting among Americans.
Today, the NRA is now the most important centralized lobby for the second amendment. There is no single group that fights to protect second amendments rights more than the NRA. The following is a list of ways that the National Rifle Association protects the right to bear arms.
EDUCATION
For over 130 years, the NRA has been educating youth about the responsibilities of gun ownership, as well as the necessity of American citizens to know how to use their firearms. By creating responsible gun owners, the number of accidental deaths is reduced and by informing these responsible citizens as to the need for arms, they ensure a solid group of voters very much aligned with any candidate who supports gun ownership.
LEGAL CHALLENGES
Through the Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA challenges any law that contradicts the second amendment, as well as any other constitutional rights given to citizens of the United States. Often when a city or a state feels a rising pressure to control guns the NRA ensures that no law is passed that contradicts pre-existing rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
Now it is your turn to support the Second Amendment by joining the ranks of millions of law abiding citizens of this great country by joing the NRA. To protect and defend is often used on some government vehicles yet it is the NRA that truly protects and defends your constitutional rights.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
PUBLIC HOUSING OFFICIALS DROP ILLEGAL BAN ON FIREARMS POSSESSION IN PUBLIC HOUSING
An NRA-led coalition of self-defense civil rights groups including the Second Amendment Foundation and the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) has prevailed in a Second Amendment lawsuit challenging a ban on firearm possession in San Francisco public housing residences.
“This success is further vindication of the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller ruling upholding the Second Amendment as protecting a fundamental, individual civil right for all law-abiding Americans,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox.
The San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) and the property management company that oversees San Francisco’s public housing projects have agreed to completely remove a lease provision banning guns in the residences.
The City of San Francisco itself legally stipulated that its ordinance banning gun possession on county owned or controlled property cannot be applied to the public housing properties, even though Mayor Gavin Newsom announced at a May 2007 press conference that the new city ordinance would ban gun possession there. By excluding the application of the ordinance and removing the lease provision, the right of public housing residents to choose to own a gun to defend themselves or their families has been restored.
The settlements bring a successful conclusion to the lawsuit, filed June 2008. The decision to repeal SFHA’s lease provisions banning firearms came despite initial claims by Mayor Newsom that the lawsuit would be “absolutely defended,” and comes after initial claims by the San Francisco City Attorney that the lawsuit was “frivolous” and that the City would seek sanctions. No sanctions were sought, nor could they have been.
The San Francisco concessions follow similar gun ban repeals by several Illinois towns that also faced NRA lawsuits filed immediately after the Supreme Court confirmed in late June that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.
NRA-ILA and CRPA will continue to pursue other cases to resolve the incorporation issue. In fact, a California case challenging a gun show ban ordinance that has been partially funded by the NRA for years (Nordyke v. Alameda County) was recently argued before the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a decision is forthcoming.
NRA is preparing additional legal challenges in San Francisco and Los Angeles regarding gun control ordinances that were not challenged in the current lawsuit. In fact, NRA’s lawyers have already placed San Francisco and Los Angeles on notice of pending litigation concerning several other gun banning ordinances. The NRA-led coalition will likely also pursue civil rights actions against California itself as well as several other municipalities to challenge ill-conceived and unconstitutional state and local gun bans in the near future.
"Today is an important victory and a step in the right direction for the residents of San Francisco and for the citizens of California," concluded Cox. “NRA will keep up the fight to make sure the Second Amendment is respected throughout the country."
see story below
NRA Files Second Amendment Lawsuits
July 01, 2008
Following up on last week’s Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects a private right to possess firearms that is not limited to militia service, the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed five lawsuits challenging local gun bans in San Francisco, and in Chicago and several of its suburbs.
“The Supreme Court held yesterday that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. “These lawsuits will ensure that state and local governments hear those words.”
The San Francisco lawsuit challenges a local ordinance and lease provisions that prohibit possession of guns by residents of public housing in San Francisco. NRA is joined in that suit by the California Rifle and Pistol Association and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The Chicago case challenges a handgun ban nearly identical to the law struck down yesterday in Washington, D.C. The other Illinois suits challenge handgun bans in the suburban towns of Evanston, Morton Grove, and Oak Park.
All five suits raise the issue of the application of the Second Amendment against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, known in constitutional law as “incorporation.” Because Washington, D.C. is not a state, incorporation was not specifically addressed in yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, but the decision did repeatedly equate the Second Amendment to the First and Fourth Amendments, which have applied to the states for 80 years.
“In Washington, D.C. or in any state, whether you live in the housing projects or a high end suburb, you have the right to defend yourself and your family at home,” Cox concluded. “These laws all deny that right, and NRA will not rest until they are all struck down.”
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