Two laudable pieces of news reinforcing constitutional protections of fundamental rights.
A California law banning young adults from purchasing semi-automatic weapons has been struck down by a federal appeals court as unconstitutional, a big win for Second Amendment advocates in the state and defeat for Governor Gavin Newsom.
The suit had been brought by the Matthew Jones, a resident of San Diego who was 20 at the time, and the Firearms Policy Coalition after the California State Legislature passed SB 1100 in 2019, in response to the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Writing for the majority, Judge Ryan D. Nelson stated that young adults have Second Amendment protections as persons who are part of a national community.The 100-page decision extensively examined the history of youth owning weapons, going back to the early days of English colonists in the United States, and extensively cited the Supreme Court landmark gun rights case, District of Columbia v. Heller. It reversed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, which had upheld the law on initial challenge.
And the ACLU supports Free Speech, again.
After more than 400 lawsuits against his policies, countless full-page ads in national dailies attacking him, and fundraising over $300 million off this activity, the American Civil Liberties Union has come down on the side of Donald Trump, for once.
Yesterday, its executive director, Anthony Romero, joined in support of the Elon Musk announcement that Trump would be unbanned from Twitter.
Like it or not, President Trump is one of the most important political figures in this country, and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech.
he said.
What a relief.
In the 50s, its victories torpedoed the Smith Act, used to imprison communists under McCarthyism. In 68 two of its black attorneys defended segregationist Governor George Wallace right to speak at Shea Stadium in New York City. In 77, two of its Jewish attorneys, David Goldberger and Alan Dershowitz, defended neo-Nazis marching through Skokie, Ill., where Holocaust survivors lived. Its other clients over the years have included the Nation of Islam, the Ku Klux Klan, and the anti-American Westboro Baptist Church, among other such outfits. Even as late as 2010, it filed briefs supporting Citizens United in the eponymous Supreme Court case that recognized corporations rights to free speech. The sole guiding principle, in all cases, was the First Amendment.
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