This important legislation, sponsored by Representative Judy Boyle (R-Midvale), would amend Idaho’s existing law to limit public access to Fish and Game records of issued tags.  HB 531aa would also prohibit future harassment, intimidation and threats relating to the lawful taking and control of fish and wildlife. As the law currently stands, any person or organization can contact Fish and Game and request the names of all people who have been issued tags and what type of hunting tag they have been issued.

During the 2009 hunting season, the names of everyone who had a wolf tag were printed in a local paper and subsequently broadcasted nationally.  Although these hunters followed the law and direction by Idaho’s wildlife experts, they were incessantly harassed by anti-hunting groups and radical animal “rights” extremists.   It is the intention of Representative Boyle to prevent such future harassment and the NRA supports her effort to protect hunters’ rights to privacy and protection.

This email is a broadcast email generated by an automated system. To contact NRA-ILA call 800-392-8683.
Address: 11250 Waples Mill Road Fairfax, Virginia 22030

On February 22, a new law on guns in national parks takes effect. The law repeals a National Park Service rule that has long prohibited Americans from lawfully possessing firearms in national parks for self-defense.

The new law, passed last spring by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate, will allow people to possess, carry and transport firearms in national parks, in accordance with state law.

However, many details remain to be worked out. Reports indicate that National Park Service officials are debating issues such as the definition of “federal facilities,” where firearms will remain prohibited under a different federal law.

NPS officials are expected to issue further information as February 22 approaches, and some parks have already published information on their new policies. Because state laws vary greatly, before you visit a national park, you should check the park’s website or call the park headquarters for more information. NRA will also provide updates as they become available.

Copyright 2010, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.
This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.
11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030 800-392-8683
Contact Us | Privacy & Security Policy

Most laymen, and quite a few lawyers, too, are surprised to find out that the Bill of Rights does not automatically apply to state and local governments. There’s a long and complicated history behind this, but here’s the bottom line

All of the provisions of the Bill of Rights are direct restrictions on the federal government. Likewise, directly limited is an entity whose powers exist only because they were granted from the federal government. For example, under the Constitution, the federal government is in charge of the District of Columbia. The D.C. Council’s powers exist solely because Congress delegated to the Council some of Congress’ authority over the District. As the D.C. v. Heller case recently affirmed, the Second Amendment prohibits the federal government, and federal entities such as D.C., from banning handguns for self-defense.

As Justice Scalia’s opinion in Heller stated, the decision did not resolve the separate question of whether the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments. The Fourteenth Amend-ment, enacted during Reconstruction, provides: “… nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law … .”

Under modern Supreme Court doctrine, the Fourteenth Amendment’s “due process” clause protects both “procedural” and “substantive” due process. Procedural due process involves the fairness of how the government acted; for example, before the government took away someone’s driver’s license, did the person have an opportunity to present his side of the story to a neutral decision-maker?

Substantive due process involves what the government did. And some things that a government might do would involve an unjust deprivation of constitutional liberty, even if the procedures were fair. Suppose a state passed a law that said, “Anyone who reads a book criticizing the state’s governor will be imprisoned for one year.” And also suppose that for prosecutions under the law, there were all the usual procedural protections: that is, a defendant had a right to a jury trial; the defendant could cross-examine prosecution witnesses; the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant really had read the book; and so on. Even with all the procedural protections in place (procedural due process), the law would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment because there are just some ways in which a government may never deprive a person of liberty (substantive due process).

How does this affect the Bill of Rights? The Supreme Court has ruled that some, but not all, of the provisions of the Bill of Rights are “incorporated” in the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. The incorporated provisions of the Bill of Rights are thereby made enforceable against state governments. They’re also enforceable against local governments, since local governments’ powers are derived from the state.

Most of the Supreme Court’s cases on Fourteenth Amendment incorporation were decided between the 1930s and the 1960s. By the time the court was done, almost all of the provisions in the Bill of Rights had been incorporated, except: the Second Amendment right to arms; the Third Amendment right not to have soldiers quartered in one’s home; and the Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury indictment before being prosecuted. Also incorporated, of course, is the Tenth Amendment, which affirms that the people and the states retain powers not granted to the federal government.

So once Heller definitively affirmed that the Second Amendment protects the individual rights of ordinary citizens, the next question was whether the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments. There are some old cases from the 19th century suggesting that it does not, but those involved another provision of the Fourteenth Amendment (the “privileges or immunities” clause), not the due process clause.

Some state trial courts in Massachusetts, Missouri and New York have already treated the Second Amendment as applicable to the states. But other courts have disagreed. Based on the Supreme Court’s articulated standards for “selective incorporation” into the Fourteenth Amendment, the argument for incorporating the Second Amendment is very strong, as George Mason University law professor Nelson Lund explained in a recent issue of the Syracuse Law Review. (The article is availablehere. Click the word “Download” which appears above the article title.)

However, the question will not be definitively resolved until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision. From the pro-rights perspective, the sooner the Supreme Court takes a Second Amendment incorporation case, the better, since President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees are unlikely to look favorably on the Second Amendment.

Nordyke v. King might be the case that the high court takes. The “King” in Nordyke v. King is Alameda County, Calif., Supervisor Mary King. She authored a 1999 ordinance that banned firearms on all county property. She wrote to the county attorney that she had “been trying to get rid of gun shows on county property” for “about three years.” She was, she wrote, angered by “spineless people hiding behind the Constitution.”

At a press conference touting the ban, King declared that the county government should no longer “provide a place for people to display guns for worship as deities for the collectors who treat them as icons of patriotism.”

The Nordyke family, which promotes gun shows throughout California, sued. Their lead lawyer is Donald Kilmer, a California attorney with extensive experience in gun law cases. He has been assisted by Don Kates, a Washington state lawyer with a very long and eminent record of Second Amendment scholarship and litigation. After many twists and turns, the Nordyke case was argued before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit in January 2009.

The panel consisted of Circuit Judges Arthur L. Alarcón (appointed by President Carter in 1979), Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain (Reagan, 1986) and Ronald M. Gould (Clinton, 1999).

An amicus (friend of the court) brief on behalf of the NRA and the California Rifle & Pistol Association was filed by Chuck Michel of California and Stephen Halbrook of Virginia.

On April 20, the three-judge panel issued a unanimous decision written by Judge O’Scannlain: the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments. But, the court ruled, the ban on county property is not a violation of the Second Amendment. (The decision is available here.)

Applying the Supreme Court test for selective incorporation, the Ninth Circuit examined whether the right to arms was “necessary to an Anglo-American regime of ordered liberty.” The panel noted the parallels between the right to arms and the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial in criminal cases—a right that has already been incorporated. Both were protected by the 1689 English Declaration of Right; the preeminent English legal scholar William Blackstone extolled both rights; in the years before the American Revolution, the colonists vehemently protested British interference with both rights.

President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees are unlikely to look favorably on the Second Amendment.

Thus, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the Second Amendment is, in the words of the Supreme Court test, “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” The court noted that the tradition continued in the early republic, when legal scholars affirmed the importance of the right to arms, and many new state constitutions protected that right.

When Congress voted for the Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War, congressmen repeatedly stated their intent to stop Southern governments from interfering with the Second Amendment rights of freedmen. The Ninth Circuit cited Stephen Halbrook’s excellent book on the topic, Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876.

Judge Gould joined in the majority opinion, and also wrote a short concurrence elaborating the importance of the Second Amendment to national security: “The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion. We should not be overconfident that oceans on our east and west coasts alone can preserve security. We recently saw in the case of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that terrorists may enter a country covertly by ocean routes, landing in small craft and then assembling to wreak havoc. That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived. Second, the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence.”

But all three judges agreed that the Alameda County ordinance did not violate the Second Amendment. Even though the ordinance, by banning gun shows, made it more difficult or expensive to acquire guns, this fact in itself did not show an infringement of the Second Amendment, which the Ninth Circuit (quoting Heller) described as primarily involving the right to armed defense in the home.

Second, Heller had said that guns could be banned from “sensitive places,” such as schools or government buildings. The Ninth Circuit stated that the county property, as a whole, could be considered a “sensitive place,” since it was part of county government functioning, and since large numbers of people gathered at the county fairgrounds.

The county, having won the case (in that its ordinance was upheld), cannot appeal to the Supreme Court, but the Nordykes can. The Supreme Court might take the case in order to issue a definitive national ruling on incorporation, and perhaps also to clarify the scope of the “sensitive places” exception. Or the Supreme Court could reject the petition, and let lower courts continue to wrestle with Heller’s meaning. If that happens, the Supreme Court might choose to resolve the issue in another case—such as the cases challenging D.C.-style handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois, both filed by the NRA right after the Heller decision was handed down. Those cases are now before the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, partially consolidated for appeal with another Chicago case filed by the Second Amendment Foundation. (Top Second Amendment scholar and attorney Stephen Halbrook represents the NRA in the Illinois cases, while Heller case winner Alan Gura represents SAF.)

Nordyke is especially important to California residents. Most of the states in the Ninth Circuit already have a state constitutional right to arms—Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. So Nordyke’s legal effect there will probably be relatively small. But California is one of the few states that doesn’t have a state amendment on the right to arms. Now, thanks to Nordyke, the good citizens of California finally have a written guarantee of that precious right.

As Nordyke itself shows, judges may still be willing to uphold a variety of laws inspired by anti-rights bigots. Nevertheless, Nordyke is a significant victory for the Second Amendment. Donald Kilmer, Don Kates and the Nordyke family have done a great service to the sacred cause of freedom.

Posted: 6/9/2009 12:43:52 PM

Copyright 2009, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030 800-392-8683

Contact Us | Privacy & Security Policy

On Wednesday, April 8, House Bill 65A was signed by Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R). The bill goes into effect on Wednesday, July 1.

HB65A will enable law-abiding Idahoans to purchase firearms in non-contiguous states. It will also permit non-residents to purchase long guns in Idaho. As the outdated law currently stands, residents of Idaho can only purchase firearms from immediately surrounding states. With the enactment of this bill, a resident of Idaho would now be allowed to purchase a firearm in most of the 49 other states. This bill affects only rifles and shotguns, as federal law prohibits interstate handgun sales.

Thank you to all of the NRA members who stood in support of HB65A. Without you this victory would not have been possible.

Please take the time to thank Governor Otter for signing HB65A. The Governor can be reached by phone at 208-334-2100 or visit http://gov.idaho.gov/WebRespond/contact_form.html to send email.

NRA-ILA email Alert.

To contact NRA-ILA call 800-392-8683.
Address: 11250 Waples Mill Road Fairfax, Virginia 22030

A number of NRA-backed bills are currently at different stages of the legislative process in Boise.

On Monday, March 30, House Bill 65A passed the State Senate by a 31-0 vote (with one excused vote).  It now heads to the desk of Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R) for his consideration.  HB65A would enable law-abiding Idahoans to purchase firearms in non-contiguous states.  It would also permit non-residents to purchase long guns in Idaho.  As the outdated law currently stands, residents of Idaho can only purchase firearms from immediately surrounding states.  With the passage of HB65, a resident of Idaho would now be allowed to purchase a firearm in most of the 49 other states.  This bill affects only rifles and shotguns, as federal law prohibits interstate handgun sales.

House Bill 137 would allow state parks the ability to regulate discharge outside of normal, lawful usage; i.e. target practice in a safe area, hunting, sporting clays, or self-defense.  The purpose was to help control what would be considered unlawful discharge in populated areas. It also includes that a subsection permits concealed carry in state parks. This bill was signed into law by the Governor on Friday, March 25.

House Bill 194, the “Idaho Sport Shooting Immunities Act (IDSSIA),” encourages people to volunteer at shooting ranges as range officers by providing them with liability protection.  The bill was amended to comply with workers compensation issues to protect law enforcement while they are involved in shooting activities.  HB194 passed out of the Senate State Affairs Committee last week and will likely be amended once more before heading to the Senate floor.

On Tuesday, March 24, House Bill 229 passed the Idaho State House by a 61-9 vote.  This NRA-supported measure makes numerous improvements to the current emergency powers statute that was signed into law in 2006.  It has moved to the Senate and has been assigned to the Senate State Affairs Committee.  HB229 is a NRA-supported reform to legislation passed in 2006.  Specifically, this prevents government officials from imposing additional restrictions on the lawful possession, transfer, sale, transport, storage, display, or use of firearms and ammunition during a state of emergency.

At this time, no action is needed on behalf of HB65A, HB194, or HB229.  Please continue to check your email and www.NRAILA.org for updates.

However, just when these people needed guns the most, New Orleans’s Police Superintendent ordered the confiscation of firearms, allegedly under a state emergency powers law. “No one will be able to be armed,” he said. “Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.”2 (Fortunately, an NRA lawsuit brought an end to the seizures-along with a far-fetched denial that confiscation had ever been ordered. Following this, Judge Carl J. Barbier, presiding over the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, held New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Warren Riley in contempt for “failure to provide initial disclosures and to compel answers to discovery” during NRA’s injunction against the City for their illegal gun confiscations.)

Of course, no one condones the mindless violence of those who would loot a helpless city, or shoot at rescue workers. But one reason for the citizens to retain a legal right to arms, is precisely because the government has no legal duty to protect them.3 Legislative bodies can, and should, act to protect the self-defense rights of citizens at the times when those rights are most important.

Unfortunately, many states have “emergency powers” laws that give the government permission to suspend or limit gun sales, and to prohibit or restrict citizens from transporting or carrying firearms. In some states, authorities are authorized to seize guns outright from citizens who’ve committed no crime–and who would then be defenseless against disorder.

The movement to change these laws is gaining speed. Just two months after Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana legislature–with only one dissenting vote–adopted a resolution declaring “the policy of the state of Louisiana to protect and uphold the citizens’ right to keep and bear arms in their residences, businesses, and means of transport, and on their persons,” condemning the seizure of firearms from New Orleans citizens, and announcing it planned to amend Louisiana’s emergency powers law “to rectify the denial of these rights.”4 Since then, 21 additional states have joined Louisiana by passing laws to protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners by prohibiting the confiscation of firearms during a time of emergency.

Congress and President Bush also saw the need to act to protect gun owners’ rights during emergencies. H.R. 5013, the “Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act,” was introduced in the House by Congressman Bobby Jindal (LA – 1) and passed the House on July 25, 2006 with a broad bi-partisan margin of 322-99. Senator David Vitter (R-La) introduced the Senate version of the bill and added it as an Amendment to Homeland Security Appropriations, which passed the United States Senate by 84-16, the largest margin of victory for a NRA-backed measure. On October 9, 2006, President George W. Bush signed this legislation into law.

In the past, America has balanced emergency needs with respect for constitutional rights. Months before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Congress passed the Property Requisition Act of 1941, which allowed the President, as a last resort, to seize needed war materials “upon the payment of fair and just compensation.”5 The Congress, concerned about the prospect of gun confiscation, included language to prohibit registration or seizure of privately owned firearms. America and its allies went on to win the greatest armed conflict in history. Today, Congress and the state legislatures should follow that lead.

Copyright 2009, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.
This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

Tell Us Your Story Today!

Right now in Idaho, and across the nation, employers are telling their employees they can no longer exercise their constitutional rights. Businesses are trying to prohibit law-abiding gun owners from keeping their legally-owned firearm stored in their personal vehicles while parked in publicly accessible parking lots.

If you lawfully carry a firearm for self-defense, target practice, hunting or any other reason, then you should be able to safely keep your firearm in your vehicle, while parked in a publicly accessible parking lot.

Do you have a company memo, email, message, reprimand or any other information pertaining to firearms on company property?

Let us know!

We value your membership and ask for your help in our effort to protect our Second Amendment rights.

If you are willing to testify in legislative hearings about this issue, please let us know.

Send your story to us at:

Email: state&local@nrahq.org

NRA-ILA, State & Local Affairs

C/O Idaho State Liaison

11250 Waples Mill Road

Fairfax, VA 22030

Phone (703) 267-1240

Fax: (703) 267-3976