Jim’s Thoughts: Litigation
Youtube Audio
Transcript:
Hey folks, Jim Wallace here again from Gun Owners’ Action League. I wanted to take a little bit of time and talk about some issues regarding litigation surrounding Chapter 135. For, gosh, it has almost been two years now that we've been fighting this thing and from the very beginning there was a number of people who did not want to get involved in the legislative fight and just kept telling us: well, stop this nonsense and file a lawsuit and fix it.
Well, we know you can't file a lawsuit against something until it becomes law, so there's the first problem and then the next issue is: do you have standing? And that basically means that somebody has to face direct harm in order to challenge a piece of the law and we've also said this for almost a year now that no court was ever going to take up this entire law. They just simply won't do it.
So, you have to break the law down into pieces that you can attack individually. Going back again almost a year ago GOAL started working with national partners and local partners to do just that. We knew something at that time was going to pass we just didn't know what. But we certainly do now.
So, here's the problem: the first lawsuit we filed was against the training requirements and thus the licensing requirements, and that was chosen for a reason because it was going to prevent new people from entering into the Second Amendment community and exercising their civil rights. Well, it wasn't very long after we had spent quite a bit of money and time to get that lawsuit filed in Federal Court, that the state supposedly corrected an error and passed a law that basically put off training requirements for 18 months. So the problem we have now is that particular case is moot, because we can't show harm, we can't show-right now-that everybody's being you know prevented from getting a license because of the new training requirements.
Now you and I probably look at this and say, well there's an unconstitutional law on the books make it go away. Unfortunately that's not the way the courts work and it frustrates me just as much as it frustrates you. The courts are going to look at standing and harm and if there is none they're not going to accept the challenge. So, we warned people this was going to be a tough legal battle and could take years.
I've already talked bit about the new government strategy, which is to put laws in place but not really enforce them. So just have them hang over your head and that's what they've done here at least initially. So the next target for us was going to be the long gun roster because that's something that's really not possible and I've talked about that in the previous audio clip. Then, once again, we've spent a great deal of money and time to develop a case to bring before a Federal Court and this time even before we could bring it, they suspended that part of the law. So, now that part of the action is moot again.
So we're seeing a pattern here obviously right-that every time we spend the money and resources to bring a case, which is not cheap and it takes time to do this right, they just simply say: “ohh we're not going to enforce that right now” and put it off for a year and a half whatever it might be and then we're stuck.
So, there's still things happening. We had worked with national groups; the NRA should be filing their case anytime and they're partnering with pretty much every organization in the country including us and they're going to go after the assault style firearm issue. Because it's new here; totally new definitions than what the rest of the country faces. And I'm pretty sure they're going to tackle the under-21 language too.
SAF, the Second Amendment Foundation, we've been working with them for a couple of months now and they're going to try to tackle the non-resident licensing issues. Now this is kind of incumbent upon what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decides in the Donnell case and some of you are probably familiar with that. That's the non-resident case that came out of the City of Lowell’s District Court, where non-residents were being charged with felony possession of a firearm without a nonresident license. And the court basically said “well have you read Bruen?” “ No you can't charge these people criminally.”
So, there's about 5 cases I guess that are all tied up with this one and GOAL actually filed an amicus brief (friend of the court brief) and so did a lot of other organizations and individuals. But now we're still waiting for a decision, so we'll have to see how that comes out.
Now on the local level, even though Bruen basically said it's unconstitutional, actually flat out unconstitutional, to have basically a licensing system; they can call it a shell issue but as long as they're using suitability, it's still a may issue regardless of what they call it. And of course they tried a trick a couple of years ago and they said “ohh we've codified what that means.” OK, so you've codified something that's basically unconstitutional.
But one of the things, you know I get this question a lot, is “Jim how can they do this? It's unconstitutional.” The Legislature is a beast upon itself. They can really do anything they want and then it's up to us to stop it through the court system. Unfortunately, that's how this works. You know, I explained to one lady I said they could literally reenact slavery tomorrow and then it would be up to us to go to court and fight it. It's just, again, the way the system works unfortunately.
So you know one of the things we're going to have to continue to do is fight things even though they're blatantly unconstitutional. So suitability: GOAL’s involved in three suitability cases and you can go to our legal page at GOAL.org and get some more information on these three different attorneys. Three different judges across the state have ruled against suitability citing Bruen, that it was unconstitutional. So just recently GOAL got together with all the attorneys that were involved in the cases that were helping, and came up with a strategy to basically, hopefully the term is correct, join them so that all three cases will be put together and thus move up the system even faster. So we're not dealing with three individual cases chasing up through you know whatever it is appeals, Superior Court you know yadda yadda yadda, it'll be now one case.
The Attorney General has the opportunity to oppose that, but the only reason to oppose it is that they want to drag this thing out. So it'll be interesting to see how the courts handle the suitability case because you have three different district judges that said no good as far as suitability goes and we'll see what the upper courts say.
So the long and short of it is folks, 2025 is going to be a grind. We're going to continue to fight this thing as best we can. We're working with all the experts across the country. Some very good Second Amendment experts as far as the courts go, and we will continue to charge at this thing with everything we have.
But we also have to be frugal as far as how we spend your money. We're not going to just keep putting good money after bad you know if a case is not properly moving forward or if it becomes moot, it's foolish to waste that kind of money to continue that.
So anyway I just thought I'd talk a little bit about this litigation. It’s not fun, it's not easy and it's not cheap. You just don't walk into the United states Supreme Court and say “fix this.” Very few cases get that far and even if they get that far, the Court may not hear it and we're seeing that nationwide. After Bruen, they really don't want to take on another Second Amendment case. I mean they did already but nothing like we want to see, you know, as far as assault weapons or direct suitability or any of those subject matters so far, have not been taken up again. So we'll see.
We'll keep you updated, we'll keep fighting and we'll keep working with our experts and hopefully we'll have some good news here in a few months thanks for all your support folks
Youtube Audio
Transcript:
Hey folks, Jim Wallace here again from Gun Owners’ Action League. I wanted to take a little bit of time and talk about some issues regarding litigation surrounding Chapter 135. For, gosh, it has almost been two years now that we've been fighting this thing and from the very beginning there was a number of people who did not want to get involved in the legislative fight and just kept telling us: well, stop this nonsense and file a lawsuit and fix it.
Well, we know you can't file a lawsuit against something until it becomes law, so there's the first problem and then the next issue is: do you have standing? And that basically means that somebody has to face direct harm in order to challenge a piece of the law and we've also said this for almost a year now that no court was ever going to take up this entire law. They just simply won't do it.
So, you have to break the law down into pieces that you can attack individually. Going back again almost a year ago GOAL started working with national partners and local partners to do just that. We knew something at that time was going to pass we just didn't know what. But we certainly do now.
So, here's the problem: the first lawsuit we filed was against the training requirements and thus the licensing requirements, and that was chosen for a reason because it was going to prevent new people from entering into the Second Amendment community and exercising their civil rights. Well, it wasn't very long after we had spent quite a bit of money and time to get that lawsuit filed in Federal Court, that the state supposedly corrected an error and passed a law that basically put off training requirements for 18 months. So the problem we have now is that particular case is moot, because we can't show harm, we can't show-right now-that everybody's being you know prevented from getting a license because of the new training requirements.
Now you and I probably look at this and say, well there's an unconstitutional law on the books make it go away. Unfortunately that's not the way the courts work and it frustrates me just as much as it frustrates you. The courts are going to look at standing and harm and if there is none they're not going to accept the challenge. So, we warned people this was going to be a tough legal battle and could take years.
I've already talked bit about the new government strategy, which is to put laws in place but not really enforce them. So just have them hang over your head and that's what they've done here at least initially. So the next target for us was going to be the long gun roster because that's something that's really not possible and I've talked about that in the previous audio clip. Then, once again, we've spent a great deal of money and time to develop a case to bring before a Federal Court and this time even before we could bring it, they suspended that part of the law. So, now that part of the action is moot again.
So we're seeing a pattern here obviously right-that every time we spend the money and resources to bring a case, which is not cheap and it takes time to do this right, they just simply say: “ohh we're not going to enforce that right now” and put it off for a year and a half whatever it might be and then we're stuck.
So, there's still things happening. We had worked with national groups; the NRA should be filing their case anytime and they're partnering with pretty much every organization in the country including us and they're going to go after the assault style firearm issue. Because it's new here; totally new definitions than what the rest of the country faces. And I'm pretty sure they're going to tackle the under-21 language too.
SAF, the Second Amendment Foundation, we've been working with them for a couple of months now and they're going to try to tackle the non-resident licensing issues. Now this is kind of incumbent upon what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decides in the Donnell case and some of you are probably familiar with that. That's the non-resident case that came out of the City of Lowell’s District Court, where non-residents were being charged with felony possession of a firearm without a nonresident license. And the court basically said “well have you read Bruen?” “ No you can't charge these people criminally.”
So, there's about 5 cases I guess that are all tied up with this one and GOAL actually filed an amicus brief (friend of the court brief) and so did a lot of other organizations and individuals. But now we're still waiting for a decision, so we'll have to see how that comes out.
Now on the local level, even though Bruen basically said it's unconstitutional, actually flat out unconstitutional, to have basically a licensing system; they can call it a shell issue but as long as they're using suitability, it's still a may issue regardless of what they call it. And of course they tried a trick a couple of years ago and they said “ohh we've codified what that means.” OK, so you've codified something that's basically unconstitutional.
But one of the things, you know I get this question a lot, is “Jim how can they do this? It's unconstitutional.” The Legislature is a beast upon itself. They can really do anything they want and then it's up to us to stop it through the court system. Unfortunately, that's how this works. You know, I explained to one lady I said they could literally reenact slavery tomorrow and then it would be up to us to go to court and fight it. It's just, again, the way the system works unfortunately.
So you know one of the things we're going to have to continue to do is fight things even though they're blatantly unconstitutional. So suitability: GOAL’s involved in three suitability cases and you can go to our legal page at GOAL.org and get some more information on these three different attorneys. Three different judges across the state have ruled against suitability citing Bruen, that it was unconstitutional. So just recently GOAL got together with all the attorneys that were involved in the cases that were helping, and came up with a strategy to basically, hopefully the term is correct, join them so that all three cases will be put together and thus move up the system even faster. So we're not dealing with three individual cases chasing up through you know whatever it is appeals, Superior Court you know yadda yadda yadda, it'll be now one case.
The Attorney General has the opportunity to oppose that, but the only reason to oppose it is that they want to drag this thing out. So it'll be interesting to see how the courts handle the suitability case because you have three different district judges that said no good as far as suitability goes and we'll see what the upper courts say.
So the long and short of it is folks, 2025 is going to be a grind. We're going to continue to fight this thing as best we can. We're working with all the experts across the country. Some very good Second Amendment experts as far as the courts go, and we will continue to charge at this thing with everything we have.
But we also have to be frugal as far as how we spend your money. We're not going to just keep putting good money after bad you know if a case is not properly moving forward or if it becomes moot, it's foolish to waste that kind of money to continue that.
So anyway I just thought I'd talk a little bit about this litigation. It’s not fun, it's not easy and it's not cheap. You just don't walk into the United states Supreme Court and say “fix this.” Very few cases get that far and even if they get that far, the Court may not hear it and we're seeing that nationwide. After Bruen, they really don't want to take on another Second Amendment case. I mean they did already but nothing like we want to see, you know, as far as assault weapons or direct suitability or any of those subject matters so far, have not been taken up again. So we'll see.
We'll keep you updated, we'll keep fighting and we'll keep working with our experts and hopefully we'll have some good news here in a few months thanks for all your support folks
