Judging Freedom - Gun rights group sues to block New York assault weapons ban

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, July 18, 2022. It's about 1155 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Those of you who sort of followed the news and were able to follow me while I was on vacation know that the Supreme Court of the United States, in a brilliant, gifted, fabulous opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas and by a 6-3 vote in the court, finally recognized that the right to keep and bear arms literally means what it says, and it recognized that the Second Amendment right not only to own but to carry a weapon is not a second-class right. It is a right in the same category as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of assembly.

The rights articulated in the Bill of Rights do not come from the government. They come from our humanity. The Bill of Rights restrains the government from interfering with them. That is basic constitutional law 101. For years, however, the federal government and the states took the position that they could interfere with the right to carry, to bear a weapon outside the home. Justice Thomas's opinion once and for all put an end to that argument. And so now even states like New Jersey, which had the most draconian laws, the most difficult laws in the union, along with New York, to carry, even New Jersey's now issuing licenses pursuant to the Supreme Court opinion by which it knows it is bound. But the state of New York is not taking the position

that it is bound by the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court's decision. Because two weeks ago, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation which passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the legislature in Albany. At the time, there was zero, zero debate. So anxious was the governor to get her signature on this legislation, which forces you to go through all kinds of red tape and jump through all kinds of hoops before you can get the right, the license to carry. All this red tape and all these hoops through which you have to jump are absolutely prohibited by Justice Thomas's opinion. Justice Thomas's opinion said the Second Amendment is as vital to human freedom and in the same category as the First Amendment. The First Amendment, of course, protects worship and speech.

Do you need permission from the government to take a book out of a library to buy a book and read it? You have to register the book that you're going to read with the government? Of course not. Why should you have to register your gun if the two weapons are the same? Okay, I get it. The government is terrified that people might have guns that the government doesn't know about. It should have that fear. It should have that terror. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. First thing any tyrant who takes power wants to do is to take weapons away from the people. There should be no requirement whatsoever to own or to carry a gun.

New York, of course, has added requirements in utter defiance of Justice Thomas's majority opinion. So the New York law requires that in order for you to carry a handgun, you must be of good moral character. Who the hell is the state to decide who's of good moral character? And you have to surrender all your social media for the past four years so the state can scrutinize it before they'll decide whether or not they're going to give you a license to carry a gun. All of this is nonsense. All of this is nonsense. All of this is unconstitutional. All of this defies the plain meaning of the Second Amendment

and absolutely, utterly defies its interpretation by the Supreme Court of last month. Fortunately, the same people who challenged the New York state law that prohibited carrying, that's the law that was invalidated by the Supreme Court in Justice Thomas's opinion, have now challenged this new law. Prediction, the courts will prevent the enforcement of the new law within a week and eventually invalidate it totally. What is it about people in government who take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States? That means the entire Constitution. That means whether you agree with it or not. What is it about people in government who take that oath? I took that oath when I became a judge. It's the same oath Governor Hochul took. It's the same oath that the members of the New

York State Legislature took. What is it about people who take that oath and then find parts of the Constitution that they hate and they violate their oath because they won't uphold that part? That's why we have an independent judiciary to put those people in their place and to protect our human freedoms. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.