Organizers of the 38th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference say attendees are ready to continue their fight for the Second Amendment.
Alan Gottlieb is executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which hosted the event Sept. 22-24 in Phoenix, Arizona. He told The Epoch Times that when he founded the organization 49 years ago, there were few pro-Second Amendment organizations.
Over the two-and-a-half-day event, more than 70 speakers addressed a crowd of up to 700.
The speakers updated the group on state laws, federal court rulings, the role of media, the fight against propaganda, and the importance of maintaining civil debate.
Adam Kraut, executive director of The Second Amendment Foundation, said the conference is meant to provide attendees with information and techniques they need to counter gun-control activists effectively.
“The Second Amendment and the debate surrounding it is really about the fundamental right to armed self-defense. And that’s a human right. If you can take all that information and put it in a fashion that’s relatable and understanding in a one-on-one conversation ... I think that really helps,” Mr. Kraut told The Epoch Times.
The organizers said that since its inception, the Second Amendment Foundation has focused on defending gun rights in the courtroom because that’s where the most significant challenges begin and end.
“Back in 1974, when I founded the Second Amendment Foundation, one of the goals was to get a case to the United States Supreme Court eventually,” Mr. Gottlieb said.
Mr. Gottlieb and his partners saw the need for legal scholars, activists, and citizens to meet and discuss the legal and political climates and strategies for defending the Second Amendment.
“So, the Second Amendment Foundation set up a legal scholars conference, way back then at the University of Washington, to map out a strategy to eventually get a case to the Supreme Court,” Mr. Gottlieb said.
The goal was to support a network of attorneys and activists who could stand up in court for the individual right to self-defense with a weapon. According to Mr. Gottlieb, the Second Amendment Foundation attained that goal and more.
“We currently have 54 cases in the courts defending gun rights. We’ve done over 250 in total in our total existence,” he said. “You know, major law firms in the country don’t usually have 50 active cases for all their clients in court at one time to begin with.”
He said the foundation was involved in the historic Washington v. Heller case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.
This has opened the door for a cascade of decisions in various courts that have affirmed the foundation’s position that the right to keep and bear arms is a God-given right.
He said gun-control groups are reeling in the wake of Heller and other Supreme Court rulings against them and are scrambling to find any way to stop the expansion of gun rights, which he said is underway now.
“The other side is definitely frustrated. For us, that’s probably a blessing in disguise,” Mr. Gottlieb told The Epoch Times.
According to Mr. Gottlieb, the expansion of gun control laws even after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen shows the desperation.
That decision in May 2022 affirmed the right of individuals to carry weapons in public for self-protection. This nullified many existing restrictions on the carrying of firearms around the country.
“So, you'll see states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Washington, Oregon, we’re seeing where they’re doubling down. So they’re like thumbing their nose at Bruen and trying to, you know, even make laws that were worse than things that Bruen knocked out,” Mr. Gottlieb said.
Many speakers noted that the day before the conference officially began, President Joe Biden announced he was opening an Office of Gun Violence Prevention to help advance his gun-control agenda.
Democrats in Congress had unsuccessfully introduced a bill to establish the office, so President Biden issued an executive order.
During his announcement of the office at an event in the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Biden said he had issued previous gun-control orders and was willing to issue more to achieve his goals.
One of the conference presenters said the reliance on executive orders illustrates the amount of opposition that gun-control advocates face. It also leaves the policies and regulations they establish subject to challenge on several levels.
When asked by The Epoch Times about Mr. Biden’s announcement, he said that executive action is a way to bypass Congress to implement an unpopular plan. And, whenever a president does this, several questions arise.
‘Just the Gun Control Side?’
He pointed out that only gun control advocates will staff the office, and that conference attendees would likely have questions for Mr. Biden.“It seems to me if you’re going to have a gun-related office at the White House, why isn’t he also talking to Second Amendment groups? Why does it have to be just the gun control side? There obviously are arguments on both sides, both constitutionally and public policy-wise,” Mr. Smith said.
“But I’m guessing he’s not going to do that because they don’t really seem interested in what the Second Amendment community has to say.”
According to Mr. Gottlieb, one of the conference’s main objectives is to ensure that the Second Amendment community knows what to say, and he believes it is succeeding in that work.
“We’re winning. We’ve got a lot more victories coming up with the cases we’ve got filed. It’s an exciting time to be a gun-rights activist,” he said.
