A civil rights victory
In New Mexico, the SAF pulls one out:
The chief U.S. District Court judge in New Mexico today granted a permanent injunction against the State of New Mexico’s “citizens only” concealed carry law that unfairly discriminated against permanent legal resident aliens in a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation.
Chief Judge M. Christina Armijo issued an order today that says the New Mexico statute “violates the Equal Protection Clause” of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
April 1st, 2014 at 3:19 pm
Strengthens the argument, in a legal sense, that self defense is an inherent, inalienable, individual right.
April 1st, 2014 at 7:41 pm
“… permanent legal resident aliens”
Well, yeah. Or even any non-citizen legally residing in this country “temporarily” like PhD students or work visas. Key is “legal.” If I were an illegal resident nut otherwise did my best to be law-abiding (say, working in a warehouse so I could send money “Home”) I might well want a weapon of some type, but how society could distinguish between me and my drug-dealing second cousin…
April 1st, 2014 at 9:31 pm
Don’t all state gun laws which restrict rights and which fail to honor other state laws which do honor Rights violate the Equal Protection Clause?
Seems I remember a law or something which requires all States to honor all Other State laws.
April 2nd, 2014 at 9:34 am
Seems I remember a law or something which requires all States to honor all Other State laws.
You’re probably thinking “full faith and credit”. It’s not quite as powerful as meaning they have to obey other state’s laws. It means any one state when provided proof of records or proceedings from another state is obligated to take them as true and accurate. Congress gets to define the standards for proof, and the effects which in theory means that congress could require all states to recognize and allow another state’s license of any sort (marriage, gun, drivers etc). The practice of this is largely variable as we’ve seen. All states recognize and allow you to drive on the driver’s license from another state (though to my knowledge, there’s no federal law requiring them to allow you to drive). Most states recognize the marriage licenses obtained in other states, though obviously the current gay marriage debates are testing that, and we’ll likely see a federal law forcing that recognition for all such marriages. OTOH, while many states will recognize your CCW / right to own a firearm for the purposes of the federal transportation laws, obviously CCW reciprocity is something of a mish mash.