SECOND AMENDMENT

Former N.J. Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman breaks down what the Garden State’s political volatility says about the state of politics in America.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Second Amendment dispute that could have a major impact on state rules for carrying firearms outside the home.

Dozens of people attended an open carry rally led by Joey Gibson, leader of the Patriot Prayer group, on May 20, 2018, in Seattle. Karen Ducey/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Nov. 3, 2021, on a clear question: Does the constitutional right to possess a gun extend outside the home? The answer may alter gun regulations in many states. The crux of the issue before the court is captured by a debate that Thomas Jefferson had with himself at the time of the founding. When Jeffer

The Supreme Court is preparing to hear a gun rights case that could lead to more guns on the streets of New York and Los Angeles and threaten restrictions on guns in subways, airports, bars, churches, schools and other places where people gather.

A dispute between France and the U.K. over fishing rights is escalating. CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata joins CBSN to discuss what's behind it and the fallout.

Shortly before departing for Europe, President Biden announced he and Democratic lawmakers reached a framework agreement on the Build Back Better Act. CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes has the details on the framework. She then talks with CBSN anchor Lana Zak about what benefits Americans should expect to see from the plan.

Several hundred firefighters, city workers and supporters protested against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in front of the New York City mayor's official residence on Thursday. (Oct. 28)

The lawsuit, which is backed by the National Rifle Association, seeks to overturn a New York law restricting who can carry loaded, concealed firearms outside the home and in public places. Seven other states have similar laws.

This ruling could change the course of future firearm rights litigation. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesThe stakes in one of the most significant Second Amendment cases in U.S. history are high. The Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, expected by mid-2022, could declare a New York state restriction on carrying concealed handguns in public places unconstitutional. Such a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, which include a National Rifle Association affiliat

The court's new term begins Monday.

Gun-maker cited state's "unwavering support of the Second Amendment" in saying it would relocate in 2023.

The court's new term begins Monday.

Texas has always been a conservative state, but in modern times, no one has anything like what the governor and state legislature are doing

Gun rights advocates lauded the new state law for removing what they considered an unfair burden on firearms owners, but gun safety groups and law enforcement organizations opposed it.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for a major case that centers on whether the Constitution guarantees the right to carry guns outside the home.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

An Oregon county judge has dismissed a case challenging the validity of two gun rights measures passed by local voters in recent years in a move that Second Amendment advocates are hailing as a “victory with national implications.”

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

A divided 4th Circuit panel declares a Second Amendment right for 18-year-olds to purchase handguns. The decision is likely to be appealed to the full court.

Recently, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed seven pieces of legislation regarding the second...

In remarks on gun violence, the president repeated a claim that has already been fact-checked as false.

The "graduation" was a carefully organized stunt designed to prove a point, said Manuel and Patricia Oliver, the parents of Joaquin Oliver, who died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla.

Despite his bias, Judge Benitez probably got it right about the unconstitutionality of an assault weapons ban, and his ruling is a good predictor of the result if the issue

Gov. Greg Abbott appeared at Alamo Plaza Thursday to sign seven pieces of legislation related to firearms, including so-called constitutional carry.

The Second Amendment declares the importance of state-government authorized militias, like these National Guard troops guarding the California State Capitol building. AP Photo/Rich PedroncelliWhen a federal judge in California struck down the state’s 32-year-old ban on assault weapons in early June 2021, he added a volatile new issue to the gun-rights debate. The ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez, does not take effect immediately, because California has 30 days to appeal the rej

The judge ruled that the law undermined constitutional gun ownership rights.

The news of her decision comes two days after the current land commissioner, George P. Bush, announced he was running for attorney general next year, challenging fellow Republican Ken Paxton.

Carol Anderson says the Second Amendment was designed to ensure slave owners could quickly crush any rebellion or resistance from those they'd enslaved. Her new book is The Second.

Known by supporters as “constitutional carry,” the new law allows Texans to carry handguns — openly or concealed — without obtaining a state-issued license, so long they are not excluded from possessing a firearm by another federal or state law.

The violators, both in Texas and across the nation, often faced few or any sanctions, the analysis showed.

Abbott has said he would sign the permitless carry proposal into law.

Despite the governor’s signature, the law will not take effect until 90 days from May 17 — a measure added by lawmakers to give the State Law Enforcement Division and police agencies more time to educate police and the public on the new law.

The gun rights lobby, which lost in bankruptcy court last week, built influence over decades that has reshaped the political environment.

The decision could gut state laws, at a time when more and more Americans favor stricter gun regulation.

Eighteen students from Forest Lake Elementary School and their driver were not harmed.

A 47-year-old woman who went missing in November has been found alive in a tent in a national forest in Utah, having survived for five months by drinking river water and eating moss and grass. The woman, who has not been named, was described as “resourceful” by local police, who found her by chance after officers set out to retrieve a crashed drone they had been using during the search. A search and rescue mission was launched on November 25 last year after an abandoned car and camping equipment was found by US Forest Service Officials. They had been preparing for seasonal closures of parts of Spanish Fork Canyon, 50 miles south of Salt Lake City. Despite having the woman’s identity, officers were unable to make contact with her family, while former co-workers said they did not know where she could be. After a punishing winter, with temperatures plunging to as low as -10 degrees celsius at night, officers teamed up with a non-profit areal search organisation, who flew a drone over the area on Sunday.

The state of Texas is considering a “constitutional carry” law, which would do away with the requirement that Texans get a permit before carrying a firearm. Under constitutional carry, so-called, if you are eligible to purchase a firearm, then you are eligible to carry one. I am of two minds about this. I am a Second Amendment advocate, and I would prefer that both Congress and the courts recognize, as plainly as possible, that the right to keep and bear arms mentioned in the Constitution has nothing to do with hunting or recreational shooting — there are no hobbies in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment protects the rights of Americans to keep and bear war-fighting arms, one of the rights that traditionally distinguishes citizens from subjects. That makes regulation a dicey matter, because the classes of firearms anti-gun activists want to prohibit are the ones the Second Amendment exists to protect — including the AR-15 and semiautomatic handguns, not just granddad’s deer rifle. (Although dear ol’ pawpaw’s deer rifle was a “weapon of war” in its day, too: The classic .30-06 hunting round was developed for the U.S. military and adopted by the army in 1906, hence the designation — .30 caliber, ’06 model.) When the gun-grabbers complain that thus and such a firearm was designed for the primary purpose of killing people, the answer is, “Well, yes — that’s precisely the point.” Anti-gun types like to mock that, painting Second Amendment activists as a bunch of fantasists who are Rambo in their dreams and Babbitt in their waking hours. That is . . . not entirely unfair, at least not in all cases. It is true that gun-owning Americans are unlikely ever to use their firearms to defend their families from criminals, much less use them to battle tyranny. But it also is true that 99.44 percent of Americans will never have an interesting or original thought or write a sentence that is worth reading once, much less a sentence that is worth remembering, and we keep the First Amendment around all the same. There’s a good reason for that; it’s not just sentimentality. Unlike some of my legal-minded friends and colleagues, I think the doctrine of “incorporation” — applying federal constitutional restrictions to the states — is a little bit sketchy. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; it says nothing about the state legislature of New Jersey. That doesn’t mean that our civil rights can be legitimately taken away by the states — it means that state constitutions need their own charters of rights, which, of course, most of them have. The Texas bill of rights, for example, contains two separate provisions regarding religion (one securing freedom of worship, the other prohibiting “appropriations for sectarian purposes”), a free-speech guarantee, rules about searches and bail, etc. It also recognizes a right to keep and bear arms, one that is in some ways clearer than the one recognized by the Second Amendment: “Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.” Of course, the fact that the legislature may regulate the wearing of arms does not mean that it must, but it seems to me that there is some tension between the notion that unpermitted carry is a constitutional mandate and the Texas constitution’s reservation of regulatory discretion to the state. My own inclination is to treat the Second Amendment as though it means just what it says as a federal matter, while being a good federalist and making room for considerable variation in regulation at the state level. I have lived in the South Bronx, and I have lived in a remote corner of Colorado with an elk-to-biped ratio of 24:1 — and I do not think that both places need to maintain precisely the same firearms laws. It is both constitutionally sound and prudent to maintain a good deal of local diversity, including within the states: Houston and Terlingua are not very much alike. I’d love to sign off without reservation on constitutional carry, because I believe the right recognized (not granted) by the Second Amendment is an important one. “We win, you lose!” is always a satisfying outcome — but, sometimes, it is the wrong outcome. We love our guns in Texas. Last week, I went to a sporting-goods store outside Dallas that had a hand-lettered sign taped to the door informing irritated shoppers that the day’s ammunition delivery had not arrived; inside, the ammo section was indeed picked bare with the exception of a few boxes of odd-duck calibers. (If you happened to be looking to load a rifle chambered for the 6.5×55mm Swedish cartridge, you were in luck — Dallas-area moose beware.) It has been that way for more than a year, since the onset of the coronavirus epidemic. And we aren’t hoarding all that ammo, either: Getting a lane at a popular shooting range is harder than getting a table at Dorsia. A parishioner at my church observes that the guards who work the doors on Sundays probably are superfluous and that any would-be troublemaker entering the church would be likely to encounter the Almighty sooner rather than later. I am a conservative, and so I support Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. But I also do not live under a rock, and so I know that most Americans cannot be trusted to safely operate a mobile phone without endangering the lives of other people, e.g., by scrolling through Instagram while driving 82 m.p.h. down the George Bush Turnpike in a Lexus ES-350. It is true that the states that have passed constitutional carry — and those such as Vermont that simply never bothered to enact gun laws in the first place — have not seen elevated levels of firearms-related crime or accidents. But I am not persuaded that “studies say” should be the end of the argument, and I don’t think that sitting through a class on safe gun-handling, putting ten rounds into the circle at a reasonable distance, and passing a background check every couple of years would constitute an unreasonable burden on this civil right. In fact, the last time I sat through a concealed-carry class, there were a couple of people in attendance who clearly should not be carrying a firearm in public — one was trying to shove .45 ACP rounds into a 9mm pistol and asked a lot of questions about the circumstances under which it is permissible to shoot a police officer, something the police officer teaching the class took note of. (To be fair, this was in Dallas, where the police sometimes break into your house and shoot you for no reason at all.) Licensure has the advantage of providing us with a formal opportunity to inform those ineligible to carry in no uncertain terms that they may not legally carry a firearm, whereas under an unlicensed-carry regime someone illegally carrying a gun might plausibly plead ignorance to his ineligibility in many circumstances. For all of our cowboy pretense, Texas is not very much like Wyoming — it is a big state full of big cities with big-city problems. Introducing the unlicensed carrying of firearms into Dallas or Houston does not seem to me an obviously desirable aim — Texas already has a perfectly workable permitting system, and abolishing it is a textbook example of a solution in search of a problem.

The high court's expanded conservative majority is poised to address the politically charged issue of gun rights.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a major Second Amendment dispute that could settle whether the Constitution protects a right to carry guns in public.

Three people barred from possessing firearms under federal law because of nonviolent felony convictions said the ban violates the Second Amendment.

An executive order signed by President Joe Biden Thursday would create a model that states could use to enact red flag laws.

As he announced executive actions to curb gun violence, President Biden called for an assault weapons ban. Kris Brown, a gun control advocate and president of Brady, says gun reform doesn't violate the Second Amendment, unless you view it as "tantamount to a death sentence." She spoke with Vladimir Duthiers on CBSN about the president's push for stricter gun laws.

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he would pursuing executive action on gun prevention. Mr. Biden also pushed back on the idea that these actions would infringe on the Second Amendment. Watch his and Attorney General Merrick Garland's remarks from the Rose Garden.

With the Supreme Court now boasting a 6-3 conservative majority, the question has become which case involving gun rights the justices are likely to take up.

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo the Supreme Court is seen at sundown in Washington. Scott Applewhite, File)WASHINGTON – A possible expansion of gun rights is on the Supreme Court's agenda, days after mass shootings in Colorado and Georgia. The appeal comes from New York, which gun rights groups say is among eight states that make it difficult if not virtually impossible for people to get permits to carry guns in public. Unclear is whether the recent mass shootings will affect the court's consideration of the case. “The justices may be more reluctant to take a big Second Amendment case right now," Winkler said.

With control of the Senate at stake, gun rights groups are pouring millions of dollars in outside spending into the Jan. 5 runoff election in Georgia to support two Republican candidates. Meanwhile, gun control groups are far behind in supporting the two Democratic candidates monetarily, which could impact their chances of winning as well as President-elect Joe Biden's hopes of passing gun control legislation in 2021. Pro-gun groups such as the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America are backing incumbent GOP Sens. Other gun rights groups have also invested in outside spending for the Senate runoff races, FEC data show. "This is why the God, Guns & Life PAC supports Loeffler and Perdue — they will protect gun rights."

Generally, foreigners are not allowed to buy guns in the United States. Ron DeSantis questioned whether foreigners should be allowed to buy guns. In Florida, like many other states, foreigners and non-residents can buy a hunting license. There have been instances of foreigners seeking to exploit American gun laws. UCLA's Winkler said these cases, underscored by the Pensacola attack, expose failings in American gun laws.

Matt Post is too young to remember the last time the Supreme Court heard a case over gun control. On Monday, the Supreme Court is set to hear its first major Second Amendment case since 2010. The composition of the court has shifted since the court last heard a case involving gun legislation. The court established a loose framework for gun legislation in a pair of cases decided in 2008 and 2010. In the 2008 case, D.C. v. Heller, the court found that the Second Amendment protected gun ownership unconnected with service in a militia.

The argument comes as other presidential contenders, including South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have criticized the increased politicization of the Supreme Court. But unlike arguments made by other candidates, the critique quietly put forward by Gillibrand was delivered directly to the justices. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke have signaled an openness to adding justices to the court. It has been nearly a decade since the top court last heard a major Second Amendment case. Because New York voluntarily amended the disputed laws and regulations, the case should no longer be reviewed by the justices, New York argues.

Days after President Obama announced executive actions aimed at strengthening background checks, House Speaker Paul Ryan says the president does not respect the Second Amendment. The Speaker believes there is no gun show loophole and said the president's actions would not have stopped any shootings.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says the right to bear arms allows Americans to defend themselves against tyranny “when we have the wrong people in office.” He noted the amendment allows people to aid the military against foreign invasion.

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says he is a “big Second Amendment person.” The candidate believes the recent shooting at a community college in Oregon could have been less fatal if the teacher was equipped with a gun.

Gun owners buying up "green tip" bullets that White House may outlaw Regulators say the so-called "green tip" rounds used with AR-15 assault rifles can penetrate bullet-proof vests, while critics say any potential ban is an attack on the Second Amendment. Mark Strassmann reports.

Rand Paul wants the GOP to defend more than gun rights Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul warns that Republicans also need to protect the entire Bill of Rights, and not just the Second Amendment.