Fighting to Protect the Second Amendment

New cases are set to go before the United States Supreme Court.

As is custom, many outside groups with an interest in a case plan to submit amicus briefs.

Getting its term from Latin, “amicus” or “friends” of the Court review matters of a legal issue and provide findings in a legal document for Court consideration.

In particular, one amicus brief collected support with respect to Second Amendment rights.

I am a proud supporter and signee of an amicus brief filed by the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) and led by Georgia Congressman Andrew Clyde.

The amicus brief addresses two cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. Chief Justice John Roberts and the other eight justices will examine the constitutionality of legal restrictions against semi-automatic rifles.

One attorney who is listed as a Counsel of Record drafting a separate amicus brief in Viramontes v. Cook County is former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cucinelli.

Earlier this year, Cucinelli tried to fight in Virginia courts against Governor Abigail Spanberger’s gun grab legislation that places new restrictions on semi-automatic weapons.

But with this new legal fight brewing in the U.S. Supreme Court, I signed my name onto the ACLJ amicus brief that uses similar arguments made by Cucinelli in the Virginia case.

The heart of the argument lies with previous laws tied to a Militia.

In June 1776, the Virginia Convention adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights. This document is considered a major source of the Bill of Rights that later became part of the U.S. Constitution.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights included the Militia Clause as drafted by founding father George Mason.

The Militia Clause states: “That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state…”

Further, the Clause reaffirms that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This language is enshrined in Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution.

Further, the Militia Act of 1792 required ordinary citizens to provide themselves with the standard infantry arm of the era.

As our amicus brief states, the arms the citizen was expected to keep were the arms they would bring to militia service.

The establishment of an organized militia, what we know today as the National Guard, came as a result of the Militia Act of 1903. But this legislation did not change the fact that there remains an unorganized militia. Federal law continues to recognize this class of U.S. citizens who are not members of the National Guard.

Therefore, this militia class as proposed by Mason and our founders remains well intact. And with this class comes the access to bear arms for service to a militia.

Respect for this concept has notably frayed, with more Democratic States challenging gun laws on the basis that military-grade style weapons are not protected.

Of course, not every militarily useful weapon is protected.

Nuclear or chemical weapons, tanks and the like fall outside of the scope that an ordinary citizen would be expected to keep or bring for lawful purposes.

A semi-automatic rifle is a class of weapon that extends to tens of millions of Americans, however. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates that some 24 million Americans own some modern sporting rifle.

Moreover, numerous state Court decisions cited in the brief show no link of weighing military usefulness with the restriction on a firearm!

To this point, we argue that the Second Amendment protects Americans from prohibitions on guns on the grounds that mere possession of an arm with a military characteristic or usefulness is not unlawful.

For a militia to carry out its goals of self-defense as well as the defense of the State, access to the kind of weapons that are in common use for lawful purposes and bear a reasonable relationship to the citizen-militia tradition is protected.

It is my hope that the Supreme Court considers the amicus brief I signed onto, addresses these fundamental issues and rules that bans on semiautomatic weapons are unconstitutional.

I will continue to oppose radical Democratic Party policies that attack our constitutional rights, restrict the Second Amendment and weaken the concept of a militia of ordinary men and women.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at https://morgangriffith.house.gov/. Also on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.