BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is applauding the ruling by a three-judge panel of Ohio’s 1st District Court of Appeals requiring the City of Cincinnati to pay legal fees to Frank West, who successfully challenged the city’s gun storage law, which violated Ohio’s preemption statute.

“When a city adopts an ordinance which directly conflicts with state law,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “it stands to reason that the city should be required to cover the legal expenses incurred by citizens who successfully challenge that ordinance.”

West had been prosecuted for having an unsecured firearm in his Cincinnati residence, under the city’s 2023 so-called “safe storage” ordinance. But state law prohibits local municipalities from adopting their own gun regulations. The trial court judge voided the ordinance and ordered the city to pay West’s legal fees and expenses. The city then appealed, challenging the award.

“This case puts a spotlight on how local government will adopt an ordinance in defiance of state law, and then fight tooth and nail to be held financially accountable when they’re caught at it,” Gottlieb observed. “The fact that the city dropped charges against West as soon as he sued showed how frail the charge, and the ordinance, itself, were under Ohio’s preemption law.”

The trial court awarded West roughly $300,000 for attorney’s fees and expert witness fees, with the final amount to be adjusted after review.

“State preemption statutes have been adopted for good reason,” Gottlieb said. “Such laws prohibit local governments from setting up their own regulations, often in conflict with neighboring municipalities and certainly exceeding state standards. Local governments must learn they simply can’t do that.

“Forcing anti-gun jurisdictions to pay up when they violate state laws or constitutional rights not only serves as a reminder that anti-gun jurisdictions can’t do that,” he added, “but it also sends a message to other state and local governments across the country that they should refrain from engaging in anti-gun activist politics, and stick to the business of municipal governance.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has submitted an amicus brief to the Maryland State Supreme Court in support of a District of Columbia man who has a valid D.C. carry permit, but was arrested in Maryland for carrying a concealed pistol.

Joining CCRKBA are the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Maryland Shall Issue, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Law Center and the Cato Institute. They are represented by attorneys Mark W. Pennak of Baltimore and Konstadinos T. Moros of Bellevue, Wash.

“The right to keep and bear arms applies to all citizens everywhere in the United States,” noted CCRKBA Executive Director Andrew Gottlieb. “As we explain in our amicus, this right cannot tolerate each state having the power to force individuals from every other state to jump through time-consuming and often costly hoops before it allows them to carry a firearm within its borders.

“Darius Duvall is a responsible citizen, and he possessed a valid District of Columbia carry permit, which is not easy to obtain, demonstrating his willingness to comply with the law,” Gottlieb continued. “He was traveling at the time of his arrest, and we note that interstate visitors are still Americans, yet states like Maryland treat them as suspicious foreigners that need to be re-vetted before exercising a fundamental right. This condition defies the historical tradition of our country, which demands that such state-by-state restrictions be set aside.

“We do not leave our other constitutional rights at each state border,” he added, “yet, laws like the one in Maryland prevent traveling citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights simply by crossing from one state to another. Maryland’s law unquestionably regulates conduct that is protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment and is thus ‘presumptively unconstitutional.’ Maryland must—at minimum— recognize carry permits issued by other states to law-abiding adults in line with the historical traveler’s exception laws.”The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has submitted an amicus brief to the Maryland State Supreme Court in support of a District of Columbia man who has a valid D.C. carry permit, but was arrested in Maryland for carrying a concealed pistol.

Joining CCRKBA are the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Maryland Shall Issue, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Law Center and the Cato Institute. They are represented by attorneys Mark W. Pennak of Baltimore and Konstadinos T. Moros of Bellevue, Wash.

“The right to keep and bear arms applies to all citizens everywhere in the United States,” noted CCRKBA Executive Director Andrew Gottlieb. “As we explain in our amicus, this right cannot tolerate each state having the power to force individuals from every other state to jump through time-consuming and often costly hoops before it allows them to carry a firearm within its borders.

“Darius Duvall is a responsible citizen, and he possessed a valid District of Columbia carry permit, which is not easy to obtain, demonstrating his willingness to comply with the law,” Gottlieb continued. “He was traveling at the time of his arrest, and we note that interstate visitors are still Americans, yet states like Maryland treat them as suspicious foreigners that need to be re-vetted before exercising a fundamental right. This condition defies the historical tradition of our country, which demands that such state-by-state restrictions be set aside.

“We do not leave our other constitutional rights at each state border,” he added, “yet, laws like the one in Maryland prevent traveling citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights simply by crossing from one state to another. Maryland’s law unquestionably regulates conduct that is protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment and is thus ‘presumptively unconstitutional.’ Maryland must—at minimum— recognize carry permits issued by other states to law-abiding adults in line with the historical traveler’s exception laws.”

BELLEVUE, WA – While Politico is reporting that New Jersey Democrats are scrambling to “protect and expand the state’s firearm restrictions” after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the state’s ban on semiautomatic rifles is unconstitutional, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has a better idea: Stop trying to dance around court rulings and start trusting the citizens with their Second Amendment rights.

“New Jersey Democrats can no longer claim they’re just trying to protect the children or decrease crime,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed. “They’re obviously obsessed with restricting the rights of the citizens they’re supposed to be serving. Gov. Mikie Sherrill and her colleagues in the legislature need a refresher course in high school civics, because they can’t seem to understand that when a court declares a law to be unconstitutional, that law has always been unconstitutional, and they should stop trying to dream up ways to slither around the ruling.

“The Politico story mentioned a bill to mandate gun owners store their guns unloaded and locked inside their homes,” Gottlieb added. “That idea is already off the table, thanks to the 2008 Heller ruling, which Sherrill and her cronies evidently need to read again.”

Instead of cooking up more and different restrictions, Gottlieb suggested New Jersey lawmakers just get tough on criminals—especially repeat offenders—by locking them up for a very long time. People confined to jails and prisons aren’t on the streets committing robberies, assaults, burglaries, carjackings or homicides, he noted.

“What the Politico story reveals without really saying so is that Garden State Democrats are frustrated and furious the courts, and the Constitution, will not let them keep a regulatory stranglehold on the honest citizens of New Jersey,” Gottlieb said. “They’re just not taking this lesson to heart. The semi-auto ban, and the ban on original capacity magazines—which Democrats supported—have just been thrown out. There’s a lesson in that the Democrats are evidently just too stubborn to accept. They need to grow up, stop trying to be dictators, and acknowledge the right of the people is not subject to their petty personal prejudices against guns.” 

BELLEVUE, WA – Friday’s ruling by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down New Jersey’s ban on modern semiautomatic rifles and original-capacity magazines should send a signal to other states with similar bans that a reckoning is looming, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says.

“The majority opinion, authored by Joe Biden-appointed Circuit Judge Arianna Julia Freeman, amounts to a warning shot across the bow of anti-gun-rights lawmakers that their years of eroding the Second Amendment, one restriction at a time, may be about to hit the proverbial brick wall,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “It also signals that what they’ve been doing has been unconstitutional all along, and we’re encouraged by today’s ruling that the Supreme Court will spell that out in plain language when it takes up the issue this fall.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear arguments in two very similar gun ban cases when it convenes in October. Bans on semiautomatic rifles in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, are being challenged by CCRKBA’s sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation. CCRKBA will likely submit an amicus brief in early September, supporting SAF and its partners.

“We have been working toward this fight for several years,” Gottlieb stated. “While we were disappointed the Supreme Court declined to hear our own challenge of Maryland’s similarly egregious ban last year, Friday’s ruling against New Jersey adds momentum to the upcoming cases.

“There is something more which needs to be said,” he added. “The gun prohibition lobby and their allies in Congress and state legislatures have been drowning us in rhetoric designed not only to demonize modern rifles, but also the people who have chosen to exercise their right to own such firearms. Rather than holding criminals accountable for their actions, anti-gunners have deliberately and systematically attempted to transfer blame to the firearms they misuse.

“It is tragic that the media has allowed itself to be manipulated by the gun ban movement,” Gottlieb said. “Today’s ruling by the Third Circuit should help remind everyone that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental right, not a government-regulated privilege.”