Jim’s Thoughts – Interpreting Law
Jim’s Thoughts – Interpreting the Law/Litigation
Hey folks Jim Wallace here Executive Director of Gun Owners’ Action League. just figured I'd have a little chat. There's a lot of confusion out there which I completely understand. The legislature did a horrible job at drafting and passing chapter 135 and everybody including myself believes it was written intentionally to be massively confusing. So, we're left trying to figure out what the heck it means how to comply, if you choose, to then move forward. So, we're in the process now where we have the Firearm Control Advisory Board (FCAB) who is supposed to act as a body to give advice or recommendations to the secretary of public safety in regard to pieces of this law. A lot of people have asked as I've put out information about what the FCAB has discussed - a lot of people have asked well are they allowed to make law or they do they make law? The answer is no.
Only the legislature makes law, but then the legislature does not interpret the law after it has been passed which makes absolutely no sense. The other issue is honestly the FCAB is only an advisor to the secretary of public safety in this case. Honestly the secretary of public safety doesn't get to decide what the law means. They can only put out guidance.
Now a lot of people have asked GOAL, and others, well if they put out guidance is that a defense in court if you're prosecuted? The answer is probably not because only the courts get to actually decide what a law means and if it's constitutional.
The other piece we have to be concerned about when we're trying to figure all this stuff out is just because the secretary of public safety puts out a guidance does not mean that the attorney general will look at it the same way. Now there is a representative from the AG's office on the FCAB but that doesn't mean ultimately the attorney general can't just make up their own mind. We've already seen that happen and in the last 10 years at the attorney general's office and even well before then. So, where does that leave us?
Trying to figure out what this stuff means sadly to say ultimately it only depends on how it's enforced, when it's enforced, and who is it enforced against. And yes that means that until someone is probably charged and ends up before a judge and the judge determines precisely what the law means that we might even have a clue. But even at that point if it's appealed by either side. Then it's going to go up to the appellate court and then from there who the heck knows what's going to happen with each piece of this law. In short, with this stuff you know we share your frustration because we're only putting out what the state wants it to be. That doesn't mean that's what it is. It doesn't mean that we agree with it, and normally we don't, but we're putting out to you folks what the state wants it to mean and from there again who knows where it goes.
This is an incredibly frustrating process both for you and us frankly because we're trying to get the best information we can out to folks. Normally when we do, and rightfully so, that there's huge arguments on social media about - well they're wrong and it doesn't read that way. And I totally agree with a lot of what you're saying but our job is to try to keep you out of trouble.
You know case in point FCAB is trying to draft a so-called roster for banned assault style firearms and I have said many times at these board meetings - first of all there are no banned guns, there are a lot of guns hat have some pretty serious restrictions on them, but there are no banned guns. So creating a roster with anything on it is not representative of the law.
The other piece is the September 13, 1994 date as it relates to the gun. It doesn't exist in law anymore. It only exists in the discussion of magazines. Now the powers to be want to suggest or mandate that - well it's not in the law anymore but in order to comply with the August 1, 2024 date you had to know what was in the law previously so you can understand what's in the law now. I've never even heard of that in my entire career I can't imagine somebody going before a judge and the judge saying - well yeah I know that law no longer exists, but you had to know what it used to say in order to comply with the law today. Wow, if that's the way that the law is going to work we're all in trouble.
Anyway, so I just wanted to tell you we're doing the best we can. We're trying to get you the information in the best means we can as well. and this is going to be an ongoing struggle and believe me I understand the frustration and the anger. But you also have to remember that 25 years after the 1998 law was passed, we still had a ton of questions. We would have arguments right here, maybe not arguments, but discussions right here at the GOAL office about what something meant 25 years later. Unfortunately, we're only eight months past this thing or so. It's going to be a while, and it may never be sorted out until somebody's charged with a specific piece of this. I would just say you have to choose what's your risk tolerances depending upon what you're going to do.
I also want to just touch on a little bit about litigation, and again I understand everybody's frustration and we're angered too. Like many of you I'm right there with you. Why can't we just bring this entire package to a federal judge and say seriously your honor how are we supposed to be able to figure this out and it's completely unconstitutional. Unfortunately that's not how the courts work. I really wish they would work like that because this is so unbelievably unconstitutional and convoluted that I can't believe any judge would just say - OK go back to the drawing board and start again. But that's not how it works so we have to take individual pieces and try to get into a federal court with those pieces.
Now the problem has been, and again everybody's like - well you said you were going to sue them how come you haven't sued them. believe me we're trying. And one thing is we're not going to waste your money. You know people were very generous and we have the money set aside in a safe place and it's ready if we need to spend it. And we already have spent some, but the problem is every time we prepare a case, which is not cheap, they suspend that part of the law. I mean look at the training. We literally had already prepared and filed a case and then they suspended that, for what, 18 months or until the state police could put together the training package that we were supposed to look at. We had to withdraw that case, which is extraordinarily expensive but we weren't going to waste more money.
Then we announced that we had prepared a case to go after the long gun testing in rosters and as soon as we announced we were going to file that case - oh we're going to suspend that part of the law too. Now Fast forward the FCAB and the secretary have come to the conclusion that - well we're not going to have a long gun roster and testing requirements because it doesn't meet the context of that specific section. It's amazing how they're already starting to cannibalize their own legislation.
So we're still working on coming up with other avenues to go after this. You know one of the things too is that people say - well how come you haven't gone after the new assault weapons laws? We get that constantly, and we have said constantly - listen there are already cases, or at least one case, in front of the Supreme Court but they're refusing to hear it. There's also a case or cases about large capacity magazines that's available to the Supreme Court and they don't want to hear it. I am not going to waste a half $1,000,000 of your money to bring a case all the way up through the system, which we're going to lose on the local level in federal court, and hopefully it gets to the Supreme Court. Again they may not take it. That's precisely what happened to us in 2018 after more Healey pulled her stunt in 2016. With the NRA's financial help and attorneys, we got our case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and they just didn't want to hear about it. We spent all that money for nothing. As much as I would love to attack every piece of this thing, we just simply don't have the resources, and the state is counting on that. They want us to spend money on things that we know we can't move forward because then then you end up going broke trying to fight this thing. Which we're not going to do.
We have other things in the works right now you'll get some news hopefully fairly soon. Some of the national partners are helping us out with some of the other litigation, specifically the nonresident stuff. Just so you know, we could have easily taken on the nonresident piece but I thought it was unfair to our members that we take on litigation for nonresidents until we've taken on everything we can here for the residents and our supporters. So, that that was the thought behind that decision.
Anyway, I'm not even going to ask you to be patient because you shouldn't be, I'm not. I've lost my patience with all of this stuff. Basically they've passed the law it makes no sense, it's unconstitutional, but nobody wants to deal with it so we're going to have to force them to deal with it. It's going to take some time. Some of these cases can go years. If you look at the cases that are up before the Supreme Court now took two 3-4 years for them to get there and I can't tell you how much money. So, anyway we will continue to work on this and do the very best we can for our members and our supporters because you're the ones that put us here so we will continue to do the work thank you for supporting the owners actually as always and we'll talk to you
