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Majority says states should be able to determine who carries concealed weapons: poll
A Majority of Americans say state governments should determine who can carry concealed weapons, according to a new Monmouth University Poll.
The poll, published on Thursday, found that 56 percent of respondents said that individual states should be allowed to limit which citizens can carry concealed handguns in their state, while 42 percent of those surveyed disagreed with that sentiment.
The poll follows a Supreme Court decision last week that struck down a New York state law that made it difficult to obtain a permit to carry a handgun outside the home.
The ruling’s broad sweep amounts to a complete overhaul of the court’s Second Amendment doctrine and is expected to call into question a wide range of other gun laws and limit state power to control firearms.
The poll also comes amid renewed debate over gun violence in the U.S. sparked by a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers.
Seventy-three percent of respondents said they strongly support legislation that requires comprehensive background checks for all gun purchases, while 10 percent of those surveyed said they strongly oppose such a law.
Forty-nine percent of respondents said they strongly support establishing a national gun ownership database to register all guns in the country, compared to 31 percent in opposition.
And forty-five percent of respondents said they strongly support a ban on assault-style weapons sales in the U.S., compared to 32 percent who strongly oppose such a ban.
Although Democrats are in broad support of those measures, none of them were part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was negotiated in the Senate and signed into law by President Biden last week.
The bill includes funding for school safety resources, strengthened background checks for buyers under the age of 21, penalties for straw purchases of firearms, and new protections for domestic violence victims.
Asked about the new legislation, 32 percent of respondents said it did not go far enough, 15 percent said it went too far, 9 percent said it went far enough, and 44 percent either said they didn’t know or hadn’t heard about it.
The poll was conducted from June 23 to June 27 with a total of 978 respondents. The margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Drug manufacturers are root cause of high drug costs; PBMs drive costs down
It should come as no surprise that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) applaud Congress for recent bipartisan action to further delay the rebate rule as part of legislation to address gun safety and mental health. In the long-running debate on lowering prescription drug costs, the rebate rule is the poster child for the counterfactual on how to achieve that objective.
Whenever I write, I like to rely on solid facts and evidence. So once again, I will cite several data points, all of which come from government agencies and objective, reputable third-party sources that underscore that the rebate rule does not reduce drug costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated that the rebate rule would increase taxpayers costs by $177 billion over 10 years, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Actuary issued a report that Medicare beneficiary premiums would increase by as much as 25 percent, to the benefit of drug companies who would see their profits increase.
Obviously, any policy that raises drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries should be carefully considered. Especially now, given that most older people live on fixed incomes, the recent 15 percent increase in Medicare Part B premiums, and what may be persistent inflation, the rebate rule should be permanently repealed.
We acknowledge that too many patients cannot afford their prescription drugs, and Congress and the administration rightly continue to examine policies that would help reduce drug costs. And we also recognize the importance of pharmaceutical innovation to bringing new treatments to the market for patients. We need affordability, and we need access to medications. This brings us to the bigger picture dynamic beyond the rebate rule that should be addressed.
Unfortunately, instead of engaging in a constructive, pro-solution dialogue, the pharmaceutical industry continues to push a false narrative on the role of PBMs. It is commonplace to see a news article announcing a new seven-figure drug manufacturer advertising campaign. While flashy and ubiquitous, these campaigns boil down to political noise heard in Washington D.C. that distracts from recognizing a simple fact: that only drug manufacturers have the power to set the list prices for their products.
To repeat, health care can be complex, but what’s easy to grasp — even with distracting seven-figure advertising campaigns — is which entities can set and raise prescription drug prices: It’s drug companies themselves.
Here are two more empirical, objective studies that demonstrate this fact. Studies published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) show that drug companies are raising list and launch prices with wild abandon. One analysis found that for 500 drugs launched between 2008 and 2021, launch prices increased from an average $2,115 per year in 2008 to $180,000 per year in 2021. A separate study found that list prices of brand drugs on the market increased by 159 percent from 2007 to 2018.
Given this eye-opening information on drug company price setting, it’s no surprise they are the primary drivers of a narrative attempting to deflect blame for escalating drug prices.
The irony of this finger pointing is that PBMs are the only entity in the drug supply and payment chain dedicated to lowering drug costs for patients. Without PBMs, prescription drugs would be unaffordable for millions of patients.
PBMs use their expertise and market scale to negotiate with drug manufacturers for rebates and discounts. The savings achieved through PBM negotiations are passed along to the employers, unions, and others sponsoring health benefits, who typically use them to lower premiums or to reduce the cost sharing consumers pay at the pharmacy. In Medicare Part D, PBMs pass along 99.6 percent of rebates to Part D plan sponsors, and in the commercial market, they pass along 90 percent or more.
And now for the objective, third-party evidence to confirm this dynamic: the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS OIG) recently released reports showing that PBM-negotiated rebates lower prescription drug costs in Medicare Part D.
We urge policymakers, and everyone interested in lowering prescription drug costs, to rely on objective organizations, like the CBO, the GAO and the HHS OIG, for accurate data that can help guide decision-making on policies to bring down prescription drug costs.
While looking at the facts, don’t forget another important truth, which is that drug companies alone set and raise drug prices.
JC Scott is president and CEO of The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), the national trade association representing America’s pharmacy benefit managers.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Judge temporarily blocks Florida's 15-week abortion ban
A judge on Thursday issued a temporary block on Florida’s 15-week abortion ban one day before it was set to go into effect.
The law, which is not a trigger law like other states have set into effect, is modeled after Mississippi’s own 15-week abortion ban that was heard in front of the Supreme Court and ultimately led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the plaintiffs in the complaint against Florida, confirmed to The Hill that Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper will be issuing a block on the abortion ban following a hearing on Thursday.
The Florida law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in April, bans all abortions past 15 weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Under the law, exceptions can only be made when two physicians put in writing that an abortion is necessary to prevent death or severe physical harm to the mother, explicitly excluding potential harm to a woman’s psychological condition from that exception.
The ACLU noted in a statement that the ban will likely go into effect for a short period while the circuit court prepares its written order.
In the original complaint, the plaintiffs including Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida argued that abortions were protected under the Florida Constitution and its guarantee to privacy. They further argued that the Florida Supreme Court had reaffirmed this right to privacy in regards to the decision to end a pregnancy on multiple occasions.
The complaint noted that Floridians had voted in 1980 to amend the state’s constitution specifically to include broad protections of privacy. In 2012, Floridians voted to reject an amendment that would have dismantled those protections.
“As the Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, the Florida constitution protects the right to abortion. The court has rightfully stood by that precedent today,” Caroline Sacerdote, staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.
In other lawsuits across the country, abortion rights organizations have made similar arguments to preserve abortion access, pointing to state constitutions that guarantee a right to privacy. These suits have led to similar temporarily blocks on abortion bans In states like Louisiana, Texas and Utah.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Who should get the monkeypox vaccine?
As a growing monkeypox outbreak has spread throughout the U.S., the White House this week outlined a plan to send out tens of thousands of vaccine doses to quell the rise in cases. The Biden administration will send out 296,000 doses of the Jynneous vaccine, the only Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccine for monkeypox.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed about 300 cases of the disease in the U.S., though the agency notes that the actual number could be higher. Health officials have warned that close contact, particularly sexual contact, is the main driver of the outbreak.
Here are the people whom the CDC recommends receive the Jynneous vaccine for monkeypox:
People who have had close contact with someone infected with monkeypox
Even if an individual did not have sexual contact with someone infected with monkeypox, the CDC is recommending that anyone who has had close contact of any kind with someone infected with the disease should receive the vaccine.
The agency noted that this recommendation applies to anyone who has had contact with an individual who had a rash that looks like monkeypox or someone who was diagnosed with confirmed monkeypox; has traveled outside the U.S. to a country with confirmed cases of monkeypox; or has had contact with a dead or live wild animal or exotic pet that only lives in Africa or used a product that comes from said animals, including game meat and certain creams, lotions and powders.
Men who have had sex with men
Early data from scientists investigating the latest monkeypox outbreaks have shown that men who have sex with men make up a high number of cases.
The virus has disproportionately hit gay and bisexual men, though health officials and LGBTQ advocacy organizations have stressed that the disease does not differentiate based on sexual orientation.
Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, stressed this point in an interview with The New York Times, saying that monkeypox is not a “gay disease” but was likely spread by someone who had a monkeypox lesion and “showed up at a gay rave in Europe, and it spread to those in that social and sexual network.”
Transgender people who have had sex in a place where monkeypox was present or spreading
In addition to gay and bisexual men, the World Health Organization also warned that transgender people — especially transgender women — and other gender-nonconforming individuals may be at a higher risk of monkeypox and should receive the vaccine.
Gonsalves also noted that the LGBTQ community should keep the risk of monkeypox in mind when considering whether to go out to a nightclub or a Pride event, saying that “if you’re going to go out and have sex, think about how you’re going to do it in what kind of setting, what kind of venue.”
Although researchers haven’t been able to prove that monkeypox is directly transmitted through sex, scientists haven’t been able to rule it out as a possibility given that sex involves close contact.
Healthcare workers who have come in contact with monkeypox
The CDC is also urging healthcare providers in the U.S. who have come in contact with patients with confirmed or probable cases of monkeypox to get the Jynneous vaccine.
Clinicians have also been told to keep a close eye out for patients who have rashes or lesions that look like monkeypox, especially those who have recently traveled to central or west Africa or certain parts of Europe where monkeypox has been detected.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Top Latino group endorses House candidates in Florida, Hawaii
The Latino Victory Fund on Thursday endorsed two Hispanic House candidates, Patrick Branco in Hawaii and Annette Taddeo in Florida.
“At a time when our democracy, civil rights, and reproductive rights are all on the ballot in November, we can’t give one single inch in congressional races because there’s so much at stake,” said Nathale Rayes, president and CEO of Latino Victory.
“We’re proud to back two new congressional candidates Patrick Pihana Branco, a young leader and legislator who will further diversify the House; and Annette Taddeo, a proven leader and legislator who has what it takes to win in November,” she added.
Both candidates have also been endorsed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s (CHC) campaign arm, Bold PAC.
Branco, a Democratic Hawaii state representative, was an early entrant in a primary that now includes five other candidates, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat.
Branco, the descendant of Puerto Rican migrants to Hawaii, would become the state’s first Hispanic representative if elected.
Taddeo, a Democratic Florida state senator, is a well known quantity in Florida politics who earlier this month dropped a gubernatorial bid to instead challenge Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.).
Latino Victory had endorsed Taddeo in the gubernatorial race.
After switching to the House race, Taddeo endorsed Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) for governor. Taddeo was Crist’s running mate in 2014, when he lost the governorship to now-Sen. Rick Scott (R).
Taddeo’s challenge of Salazar energized Florida Democrats, who have been on a losing streak as the GOP has consolidated political power in the Sunshine State.
Democrats hope Taddeo will give them a shot at recovering one of the two competitive seats they lost in South Florida in 2020.
Despite being a late entrant into the race, Taddeo holds a commanding lead in the Democratic primary, according to Florida Politics.
“Taddeo and Branco’s races are also key to energizing Florida and Hawaii Latino voters and increasing Latino Democratic representation in the House. We’re prepared to do everything in our power to keep the U.S. House under Democratic leadership,” said Rayes.
Latino Victory also endorsed a slate of incumbent CHC members: Reps. Verónica Escobar (D-Texas), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), and California Democratic Reps. Jimmy Gómez and Mike Levin.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Why it is the best of times and the worst of times for religious freedom
It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but there are some pictures where words do not suffice. Take as an example the cache of photos from the Xinjiang police files recently published by an international media consortium. The faces of Uyghurs who have been detained by the Chinese Communist Party tell the story of their suffering: some are fighting back tears, while others stare at the camera with a resigned look on their faces. Many of them can be seen with menacing guards standing behind them, a visible sign of their oppression.
The world has known about China’s persecution of the Uyghurs—a predominantly Muslim Turkic people in the Xinjiang region of China—for some time now. About one million Uyghur men, women and children are believed to be imprisoned in China’s so-called reeducation centers, where they are subject to physical, mental and emotional torture. But this is perhaps the first time we have been able to see so many of their faces, which offer a haunting reminder that to this day many religious minorities and faith communities around the world face severe persecution because of their beliefs.
To borrow from Charles Dickens, it is, in a sense, the best of times and the worst of times for religious freedom. The latter is easy to prove: government restrictions on the practice of religion are at a historical high. According to Pew Research—a think tank that over the past has studied religious persecution in nearly 200 countries—a staggering 57 countries had high or very high levels of restrictions on religious practice and belief in 2019, when the most recent data is available. Even more countries have laws or policies that punish blasphemy against the state religion, which are often weaponized against minority communities.
Pew Research also noted a rise in government harassment of religious groups and interference in worship. For example, in recent years the military junta ruling in Myanmar has damaged or destroyed hundreds of churches and, in some instances, killed their pastors. Afghanistan is another sobering example of how religious minorities suffer under the rule of autocratic regimes. The violent takeover of the Taliban has resulted in a mass exodus of Muslim minority sects like the Hazaras and Ahmadis, as well as Hindus, Sikhs and other faith communities that have lived in the country for generations, according to USCIRF’s most recent report. Places like North Korea and Eritrea, for all intents and purposes, are prison-states where freedom of conscience and belief is all but nonexistent.
As cited in State Department and USCIRF reports, the Turkish government has become increasingly repressive since July 2016. The government continued to limit the rights of non-Muslim religious minorities. Sunni and non-Sunni Muslims, and non-practicing Muslims said they continued to face heavy pressure or persecution. Especially members of the Hizmet “aka Gulen” Movement, which is a civil society focused on education and interfaith dialogue globally.
Unfortunately, we also are noticing trends of governments harnessing technology to repress religious minorities. Reports indicate that China has tested facial-recognition software to analyze the emotional state of Uyghurs—whom the Communist Party labels a security threat—and identify suspicious behavior. Online spaces are monitored as well, so that any critic of the government’s treatment of religious minorities can be traced and punished.
Given these deeply concerning trends, it may be hard to see how it could also be the best of times for religious freedom. The good news is that while nefarious actors keep working to repress faith communities, a growing coalition made up of a kaleidoscope of civil society activists, faith leaders and governments is advocating for their rights. This remarkable group is made up of people from various faiths—and indeed, many human rights advocates without any religious affiliation—who share the common conviction that people everywhere should have the fundamental right to freedom of religion, conscience and belief.
This coalition is came together this week in Washington for a second annual summit for international religious freedom. It is a rare bipartisan, multi-faith gathering of leaders from government and civil society who have come together for this common cause. Their commitment is an encouraging reminder that while in some ways it may be the worst of times for religious freedom, we also stand on the cusp of what could very well be the best of times for the global movement to protect this fundamental human right.
Religious freedom is no longer a cause reserved solely for obscure government offices or niche human rights organizations. Its vital importance to building free, pluralistic and democratic societies is being recognized across many industries—technology, trade, art and finance, to name a few—and the drive to expand international religious freedom is generating innovative cross-sector solutions that promote collaboration. Just last week the U.S. State Department announced U.S. Customs officials would begin enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which will prohibit imports of goods suspected of being manufactured using forced labor, hopefully persuading international corporations to stand up against human rights abuse in their supply chains. Advocates have also suggested adding a religious freedom clause into multinational trade deals in the future.
Religious freedom is also finding new champions, from grassroots activists to professional athletes. It’s one thing to hear elected officials and policy wonks talk about the importance of religious freedom. It is quite another thing to see a grassroots movement building around the cause or to have a professional basketball player risk his career by wearing shoes proudly emblazoned with human rights slogans like “Free Uyghurs” and “Free Tibet.”
Take it from us—one of us a policy wonk and one of us that NBA player with infamous shoes—there are reasons to feel optimistic about the future of religious freedom.
Enes Kanter Freedom is an NBA basketball player who has raised his voice to advocate for human rights, freedom, justice and democracy around the globe. Samuel Brownback served as U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom (2018-21) and is co-chair of IRF Summit 2022.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Fugitive ‘CryptoQueen’ added to FBI Most Wanted list
The FBI has added Ruja Ignatova, known as “CryptoQueen,” to its list of Ten Most Wanted fugitives, offering up to $100,000 for information that leads to her arrest.
Ignatova has been facing five charges including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and securities fraud since 2018 after she allegedly defrauded investors who invested in her fake cryptocurrency OneCoin out of billions of dollars.
She launched the Bulgaria-based company OneCoin in 2014 and is believed to have defrauded investors out of more than $4 billion while she served as the company’s leader through 2017, according to an FBI release.
The release states that Ignatova allegedly made false statements and representations to victims to convince them to invest in OneCoin. She instructed her customers to transmit money to OneCoin accounts to buy the cryptocurrency.
The release states that Ignatova traveled from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece, in October 2017, the month that a federal grand jury first indicted her and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a warrant for her arrest. A superseding indictment that filed the five charges against her was issued in February 2018.
Ignatova’ listing on the FBI’s website states that she is believed to travel with armed guards or associates and may have altered her appearance through plastic surgery or other means. She might travel on a German passport to the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, Greece or Eastern Europe.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Russian assets invested in U.S. companies are frozen in Delaware
A billion-dollar fund belonging to a Russian government official and invested in U.S. public companies has been frozen by the Treasury department after an investigation going back more than a year.
The Treasury Department issued a blocked property notice to Heritage Trust, a Delaware-based fund that the department says belongs to Suleiman Kerimov, a member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of Russia. Kerimov had initially been sanctioned in 2018, and the FBI helped to seize one of his yachts in Fiji in May.
A senior Treasury official said that money from the trust was invested in numerous large U.S. public corporations and private companies after being moved through layers of shell companies, European foundations, and other identity-obscuring legal entities.
The official declined to comment on whether any U.S. law firms, accounting firms or consultancies may be complicit in helping the fund do its business and administer its investments.
The blocked property notice from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) doesn’t mean that Kerimov’s money is being seized by the U.S. government. It means that any transactions involving the trust’s money or property are now illegal and subject to prosecution.
“All transactions by U.S. persons within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons are prohibited,” the department said in a statement.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, the U.S. set up an international task force, known as REPO (Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs), to pursue the assets of the Russian elite in order to pressure Russian president Vladimir Putin and the architects of Russia’s foreign and military policy.
The task force included financial and legal branches of the governments of Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission, and represents the broader cooperation among Western powers resulting from the war in Ukraine.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that “even as Russian elites hide behind proxies and complex legal arrangements, Treasury will use our broad enforcement authorities, as well as our partnerships through the REPO Task Force, to actively implement the multilaterally coordinated sanctions imposed on those who fund and benefit from Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
During a State Department summit last year, Yellen called out the U.S.’s labyrinthine set of laws that allow for the whitewashing of dirty money.
“In the popular imagination, the money laundering capitals of the world are small countries with histories of loose and secretive financial laws. But there’s a good argument that, right now, the best place to hide and launder ill-gotten gains is actually the United States. And that’s because of the way we allow people to establish shell companies,” Yellen said.
Earlier this year, the U.S. topped a list of the most financially secretive countries in the world, beating out the likes of Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and other notorious tax havens.
British advocacy group the Tax Justice Network reported in May “that the supply of financial secrecy services, like those utilised by Russian oligarchs, tax evaders and corrupt politicians, has continued to decrease globally due to transparency reforms. But five G7 countries alone – the US, UK, Japan, Germany and Italy – are responsible for cutting global progress against financial secrecy by more than half.”
While Kerimov’s asset freezing shows that international authorities are sometimes able to navigate the U.S.’s legal mazes, it’s not clear how much more Russian money could be hidden in the U.S. financial system.
Source: TEST FEED1
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Is your dishwasher repairman packing heat? The case for ‘no carry’ gun defaults on private property
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s proper-cause law, radically expanding the rights of people to carry concealed weapons in public. New York’s law required that anyone seeking an unrestricted public carry permit had to demonstrate a special need for self-defense distinct from that of the general community. The Bruen decision is going to make it a lot easier for tens of thousands of New Yorkers to receive concealed carry permits. When a similar law in Washington, D.C. was struck down in 2017, the number of concealed-carry permits increased by over 3,000 percent.
In the wake of Bruen, states will have a lot harder time defending the constitutionality of many traditional “top down” requirements. Legislators should be on the lookout for new kinds of “bottom up” regulations that empower individuals to reduce gun violence. A good place to start is for states to do a better job of protecting the rights of private property owners.
You might be surprised to learn that when you ask someone to come and repair your dishwasher, they can legally carry a concealed weapon into your kitchen unless you expressly object. In all but three states and D.C., any visitor can, by default, carry a firearm into your home without your explicit permission. The repairman has a Second Amendment right to bear arms, but you have a right to control whether people carry guns onto your land.
A central attribute of property ownership is the right to exclude unwanted people from your land. Forty-seven states fail to adequately protect this right of landowners to control their property because they provide the wrong default rule regarding the right of invitees to bear arms. Property owners cannot make an informed choice if they don’t know they have to object (more than two-thirds of people are unaware of these default rules). And it is hard for a property owner to know that she needs to object when the objectionable firearm is concealed.
The same problem exists regarding private commercial land. All 50 states permit individuals to carry their firearms into private retail establishments by default. Private businesses must post “No Guns” signs to make their stores gun-free, and these signs must often meet strict requirements. Many retailers fear customer backlash if they post signs either restricting or permitting gun carry in their stores. So, they are inclined to stick with a state’s default rule regardless of their preferences.
An even more egregious failure to protect property exists in half the states regarding hunting on rural land. In 25 jurisdictions, a gun owner by default is allowed to carry a firearm onto the rural land of a complete stranger, unless the landowner goes to the expense of posting “No Trespassing” signs at regular intervals along the perimeter of their land or otherwise marks their territory. Tragic cases have occurred in which homeowners have been killed by hunters who entered the land without ever asking permission.
Lawmakers should flip to “no carry” defaults because a substantial majority of Americans want the rights of property owners to be better protected. We conducted a national, representative survey of 2,000 Americans in which 72 percent of respondents said they would prefer a default rule that required service providers to seek permission before they carried a firearm into their home and 68 percent had the same preference regarding friends and guests.
The survey results were even more overwhelming regarding hunting: 88 percent of respondents rejected the default right of strangers to hunt on other people’s property. A smaller majority of respondents (56 percent) preferred a no-carry default rule in retail establishments. Regardless of the context – home, hunting or retail – most people thought that guns should not be carried onto other people’s property without their express permission.
Some states have flipped these defaults consistent with public sentiment. Alaska, D.C., Louisiana and South Carolina require guests to receive explicit permission from a homeowner before carrying a firearm onto their property. Twenty-five states have flipped the hunting default. But no states have flipped the default for retail establishments. Some, such as Wisconsin, even immunize from tort liability any establishments that permit guns on their premises — but they do not extend this immunity to businesses that exclude guns.
Switching to a “no carry” default can be succinctly accomplished by enacting a statute ordaining: “No individual may carry a firearm onto the property of another without first receiving the express consent of the owner or person in legal control or possession.”
Flipping the default in this way would not violate the Second Amendment. My right to bear arms ends at your property line — just as my right to free speech doesn’t give me a right to erect signs on your yard. Property owners would still be free to invite armed friends, family, customers and service providers onto their land. They would just have to tell them or post a sign that guns are welcome.
Gunowners would still be free to possess and bear arms in their home and on public streets and other public lands. They just wouldn’t have a right to carry onto the other people’s land unless the landowner invited them to bring their firearms.
Nearly 60 percent of all land in America is privately owned. Under a flipped law, many landowners would stick with the no-carry presumption. So, flipping the default to a presumption of “no carry” on other people’s land can radically expand the spaces that are gun free. Empowering property owners to create these gun free zones can reduce gun violence by letting landowners better defend themselves and their property.
The Second Amendment protects individuals’ ability to defend their homes by arming themselves. But another way to defend your home is to stop other people from bringing weapons onto your land. A “no carry” gun default allows private property owners to determine when and how firearms are brought onto their property, consistent with the Second Amendment’s core interest of self-defense.
Until now, homeowners in New York did not have to worry much about the possibility that repair people or guests to their homes would be armed. Very few people had concealed carry permits and those who did were well vetted. But that is about to change — with a likely vast increase in the number of issued permits. Now is an especially good time to give landowners a better way to defend themselves and their property.
Ian Ayres is a professor at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management. He is an author of “Weapon of Choice: Fighting Gun Violence While Respecting Gun Rights.” Spurthi Jonnalagadda is a Yale Law School graduate who will be starting as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom in September.
Source: TEST FEED1