By Dave Workman
One of the nation’s leading grassroots gun rights organizations is suggesting that the Justice Department’s newly launched “Second Amendment Section” in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division should focus immediate attention on states which have adopted “permit-to-purchase” requirements for gun buyers.
By no coincidence, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has its national headquarters in one of those states—Washington—and the group also placed Colorado and neighboring Oregon on the list.
“Nowhere in this country should a citizen be forced to get permission from a government entity in order to exercise a fundamental right protected by the U.S. Constitution and delineated in nearly all state constitutions,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb Wednesday in a statement posted on the group’s website. “Nobody needs government permission to exercise a right.”
It appears gun prohibition groups and anti-gunners in various state legislatures have either overlooked that civics lesson or chosen to ignore it. Washington and Colorado lawmakers adopted the requirement earlier this year, with the laws taking effect in Colorado next year and in Washington on May 1, 2027.
In Oregon, the state Supreme Court is presently mulling the fate of Measure 114, the ballot measure passed narrowly two years ago by voters, which includes a permit-to-purchase tenet. The state high court is currently considering the measure’s constitutionality under the state constitution. Measure 114 is also being challenged in federal court.
Gottlieb also said the Second Amendment Section, headed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, should take a hard look at states which have adopted wide-ranging “sensitive place” bans on firearms carried by legally licensed private citizens. Currently, the concealed carry law in Hawaii, which includes a “sensitive place” prohibition, is being challenged in federal court and plaintiffs in the case have filed an appeal for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justice Department has filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting the petition for certiorari, as have attorneys general from about 25 states. CCRKBA has also filed an amicus, in conjunction with several other gun rights organizations.
Gottlieb did not mince words about the politicians who sponsor restrictive gun control legislation.
“They’re trying to turn a right into a regulated privilege, and those responsible for such proposals need to be told ‘no,’” he said.
“Earlier this year,” he recalled, “the Citizens Committee identified a dozen states which deserve Justice Department attention on Second Amendment issues. The permit-to-purchase and sensitive area schemes are two of the most egregious infringements on the right to keep and bear arms we’ve ever seen. Special attention should be placed on California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and a couple of other states where these gun control strategies are in the works.
“Attorney General Pam Bondi has already taken action against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over concealed carry permit foot-dragging,” Gottlieb continued, “but more needs to happen, and fast…Anti-rights lawmakers who author permit-to-purchase, and sensitive place legislation need to have the legal door slammed hard in their faces.”
The veteran gun rights advocate, who also founded the Second Amendment Foundation more than 50 years ago, expressed confidence in Dhillon’s pronounced determination to rein in rogue states, typically those controlled by Democrat legislatures and governors, which have doubled down on restrictive gun laws since the Supreme Court issued its 2022 landmark ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That was the ruling which found arbitrary carry permit laws unconstitutional, and further said modern gun laws must conform to standards of gun ownership and use that were in place when the federal constitution was adopted some 240 years ago.
“Until anti-gun lawmakers feel the heat of Justice Department action zeroing in on their extremism,” Gottlieb observed, “they’re going to keep pushing to erode, and ultimately erase, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Now is the time to stop these anti-freedom fanatics in their tracks.”
Workman is editor-in-chief at TheGunMag.com
