Today, Wednesday, Aug. 26, marks the 52nd anniversary of the launch of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), which ever since has been leading the charge in defending, securing and restoring the constitutional rights of Americans.
Founded on this date in 1974 by Alan Gottlieb, who now serves as the organization’s Executive Vice President, SAF remains the leader of legal action aimed at dismantling infringements and halting erosion of the Second Amendment.
Just this past year, SAF scored a significant victory that removed major components of the National Firearms Act, created a path for California non-residents to apply for concealed carry permits, forced the federal government to recognize the right of SAF members to carry a firearm in post offices nationwide, protected the Second Amendment rights of adults under 21 in Pennsylvania, and many, many more.
And topping it all off, SAF is the only pro-Second Amendment organization with two cases challenging bans on so-called “assault weapons” awaiting Supreme Court oral arguments after the Court opens its new session in October. Those cases are known as Viramontes v. Cook County in Illinois and Grant v. Higgins in Connecticut, and the hearing could occur sometime in the fall.
In addition, SAF has expanded educational efforts relating to the Second Amendment by launching the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference. This joint effort, co-sponsored by SAF’s sister organization, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, has brought together the top leaders, scholars and legal minds in the Second Amendment community for more than four decades. This year’s conference will be held in Dallas, Texas on the weekend of Sept. 25-27 at the Westin Dallas Fort Worth Airport hotel. It promises to be an extraordinary event with scheduled appearances by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, Robert Cekada, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives (ATF) and a keynote address by U.S. District Court Judge (Ret.) Roger T. Benitez.
“For the past 52 years, SAF’s goal has remained unchanged – to ensure Americans could freely exercise their Second Amendment rights without fear,” Gottlieb said. “Lawmakers across the United States, however, have done their best to determine what constitutional rights citizens can, and cannot, exercise. That is absolutely not how the Constitution works, and it’s the reason we fight these injustices and infringements in courtrooms on a daily basis. We have been part of more than 260 lawsuits since our founding, significantly influencing the landscape of firearm freedoms nationwide, and we will continue to do so for the next 50 years.”
For more than five decades, SAF has joined forces with individuals, companies and other liberty-based organizations in the fight to ensure our right to keep and bear arms remains for generations. Since its founding, SAF has been instrumental in landmark legal victories, including the monumental McDonald v. City of Chicago Supreme Court decision, which not only nullified the 30-year handgun ban in Chicago, but incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment.
The June 2010 ruling literally flung open courtroom doors around the nation by applying the demands of the Second Amendment to the states as well as to the federal government. No longer could state governments violate the rights of their citizens any more than the federal government could. The overwhelming majority of present-day Second Amendment litigation against state and municipal gun laws and regulations was made possible by the McDonald decision.
“SAF’s track record of landmark Second Amendment legal victories and precedent-setting rulings is second to none,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “We fight for the rights we all hold dear and work hard to ensure Americans have the freedom to exercise the full breadth of their right to keep and bear arms across the country.
“Unfortunately,” Kraut observed, “there are those who believe the Second Amendment is a second-class right. Thanks to SAF’s aggressive litigation program, those state, regional and even local lawmakers continuously find themselves defending their ill-conceived laws in courtrooms across the country. Today we take a moment to reflect on our past accomplishments, knowing full well that the weight of true Second Amendment freedom across America rests squarely on our backs. It’s a weight SAF has proudly carried for more than 50 years, and we will continue our critical work as long as there are idealogues who wish to trample on the rights our Founders enshrined to us.”
