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Brady Report Blasts Obama for Not Filling Top Leadership Position at ATF
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The Brady Center issued the report, Leadership Vacuum, which criticizes the Obama Administration for failing to nominate a Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

The year and a half vacancy of the top law enforcement position has seriously weakened efforts to enforce Federal firearms laws, thus jeopardizing public safety and national security.

“The failure to nominate an ATF director for over a year and a half is unprecedented and threatens our nation’s ability to combat gun crime and trafficking that arms criminals and terrorists,” the report states. “No other President has allowed this critical position to remain vacant for so long.”

The organization sent a letter to President Obama on June 10 stressing the importance of naming a Director for ATF, but has not received a response.

In early August, a number of former ATF Directors and agents also sent a letter to the President urging him to nominate a director of this critical agency. 

» Click here to read the news release
» Click here to read the report, Leadership Vacuum

Leadership Vacuum Cover
The Brady report, Leadership Vacuum, details the consequences of the ATF's lack of top leadership.
U.S. Supreme Court Reaffirms Gun Regulations

 

 

 


In its decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed its language in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. 

 

The Court ruled that the individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense does not prevent elected representatives from enacting common-sense gun laws to protect communities from gun violence.

 

The Court rejected the gun lobby's "any gun, for anybody, anywhere" agenda.  It again recognized that the Second Amendment allows for reasonable restrictions on firearms, including who can have them and under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are permissible.

 

The Brady Center, joined by several national law enforcement groups, had filed a friend of the court brief urging the Court to interpret the Second Amendment to allow for “reasonable” gun laws.

» Click here to read our statement on the decision
» Click here to watch Brady President Paul Helmke on the Newshour debating the NRA's Wayne LaPierre

» Click here to learn more

 

 

 
The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed in McDonald v. City of Chicago its language that the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.

 
Important Victory in Seventh Circuit Domestic Violence Case

On July 13, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the conviction of a repeat domestic violence offender, Steven Skoien, for illegally possessing a firearm even though he had been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor.  The Court's 10-1 decision agreed with an amicus brief filed by the Brady Center, and rejected Skoien's argument that the "Lautenberg Amendment" barring domestic violence offenders from possessing guns is violative of the Second Amendment.
 
The Court reversed a panel decision that had vacated Skoien's conviction.  That decision was one of the only post-Heller Second Amendment decisions to side with gun criminals or the gun lobby. 
 
The Brady Center's amicus brief was joined by the National Black Police Association, the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, the National Latino Peace Officers Association, and the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
 
» Click here to read the court's decision 

» Click here to read the Brady Center's brief

 

 
Brady Center Files Brief Urging Montana Court to Strike Down the Montana “Firearms Freedom Act”


The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, joined by a coalition of Montana and national gun violence prevention, law enforcement, and domestic violence groups, filed an amicus brief on May 18, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for Montana urging the Court to strike down the Montana “Firearms Freedom Act” as unconstitutional and a dangerous threat to our communities and our nation’s security. 

 

The Montana “Firearms Freedom Act” seeks to exempt Montana-made firearms from federal laws requiring background checks to keep guns away from criminals and record keeping that allows law enforcement to trace crime guns. The Montana law could exempt Montana-made guns from the federal “Gun Free School Zones” law and the ban on guns in federal facilities and courthouses located in Montana.  All told, it would allow unlimited sales of virtually untraceable firearms without background checks or records of sale, endangering public safety and national security.

 

» Click here to read the Brady Center's brief

  
The Brady Center's brief was joined by International Brotherhood of Police Officers, National Black Police Association, Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Montanans United to Stop Gun Violence, and Montana Human Rights Network,

Brady Center Victories in Second Amendment Cases in Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

On March 10, 2010, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed with amicus briefs filed by the Brady Center when it ruled in two Second Amendment cases, Commonwealth v. Runyan and Commonwealth v. DePina.

In Runyan, a lower court had dismissed a case against Richard Runyan who was charged with violating a state safe storage law, holding that the storage law was unconstitutional under Heller.  The Supreme Judicial Court reversed, unanimously agreeing with the Brady Center that the Second Amendment does not overrule the state's right to require owners to store guns safely.

In DePina, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected an appeal by a man convicted of illegally carrying a loaded firearm.  Nathaniel DePina had claimed that the Second Amendment prohibited the state from prosecuting him for illegal gun carrying.  

 

» Click here to read the opinion in DePina
» Click here to read the opinion in Runyan
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld life-saving gun laws in two recent opinions.