SAF winning firearms freedom without lawsuits

Seattle Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 24 October, 2012 | Dave Workman

[marktwain]

The Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation has launched a unique pilot project in Washington and Virginia that advances its legal agenda without actually filing any lawsuits, and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb told this column that he is looking to take this campaign nationwide in 2013.

SAF’s motto has been “Winning Firearms Freedom One Lawsuit at a Time” since the foundation’s landmark Second Amendment case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2010. That ruling incorporated the Second Amendment to the states, thus opening a floodgate for challenges to local laws and ordinances that may not stand up under legal scrutiny.

Gottlieb’s strategy is simple. His initial targets have been local ordinances and regulations that run afoul of state preemption laws. Because SAF is headquartered in Washington, home of a preemption statute that has been a model for similar laws in several other states, Gottlieb is particularly interested in removing local ordinances that run counter to such statutes.

He’s had a legal researcher working on the pilot project for several months. SAF has sent letters to officials in the target counties or municipalities advising them of the conflicts that exist between their regulations and state law. The response has been good, he said.

“We intend to roll back more than 600 local anti-gun laws,” he said.

SAF’s launch pad for this effort may have been its lawsuit to prevent the City of Seattle from adopting a gun ban in city park facilities, in defiance of Washington’s 29-year-old preemption statute. Joined in that lawsuit by the National Rifle Association, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Washington Arms Collectors and five private citizens, SAF and its partners had repeatedly warned former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels

[marktwain]

SAF has become a powerhouse in restoring freedom.