Radical Oregon Ruling Declares Defense of Second Amendment Racist and Antisemitic (Bennian/Shutterstock)
February 17, 2023
By David Codrea
“Local governments in Oregon can’t declare themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and ban police from enforcing certain gun laws, a state appeals court decided Wednesday, in the first court case filed over a concept that hundreds of U.S. counties have adopted in recent years,” the San Diego Union Tribune reports .
“The state Court of Appeals ruled that it violates a law giving the state the power to regulate firearms.,” the report elaborates. “The ordinance would effectively, it found, ‘create a “patchwork quilt” of firearms laws in Oregon, where firearms regulations that applied in some counties would not apply in Columbia County,’ something lawmakers specifically wanted to avoid.”
That’s almost funny. Attacking state preemption to be able to impose just such a “patchwork quilt” of restrictions, making it impossible for gun owners to legally navigate from one place to another, is exactly what the gun prohibitionists have been trying to do with varying degrees of “success.”
Case in point is Colorado, “now one of eight states that allow local governments to pass gun ordinances that are tighter than state restrictions,” per Governing.com . “Lawmakers in other states are looking to follow Colorado and repeal their own preemption laws.”
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The citizen disarmament lobby only bellows about “home rule” for counties and municipalities when preemption blocks their attempts to infringe. At the same time, the effort continues to impose gun bans at the federal level binding on the whole country.
“What works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne,” Barack Obama feinted when trying to justify localities ignoring “the supreme Law of the Land.” Left unsaid was exactly what the hell it is that works in Chicago.
That the Oregon ruling is being presented by the Union Tribune (and posted on MSN.com to maximize eyeballs) tells readers none of that. Instead, it characterizes the ruling, in the words of Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown, as “a win for public safety and the rule of law.” That makes it fair to ask why the same self-righteous zeal isn’t shown when Democrat cities declare themselves sanctuaries for immigration scofflaws, and to wonder what else is being glossed over with such self-serving pronouncements. As it turns out, plenty.
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“Judge Calls Second Amendment Protection Laws Racist and Anti-Semitic,” Oregon Firearms Federation advises its members in an alert. That’s neither editorializing nor hyperbole on OFF’s part. That’s all done by Oregon Court of Appeals Judge James Egan in his 10-page concurrence for Columbia County v. State of Oregon.
“Intervenors came before this court and referenced UN mandates, which ... is a well-documented trope meant to invoke white supremacist, antisemitic fear of a takeover of our country by outsiders and minorities who are manipulated by an elite class of supervillains,” Egan wrote. The Columbia County ordinance (and by implication, all Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions throughout the Republic) has “antisemitic and racist origins,” he declares.
And Egan spews special vitriol against Constitutional Sheriffs, elected officials who take their oaths to uphold the Constitution seriously, including and especially the Bill of Rights. But that’s hardly how the judge paints them or their Second Amendment Sanctuary constituents.
“The premise of such writings is the antisemitic and racist conspiracy theory that Jews are at the heart of America’s problems, that people of color are unwitting pawns to be manipulated by one side or the other, and that zealots must prepare for a final battle in the last days,” what appears to be a spittle-flecked rant masked as legal opinion continues. “The proponents of these ideas claim that a cabal of elites or globalists (code words for Jews) in the UN, or the fictional New World Order or Zionist Occupational Government, manipulate our federal government and, by extension, state governments. These ideas are, of course, nothing new, unique, or intelligent: They are, instead, just a rehashing of the ancient trope of a secret Jewish government; they are the retelling of a lie that led to the murder of over six million Jews within living memory.”
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, which documents the historic correlation between government monopolies of violence and genocides of disarmed populations, would disagree. As for opposition to United Nations/globalist “gun control,” Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D, Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, and hardly an example of racist and antisemitic extremists, outlined what the group behind the twisted-barrel gun statue wants to impose everywhere , from Changzhou to Cheyenne.
“The U.N. wants manufacturers of ammo to number their bullets. Then the U.N. wants to track where and to whom every bullet in the world is sold or sent,” Bromund documents. “The U.N. also wants to track who sells to whom. And it wants all those records digitized, easily accessed, and kept forever.”
It can’t be done, but that’s hardly the end of it. Just as with domestic gun-grabbers, whatever incremental gains they make today will never be enough, and they’ll be back tomorrow demanding more.
“[T]he goal of the Programme is to commit nations to changing their laws—to get them to invent new crimes,” Bromund notes. For some reason, maybe because of all the crimes against humanity historically and currently committed by totalitarian police states, a quote from Stalin’s secret police go-to guy, Lavrentiy Beria, comes to mind: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
Incumbent Egan feels confident spouting off whatever subversively insulting smears he wants to with impunity, having received 100% of the vote in 2018 for a six-year term. Sure, the position is officially “nonpartisan,” but he knows he’s playing to Oregon leftists, and “conservatives’ and gun owners are overwhelmingly outnumbered at the polls. And he’s doing more than that: This is a direct attack on citizens who believe a prime directive of government is to enforce the Bill of Rights and “secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” That’s why the Constitution was allowed to be ratified in the first place, and why “consent of the governed” was given.
By posturing as their moral superior and characterizing them in his legal opinion as de facto enemies of the state, this Egan character, sounding for all the world like an Antifa street thug, has shown himself to be the bigot relying on divisiveness and hate.
“We have come to expect these kinds of mindless and false attacks from the left and their pawns in the media. But coming from the bench, this kind of blatantly false, and hate filled rhetoric, is not only unsettling, it is dangerous. It inspires violence and retribution. It is frankly, unhinged,” Oregon Firearms Federation advises. “The Columbia County case was carefully and thoughtfully argued. To suggest that its motives were white supremacist or antisemitic is a lie and defamatory. But it also calls into question the legitimacy of the court and the likelihood of getting fair rulings from it.”
This holds true for more than Oregon. Perennial enemy of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut , has proposed “withholding federal funds from law enforcement agencies that refuse to enforce state and national gun laws.” Expect the obligatory demonization as haters and domestic enemies to follow. From Chicago to Cheyenne...
About the Author David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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