‘There is no Second Amendment right to own guns,’ says N.M. man

A New Mexico Op-Ed says citizens do not have a right to own guns under the Second Amendment.

Dave Workman

Anyone who honestly believes that the battle over firearms rights is finished could consider an Op-Ed in the Saturday edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican on-line to be the proverbial splash of cold water, as author Hank Bahnsen insisted that “There is no Second Amendment right to own guns. So intended the founders!”
Bahnsen’s 481-word essay elicited only three reader comments yesterday, but more importantly, illustrated the continued divide between firearms owners and gun prohibitionists. No amount of Supreme Court language in the Heller and McDonald rulings will change things, apparently. While Bahnsen is entitled to his opinion, it is likely to rub a lot of his fellow citizens the wrong way.
It may explain why one California sheriff seemed compelled the other day to explain in a website post that his agency will apparently need to be dragged kicking and screaming, as the Calguns Foundation put it, into compliance with the recent Peruta decision. Calguns quote from that decision, noting, “[T]he Second Amendment does require that the states permit some form of carry for self-defense outside the home,” Peruta v. County of San Diego, 742 F.3d 1144 (9th Cir. 2014) at 1172 (emphasis in original), because “carrying weapons in public for the lawful purpose of self defense is a central component of the right to bear arms” (Id at 1175).”
But Sheriff Stanley Sniff’s public information officer reminded readers that, “Residents are reminded that California CCW issuance is discretionary by the police chief or sheriff, and is based upon both reason of (1) self-defense or self-protection, AND (2) good moral character.” (Emphasis in the original document.)
Question: Who defines “good moral character?” Where in the job description of a county sheriff can that authority be found?
If there is “no Second Amendment right to own guns” and only people of “good moral character” can be allowed to carry firearms with government permission in California, what does that say about where the country is, and where it may be headed? Perhaps one answer could be found over the weekend in a two-part treatise by John Richardson at “No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money.”
Richardson first examined the passage of Initiative 594, the 18-page gun control measure, in Washington earlier this month. In the second installment, he made some predictions about where similar efforts, apparently to be supported by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown For Gun Safety lobbying organization, might pop up next.
One reason Richardson identified some states as ripe for the kind of gun control in I-594 is explained thusly: “The next factor that I thought would have an impact was the proportion of the state's residents that were actually born there. I call this the ‘Californication’ factor. In other words, people move from California to other states such as Nevada, Oregon, and Washington and bring their California attitudes with them. We see a similar pattern in the East as in-migrants from states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have altered the politics of states like Florida and Maine.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/there-is-no-second-amendment-right-to-own-guns-says-n-m-man