So You Wanna Be a Test Case?

Thanks to our feckless state Republican party, Democratic party money, corruption, and changing demographics, Nevada is in for a rough time in the 2019 Legislature. A full-slate of heavy, handed full-retard anti-gun bills are going to be proposed. Some will get through and they will be real stinkers. The freedoms we have will soon change.

All of this is pure corruption and leftist tyranny. The corrupt (politically or morally, I’ll let you decide) governor-elect changed his views on guns to align with the full hoplopathic (anti-gun) Democratic Party view in order to get into power. Whether it is blatantly unconstitutional, illegal, corrupt, or simply stupid, we must fight it. But let’s get a few things straight.

• Anti-gun bills are not treason; treason is levying war against the state.Tyranny is the word you are looking for.
• Gun control will not lead to a civil war; gun control will be a contributing factor. I’ll go into this in a post some other time.
• There is no voting our way out of this, but vote Republican in 2020 simply to buy some more time to get ready for what’s to come.

A test case, typically, is a legal case specifically intended to create precedent by trying the constitutionality of an existing or new law. One files a lawsuit to get an appeals court, or even the Supreme Court, to decide that x law either is, or is not, constitutional. A great example of a test case for the Second Amendment is Heller v. DC, which found that the right to bear arms includes the right to self-defense.

For those aware of the history behind Heller, it was a carefully crafted case in which the lead plaintiff, Dick Heller and others, were especially selected to present an ideal case. The linked Wikipedia article gives an excellent examination of their compelling reasons to own a firearm, which the District of Columbia required to be rendered useless through being unloaded and locked up. This case was planned to be a landmark Second Amendment case from the beginning and that’s how it turned out.

Often case law comes about because of legal rulings involving unsympathetic criminals that no one wants to see get off, but the justices in question had a higher obligation to the law and Constitution than to nailing a scumbag based on appearances. Yet far too many cases get turned down because the plaintiff is unsympathetic; no justice, especially one sitting on the fence, wants to create new, groundbreaking case law for a felon, etc. As you saw with Heller, having a security guard, woman, and a gay man, among others, who all truly desire to protect themselves with a gun, versus a robbery suspect caught with an illegal gun, helped win the day.

Not everyone will make a good test case. Unfortunately, for public relation reasons as well as politics, certain persons will not be ideal. Unconscious bias may make a tattooed young man who has been in trouble with the law a bad plaintiff whereas a single mother with kids is favored. No, it’s not fair, but that’s the way the world works.

So, here are the ground rules for the test cases we will push forward.

1. Do not do anything without consulting the wider gun rights activist community; talk to the Nevadans who are active in the gun rights circule. If you don’t know what that means, send me an email.
   
2. Don't do anything stupid before the end of the 2019 legislature!
   
3. Make sure you have a well-thought out strategy, goal, and your legal reasoning before you start making waves.
   
4. Be a sympathetic plaintiff.
   
5. Ideally, have an attorney on retainer already or have reached out to one, including Second Amendment legal groups like the Second Amendment Foundation.
   
6. Plan your attack carefully; if this requires you to be arrested, kicked out, etc. make sure all your ducks are in a row before you go (i.e. the only law being broken is the one you want changed).
   
7. Film you encounter; wear a body cam. Have witnesses nearby with cameras and some without. Keep the witnesses uninvolved in the actual incident. Livestream as well. Your cell phone is not a video device for this kind of thing; get a GoPro or body cam.
   
8. After the encounter or arrest, do not speak unless it is too or through your attorney.

Do not plan to be a test case on the spur of the moment. Here are some lessons learned from past attempts:

No video, so it’s a he said/she said situation where corrupt officials can give the government the benefit of the doubt. Video of the government behaving badly also creates public outrage and puts politicians on the spot.

1. Other violations involved; for example, CJ Grisham of Open Carry Texas was ultimately convicted of essentially resisting an officer because he tried to keep the officer from grabbing his rifle and Grisham was reaching for his cell phone camera while the other was being handcuffed.
2. No plan. You must know what you are doing, have a reasonable expectation of how officials will react, and how you will react or need to react. Think of this step as the recommendations CCW instructors give you after a defensive shooting on what to say to the police.
3. No attorney lined up. Thus the criminal case gets dismissed and you never get around to actually filing a lawsuit because it’s a mess no attorney wants to take on.
4. If the attorney is not taking the case pro bono (for free), make sure you have the funds or funding sources beforehand.

All that being said, we will get test cases and we will win if we are smart about it. There are many avenues of attack where leftist, Democrat politicians have and will overreach. We  have a solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court and will almost certainly gain another seat in the next two years. Any favorable case law for the Second Amendment will be around for a long time in a way that leftists cannot change without going utterly tyrannical.

DON'T DO ANYTHING TO SCARE THE HORSES BEFORE SUMMER 2019-NO 'SCARY' PROTESTS, NO LONG-GUN OPEN CARRY, ETC. OR YOU'LL FUEL ANTI-GUN BILLS