The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) proposed a rule in May to protect armed citizens from overzealous local and state officials while they travel.
Through the Clarifying Interstate Transportation of Firearms Under the Gun Control Act, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) seek enhanced protections for gun owners away from home.
Constitutional freedoms do not evaporate when gun owners cross a state line
The agency posted: “For purposes of transporting firearms interstate, any activities that are reasonably necessary to transportation such as staying overnight in temporary lodging, stopping for food, fuel, vehicle maintenance, and emergency, or medical treatment, or transiting between modes of transportation, are considered ‘transport’ and thus protected by the Gun Control Act provision that addresses interstate transport of firearms.”
Exercising constitutional rights should not be a risky business just because a person crosses a state line. After all, you don’t expect to hand over your freedoms of speech or religion merely for being on the interstate.
Truck drivers and others who travel for work or pleasure risk persecution by state and local officials, even though they are lawful gun owners and choose to exercise their right to self-defense while on the road.
Utah man arrested and jailed in New Jersey for possessing a legal firearm
Federal law currently states that a person who moves a firearm from a location where it can be legally possessed to another with the same laws is protected. Law-abiding citizens should never face incarceration due to the whims of anti-gun state and local regimes.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to a 57-year-old Utah man who missed a connecting flight and stayed overnight in New Jersey. Despite declaring the unloaded weapon, he was arrested in what became a major civil rights case that cast a chill on Second Amendment freedoms.
Gregg C. Revell was held for five days, and authorities kept his firearm and hollow-point ammunition for three years, even though prosecutors dropped the charges months later.
Lower courts dismissed his lawsuit and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning his frightening situation could happen to any law-abiding gun owner who is stranded in a locale hostile to gun rights.
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