A federal judge on Tuesday struck a blow against gun rights for outdoor enthusiasts in what can only be described as a shocking ruling against constitutional liberties.
U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden refused to issue a summary judgment and preliminary injunction for the Connecticut plaintiff. Of course, he is bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision to base any ruling concerning gun control on the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation.
The case involved the legality of carrying a firearm for self-defense on public land.
There are no viable precedents for banning armed self-defense on public land
Bolden claimed that the foundation for his upholding the prohibition is the fact that national parks did not exist in the Founding Era. Therefore, he was forced to concoct precedents where there were none.
The closest analogues the judge could find were the Yellowstone Park ban, which was implemented in 1897, and the national prohibition, which took effect in 1933.
That’s a far cry from 1791.
Federal judge stretched logic to uphold prohibition
Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Katie S. Dykes is the defendant in the lawsuit. She claimed that laws allowing homeowners to decide whether to allow firearms on their property justify permitting the state to make the same choice.
Dykes wrote that the “principle extends to government-proprietors who have the same right to dominion over their lands as any private landowner.”
First, the situations are hardly similar. Public lands are just that—public. Elected officials have stewardship responsibilities over these parks, but they are hardly owners in the sense that Yellowstone is private property, which, of course, it is not.
Judge Bolden, even as he upheld the ban, disagreed with Dykes’ opinion that government lands are essentially private property. “Commissioner Dykes cites no post-Bruen binding precedent treating the government as a private landowner for purposes of evaluating the plain text of the Second Amendment.”
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