BREAKING: Supreme Court Strikes Down Gun Law

Breaking news today on Sekulow as the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a New York gun law the ACLJ filed in this case. We'll get you updated. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. This is a momentous decision for gun rights advocates and for the Second Amendment. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. It has all of the elements that you often associate with a Thomas opinion. He brings up sort of originalist history, swatting back arguments from later and after the ratification as largely irrelevant to understanding the intent behind the Second Amendment.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Well there's been a major victory for gun rights. The ACLJ filed in this case out of New York and it does not just affect New York but it will affect laws in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey as well. This was these laws that prevented average citizens from being able to get a concealed carry permit. So you could apply to get a concealed carry permit but you had to have a special reason that you needed a specific harm or specific threat. And so for most folks they couldn't point to a specific threat and it couldn't be general.

So it discriminated between celebrities and athletes and people with significant resources, maybe financially, who could say I'm at risk. But the average person, of course, was not being approved by New York to have a concealed carry permit. And what the Supreme Court said today in an opinion written by Justice Thomas, very clearly 6-3, the Second Amendment is no different than the First Amendment. And when you have a Second Amendment right, that right is for everyone. And this bar to being able to conceal carry, the right is not stuck in your home. You can't just say, okay, you have a Second Amendment right to keep your weapon at home to protect your home.

No, it involves being out in the public as well. And again, I think it's a major decision in light of, too, what is being proposed in Congress as we speak right now. Some of those laws, how they could be affected by language like this, which is such a clear yet again from the court. Third time we saw it out of Heller, we saw it out of the case out of Chicago, and now out of New York where the court has said you cannot bar people's basic Second Amendment rights. Yeah, what's interesting here is Justice Thomas writes that the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the Bill of Rights of other guarantees of the Bill of Rights. We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to the government officials some special need.

They called it proper cause in New York. He says that's not how the First Amendment works, it's not how the Sixth Amendment works, and it's not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense. New York's proper cause requirement violates the Constitution. Now what's interesting here is he used history and he used in fact language that equates the Second Amendment Bill of Rights, protection of Second Amendment rights to the First Amendment.

That was the first time that's really been that clear. Yeah, and I would point out too for anybody who thinks this is deciding more than it is that in Alito's concurring opinion, he points out that our holding decides nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun, nor does it decide anything about the kinds of weapons that people may possess. It's a very narrowly held opinion, but you do have a right to possess a gun. Andy, we only got a minute here, but it does, right across the street in the Congress, they're debating the laws on school safety, which I believe should be hard on the target, should be the first rule, but some of those laws are a bit vague and I think are going to be subject to real attack here, unless tightened up drastically. I think you're absolutely right, Jay, because they're now debating the Safe Communities Act or Safe Cities Act that is supposedly bipartisan in orientation, but now that this decision has just come from the Supreme Court of the United States in the 6-3 ruling, opinion by Justice Thomas, that's going to affect very seriously the language that's contained in this legislation that is pending before Congress because they're now going to have to take into account the language of that bill. That is going to have to take into account the holding of the Supreme Court today. I think this is, again, it's a significant victory, a time when I know people are concerned about gun rights and restrictions being put in place that may be unconstitutional. To get this kind of clear message from the court, it's a big deal. Welcome back to Secular.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. This is a major victory for the Second Amendment, yet again at the court. I think what you're seeing, and what the courts have been very clear about, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, is that these anti-gun folks who are not really reasonable or rational in their approach, like in New York saying you can get it if you're a special person. So if you're a politician, they get, of course, armed protection.

If you're a celebrity, basically if you can hire a lawyer who can put together some kind of petition for you to the New York state to say that you face a specific threat, then you can have a concealed carry permit and carry your handgun outside the home. And the Supreme Court has said no. I think what is a warning to states, and to the Congress as well, that this is a real right, and then without a constitutional amendment, this is no different than the freedom of speech. And that's how this court is going to interpret it. Which means, when you try to put any restrictions on it, they're going to look at it with the most heightened scrutiny available under the law. Which means it's very difficult for your regulations and restrictions to, especially when you're already acknowledging, well, you can get a gun, but you can't get it this way.

So I think this is a big warning to how we look at this, and when we talk about safety in schools and other issues like that, I think it's another issue where we need to point to how do we secure schools with more security officers, put more security there, because I can see the writing on the wall already on this. With some of the things we talked about yesterday, like looking back at your juvenile record and then... Where it was vague. And it didn't say criminal record. It just said looking at juvenile history. And them say, well, if this is a fundamental right, as the court has again, it's done it before, but it's again declared it is, just like the First Amendment rights, then looking back, depriving somebody of that right because of what they did as a minor. Especially if it's vague, like they weren't actually convicted of something, can become very difficult whether you like that policy or not. So people I think have to rethink in light of this decision how you move forward because a lot of these anti-gun folks, they are actually broadening gun rights. By passing these laws, they are broadening out the Second Amendment rights because they are too over the top and they are not rational.

Maybe Democrats will finally get rational on this issue and realize that you can't go so extreme anti-gun when the Constitution is so clear. And what's interesting here is that's why when you have language like what's being discussed across the street in the House, it has to be very specific. It can't be vague.

It can't be overbroad. But listen to what Justice Alito asked during the oral argument. I think this is fascinating. I want you to think about people like this. People who work late at night in Manhattan. It might be somebody who cleans offices. It might be a doorman at an apartment. It might be a nurse or an orderly.

It might be somebody who washes dishes. None of these people has a criminal record. They're all law-abiding citizens. They get off work around midnight, maybe even after midnight. They have to commute home by subway, maybe by bus. When they arrive at the subway station or at the bus stop, they have to walk some distance through a high crime area and they apply for a license and they say, look, nobody has told, has said I'm going to mug you next Thursday.

However, there have been a lot of muggings in this area and I am scared to death. They do not get licenses. Is that right? That is in general right, yes. If there's nothing particular to them, that's right. Okay, so that part of it kind of showed you how ridiculous some of this language is.

Wes, what's your thought on this? I thought that was one of the most significant portions of the oral arguments. The New York law catered to an elitist mentality often exhibited by the left where the rich and the famous can get a permit to defend themselves and carry a gun even though they live in some of the best neighborhoods, but a restaurant worker who lives in a high crime neighborhood cannot get a permit to carry a gun. Besides that, Jay, this law in New York was very subjective. In each county, the official that was charged with granting or denying the application for a permit, the criteria was very, very vague as to who gets a permit and who does not.

And so it was really up to the local officials, which was very subjective and unfair to the average citizen. I'm glad the court held the way it did. You know, I think, again, I want to go to Than Bennett in Washington, D.C., because Than, right now, in Washington, they are voting on gun restrictions and new gun safety measures. I wouldn't say it's not really restrictions as much as new measures trying to have states put in new measures, but I think now that states are going to look at this and say, well, we have to be very careful in how we write any kind of new legislation.

Even though the legislation is popular because of holdings like this that make it very clear that there is a Second Amendment right and that Second Amendment right applies the same to the celebrity and the politician as it does to the average person. I think there's no doubt, Jordan, that this opinion is a warning shot to the bill that's being voted on. Literally, as we speak, I'm watching the tally in the United States Senate right now. There are 54 votes in favor of invoking cloture on it right now.

They need to get to 60 to move to end debate, and a final vote would probably be later today. But Jordan, you mentioned the juvenile records section of the bill. I also think the red flag language is going to be maybe viewed differently in light of this opinion that just came out. Because remember, this is the language that gives money from the federal government to the states to set up red flag laws. Well, look, states are going to set those up in very different ways. Yes, there's a due process test that has to be met in the statute. But Jordan, I can see all sorts of as-applied challenges that are going to be in play here because that is the deprivation of a right before an actual act has been committed.

It's basically if you think that there is a threat from someone and they're trying to stop suicides, they're trying to stop mass shootings. But look, I don't think there's any doubt that this opinion today is going to cause some people to look at this ruling in a new light. Now, look, I do think it's going to pass the Senate today.

Likely it will move to the House either tonight or tomorrow and move out. But even if it gets approved, Jordan, I think it remains to be seen whether or not this entire new law, if passed, would stand. You know, what's interesting here, Andy, is what Justice Thomas, by equating the Second Amendment with the First Amendment, which is what he's done, and the other Bill of Rights, he also said this, to declare the island of Manhattan a, quote, sensitive place simply because it's crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department is not enough to override this right to bear arms if you qualify. But this idea of proper cause was so vague, so overbroad, so malleable by the administrators of the New York carry permit laws, the administrators that would put those laws into place, it was basically void for vagueness, which is, again, a very central First Amendment free speech principle that's now being applied equally here to the Second Amendment. Yes, Jay, when you talk about void for vagueness, it brings back memories of cases that we had before the United States Supreme Court and Jews for Jesus and the overbreadth cases and the void for vagueness analogy. You can't simply say, you got to show me good cause why you should get the gun because that applies to the same thing that would exist with the First Amendment.

You've got to show me a good cause why you should be allowed to stand on the street corner and pass out pamphlets or speak. Or even the Sixth Amendment, which says you have a right to a public and speedy trial, why don't you just put a restriction on that that you have to show a special need or good cause why your trial should be public and speedy. So it applies across the board to all the Bill of Rights, and Justice Thomas correctly made the analogy that the Second Amendment should not be given second status to other constitutional provisions in the Bill of Rights by, as he did historically, going through and showing that it is not a second class amendment. It may be the Second Amendment, but it's not a second class amendment.

Right. What's interesting also is this applies just to handguns, to be clear. So this is not getting into assault weapons, what are called assault weapons. It's not getting into any, and Justice Thomas in this opinion says that you can have the, you're not allowed to have weapons, for instance, you can't walk around with a surface to air missile in Manhattan.

He points that out. So you've got to put this in context, but there's something else that was here and I want to reiterate, and that is this does not, as Cece as you said, get into the qualifications of who can obtain the permit. It doesn't address that, it's the right to carry if you qualify.

Right. So again, Alito was very great in explaining that. This law, again, was only if someone could apply and get a permit, only if he can demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community. And that's the issue, that it's for, this Second Amendment protection is for everyone, not just someone who's specific. And Alito, again, was a very clear, yes, Thomas was very clear about that, and Alito was clear about, look, we're not talking about what, you can have requirements of who can buy a gun, and you can have restrictions on it, but you can't make this distinction.

To be clear, that's a concurring opinion, and there was not a majority on that, but I think the sentiment is, I think you're right on the sentiment there, was very quickly, because we're going to move on to other topics, but this was, for the Second Amendment advocates, this was a big day. It is, and the Second Amendment properly interpreted, it allows for common sense gun regulations. The gun control fanatics will say, this is horrible, but really, properly interpreted, there are regulations you can put on it, but a citizen does not have to give a reason for exercising their constitutional right. What it does say though, Jordan, is when you're drafting legislation across the street, be very specific. Don't be vague, don't be overbroad, it's going to be struck as unconstitutional. Yeah, which means you've got to really come together, and you've got to have a clear head, clear mind on this, and not the extremists on the left, the anti-gun movement, they're not going to get anywhere. These laws are going to be declared unconstitutional if they go that path, if they aren't very specific, and you can't leave things as vague as we were already pointing out how vague they were yesterday on the broadcast. We'll be right back on Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. As we await the Dobbs decision, which could come tomorrow, could be next week, the case involving Roe vs Wade, the leaked draft opinion, you know all about that, but you know that since the leaked draft opinion that pro-abortion extremists have been attacking, literally, that's the right word to use, pro-life pregnancy centers, or any symbols of what they consider to be pro-life organizations and groups, and we've seen, so they go so far as fire-bombing attacks, five of those, where offices have been totally burned out, to vandalism, smashed windows, smashed equipment, and we saw another one of those last night in Michigan. There's a Congressman, a conservative Congressman, Republican Congressman, Tim Walberg, he shares the same building with the Jackson right to life in Michigan, and both were vandalized, the building, and there was, again, there was, you had, we were talking about vandalizing, not just spray painting, as you can see on the wall there, there is the spray painting part, but also vandalism inside, actually, so you see, sometimes the smashed windows, so they're going to some extent, and it's whether or not you're willing to, and that's just last night, there you go, there you see. So it makes your office unable to operate, of course, you have to prepare, but this is what we have seen, and we've also seen the Jane's Revenge group, we're going to talk about this with Congressman Nancy Mace, in the second half hour of the broadcast, she's going to be joining us, because Democrats are just ignoring it, pro-abortion Democrats are ignoring that these attacks just continue to increase, and that Jane's Revenge is called not just for the attacks to increase on the pro-life pregnancy centers, or on pro-life organizations, but to also call for riots in Washington, D.C., the night that they get a decision on Dobbs. So you've had this increase of attacks on pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, and pro-life organizations generally, we just talked about this the other day, since then, there have been more attacks, correct?

That is correct, so the running tally of attacks on churches, pro-life organizations, property, and people since the Dobbs leak on May 2nd, we reported just two days ago it was 60, and now it's 63, so in two days we've had three more attacks on pro-life centers. So here's what the question I ask, and I keep asking this, and I keep not getting an answer, where is the Department of Justice? And we'll get into the politicians not responding, but where is DOJ on this? Well, the DOJ head is in Kiev making political statements when he should be in Washington, D.C., directing prosecutors to go out into the areas where these crimes have been occurred, and to prosecute those people responsible. This is ultimately the job of the Attorney General of the United States, the head of the Justice Department in the Biden administration. These are hate crimes, these are not only federal crimes, hate crimes, these are also state criminal offenses, and they should be prosecuted. And the Justice Department is absent without leave, Jay, that's the reality. They're just absent without leave and without right, and are not pursuing these cases that they ought to be pursuing vigorously, as people and property are being put at risk by these vandals. I think of the civil rights cases back in the 40s and 50s, and really in the 50s, and it took a long time for the Department of Justice and the FBI to finally get in there and help the civil rights protesters.

And you'd think you would learn, Wes, from history here that waiting is not usually a good idea. Absolutely. You know, and this is the same DOJ, Jay, that wanted to investigate parents at Board of Education meetings as domestic terrorists, and yet they're not investigating Jane's Revenge as a domestic terrorist group, which plainly, it appears that's what they are. And I think it's important to also point out what these pro-life pregnancy centers do. They provide prenatal care and counseling, they help a woman through labor and delivery, and after the baby is born, they either help her with infant care and training and supplies on that, or if they want to adopt the child, they help them with the adoption process. These are not radical groups. They're not anti-abortion as much as they are pro-life, and they're trying to help women who are carrying a baby. And yet these other groups are domestic terrorist groups who are attacking these people and their offices.

It's unconscionable. Well, and I think that what we have to watch out for is that we haven't seen the worst of this. This has been the prelude to if the – because based off a leaked decision. So if that decision holds, that we saw the leaked draft opinion that just clearly overturned Roe vs. Wade, I mean, all you need is that sentence right there. They've said the flyers are all over D.C. Riot. They didn't say protest.

They said riot. And it's getting no attention by Pelosi, by Biden, by Democrat leaders. That's why Congresswoman Nancy Mace from South Carolina is going to be joining us.

She's calling on her committee to hold a hearing. You know, Jamie Raskin obsessed with still impeaching Donald Trump is ignoring attacks on Americans that happen to be pro-life. But any kind of, again, legitimate organization, which they all are, even though the states love to try and shut them down. And while – it's so interesting that, by the way, while they're being attacked in states like New York and firebombed in states like New York, New York is trying to overly regulate and shut them down. So they see – it's interesting – they see the pro-life pregnancy centers, which I think speaks volumes to the work that they do, as the number one threat to their abortion business if Roe vs. Wade is overturned. And we have been representing these pro-life pregnancy centers for four decades. And the work they do is incredible. But as you just said, Jordan, and Cece can attest to this because she's handled the cases with us, the attempts to regulate them out of existence is happening while they're being firebombed in New York.

Seriously. New York legislature trying to move forward on legislation to target them more for restrictions, while what's happening? While they're being firebombed in New York. And we've won these cases, by the way, at the Supreme Court.

But go ahead. They're always the target. The crisis pregnancy centers, as Wes said, they do great work and they don't charge for any of their services. And they are on the front lines and they are the main target always by Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby because they are the ones that are giving the information to pregnant women, letting them know, make an informed decision about their pregnancy.

And that cuts into the bottom line of Planned Parenthood because once people are informed, once women are informed, they choose to have and keep their baby. I want to take this call from Cody because we were talking about the gun issue in New York and he had this specific experience with it before this decision today. Hey Cody, thanks for calling in. I wanted you to be able to share your story with the folks on the air.

Thanks for taking my call, gentlemen. Yeah, so basically I applied for my pistol permit years ago and in that process, I ended up waiting for over a year. Now for the township I was in, that was fairly normal.

Cheektowaga is highly populated and they delegated the paperwork, a lot of it, to the different townships. So I waited over that year and basically called in to see where the paperwork was, got no answers. So I continued to wait. Now it's a little bit longer. I called my uncle because he taught Billy Boulder who was the judge who made the final decisions on whether you got your pistol permit and whether it was going to be a concealed carry permit or not because that's the two different things, right?

You can get your pistol permit but you can't carry it anywhere except for the range. So anyways, long story short, he calls the judge, the judge makes the call, he comes back to me and says, oh, it went out for a background check three times out of Cheektowaga. Now there was no problem with my background check but they sent it out three times. Then, so it finally makes it downtown, the judge has to call again. I had to call back three months later because I thought, well the judge made a call, what's going on now? Did you finally get it? I finally got it after the second time.

It only took two and a half years. That's also the absurdity here is that while they had this law in place, see that's what I said to these anti-gun folks, let this be a warning to you that you put in bad laws, the precedent is there to strike them down. This is a right that Americans have under the Second Amendment. It's a fundamental right.

We'll be right back in a second and a half hour. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights, in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you and if you're not, well this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org. Keep you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. So if you're just joining us for the second half hour of the broadcast, some major case out of the Supreme Court today involving Second Amendment rights, I know that we filed this. I want to make that clear too because ACLJ, I think some people might not understand how much we do file in these cases. We've been filing, we filed in Heller, we filed the case out of Chicago, we filed in this case in New York to protect your Second Amendment rights. Very similar reasoning in our brief to what the Supreme Court ultimately held. Which is that this is a fundamental right that you can't pick and choose then who gets the concealed carry permit based off of having to show and you just heard from a caller if you were joining us that first half hour. If you have to show some specific threat about why you need this, how difficult the process was, that will be no more. Now New York will have to figure out, but it's not just New York that had laws like this.

California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. This is also at the same time we talked to Than Bennett earlier while Congress is trying to move on some bipartisan gun regulations and restrictions. I will tell you some of the language they use in that legislation, which is kind of vague, like your juvenile history. What does that mean?

It doesn't mean criminal record. So issues like that when the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas today says this is a fundamental right, you can treat it no differently than the freedom of speech. It means that any restriction is going to be held to the highest standard of scrutiny still and that these states, I'm going to just say this, these states and localities and maybe the federal government when they try to get involved here, they write bad laws and it ends up expanding the Second Amendment every time. Because vague laws over broad laws result in, and like Andy said we've been doing this since the 1980s, when you have laws that are overbroad or vague or you don't treat a constitutional right as a constitutional right and you have a conservative Supreme Court, the end result of that is going to be not very good for those that are trying to get the laws passed. I think there are some laws that should be passed, like we talked about.

I'd give as much money as we could to tighten the schools up. There are safety resource officers there, metal detectors, whatever you need to do. That's a common sense approach to legislation. But even there, you better be specific, Andy, on how you draft it. That's exactly right.

And I agree with you, Jay. School resource officers, school safety officers desperately need it in our communities. But now we have to look at it in light of this decision of the Supreme Court of the United States with respect to the New York law where you've got to show a good reason or a just cause why you should be allowed to carry a gun or get a license. So they need legislators who are looking at these, tightening up the local communities and our schools, which I agree with you entirely needs to be done, need to do it very cautiously and very carefully so that they don't impact upon the constitutional right prescribed in the Second Amendment, as I said earlier in the program. It may be a Second Amendment to the Constitution, but it's not a second class amendment.

It's entitled to equal dignity with the other amendments and drafters of legislation need to be very careful in writing their laws to comply with. The other thing that we're looking at, of course, is the attack on pro-life centers, which I'm going to have Cece give you this number again. Since we were on the air 48 hours ago has already changed. Right. So it was 60 attacks, which is ridiculous. Since the leak, Dobbs leak on May 2nd, it's now 63. So there have been three attacks on pro-life centers in the last 48 hours.

Yeah. And this flyer is going around Washington, D.C. We can put it up on the screen, I think, for folks who put it on the screen. And it's calling for a D.C. call to action night of rage. The night SCOTUS overturns Roe vs. Wade. So they don't say which night because they don't know when that will happen.

But that will give people plenty of time if they want to do this. But it's not a protest. It says hit the streets. You said you'd riot.

To our oppressors, if abortions aren't safe, you're not either. Where is the Department of Justice? And that's why we're going to talk to Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina.

Her subcommittee on these issues, she's called and said, why are we not holding hearings on this? We see the violence. We know what's coming. The Supreme Court is barricaded right now.

We've got the flyers out. We have the actual attacks. We saw the attacks in Michigan last night. They're happening all across the country. Why is no one investigating this?

Why are Democrats remaining silent? We will talk to Nancy Mace about that. We come back on Sekulow, as always. Support our work at ACLJ.org. Just a reminder, you get all those Second Amendment issues, the ACLJ standing up for you in this case of the Supreme Court.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We are joined now by Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina. We've been talking about these attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers.

She serves as part of the government committee on oversight and reform, but specifically the subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties. Congresswoman Mace, let me welcome you to Sekulow, but first say you are calling on the subcommittee chair, Jamie Raskin, to hold hearings on this violence against pro-life pregnancy centers that we have seen, whether it's spray painted vandalism, whether it's fire bombing. We saw another attack last night in Michigan, which included vandalism. And you said so far, as we've heard, it's just been like silence from the Democrats on this issue involving attacks on the pro-life pregnancy centers.

Yeah. And we've had several hearings on right-wing violence, but none on left-wing violence. And I will tell you, having been in a few of these hearings and having the FBI come and testify, they don't categorize these groups like Jane's Revenge or Antifa. They aren't even keeping track of that as a category of violence within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I'm someone who's been attacked by extremists. My house was spray painted last summer.

I've had my car keyed. Having been a victim of political violence, we've got to look out for both sides of the aisle. And there have been over 40 attacks over the last couple of months of this kind of domestic extremism, and we ought to be having hearings about it. This should be equal opportunity to look at the kind of violence that we're seeing across the country. And then this week with the advent or oncoming potential Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, we're seeing signs and threats of violence for people to act on those threats. And so this is something that's got to be nipped in the bud by both sides, and they need to do it immediately. Congressman, one of the things that I have been very concerned about here, and I've articulated this a couple of times, and you're right. When you add the churches to the list of places that have been attacked for the pro-life positions, we're closer to 63.

In fact, three that just got added in the last couple of days. But what I've been very, very concerned about and very troubled by, frankly, is the lack of action by the United States Department of Justice, by the Attorney General Merrick Garland. Has anybody on the Hill hearing anything from the DOJ on any of this?

No, we're not. It's been dead silence like on every other important issue in crisis of Joe Biden's own creation that we've seen over the last several months. It's been very quiet, and that's not where we should be right now. We're seeing violence increased across the country over the last two years, and every city and every state has seen some sort of violence. We're seeing shootings increase in my home state of South Carolina. What are we doing about it, and how are we holding these people accountable? As churches and synagogues, I sat in on a security briefing two weeks ago for one of our local synagogues in Charleston. These are real issues facing real Americans, and they're not being addressed by this administration or this Department of Justice. To me, it's ignoring Americans. The pro-life pregnancy centers are so demonized by the left.

I feel like that's part of why this is a group. In New York right now, three were fire-bombed. Real vandalism done, not just the spray painting. And at the same week as this Jane's Revenge group was putting out the message and claiming they were going to do this, also calling for riots in D.C. the night the Dobbs decision comes out and the flyers are all over Washington. But Congressman Mace, the day that that was all occurring, they released a press release saying how they're going to try and shut down those pro-life pregnancy centers at the state level. We've seen them called horrendous names by some of your colleagues in Congress, calling them a miss in disinformation centers. So they're not being treated just like any other American's organization, lawful business, that is under attack.

No, and you've seen Jane's Revenge claim responsibility for over 15 of the attacks that we've seen and brag about it. You have a President, Joe Biden, who won't condemn protesters showing up on the lawns of our Supreme Court justices because of the impending Roe v. Wade decision, which by the way is illegal to do, and more or less encouraging that kind of protest. And so, you know, we aren't following the law like at all in any of this because they have a different perspective. And if women want to protect their baby or give their baby up for adoption or have family planning resources that doesn't kill their child, they ought to have access and safe access to those churches and faith-based communities who are providing those resources for those women.

They should be equally protected as anyone who's showing up at any other Planned Parenthood or whatever, and that's not what's happening. And that's only further causing division in this country. You know, you write in your letter to Jamie Raskin that the preservation of our democratic society demands that we take action to root out violence no matter where it occurs and whatever its motivation is. You say we must be united in our efforts to preserve our civil society and condemn all violence.

My question is this. We've had inaction by the Department of Justice. We've had no action by your colleagues in Congress, and we don't even have local action by the local police departments. You've got an organization like you said, this Jane Revenge, which is calling for, quote, you said you'd riot. And crickets out of the Department of Justice on this. So I applaud you, we do, at the American Center for Law and Justice for taking the initiative to get this back front and center because you're right, this is violent extremism targeting a viewpoint which is unconstitutional.

Your thoughts? Well, when Republicans get in the majority later this year, we've got to make sure that we have these hearings, that we subpoena folks. When they don't show up, we hold them in contempt. To get to the bottom of it and to bring our officials in the Department of Justice accountable for not addressing this issue. I want to know how they're going to address it, how they're going to protect our communities and keep them safe, and keep women safe, no matter what their political viewpoints or their viewpoints are on life.

And so it's going to be incumbent upon us to do that moving forward and to hold ourselves and each other accountable for getting this administration and the DOJ to get them to do what they're supposed to be doing, which is follow the laws in this country that were created. They love doing the hearings on domestic violent extremism and I think that the only way that those become legitimate, fully, to the American people, as you've heard, you've sat through those hearings and there aren't legitimate concerns there, but when you ignore an entire half of that domestic violent extremism that comes out of the left, Congresswoman Mace, the American people don't take seriously the other side of the extremism either, which isn't good. And so if you're not going to look at it as a holistic approach and it's going to be all partisan, then people ignore it and that's not good for America. No, and it's both sides too and you can't have one side holding one accountable and then you ignore the left altogether. That is not what we should be doing in this country and that's one of the reasons that we have so much division within our communities is how partisan this has been. And it's not been done in an equal way and I think that at the very minimum is the low bar, right, is to hold everybody accountable.

You break the law, you should be held accountable no matter what, no matter what your political perspective is and that's not what's happening in this country and it's going to be coming upon Republican leadership and people like myself to move that ball forward and to do the right thing no matter what. Congresswoman, we appreciate the stand you're taking on this. Thanks for being with us today. Very important. Please keep us engaged on this and informed.

We're working on it too. Thank you for your help. Thank you. That's Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina. I want to go to the phones. 1-800-684-3110. We've got some calls coming in too on the gun safety laws too. So let's go to Bob in Virginia on Line 1. Hey Bob. Hey Bob.

This is Bob in Virginia. I'm a retired police officer and one of the things in Virginia we have is this red flag law and what is disturbing is it denies you due process. My question is do you think these laws will be challenged in court?

Yes and I think it depends on the language. Some of the laws, Florida has, listen, people talk about Florida as being this super red, very conservative state. It has the red flag laws.

So you have to look at I think state by state. What does Virginia's red flag law look like? You say it doesn't have due process. If it has no due process it wouldn't have upstand at all. So it must have some but doesn't have enough to survive scrutiny in light of the fact that we've gotten yet another very clear opinion out of the Supreme Court. I don't know how many times they're going to have to do it but it's because the anti-gun world is always trying to come up with a new way to keep you from being a legal law abiding citizen with a firearm. That's their focus. And every time they do that they are expanding the Supreme Court's interpretation of the second amendment.

You know it's interesting in this one Andy. But I do think there's going to be a lot of legal challenges to any of the new legislation. There's going to have to be, any legislation including red flag laws are going to be very specific and narrowly tailored is what the Supreme Court says.

Yeah that's exactly what the court is saying. It's giving a very loud and clear warning 6 to 3 that when you draft these laws you don't have to give a good reason or just cause why you have to exercise a constitutional right. Whoever heard of that as a preface to the exercise of the Bill of Rights you have to show just cause or a good reason. And that's whether it is to carry a gun, whether it is to have a speedy trial, whether it is the right to speak on a street corner or sidewalk or to hand off leaflets. You preface it by having to show just cause and you give the public official the discretion to determine whether the cause is just enough. That's not the American way.

That's not what the framers said and the Supreme Court of the United States hammered down on that today. Alright folks, we'll continue to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110 if you've got questions about the Second Amendment case at the U.S. Supreme Court, a question about again this violence that we're seeing with the pro-life prisoners, the threat of riots or comments there. We're getting into a little economy too in the next segment of the broadcast so you don't want to miss that as we talk again about just where Joe Biden is but also where's the Fed because what Jerome Powell is saying is not in line with what Joe Biden and the Biden Administration are saying.

Surprise, surprise. 1-800-684-3110 to be a part of the broadcast today. I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. Let me just remind you again, we filed in the case in New York. We filed in Hettler.

We filed in Chicago. We stand up for your Second Amendment rights at the ACLJ. Alright, we're going to take one of the calls about the protection of the violence that we're seeing around the Supreme Court and pro-life prisoners all related to the Dobbs case and then we'll get into some of the economy and inflation, this insane statement by President Biden yesterday. Let's go to Whitney though first in Texas online too. Hey Whitney.

Hey there. Like Jay, I am just astounded by the inaction of Merrick Garland especially considering that he aspired to be a Supreme Court Justice so you would expect that he would maybe put himself in the shoes of Brett Kavanaugh but instead he has just steadfastly refused to protect them. And it might appear initially that he's just being petulant and perhaps he's feeling like sour grapes but with the ongoing inaction coupled with what's going on with the crisis centers, pregnancy centers, it seems like it might be something more malicious.

Well I mean here's the thing. I can't read his mind but I can read his actions and his actions have been zero. There's a specific law that prohibits these targeted protests in front of Justice's house to affect the outcome of an opinion and there's a federal law in place and he will not enforce it. There is federal laws that do not allow for rioting in the streets, destruction of property and he's doing no action so I think part of the problem here, so you see we've talked about this before, is the inaction of the Department of Justice is being magnified each and every day. So that we're all on pins and needles about when a Supreme Court decision is going to come out is the country going to explode and that was because the opinion was leaked.

We still don't know what happened on that. Maybe the Supreme Court Marshal's office does know but the opinion leaked with the intent to cause harm. Harm has been caused and the Department of Justice does nothing.

Right and that was the intent all along. What is happening is exactly the intent and then when you have Merrick Garland doing absolutely nothing, even though there are laws in place that he should be enforcing that go against everything they're doing. The protesting at the Justice's houses and calling for riots. He needs to be engaged and the fact that he's not and the fact that the administration has not done anything to condemn these actions just encourages people like Jane's Revenge to do more. That's why they can write a letter, put it in writing that they're calling for escalating violence and declaring open season on pro-life health centers. That's why they can put up pamphlets all over DC saying it's a call to action for a night of rage and calling people to riots. You said you'd riot and nothing's being done. So you can see that I think the actions are going to actually escalate and that is very scary because people are going to be harmed and I think lives are going to be lost.

I want to go switch to the economy. Rainer, the broadcast. I want to go to this. This is Jerome Powell. He's asked by a good friend of our Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee about the Biden administration blaming all the inflation, all the woes on Russia and Putin.

Take a listen and bite one. Would you say that the war in Ukraine is the primary driver of inflation in America? No, inflation was high certainly before the war in Ukraine broke out.

So there you go. Fed chair directly says inflation high well before the war in Ukraine broke out. Again, take a listen to Joe Biden. I want you to listen to this because Joe Biden gave this speech yesterday saying about talking about the gas tax and the holidays and should be done at the federal level, should be done at the state level. But he also went on this weird line of attack about supporting Ukraine and basically trying to demonize you if you question the inflation.

Seriously, take a listen. Knowing full well the cost. So for all those Republicans in Congress criticizing me today for high gas prices in America, are you now saying we were wrong to support Ukraine? Are you saying we were wrong to stand up to Putin? Are you saying that we would rather have lower gas prices in America and Putin's iron fist in Europe? I don't believe that.

Let's just make it clear right now. Let's say that war in Ukraine happened under President Trump. I don't think it would have but let's say it did. And we were still a net exporter of energy. Guess what the world would have needed more of from us? More energy because they probably would have cut off Russian oil and gas and guess who could have benefited from that? Actually benefited from cutting off Russian oil and gas to Western Europe?

The United States because we have the resources where we could have been making money and building a better economy if unfortunately that war broke out. He shut it down. He declared war on the oil and gas industry in America. And then tried to embarrass them with a letter that he wrote last week demonizing the gas industry, the oil and gas industry and telling them to pump more and get these refineries going but also saying on the other hand but I'm closing you down in a couple of years.

And how much money did you make in the last year and where did it go? I mean this is the way they're doing it. But here's the irony of all this, Colonel Smith, is the Putin factor. You had the Fed Chair say the inflation was on its way before, before Putin invaded Ukraine and yet President Biden has got this narrative in his thoughts that it is all Putin.

Yeah, I mean he continually dodges any responsibility for this which is so unbecoming to a leader. When he took office on January 20th of 2021, inflation was 1.4%. It is now 8.6%. The day he took office gasoline was $2.33 a gallon. It is now $5 a gallon and higher in some places. It would be so refreshing, Jay, if he would simply at some point in a moment of utter honesty say, you know, I may be partly responsible.

I'm going to take a look at my policies and see what I need to do to adjust. Yesterday he was accusing mom and pop service station owners of jacking up the prices and hurting the American people. Didn't we figure out yesterday when we had our meeting that the gas tax rebate, which President Obama called a joke a long time ago, what was it, a half a cup or a cup? A half a cup of gasoline. That's what he gives people, half a cup of gas. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's been picked up by the late night folks which don't usually love picking on Democrat Presidents, but James Corden, he made this joke about the President Biden's speech about the gas tax holiday.

Take a listen. He literally wants to hand the American people less than a quarter and be like, don't spend it all at once. Yeah, it's 13 cents. This tells you where it's going and the policy doesn't work. It's affecting the economy. One school, they did a big research study of it, Bloomberg published it, it actually caused in some places gas prices to go up.

It actually could backfire and it doesn't require, the way they try to sell this to the American people, you don't necessarily get to see the benefit of that. That's really up to the company itself so that it has to trickle down through the corporate world and then they have to make the decision to lower their gas prices. And we're talking about by the time it goes into effect, if inflation continues on the path it is, it's eaten up immediately, even the tiny savings. It's not a plan because it doesn't increase supply. So if you don't increase the supply and the demand is still there, guess what happens?

Inflation keeps going up. Alright, so here's what we're going to be waiting for tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday, we're going to get more Supreme Court decisions.

The two that we're looking for, well there are three. There's the Stay in Mexico policy, there's the prayer at the football game policy, and then of course the Dobbs case which is on abortion. So it could be tomorrow, it could go into next week. Yeah, I mean there's enough cases to where it goes into next week. Have they scheduled another day yet? So not yet on the calendar, but it would be like the most cases in one day, I don't know if they've ever done, in modern history, nine in one day. I mean read them.

Yeah, it's different. They're not in court so they're just releasing them. If they're done they could be. Yeah, I mean likely by this afternoon they would put up another date if they, or announce it I guess in the morning.

Or announce it in the morning. So we're on it at the ACLJ and definitely want to stay with us on the broadcast tomorrow because certainly more cases are going to come out and it could be the Dobbs case is out. It's going to come out very soon and we are ready to respond if the court in fact does overturn Roe vs. Wade. Support the work of the ACLJ. I think today was a great example too of the work we do to protect your Second Amendment rights at the American Center for Law and Justice. Maybe doesn't always get the most attention on our broadcast. But we're there fighting in court using our legal expertise for you and another victory today for the Second Amendment at the Supreme Court. Go to ACLJ.org to support our work. Talk to you.