Ban More People From Owning Guns, Ban Gun Shows on Private Property, and More

The California Legal Action Project (LAP) has obtained a copy of a solicitation by the Legal Community Against Violence ("LCAV") to attorneys and law students seeking their pro bono assistance in advancing LCAV’s crusade to expand gun bans. This and related documents are posted at www.calgunlaws.com. LCAV has been actively drafting model ordinances and pushing the gun control agenda in California for many years, and in recent years has expanded its efforts nationally. LCAV works with and often provides legal advice to all the major players in the gun control movement.

LAP is a joint venture between the Nation Rifle Association (NRA) and the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) to advance the rights of firearms owners in California. Through LAP, NRA/CRPA attorneys fight against ill-conceived gun control laws and ordinances, and educate state and local officials about the programs at their disposal that are effective in reducing accidents and violence without infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

The LCAV document provides a partial wish-list of gun ban groups’ agenda for new firearm laws. For example, LCAV seeks a free lawyer to come up with a legal argument that local governments can ban categories of persons from possessing firearms beyond state and federal prohibited classes. That way LCAV can encourage local governments to adopt much more strict prohibitions on those who may own guns. If cities were allowed to do this, practically any "category" of person could be prohibited from owning a gun. For now the proposal includes persons with misdemeanor or lesser offenses for merely carrying a concealed weapon or possessing a so-called "assault weapon." But why would they stop there?

Also alarming is LCAV’s desire to develop a legal argument that local governments can ban gun shows on city/county-owned property if there is no history of gun shows on that property, and that a city or county can completely ban, or at least drastically hyper-regulate, all guns shows even on private property.

Besides displaying the specific projects LCAV is pursuing, this document also gives insight as to how LCAV advances the gun ban agenda with the help of pro bono assistance from big firm lawyers. Anti-gun owner politicians and groups like LCAV often tap into California’s "progressive-minded" law firms for free legal advice and services that work to the detriment of gun owners and businesses alike. In California many of the urban law firms are deeply entrenched in "progressive" democratic politics, and its companion "ban guns and criminalize gun owners" philosophy. These law firms collectively provide millions of dollars of free legal work to promote the anti-gun owner legislation in Sacramento and locally, to develop model legislation that can be exported throughout the country, and to get anti-gun owner politicians elected. LCAV proudly lists the law firms that support its endeavors on their website at: http://www.lcav.org/get_involved/anniversary2009.asp.

Business owners should be vigilant as to whether their legal services dollars are being used to subsidize LCAV’s efforts through their law firms’ pro bono assistance to LCAV. Choose your lawyers carefully!

Click  here  to read LCAV's solicitation letter.

Click  here  to see a copy of LCAV's 990 Form (Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax).