Today, Wednesday, Aug. 26, marks exactly 52 years of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) leading the charge in defending, securing and restoring the constitutional rights of Americans.
Founded in 1974 by Alan M. Gottlieb, who now serves as the organization's Executive Vice President, SAF remains the leader of legal action aimed at dismantling infringements of the Second Amendment. Just this past year, SAF scored a significant victory that removed major components of the National Firearms Act, created a path for California non-residents to apply for concealed carry permits, forced the federal government to recognize the right of SAF members to carry a firearm in post offices nationwide, protected the Second Amendment rights of adults under 21 in Pennsylvania, and many, many more. In addition, SAF is the only pro-Second Amendment organization with two "assault weapons" ban cases awaiting Supreme Court oral arguments.
"For the past 52 years, SAF's goal has remained unchanged – to ensure Americans could freely exercise their Second Amendment rights without fear," Gottlieb said. "Lawmakers across the United States, however, have done their best to determine what constitutional rights citizens can, and cannot, exercise. That is absolutely not how the Constitution works, and it's the reason we fight these injustices and infringements in courtrooms on a daily basis. We have been part of more than 260 lawsuits since our founding, significantly influencing the landscape of firearm freedoms nationwide, and we will continue to do so for the next 50 years."
For more than five decades, SAF has joined forces with individuals, companies and other liberty-based organizations in the fight to ensure our right to keep and bear arms remains for generations. Since its founding, SAF has been instrumental in landmark legal victories, including the monumental McDonald v. City of Chicago Supreme Court decision, which flung open courtroom doors around the nation by applying the demands of the Second Amendment to the states as well as to the federal government. No longer could state governments violate the rights of their citizens any more than the federal government could. The overwhelming majority of present-day Second Amendment litigation is against state and municipal actors and is made possible by the McDonald decision.
"SAF's track record of landmark Second Amendment legal victories and precedent-setting rulings is second to none," said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. "We fight for the rights we all hold dear and work hard to ensure Americans have the freedom to exercise the full breadth of their right to keep and bear arms across the country. Unfortunately, there are those who believe the Second Amendment is a second-class right. Thanks to SAF's aggressive litigation program, those state, regional and even local lawmakers continuously find themselves defending their ill-conceived laws in courtrooms across the country. Today we take a moment to reflect on our past accomplishments, knowing full well that the weight of true Second Amendment freedom across America rests squarely on our backs. It's a weight SAF has proudly carried for more than 50 years, and we will continue our critical work as long as there are idealogues who wish to trample on the rights our Founders enshrined to us."
For more information visit SAF.org.
The Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org) is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group dedicated to safeguarding and promoting the fundamental rights of individuals enshrined in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. SAF engages in aggressive legal action to ensure the principles of armed self-defense, personal liberty, and the ownership of arms are defended, secured, and restored. Through public education initiatives, SAF teaches the importance of the Second Amendment to promote a society that values and exercises the right to keep and bear arms.