A lawsuit has been filed in federal court against the state of Minnesota for withholding Second Amendment rights for those individuals under 21.
Article by Bob Unruh from WND.
The action, Worth v. Harrington, was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of a number of plaintiffs including the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens in the affected age group.
Defendants are John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, plus three county sheriffs, Mille Lac County Sheriff Don Lorge, Douglas County Sheriff Troy Wolbersen and Washington County Sheriff Dan Starry, in their individual and official capacities.
The state is accused of violating the Second and 14th Amendments.
“We recognize the rights of law-abiding young adults to vote, join the military, sign contracts, start businesses, get married and do other things,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “but when it comes to exercising one of the most basic fundamental rights protected by the Constitution, suddenly we treat them like children. You shouldn’t be able to have it both ways.”
The complaint charges, “The state of Minnesota prohibits a certain class of law-abiding, responsible citizens – namely, adults who have reached the age of 18 but are not yet 21 – from fully exercising the right to keep and bear arms. At 18 years of age, law-abiding citizens in this country are considered adults for almost all purposes and certainly for the purposes of the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights. Yet the state bans such persons from carrying a handgun outside their home or automobile, even though the state allows all other law-abiding adults to obtain a permit to carry firearms in public.”
It continues, “Minnesota generally bars the carrying of handguns by ordinary citizens in public for self-defense unless they first acquire a permit to carry under Minn. Stat. § 624.714 subd. 1a.9. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated are absolutely ineligible to receive a permit to carry even though they are adult individuals over 18 years old, because they are under 21.”
“Minnesota law prohibits private citizens from carrying guns outside the home or vehicle without a permit,” Gottlieb said, “but the state does not issue permits to anyone under age 21. This is patently unfair to an entire class of citizens who have otherwise achieved ‘majority status’ to exercise these other rights and privileges, but their right to keep and bear arms is kept off-limits.
“Young adults between eighteen and twenty-one were fully protected by the Second Amendment at the time of its ratification. Hundreds of statutes from the colonial and founding eras required 18-to-20-year-olds to keep and bear arms,” he said.
The complaint notes that the individual plaintiffs have good records and want the weapons for self-defense. One of the plaintiffs often closes up a store, late at night, and is forced to walk unprotected across a dark parking lot.
YouTube, Spotify, and other Big Tech platforms are taking Freedom First Network down
It’s no secret we speak our minds and bring on guests who do the same. That’s one of the biggest reasons we put together the Freedom First Network in the first place. There are far too many news outlets, including so-called “conservative” media companies, who are so beholden to Big Tech that they temper their perspectives at best and outright coverup the truth at worst. Many, as you all know, will blatantly lie in order to maintain the narrative that supports the radical agenda taking over much of the United States.
We have had our YouTube channel taken down. Many of our shows have been suppressed or removed by Facebook and Twitter. Spotify banned one of our shows completely from their platform. Google hates us. We’ve even been censored by some of the smaller players like Medium, Transistor, and Captivate. But we stand behind our reporting and perspectives and we refuse to bow down to Big Tech tyranny for the sake of pageviews or video plays.
This isn’t the easiest road to travel, especially for a media company that is so new. We launched Freedom First Network in 2020 to fight against the very censorship that we’re seeing so widespread today. We have found great homes for our content on freer speech platforms like Rumble and we’re putting our best efforts forward into building our presence on Locals. Nevertheless, we cannot do it alone. We need help.
One of the things cofounders Jeff Dornik and JD Rucker agreed to from the start was to never be the pawns of companies that do not embrace our worldview. Finding advertisers and affiliates is easy; we receive requests by companies wanting to be pushed on our shows every day. But it’s important to us that we’re promoting companies, services, and products that are beneficial to maintaining a Freedom First stance in America. As a result, we do not take on sponsors easily. We would rather rely on our own products like Freedom First Coffee and the support of our wonderful viewers, listeners, and readers.
Those who want to support us and help keep the fight for America’s future moving forward can do so by donating through our Locals page. There, you can donate monthly or one-time. Some have told us to use Patreon or GoFundMe, but both of those platforms have demonstrated a hatred for free speech. Locals does not. They embrace it. We encourage everyone to join us on Locals, but donations are greatly appreciated as well. We do not have day jobs. Our fight for freedom is a full-time gig.
Please feel free to reach out to us through our contact form. It goes directly to our founders, so if you’re interested in getting involved, investing, sponsoring, or even bringing a show to our network, let us know. May God Bless the United States of America!