Weekly Spotlight 3/6/25 – 3/13/25
USCCA Network Attorney Provides Testimony During House Hearing On The Right To Self Defense
Hearing Adds to Growing Momentum In Washington to Protect and Expand Second Amendment Rights
This past week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing entitled, “The Right to Self Defense,” to examine our fundamental right to self-defense, protected by the Second Amendment. The hearing also focused on the efficacy of gun control policies and the related effect on public safety.
As part of the hearing, David McDermott, Founding Partner at McDermott Law Group and USCCA Network Attorney was invited to provide expert witness testimony before the subcommittee. As a defense attorney, McDermott has worked to defend thousands of Americans who have had to take safety into their own hands from criminal charges. In his testimony, McDermott touched on several key issues affecting law-abiding gun owners nationwide and the broader self-defense landscape today, including:
- The unfortunate reality is that many responsible gun owners quickly go from being the victim of an attacker to “a victim of the system”. This is in part due to the fact that our nation lacks uniformity in determining what constitutes an act of self defense in certain states.
“For example, if you’re being attacked and you reasonably believe you are about to receive great bodily harm or death, some states require that you attempt to run or flee from your attacker before using lethal force to defend yourself; while others allow you to stand your ground and defend yourself where you are (provided your legally entitled to be there). Whether and how you can defend yourself shouldn’t come down to what state you’re in. Everyone should have the right to defend themselves in the same way.” - The dangerous negative stigmas associated with gun ownership in America today, which can impede law-abiding gun owners from taking actions to defend themselves based on how they believe they will be viewed in the legal system after the fact.
“Many people believe that all firearms are bad, some even going so far as to believe that people that own firearms are bad as well. Many believe people shouldn’t be able to carry, or to defend themselves with firearms. Some of these people that share these beliefs are judges; others are potential jurors.”
As McDermott emphasizes, a legal system that perpetuates false narratives about gun ownership and fails to provide consistency in recognizing self-defense undermines the rights of all Americans. Law-abiding gun owners across the country should be empowered to fully exercise their constitutional right to protect themselves without fear of unjust legal consequences.
McDermott’s testimony and defense of this key constitutional right adds to a growing momentum surrounding 2A rights in Washington. Just last month, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that called for an investigation into unconstitutional, anti-gun policies enacted by the Biden administration. In Congress, H.R. 38, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act was introduced at the beginning of the year, which would provide much needed clarity for law abiding gun owners nationwide.
Like McDermott, all Second Amendment advocates must raise their voices to defend Americans’ fundamental right to self-defense and ensure that this crucial freedom is preserved for future generations.
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OTHER NEWS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
FOX News: Debate Over Whether To Ban Handgun Sales To Teens Could Soon Head To The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court may soon weigh in on whether people younger than 21 have the right to buy handguns, a decision that could upend decades-old federal restrictions and reshape the nation’s gun laws. In January, the right-leaning Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, struck down the federal government’s decades-old ban on handgun purchases for 18- to 20-year-olds. That decision came after the 10th Circuit upheld the same prohibition in November. Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is currently considering whether to uphold a Virginia district court judge’s decision ending the age-limit ban.
Colorado Politics: Senate Bill 25-003 Undermines Second Amendment In Colorado | OPINION
A bill currently moving through the Colorado legislature poses a serious threat to the constitutional rights of Coloradans. Senate Bill 25-003 seeks to ban the buying, selling and manufacturing of semi-automatic firearms, used by thousands of law-abiding residents in the Centennial State to protect their families. … A growing group of self-defense advocates have called for the legislature to abandon this dangerous attempt to undermine gun rights. The U.S. Concealed Carry Association For Saving Lives Action Fund, supported by the nation’s largest and fastest-growing organization dedicated to responsible gun ownership, recently hosted a rally in Lakewood for gun owners to vocalize their opposition.
The Truth About Guns: Another Judge Rules Against Machine Gun Ban
We reported last August how a federal judge in Kansas ruled that the federal law tightly regulating the ownership and transfer of full-auto firearms, aka machine guns, is unconstitutional. Now, a federal judge in Mississippi has ruled the same, and for many of the same reasons. On January 29, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ruled in the case U.S. v. Brown that the federal law effectively banning the sale and possession of newly produced or unregistered machine guns was unconstitutional, at least for the defendant in the criminal case.
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