The Foundation for Moral Law, on December 14th, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a California law that prohibits people from carrying firearms in certain public locations. Although the Foundation filed the brief in December, the High Court is still considering whether to accept the case for review. Read the brief here.

In the case of Nichols v. Newsom, the Foundation came to the defense of Charles Nichols, a pro se litigant who challenged the law by suing Governor Newsom. Nichols argued that the ban violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

The Foundation argued that recent Supreme Court decisions have held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms, that the right protects Nichols against actions by the State of California, and that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms as well as the right to possess them.

John Eidsmoe, Foundation Senior Counsel and primary author of the brief, stated that the Framers believed the right of self-defense was part of the right to life itself, because the right to life is meaningless if a person may not defend his life, and that the right of self-defense cannot be fully exercised without the right to bear arms. “The Second Amendment,” he said, is essential to the right to life itself, and the right to self-defense may be exercised individually or with others to defend one’s country.”

Eidsmoe added, “The Second Amendment protects the right to ‘bear’ arms as well as the right to ‘keep’ arms. If you’re attacked on the street, it doesn’t do much good to have a gun locked away at home.”

Foundation President Kayla Moore explained that “The Foundation for Moral Law was established to defend the constitutional rights of American citizens, and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is among the foremost of those rights. If that right is taken away, we are as defenseless as sheep before wolves.”