Roll Back the Stone

Perhaps no story about facing fear resonates more with me than the story of the women going to the tomb of Jesus and finding the stone rolled back to reveal the risen Christ.  Imagine them, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, in the course of their days, so moved in their hearts, as to go to the tomb of the mortal Jesus, now crucified.  Women confronting grief and, instead, bearing witness to a miracle and finding hope.

I don’t often speak of faith.  But this week I witnessed a miracle that restored my hope from where it was crushed when the Supreme Court turned down our emergency application last October.  The official wording in the letter sent to me from the Clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court was “The application for stay addressed to Justice Thomas and referred to the Court is denied.”  Dated October 10, 2023.  The paper of the letter, having been caught in a southern downpour and then baked in the heat of a metal mailbox, is so out of shape that it looks like parchment.

Yet, in a couple moments of self-deprecating humor over my having faced my fear of yet another rejection by SCOTUS in recently filing our pending Petition for Writ of Certiorari in Gazzola, two unlikely persons - in separate conversations - and I do mean “unlikely” - expressed that of course it had to be filed because after all the work to date, “You had file! You couldn’t quit! What if they take it this time?”

Huh? I thought. And it got me wondering if a shift was afoot.

Then, this week, by the grace of God, six Briefs Amicus Curiae were filed to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the pending Petition for a Writ of Certiorari by the Plaintiffs in Antonyuk v. James.  Those six amicus briefs were filed on behalf of groups professing to be friends of the nation’s high court in support of the requested relief of Mr. Antonyuk, et al.  Unpacking the list of groups (some briefs bundle more than one group), friends are found among:

• the National Rifle Association (NRA),

• the NYS Sheriffs’ Association,

• the Second Amendment Law Center,

• California Rifle & Pistol Association,

• Gun Owners of California,

• Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois,

• Second Amendment Defense and Education Coalition,

• Operation Blazing Sword-Pink Pistols,

• the Foundation for Moral Law,

• Peace Officers Research Association of California,

• California State Sheriffs’ Association,

• the California Association of Highway Patrolmen,

• the Crime Prevention Research Center, and

• Project 21, an initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

And that is a miracle. 

Because of the ways the courts have placed my case, Gazzola v. Hochul, in consideration along side Antonyuk, I have been blessed in these many, long months since we filed, to get to go back-and-forth between dugouts.  “Antonyuk,” at the Second Circuit, also included Spencer, Christian, and Hardaway.  Also, in a holding pattern in district courts across NYS are additional cases, including the second federal civil rights lawsuit by Messrs. Nash and Koch, who were plaintiffs in NYSRPA v. Bruen. More than 100 persons and more than a dozen law firms quickly took to the field to push back against those extremist 2022 laws New Yorkers continue to fight. That includes Gun Owners of America (national) and GOA-NY, which support Antonyuk and Gazzola.

This, too, is a miracle.

Across this nation, there are cases older than the 2022 Bruen decision and cases newer, in such a number that I have to call for updates from the attorneys I know and am getting to know, who talk with me from airports and rental cars between federal circuit courts around the contiguous United States, Alaska, (don’t know the Hawaii attorneys yet), and U.S. territories such as Guam. (I quietly hope to be selected for any federal litigation that will take place in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in case anyone is interested).  I literally stopped keeping my scoresheet of cases, because with being Counsel of Record for Gazzola?  There aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with the flurry, bordering on happy chaos.

Miracle.

2022 was a terrible year at the state legislation level.  For those of us who witnessed the “SAFE Act” and variations on it go through in four states in 2013 and the four (total) major federal cases challenging it, but hitting a wall of cert denied, we also witnessed the exodus of legacy firearms manufacturing plants from NY, CT, and MD to south of the Capital Beltway.  That year, I witnessed at national conventions like SHOT Show and NRA annual the governors of southern states personally welcoming companies like Remington to pack up their men, women, machines, and intellectual property, and “come on down!”  To where those companies now thrive and those skilled jobs are growing.

Nothing short of a miracle for our national security.

The Second Amendment movement is a family.  We have our biological and legal family.  And then, we have our chosen family.  Oh, I’m a woman, and I have several times said “I’m Switzerland” because I have no interest in the negative, and there are some egos and personalities and quirks and old baggage.  But, so does my other family.  That one we sit down with on Sundays.  (I will refrain from telling any stories about either.)

No, when the amicus briefs started appearing on the SCOTUS website this week, I found a floor upon which to steady a question nagging since last October whether my faith had been misplaced.  “Our movement is maturing and the courts will catch up,” was what I thought.  Who talks to who and who doesn’t and why, well who cares.  This is exactly how we grow into a movement bigger than any one person is we show up.  We are aware of each other’s cases.  Aware of the issues at stake.  And we show up to face our fears of losing any ounce of the fundamental rights encapsulated in the words of the Second Amendment.

And when we get there?  The stone of tyranny is rolled back, and through the brilliance of judicial decisions and election cycles, the government can - and will - rebalance to better reflect the people of this nation.  This is what an unjust government fears most is that we make that journey, we keep that faith, and we become the earthquake that rolls back that stone so that we can achieve our best selves, families, and communities, as well as our best nation, under our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

If we do not make the journey, we cannot witness the miracles.

This has not been an easy journey, this past year and a half.  But if we keep the faith, together, and we keep our feet upon the road, we will get to witness the miracles along the way.

Happy Easter, friends!  Happy Easter.