On September 6, the defendants in WVCDL's lawsuit against the City of Martinsburg filed an answer to WVCDL's amended complaint.  Unfortunately, just a few hours later, the court issued an Order of Abstention (the order was amended a week later to correct a clerical error), directing WVCDL to file a separate lawsuit in state court to litigate the questions of state law separately from the federal case and return to federal court if we fail to overturn the city building gun ban ordinance in the separate case.

In its Order of Abstention, the Court exhibited a breathtaking disregard for the U.S. Supreme Court's 1997 decision in Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, in which the Supreme Court clearly directed the federal courts to send certified questions of law to a state supreme court instead of forcing the parties to engage in redundant litigation in state court in most cases.  Following this decision, the 4th Circuit (which includes West Virginia) and 7 other circuits decided cases in which they followed the Supreme Court's ruling in the Arizona case.

In response to WVCDL's arguments that the Arizona case required the court to not abstain and instead certify questions of law to the West Virginia Supreme Court, the court cited two cases where other courts had abstained due to the same legal issues being litigated in separate lawsuits already pending in the state court system.  There are no parallel cases present in West Virginia. One of these cases comes from a circuit that is not fully complying with the Supreme Court's direction in the Arizona case, which cannot be followed here because our circuit has taken a different view.  The second case comes from a circuit that has certified questions in other cases where there is not already a parallel lawsuit pending in state court. The court then cited a third case, a 25-year-old New York case that has never been cited by any other court, to argue that the slightest possibility of any factual dispute requires the case to be sent to state court.

In response to the court's Order of Abstention, WVCDL has filed motions to seek reconsideration of the Order of Abstention, certify questions of law to the West Virginia Supreme Court, strike certain frivolous defenses from the Defendants' answer, issue a preliminary injunction, and grant WVCDL summary judgment on 3 of its 4 state law claims where the facts are already clearly settled.

We do not have a timetable for rulings on these motions.  We hope the court will carefully consider these motions and reverse its Order of Abstention.  If the court denies WVCDL's motion to reconsider, WVCDL may either file a separate lawsuit in state court or appeal the abstention order to the 4th Circuit.  Either option will likely add nearly a full year to the amount of time that will be required for WVCDL to obtain justice and force the City of Martinsburg to comply with state law, the state constitution, and the U.S. Constitution.  This is precisely the sort of delay the U.S. Supreme Court intended to avoid with its clear guidance in the Arizona case for federal courts to certify questions of law to a state supreme court instead of abstaining in most cases.

http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/568405/Court-abstains-from-gun-law-case.html?nav=5006

Court abstains from gun law case

Judge says suit should go through state system first

September 30, 2011

Those of you who visit Ohio will be glad to know that today is the effective date of two bills passed by the Ohio General Assembly earlier this year that make several much-needed improvements in Ohio's gun laws.  While our Buckeye neighbors still have much work to do to in the areas of improving their gun laws and learning how to drive in the left lane (most of them, anyway), the changes that took effect today will remove two (and for some people, three) enormous legal minefields that formerly greeted visitors to Ohio from more gun-friendly states.

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/8003

This story is being discussed in the WVCDL Forums.

http://www.dailymail.com/News/statenews/201109192784

This Wednesday, a 3-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation v. Board of Higher Education and Oregon University System that concealed handgun permit holders have the right to carry on state college and university campuses without restriction. The court's decision in deals primarily with issues of Oregon law and state statutory construction.

This decision makes Oregon the third state where state courts have ruled that state law fully protects the right of CHL holders to carry on campus and that state colleges and universities cannot administratively prohibit anyone who has a CHL from carrying on campus. Previously, the Utah Supreme Court and the Colorado Court of Appeals have reached similar conclusions. The Colorado decision is pending on appeal before the Colorado Supreme Court; the case has been fully briefed and argued and a decision is expected soon. Colorado, Oregon, and Utah generally prohibit carrying on college campuses as a matter of state law but exempt CHL holders. West Virginia has no location-based statutory restrictions on carrying on college campuses.

This story is being discussed on the WVCDL Forums.

http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/09/
oregon_court_of_appeals_reject.html

Oregon Court of Appeals rejects university system's ban on guns on campus

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/30/media-silence-is-deafening-about-important-gun-news/

September 30, 2011

Murder and violent crime rates were supposed to soar after the Supreme Court struck down gun control laws in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Politicians predicted disaster. "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence," Washington's Mayor Adrian Fenty warned the day the court made its decision.

Chicago's Mayor Daley predicted that we would "go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle it in the streets . . . ."

The New York Times even editorialized this month about the Supreme Court's "unwise" decision that there is a right for people "to keep guns in the home."

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in Washington, murder and gun crime rates didn't rise after the bans were eliminated -- they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate.

Not surprisingly, the national media have been completely silent about this news.

One can only imagine the coverage if crime rates had risen. In the first six months of this year, there were 14% fewer murders in Chicago compared to the first six months of last year - back when owning handguns was illegal. It was the largest drop in Chicago's murder rate since the handgun ban went into effect in 1982.

Meanwhile, the other four most populous cities saw a total drop at the same time of only 6 percent.

Similarly, in the year after the 2008 "Heller" decision, the murder rate fell two-and-a-half times faster in Washington than in the rest of the country.

It also fell more than three as fast as in other cities that are close to Washington's size. And murders in Washington have continued to fall.

If you compare the first six months of this year to the first six months of 2008, the same time immediately preceding the Supreme Court's late June "Heller" decision, murders have now fallen by thirty-four percent.

Gun crimes also fell more than non-gun crimes.

Robberies with guns fell by 25%, while robberies without guns have fallen by eight percent. Assaults with guns fell by 37%, while assaults without guns fell by 12%.

Just as with right-to-carry laws, when law-abiding citizens have guns some criminals stop carrying theirs.

The benefit could have been even greater. Getting a handgun permit in Chicago and Washington is an expensive and difficult process, meaning only the relatively wealthy go through it.

Through the end of May only 2,144 people had handguns registered in Chicago. That limits the benefits from the Supreme Court decisions since it is the poor who are the most likely victims of crime and who benefit the most from being able to protect themselves.

The biggest change for Washington was the Supreme Court striking down the law making it illegal to have a loaded gun. Over 70,000 people have permits for long guns that they can now legally used to protect themselves.

Lower crime rates in Chicago and Washington, by themselves, don't prove that gun control increases murders, even when combined with the quite familiar story of how their murder rates soared and stayed high after the gun bans were imposed.

But these aren't isolated examples. Around the world, whenever guns are banned, murder rates rise.

Gun control advocates explained the huge increases in murder and violent crime rates Chicago and Washington by saying that those bans weren't fair tests unless the entire country adopted a ban.

Yet, even island nations, such as Ireland and the U.K. -- with no neighbors to blame -- have seen increases in murder rates. The same horror stories about blood in the streets have surrounded the debate over concealed handguns.

Some said it was necessary to ban guns in public places. The horror stories never came true and the data is now so obvious that as of November, only one state, Illinois, will still completely ban law-abiding from carrying concealed handguns.

Forty-one states will have either permissive right-to-carry laws or no longer even require a permit.

The regulations that still exist in Chicago and Washington primarily disarm the most likely victims of crime.

Hopefully, even the poor in these areas will soon also have more of an opportunity to defend themselves, too.

John R. Lott, Jr. is a Fox News.com contributor and the author of the revised third edition of "More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2010)."