Federal Judge Strikes Down California Ban On Firearm Magazines: Its Foundations of Freedom Thursday, a special day of the week where we get to answer questions from you, the listeners! Always answering your questions from constitutional principles! Tune in today as we answer your most pressing questions!

Air Date: 06/21/2019

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! Where we”€™re talking about today”€™s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always doing that from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker and President of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state legislator, national speaker, and author. It’s Good News Friday. I’m always looking forward to Good News Friday. It’s a chance for us to catch up on a lot of the great things that have happened in the previous few weeks and Oh sometimes you think there’s nothing good happening that’s not true. There’s a lot of great things happening and so David and Tim compile a lot of these new stories you’re not going to hear about in the major media and then try to catch us up on Fridays with what we call Good News Fridays so we’re gonna dive in a ton of those in just a moment. But I do want to recommend you visit our websites today, we have two of them, WallBuildersLive.com is our radio site. That’s where you can get a list of our stations across the country that carry the program.

Be Sure to Check Out our Website!

You can also get archives of the last few weeks of programs, including those Good News Fridays. So if today is not enough, and we’re gonna give you a full program of it, if you want more good news go to the archives and click on some of those past Friday programs, or grab some of the Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs, where you ask the questions and we dive into foundational principles, or those interviews we have Monday through Wednesday, it”€™s all available right there at WallBuildersLive.com.

Then over at WallBuilders.com we have great information available for you as well. A lot of great tools things you can use to equip and inspire yourself and others to be better citizens, to live out your citizenship and live out your freedom in a biblical way, and be a part of the solution helping to restore America’s constitutional republic, one of the most important things you can do.

When our founders gave their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor, that means, yes, they gave their money. So we’re asking you to donate to help this program grow and expand and reach more people so you can make a contribution to the program there at WallBuildersLive.com or WallBuilders.com. Just click on the Donate button.

By the way, that helps us do our training for pastors in Washington D.C.. We take pastors from all over the country to our briefings in D.C. several times a year. We train legislators, we train young people, all the things we’re doing, you become a part of it when you make that donation. So make a one time donation or become one of our monthly donors. All available right there at our website today.

Nathan Melech

Let’s get into some good news today. David Barton”€™s got our first piece of good news. David?

David:

OK guys, I am going to start with a piece of good news that involves Nathan Melech. You guys know Nathan Melech?

Tim:

Yeah, he’s the guy you have good news on, right?

David:

Yeah. More than that. Come on, fill it out.

Rick:

He is the first topic of good news today.

David:

Well, yeah, we aren’t…

Tim:

We’ve each answered you. I don’t know why you’re still asking question?

Rick:

Yeah, Tim and I are on it.

David:

  1. What country is he from? Nathan Melich.

Tim:

How do you spell his last name?

David:

M-E-L-E-C-H.

Tim:

What’s the country of origin?

David:

If I tell you, you”€™ll have the answer.

Tim:

Oh, yeah. I don’t know.

David:

You clearly don’t know. Have you guys ever read the Bible, cover to cover, even once?

Rick:

Yes.

Tim:

Several times, sir.

David:

Then you’ve read his name several times, and you don’t recognize the name Nathan Melech? It’s in Second Kings. The Book of Second Kings.

Nathan Melech that.

Tim:

See, here’s the problem: when I was in Israel, the Israeli tour guide we had was pronouncing words, and that’s not how he pronounced it. So I think you’ve just mispronounced it.

David:

Let me spell it: N-A-T-H-A-N M-E-L-E-C-H. Now, who is he?

Tim:

Oh yeah. Melech. OK. Got it! Oh I know. Yeah. So he is a high ranking official in the reign of King Josiah.

Archeology Backs the Bible Yet Again!

David:

The Bible covered it in the book of Second Kings. So what’s significant is, in the archeological excavations in the City of David, they have just discovered a clay seal—the official Clay seal—with his name on it.

Now, the reason that’s significant is that’s a little, bitty, tiny detail in the Bible that even you guys didn’t recognize, and you’ve each read the Bible cover to cover numerous times, and here we have archeological evidence saying, “€œHey, the Bible gets this little, almost insignificant detail accurate.”€

This all goes to prove the accuracy and the authority the Bible, and is a really good piece of news.

Tim:

I don’t know why you had to point out the fact we didn’t know his name and therefore it’s more important.

I think you could’ve just said, “€œHey here’s a piece of the Bible that came through. Tim and Rick, good job on having read the Bible before. Good job guys!”€

It actually didn’t go that way. I don’t know why that does not recognize the name all of a sudden brings better qualifications to this fine but that is super cool though.

Even the small details continue to give the authority of Scripture, that you can trust what it says, it continues to back that up.

In fact, one of our good friends who is over there, Omar Eshel, we’ve had him on the program before when we take tour groups over in Israel, he’s our tour guide. He talks about the thousands—

Thousands of Dig Sights Continue to Prove the Bible Accurate

David:

36,000.

Tim:

Thousands of sites they have. Not all of those sites are active sites, they have some, roughly 5,000, that are active archeological sites.

He says, “€œIn everything we found in Israel, we’ve never found a single archeological thing that contradicts what the Bible says.”€

This is what continues to be amazing, is as they’re even making new discoveries, it consistently and continues to verify and validate exactly what the Bible says.

David:

And I love the fact that it’s the little details, because if you’re getting all the little details where you could get it wrong, or fudge, or whatever, but the Bible not only gets the big stuff right, it gets the little stuff right.

King Josiah? OK. We buy that. But Nathan Melech? This, Tim, as you point out, that is so good.

So I’m going to take Israel and roll forward a few thousand years to where we are right now as President Trump is working on his budget. He is trying really hard to cut government spending in so many areas, trying to get the economy back, and some fiscal responsibility—the economy’s doing really well but trying to get fiscal responsibility back. It is not good to spend more than you take in, and at some point, as the old saying goes, “€œThe pigeons will come home to roost.”€

So he is cutting so many areas in the budget. But the one thing he did not cut in the budget was the aid that we give to Israel. That relationship with Israel is just as strong as it has been—stronger than it has been in previous administrations. It is very intact. Jesus says, “€œWhere your treasure is, there is your heart also.”€

America Continues to Fund Israel

And when you look at where we’re placing some money, the fact that we’re maintaining as it has been the funding for Israel and what we do to help them, that’s really good news as well.

Rick:

So, good news out of Israel, both old Israel and new Israel, but good things from Israel. Quick break guys. We’ll be right back. Stay with us folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Moment From American History

This is TimBarton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. In the early seventeen hundreds the Reverend John Wise preached that all men were created equal, that taxation without representation was tyranny, and that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed.

All of which is language recognizable in the Declaration of Independence. Why? Because in 1772 the Sons of Liberty led by Founders Sam Adams and John Hancock reprinted and distributed the Reverend Wise’s sermons.

Four years later, much of the Declaration reflected the language of those sermons by John Wise.  In 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge affirmed, “€œThe thoughts in the Declaration can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was saying.”€

Few today know that the Declaration was so strongly influenced by the Rev. John Wise. For more information on this and other stories go to WallBuilders.com.

Good News From Colorado University

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live! Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday, where we get the opportunity to catch up on some good news that’s happened in the last few weeks from David and Tim. Tim is next. Tim, what’s our next piece of good news?

Tim:

Well, guys, this what comes out of Colorado, and actually from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. It’s good news because the school has now corrected a bad decision. Alliance Defending Freedom had to get involved and have to help encourage them to make a good decision, but they did.

There was a Christian group on campus, and the Christian group was actually requiring that the people who are officers in the group actually agreed to abide by the beliefs of the organization.

David:

That’s radical, because Democrats allow Republicans to serve on the National Democratic Committee and—wait a minute. No, they don’t. Everybody else in the world gets to choose their leaders except Christian groups.

Tim:

What is this right. This is the great irony because the university said, “€œYou are discriminating because you’re not allowing people who don’t believe what you believe to be officers.”€

So, right. Maybe as an atheist, or a homosexual, or whoever it was down the list, if they don’t agree to subscribe and to follow your beliefs and you don’t let them be one of the leaders of the group—which of course is just common sense for any  group—nonetheless, the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs said that this group was was not allowed to have a status on campus,

So Alliance Defending Freedom got involved and said, “€œGuys, you can’t discriminate against a religious organization based on their religious beliefs.”€

Common Sense

And the university came back and said, “€œOK, we don’t want any trouble. We kind of acquiesce, we yield, and we will once again grant them status.”€

It’s good news on two fronts. It’s good news that the school recognized that you can’t stop a religious organization from operating and existing on campus just because they require their leaders to uphold their religious standards of faith in their organization. They even point out, “€œHey, everybody’s welcome. You don’t have to agree with us to come and be a part of the group or to come to meetings, or come to our events. Everybody’s invited to the events. They’re just talking about the leaders of the organization. You cannot be a leader of the group if you don’t believe what the group believes.”€

But the good news is that the school has now said, “€œOK, we give you your right to exist. We’re not going to bother you.”€

It’s also good news that there were students on this college campus, who were part of this organization, who said, “€œWe don’t want to see this go the wrong direction. We want to stand up for this.”€

Christianity Fights Back

Because guys, as we’ve talked to many of these leaders of different religious liberty organizations, whether it’s First Liberty, with Kelly Shackelford, or whether it’s Liberty Counsel, with Matt Staver, or whether it’s Alliance Defending Freedom, they have many different leaders normalization with Mike Farris as the guy kind of heading them up. Now, if you talk to any of them, one of the things they tell you is that sometimes a challenge, in some of these cases, is that so often Christians that they just kind of want to roll over they don’t want to cause trouble. They don’t want to deal with the drama and the headache of having to go through the litigation process.

It”€™s good news to see that there are people on this college campus who are saying, “€œNo, we’re going to stand up for what we know to be right, and we’re going to defend our liberties and our freedoms. Because when we stop defending our liberties and freedoms, the easier we make it for government to take those away from us and the faster we will lose those freedoms.”€

It’s always great to see someone standing up and saying, “€œI’m not letting this go without a fight.”€

And by the grace of God, we won this fight, and we do continue to win these time and time again. At some point you hope that the universities—that educational institutions—will recognize that this is not a fight they’re going to win, and stop creating these problems.

But up to this point it’s great that you have Christian organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, who are fighting to defend religious liberty among so many other things. This is a case that they have won yet again.

Great Organisations to Support

Rick:

And those are great organizations to support. We can do some links today at our website for ADF, and Liberty Counsel, and firstly reinstitute all these great groups that do fight these battles. So many times we get the good news because of them being willing to engage.

Quick break guys. We’ll be right back with more good news. David Barton is next on this week’s Good News Friday.

Share a veteran’s story

We Want To Hear Your Vet Story

Rick:

Hey friends! If you have been listening to WallBuilders Live for very long at all, you know how much we respect our veterans and how appreciative we are of the sacrifice they make to make our freedoms possible. One of the ways that we love to honor those veterans is to tell their stories here on WallBuilders Live.  Once in awhile, we get an opportunity to interview veterans that have served on those front lines that have made incredible sacrifices have amazing stories that we want to share with the American people.

One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You’ve heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live, from folks that were in the Band of Brothers, to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived the Indianapolis to so many other great stories you heard on WallBuilders Live.

You have friends and family that also served.  If you have World War II veterans in your family that you would like to have their story shared here on WallBuilders Live, please e-mail us at [email protected].  Give us a brief summary of the story and we’ll set up an interview. Thanks so much for sharing here on WallBuilders Live!

Religious Liberty in the Military

Rick:

It’s Good News Friday around here at WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us through the break! David Barton’s got the next piece of good news. David?

David:

I’m going to the U.S. military for this. Tim and I, this weekend, were with a three star general, and we were talking about religious liberty in the military, and it is really—man, what a shift there has been in the last three years. If you go back to the Obama Administration, Mikey Weinstein, who is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation—which is a misnomer in terms. It is not religious freedom, it is an atheist article organization that wants all religious expression gone.

He used to brag that he could call the Pentagon, and with an hour he could have an activity shut down at some base or post somewhere. They did have his ear, and if he as an atheist complained about anything in the way of religious expression, they would just shut it down.

The Air Force just probably the worst at the time. They stomped on all sorts of stuff. You couldn’t put a Bible verse up in your private space if it could be seen as by someone else. There were people who were actually being court martialed for expressing their faith, even chaplains!

With Trump, when he came in, it was a real change.

“€œNo, no, no, we’re not going to target religious people and make it tough for them. The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion.”€

So things started to shift.

Congress Passes a to Put Religious Liberty Constitutional Training in the Military Curriculum

But wanting to really get this thing right, Congress passed a law in 2018 that said, “€œLook, the armed services have to come up with a curriculum that teaches the constitutional role of religious liberty that just because somebody like a Mikey Weinstein chirps a lot and says, “€œ”€˜I don’t like it,”€”€™ doesn’t mean you shut it down. You have a constitutional responsibility, you take an oath to uphold the Constitution, you need to instruct commanders and, JAG officers, and NCOs, and soldiers all the way down about religious liberty and the constitutional protections for it.”€

So this is it is something that Congress really wanted to see done.

They sent a letter to the Pentagon that said, “€œGuys, we want to call your attention to the fact that we passed a law last year, and this is not a law you’re just going to ignore. This is something that you really have to put a focus on.”€

I really like the fact that Congress is being aggressive, and so I’m holding in my hand a letter signed by just a bunch of congressmen.

You”€™ve got Doug Lamborn out of Colorado, and Vicky Hartzler out of Missouri, and you got Mike Johnson out of Louisiana, Jody Heiss out of Georgia, Mike Gadson, Jim Banks, Brian Babin, and Jeff Duncan, all these congressmen signed on—congressmen and women by the way.

The congresswoman there often say, “€œWe want to be called Congressmen because that’s just a generic title.”€

So when I say Congressman and include people like Vicky Hartzler, it’s it’s not it’s not to diss them in any way. That’s the term that they still use.

Court Backs Religious Backgrounds for Jobs

I’m just really really pleased the fact that so many members of Congress are saying, “€œGuys, we’re supposed to protect constitutional freedoms, and one of those freedoms is the freedom of religion.”€

Now, within that framework still in Washington D.C., Let’s move from the military to the Department of Education.

Betsy Devos is Secretary of the Department of Education. There was a decision given by the Supreme Court a couple years ago, there was a case at the Supreme Court called Trinity Lutheran Church, and in that case the court said, “€œLook, you can’t exclude religious organizations just because they have religion if they can form the same service as someone else.”€

Let’s say you’re hiring a math tutor, and you can have a secular math tutor that teaches students that 2+2=4, and you can have a religious math tutor that teaches students 2+2+4, you can’t exclude the religious math teacher just because they’re religious. If they’re teaching what’s supposed to be taught, you can’t exclude them on that basis. Well, the Department of Education has had a policy that says that school districts cannot contract with any organization that has any religious affiliation, even if the service they deliver has nothing to do with religion.

In other words, you’re teaching math, or teaching 2+2=4, But the Department of Education had a policy, again, from the Obama Administration, that says, “€œHey, if you have any religious affiliation you cannot be part of anything in the Department Education. You can’t apply for grants, you can’t apply for contracts, you can’t service school districts, etc..”€

Bad Rules Rescinded

We just had Secretary Devos say, “€œWe’re not doing that. If you can provide the service, and you can provide a competitive contract, and if you’re the lowest contract and the school district chooses you, we don’t care whether you have a religious affiliation or not. If you can do what you’re hired to do, we’ll take you.”€

The required hostility toward religion that used to be in the Department of Education, where they required you to be hostile to religion, It’s it’s been rescinded.

That’s good news.

It’s kind of ridiculous that we had to rescind hostility to the Constitution by saying you got to protect religious freedom, but now you’ve got that direction, we’re going in that direction both in the military and the Department of Finance and the Department of Education.

Rick:

And that’s a really healthy direction for America to move in. Quick break guys. We’ll be right back with more good news. Tim Barton”€™s up next. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Avalon Project

Tim:

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. I know you hear my dad and Rick talk a lot about our Founding Fathers about the original intent of our nation, a constitutional heritage that we have. And, really we’ve seen how far we slipped away from that. And, I know a lot of us as we hear my dad and Rick talk think, “€œI wish there was a place that I could go where I could see these documents and I could read and learn about the Founding Fathers firsthand.  See the things they did.”€

I want to give you some websites today that can help you accomplish that very thing. If you get online you can go to places like Library of Congress and you can look under their century of lawmaking or historical documents. You can go to the Avalon Project, to the Founders Constitution, Google Books, or even the internet archives.  

Or you can just go to WallBuilders.com. We have a section for our WallBuilders Library. And, under that section we have different subgroups for historical documents, historical writings, even a place where you can get helpful links to find out more information about other websites.  Where you can do research for yourself and find the truth for yourself. Friends, this is the time that we need to know who we are and where we came from. WallBuilders.com is a great place to go.

Good News from California

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live! Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. We got one more segment of good news, and Tim Barton’s leading it off. Tim?

Tim:

Alright guys, I have a couple I’d like to try to get through in this last segment, if I can. One of them is coming from California.

Very interesting, as we’ve talked about President Trump and nominating judges at different capacities, and different levels, and in all of these federal positions—even some of these federal appeals courts.

Well, one of the things California did not that long ago that made a lot of waves regarding the Second Amendment was they banned high capacity magazines, and there were so many ridiculous assertions made about how many people you could kill with these high capacity magazines, and how they were so much more dangerous than low capacity.

And Rick, as we’ve gone out to Front Site on many occasions, and we practice our firearms discipline, and we work, and we do drills. A lot of the drills we do involves doing mag switches.

And Rick, I know that you prefer a 1911. A 1911 actually would make it under this California ban as far as you don’t have more than 10 rounds in most of your 1911 magazines, but you can swap out a 1911 mag pretty quick, if I’m not mistaken.

Rick:

Hopefully less than a second. Well, it depends on how good I’m doing.

Tim:

Depends on how the day goes, right? But see, here’s what was silly, is as they’re talking about, “€œWell, if we don’t let them have as many bullets their mags then its guns are now less dangerous, right?”€

Ridiculous and Unconstitutional Argument

That argument is so, so ridiculous. Dumb on so many levels. Not to mention it violates the notion of the Second Amendment.

You are restricting the arms and the use of arms for people. Then they even tried to apply this kind of retroactively, saying that, “€œIf you already have magazines that exceed this ten ten bullet capacity then you have to turn those magazines in or you can be fined.”€

Just all kinds of silly stuff.

Well, the good news—it”€™s Good News Friday—the good news is a federal judge struck down the California ban on magazines. The California judge is part of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, and what he said when he struck it down is, “€œIts individual liberty and freedom, are not out motored concepts.”€

He explained that the California law was doing this, quote, “€œIt was turning the Constitution upside down.”€

He explained that this violated the entire nature of the Second Amendment, and so he says the only way to uphold the Constitution is you have to strike this law down, which is what he effectively did. So that’s really good news coming out of California, recognizing the flaws with this, but certainly a violation of the Second Amendment.

Rick, I know, when you’re out at Front Site—in fact you’ll be at front sight at several different periods over the next couple of months—part of what you do is you’ll have Constitution training, and some constitution classes, and a lot of it revolves around the Second Amendment.

Founders”€™ Intent

The idea that you’re going to tell people, “€œYou can’t have very many bullets in your magazine, that capacity is illegal.”€

That goes directly against the Founding Fathers”€™ intent from the Second Amendment. Am I right?

Rick:

No doubt about it, man. No doubt. And even just to say what kind of weapons or what kind of—they use the terminology “€œweapons of war”€ and all these different things, but yeah no doubt they’re violating the Founding Fathers”€™ intent.

Tim:

Well—and I was asking that rhetorically, I know they are—but I was yielding to you because you do talks on this very thing, and you and my dad, with Constitution Alive, you all have spent a lot of time dissecting and trying to explain the Constitution. All three of us, we do talks on the Second Amendment, but that’s something I know that you do, and I love every time I can come out and be a Front Site with you guys. So fun. Always great to hear you talk about the constitutional application specifically dealing with the Second Amendment while we’re out there.

But another piece of good news this one was just such a cool, feel good story, when I saw it.

So Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, former wrestler now movie star, all the things he does. He has been a very positive person in many regards and really he seems like just such a good encourager on some level.

Well, there was a headline that came out. There’s a picture that I saw, a little meme, I think even saw a little bit of a video clip.

The Rock”€™s Rock

But here’s the headline for this article: Dwayne The Rock Johnson Calls His Friend With Down Syndrome the Rock”€™s Rock, and the rocks rock was as the headline identifies. It’s a guy with down syndrome, but a guy who is a weight lifting guy.

Dwayne just being the encourager, pumping this guy up, and I think it’s just so neat, as much as we see negative things coming out of Hollywood, it’s so neat when you see guys in Hollywood that are doing things that are positive and that we can point our kids to and say, “€œOK, that’s how we want to handle this situation. That’s the attitude we want to have when we see someone. We want to be encouraging, we want to be loving to them.”€ To see someone with the status of Dwayne Johnson come out and encourage his kid with down syndrome? Just such a neat thing well.

Rick:

And Tim, I have to say with your comments earlier, let’s not forget that the Founders”€™ reasons for not wanting to limit what you could have was not just so you’d have guns to play with, that was so you could defend yourself and so that you could keep a tyrannical government at bay. So let’s not forget those two very, very important reasons. That’s why we have a Second Amendment in the in the first place.

Guys, thank you for all the good news so much good news today, but there’s a lot more at our websites. So go to WallBuildersLive.com, click in the archive section there, go to the Friday programs, you get a lot of good news. We’ll be doing this on future Friday programs as well, and you can send good news stories to us and at

California Judge Blocks Ban on Firearm Magazines and More on Good News Friday!

[email protected].

And while you’re on the website today, we’d appreciate it if you consider a one time or monthly contribution. That’s what makes a listener supported program possible in the first place. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.