Victories For The 2nd Amendment And Pro-Life Fronts And Much More – Tune in to be encouraged with some good news today! The 2nd Amendment and Pro-Life Fronts are seeing some incredible victories, the Fifth Circuit sides with judge to keep prayer in his courtroom and more!

Air Date: 07/23/2021

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

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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.

 

Rick:

You find your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us on WallBuilders Live, where we’re taking on hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. You found us on a Friday, and we love Fridays around here because it’s Good News Friday. David and Tim Barton have been compiling all the good news that’s been happening out there. And already, you’re saying, wait a minute, good news? It’s all negative. It’s all bad news out there. No, they’re definitely bad news. There’s definitely negative things happening. There’s definitely a never to make our nation a Marxist nation. I mean, there’s all kinds of bad stuff. And we talk about that throughout the week to say, hey, what does the Bible say about how to respond to that? But today, we’re going to talk about the good stuff, because there’s also a lot of good news happening.

So David Barton, America’s premier historian has been gathering some of that, Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders has been gathering that. I’m Rick green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. I have not gathered any of that. I’m just here to keep us on time and go to break when it’s time to go to break. So, David, first piece of good news, brother.

David:

Man, I wish I had a job as easy as you had. If that’s all that job, Rick, you do so much more than that, but that nice being humble there, but I don’t buy that as bro. So we really appreciate…

Rick:

Okay, it’s time to go to break. Well, guys, we’ll be back, no, I’m kidding. Alright, more good news then.

David:

Alright, I want to start off with something I think is a huge, massive victory. This is something I’ve been talking about for years, it deals with constitutional aspects. And one of the things that really bothers me about the Constitution is the way that we say, well, when you’re a certain age, you can get certain constitutional rights. No, on the premise that the Founding Fathers set forth, that Constitution and the Bill of Rights sets forth and alienable rights that come to every individual simply because they are human.

And so what happened was we had a federal court, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issue a ruling related to guns, and the state, it said, hey, we’re not going to allow anyone under 21 to be registered with a handgun. And the federal court said wait a minute, where in the Constitution does age go with any constitutional right? I mean, now there’re statutory things were they’re not necessarily part of the Constitution. But this is saying, why is it, I mean, there’s 45 year olds that shouldn’t have a gun. They’re more immature than some 14 year olds we know. When does age become the factor for a constitutional right?

Tim:

Yeah, I think it’s also worth noting, right, the constitutional right is not the right to own a gun, it’s the right to self-defense. But it’s largely accepted, the best way to defend yourself is with a firearm, because then it’s a great equalizer. Doesn’t matter who’s bigger or stronger, faster, doesn’t matter who throws a better points: the gun is the equalizer. So this is the best way of self-defense.

And so then the argument becomes, are we saying that you’re only allowed access to the best means of self-defense if you are 21 years? And as you pointed out, right, there’s a lot of 45 year olds that I don’t think are responsible enough to have a handgun. But just because we now assign an arbitrary age, and I’m saying arbitrary in the sense of like, 21 is not when you automatically become mature to sort of say that when you’re 21, now you’re mature enough to hold a handgun. I don’t know that age is the best necessary measurement of maturity, although I get we’re trying to find some measurement.

Nonetheless, the good news about this is there was a court that recognized that this is rather an arbitrary age identity. And to say that you can have 18 year olds that can buy rifles, but can’t buy a pistol. Well, if they can use a rifle, why couldn’t they have a pistol? At this point, you’re talking about a very effective lethal tool that certainly if you’re able to use a rifle, why are we saying they can’t have a handgun?

And so it’s interesting to see the logic of this argument that was applied, by the court by these judges who ruled in favor of this. And certainly, it does go back to this notion that if we believe in the right of self-defense, and we believe that it’s okay for 18 year olds to have a weapon for self-defense, why are we at this point going to say there’s only certain weapons we believe they can have or not have it. That does seem much more arbitrary than just identifying no, if you’re 18 years old, you can have a weapon. You should be able to have access to whatever weapon might be appropriate for even a 21 year old, while you’re 18.

David:

So I’m going to stay on record that the Constitution does not recognize ages as far as rights go. And I’m going to stay on record that anybody who has a gun I think needs some training on it. I mean, that’s just the way it is. Founding Fathers didn’t have trouble with that and they had some regulations that were the guns, that did not keep you prohibit you from keeping and bearing arms. That was not it. You just need to know how to do it. And so John Quincy Adams, I mean, he’s really into educating his young sons, 10 year olds on the use of arms and making sure they’re proficient with pistols, rifles, etc. We’ve got so many historical examples.

So I’m still a huge fan of everyone being educated with the use arms, being trained in it, being very safe in it, knowing exactly how to use it, less accidents, when you’re more familiar with it, all that is really, really good. So I think those things are great. And by the way, I just saw another article that said 61% of us counties have now become what they call Second Amendment sanctuary counties. In other words, in this county, we’re going to uphold the Second Amendment and state or federal laws that try to infringe on it. That’s not going to be upheld here in this county. So a lot of good Second Amendment news right now.

Rick:

A couple thoughts, guys, I love a couple of quotes out of that decision, the judges there said, we refuse to relegate either the Second Amendment or 18-20 year olds to second class status. Exactly what you’re saying, David, that the age doesn’t change what your rights are. And then just the fact that we talk in the legal world a lot about bad facts, or good facts that make a good case or a bad case, this was a case of good facts. This gal was 19 years old Natalie Marshall. So 19 years old, ex-boyfriend that was abusive and violent. And so she had a protective order against him and she couldn’t go by her gun to protect herself. And also, she worked in a rural area where sometimes she was out there by herself.

So I mean, a perfect example of why the Constitution gives her the right to be able to defend herself, as Tim was saying, to be able to get this firearm, that as the judges said, in this case, would make sense for her in this particular situation to be able to defend herself. So just a really good case, I really hope this goes all the way to the US Supreme Court, and we get this ridiculous congressional law overturned. It’s from 1964. It was based on a lot of bad facts and bad studies on young people being 49% of crime and all this. So they’re basically blaming every young person in the country for gang activity, is really what they were doing. They were inhibiting the constitutional rights of young people because of gangs. And anyway, it’s just bad congressional law. Let’s hope it goes all the way Supreme Court so that it’s everybody, not just the Fourth Circuit.

So glad you brought that one up, David. I’ve been so excited as I was reading through this thing over the last couple of days, really, really good news on the front of being able to defend ourselves. And I’ll say, as you were talking about training, we’ve got a lot of new dates for our constitutional defense course in the fall. So constitutioncoach.com, go get signed up and come with us and do what David’s saying, get trained, and get your kids trained. We have 11 years and up, they go with us. And they get to train on the range with their parent, with good instruction, and it’s good fellowship too. So check that out. Next piece of good news is going to come from Tim, go ahead, Tim.

Tim:

Well, I don’t know if this qualifies as really good news, but it does for me. Because I’m going to one of those fall dates to go do some training in Front Sight, and we’d love to have some of the listeners join us there. It really is such incredible training. And I look forward every year to be able to go out there and do that. So as a side note, definitely excited about that.

But in the midst of the good news that we have, this massive stack in front of us, the one that’s on top of my list, it says “New Record! States Pass More Pro-Life Laws Saving Babies in 2021 Than Any Other Year”. Now, guys, literally for years, maybe a decade plus to this point, we have talked about all of the positive prolife laws that have been passed. And actually backing up, this article points out that in 2011 is the year that was in second place, that was the year that actually at first place for a long time. 89 Prolife laws passed in 2011.

This year, just in the first half of this year, just through June, there were 90 prolife laws that passed in June alone in the US. So this is really significant. What’s really fun about this article too, it points out we’re actually where some of these information came from, is there is a pro-abortion research group, it is the Guttmacher Institute, and they released article and in this article, it really is a policy analysis. But nonetheless, they’ve released this document and it was dubbed or titled, “The Worst Legislative Year Ever for US Abortion Rights”. Now, anytime someone says it’s the worst year ever for abortion rights, that’s going to be a Good News Friday moment. That is something we’re going to celebrate.

They actually go through in this policy analysis, and one of the things they say is this is the worst year for abortion rights and abortion access in US history. Well, that’s really good news that this is the worst year ever for abortion, for abortion access. As they break down this list, one of the things they show is that six states have actually enacted limitations on abortion, it shows. And this is gestational age limits on abortion. So this is saying after 15 weeks, or after 12 weeks, or 20 weeks, wherever the case is. So those are weak bans on abortion.

Then you have Oklahoma and Texas that outlawed abortion so of Roe vs Wade is ever overturn, they will be able to look at that and say okay, if Roe vs. Wade is overturned just keep everyone in the same page, it does not end abortion. It sends abortion back to state and becomes a state issue. And so there are states like, in this case, Texas and Oklahoma who are passing laws saying that if Roe vs. Wade is overturned and this becomes a state issue, we are already putting the law in our books that we are going to say abortion is illegal in this state.

So Texas and Oklahoma have already passed those laws. And South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signed legislation that would ban any abortion that would be done on a child with Down syndrome. And so we’re talking about selective abortion. So you can’t have a selective abortion with a child with Down syndrome. In Arizona Governor, Doug Ducey did something very similar, that it placed a limit on abortions of children with genetic disability. So again, this is selective abortions, where if you see that there’s a disability with a child, the parent cannot then say, well, because there’s disability, we won’t have this abortion.

There were eight other states that place limits on chemical abortion drugs. Five states have enacted laws to protect children born alive after botched abortion attempts. So we can go down this list and really break down some of these. But the big picture in the good news is there is more prolife legislation happening now than at any time in US history.

And one of those laws actually another article. This one is from Louisiana. It says “Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards Signs Pro-Life Bill to Save Babies From Abortion”. And this is House Bill 578 in Louisiana. And actually in Louisiana, they are one of the states that have passed in multiple prolife Bill. So, good news coming from Louisiana on this prolife front. And this specific bill is…

David:

And by the way, I think this is the only Democrat governor we know in the nation who is signing prolife bills is Louisiana’s democratic governor. He’s an anomaly. I wish we had more anomalies like that.

Tim:

Well, it might be worth noting that this was not even a close vote in the House or the Senate so that can certainly indicate the reflection of the values of the people in the state. It definitely would put pressure on that Governor. But yes, dad, to your point, kudos to this governor for signing prolife legislation, which is a very good thing to do, but does not align with the values of the Democrat Party at this point. They are saying as a party, clearly, they’re going a different direction.

By the way, specifically, this piece of legislation HB 578 was dealing with the information for mothers about the life saving abortion pill reversal that abortion providers are required to let parents know that there is a pill that can reverse the abortion pill if taken within so many hours, etc. So this passed in the Senate 31-7, passed in the House 71-27. But this is just one of the many positive pieces of legislation dealing with the prolife issue. So this is really good news coming out of Louisiana.

Rick:

I’m wondering, if you guys, as you were describing all that, Tim, I was thinking, okay, this is the best year ever for the prolife issue. And 2011 was a good year. And remember, that was after a massive political wave in 2010 in the right direction and so we saw those prolife bills come out of that. But we didn’t have that kind of wave in 2022. If anything, based on the shenanigans and everything else that happened across the country, it could have gone the other way, maybe.

Do you all think that would have been even better for prolife right now? We’ve always said life is the number one issue, it’s the best indicator of how people are going to vote on other issues. I mean, what does that say about the overall swing of the country? We’re fighting all this Marxism. We’re seeing all this bad stuff out of Washington, DC, but if we’ve had that many prolife bills out of the state legislators across the country, that’s got to be a good sign overall?

David:

I think it’s a great sign overall. And let me even add more to it, is we’ve been passing prolife legislation since 1973. So what you’re looking at is roughly, what’s that, 48 years that we’ve been going at prolife legislation. So every time a state passes a prolife law, that gives you less stuff you can add to the next time, Texas has now passed 60 prolife laws since Roe v. Wade. Well, there’s only so many things you can ban, you know, you got to get created to find new things.

And the fact that here we are this, essentially 50 years later, and a lot of states are already prolife laws, and they’re still finding unique ways to find other things to become prolife. I mean, that’s a lot of hard work and digging on the part of legislators to find things to come after and go after. And the fact that they haven’t quit even like Texas after having passed 60 laws, we got three passed this session. So I think it’s not only good news. I think it’s good news actually further than that, because they had to work really hard to find some of these issues to go after, and they did, and they are passing.

And so I think overall, that’s a great indication of perhaps what might happen in the next election. There are certainly a bunch of battleground districts. We’ve already identified 47 congressional districts where that the winner won by under 6%. Now, in an off year election coming up, off year means non presidential, those are going to be numbers that you can turn the other way. In other words, those are huge districts for being able to flip. So I think there’s a real prospect that there will be a lot of change in the midterm elections, and that it may be moving in a very conservative direction. And Rick, as you point out mean, this record breaking year, this year for prolife laws is a pretty good indication of what might be coming.

Rick:

Well, so important, these Good News Fridays, I love you guys bringing this good news. And it’s such an important thing for people to remember we won’t have those big victories in 2022 and potentially 2024 if you grow weary in well doing, if you stop acting, if you check out, if you get so frustrated with the just complete insanity coming out of Washington DC right now that you buy into the lie that the system doesn’t work anymore. The system works, we got to work the system and we got to stay involved. And so I think if we do that, if we continue to be active, it is going to be a really big banner year in 2022, which means even more positive legislation coming in 2023 when those sessions start.

Quick break, guys, we got more good news coming right here on WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. Let’s keep the good news flow. And David, what’s our next piece of good news?

David:

It comes from a federal court decision out of the Fifth Circuit. And the Fifth Circuit is the federal court that that oversees Texas and Louisiana and Mississippi. And so in that area, there’s a lot of folks there. There was a case down around the Houston area where a judge down there, a justice of peace opened his core sessions with prayer. He would have a chaplain come in, some kind of person willing to come pray. He has, if you will, kind of a stable of people who might want to pray, that could be religious leaders or church leaders or whatever. And so he’s got this rotating thing for invocations, and they can open the court with prayer.

Well, obviously, there’s a lot of secular folks who don’t want any court opens with prayer, don’t want prayer in any public venue whatsoever. We just assume, not how prayer anywhere. And they’re going to allow to private homes, but they just assume not have prayer. So when you look at what happened with judge Mack down in Houston area, and then they came after him, said you can’t have prayer in the room, this is coercing people to believe in God, etc.

So it’s been going for several years now, three or four rounds it’s gone, and sometimes they go against them, sometimes they go for them. And recently, there was a district judge who said, hey, you can’t do this, you can’t have this kind of prayer in the courtroom, even though you put up on the board when you pray that it’s completely voluntary, you don’t have to participate. This is not saying anything about the people in the room. This is just the practice we do. So the court said you can’t do that.

But when we got to the Fifth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, they said, no, no, you can do this. And it’s interesting that into the session, they can do it. They went back and started quoting from the original US Supreme Court pointing out how many justices on the Supreme Court arranged and participated in prayer at the Supreme Court, and then down through the states, etc. And this was a case in which we were able to participate and we actually presented pages and pages of documentation of how virtually every decade, including up to the 20th century, there have been prayers in courtrooms across the United States. And this is a practice has gone on over two centuries, and literally just scores and scores of examples.

And the court reverted to history and saying, you know what, history says it’s okay to be doing this. And we’re not going to let people shut it down today just because they don’t like prayer. So Judge Mark gets to keep prayer in his courtroom. It is a voluntary non-coercive of prayer. But it’s still nice to have the open acknowledgement of God upheld in courts. And this is the trend we’ve seen over the last two to three years, is we are seeing more victories now on religious liberty issues in the federal courts than literally in my adult lifetime. There are religious liberties we can practice today that we haven’t been able to practice in 60 years because of decisions in the last two or three years over issues like this. So we are seeing a real turn in the nation. And this decision from the Fifth Federal Circuit Court about Judge Mark in Houston, it’s a great decision. Congratulations to Judge Mark.

Rick:

It’s your helps to know the history. You know, Reagan said, if we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. And a lot of times, unfortunately, even though we all agree that the court should not be the ones making a lot of these decisions, that’s where it’s being done right now. And so if the judges don’t know the history, then they give very different decisions, right. And if they know the history, if they’re given that data and given that information of what we did and who we are, we get good decisions.

David:

It does make a difference to have good information. And right now we’ve got judges willing to listen to get information. And having judges willing to do that is really significant. We’ve been in court before where they don’t care what the history is: they’ve got their mind made up on what they want. And that decision becomes a reflection of their personal beliefs rather than of the law. And it’s nice to have judges who want to uphold the law based on history.

Rick:

Good news. Okay, Tim, what’s our next piece of good news?

Tim:

Alright, guys. Well, this one is coming from Georgia. And this is one dealing with an officer really unique set of circumstances. There was a 6-year-old boy that is officer now is being credited with helping mentor, and the six year old boy was born with a disability. So first of all, the officer’s name is Rolf Seiferheld, and I apologize that I’m saying that wrong. But officer Seiferheld met Harrison Humphreys, and they connected, they actually met earlier in the year. They were doing some things and they got some pictures taken.

Well, Harrison wants to be part of law enforcement. But he was born without leg bones and arms, but he wants to be a detective. So officer Seiferheld has said, hey, you know, we can hang out, we can spend some time together. And he’s really spending time investing in this 6-year-old boy. His philosophy to people is be kind, treat people how you want to be treated, show them the respect they deserve. And certainly, this is reflected in the way he’s treating this young boy Harrison. They have spent time together.

In fact that Harrison’s mother, Tara said that not many people will take the time to be with her son, because they maybe get scared and that they don’t know how to interact with him because he is missing his arms and he doesn’t really have legs. So Harrison was born without arms and only small bones in his legs. And so he has the absence of hips, fibulas, and femurs. And so in the midst of this, obviously, you look and see that as a major disability. But this officer has said, you know, we can still spend time and invest in this kid.

And in the midst of this, his mom points out how brave Harrison has been in all this, that he has found a way to use his feet, so to speak, to do what a lot of people can do with their hands. He’s able to brush his teeth, and he can brush his hair. He even works to himself dress without any help. As a 6-year-old, just guys, so remarkable. hearing this story unfold. And his mom said his dream is to be a detective.

And so now this officer Seiferheld is really kind of taken him in, and he’s spending time with them, which of course, is just so incredible for the mom. And she said that I think this is a relationship that can continue to grow, a partnership which is what a community should be. And guys, we’ve talked about before how so often we see the news media paint the police as something really that’s not a reflection of who they are always are. I think this is such a good story about the reality of what most police officers are, that they care about people, they care about the community, they want to make a difference. And this is a scenario where this officer is investing into a 6-year-old boy missing limbs and appendages, but he’s doing things to make a difference.

Guys, such a cool story from this officer. And there’s many more articles we can go through. But I will default now, dad, if you want to cover another story.

David:

Yeah, I’ve got one here that I find is interesting, and actually a couple I’ll just throw together as we kind of close out. They’re both from the courts again. And one of them deals with a program the US Department of Agriculture has, they make loans to farmers in various places for whatever the needs might be with agriculture.

And so what’s happened is the USDA has started forgiving those loans, like the COVID forgiveness thing. They’re forgiving loans for all sorts of folks. And the program says they’re forgiving loans for everyone except those who are white. If you’re white, you can’t get your loans forgiven, but you can with any other group. And they list all the groups: black, American Indian, Alaskan Native Hispanic, Asian, Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, etc, everyone except white. And so a federal judge properly struck that down said no, no, we’re not doing that. And he cited the fact that this has already been struck down by a judge in Wisconsin. It’s been struck down by Judge in Florida, a judge in Texas, a different judge in Tennessee. So all over the United States, this wacky policies being struck down, but it’s just amazing to me that the Biden ministration wanted to do that.

But then on top of that, another one that’s been struck down is that President Biden when they did the last COVID relief thing, they said the states get all this money for COVID relief, but you’re not allowed to lower taxes in your State. You get this money, but you can’t lower taxes. A federal judge said that’s nonsense, states can lower their taxes. Ohio just lowered theirs by 3%.

So a judge has stepped in and said, no, Biden ministration can’t do that either. You can’t force states not to lower their taxes. So great decisions by the courts. And again, we’ve got a lot of good decisions. And I’ve got to point back to this as part of the 270 judges that Trump put on the courts. I mean, they are really good at upholding Constitution, upholding the intended constitution. Great stuff in America going right now.

Rick:

Well, good news across the spectrum. We’ve got a lot more available. I know you guys got big stacks there, and you didn’t get to all them, that good news is going to have to stay and wait until next week. So folks, you don’t want to miss next Friday with more good news. We do have some in the website right now.

So if you get to wallbuilderslive.com, you can click in the archive sections and get some of those past Good News Friday programs. And I would encourage you to listen every week, especially with everything that’s going on, get that pick me up, get that reminder that the system does work and how the things that people are doing in their communities, some of the positive things that are happening out there that you could duplicate right there in your hometown as well. So we get all of that at wallbuilderslive.com.

And while you’re there, look at that donate button and we sure would appreciate your support. We got a lot of folks that give one time, some people give monthly all over the country. And you can be a part of that team. You really are coming alongside us and helping us to get our message out there to more people, reach more stations, train more pastors and young people and legislators and all the different things that we do. Thanks for being a part of it. Thanks for listening today to WallBuilders Live.