Pillar D · Liberty
Gun Rights and the Second Amendment
“Due process is the line. Conviction yes, accusation no.”
Expand lawful firearm rights. Hard line against red flag laws. Rights are removed only through conviction with full due process. Never by accusation alone.
Where I stand
- Campus carry, government-employee carry, reciprocity expansion.
- No red flag laws. Ever.
- Penalties for knowingly false allegations used to strip rights.
Pushback, answered
The hard questions, answered straight.
These are the real objections this position gets, with the same answers Zac gives in person. No talking points. No dodges.
“Red flag laws save lives. Why oppose them?”
Because of how they operate. A red flag law lets the government take your firearms on a petition and a judge's signature, often before you have said one word in your own defense. No charge, no conviction, sometimes no notice until law enforcement is at the door. That is rights removal by accusation, and I will not vote for it in any form. If a person has committed a crime, we already have laws. Arrest him, charge him, convict him. A conviction can absolutely cost you your rights, and that is due process working. In this country the process comes before the punishment. A tool that skips the process is not a safety tool, it is a weapon waiting for somebody willing to aim it.
“Guns do not belong on a college campus.”
A campus boundary has never once stopped a person who came there to do harm. It disarms the people who follow rules. The adult with a permit is the same lawful carrier in a lecture hall that she is in a grocery store, and the same logic covers the government employee told to leave her rights at the door of her job. Campus carry, government-employee carry, and reciprocity all answer one question: does a law-abiding adult forfeit a constitutional right based on where she happens to be standing? My answer is no.
“What about domestic violence victims?”
Victims deserve protection with teeth. Arrest, prosecution, conviction, and every rights consequence that follows a conviction. What protects nobody is a system handing out punishment on accusation alone, because that system gets weaponized. I came to this town through a family court case, and since finishing my law degree I have spent two legislative sessions working on family court reform in Pierre. I have watched accusations get used as leverage in custody fights. Where an accusation is rewarded, accusations multiply, and every false one drains credibility and resources from a true one. Victims are safest in a system where an allegation means something precisely because it gets tested, proven, and then acted on with full force.
“Penalties for false allegations will silence real victims.”
The operative word in the position is knowingly. Somebody who reports in good faith has nothing to fear here, even if the case cannot be proven. The penalty reaches exactly one person: whoever deliberately lied to strip another person's rights. Today that lie usually costs the liar nothing and costs the target his rights, his name, and sometimes his kids. Consequences for deliberate lies protect victims rather than silencing them, because they keep the courtroom a place where the truth still carries weight.