The owner of a Florida gun shop who declared his store a Muslim-free zone is gloating in victory after a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit challenging his declaration as a violation of civil rights.
Andy Hallinan posted a video on Facebook likely meant to stick in the face of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, which filed the suit.
“I have the right to sell guns to whomever I please,” said Hallinan in his video. “We’re not selling barbie dolls here, we’re selling firearms. We need to make sure we’re putting guns in people’s hands that are going to do good things in the community with them, like keeping peace, not blowing other people up.”
In her ruling, Judge Beth Bloom ruled CAIR did not prove its members were harmed by the gun store policy.
Bloom was nominated to the court by President Obama last year and approved by the senate 94-0.
This ruling is hard to figure out. How is deciding that any group is not welcomed in a store even remotely constitutional? Are we back in the days of the Jim Crow laws? Blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus, but at least they were still allowed to ride. Here, a group is being told to stay away.
Hallinan justified his actions saying he would probably sell a gun to a Muslim as long as that person swore off jihad. That sounds a lot like the loyalty questions Japanese Americans were forced to answer in incarceration camps.
Bloom wrote in her opinion “the general desire of the Plaintiff in this case to have Muslims able to access Defendants shooting range someday in the future is insufficient. There are simply no facts grounding the assertion that Plaintiff and/or one of its constituents will be harmed.”
AsAmNews has contacted CAIR for comment and will include their comment when we hear back.
