# Due Process Is the Line: Where I Stand on Guns _I came to Rapid City because of a courtroom. A family court case brought my son here in 2018. I followed him, bought a house, built a business, and put down roots. Eight years later this is home, and I am running to represent it in Pierre._ By Zac Martin. Published 2026-06-13. Canonical URL: https://zac4sd.com/blog/second-amendment Platform pillar: D. Gun Rights and the Second Amendment I came to Rapid City because of a courtroom. A family court case brought my son here in 2018. I followed him, bought a house, built a business, and put down roots. Eight years later this is home, and I am running to represent it in Pierre. That courtroom taught me the lesson that shapes how I read every gun bill in this state. An accusation is not a conviction. I have watched accusations do the work that evidence is supposed to do. I have seen how fast a life comes apart when a system punishes first and sorts out the truth later, if it ever gets to the truth at all. So when someone proposes taking away a constitutional right on the strength of an accusation alone, I do not have to guess how that story ends. I have sat in the room. In District 32, guns are not a talking point. They are a deer rifle in the Hills in November. A pistol in the nightstand for the nurse who walks to her car after the late shift downtown. Gun ownership here is ordinary, lawful, and responsible. My neighbors do not need a lecture about firearms. They need a legislator who will guard the line that protects them. ## Where I stand My position fits on an index card. Due process is the line. Conviction yes, accusation no. Expand lawful firearm rights. Hold a hard line against red flag laws. Rights are removed only through conviction with full due process, never by accusation alone. In practice, that means three things I will fight for: 1. **Campus carry, government-employee carry, and reciprocity expansion.** A law-abiding adult should not lose the right to carry because she stepped onto a public campus, clocked in to a government job, or crossed a state line. 2. **No red flag laws. Ever.** 3. **Real penalties for knowingly false allegations used to strip a person's rights.** The objections to those positions deserve honest answers, not talking points. Here are the strongest ones I hear, and where I land on each. ## "Red flag laws save lives. Why oppose them?" Because of how they work. A red flag law lets the government take your firearms based on a petition and a judge's signature, often before you have spoken one word in your own defense. No charge. No conviction. Sometimes no notice until law enforcement is at your 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 have laws. Arrest him. Charge him. Convict him. Conviction can absolutely cost you your rights. That is due process doing its job. But 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 someone willing to aim it. ## "Guns do not belong on a college campus" A campus boundary has never stopped a person who came to do harm. It only disarms the people who follow the rules. The adult with a permit is the same lawful carrier in a lecture hall that she is in a grocery store. The same logic applies to the government employee told to leave the right at the door of the job. Campus carry, government-employee carry, and reciprocity all answer one question: does a law-abiding adult forfeit a constitutional right because of where she happens to be standing? I say no. ## "What about domestic violence victims?" Victims deserve protection with teeth: arrest, prosecution, conviction, and the rights consequences that follow a conviction. What protects no one is a system that hands 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 fighting to reform family courts in Pierre. I have watched accusations get weaponized in custody fights. Where an accusation is rewarded, accusations multiply. And every false one steals credibility and resources from a true one. Victims are safest in a system where an allegation means something because it is tested, proven, and acted on with full force when it is real. ## "Penalties for false allegations will silence real victims" Read the position again. The operative word is knowingly. A person who reports in good faith has nothing to fear from this, even if the case cannot be proven. The penalty lands on exactly one person: the one who deliberately lies to strip someone's rights. Today that lie usually costs the liar nothing and costs the target everything: his rights, his name, sometimes his kids. Consequences for deliberate lies do not silence victims. They protect victims, because they keep the courtroom a place where the truth still matters. ## "No red flag laws, ever? That sounds extreme" Due process is not a dial. It is a switch. Either the government must convict you before taking your rights, or an accusation is enough. There is no moderate version of punishment by accusation. A softer red flag law rests on the same foundation as the harshest one, and once we accept that foundation for the Second Amendment, do not expect the other rights to hold for long. I will not negotiate over the foundation. Conviction yes. Accusation no. Ever is the only honest word. ## The ask District 32's House seats are on the ballot November 3, 2026, and I am asking for one of them. Read the full platform, pillar by pillar, at **zac4sd.com**. If the line I just drew is the line you want guarded in Pierre, that is also the place to volunteer or chip in. Strong Families. Strong South Dakota. --- Paid for by Zac Martin for South Dakota.