Posts Tagged ‘Bill of Rights’

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10th Amendment on steroids

February 11, 2010

The state of Utah isn’t passing toothless resolutions they are taking on the federal Government over states rights with a vengeance. I must say that several others have similar things on the board, however, the Utah position appears to be a no holds barred, knees and elbows approach to a fight that everyone knows will be coming.

Read on

SALT LAKE CITY — Guns made and kept in Utah would be exempt from federal regulations under a measure passed by the Utah Legislature Wednesday, despite concerns over an expensive legal fight at a time when the budget is already stretched thin.

Senate Bill 11 was passed by the Utah House 56-17.

The proposal mirrors one Montana signed into law last year that’s intended to trigger a federal court battle. The measures would allow guns made in the respective states to be exempt from federal gun registration rules like background checks and dealer-licensing.

The goal is to circumvent federal authority over interstate commerce, the legal basis for most gun regulation in the U.S.

In the process, it could lead to small arms dealers in the state operating with little to no oversight.

Sen. Margaret Dayton, an Orem Republican, has said her bill is part of a broader effort to send a message to Congress that the federal government is overstepping its bounds.

Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, said the bill isn’t just about guns. It’s also about state’s rights, he said.

The House sponsor of the proposal, Sandstrom said other states have similar bills in the works and he’s been speaking with legislators across the nation who are actively involved.

The bill now goes to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. Spokeswoman Angie Welling said Herbert supports legislative efforts to reaffirm states’ rights, but is concerned about the possible legal costs that would go with constitutional challenges.

Full Story

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Tenth Amendment Wyoming

February 3, 2010

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

I recently attended a meeting in Sheridan that addressed the growing movement for strengthening the Tenth Amendment in Wyoming. Indeed, this should be boilerplate for any politician at local and state level in each and every state.

The Federal government has abused the states ever since the War of Northern Aggression and, simply put, it needs to be reigned in. From abuse of the “commerce Clause” to Second Amendment issues to drug laws the Federal Government is, and has been as out of control as a drunk teenager. Anytime that anything within the Bill of Rights is weakened,the entire body of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is weakened.

All to often though our so-called leadership does a roll over and licks the boots of the Federal lairds.

See video Here

Hat tip to Anthony Bouchard!

We need laws passed, not toothless resolutions.


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Bill of Rights Day

December 15, 2009

The Bill of Rights was inspired by three remarkable documents: John Locke’s 1689 thesis, Two Treatises of Government, regarding the protection of “property” (in the Latin context, proprius, or one’s own “life, liberty and estate”); in part from the Virginia Declaration of Rights authored by George Mason in 1776 as part of that state’s Constitution; and, of course, in part from our Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson.

Read in context, the Bill of Rights is both an affirmation of innate individual rights and a clear delineation on constraints upon the central government. As oft trampled and abused as the Bill of Rights is, Patriots should remain vigilant in the fight for our rights.

SOURCE

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“It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”

December 12, 2009

The latest from the felon Bloomberg reveals just what lengths idiots such as he, and others like Lautenberg, Schumer, and the usual gang of suspects will go to with the express goal of depriving you of life and liberty through the destruction of the Bill of Rights.

This week, anti-gun New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, released the findings of a poll conducted by a political consulting firm called “The Word Doctors,” whose slogan is “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”  Word Doctors’ president is a pollster who has been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research and censured by the National Council on Public Polls, and who says that the key to polling is “to ask a question in the way that you get the right answer.”

At some other time in our nation’s history, an organization like this would not have been commissioned to conduct a poll, and perhaps it would not even have existed. At a minimum, its poll would have been considered biased and rejected by every newspaper in the country.

But today, as the distinction between editorials and news has become blurred, information is treated so superficially that a catchy word or two is enough to get someone elected to public office, and some in positions of authority cannot conceive of the concept of shame.

Thus, earlier this week, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) excitedly called attention to the bought-and-paid-for Word Doctors “poll,” which claimed that a majority of NRA members and other gun owners support Lautenberg’s bills to prohibit the possession of firearms by people placed (often mistakenly) on the FBI terrorist watchlist (S.1317), to require gun show promoters to send ledgers of customer information to the federal government (S.843), and to let the FBI retain records for 180 days of every gun purchase approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)  (S.2820).  The poll also claimed support for Bloomberg’s proposal to rescind the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents unfettered release of BATFE firearm trace data.  (Bloomberg, of course, wants to use the data in lawsuits against the firearms industry.)

But did the poll really show such strong support?  Certainly the participants didn’t have much information to go on.  The poll didn’t explain that the watchlist has been under fire by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office and the ACLU for improperly including the names of innocent people, and that many innocent people have been mistaken for those who are on the watchlist. It didn’t explain that Lautenberg’s gun show bill would do much more than require NICS checks on private gun sales at gun shows.

The poll mischaracterized the issue of NICS record retention. Instead of informing poll participants that the accused Ft. Hood murderer had been investigated by the FBI and found to not constitute a terror threat months before he went through a NICS check to purchase the gun he allegedly used in the murders, the poll simply asked whether “the FBI should be able to access and keep information about gun purchases by terror suspects in cases similar to [the accused Ft. Hood killer’s]?” Worse, Word Doctors misinformed poll participants by telling them that the accused killer was still under investigation at the time he purchased the gun.

The poll also asked if participants agreed that “The federal government should not restrict the police’s ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws,” when in fact the Tiahrt Amendment fully allows access to trace information, as long as it’s related to crimes that they’re actually investigating.

And the poll also claimed that a majority of gun owners want to “balance” their rights against the need to stop criminals from getting guns. But what it actually asked was whether gun owners agreed that “We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them.” Coupled with the poll’s findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners believe “Criminals . . . should be punished to the maximum extent of the law” and “Law-abiding Americans should have the freedom to choose how to protect themselves, based on their personal situation,” it’s fair to conclude that gun owners understand the two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive.  Since the ideas are compatible, they don’t require a “balance,” as suggested by gun control supporters.

Notably, Lautenberg mentioned none of the poll’s findings that undercut the anti-gun agenda, and Dionne mentioned few. These include findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners:

  • Thinks President Obama will try to ban guns;
  • Agrees that the Supreme Court’s decision in last year’s Heller case was correct;
  • Agrees that the Second Amendment should prevent all levels of government from infringing the right to arms;
  • Agrees that people should be allowed to carry guns for protection in national parks;
  • Agrees that people should be allowed to transport firearms in baggage on Amtrak trains;
  • Agrees that gun laws should be less strict or left as they are; and
  • Opposes or is neutral about gun registration and an “assault weapon” ban.

One final note: Since Word Doctors had no access to NRA membership lists, there’s no way the pollsters could verify that any of the “NRA members” actually were NRA members.  While this is a fatal flaw, we mention it at the end only because the poll’s other flaws were even worse.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 1 Comment »

Force Feeding: Long term leftest strategy

November 13, 2009

As we see our freedoms and liberty evaporate with the leftest Congress we can become ever more active politically. We can vote the bums out, as some like to say. That is all well and good, and, come Judgment day 2010 perhaps some sanity may be restored.

However, it becomes more complicated when those same people that are in office now gerrymander districts with the long term goal of complete political domination for the foreseeable future. Too make things even more desperate for those that love our nation, there is the ever present threat of the judicial branch being stacked with activist’s that ignore the Constitution that they swore to uphold. That, is what we truly need to concern ourselves with.

We can fight tactically, as in voting out treasonous members of Congress and the Senate. We can fight operationally, as was seen this past summer by letting those that Laired it over the masses know that they may well be in for a figurative Tar and feathering.

However, we have indeed lost the initiative in the theater of strategic politics. Lifetime appointments of judicial appointees by the aforementioned enemies of freedom can, and will, undermine any of our other efforts. Witness the rulings this past year that made such blatant a thing as ex post facto law, something that is profoundly immoral, the law of the land, and that is only one example. Hence, this latest threat in the form of a radical that only obamanites could love.

Obama Pushing a “Radical’s Radical” to the Federal Bench
— Vote could come as early as Monday

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Thursday, November 12, 2009

He has been called “extreme” by some.  But to others, he’s beyond extreme… he’s a “Radical’s Radical.”

Whatever he is, he could become President Obama’s next choice for the federal judiciary.

This radical is Judge David Hamilton, and he’s been nominated for a position on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Hamilton has made many political enemies on the right, seeing that his politics are to the far left of the political spectrum.  Oh yes, judges aren’t supposed to be political, but this one has engaged in quite a bit of leftist activism.

His biggest opponent on Capitol Hill is Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Based on his analysis of Hamilton, gun owners should be very concerned about a judge who is all to willing to “amend the Constitution.”  According to Senator Sessions:

Judge Hamilton stated in a 2003 speech that the role of a judge includes writing footnotes to the Constitution: “Judge S. Hugh Dillin of this court has said that part of our job here as judges is to write a series of footnotes to the Constitution. We all do that every year in cases large and small.” In explaining this statement to Senator Hatch, Judge Hamilton wrote that he believes the Framers intended judges to amend the Constitution through evolving case law.

Of course, we have seen this pattern time and time again.  Judges ignore the clear wording of the Constitution — in essence, amending the Constitution through each new case they decide.

The courts then become the vehicle for rewriting the Second Amendment!

Not surprisingly, Judge Hamilton’s politics are to the extreme, far left.  He spent a brief stint as a fundraiser for ACORN, the organization that was an aggressive supporter of Barack Obama in the presidential election.  In addition to all the evils surrounding ACORN is the fact that the organization has lobbied against Second Amendment rights — as seen by the New Jersey chapter supporting a one-gun-a-month ordinance in Jersey City.

Certainly any judicial nomination put forth by our anti-gun President is suspect, but it’s interesting to note who his chief backer is in the U.S. Senate.  It’s none other than Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who holds an “F” rating from Gun Owners of America.

Lugar has never failed to support one of Obama’s anti-gun nominations, as evidenced by his votes for Attorney General Eric Holder, State Department lawyer Harold Koh, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the incredibly wacky Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein.

On policy questions, Senator Lugar is no better.  To wit, he voted against repealing the gun ban in Washington, DC this year.

Considering Hamilton’s extreme track record, it’s no wonder that Senator Lugar — in introducing Hamilton to his colleagues — begged his fellow Senators to ignore the judge’s policy views.  Lugar asked them not to base their votes on “partisan considerations, much less on how we hope or predict a given judicial nominee will ‘vote’ on particular issues of public moment or controversy.”

Instead, Lugar asked his colleagues “to evaluate judicial candidates on whether they have the requisite intellect, experience, character and temperament that Americans deserve from their judges….”

In other words, ignore Judge Hamilton’s liberalism and just vote for him because he’s so smart and because he’s such a nice guy!

Judge Hamilton’s rulings have made a lot of enemies on the political right, especially the one in Hinrichs v. Bosma where, according to a November 3 editorial in The Washington Times, he “prohibited prayers in the Indiana House of Representatives that expressly mentioned Jesus Christ… yet he allowed prayers which mentioned Allah.”

Gun owners have much to be concerned about, as well.  Anytime a judge who believes in rewriting the Constitution is elevated to sit as an appellate judge, that’s a scary thing — especially given the fact that most cases never reach the U.S. Supreme Court and are, thus, decided at lower levels in the federal judiciary.

ACTION: Please contact your Senators right away and urge them to vote AGAINST Judge David Hamilton.  You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your legislators the pre-written e-mail message below.

—– Pre-written letter —–

Dear Senator:

I urge you to vote against Judge David Hamilton for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.  In addition to opposing his far left views, I don’t appreciate his disdain for the Constitution.

To quote Senator Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

“Judge Hamilton stated in a 2003 speech that the role of a judge includes writing footnotes to the Constitution: ‘Judge S. Hugh Dillin of this court has said that part of our job here as judges is to write a series of footnotes to the Constitution. We all do that every year in cases large and small.’ In explaining this statement to Senator Hatch, Judge Hamilton wrote that he believes the Framers intended judges to amend the Constitution through evolving case law.”

Of course, we have seen this pattern time and time again.  Judges ignore the clear wording of the Constitution — in essence, amending the Constitution through each new case they decide.

The courts then become the vehicle for rewriting the Second Amendment!

Not surprisingly, Judge Hamilton’s written answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee show his lack of understanding regarding the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.  While Hamilton cannot ignore what the Supreme Court said in DC v. Heller (2008), he refuses to admit that the individual right to keep and bear arms applies anywhere outside of Washington, D.C. — instead, he just says he will rely on evolving “case law [as] developed in earlier incorporation cases.”

Once again, evolving case law — more often than not — takes us away from what the Constitution actually says.

Please vote NO on David Hamilton.

Sincerely,

The Larry Pratt News Hour is carried by the Information Radio Network on Saturdays (rebroadcasts Sundays). The show is simulcast on the web at http://irnusaradio.com/ and previous episodes are archived at http://irnusaradio.com/our-programs/larry-pratt-news-hour with a number of listening formats, including podcasts, supported.

Recent guests and topics, among many others, have included:

* Jim Kouri — Police Against Socialized Medicine
* Chris Knox — Neal Knox and the Gun Rights War
* Mike Adams — The Campus Wars Against Gun Owners

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California: Amicus Brief Filed in Millender v. County of Los Angeles

November 4, 2009

I’m sure that I will raise the ire of many law and order folks with this. The Bill of Rights is an entire package, and when you weaken it anywhere, you weaken the entire thing, including the concept. And please, don’t come here and post about not yelling fire in a crowded theater. If the damned thing is actually on fire then you have a civic duty to inform your fellow theater patrons that the damned place is in fact on fire and needs to be evacuated…

Tuesday, November 03, 2009
On October 22, 2009, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in the case of Millender v. County of Los Angeles, et al. (07-55518).  The case is pending en banc hearing before a 12 judge panel in the Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals.  A copy of the brief is posted at www.calgunlaws.com. No right is more clearly established under the Fourth Amendment than the right not to be subject to search and seizure under a general warrant (i.e., a warrant not based on probable cause and not particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized). Furthermore, as the Second Amendment makes clear, firearms are lawful to possess and may not be seized without probable cause to believe that a specific firearm was used in a crime.

The NRA/CRPA amicus brief challenges the ability of law enforcement to write over-broad “general” search warrants which allow police to seize any and all firearms an individual may possess, even when police only have “probable cause” to search for a particular firearm.  Far too often police seize legal firearms collections even when most of those firearms are not alleged to be part of a criminal offense.  This is sometimes driven by a political motivation to increase gun seizure statistics so police can seek increased funding.

This deprivation of property often results in damage to the firearms and inevitably causes the owner to incur significant expense and legal fees in retrieving the firearms. The purpose of the NRA/CRPA brief is to convince the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to publish a binding precedent to prevent these search and seizure abuses in the future.

SOURCE

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The times they are a changing…

October 30, 2009

Or so the song goes. Change is not always bad, nor is it always good. So much though that has come about in recent times leaves one to wonder.

From Rules of Engagement that strap our troops ability to fight and win in real war. To undermining the core values of the military. To Chairborne Rangers with stars on their collars, that are political beasts and perfumed princes the leadership is, for the most part, FUBAR…

From an administration that spreads obamanure across the land, supported by those that detest America, private property, and private enterprise. With RINO coconspitators that defile the Constitution and the Bill of Rights seemingly at every opportunity.

To a Supreme Court that ignores the Constitution, and principle of law that they all swore to protect and defend.

We, as a nation, are in fact, Balkanized. We are split into factions more so than ever before. More than at the beginning, when only a small percentage of people were pro-revolution, and in favor of splitting from England. More than at the beginning of the War of Northern Aggression. More, by a long shot, than during the nineteen sixties and seventies when a revolution seemed to be imminent to many of us.

Anthony writes for the Examiner an insightful essay series. Check it out, and think about what was written.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

What are we to think and do when confronted by all that is being force fed to us? Further, if it is all so good and righteous then why is it being force upon us? Here, I think that I will paraphrase something that I paraphrased many years ago.

Second Amendment solutions for bureaucratic belligerence and official oppression? Freedom, is found on the edge of a sword, and the muzzle of a gun. Especially when the ballot box only serves to thwart that freedom.


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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, Men's Issues, Military Science, mysandry, News, Politics, Uncategorized, War, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on The times they are a changing…

Is the Bill of Rights toilet tissue?

October 7, 2009

The Bill of Rights places restrictions on what government may, and may not do. A pretty simple concept really. However, big government types and lawyers over the years sound a lot like economist’s do. As in making something that is fairly simple to understand into something utterly unfathomable. It’s understandable, after all. Lawyers need to make a living, as do bureaucrats. Politicians for the most part are driven by inner forces and recognition needs, that are  for the most part  noted by Maslow.

That’s all well and good as far as understanding what drives people to do what they do. In fact, I think that a lot of the people who I mentioned above are well intentioned. However, a well intentioned rogue is still a rogue, and unintended consequences may not be all that unintended.

By example, we are more than aware that the current administration is filled with people who are not only hostile to the Constitution but also are outspoken enemies of the Bill of Rights.

Across this nation the States are taking on the Federal Government over the usurpation of States Rights in numbers not seen since the War of Northern aggression.

Just short of secession many states are telling the Federal Government to just plain back off. Enough is enough if you will. Perhaps if the Supreme Court had issued a blanket ruling that incorporation of the Bill of Rights applied to all of the states, all the way down to the smallest level of government this would not be happening. But, they didn’t, and things are getting a bit dicey as a result.

Montana is leading the charge, and the people that brought you Ruby Ridge and the American Holocaust are, like good little serfs fighting back.

Read about that here.

Don’t fall into the trap that this is about gun control even if that is in fact the direct issue at hand. It is about your freedom and liberty.

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A concept called “incorporation” — why not the Second Amendment as well?

September 24, 2009

Your fundamental rights are about to be evaluated by no less than the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals. Granted, a three Judge panel ruled in your favor from that very court earlier. This particular full court though is well known to follow populist political correctness rather than the Constitution more often than not.

Some enterprising Congress – person or Senator that wants to be President some day should shove through legislation that forces “incorporation” of the entire Bill of Rights to be the law of the land.

Until that day your unalienable rights are subject to some person that may not have your best interest’s at heart. Indeed, why should someone else  even be allowed to make those types of decisions for you? Are you so incompetent that you are unable to do that for yourself?

Full Story Here

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Incorporation: Beast or Blessing?

August 25, 2009

Incorporation used in this context will apply to legal terminology.

First, I suppose that I will need to go pee in the various swelled headed Lawyers morning bowl of oatmeal. I believe that you simply do not have to be a Lawyer in order to understand the difference between what is right and wrong. Moral, or immoral. Lawyers write really neat briefs and such. However, as I pointed out to a Jury once. They are disconnected all to often with reality.

Now, on to the point that I intend to make. The Supreme Court, and in all the downstream Courts there is a hierarchy. The Supreme Court of the United States is above, or has authority over the Courts of Appeals, which have authority over United State District Courts, which can over rule State Courts, and so on down the line. My terminology may be a bit off here, but, after all I’m not in the business of Law. I am a retired Paramedic, and the son of a dead Marine. So, if any corrections are needed as to the chain of command I will accept them.

The point here is that within the legal community there are big dogs, and then there are bigger dogs, and so on. I was taught that Law operates in the same manner. As in, there is the highest Law in the land the United States Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. All this is pretty logical so far. There is indeed a clear cut chain of command. Not to tough for a kid that attended High Schools in Southern California to understand. Or anywhere else as far as that goes.

However, it seems that some people just can’t figure out that simple principle. Those people are called Lawyers, or at least that is how it appears. No, not all Lawyers. Some actually can think like normal people do. Others though, simply can’t understand normal thinking as an old Scot saying goes…

So now, as a result of illogical and quite possibly immoral action we the American people are about to be Lorded over yet again by a bunch of blithering nincompoops that probably should be tarred and feathered! Oh, I forgot, that they had that made “illegal” so that they can’t be held accountable…

Read on folks, and warm up some tar as you send you children off to the barn for Great grandma’s old feather bed.

A federal appeals court on September 24 will hear a high-profile gun rights case that’s a leading candidate to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to decide whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a right to “keep and bear arms” restricts only the federal government — the current state of affairs — or whether it can be used to strike down intrusive state and local laws too.

A three-judge panel ruled that the Second Amendment does apply to the states. But now a larger Ninth Circuit panel will rehear the case, a procedure reserved only for issues of exceptional importance, which means the earlier decision could be upheld or overruled.

Two other circuits have said the Second Amendment does not apply to the states, a legal term known as “incorporation.” If the Ninth Circuit’s en banc panel continues to disagree with its peers, the Supreme Court almost certainly would step in.

The Ninth Circuit case involves Russell and Sallie Nordyke, who run a gun show business that would like to rent Alameda County’s fairgrounds (the county includes Oakland and is across the bay from San Francisco). After being blocked, they sued. The author of the ordinance in question, then-county supervisor Mary King, actually claimed such shows are nothing but “a place for people to display guns for worship as deities for the collectors who treat them as icons of patriotism.”

The hearing is set for 10 a.m. PT in the federal courthouse at 95 Seventh Street in San Francisco.

A few other items:

California Update: I wrote an article three months ago about a lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Calguns Foundation saying routine denials of concealed carry permits violate the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. Oral arguments on a preliminary motion in that case are scheduled for the same day — September 24 — at 2 p.m. in Sacramento.

In a brief filed on Monday, Sacramento (one of the counties sued) says it wants more time to question the gun owners who filed the case to verify that they’re in a position to sue. “Defendants seek to depose the individual plaintiffs on these issues to determine the basis of their alleged ‘undisputed facts,’ what process each plaintiff has engaged in to the end of obtaining a carry concealed permit in Sacramento County,” it says.

Some Guns Are More Equal Than Others: Nobody has been hurt by the protesters who have legally carried guns to events where the president has been speaking, and I know of no evidence that they were even close enough to see the man.

Nevertheless, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s non-voting Democratic rep in the U.S. House of Representatives, wants mandatory “gun-free zones around the president, his cabinet and other top federal officials,” according to a report by the local Fox affiliate. Similarly, the Brady Campaign told CBS News that guns have no place at such an event.

It’s Official: Congratulations to the Calguns Foundation for being awarded non-profit status by the IRS. Gene Hoffman, chairman of the Calguns Foundation, told me on Monday evening that the group is now officially a 501(c)(3) non-profit; previously, the non-profit status had been pending.

Montana Update: You may remember that a Montana state law seeks to challenge the federal government on the manufacture and sale of guns made entirely within the state. It takes effect on October 1. As soon that happens, according to Montana Shooting Sports Association president Gary Marbut, gun-rights types will have a lawsuit ready to file to prevent federal prosecution of local would-be gunsmiths.

“We have some strong arguments to make, including some that have never been argued before about the (U.S. Constitution’s) Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment, as far as I know,” Marbut told me on Monday.

Paging The Ninth Circuit: I just noticed yet another case in which a judge has declined to extend the Second Amendment to state or local laws. The case is called Slough v. Telb and arose out of a gun seizure in Ohio.

U.S. District Judge David Katz ruled on August 14: “The United States Supreme Court has never held that the Second Amendment is enforceable against the states by incorporation into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Courts in other circuits have held that Second Amendment rights are not enforceable against the states under (civil rights laws). As the weight of authority holds that the individual right to bear arms may not be enforceable against the states, the constitutional right to do so is anything but clearly established.”

Declan McCullagh is a correspondent for CBSNews.com. He can be reached at declan@cbsnews.com. You can bookmark the Taking Liberties site here, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Historical Quotes, Law, Men's Issues, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Stupid is as Stupid Does, Uncategorized, Wordpress Political Blogs | 2 Comments »

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