Posted on 05/10/2002 10:35:56 AM PDT by Richard Poe
IN THE CLASSIC STAR TREK episode "I, Mudd," Captain Kirk short-circuits a dangerous android by talking circles around it. The Bush Justice Department has accomplished something similar, driving the gun-ban movement into a full-fledged system meltdown, with nothing more than a few, well-chosen words.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson filed two briefs with the Supreme Court Monday, which stated, among other things, that the Second Amendment guarantees to all citizens the right "to possess and bear their own firearms."
No big deal, most Americans would say. We always knew we had a right to keep and bear arms. But the gun-ban cyborgs reacted as if someone had dropped a W32.Klez virus into their brains. One can almost hear the smoke hissing from their ears, as they stammer, "This does not compute!"
CBS correspondent Jim Stewart declared that Olsons briefs have reversed, "25 years of Justice Department policy "
Brady Center president Michael D. Barnes said the brief has reversed "at least four decades" of federal policy.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert averred that federal policy has opposed individual gun rights, "for more than 60 years."
Abe Lincoln himself opposed individual gun rights, insists Paul Begala of CNNs Crossfire. Begala says that Olsons brief gives the Second Amendment a "new meaning that no scholar has ever found."
The cyborgs seem confused. Did the government revoke our gun rights 25, 40, 60 or 140 years ago?
John Ydstie of National Public Radios All Things Considered says it happened in 1939, when the Supreme Court ruled in a case called United States v. Miller.
Two gangsters named Jack Miller and Frank Layton had been charged with transporting an unregistered short-barreled or "sawed-off" shotgun across state lines. The National Firearms Act of 1934 imposed special taxes and registration requirements on machine guns and short-barreled shotguns. It was the first federal gun-control law in America. Ostensibly passed to crack down on gangsters such as Miller and Layton, the law was controversial, since it limited gun rights for all Americans.
The charges against Miller and Layton were dismissed in district court, on the grounds that the National Firearms Act violated states rights and the Second Amendment. However, prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court.
Thats where the confusion begins. According to media cyborgs, the Supreme Court ruled against Miller and Layton on the grounds that they were not members of a state militia and therefore had no right to keep and bear arms.
But that is not what the court said.
In fact, the court conceded that the gangsters were militiamen, inasmuch as the militia included "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense." However, the justices were not sure whether sawed-off shotguns qualified as militia weapons.
The gangsters might have won their case by arguing that sawed-off shotguns were used by U.S. infantrymen in World War I. However, neither Miller, Layton nor their attorney showed up in court. Only the prosecution presented its case.
Lacking sufficient evidence to rule on the case, the justices sent it back to the lower court for additional fact-finding. But the fact-finding never took place. Jack Miller was shot dead by unknown assailants. Frank Layton pleaded guilty and got four years probation.
At best, United States v. Miller ended inconclusively. However, even liberal law professor Sanford Levinson notes that Miller can be construed to mean "that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly relevant to modern warfare " This is a far cry from the Brady Centers interpretation.
Levinson is a rarity in the legal profession an honest liberal. Another liberal recently stricken with honesty is Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe.
In 1999, Tribe announced that he had finally gotten around to studying the Second Amendment and, wonder of wonders, had discovered that Americans really did have a right to "possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes."
Unfortunately, Tribes treatise American Constitutional Law which took a dim view of individual gun rights had been a standard text in many U.S. law schools since 1978. Tribe revised the 1999 edition to reflect his new thinking. But he was 20 years too late.
Thanks to liberal law professors, generations of lawyers, prosecutors and judges have been indoctrinated with lies about the Second Amendment.
Just as it took generations to undermine gun rights in America, it will take generations to undue the damage. Ted Olsons briefs are a small but important step in that direction.
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(If I remember correctly, Randy Weaver's trouble started because of overall length.)
For rifles, barrels must be no less than 16".
Of course, individuals who hold "Class III" licenses can legally own "short-barreled" shotguns and rifles, in addition to full-auto weapons.
When you legally purchase a variety of firearms, in a State like Massachusetts, you find these things out. 8-)
Regards
Yes, but most citizens in most states can just pay a $200 tax to the Treasury and accomplish the same thing.
They weren't gangsters, they were hillrods with a still out in the woods. The BATF(revenuer) was after them for operating a still w/o payin' the tax. Miller had a sawed off on the front seat of his truck. The agent remembered the new tax law covering these things and wrote him up for that too. Miller, having little concern for anything that complicated his life, never showed up for the SC trial. They couldn't find him to notify him anyway. Since Miller was a no show, no one countered the newly FDR packed SC judges' contention the sawed off wasn't a valid militia weapon.
There never was a trial. It was a one sided claim and unoposed finding. That's hardly something to hold up as a valid precedent in light of the founder's writings and the statements made during other SC cases denying the rights of blacks.
Not exactly. Miller won in the lower court, thereby setting up the SCOTUS hearing.
I've always been under the impression that paying the tax was all that was required from 1934 to 1968 but after the GCA of '68, it became necessary to obtain proper government permission to own the "real good stuff".
Any idea what states do not require "Class III" licensing? I may consider relocating. 8-)
Regards
I think you pretty much have your bases covered, as long as your local 'Chief Law Enforcement Officer' is a decent sort that will sign off for you.
You can start the process right where you're sitting, Tinman.
According to the always-reliable Dr. Michael S. Brown, Jack Miller was "a bank robber and moonshiner..."
If Miller's business had been confined to moonshining, I wouldn't describe him as a "gangster," but I think anyone who robs banks probably deserves the "gangster" label.
They don't call them scatter guns for nothing and that is the reason they are illegal.
I doubt if ANYone knows exactly why sawed/offs were unconstitutionally made illegal, but YOU are the first clown I've ever seen that said it was because of the 'scatter' effect. -- Weird.
Yes, if you are fighting a head on battle with someone then those that you hit are legitimate targets however, if anyone is even close to the action they are going to be hit or in danger of it, innocent or not.
'Even close'? The closer you are to a 'scattergun', the tighter the pattern, which is very tight with modern day loads at say 15 feet; -- might be maxed at six to 10 inches, depending much more on pellet shape & count, or wadding, than a usable barrel length or choke. Typically, a true cylinder bore shotgun will throw a 20 inch pattern at 10 yards, 32" at 20, 44" at 40yds, etc.
maneuverability in tight quarters is the goal then the defender is more than adequate and the shot distribution is at least somewhat controllable by the shooter.
Your knowlege of guns rivals that of your views on the constitution, tex. Totally SNAFUed.
How does the shot pattern of a shotgun with an 18.1" barrel and 26.1" overall length compare with that of a bull-pup shotgun that has an 18.1" barrel and 19.5" overall length?
Illogical. Norman, coordinate.
-PJ
They grab at scattergun straws to justify 'gun regulations' by big brother governments, but when facts refute them, -- they simply ignore them.
They rationalize, accommodate, and appease both fed & state gun grabbers, as is evident in this latest Emerson/Ashcroft flap.
-- Why? I guess you gotta go along to get along, in their book.
Disgusting attitude, - in mine.
Of course not. BTW, what do you think of my concept for a home-defense weapon: a bull-pup 28-ga semi-auto choked down to .499", with a downward "fork" on the stock beind the grip which would go on either side of the shooter's forearm? Such a thing would, I would thing, be very hard to grab from a shooter (since if the OAL were 26" only 12" would be in front of the grip, as opposed to 14" behind). If the payload of a 28ga round isn't considered adequate, a longer version of the cartridge (3.5" or 4") could be developed.
Where there's a will there's a way.
Until someone declares many semi-auto shotguns to be "assault weapons" since their 4-round magazines hold too many rounds.
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