Federal Gun and Drug Laws

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[publiusF27]

This thread is not about whether or not federal drug prohibition is a good idea. That question comes AFTER the question I'm asking, which is whether or not the Founders intended for the tax and commerce powers to be used against guns and drugs. Do you have an opinion on the topic question?

[rasblue]

Nevada Residents: Make sure you vote YES for Marijuana Legalization in 2006!

The bill is written to avoid any interstate commerce and will punish abusers not users.

[LibertarianInExile]

Kozinski rocks.

That man needs to be on the Supremes. Never happen, but he's a great judge.

[DTogo]

the question I'm asking, which is whether or not the Founders intended for the tax and commerce powers to be used against guns and drugs.

At the point in time they were forming the country, the answer to your question is probably "no." But upon examining what has become of the country they founded, they might change their mind and probably want to re-write some of the founding documents to clarify what they meant (and didn't mean).

[publiusF27]

Here is Judge Kozinski's opinion in US v. Stewart, in which he finds that a homegrown machine gun for personal consumption is not, in fact, interstate commerce.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0210318p.pdf

That seemingly sensible ruling may soon be upended, if the Supremes find in the Raich case that a homegrown cannabis plant for personal consumption is, in fact, interstate commerce.

[publiusF27]

But upon examining what has become of the country they founded, they might change their mind and probably want to re-write some of the founding documents to clarify what they meant (and didn't mean). I see. And do you think they would rather see the interpretation of those documents stretched to fit the facts by those who claim to follow their intent, or do you think they would advise those persons to avail themselves of the amendment process?

[LibertarianInExile]

An excerpt from Kozinski's incredibly sarcastic, wonderfully incisive comments in UNITED STATES v. RAMIREZ-LOPEZ:

One can only imagine the conversation between Ramirez-Lopez and his lawyer after this opinion is filed:
Lawyer: Juan, I have good news and bad news.
Ramirez-Lopez: OK, I’m ready. Give me the bad news first.
Lawyer: The bad news is that the Ninth Circuit affirmed your conviction and you’re going to spend many years in federal prison.
Ramirez-Lopez: Oh, man, that’s terrible. I’m so disappointed. But you said there’s good news too, right?
Lawyer: Yes, excellent news! I’m very excited.
Ramirez-Lopez: OK, I’m ready for some good news, let me have it.
Lawyer: Well, here it goes: You’ll be happy to know that you had a perfect trial. They got you fair and square!
Ramirez-Lopez: How can that be? Didn’t they keep me in jail for two days without letting me see a judge or a lawyer? Weren’t they supposed to take me before a judge right away?
Lawyer: Yes, they sure were. But it’s OK because you didn’t show that it harmed you. We have a saying here in America: No harm, no foul.
Ramirez-Lopez: What do you mean no harm? There were twelve guys in my party who said I wasn’t the guide, and they sent nine of them back to Mexico.
Lawyer: Yeah, but so what? Seeing the judge sooner wouldn’t have helped you.
Ramirez-Lopez: The judge could have given me a lawyer and my lawyer could have talked to those guys before the Migra sent them back.
Lawyer: What difference would that have made?
Ramirez-Lopez: My lawyer could have taken notes, figured out which guys to keep here and which ones to send back.
Lawyer: Hey, not to worry, dude. The government did it all for you. They talked to everyone, they took notes and they kept the witnesses that would best help your case. Making sure you had a fair trial was their number one priority.
Ramirez-Lopez: No kidding, man. They did all that for me?
Lawyer: They sure did. Is this a great country or what?
Ramirez-Lopez: OK, I see it now, but there’s one thing that still confuses me.
Lawyer: What’s that, Juan?
Ramirez-Lopez: You see, the government took all those great notes to help me, just so we’d know what all those guys said.
Lawyer: Right, I saw them, and they were very good notes. Clear, specific, detailed. Good grammar and syntax. All told, I’d say those were some great notes.
Ramirez-Lopez: And twelve of those guys all said I wasn’t the guide.
Lawyer: Absolutely! Our government never hides the ball. The government of Iraq or Afghanistan or one of those places might do this, but not ours. If twelve guys said you weren’t the guide, everybody knows about it.
Ramirez-Lopez: Except the jury. I was there at the trial, and I remember the jury never saw the notes. And the officers who testified never told the jury that twelve of the fourteen guys that were with me said I wasn’t the guide.
Lawyer: Right.
Ramirez-Lopez: Isn’t the jury supposed to have all the facts?
Lawyer: Not all the facts. Some facts are cumulative, others are hearsay. Some facts are both cumulative and hearsay.
Ramirez-Lopez: Can you say that in plain English?
Lawyer: No.
Ramirez-Lopez: The jury was supposed to decide whether I was the guide or not, right? Don’t you think they might have had a reasonable doubt if they’d heard that twelve of the fourteen guys in my party said it wasn’t me?
Lawyer: He-he-he! You’d think that only if you didn’t go to law school. Lawyers and judges know better. It makes no difference at all to the jury whether one witness says
it or a dozen witnesses say it. In fact, if you put on too many witnesses, they might get mad at you and send you to prison just for wasting their time. So the government
did you a big favor by removing those nine witnesses
before they could screw up your case.
Ramirez-Lopez: I see what you mean. But how about the notes? Surely the jury would have gotten a different picture
if they had just seen the notes of nine guys saying I wasn’t the guide. That wouldn’t have taken too long.
Lawyer: Wrong again, Juan! Those notes were hearsay and in this country we don’t admit hearsay.
Ramirez-Lopez: How come?
Lawyer: The guys writing down what the witnesses said could have made a mistake.
Ramirez-Lopez: You mean, like maybe one of those twelve guys said, “Juan was the guide,” and the guy from Immigration made a mistake and wrote down, “Juan was not the guide”?
Lawyer: Exactly.
Ramirez-Lopez: You’re right again, it probably happened just that way. I bet those guys from Immigration wrote down, “Juan wasn’t the guide,” even when the witnesses said loud and clear I was the guide—just to be extra fair to me.
Lawyer: Absolutely, that’s the kind of guys they are.
Ramirez-Lopez: You’re very lucky to be working with guys like that.
Lawyer: Amen to that. I thank my lucky stars every Sunday in church.
Ramirez-Lopez: I feel a lot better now that you’ve explained it to me. This is really a pretty good system you have here. What do you call it?
Lawyer: Due process. We’re very proud of it.

[publiusF27]

Ramirez-Lopez: Can you say that in plain English?
Lawyer: No.

LMAO! (Three lawyers in the family here, and I'm not one of them. Conversations can be incomprehensible to me.)

[dcwusmc]

So this is how you respond to a legitimate question? Seems to me YOU are the one needs to become gone. Personal attacks are not permitted, you know.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

You'd best believe it, He views Liberty from the perspective of one that has not always had it, and will never take it for granted.
I fear, however, that He does not have the political skills needed to thread His way through the great government cesspool, He is honest by reflex!
Imagine getting a youngin like this on the Supremes, maybe even as Chief Justice!

[dcwusmc]

Don't forget piracy. These are the ONLY crimes where FedGov has primary jurisdiction. Period.

[dcwusmc]

And just WHAT does venison have to do with the second amendment? (Just to make it easy for you, I will give you the answer: NOTHING WHATSOEVER.) Now why would you want to divert attention from the discussion to talk about some barbra striesand like venison?

[publiusF27]

Please don't attack Mr. Togo. He seems to be the only one here who disagrees with me somewhat and is willing to offer an opinion on original intent. He is who I am here to talk to. Talk. Not flame. Talk.

[FreeKeys]

the question I'm asking, which is whether or not the Founders intended for the tax and commerce powers to be used against guns and drugs

Well, whether any did or not, the ones who prevailed got only THIS stuff into the Constitution:

"The Congress shall have power ...
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;..."
-- Article I, Section 8

and

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." -- Amendment II

seem to be the only references to arms. There are ABSOLUTELY NO references to drugs, so ANY regulation of them, or further regulation of arms, MUST FALL UNDER:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." -- Amendment IX
and
"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." -- Amendment X

"What is the militia? It is the whole people..." -- George Mason (who opposed ratification of the Constitution without the Bill of Rights)

[publiusF27]

I don't know how most of them felt about medical freedom. Only got a quotation from one.

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others: The Constitution of this Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom." - -- Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence

So I guess he did not think he was risking his life, fortune, and sacred honor in order to establish a federal government with power over medical decisions when he signed the Declaration of Independence.

If he read everything I've posted and linked here, he would know that at the time of the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act, the Speaker of the US House did not know exactly what "Marihuana" was, but he was willing to pass a tax on it in order to grab regulatory authority. A lone Republican seemed to object, but nobody cared what he thought. I doubt Dr. Rush would be very impressed.

[DTogo]

Thank you for those kind words. And if I mistakenly considered you a newbie "troll" earlier, I apologize.

With regards to the Constitutionality of regulating Marijuana or guns via taxes or commerce laws, unfortunately I am no scholar on the subject. I would like to see a lot of laws, taxes and regulations repealed (please don't ask me list them all) as many don't serve the common good as they were theoretically supposed to when first imposed. But legalizing certain intoxicants I would disagree with, without taking into consideration the consequences in today's society (not the society of 1787). IMHO

[publiusF27]

But legalizing certain intoxicants I would disagree with, without taking into consideration the consequences in today's society (not the society of 1787). IMHO

So you're saying we have an unconstitutional tiger by the tail here, and should consider the consequences carefully before letting go? I agree with that, in a way at least.

I'd like to dismantle most of the federal structure we've built, but not all at once, and not without considering what level of government, if any, should perform the function I'm eliminating.

[DTogo]

I'd like to dismantle most of the federal structure we've built, but not all at once, and not without considering what level of government, if any, should perform the function I'm eliminating.

It would seem we have come full circle and are pretty much in agreement!

[secretagent]

FYI