Posted on 07/14/2011 4:41:12 AM PDT by marktwain
MISSOULA, Mont.—With a homemade .22-caliber rifle he calls the Montana Buckaroo, Gary Marbut dreams of taking down the federal regulatory state.
He's not planning to fire his gun. Instead, he wants to sell it, free from federal laws requiring him to record transactions, pay license fees and open his business to government inspectors.
For years, Mr. Marbut argued that a wide range of federal laws, not just gun regulations, should be invalid because they were based on an erroneous interpretation of Congress's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. In his corner were a handful of conservative lawyers and academics. Now, with the rise of the tea-party movement, the self-employed shooting-range supplier finds himself leading a movement.
Eight states have adopted his Firearms Freedom Act, which Mr. Marbut conceived as a vehicle to undermine federal authority over commerce.
Ten state attorneys general, dozens of elected officials and an array of conservative groups are backing the legal challenge he engineered to get his constitutional theory before the Supreme Court. A federal appeals court in San Francisco is now considering his case.
Mr. Marbut isn't basing his pro-gun effort on the Second Amendment, the one that talks about a right to bear arms, but on the 10th, which discusses the limits of federal power.
"This is really about states' rights and federal power rather than gun control," Mr. Marbut says. There is "an emerging awareness by the people of America that the federal government has gone too far," he maintains, "and it's dependent on a really weird interpretation."
He is talking about the 1942 Supreme Court case of Wickard v. Filburn, which looms for him the way the Dred Scott decision denying rights to blacks did to antebellum abolitionists.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
It was a revolutionary decision at the time, coming from the revolutionary Roosevelt new deal court.
There is nothing in the Constitutional Convention record to support, and everything to oppose Wickard, as I show Here.
The Constitution still means what it says. We can return.
I certainly hope you’re right. The opportunity to “return” is at hand.
Here are the details of what he has in mind in .pdf format:
Case 9:09-cv-00147-DWM-JCL Document 86-6
Filed 06/02/10 Page 1 of 5
B.I.T. Enterprises
Montana Buckaroo
A youth model, single shot, bolt-action .22 Caliber rifle To be manufactured pursuant to the Montana Firearms Freedom Act
by
B.I.T. Enterprises
P.O. Box 16106
Missoula, Montana 59808
Design characteristics
Action type. Several different action types were considered, included break-open, falling-block, and bolt-action. A bolt-action design with a manually-operated cocking device was selected both because if its suitability for young shooters and because of simplicity of production.
Models.
Many different models were reviewed for design suitability. The brands/models under final consideration for design influence for the Buckaroo included:
1. Chipmunk (now produced as the Crickett);
2. Remington Model 514;
3. Winchester Model 67A; and
4. Remington Model 33. (in order in the photo below, top to bottom)
.......more
Head Of Montana Shooting Sports Association Proposes Manufacture Of Youth Rifle
February 10, 2010
Gary Marbut, President of the Montana Shooting Sports Association and lone plaintiff in MSSA v. Holder, has proposed the manufacture of a youth .22 caliber rifle if the Montana Firearms Freedom Act actually becomes laws. It will be called the Montana Buckaroo.
The Montana Firearms Freedom Act was actually signed into law by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer last year. The law states that any firearm or firearm accessory that is manufactured in Montana and is sold in Montana cannot be regulated by the Federal Government. Marbut’s proposed manufacturing of this youth rifle would fall under the rules of such a law.
However, MSSA v. Holder, is scheduled to be heard in court later this year. MSSA took the initiative to request a court hearing to get a judgment on the constitutionality of this law. MSSA is prepared to go all the way to the United States Supreme Court if necessary. In the meantime, Holder is requesting that the case be dismissed on the grounds that Gary Marbut does not have legal standing to sue. Marbut claims he does and part of that proof is his plans to manufacture and market the Montana Buckaroo.
There are now 22 states that have passed or proposed similar laws to the Montana Firearms Freedom Act. You can learn more about those by visiting Firearms Freedom Act.
The National Firarms Act of 1934 stipulates a tax, not gun control.
That’s their loophole.
Who were chastened by Roosevelt's threats to render them irrelevant following proper and Constitutional rulings striking down his collectivist leavings.
Wickard lies at the heart of the last 60 years worth of FedGov over-reach and has cost us countless lives, untold amounts of money in lost productivity, and freedom.
This is actually a pretty damn good idea. Stir up old SCOTUS cases for a re-hearing under a Conservative-leaning bench and try to invalidate the laws that turned this ship around in the first place.
Perhaps by unraveling the knot at the core instead of one tiny knot at a time, we’ll be able to shutdown the Socialist Progressives.
In 1938 of '39, a federal court found the 1934 NFA unconstitutional in light of the 2nd amendment. The US Supreme Court reviewed that in US v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), and said that finding the 1934 NFA unconstitutional was unsupported by the available evidence, but that it would be unconstitutional to apply the tax to a weapon that "has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia [or] is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense."
The federal courts simply refused to follow the binding precedent.
Same with the Presser precedent.
I assume so. Scalia has, in the Reynolds (CA firearm - homemade machinegun that never left the state) and Raich cases.
Funny thing about he Wickard case, the logic for its legal conclusion (Farmer Filburn affects interstate commerce if he is allowed to grow and consume his own wheat) is totally undermined by its factual findings (Filburn could have avoided the penalty by feeding it to his livestock without threshing it first).
Complete ruling: Unted States v. Miller
Well, then using that logic, the Supreme Court should have struck down the transfer tax on automatic weapons as unconstitutional, since those are "part of the ordinary military equipment."
But Mr. Miller's counsel didn't appear to argue the other side of the case, the weapon in question was a short barreled shotgun not an automatic weapon, and I believe that by the time the Supreme Court heard this case Mr. Miller had met an untimely death.
That's what they did, in a sense. They said that the decision below should be upheld (reinstated, whatever), if there was evidence of that nature. In order to provide for the entry of evidence, they had to reverse the decision below, where the indictment was quashed, because without a proceeding, there was no place for the judiciary to obtain evidence.
-- Mr. Miller's counsel didn't appear to argue the other side of the case, the weapon in question was a short barreled shotgun not an automatic weapon ... --
Yes, and the short barrel shotgun had widespread use by then, and similar had long been in use (blunderbuss) as military and defensive weapons. Bigtime use in trench warfare in WWI.
-- I believe that by the time the Supreme Court heard this case Mr. Miller had met an untimely death. --
He was a no show, and I think you are right, he was a no show because he was dead.
That said, the precedent is chronically misread and misapplied. Scalia did so in the Heller case; at first saying Miller's conviction was upheld! Ummm, Miller was NEVER convicted. The indictment against him was quashed.
Please ~ping~ me to articles relating to the 10th Amendment/States Rights so I can engage the pinger.
If you want on or off the ping list just say the word.
Tenth Amendment Chronicles Thread
Tenth Amendment Center
Firearms Freedom Act
Health Care Nullification
| CLICK HERE TO FIND YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES |
Another favorite of mine is Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), which is essentially a case about the constitutionality of parade permit laws. Presser argued that he didn't need a parade permit, if his parade was marching with guns.
Within that case are two statements that appear to contradict each other.
We think it clear that the sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But a conclusive answer to the contention that [the 2nd] amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state.vs.
It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the [federal] government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the [2nd amendment] out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government.Now, and honest citation to Presser would account for all of this; but the Federal Courts have, as far as know 100% of the time, selected only the 1st section for citation; and used it to support the proposition that a state MAY prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms.
The 2nd Circuit, in Bach v. Pataki, 408 F.3d 75 (2005), held that Presser stood for the OPPOSITE of what Presser says.
Presser stands for the proposition that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, whatever else its nature, is a right only against the federal government, not against the States. The courts are uniform in this interpretation. See, e.g., Thomas, 730 F.2d at 42 (1st Cir.); Peoples Rights Org., 152 F.3d at 538-39 n. 18 (6th Cir.); Quilici, 695 F.2d at 269 (7th Cir.); Fresno Rifle & Pistol Club, 965 F.2d at 730-31 (9th Cir.). Just as Presser had no federal constitutional right "to keep and bear arms" with which to challenge Illinois's license requirement, Bach has none to assert against New York's regulatory scheme. Under Presser, the right to keep and bear arms is not a limitation on the power of States.
As far as the RKBA goes, the courts are totally corrupt; evidenced by their own words.
What he's rejecting is the notion that once a constitutional principal has been violated, we are bound by precedent to go right on violating it forever.
I say "Good on him!". I'll take all of that there is to be had.
Sort of like Alexander's solution to the Gordian knot?
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