Posted on 10/01/2011 5:02:33 AM PDT by marktwain
A federal lawsuit filed in Texas last year seeks to repeal the prohibition, as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, on handgun purchases by 18 to 20-year-olds from licensed dealers. That lawsuit has hit a snag, with U.S. District Judge Samuel Cummings dismissing it yesterday. From the Statesman:
In a 17-page order, U.S. District Judge Samuel Cummings dismissed a challenge to a 32-year-old [actually 42] federal law barring handgun sales by licensed gun dealers to people under the age of 21.
Judge Cummings' rationale is especially . . . interesting:
"The Court is of the opinion that the ban does not run afoul of the Second Amendment to the Constitution,” the ruling states. “The right to bear arms is enjoyed only by those not disqualified from the exercise of the Second Amendment rights.
But wait a second--"by those not disqualified from the exercise" of a Constitutional right? If the government can arbitrarily deem some citizens "unworthy" of a right, and "disqualify" them from it's exercise, how can it even be a right? What distinguishes it from a mere privilege, to be granted or denied at whim? If 18-year-olds are unworthy of the right (or privilege) of self-defense, who else might be so deemed some time in the future? He continues:
It is within the purview of Congress, not the courts, to weigh the relative policy considerations and to make decisions as to the age of the customer to whom those licensed by the federal government may sell handguns and handgun ammunition.
No, your honor--it is most definitely within the purview of the courts to rein in the legislature's unconstitutional excesses through judicial review. If you are unable or unwilling to do that, what good are you?
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Many of these restrictions come from Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which you can find under 18 U.S.C. - Section 922, which governs who can't own firearms as well as restrictions on their manufacture and sale. This law also determines the age of the buyer.
There are parts of this law that are overreaching, but we realistically do need some regulations on the purchase, transfer, manufacture, and ownership of arms. I'm not particularly crazy about the idea of a 14-year-old gang member purchasing a fully automatic Uzi or jihadis openly carrying RPGs on planes.
Someone here said that this not the job of the legislative branch, and I would partly disagree. The interpretation of the Second Amendment is clearly a function of the courts, but do we really want the least democratic branch determining all the boundaries? The courts really aren't capable of doing that, and it would be scary if they tried.
When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all.
The harmlessness of the mission performed by law and lawful defense is self-evident; the usefulness is obvious; and the legitimacy cannot be disputed.
It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race toward liberty is largely thwarted. This is greatly due to a fatal desire — learned from the teachings of antiquity — that our writers on public affairs have in common: They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy.
Usually, however, these gentlemen — the reformers, the legislators, and the writers on public affairs — do not desire to impose direct despotism upon mankind. Oh no, they are too moderate and philanthropic for such direct action. Instead, they turn to the law for this despotism, this absolutism, this omnipotence. They desire only to make the laws.
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful self-defense. It is for this reason that the collective force — which is only the organized combination of the individual forces — may lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used legitimately for any other purpose.
Law is solely the organization of the individual right of self-defense which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect persons and property.
Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropic if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons and plundering them of their property; this would be a contradiction. The law cannot avoid having an effect upon persons and property; and if the law acts in any manner except to protect them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty of persons and their right to own property.
The law is justice — simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more than this nor less than this. If you exceed this proper limit — if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic — you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
All this reminds me of United States v. Lopez. In 1992, 12th grade student Alfonso López brought a .38 to school and was charged with a violation of the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, and the government argued that this law was necessary because bringing guns to schools affected general economic conditions. Thank God the Court got this one right and rejected the government's case because such an argument would allow it to regulate anything because everything has an economic effect.
By that logic then it is unconstitutional to prohibit convicted felons from voting or owning firearms.
Concur
How about the mentally unfit? Felons convicted of a violent crimes and certain other crimes? Five year olds?
Agreed. I have an autistic child, and I don’t even let him see my firearms.
I am glad he has expressed no interest in firearms.
Had he grown up “normal”, we would be out shooting now, but that’s just not in the works.
I also deal regularly with “people” that if they had unrestricted access to fully automatic weapons, that would not hesitate to use them and innocent bystanders be damned.
Yep. Joseph Story said pretty much the same thing.
A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
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Hard to believe that less than 20 years later, ANY judge thinks the inalienable Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a 'privilege'.
This judge should retire and be quick about it.
Actually, it's a legal term meaning 'non transferable'.
It's what they've done. They've used licensing [legal definition; governmental permission] in order to 'legally' carry a firearm.
Once you've gotten that permission, you've become legally obligated to follow their rules.
It's how they turn a Right into a privilege.
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For a real eye opener, try Invisible Contracts by George Mercier
Agreed! :-)
Felons are not allowed to possess firearms. Freedom of Speech does not allow the screaming of “Fire” in a crowded theater. Freedom of the Press does not permit libel or slander. Freedom of Assembly does not allow unrestricted gatherings without parade permits. The second amendment does not allow the possession of a 25mm fully automatic weapon... and of course there are many more examples.
It reads “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’. So the Government cannot infringe on our natural right to keep and bear arms!
Yes, I know. But it's also an adjective. My point was that "inalienable" isn't some high-falutin' principle.
-- [Licensing is] how they turn a Right into a privilege. --
That's one of the tools in the toolbox. They also use subterfuge, blatant and open dishonesty, and violence.
-- Once you've gotten that permission, you've become legally obligated to follow their rules. --
"Legally obligated" is intended to create a guilt-trip for those who are conflicted between independent minded and law-abiding; and feeble justification for the corrupt legislators, judges, and law enforcement.
Judges don't hold themselves to be legally obligated to adhere to binding precedent (see blatant misuse of Presser and Miller), proving that the phrase "legally obligated" is little more than cover for the illegitimate use of violence by the government.
Well said..... and your right.
"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
--Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.
The original definition of ‘felon’ was someone convicted of a crime punishable by death or forfeiture of land (pretty much the same thing back then). The King was doing you a favor by letting you live, so you had no right to complain about how you were treated. The problem is that the original definition has been so watered down that practically anything can be a felony, but the loss of rights remains.
bfl
>By that logic then it is unconstitutional to prohibit convicted felons from voting or owning firearms.
It is, especially because what you are referring to as ‘felons’ would more properly be termed ‘ex-felons’ for they have served their sentence.
The abridgment of those rights is nothing less than the creation of a second class of citizen... one who has no say in government and little power to fight it.
“This all flows from the insane FDR court ruling that all of commerce can be regulated by the federal government under the interstate commerce clause of the constitution.”
Not even commerce there was no buying or selling of wheat on Roscoe Filburn’s farm. Basically the Federal employee deemed ANYTHING and EVERYTHING not only commence but interstate commence.
Rending the clause and the constitution to which it is attached utterly meaningless. This is why it is correct to refer to federal employees in black robes as injustices and usurpers not justices.
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