Posted on 06/04/2002 10:08:51 AM PDT by pabianice
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:00:36 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The Justice Department will continue to defend the Brady handgun law, despite its recent policy declaration that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to bear arms, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday.
"Reasonable regulations regarding the ownership of weapons are appropriate," Ashcroft said in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live." "Those are reasonable regulations, and they're to be defended."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
It ALSO requires that the serial number, model, and caliber of each gun be recorded and transmitted to the government.
I guess some of those guns have bad "backgrounds" that need to be checked?
How sweet.
What part of "...shall not be infringed." don't you understand, Mr. Ashcroft?
Boy I wish Janet Reno had known that.
Exactly right. Apparently logic has escaped many a Freeper.
All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.
Marbury vs. Madison, 5 US (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803)
-archy-/-
On the one hand, you have clear language in 2A that Congress may not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms who, under Title 10 of United States Code constitute both the "organized" (e.g., National Guard) and the "unorganized" militia (able-bodied individuals generally). Ashcroft's Justice Dept. has clearly subscribed to the "standard model" or individual right reading of 2A. As we well know from all the howling and wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Left these days....
Now comes the BIG question: How to conform "reasonable regulation" by Congress with the personal right language of 2A, which says Congress (at the federal level) is expressly prohibited to "infringe?"
Notwithstanding, Congress for the past 70 or so years has granted itself "jurisdiction" in the matter of firearms regulation by virtue of the Commerce Clause (Art. I, Sec. 8). Because any firearm and/or its components and/or its "consumables" (i.e., ammo) has presumably passed through interstate commerce at some point in time, and is "possessed" in a manner "in or affecting commerce" forever after, Congress thinks it has found a way to give itself "jurisdiction" to constitutionally "infringe" in the interest of "reasonable regulation." (Hey, as long as we own a product, any product -- and don't sell it, we still affect commerce by potentially changing the dynamics of supply and demand, thus the price level of that good....)
At the bottom of the Brady Law, at the bottom of the "felon-in-possession statutes," all you will find is the "constitutional fig leaf" of the Commerce Clause. Now we have to ask ourselves, the Framers being very suspicious of "big government," would they have understood or intended the Commerce Clause as an unlimited warrant to Congress to meddle in any matter on the basis of personal ownership of a mere "thing" having passed through interstate commerce once upon a time? If we say, yes, it can with respect to firearms (even though the plain language of 2A is that it mustn't), then why not any other product we happen to own as private citizens, regardless of whether it is constitutionally secured to us as an individual right?
Once Congress gets a foot in the door in this manner, it conceivably can go anywhere and everywhere it wants. Net-net, we individuals end up being "regulated" solely on the basis of things we have a perfect constitutional right to choose to own.
[But then, if we choose not to own such things because of all the "hassle" involved, then probably that would be "just fine" with Congress, too... See what I mean?]
Funny thing is, I never got this picture of the effect of the Commerce Clause on the regulation/regimentation of individuals in our society until I read Ted Olsen's two recent briefs (Emerson and Haney, two gun cases on appeal more or less issued as a "set," on May 6). Go figure. :^)
The government is requesting the Supreme Court to deny cert to Emerson. Also to Haney (a machine gun case). One wonders what the Supremes will decide to do about this one.... These are a highly complicated and quite dicey constitutional and public policy cases, preeminently U.S. v. Emerson. best, bb.
As determined by the U.S. Supreme Court, not the Attorney General.
No it doesn't. I don't know what State you live in, but only "long gun" or "hand gun" is transmitted to the government. Yes, I realize that BATF can come into a store and look at the yellow sheets, but that is not quite the same as "transmitting to the government".
Its reasonable to ban weapons based upon cosmetic features? Its reasonable to attempt to ban weapons because they can "pierce armored limos", which only the wealthy and politicians have? Oh, go to hell, Asscroft.
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