[dcwusmc]

A direct answer to the question asked would be good. Also, FYI, prior to GCA '68, when someone PAID THEIR PENALTY and was released from prison there was no fedgov prohibition on him owning a firearm again. Nor should there be. If a convicted felon's still a danger, why is he released early? Or put on probation? Keep him in prison until he's completed his sentence. But you may NOT properly deny him the right to protect himself once he's been released.

As has been asked, what part of "...[S]hall not be infringed" do you fail to comprehend?

[dcwusmc]

PING for your outrage!

[Rytwyng]

prior to GCA '68, when someone PAID THEIR PENALTY and was released from prison there was no fedgov prohibition on him owning a firearm again

If a man can't be trusted with a gun, he shouldn't be trusted to walk the streets at all.

[mvpel]

What difference does my opinion make? It's my opinion that the Beatles are overrated, but that's neither here nor there and makes no difference to the real world.

The law that these people are trying to enact is a natural outgrowth of GCA '68 and the Instant Check system. What point is there in prohibiting people from selling firearms to wife beaters, criminals, and the mentally ill if you have no way of finding out if someone falls into that category?

The data required to enforce the law is not available to those charged with following the law and those charged with enforcing it, because of the absence of state records.

Instead of attacking this bill, you should be attacking GCA '68, because this bill is just part and parcel of that package.

But if you're so insistent on my opinion, here it is: I think that the state of affairs prior to the enactment of the National Firearms Act of 1934 is the proper state of affairs with respect to firearms. I think that the United States Supreme Court should have been asked to strike it down on the basis of the precedent set by Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., [259 U.S. 20], in 1922, to wit:

Grant the validity of this law, and all that Congress would need to do, hereafter, in seeking to take over to its control any one of the great number of subjects of public interest, jurisdiction of which the states have never parted with, and which are reserved to them by the Tenth Amendment, would be to enact a detailed measure of complete regulation of the subject and enforce it by a socalled tax upon departures from it. To give such magic to the word 'tax' would be to break down all constitutional limitation of the powers of Congress and completely wipe out the sovereignty of the states.

After all, what is the NFA but a "detailed measure of complete regulation of the subject," enforced by a "socalled tax on departures from it?" When it was enacted, it imposed a $200 tax on a $5 shotgun.

I also agree with Samuel Adams' qualification of the Second Amendment:

The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

I think that we, as peaceable citizens, should hold the legal authority as a society to disarm those who are not peaceable, just as we hold the legal authority to deprive them of their freedom or, in many states, their very lives. That is, at least until our society deveops to the point of L. Neil Smith's Confederacy, where schoolchildren carry guns on their hips.