Bloomberg and creatures like him have a problem with anything that gets in the way of their agenda. He and his cronies break the law when it suits them and then use their considerable money and political influence to buy their way free.
Posted on 05/09/2008 6:45:38 AM PDT by rellimpank
Lawyers for Mayor Bloomberg are asking a judge to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during the upcoming trial of a gun shop owner who was sued by the city. While trials are often tightly choreographed, with lawyers routinely instructed to not tell certain facts to a jury, a gag order on a section of the Constitution would be an oddity.
“Apparently Mayor Bloomberg has a problem with both the First and the Second amendments,” Lawrence Keane, the general counsel of a firearms industry association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said. The trial, set to begin May 27, involves a Georgia gun shop, Adventure Outdoors, which the city alleges is responsible
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Incredible!
-—possible correction—may have been the Colorado constitution as it was a state case, IIRC—
I hate it when those pesky Rights get in the way of a good legal thrashing.
How can they do that??? It’s the constitution, it shouldn’t be gagable! Oh well, once again liberals prove that they do not believe in the existence of inalienable righs.
Shakespeare should have included judges in his famous statement.
They all start as lawyers.
What does one call the lawyer who graduated last in his class and has an IQ of equivalent to room temperature?
"Your Honor."
L
Bloomberg and creatures like him have a problem with anything that gets in the way of their agenda. He and his cronies break the law when it suits them and then use their considerable money and political influence to buy their way free.
This is where you appeal it to the Federal court on Constitutional grounds. Hell with the New York courts.
And Bloomberg is a typical liberal crusader who always has an agenda.
There is no law in this country. There are only rules made up by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers.
Bloomberg is a Fascist.
Are the reason for the 2nd amendment.
He was, but he should have been OUR nut case as his point on RKBA was dead on...
Riddle of Steel.
It isn't the weapon, it's the will to use it that makes it effective.
Where do I sign up for jury duty?
Either one without the other is useless. "My rifle without me is useless. Without my rifle I am uselss"
Yes, it’s called “The Clinton/Spitzer Effect” and it is successful more often than not.
Anything can be a weapon if only you have the will to use it.
The threat to our "rulers" implied in the Citizens Right to keep and bear arms is pretty freakin' hollow if it's just something we hold up, let flap in the wind, and then put away until the next screwing we get.
McVeigh had the will. I didn’t see many people joining in then.
If I was the judge I’d cite him and his lawyer for contempt just for making the argument that some portion of the Constitution is “irrelevant” and give them an all-expense-paid weekend in jail, courtesy of the taxpayers.
Agreed. There won’t be either...
Bloomberg and his cronies should be prosecuted for civil rights violations for their actions here.
Bloomberg is a dispicable little arrogant toad. He thinks his views on things take precedence over the opinions of lesser mortals.
He is the perfect mayor for a large city - in Ancient China.
Lawyers for the gun store say the two hidden cameras brought in by investigators malfunctioned less than halfway into the purchase and fail to show the precautions taken by the sales staff at the store to prevent a straw purchase.
Oh how convenient that their cameras failed. What a coincidence that they only failed to film the proper precautions against straw sales taken by the employees.
With Federal judge Jack Weinstein presiding, the trial will be a fair as a Stalinist show trial. The whole case is rigged against the Second Amendment and the GA gun store.
Do you recall how the judge ruled in that case? Gag or no gag?
How could the consideration, much less suggestion of this be anything less than a blatant civil rights violation ???
disgusting it will go unpunished...
Well, if the case involved a Pentagon employee selling state secrets to the enemy, I would image the lawyers could agree beforehand not to mention the free speech clause of the first amendment.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
“He was, but he should have been OUR nut case as his point on RKBA was dead on...”
I remember people making fun of him but they missed the point. He was batty but they SCREWED him big time. The judge in that case should be doing 20 years.
Not really. Liberals are all for constitutional rights — except when they get in the way of shutting up their opponents or destroying the Constitution.
This would seem to be a constitutional violation of the separation of powers. The judicial would be subjugating the legislature by not allowing the legislative action (i.e. an amendment to the U.S. Constitution) to speak when a subordinate piece of legislation (i.e. a local city ordinance) is being judged.
I can see why you feel that way, and I must to admit to slightly mixed feelings myself, but consider this: If many of the reasons people are barred from purchasing guns are unConstitutional, then the straw purchase prohibition ITSELF is of compromised legitimacy.
Be Ever Vigilant!!
A judge is just a lawyer in a different suit.
That reminds me of a comment made by one of our state legislators several years ago: “Most judges are failed lawyers who new a Governor.”
Denver's "home rule" statute cannot over ride the very document that makes them a State to begin with. The US Constitution is the "Supreme Law of the Land".
Colorado's Constitution even adds in an additional protection for individual RKBA and the Colorado Supreme Court has upheld it.
The Denver courts upholding this "home rule" nonsense are over stepping the limits on their power and need to be censured. Badly...
With pitchforks and torches if the US DOJ won't step in to right things...
I do find it strange that a city is suing a gun shop in Georgia.
I have another question. How do all of these federal gun cases in New York end up in front of LBJ appointee Jack Weinstein who is absolutely no friend of gun owners? There's 25 judges there. Jack's a senior judge, and I'm sure he's not the only one to do civil tort cases.
The good news is that it is in federal court. The bad news is that the judge presiding in this case is Jack Weinstein. Bloomberg went forum shopping and got his guy.
The DC gun ban case is pure genius. Look at that compared to Emerson. Emerson wasn't a great test case, although the decision there wasn't that bad. In the DC case, You had several great test subjects. None were criminals. One of them got through to SCOTUS. Now while justice should be blind, there is always going to be biased. The last person I want there with my case is some guy from Aryan Nations. The best is someone who protects government officials, like Dick Heller.
I need to brush up on the Stanley case. That one has been a few years ago.
Which decision wasn't bad? The federal government has no authority whatsoever to do with 'domestic violence', and does the denial of RKBA without so much as an allegation of actual criminal wrongdoing is completely inconsistent with the notion of 'due process'. I'm not sure Emerson had the best lawyers, but the Lautenberg Abomination (to which the NRA turned a blind eye in 1996) is the most egregious piece of anti-Second-Amendment nonsense to date.
Several points, although I do not disagree with you on what should have been done. I don't know if Emerson had bad lawyers or not. You can have a poor lawyer and win, and a great lawyer and lose. I'm looking at the decision again.
1. The interstate commerce clause right now applies to pistols where they travelled. That's how Lautenberg got his toes in there. Unless you can prove that your firearm was built in the same area you lived, it went through interstate commerce. Thank the FDR court for that. The good news is the Lopez and Pritz cases have put SOME breaks on that. I don't agree with how it is with the ICC, but it will take a SCOTUS case to change that.
2. Due process was argued under Emerson, but not the part requiring a conviction before losing guns on due process grounds. (tried rule of lenity instead, which tells me there's probably bad precident there somewhere). The Due Process argued that Emerson did not know he was a "criminal" for doing what was otherwise considered lawful activity. They relied on a SCOTUS case from 57, that has been somewhat limited since then that under the notion that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." I personally hate that saying since we're all walking misdemeanors at least with all the laws out there today that are unknown and unenforced. The court used the Staples (machine gun) decision (a decision that moved us in the right direction - with only Stevens and Harry Blackmun dissenting) and distinguished it saying that all Emerson had to know to be liable is that this is the type of gun covered under the Lautenberg act, and used BATF form 4473 to let Emerson know about his ignorance. That BATF form was after Lautenberg passed, so that hurt him on that ground. I don't like anything that harms without a conviction myself, but that was probably a right decision (from what I saw) based on what was argued.
3. 10th Amendment - Abandoned by Emerson's legal team. That would not win anyway unless it goes to SCOTUS.
4. Second Amendment - It affirmed the district court, but supported the depravation of the right because of the court order.
I don't disagree with what you said, but unfortunately we're still dealing with 60 years of bad precident on gun issues (from Miller and its misreading to starting around 1994 SCOTUS where it started to change with the Staples case, albeit on other grounds than 2nd Amendment)
That was IMHO an inferior argument, since it implicitly conceded the legitimacy of the law statute Emerson was accused of breaking.
I don't disagree with what you said, but unfortunately we're still dealing with 60 years of bad precident on gun issues (from Miller and its misreading to starting around 1994 SCOTUS where it started to change with the Staples case, albeit on other grounds than 2nd Amendment)
The bad precedent in Miller isn't the holding itself, but rather the syllabus and the way the holding has later been interpreted. The actual holding was that for a weapon to be protected under the Second Amendment, it must by nature be suitable for use in an effective citizen army. The government's refusal to take the case to trial court after having won the right to do so suggests that it wanted to avoid the precedent that would have set.
It looked like a shotgun approach taken. Contrast that with Heller/Parker which was strictly 2nd Amendment.
I think Miller was bad too, but could have been much worse if FDR had his way on it. McReynolds wrote the decision, and was one of the "four horsemen" (libertarian leaning judicial activists - which unfortunately gave us lochner which let to Roe when Warren/Burger courts took over), so that was the best possible under the circumstances. I can only imagine though what would have happened if Miller's team was in court.
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