Posted on 10/18/2009 10:05:37 AM PDT by Still Thinking
In a case where a firearm was locked in the glove box of a postal employee, the strong central government once again stuck it's chest out and scoffed at the Second Amendment. From an appeals case in U.S. District Five:
“the Postal Service owned the parking lot...and its restrictions on guns stemmed from its constitutional authority as the property owner”
How arrogant of the Judges to rule that someone other than “we the people” own the postal property. Finally there is no constitutional authority granting them any right to restrict firearms, they do so only by a string of rulings that have adulterated the intent of the constitution to limit a central government.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
They can just keep it up. They can do all this, all the while the sensible people in this country are buying ammunition, hi-cap magazines, nasty ARs etc., shotguns, pistols and all the rest in RECORD numbers... just keep it up.
Very strange case. I had never heard of it before. It looks like the defendant was a mailman who parked his car in a secure parking area of the post office and left his pistol in the glove compartment. They are charging him with a Federal misdemeanor of carrying on Government property. The funny thing is that the fine is only a maximum of $50/30 days in jail. Also, he looks to have had a bad lawyer, never go to Court on a gun charge and only have the 2nd amendment as a defence. The Bill of Rights doesn’t get you very far with the Federal Bar, it mostly does not exist as far as they are concerned.
Makes another great argument for States Rights Groups. It’s not much of a ruling, but it fans the flames.
IMHO, that should be Federal law.
If the Feds can declare the contents of your car to be illegal, just because it is stopped on Federal land, what stops them from doing the same while it is rolling down a Federal highway?
Sooner (rather than later) a case like this needs to be pushed to the Supreme Court -- while there is still a conservative on it...
Courts are often called on to decide between conflicting rights of opposing parties.
This was a case of property rights, more properly called the rights of the owner to decide who and what come on his property vs. the rights of a person to transport a weapon onto that property.
Both are strong “rights,” especially to the proponents. In this case, property owner's rights won.
I'm not surprised, or very disappointed that they did. I want to be able to say that a person who I do not want to bring a weapon onto my property that they cannot do so. No big deal here.
Hmm, I wonder how the US District court would rule if a police officer started breaking open cars parked in the post office parking lot looking for something illegal - like drugs?
I’m sure the US District court would rule that was an illegal unconstitutional violation of personal property rights unless there was a search warrant or probable cause - like seeing a hash pipe on the dash.
Funny how the US District court can’t distinguish basic constitutional rights when it comes to the 2nd amendment. I’m sure an appellate court and the SCOTUS will set them straight.
Most offices have an on-site drive-up mail drop. Does that ruling mean that anyone legally carrying according to State law is violating Federal law if they use that mail drop?
Thanks for posting. I just read a good article on “Women and Gun Control” at his page too.
http://www.examiner.com/x-25069-Cheyenne-Gun-Rights-Examiner
Law Abiding Citizen
The vehicle owner rightfully claims the interior of his vehicle and its contents to be his property. (Did you pay for it?)
You have the right to deny him and his vehicle access to your property. You have absolutely ZERO right to control what is inside his vehicle.
I don't give a rat's @$$ what you "want"!!! And, if I know where you are, I assure you I will make every effort to avoid placing either myself or my vehicle on your property -- or claiming you as "friend" or acquaintance.
This case is very similar to the EAGLE SCOUT who had a 4in knife in his emergency preparedness kit LOCKED in his car on school property.
Very odd indeed, I thought the courst had just ruled that CCW and leave in locked car were an individula rights, not the prperty owners (in this case a factory)
10 th CIrcuit Court
(Ramsey Winch Inc. v. Henry, No. 07-5166 (10th Cir. Feb. 18, 2009).)
quote -
Rejecting the arguments of Oklahoma businesses, the Court reversed the district court’s grant of a permanent injunction that kept Oklahoma from enforcing the sections of its gun laws that prohibited property owners from banning the storage of firearms locked in vehicles on the owner’s property.
OTOH, given the past problem with folks “going postal” at post office facilities, I can understand their relectance to allow carry of arms a group which has shown to have violent members in the recent past.
Legal link for that that wish to learn
http://www.jacksonlewis.com/legalupdates/article.cfm?aid=1648
“I don’t give a rat’s @$$ what you “want”!!! And, if I know where you are, I assure you I will make every effort to avoid placing either myself or my vehicle on your property — or claiming you as “friend” or acquaintance.”
Sheesh!
So much for reasoned discourse. Have a better day tomorrow.
Yeah, you are probably right... I've just had too many encounters lately with liberals and RINOs pushing what they "want" and/or "feel" -- as if" it "oughta be the law"...
When it comes to our rights, "wants" or "feelings" have no place in the equation...
Yep!
It's also time to start identifying your nearest potential front-line location...
I think your property rights argument is correct, there is also a contractual issue involved.
The entrances to USPS employee parking lots are posted with signs warning that entry equals consent to search of vehicles, packages, bags and persons by Postal Police or Inspectors or the (local) postmaster’s designated rep.
In addition postal workers are represented by unions that sign contracts governing conditions of employment, among those are a flat prohibition of possession of weapons while on the property or while in a pay status, ie. even while off premises.
The guy will probably lose his job as well, USPS is looking to cut positions and even once minor infractions of rules are being taken seriously.
The days when the postal unions could save the jobs of even the most worthless of employees are passing.
I suspect that the coincidence means that there are liberal anti-gun groups that have been holding seminars around the western USA trying to “educate” lawyers, city, county and state officials and judges in their new theory on banning firearms.
I haven't read anything that said he did. I have heard of employers with policies prohibiting this or that in employees cars conducting random checks, which they force the employees to agree to in advance. I think I also heard of one incident where the employer hired a private security agency who patrolled the lot with drug- and gunpowder-sniffing dogs. At some point you have to ask yourself "How bad do I really need this particular job?"
PS, Try the decaf. Us transplanted Texans are way to polite for that, even if we are in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.
S’okay. It can be frustrating at times, but nothing torques a lib off more than to be whipped with the facts. Just yellin’ at ‘em makes them feel good (and I guess it makes us feel good sometimes). Hmmm, maybe I’d better rethink my critique. Too many people feeling good in this equation, for an old cyinc like me. :-)
If you bring your private mail onto someone else's property, do the have a right to search it like they do your car? There could be something relevant to them in your mail. If not, why is a vehicle any different.
And if so, what other rights do they loose simply by setting foot on your property?
A property owner has the right to refuse to allow anyone on their property for any reason. But if you allow them on your property all of their constitutional right come with them, not just some.
Please tell us what other rights we loose by setting foot on your property.
Can you imprison me for any reason you "feel" is adequate.
Can you deprive me of my property or look through any personal mail I may have with me?
Just wondering where this self appointed authority of yours extends to.
The Bill of Rights guarantees are not absolutes. Before you get upset because they can be limited, they are also expandable!
Example, the 2d Amendment does not guarantee you the right to posses a firearm if it is fully automatic, sawed off, on an airliner, if it is a howitzer, if you are a convicted felon, etc.
You are guaranteed free speech, but you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater, incite to riot, advocate the killing or wounding of the President, libel or slander someone, etc.
We are guaranteed freedom of assembly, but government can require that we get a parade or meeting permit.
We are guaranteed freedom of religion, but that does not give you the right to kill those who oppose your religion, or to invite 100 people to your home every week for religious services.
We are guaranteed freedom of the press, but that does not give a newspaper freedom to libel or slander someone, portray them in a false light, or engage in false or deceptive advertising.
Before you get upset, think about that Freedom of the Press for a moment and hos it has been expanded by the courts. here is no guarantee of Freedom of Radio, but Freedom of the Press was expanded to include Paul Harvey's right to do the news his way, or Rush's right to be on the air too. Same with TV. Neither radio or TV uses printing presses, but the USSC held that Freedom of the Press was expanded to include of other forms of news media too.
How about Freedom of the Internet? That's not in the Constitution either. We can post as we wish, without government censoring or interference on FR however, because the courts have expanded the views of the Framers to include FR, and all FReepers, as Constitutionally protected Freedom of the Press and Free Speech.
Don't be so quick to be a Constitutional absolutist. You will GIVE UP many things you enjoy if you do.
You SHOULD be able to ban firearms from your property.
Thanks to a bunch of ‘conservatives’, in many places you no longer can.
Many. We form a contract; I let you on my property if you agree to do or not do certain things. You accept or decline. That is your choice, but if you do not agree, I can prohibit your entrance to my property.
Can you imprison me for any reason you "feel" is adequate.
If you do not agree with my conditions of entry, and still enter my property, I can hold you as a trespasser and deliver you to the police/
Can you deprive me of my property or look through any personal mail I may have with me?
Certainly. I can charge you admission, or make a physical search a requirement to enter. It's my property, I decide, just as you allow who you want, and under what conditions, on your property.
Just wondering where this self appointed authority of yours extends to.
Very simple to answer: All my property
Um, assuming the postal employee pays federal taxes, isn't he "the owner" in some respect? He sure owns the inside of his vehicle, to and from work as well as while it is parked there.
A terrorist who is also a taxpayer and/or citizen is also “part owner” of the White House, and the owner of the holster and pants leg in which he had hidden his Glock when he tried to walk in.....
Sorry, will not fly.
The Pozta Woikah, excuse me, Postal Worker, ran into legal problems when he drove onto the parking lot. End of case.
Lady Justice is blind. She is not stupid.
In 1939, SCOTUS ruled otherwise.
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
Since then, Scalia has misread the Miller decision and made new law, along the lines of your assertion. Smoke and mirrors.
That's got to be some sort of record for multiple negatives in one sentence. I just about can't not read it.
ya, wonder why lawers are so hated?
still, sez you can have your piece (gat, roscoe, heater) in your car...
That's not at all what the relevant excerpt of Miller said. Here it is again:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
"In the absence of any evidence ... we cannot say ..."
"We cannot say" is directly opposite the conclusion that you assert, that SCOTUS, in Miller, said the 2nd amendment does not guarantee the right to possess a sawed off shotgun. "Certainly it is not within judicial notice that ..."
This is extending the situation created by having no evidence on the record. SCOTUS is saying that the fact it put into question isn't obvious, whether or not short barrel shotguns are any part of ordinary military equipment, etc. So it can't say, because it doesn't know based on evidence or based on "judicial notice" (common knowledge).
SCOTUS is saying that it is not making a legal conclusion about the relationship between the short barrel shotgun, the 1934 NFA, and the 2nd amendment, and it is not making a legal conclusion because it has zero evidence and zero knowledge to support the decision being appealed from the court below.
Contrary to Scalia, in the Heller Court, saying "Miller was convicted," one need read only to the end of the first paragraph to find the procedural status:
The District Court held that section 11 of the [1934 NFA] violates the Second Amendment. It accordingly sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment.
Back to what the Miller Court said about the legal rule to be applied, in light of the 2nd amendment. The cited paragraph instructs the court below that if there is evidence of a relationship between the style of weapon at issue (in this case a short barrel shotgun), and either "preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia," or "part of ordinary military equipment," or "use could contribute to the common defense," then the weapon in question would be within the ambit of protection recapitulated by the 2nd amendment.
And so, we are left to research the question that SCOTUS left, how does a short barrel shotgun fit into the stated legal tests? I think it's easy to answer, in light of history even. "See blunderbuss." Not that the Courts are honest about what Miller says. In fact, they are not. Even the Heller Court misconstrued the Miller case, claiming (as you did) that it stand for the opposite of what its plain language says. My reaction is to view the Federal Courts as "hacks," void of logic and reason; and that their 2nd amendment jurisprudence is illegitimate.
Except if the purpose of the assembly is to petition the government for redress of grievances. In that case, the right to peaceably assemble cannot be abridged. See Cruickshank and Presser.
The only clause in the constitution which, upon any pretense, could be said to have any relation whatever to [Presser's] right to associate with others as a military company, is found in the first amendment, which declares that 'congress shall make no laws ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' This is a right which it was held in U. S. v. Cruikshank, above cited, was an attribute of national citizenship, and, as such, under the protection of, and guarantied by, the United States. But it was held in the same case that the right peaceably to assemble was not protected by the clause referred to, unless the purpose of the assembly was to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or organization, or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law.
Presser is interesting more for what it says about the 2nd amendment -- and it is another example of Federal Courts "in action." While telling the reader that the way federal courts construe Presser is another justification for my finding them hacks and illegitimate, I think the reader is better off finding his own way to whatever conclusion, by reading the case himself.
Presser argued that the 1st and/or 2nd amendment precluded the state from requiring him to get a parade permit to march his armed band through the city. Presser is a parade permit case.
The Federal Courts are uniform in their citation to Presser, and they cite it for this proposition, and only for this proposition:
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. It was so held by this court in the case of U. S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 , 553, in which the chief justice, in delivering the judgment of the court, said that the right of the people to keep and bear arms 'is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by congress.
The dishonesty (See Sotomayor and company in the Maloney case for a stark example) is to extend this to the conclusion that Presser stands for the proposition that states are free to prohibit keeping and/or bearing of arms. Remember, Presser is a parade permit case, and its discussion of how parade permit laws impact keep and bear arms is present because Presser argued that his right to parade was protected by the 1st amendment, and because he was parading with arms, the right to parade without a parade permit was enhanced by the 2nd.
The Presser Court had this to say about the right of the people to keep and bear arms.:
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 general 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. But, as already stated, we think it clear that [parade permit laws] do not have this effect.
Yet, Federal Courts cite Presser as conclusively enabling state and local governments to prohibit keep and bear arms. They do so by cherry picking and isolating one statement, and overlooking another relevant statement.
I wasn't eager to come to the conclusion that the Federal Courts handling of the 2nd amendment is corrupt, but the conclusion is inescapable. The corruption is enabled by public ignorance and sloth.
You’re not a lawyer, are you?
We cannot say =
We do not agree that,
We disagree that, etc
such an instrument =
a shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches
So using word replacement:
We do not agree that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear a shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches.
Except your silly word game omits handling the reason WHY they cannot say.
I'm going to lump you in with the group of people that I consider to be illegitimate hacks. "Mindbender," and wordbender too. Words mean whatevr YOU say they do, in your wonderland.
What problems do you have accepting a USSC decsion just because they word if differently than you want it worded?
Please tell me you are NOT a lawyer !
The issue between you and I is not whether or not I accept what the court says. We have diametrically opposite conclusions as to what it said. You take "We don't have evidence, so we can't say" to mean "We decide the 2nd amendment doesn't cover these." I find the method you use to reach that conclusion to be flawed, dishonest, kookery, etc.
On account of my conclusion that you are a hack, I have decided to terminate interaction with you.
Thank God.
Whenever you lose, make sure you take your ball and run home to mommy.
You have absolutely no understanding of U.S. v. Miller. Please do not continue to manifest that lack of understanding onto others.
I was going to urge the same to you, but figured it would be a waste of effort.
As for the instant argument, I made my point, you made yours. I'm not running away from the argument, I finished it. That you are reading comprehension impaired is your problem, not mine.
No, what is foolish is thinking that it is OK for the government which gets its power from us “we the people” can make any such ruling against our inalienable rights.
Property rights of the post office, a government building? please. This building belongs to the same people that they are controling.
Please watch this video to understand where you get your rights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkSHg3JV_V8
The legal problems come when one person disagrees with another what their inalienable rights are.
Some believed that it was their right to carry a fully automatic weapon, a long weapon of any barrel length, or any caliber.
The courts, empowered by the Constitution, disagreed.
The same courts can decide that the possession of certain items, for example, firearms, is not allowed on property "jointly owned," that is property owned by all the people.
Just as the people acting through the government can tell citizens that they cannot enter some property they are (very small) part owners of, such as the White House or CIA headquarters, they can prohibit outside commerce, nudity, people with contagious diseases... and yes, firearms and many other things on property on in buildings we all own together.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.