Posted on 03/30/2020 5:27:38 AM PDT by marktwain
A group of small business truckers has sent an email to the Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. The email asks that, as part of the national emergency involving the Chinese virus, the federal government declare the Second Amendment overrides state law and federal regulation forbidding truckers from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
From transportationnation.com:
The 15,000-member SBTC is calling on federal authorities to preempt state and local laws regarding the right to carry a firearm.
Therefore, in accordance with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, we hereby request the U.S. Department of Transportation please issue a preemption order nullifying any and all state and local laws that restrict truck drivers from carrying firearms across state lines throughout America in order to enable them to protect themselves and their cargo as they engage in interstate commerce.
As this is now a matter of life and death, please issue same forthwith.
The SBTC through its TRUCKER LIVES MATTER campaign has sought the unfettered ability of drivers to carry firearms for self protection nationwide since its inception in 2014, Lamb tells Transportation Nation Network (TNN). We have pointed to Department of Labor statistics that show the unusually high rates of murders on the road for workers in interstate transportation.
This is a valid argument. It is vital that trucks keep delivering everything society needs to keep operating during the emergency. During social unrest, there will always be an element attempting to take advantage of the situation.
One argument between those who want the population disarmed and those who believe the population should have easy access to arms is a small scale, utilitarian one.
People who are voluntarily unarmed have a psychological interest in promoting the idea that having a gun makes a person less safe,
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Almost killed him, not quite.
Permanent brain damage though from the brick that flew through his skull.
And noise suppressors!
A deafened driver is a dangerous driver
As do driver licenses. A CC license should also have 'full faith and credit'.
If anything, even more so that a driver license, as cars and trucks are nowhere to be found as a right in the constitution, and every state defines driving as a privilege...
Herd immunity...
Just bring the food and supplies to TX. Thanks truckers for your help.
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Nationwide CC reciprocity is a must have.
There was a time, not that long ago, when most long distance truckers did carry in their vehicles.
In the 1970s, I knew an engineer who worked for Peterbilt. One of his many jobs had been to design the glove compartment in all of their trucks. There was a "hidden feature" in every truck -- a 1911 Colt .45 would lay flat on the bottom of the glove box and fit exactly without rattling.
Even the notorious Dred Scott vs Sandford stated that CITIZENS had the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
Truckers know all about escorts, armed or not.
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Lot Lizards?
Truckers (and everyone else) should be allowed to carry nationwide if properly licensed in their home state.
Im sure Manhattan and Chicago can quickly figure out how to grow their own food if not.
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Little Mikey Bloomberg can show them how.
I agree with them. If things get really dicey, some folks might try to hijack a truck. The truckers need to be able to fight back.
If you have to beg for it, it’s not a right.
The laws can make them a criminal just by driving through a particular area.
This reciprocity issue is what originally got my vote for Trump.
Since his election I don't believe that he's mentioned the whole thing.
Maybe this will shake him lose.
Loose
There should be no need for truck drivers to beseech the Federal government to protect the rights they already have. Let the individual states decide whether they want to have food and supplies delivered to them or not.
The fact is every trucker in the USA already has a clearly worded license to carry a weapon anywhere they go - the Constitution of the United States.
There’s going to be plenty of work for drivers in the days ahead, I don’t see why any individual truck driver would accept a job to an unsafe destination where they aren’t allowed to protect themselves.
Some of the first gun laws were in New York, enacted to protect Mafia policy enforcers from store owners. Think about that and you’ll understand why truckers are forbidden to carry.
The subject of the presence or absence of federal blanket restrictions on truckers carrying firearms has been discussed in the past before the virus, but I don’t recall anyone being able to point to the specific federal language and I didn’t see it in the article. Certainly, trucking companies and points of delivery can restrict firearm possession, but what about the federal law?
Most truckers carry in the cab, if not on their person.
I’m a grocery trucker. I also lived through the inflation, wrecked economy, and food shortages of the 1970s. The first thing to enter my mind when all of this started was how many truck hijackings there were back then—many of them fatal or permanently disabling to the drivers. Hell, I had to run off hijackers in the urban northeast when I was an OTR driver a lot more recently than that.
Two states bordering mine would not recognize a cc permit issued here. They’d probably take the freedom and destroy the livelihood of any driver who carried into their states without taking a week off to travel there and jump through their hoops. On the other hand, they’d still like groceries brought to their cities. Hmmm.
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