[OneWingedShark]

The complete takeover of the Judicial Branch by the DemocRAT Party was a stroke of genius.

I'm going to disagree, it's not Democrat influence in the Judiciary that is the poison here; it is, instead, that Case Law (and precedent) is given a superior position than Constitutional Law (by which I mean the actual text, not the body-of-law-WRT-the-Constitution-as-the-black-robed-god-kings-declare).

Precedent/Case Law has the [dis]advantage of being selectable, by which I mean that any judge can go out grab some cases and use them to 'prove' the conclusion that he wants. This results in a level of disdain for the Constitutions at both the federal and state levels that is simply incredible; my favorite illustration comes from my home state:

1. New Mexico's State Constitution says the following:

   Art II, Sec. 6. [Right to bear arms.]
   No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of con- cealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an in- cident of the right to keep and bear arms.

2. New Mexico Statute 30-7-2.4 says:

   30-7-2.4. Unlawful carrying of a firearm on university premises; notice; penalty.
   

   1. Unlawful carrying of a firearm on university premises consists of carrying a firearm on university premises except by:
      1. a peace officer;
      2. university security personnel;
      3. a student, instructor or other university-authorized personnel who are engaged in army, navy, marine corps or air force reserve officer training corps programs or a state-authorized hunter safety training program;
      4. a person conducting or participating in a university-approved program, class or other activity involving the carrying of a firearm; or
      5. a person older than nineteen years of age on university premises in a private automobile or other private means of conveyance, for lawful protection of the person's or another's person or property.
   2. A university shall conspicuously post notices on university premises that state that it is unlawful to carry a firearm on university premises.
   3. As used in this section:
      1. "university" means a baccalaureate degree-granting post-secondary educational institution, a community college, a branch community college, a technical-vocational institute and an area vocational school; and
      2. "university premises" means:
         1. the buildings and grounds of a university, including playing fields and parking areas of a university, in or on which university or university-related activities are conducted; or
         2. any other public buildings or grounds, including playing fields and parking areas that are not university property, in or on which university-related and sanctioned activities are performed.
      3. Whoever commits unlawful carrying of a firearm on university premises is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.

3. The above is not university-policy, it is a state statute and therefore falls under the prohibitions of Art II, Sec 6.
   However, even if you do assert that universities have the right to restrict firearms via contractual agreement, such agreement is prohibited by the State's Constitution in Art II, sec 4:

   Art II, Sec. 4. [Inherent rights.]
   All persons are born equally free, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, among which are the rights of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of seeking and obtaining safety and happiness.

4. The statute above clearly prohibits the keeping of firearms in student housing (university premises), and therefore is violative of the State's Constitution.

Any attempt to point this out to authorities results in dismissal, justification ("well, we don't allow guns in courthouses", etc), and/or redirection ("talk to a lawyer", "call your representative", "talk to the AG", etc).

My point is this:
The Constitutions of both the States and the Federal Government are 100% useless if they cannot/do-not constrain them; that no-one has standing unless they go out of their way to break the law is an invidious trap: it forces you to implicitly acknowledge the legitimacy of the [illegitimate] law, it forces you to argue from the position of the accused, it denies that the citizen has interest in seeing the Constitution upheld, and it denies that the authority of the government flows from the document that establishes that government.

[Talisker]

Your New Mexico example is what I was pointing out about the 14th. The NM Constitution addresses human beings with God-given rights. The NM Statutes (all of them) address 14A-derived corporate persons and individuals. That’s WHY arguments based on the NM Constitution are given no standing - it is outside of the jurisdiction of the statutes.

Understand, the NM Constitution ONLY applies to NM statutes when the statutes say it does - NOT merely because it exists. And even then, only within the definitions of the statutes, which are based on corporate privilege, not human rights.

They fool everyone because WITHIN corporate law, privileges are allowed to be called rights if the jurisdictional context is clear to legal professionals. But you quickly find out that they are not human rights when you try to invoke them and are told to get lost by the court.