Right to Keep and Bear Arms - California Initiative Constitutional Amendment Petition Drive Underway

The Unofficial California RKBA Petition Web Site ^ | 03/10/2004 | William Tell

[William Tell]

Efforts are already underway in California to collect almost a million signatures in an attempt to establish the right to keep and bear arms in the California Constitution.

Successful gathering of the necessary signatures by June 1, 2004 will allow the voters of California to decide at this November's election whether they will recognize the unalienable right to defend one's self, family, and home with firearms.

The text of the proposed amendment is as follows:

The inalienable right to defend life and liberty as set forth in Article I, Section 1 of the California Constitution includes the fundamental right of each person to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family and home. This right shall not be infringed. A. All State government action regulating the right of law-abiding persons to acquire and possess arms for the defense of self, family and home, shall be subject to strict scrutiny, in the same respect as the freedoms of speech and of the press. All county, city and local government action on this subject is preempted by state law and this Amendment. B. This Amendment does not limit the State from regulating the acquisition and possession of arms by: felons, minors, the mentally incompetent, and any person subject to restraining orders based upon their own violent conduct.

The use of the term "strict scrutiny" and references to freedom of speech and the press are intended to restrict legislators to the minimum interference with the right and only when no alternatives exist.

An organization called "The Alliance for Civil Rights" has been distributing materials and applications for volunteers. Unfortunately, their website has not been updated yet and the clock is ticking. Rather than wait while signatures could be gathered by motivated members of FreeRepublic, I have created a simple web page which makes available the essential materials for conducting a successful petition drive.

The Unofficial California RKBA Petition Web Site contains a link to the sponsoring organization's web site, The Alliance for Civil Rights, as well as a link to the Golden State 2nd Amendment Council which has made the petition files available.

My web site has links to the individual county petitions in PDF format and an instruction sheet for filling out and submitting petitions.

I have included a recommended course of action for volunteers which reflects the activities which I am carrying out in my county.

There is an email address for this unofficial web site, rkba@sonic.net. Let me know if I can help more.

There are almost 2000 California Freepers. If we had to do this by ourselves, it would take nearly 500 signatures each. But we are not alone. Signatures are already being gathered at gun shows (that is where I signed) and the word is getting out. The unsuccessful effort to repeal SB23, one of the many "assault weapon" laws in California, collected about 570 thousand signatures, about 85% of the number required to put the matter to popular vote. At that time, many who were only concerned about their shotguns might have had little interest. I think they may be listening now.

We can do this but you will need to do your part.

William Tell

[budwiesest]

Post 213, nice.

In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes.

It's not being 'respected' and the only conclusion one can come to from this is that it's all down-hill from here.

One-if-by-land, two-if-by sea, and three-if-the-SOB-is-your-neighbor.

[budwiesest]

Thanks for the CA heads-up. Will try the links. I've gotta printer and friends with my pro-2A attitude. Thanks for the effort WT.

[tpaine]

Post 213, Justice Black:

"I cannot consider the Bill of Rights to be an outworn 18th Century "strait jacket" as the Twining opinion did.
Its provisions may be thought outdated abstractions by some. And it is true that they were designed to meet ancient evils.
But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century wherever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many.

In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes."

______________________________________


It's not being 'respected' and the only conclusion one can come to from this is that it's all down-hill from here.
-Bud-

______________________________________


Exactly, -- and in particular when we find so many socalled 'conservatives' who can find specious reasons to object to Blacks stirring words..

It's damn near unbelievable to me.

[robertpaulsen]

"and in particular when we find so many socalled 'conservatives' who can find specious reasons to object to Blacks stirring words. It's damn near unbelievable to me."

Really? Why so unbelievable? The founding fathers wrote the BOR to apply only to the federal government, not the states.

It wasn't until almost 80 years later that most of the BOR were incorporated under the 14th amendment to apply to the states.

Makes you wonder how the states survived, huh?

[Sandy]

Maybe the court did indeed error on the P&I of the 14th amendment. But null and dead it is.

Wrong. Read Saenz v. Roe.

[robertpaulsen]

Well, I thought I was pretty specific in my post #379 when I referred to state violations of the 14th amendment. I said, "The only privileges which the Fourteenth Amendment protected against state encroachment were declared to be those ..."

When a state law treats residents differently, that falls under 14th amendment Due Process or Equal Protection. When California attempted to amend it's AFDC program to treat new residents differently, it was struck down under Equal Protection in Green v. Anderson, 811 F. Supp. 516, 521.

When Congress enacted PRWORA, it authorized a state to treat new residents differently. Since this was a federal law, it violated not only a state citizen's rights but a United States citizen's rights.

The federal law was struck down as a violation of P&I. That's the way I read it, anyways.

[Sandy]

My only point is that the P&I clause is not null and void, nor is it moot, as was stated multiple times in this thread. Naturally the Court still got the clause wrong, but nevertheless, it lives. Thomas' dissent is quite good, btw.