Posted on 05/18/2006 6:22:58 AM PDT by freepatriot32
If a law is unjust, there is no moral issue with breaking it. I doubt you would have been a fan of Rosa Parks.
I'm not sure that the percentage of "unaccounted for" firearms is the correct statistic to be examining. The article mentions records going back thirty years, so how about:
5 guns per week;
20 guns per month;
240 guns per year;
x 30 = 7,200 guns.
IF the missing firearms were spread over the entire 30 year period, that's roughly one gun vanishing per day, Monday through Friday!
Add to that, the number was originally 7,000+ before sifting out obvious clerical errors.
I've seen enough BATF abuses to have significant contempt for that agency, but in this case, there is clearly something amiss. This appears to be a gun dealer who is not in control of his operation (or worse). IMHO, policing FFL holders is what the BATF is *supposed* to do. Better they do that, than raid rural churches or stomp on kittens.
So why did they also put in a "Supreme Law of the Land" clause and argue about the scope of the Federal Constitution, and all attendant Amendments, over-riding State powers? That to not have it set up that way would make executing any Federal authority at all impossible?
Or will you know cite Cruickshank, a clear case of legislating from the bench if ever the was one, as proof that the Founders didn't mean exactly what they said?
You gun haters are all alike...
Nope. The Founders were referring weapons that were single shot took considerable time to reload and were not very accurate. They were not speaking about guns which can shoot at a rapid rate of fire and are FAR more accurate. And there is a HUGE difference between living in highly congested areas and where the next person lives twenty miles away.
Then there is always the explicit reason given in the amendment for its being there: " A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,..." It is not intended to allow hunting or even personal defense.
As to the meaning of "arms" I tried the argument which you are using and was informed that the term was NOT meant to refer to those things which can be carried in the arms or were limited to infantry.
Those who are not idiots will know that the BoR was created and passed to mollify the STATES not to impose more controls on them. Besides I am only speaking of what the USSC actually RULED in Barron vs. Baltimore in the 1830s argue with them about it.
As to the Law of the Land it did NOT allow the fedgov to pass laws which were not within the realm of powers delegated to it. States had plenty of powers which they could exercise as long as they did not violate the constituion. And they erected State supported churches, closed newspapers, persecuted their editors (this was a favorite tactic of the Jeffersonians), restricted their citizens freedoms in many areas.
As to your closing stupidity: I love guns it is the gun worshippers I don't care for.
You don't have to agree with it, just stop lying about original intent.
Not only am I NOT lying but have not even made an incorrect statement. Your inability to correctly understand the federal system apparently confuses you.
There were sovereign powers left to the states as long as they did not conflict with those which were placed in the hands of the federal government. I suggest further study of the Federalist to clear up your confusion.
It is true that the constitution was designed to remove much of the state's powers but not ALL of them. For example, absent a federal law or court ruling the abortion issue could have been left to the states as it was for two hundred years.
Right, up to that point. The codification of SOME individual Rights in the BoR was not to be a limit on any Rights also granted protection by the States. The Founders were quite clear that those Rights in the BoR were the common set of Rights for ALL US citizens. Hence their placement in the Constitution as the "Supreme Law of the Land".
Some of the Torrie holdovers and Condeferate's didn't like that and immediately went to work to overturn as much as they could through whatever means necessary. And people like you are keeping thier fictions alive.
Nice going Ace...
Start there and keep reading...
NNot necessarily, it is possible, but can be who the auditor was. Some are pleasant and reasonable and some are the opposite. There is almost no oversight of the ATF. I was hoping it would get better with them moved from the IRS to the Justice Dept. All a FFL has to do is piss off an auditor.
Also refusal of informant / entrapment / undercover cooperation can result in this type of harassment. The West Coast ATF office is known for grandstanding and entrapment type operations. They have had their methods called to question in L.A., Reno and Las Vegas. I have personally watched them try to get gun show dealers to make straw sales and not fill out paperwork at the Vegas gun shows.
One of their famous raids was on an importer in Los Angeles several years ago. They made a huge show of confiscating machine guns from the importer and hauled way tractor-trailer loads of contraband right before ATFs Congressional budget hearings
two weeks later they returned the entire inventory quietly.
That is who you are dealing with
Of course, recognizing that would destroy your argument, so instead you ignore the import, make an idiotic statement that doesn't pertain, and continue to bolster your "slavery could be instituted at the State or City level" bull crap.
Like I said... keep reading.
And the next page...
Note that the BoR was to help prevent abuse of the minority by the majority in States and localities. The basic human Rights so codified in the BoR were to be the absolute MINIMUM for a US citizen. That without which, no man could pretend to be free or to be in control over their liberty. And without the Second, no way to keep that liberty from being taken away.
How does your unnamed Congressman speak for the House or Senate? After all the proposals were not all adopted. The selection does NOT claim that the BoR applies to the states and refers to the BoR within some state constitutions. It being difficult to read perhaps you might point out where you believe it does.
Not only did you not dispute the facts I posted but you still have not addressed the SC ruling which explicitly says the BoR does NOT apply to the states. And the greatest jurist America ever produced, John Marshall, led the Court then. No one, other than Hamilton, was as great a legal mind as his nor was he surpassed in knowledge of the history of the Constitution and its ratification.
If, and this is a mighty big if, you had actually read what I posted you would have had the answer to your question. The BoR applies regardless of later SC rulings. Despite your heroworship of Marshall, he got that one wrong.
It happens. Get over it.
Here is even more you won't bother to read...
On the moral issue.... are you willing to do jail time?
ATF claims that they have that info in this case.
When I was a cop, we knew certain shops were trafficking through straw buyers--through CIs and tracing serials on guns we recovered at crime scenes or confiscated during arrests. We notified the BATF. They investigated. They started bringing cases.
And then one of the gun shop owners would senda a check to his Congressman or Senator, and the BATF would tell us, "Sorry, we're going to have to drop the case--your guy has a good friend in DC."
Money talks and BS walks. I guess that's just the way of the world.
Wound up losing one of my two favorite lungs to a gun that had been bought through a straw buyer. (This one didn't even exist--the address on the 4473 was a vacant lot in an adjacent city. Besides, the name on the 4473 was "Heywood Jablowme." Kind of childish, actually.)
The guy who sold the lung-perforator to "Heywood Jablowme" of the vacant lot in La Mesa, CA made the mistake of stiffing a recreational pharmaceuticals wholesaler, and that was that. C'est la vie.
When you hear about how the BATFE always going after the marginal dealers--that's because they know the dealers aren't going to donate $4,000 to their Congresscritter and ask the Congresscritter to "fade the heat."
And, no, I am not an ATF fan. If the ATF were worth a damn, they'd go after the hard cases instead of backing off when a crooked legislator passes wind.
It does not say what you claim. The constitution did not establish a unified government ruled from the federal capital. It left most issues to the states including the laws which governed their citizens. Madison does not say the BoR extends to the states or that they were adopted to apply to any but the federal government.
Marshall's fame and renown are justly earned irrespective of the opinion of folks such as you.
You should have paid more attention to what the Founder's actually wrote than your teachers SAID they wrote.
This is also just the arguments in the Congress over inclusion of the BoR. Some of the State debates discuss the same points. Other debates don't even mention it as it was taken for granted. Only those States with power to lose had any debates over the scope of the BoR. Most saw a general protection for basic Rights a good thing.
You, obviously, don't. You might want to work on that a bit.
Such as the California, New York, ect.. firearms bans.
They used YOUR arguments to pass those bans BTW...
Any other of our Rights you'd like to see thrown away on an incorrect judicial interpretation?
The discussion was obviously not definitive enough to make a difference to our greatest jurist or his court. And he was very familiar with the issue and the prickly sensitivity of the States as regards their rights.
The first amendment clearly refers to what the CONGRESS can't do, it also clearly refers ONLY to Congress. The argument that the same reason applies to the other amendments can be debated but the first on its face is designed to constrain Congress.
It seems a trifle unlikely that all of a sudden the Courts realized 80 years later that the BoR was to apply to the States.
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