Posted on 01/20/2008 5:31:20 PM PST by Copernicus
There you went and run the little dummy off!
I think he’s a government apologist (troll) pushing for restrictions on our rights to bear arms. Read his posts. I’ve seen quite a few registered here on FR.
Only if we'd had a very different Congress. Congress never passed an extension, so it didn't matter who was President, there was no bill to sign. (which is a Good Thing, since GWB promised to sign it, and you know AlGore would have signed it. Hillary or B. Hussien would sign a new one too, so would Guiliani or Romney. McCain probably would as well. Niether the Huckleberry nor Thompson would sign anything other than a veto of such a measure.
If "Heller" goes the wrong way, the way the Washington Post and so many others advocate, then I expect to see a new and improved AWB on George Bush's desk before the end of his term. A couple of them have already been filed. One as a stand alone bill HR 1022 Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 , that's the new and "improved" one. The other as part of yet another Omnibus Crime Bill, S 2237 Crime Control and Prevention Act of 2007, which appears to be "just" a reauthorization of the old 94-04 AWB.
What if:
this brief brings the Dems out in support of “reasonable gun control{whatever the hell that is}”, ie this is a “see come” to get them to show their cards while tripping over their left feet, and forced to play to the base. This puts them on record and is fodder when whoever is the candidate tries to move to the center in the general election. The Dems have been avoiding gun issues like the plague. Stratergy??? I don’t know.
Actually I was pissed about the brief just like ya’ll.
I have read it. A week ago when it was first submitted. It's a POS, and a stab in the back as well. They argue that no federal gun control law has ever violated the Second Amendment, including, or most especially, the 1986 ban on a entire class of firearms, or the 94 ban on yet another class.
And cannons were and are "weapons of extraordinary lethality" as Romney put it, yet those were privately owned at the time the second amendment was written and ratified by the states.
Difference being, “if” a President had been a cheerleader for a renewal, the bill may have passed.
GWB being neutral and not pushing for a renewal did make a difference El Gato.
Al Gore on TV day after day banging the drum for that? John Kerry doing the same?
Who knows?
Congress passing a law is not due process. Sure a court could impose a restriction as part of the individual sentence of someone convicted of particularly heinous felony, but Congress can't pass a law that says all those convicted of crimes punishable by more than one year, or two years if the conviction is a state one, are forever banned from owning arms. But they have done just that, in 1968 and earlier in a slightly different form in 1938. Notice that's "punishable" not "punished", so if the jury or judge thought there were extenuating circumstances and cut the sentence to something much less than that, or to "time served", the person still loses their RKBA forever.
If possible, Gore would have extended the AWB by executive order if a bill was not presented to him...for sure!
Well no. Congress can't pass a general censorship law, and the courts look askance at even such things as making reporting troop movements, or the specifications of our latest military goodies a crime. Yet, "Congress shall make no law" is no stricter than "shall not be infringed".
Sure, and "right of the people" and "shall not be infringed" is supposed to be part of the highest law, and is supposed to, at a minimum, bind Congress under the rule of that written law.
If Congress or the Executive are free to ignore that highest law, the one I personally swore to support and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic, then we have no rule of law, just 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
Why? It wouldn't affect him or the Secret Service guards that he will have for the rest of his life.
Its been how many years since Bush’s election and after how many betrayls on issues ranging from fiscal responsibility to education to Harriet Miers to immigration...and only NOW are you no longer “sucking it up???” Sorry but zero sympathy for your disillunsionment. Your passivity enabled actions such as this one. Perhaps if you had raised your voice back in 02 when the NCLB was co authored with Ted Kennedy or in 03 with the passage of the Medicare act or in 04 when his billions of taxpayer dollars was sent to fight AIDS in Africa, a difference might have been effected. Or to put it another way, since he was scorning all sorts of conservative values what made you think he wouldn’t hit yours at some point??
Yes, but restrictions on free speech are all for abuse of the right. If there is no fire and you shout fire in crowded theater, and people get hurt, you can be punished. If you lie about someone, they can sue you for it. But they can't have your vocal cords cut out cause you might shout fire when there is no fire. Of course you couldn't warn people very well if there was a fire either. Prior Restraint is not allowed, the exercise of the right can't be taxed and the only restrictions generally allowed are time, place and manor restrictions so as not to conflict with someone else's exercise of the right.
But gun control laws are all about prior restraint, you can and will be punished before you abuse the right.
They had handguns, they had blunderbusses, the ancestor of the shotgun, and they had both muskets and rifles. All were used by militia, and their descendants are all protected by the Second Amendment, since all are in "common use" in today's military. They also had cannon, for use on both land and sea. Privately owned cannon. Ownership of those was also protected. Cannon loaded with solid shot, "chain", grape, or cannister. (Cannister turns the cannon into a giant shotgun, with "shot" the size of musket balls, in fact they ofter were musket balls.
Perhaps you’ve been burned enough by your blanket launching at everyone, but perhaps not. I’m a citizen of the United States. It is not my job to be the friend of the government, nor is it the government’s job to be my friend. The constitution was written to keep the ultimate power in the hands of the people, that if the government ever overstepped it’s bounds, it could be usurped by the states, or the people.
So as to your assertion as to how good a friend I’d make, we’re not talking about something I’d ever consider being friends with. You can’t invited the Federal government over to have a beer (taxed), perhaps a shot of whiskey (taxed), enjoy a bit of cards (outlawed), while enjoying a bit of television (regulated, taxed).
The brief was offensive to any common reading of the 2nd amendment. It said, in part, that the district court was wrong because it read the amendment right, and that the Federal government should have the power to interpret the constitution as it desires, and even if the Federal government didn’t have that power, there’s so many laws based upon that power that it was now the actual common reading.
Oh, and just in case you disagree with that concept, how about saying that we’ve a compelling reason to ignore an absolute right of the people, and that the compelling right can include everything up to banning certain firearms.
Now the really disappointing part of it all is that I’ve yet to see a friend of the court brief that points out the most obvious thing: the Federal government itself believes that the 2nd is exactly as it reads, due to the curio and antique firearms act that ensures that muzzle loading firearms and other firearms of the 1800’s are without any state regulations. Nor does any friend of the court brief that I’ve seen point out that arms means weapons, not just firearms, and the court should examine the widest interpretation as well as the banning of whole classes of non-firearms including brass knuckles, cane swords, double edged knives, etc by the states.
Even taking the Federal brief’s concepts at face value, then any standard military rifle should be unregulated, any standard military sidearm should be unregulated. But it argues against this reading, even as it argues for it.
Finally, the Federal brief basically blames itself and the courts for not asserting this right earlier, and it just should be ignored because too much has been done that is blatantly against this amendment and the opportunity to argue it is just gone by. The courts should simply interpret the 2nd as preventing the Federal government from preventing a state from fielding a militia.
The Roberts court should simply and utterly destroy those who present such convoluted arguments, as it is completely insulting that they’d be presented to the highest court in this manner.
Didn’t say I didn’t voice my distaste for his actions. I only said I’d never bashed him and that is what I’ve held back on.
I don't call promising to sign such a bill being neutral. Keeping one's mouth shut about it, that would be being neutral.
All AlGores cheerleading wouldn't have meant squat unless we had a different Congress.
I suppose he could have. Bush's papa banned imports of various guns by EO. But notice that even BJ Clinton didn't try anything so bold. Republicans can get away with that sort of thing, Democrats didn't use to be able to.
You are the one redefining things, trying to make the argument that you can't make posession of an object illegal, only an action. Like the kilo of coke sitting in front of me, for example. Which is a fine argument to make, and one I hear for drunk driving a lot ("Where's the victim, officer?", etc.)
And that's a fine discussion to have: can posession of things that aren't causing harm to anyone be made illegal. It transcends constitutional law.
But the discussion here is whether or not the government of the US can constitutionally restrict a type of weapon being owned or who can own it, just as they restrict speech (what can be said/written)?
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