Posted on 12/04/2008 5:34:20 AM PST by St. Louis Conservative
New York Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress is facing a mandatory 3½ years in prison and the end of his football career. His crime? Not having a license, which New York City never would have issued him, for the exercise of his constitutional right to bear arms.
Plaxico Burress is led to his arraignment in Manhattan. To be sure, Mr. Burress got caught because of what appears to have been stupid and irresponsible behavior connected with the handgun. But he does not face prison for shooting himself. His impending mandatory sentence highlights the unfairness and unconstitutionality of New York City's draconian gun laws.
Mr. Burress had previously had a handgun carry permit issued by Florida, for which he was required to pass a fingerprint-based background check. As a player for the Giants, he moved to Totowa, N.J., where he kept a Glock pistol. And last Friday night, he reportedly went to the Latin Quarter nightclub in midtown Manhattan carrying the loaded gun in his sweatpants. Because New York state permits to possess or carry handguns are not issued to nonresidents, Mr. Burress could not apply for a New York City permit.
At the nightclub, the handgun accidentally discharged, shooting Mr. Burress in the right thigh. He was not seriously injured, but he has been charged with criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Of course it does. What's your point?
No, he’s in trouble because he not only carried a gun, but stupidly shot himself with it and then attempted to cover it all up.
This punk is the reason we wind up with gun bans in the first place, irresponsible thug who put everyone around him at risk because he doesn’t have the mental capacity to treat a gun with respect and winds up hurting himself or others.
And we can see that you boldly do NOT stand on principle (not standing on the person who runs a school...a principal!)
Guys like you would tell Paul Revere to be quiet and turned your back on the Boston Tea Party participants for polluting the harbor!
Ok, so you don't like the guy...he has a right to keep and bear arms regardless of what state he is in....NOTHING in the Constitution or Bill of Rights limits enumerated rights to ones state of residence. Nothing, and no resonable interpretation suggests that.
Interesting that you slam a guy for his interprtation which is very widely accepted and then you offer yours as truth which is quite narrow and uncommon. Hypocritical if you ask me.
If you are going to challenge the constitutionality of a law you need to pick your case carefully.
Seems to me that you're ascribing the word unalienable to the wrong document.
A minor mistake among the ones you've made today on this thread.
‘New York Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress is facing a mandatory 3½ years in prison and the end of his football career. His crime? Not having a license, which New York City never would have issued him, for the exercise of his constitutional right to bear arms. ‘
I fully support the second amendment, but this is simplistic in the extreme.
There is a heck of a lot more to the story of Plaxico Burress related to his ruining his NFL career. This incident is just the latest example.
A big fan of the Constitution, I see.
bttt
bttt
Go back and check my punctuation. I never claimed that “unalienable rights” was in the Constitution, just that you used the wrong word. I then made the point that the Constitution does not give individuals the legal right to interpret it for legal reasons. Individuals do not make laws; we elect legislators to do that for us. Voting determins our laws. Conservatives obey the law, but work to change the ones they disagree with. We do this by voting for the right people, or when we have standing, sue.
Firearms have long been a fashion accessory and when the 2A says “...shall not be infringed” there is no language there that says ‘except in case of fashion accessory’.
Men and women have carried all kinds of knives and guns that were as much or more fashion statement than functional weapon and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The Constitution doesn’t limit individual rights in any way.
I am. I just understand it. That's all.
Are you saying that if your state bans guns and demands turn in that you will do that?
Yes or no.
You gonna obey the law then try to change it as you just said or not?
From the context it is clear that is what you meant.
That’s ok, it was just a minor boo-boo that anyone could make but with the abundance of absurdity in your other posts today I couldn’t help nit picking and piling on.
Jury nullification is the theory where a given jury believes the defendant in a criminal case is guilty, but acquits them anyway because of the bad law/unconstitutionality/unfairness/gender-or-race-related reasons/you name reason here. At times defense attorneys try to use this as a strategy.
The most recent famous example of this was the OJ Simpson case.
Yep....hasn't been for a very long time.
Probably none, from the press reports I've been following on this incident. Apparently the club has a metal detector, like the type you pass thru at airport security.
Plax indicated to one of the clubs security guards he was carrying, whereupon the guard called the manager, who pulled Plax aside and ALLOWED him in. Apparently Plax the fool had an AD sometime then, when the gun slid from his waistband.
The ironies here are fantastic to me, an ex-NYer. First, the celebrity-worship culture -- the club let Plax in. Second, the news now coming out that only celebs in NYC manage to get carry permits (though not Plax), and little people are left to fend for themselves. Third, Bloomberg - the gun banning emperor of NY --screaming to high heaven for maximum punishment before the case has even gone to trial, and I hope, in the process poisoning any future jury.
About the only thing he should be charged with is “attempted terminal stupidity”.
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