Posted on 05/02/2013 10:35:34 AM PDT by ColdOne
A new law in Kansas that criminalizes the enforcement of federal gun controls in the state is unconstitutional, Attorney General Eric H. Holder said.
In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, [the law] directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional, Mr. Holder wrote to Gov. Sam Brownback in a letter dated April 26. Federal officers who are responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations in order to maintain public safety cannot be forced to choose between the risk of a criminal prosecution by a state and the continued performance of their federal duties.
Mr. Holder cites the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law trumps conflicting state authority or exercise of power. Kansass law became effective April 25.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Thanks I was waiting for something like that to show up.
Poorly reasoned response. Are you saying that the USA is a Democracy? Are you saying that the majority decides what's constitutional and what isn't? And how's that been working for you lately with 0-care and 0 pushing gun control. After all "we the people" elected him. Or at least a scant majority did. What about the rights of the other 49% if 51% of "we the people" decide that it's OK to have the police conduct warrantless searches as in Boston? What if 51% decide that those nasty looking black rifles shoud be restricted to jackbooted sturmabteilung men? What if 51% "we the people" decide that they don't want to work and should be supported by the other 49% - Oh wait, that's already happening.
"We the people" aren't doing a great job of it so far
Thank you for the nomination!
Even though I’m unlikely to get an up or down vote in the senate I appreciate the kind words:)
Sure. I am still unsure if it is authentic. That lanuage at the end seems strong, and out of place. I agree with it, but it is making me suspicious. I hope some verification comes out today.
ESAD, punkass. State by state, you’re getting pushback.
A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
means no government can infringe, not just the feds.
security of a free State refers to the state of being free... a form of status... big s state...
teeman8R
Yes, the Supreme Courts rulings have stated that 2nd Amendment rights are also restraint on the States. Unfortunately I see little evidence that is what is happening in the states run by Leftists (ComDems).
Will this ever be revisited by the Supreme Court? Guess we will see.
Not exactly, because this time every surrounding state including Missouri will have their back.
Debatable (I'm not saying this is wrong or right, just debatable). The SC have taken the role of judicial review to themselves since Marbury versus Madison but that doesn't mean it's Constitutional.
Jefferson certainly disagreed with the SC's extension of jurisdiction in Marbury
You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.
It is certainly tenable that the Constitution (properly read) leaves interpretation to 'the People or the States'.
in the end, WE THE PEOPLE have the final say, not the courts, and not the government.
hooray for the peeps.
t
It does not work that way. Remember, federal agents have arrest powers and if they are faithfully performing their federal duties and a local cop tries to impede them by trying to arrest them on trumped up charges then the local cop will be arrested by the feds on the spot and brought before a federal magistrate. A criminal complaint of obstruction of justice would likely be initiated against the local cops also as well as a grand jury indictment of impeding, interfering or trying to intimidate a federal official.
If state and local LEO’s are protecting the rights of state citizens, where do you think the feds are going to find enough sheeple to form a grand jury that would issue an indictment?
I think the problem is not with what Marbury actually said, but rather with a common misinterpretation of it. The Court's job is, in some cases, to say what the law means. If a legitimate court decision states that a law means something, then what the court says the law means, and what law actually means, will be one and the same. Unfortunately, the general presumption of legitimacy which extends to court decisions has led to the above logic being twisted: if the court says the law means something other than the law actually says, that implies that the law really does mean something other than what it says [as opposed to implying that the court decision making that claim was illegitimate].
It may be easier to maintain legitimate law and order when reasonable government actions are presumed legitimate than when there is no such presumption. Having government agents waste lots of time justifying every minute detail of their actions benefits nobody. On the other hand, declaring that any agency's actions must be regarded as legitimate without regard for any possible evidence to the contrary will start the agency down a path of increasing lawlessness, until the fiction of its legitimacy can no longer be maintained.
I think a major problem stems from the Court's desire to divide the world into legitimate actions and actions whose illegitimacy justifies a remedy, without recognizing that there's a major third category of actions which are illegitimate but not for which no remedy is appropriate. Such thinking causes the Court to declare that if there would be no acceptable remedy for an action, the action must have been legitimate.
There is a common belief that the Constitution is complicated. It really isn't. While it's true that the Constitution's meaning would have to be incredibly complicated and convoluted in order for all Supreme Court decisions to date have been decided in a fashion consistent with it, that statement doesn't really mean the Constitution is complicated. What it means is that one of the following must be true:
Things also become much simpler if one recognizes another simple principle: even though the fact that an action was done in good faith is not sufficient to imply legitimacy, the fact that an action was done in bad faith is in and of itself sufficient to render it illegitimate even if in all other respects the action would have been legitimate. If a cop who is conducting a search accidentally causes $5,000 worth of damage to someone's property despite his exercising great care to avoid damaging anything, the damage would not make the search invalid. By contrast, if a cop deliberately causes $5 worth of damage for no plausible reason other than to deprive the target of his property without due process of law, such actions would render the search illegitimate. As to whether any harm which befell someone's property was deliberate or accidental, that would generally be a question of witness credibility and would as such a be matter for a jury.
Incidentally, some people might complain about the randomness involved with leaving such decisions up to juries, but such randomness can be a good thing. Suppose someone wants to sell someone else a bunch of bars of gold of various arbitrary sizes ranging from 1.0 ounce to 10.0 ounces, but the buyer and seller must use a scale which, for whatever reason, can only weigh one bar at a time and only reads out in whole ounces. Which would be fairer: a scale which always read out the closest whole number to the exact weight, with ties being rounded to the nearest even number, or a scale which read out the closest whole number to a value which equal to the weight plus a random value which was evenly distributed over the interval (-0.5,+0.5). The readings taken by the scale which had the random dither would, on average, be expected to yield a total which was equal to the total of the weights. The readings taken by the "more precise" scale, on the other hand, could easily be off much more. Worse, if the seller of the bars knew about how the scale worked, he could deliberately supply bars whose fractional part was just a smidgin over half. Someone who sold 100 bars each weighing precisely 1.501 ounces could pocket the cash for 200 ounces. By contrast, the "less precise" scale would likely yield a total somewhere between 140 and 160--much closer to the actual total of 150.
Where does Eric Holder get his authority?
You’re too late. Take a gander at the people that voted the 16th and 17th Amendments. If we the people don’t understand our purpose and our Constitution, neither will our judges.
A national government holds all the marbles, a federal one shares power with the states and is limited in its scope of operations.
I'm trying to determine the relevance of your comment to what I had to say, but I have to say I'm stumped
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