Posted on 07/13/2014 7:19:33 AM PDT by rktman
On July 9, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence filed suit against Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt over a state law--the Second Amendment Protection Act--that "makes it a felony to attempt to enforce federal gun laws in Kansas."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Now that’s funny!
The lawsuit says that a state law enforcing the Constitution is unconstitutional because it might conflict with unconstitutional federal laws.
How do they have any standing.
As we have seen the courts spout that many times in pro gun cases.
Kansas law is just as unconstitutional as the 10th amendment says it is.
Suck eggs, BITCH!
Commies always have standing.
I haven’t read the law,but from what I can understand,this sounds like a perfect short summary of it. Never have understood how anyone could rule against something that is clearly stated in the Constitution. The Constitution covers each state in the Union doesn’t it,or have they found exceptions to that? Must be right in there where it says something about Obamacare.
While Obama acts to nullify Federal immigration laws, among many others...
Here’s the text of the bill.
http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2199_00_0000.pdf
It claims that guns manufactured and used in KS are not subject to federal law, because they aren’t involved in interstate commerce.
I sympathize with this POV, but it must be noted that it violates closing on 100 years of precedent.
I a guy growing wheat to eat himself can be classified as engaged in interstate commerce and therefore subjecto federal regulation, then so can somebody building and selling guns in KS.
Sine it doesn’t seem likely this nearly 100 years of precedent is going to be overturned, this law is in all likelihood unconstitutional, given present interpretation.
I'm pretty sure our state Attorney General knows the Constitution better than Sarah Brady. They're going down, and I really hope Kansas recoups attorneys' fees from the Brady Bunch to keep them from coming back to our state again!
Wickard v. Filburn should be overturned.
In order to enforce a law such as this then the state of Kansas has to be willing to tell any and every judge to stuff it when such judges rule against it.
The Brady Campaign points out that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has already written a letter to Governor Brownback claiming the law is unconstitutional. In the letter, Holder compares the nullification of federal gun laws to the fight against the "integration of black students into all-white schools in the 1950s."
Do these people even listen to themselves talk? How is a state saying that it's going to force the federal government to abide by its own rules (the Constitution) the same thing as opposing integration? Brown v. Topeka Board of Education--the case to which Holder is referring in a sad and pathetic attempt to attack the state of Kansas for once again being on the wrong side--was a case which revolved around the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection clause. By having segregated schools, Chief Justice Warren argued that the Board of Education was violating this clause because separate schools are inherently unequal.
So how does the Fourteenth Amendment apply to this case? In this instance, Kansas passed a law which makes federal firearms-related laws unenforceable within its borders. Does this violate the Fourteenth Amendment? I'm no Constitutional scholar (which may be a good thing, considering what the Constitutional-Scholar-in-Chief's been doing with the Constitution!) but I would argue that the Fourteenth Amendment only applies insofar as a law would "abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" (Sec. 1, Amendment XIV).
So, is there a "privilege or immunity" which is being taken away by this law? Absolutely not; there is only a "privilege or immunity" which is being protected--and not just for some citizens (a la segregation), but for all citizens. Whatever sad liberals the Brady Campaign is drumming up from the People's Republik of Lawrence to use in this case are not having any "privileges or immunities" taken away by this law! In fact, their "privilege or immunity" of having the Second Amendment apply to them is being protected.
Of course, calling the Second Amendment a "privilege or immunity" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment really does the Second Amendment a disservice. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" is not a "privilege"; it is a "right." So if the Fourteenth Amendment applies to this case at all, it is only in defending the right of the state to safeguard the rights of its people from laws which would "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" (Sec. 1, Amendment XIV). That those laws are passed by the Federal, rather than State, Government is irrelevant; the Ninth and Tenth Amendments still protect the people and states from laws that deprive us of our rights.
Long story short, the case simply put revolves around the Second Amendment. And in this case, the State of Kansas is on the side of the Constitution. Mr. Holder would be better served to read the Constitution and enforce it himself instead of trying to bully states into joining him in violating it.
Maybe the asshats want the 2nd to read (as it probably does to them), “the privilege of possessing firearms MAY be immune from interference from the govt or other busybodies unless it’s for the safety of the children being raised by the village.”.
As a consequence of parents not making sure that their children were being taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, voters were clueless to major corruption on the Supreme Court when FDR's actvist judges decided Wickard v. Filburn in Congress's favor in 1942.
More specifically, pro-big federal government justices wrongly ignored that Thomas Jefferson, using terms like "does not extend" and "exclusively," had officially clarified that Congress has no business sticking its big nose into intrastate commerce.
“For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively [emphases added] with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.” –Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.
But who cares what Thomas Jefferson said about the Commerce Clause? After all, Thomas Jefferson was not a Supreme Court justice.
It turns out that FDR's crony justices had also wrongly ignored that a previous generation of justices, contemporaries of Jefferson, had officially clarified the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers, essentially reflecting what Jefferson had written about that clause.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, Article I, Section 8 delegations of power by the states to Congress to regulate the armed forces aside, and noting that the 2nd Amendment is clearly not a delegation of power to limit the use of personal firearms, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate civilian / intrastate firearms. And it is disturbing that federal regulations for civilian firearms seem to have first appeared in the books during the FDR administration, an administration infamous for its complete disregard for constitutional limits on federal government powers.
Franklin Roosevelt: The Father of Gun Control
As a side note concerning the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, please consider the following. The states would sure be a dull, boring place to grow up and live in if parents were to make sure that their children were taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood. /sarc
Thomas Jefferson had put it this way:
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
US v. Stewart 9th Circuit (2003)
We reverse Stewart's conviction for machinegun possession under section 922(o) as an unlawful extension of Congress's commerce power ...Reversed by SCOTUS, citing to Gonzales v. Raich.
Wickard was reinforced by the much more recent (2005) Raich decision.
Guess where the Federal employees in black robes will side? With themselves of course.
This is the sort of law you enforce in-spite of Washington not in consent with Washington. If Washington were inclined ever uphold their own constitution we wouldn’t need laws like this.
To be fair, Jefferson isn’t the best source for interpreting the Bill of Rights, since he was serving in France at the time they were written. What he says is still relevant, but a better source would be Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights.
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