Posted on 05/29/2003 12:09:47 PM PDT by jdege
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:39:25 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The hullabaloo that the new Minnesota Personal Protection Act has caused is just the beginning. The law is riddled with contradictions and infringements on rights that may take years to sort out. Indeed, wags have begun to call the law the "Full Employment for Lawyers Act of 2003."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Yeah - equal protection under law as specified by State statute. Who needs that?
Let's continue to let the caprices of minor public officials decide who gets to exercise their rights.
That's so much more equitable for the citizens of Minnesota.
/sarcasm
Stop it right there. The actual battle lies here, not in the CCW bill.
If the 'right of the people' in the 2nd Amendment is not about the right of individuals, then the 'right of the people' in the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th Amendments are for businesses, politicians, municipalities and governments. This editorial writer doesn't know what he's writing about!!!
What the private property rights aspect of this is, is that when an owner of a property rents a property out to tenants, the right to keep/bear arms in that property is transferred to the renter as well, for the duration of the rental agreement.
Stop it right there. The actual battle lies here, not in the CCW bill.
Yep.
The law in Minnesota regarding RKBA was set by the Minnesota Supreme Court in Atkinson v. State (1980), in which the court held:
There seems little doubt that the Second Amendment would have no application to this case. The Second Amendment is a check on the powers of Congress, not the states, and it is not likely to be held applicable against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment. Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 14 S.Ct. 874, 38 L.Ed. 812 (1894); Burton v. Sills, 53 N.J. 86, 248 A.2d 521 (1968), appeal dismissed 394 U.S. 812, 89 S.Ct. 1486, 22 L.Ed.2d 748 (1969).
Even as against the United States, furthermore, the Second Amendment protects not an individual right but a collective right, in the people as the group, to serve as militia. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939); Junction City v. Lee, 216 Kan. 495, 532 P.2d 1292 (1975). Thus, the Second Amendment imposes no limitation on a state legislature's power to prohibit individuals from carrying deadly weapons, where the prohibition will not interfere with the preservation or efficiency of the militia. See Annot., 37 A.L.R.Fed. 696 (1978).
But the new law includes:
Sec. 27. Minnesota Statutes 2002, section 624.714, is amended by adding a subdivision to read:
Subd. 22. [SHORT TITLE; CONSTRUCTION; SEVERABILITY.] This section may be cited as the Minnesota Citizens' Personal Protection Act of 2003. The legislature of the state of Minnesota recognizes and declares that the second amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms. The provisions of this section are declared to be necessary to accomplish compelling state interests in regulation of those rights. The terms of this section must be construed according to the compelling state interest test. The invalidation of any provision of this section shall not invalidate any other provision.
That is, the Minnesota Legislature declares that the Second Amendentment establishes an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms, that can only be regulated by measures that meet the "compelling state interest" test.
"Compelling state interest" is, of course, the highest standard used in Constitutional law.
I always wondered why the antis spent so much time screaming about irrational and hysterical things that had nothing to do with the law that was being considered, when there were so many provisions in the law that should have had them screaming.
Umm, the tennt's gun rights are actually Constitutional, any other statutes notwithstanding.
Yes, available herewww.handguncontrolinc.org
Here's another one of their goodies....
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The foregoing citation to the Miller case is a contemptible lie, nothing less. In Miller, the US Supreme Court upheld Congress' regulation [under the NFA of 1934] of sawed off shotguns on the narrowest possible grounds, stating that,
"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."
The first words of the foregoing paragraph refer to the fact that the defendant[s] neither appeared nor filed a brief on appeal to the Court, so the Court had before it only the government's brief and the record below. Moreover, nothing in Miller supports the proposition for which it was cited by the Minnesota supreme court in the Atkinson case. The Supreme Court went off solely on its laboured and erroneous finding that sawed off shotguns were not militia weapons, and that hence they were subject to regulation under the NFA. For a detailed analysis of the Court's reasoning in Miller, the better to understand the Minnesota supreme court's mendacity and deep contempt for the 2nd Amendment, check the following: http://www.jpfo.org/miller.htm
A very special section
I would like to make a special request of the Star Tribune. One year from now, on the anniversary of the Personal Protection Act, please publish a special section of your paper in commemoration.
In it, you could reprint all of the apocalyptic editorials, letters from readers and commentaries predicting a bloodbath, and for balance, you could include those few that suggested that, as in 34 other states, no such thing would happen.
We should all, by then, know who was right and who was wrong.
You could also publish a tally of those violent gun crimes that will have been prevented by posting "no gun" signs at the entrances of establishments, particularly liquor and convenience stores.
And if there is still a tiny bit of space, you could publish a list of every single one of the violent gun crimes committed by the thousands of new permit holders.
I will look forward to seeing this.
Jerry Ewing, Apple Valley.
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