Posted on 01/25/2005 3:57:10 PM PST by jonestown
Congress Shall Make No Law
by Matt Giwer
Without going through a myriad of examples of Congress exceeding it delegated authority, let us cut to the quick.
In passing laws in areas not delegated to it in the Constitution, it is not, repeat NOT, responding to new social pressures and changes in the world. I grant there have been many changes in the two hundred plus years since it was adopted. But what Congress is doing is not adapting to those changes.
What Congress is doing is exactly the state of affairs the Constitution itself was intended to prohibit.
For example, at no time was the granting of the power to regulate interstate commerce intended to me the power to prohibit interstate commerce.
If the power to regulate were intended to be the power to prohibit interstate commerce then the federal government would have been granted the power to economically isolate the states. No one suggests that was a power granted to Congress.
Yet, while agreeing there is no power of prohibition, we have many laws prohibiting some forms of interstate commerce. Try selling kiddie porn across state lines with an FBI agent present and see what happens. That is the power of prohibition that was not granted in the general and obviously does not exist in the particular, ANY particular.
The assault weapons ban is the same issue. It is clear that if Congress has the power to ban the manufacture of assault weapons and prohibit them from interstate commerce then in fact Congress has the power to ban any and all interstate commerce, regardless of the commodity.
If Congress should decide it does not want people traveling between states it clearly has the power to make doing so a felony if you grant it has the power to prohibit any activity between the states.
-Snip-
Technology does not change human nature.
19+1 rounds in a handgun instead of one shot flintlocks do not increase crime. In the history of London the single most effective thing to decrease crime was gaslights on the streets. The "guest bedroom" came about as no dinner guest in his right mind would go home after dark in the best of neighborhoods.
So are increasing gun restrictions a result of increased technology? Of course not. But why the increased restrictions?
Because human nature wants regimentation of human behavior.
Regulating the arms a person may possess is as old as human history. When Romans were using short swords "civilian" swords were limited to a fraction of that length. When Japan saw its Samurai system threatened by black powder it banned guns rather than getting better guns. When the peasants revolted against Peter the Great's attempt to industrialize Russia they were banned from having any weapons.
So what is new? The people who claim new laws are necessary because of changing times are NOT talking about laws which address the changes in our times. They are in fact regressing to the exact traditional and primitive response people have always had. And the people specifically did not give Congress the power to exercise those primitive responses.
Why should Congress have the power to prohibit Kentucky from growing and exporting marijuana? Where is it written Congress has the power to prohibit arbitrary items from interstate commerce? The last time that was tried, it was called Prohibition and took a Constitutional Amendment.
Where is it written Constitutional Amendments are no longer needed to do the same thing?
I am fully aware that the points I am raising are at best thirty years away from a "concerted and no failures along the way" effort to be recognized again as the meaning of the Constitution. It really is time to start over. At present the country is on a path of worship it prior decisions and refusing to admit its previous errors lest "the turmoil be too great."
It is trivial to point out that a finding against all federal drug laws would wreck havoc upon our country. But it is more important to uphold justice in that they have committed no crime as Congress had no power to pass any such law.
We are arguing our own precedent rather than the Constitution. The Constitution is not sacred. It can be changed at any time and the means of changing it are stated within it.
But when these "forces of change" are in fact regressions to exactly the arbitrary powers of government it was intend to prohibit, that is not progress. It is not response to changing times. It is regression to pre-constitutional times when anything was fair game. Gentlemen and ladies, it looks like a duck, it waddles like a duck. I would prefer to believe it is a duck than a Constitutional law.
I think so.
Remember the Woody Allen story about one of his relatives that thought he was a chicken and nobody in the family would take him to a shrink and cure him because they needed the eggs.
Paulsen continues to find innocous points that everyone but him see because he needs the attention.
He is smart but somehow can't see when he destroys his own argument.
Like please stop me before I argue again.
If say for example there was some kind of terrorist attack on a mass scale he would be glad for the 2d amendmnet even though he argues against it now.
My guess is that he would not even remember that he was against it.
Paulsen would say it has not been incorporated yet so it doesn't exist except in DC where it doesn't exist.
Now that Paulsen's game has been found he is off to some other place to argue in circles.
He'll be back hoping we forget.
Just watch.
Rifles and shotguns are legal only because of two sentences in NY law. Delete NY PL § 265.00 11 & 12 and they're illegal.
Handguns may not be possessed without a license for the exact gun in question. You can't even touch a handgun unless it's registered to you. Permits are hard to get, and may be revoked at any time without reason and without notification.
See why some of us are kinda wound up about this issue?
See why some of us are kinda annoyed that you advocate the view that states can infringe the 2nd Amendment?
Your examples explicitly indicate someone else "keeping" the guns. We're talking about the owner keeping his own guns.
The point of "keep" in the 2nd Amendment is for the owner to have them handy, rapidly accessable, and under the owner's control.
Granted, New York is not Vermont when it comes to gun laws, but it's not as restrictive as you make it sound.
The District of Columbia has broad authority to regulate firearms, deriving its legislative powers from the Home Rule Act enacted in 1973. That statute states:
"The Council of the District of Columbia is hereby authorized and empowered to make, and the Mayor of the District of Columbia is hereby authorized and empowered to enforce, all such usual and reasonable police regulations…as the Council may deem necessary for the regulation of firearms, projectiles, explosives, or weapons of any kind in the District of Columbia."
MissAmericanPie wrote:
What ever happened to "A person shall be secure in his papers and possessions".
_____________________________________
Ask our resident expert on Constitutional obfuscation, robertpaulsen, robertpaulsen, robertpaulsen.
180 jones
Again, firearms are prohibited outright, with exemptions.
Rifles and shotguns can be banned by deletion of just two sentences.
Handguns are entirely by the whim of the presiding judge; practically unobtainable in many counties.
The Bill Of Rights was meant to protect pre-existing rights. You support subjecting a key natural right to the whims of legislators and judges. Pity that right will be legislated away when you most need it.
William Rawle¹, A View of the Constitution of the United States 125--26 1829 (2d ed.)
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious¹ attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."
--press-pubs.uchicago.edu/ founders/documents/amendIIs9.html
¹flagitious: ADJECTIVE: Utterly reprehensible in nature or behavior: corrupt, degenerate, depraved, miscreant, perverse, rotten, unhealthy, villainous.
--Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. 1995.
Man's judgment is his weakest link. It's what put Christ on the Cross. Neither the "wisest" religious body of the day nor the "most powerful" empire could stop injustice to the Most Innocent.
My conspiracy theory is that Adam did not fall because his stomach hungered for the forbidden fruit, but because Eve was wearing a wonder bra. Ban the wonder bra and silicon implants and men will be morally stronger to resist impulsive and weak judgment.
the basic principles of our Constitution cannot be materially changed or 'amended away'.
We have inalienable rights to life, liberty and property that cannot be prohibited by Amendment.
1 jones
Actually to the people of that state, as the Founders intended.
So, you like incorporation? The Founding Fathers didn't. James Madison, author of the U.S. Constitution, actually proposed a clause that would have "incorporated" some of the BOR and made them applicable to the states. It was voted down.
But you want the USSC to apply the second amendment to the states? Really?
You realize that once they do, they, and they alone, interpret and define the second amendment for all the states.
You know, like they do with the incorporated first amendment. Nude dancing is protected speech and must be allowed in every state, Christ in a glass of pi$$ is art, "separation of church and state" is the law of the land, no political speech within 30 days of an election is constitutional, etc. Yeah, those rulings. They apply to every state.
And you want five justices to interpret the second amendment, knowing full well there has been only one (1) lower court ruling (5th Circuit) that has interpreted the second amendment as an individual right (Emerson). Every other court has ruled it a "collective right" or a right associated with a militia.
Do you want some future liberal supreme Court to rule that concealed carry violates the rights of others to feel secure in their persons -- that it is an encroachment on their liberty, or some such nonsense?
Or sure. Here it comes. "That's why we need our guns. To put a stop to this nonsense. To start over with a new government."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Save that for your next Militia meeting. 'Cause it ain't gonna happen and you know it. Guns will be leeched away over a period of decades.
Frog in the pot of water, doncha know.
Authorized and empowered by whom?
It's very clear -- authorized and empowered by "hereby".
Sheesh!
Well then, that explains it all. For a minute there, it looked like Congress was authorizing and empowering someone else to do something it didn't have the authority or power to do itself. I can only imagine the semantic gymnastics involved in explaining how that works.
The Founding Fathers would be spinning in their graves, knowing that there's people like you who wish to give this kind of power to a branch of the federal government -- the power to disarm every citizen, perhaps leaving male citizens 18-45 with single-shot, .22 caliber rifles to meet some liberal-defined minimal constitutional requirements.
Who's the gun grabber here, Mrs. Brady? I see right through you, sneaking into this thread, wanting to overturn the second amendment by having the federal government define our rights.
Go away. Go play with your dolls.
Um...you're the one trying to give that power to someone.
We're all pointing out that the Constitution explicitly, via the "shall not be infringed" clause, totally forbids the federal government (judges included) and all subordinate jurisdictions from limiting the right to keep and bear arms.
Any judge ruling counter to "shall not be infringed" is violating the Constitution. Nobody has been, or can be, delegated any power to usurp "shall not be infringed".
But you're the one arguing that the states can do exactly that.
What part of "shall not be infringed", the Supremacy Clause, the 9th Amendment, the 10th Amendment, 14th Amendment, "swear to uphold the Constitution", and "inalienable rights" don't you understand?
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