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Massachusetts Moves Step Closer to Confiscating Private Firearms
Massachusetts Legislature ^ | 11/26/05

Posted on 11/26/2005 12:43:07 PM PST by pabianice

In November, the Massachusetts House of Representatives moved favorably from committee H. 2125, which brings the state one step closer to its goal of the confiscation of privately owned firearms.

Under this bill, all private owners of handguns would have to register each handgun with the police and have a separate $ 250,000 liability insurance policy on each handgun or have that handgun confiscated (insurance professionals: care to estimate the cost of such a policy to the holder?). Each such insurance policy must cover the potential theft and unlawful use of the gun. If the policy is inadequate to cover any subsequent court judgment against the lawful gunowner, he will be thrown in jail for five years for each offense. In cases where a finding of fact and guilt is to be made, one member of any such committee must be a member of Stop Handgun Violence, Inc.

There's more. Anyone who sells someone more than one gun a month shall be imprisoned for up to life. However, this law will not apply to anyone under the age of 18.

Most disgustingly, this bill is being crammed through the Legislature under Homeland Security measures.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: bang; banglist; bradybunch; commies; confiscation; cwii; freedom; gungrab; kennedystate; massachusetts; secondamendment; swimmersstate; taxachussetts; teddytheswimmer; waronsomeguns
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To: archy

Thanks for the ping. And the link. Finland has a proud history of resisting tyranical governments.


201 posted on 12/03/2005 10:03:48 PM PST by Jack Black
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To: Jack Black

That is because the Supreme Court has incorporated the first Amend.


202 posted on 12/04/2005 5:09:29 AM PST by rollo tomasi (Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians.)
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To: Jack Black
Thanks for the ping. And the link. Finland has a proud history of resisting tyranical governments.

Yes. The cost, of course, will be the loss of around three to five per cent of the citizenry. That's of course a best-case scenario, assuming a short four-to-six month duration not likely to actually be the case.

At current U.S. population levels, that works out to around 15 million dead U.S, citizens.

I do not look forward to that prospect, but I would not be surprised to see it in my lifetime.

203 posted on 12/05/2005 10:50:06 AM PST by archy (The darkness will come. It will find you,and it will scare you like you've never been scared before.)
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To: rollo tomasi
Amendments are ratified by the States. Once they sign off on them, they are bound by them. No "incorporation" is necessary, unless you are trying to change the plain meaning of the Constitution by judicial malfeasance. Like many over the decades have tried to do.
204 posted on 01/18/2006 2:51:29 PM PST by Dead Corpse (Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be. -El Neil)
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To: beltfed308
Well Massachusetts has been sort of leery of individual firearms ownership from day one. Oh they have a second amendment like provision in their state constitution:

The people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defense

But as you can see, it doesn't protect the right, only asserts it, and it's limited to "for the common defense", which is the "loophole" which the elephant of gun control is strained through. Handguns, not useful for the common defense, short shotguns and rifles, ditto (although all three are common military issue weapons) and no need to for people to actually bear arms unless the commonwealth is invaded, since that would then be for personal not common defense, never mind that two of the 9-11 aircraft took off from Boston's Logan airport.

But what can you expect from a state which elects, and continually reelects, The Swimmer and The Waffler to be their US Senators?

205 posted on 01/18/2006 3:42:19 PM PST by El Gato (The Second Amendment is the Reset Button of the U.S. Constitution)
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To: freedumb2003
File an injunction and follow it up to SCOTUS (where we will win).

More likely the lower court will reject it, the appeals court will reject it, and the Supreme Court won't hear the case. It's happened before, many times.

206 posted on 01/18/2006 3:44:25 PM PST by El Gato (The Second Amendment is the Reset Button of the U.S. Constitution)
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To: William Creel
Sometimes it's the only way is to nullify the law by mass disobedience.

In general the courts have used the "cases and controversies" doctrine to reject such injunctions anyway. Someone has to actually be harmed by the law, that is they have to violate it and be arrested and charged, before the courts will take up the matter. For some reason they don't do that for most first amendment cases seeking similar injunctions. You can get an injunction to halt enforcement of a law banning urinating on the American Flag, but many have tried and failed to get injunctions baring enforcement of laws infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

207 posted on 01/18/2006 3:48:45 PM PST by El Gato (The Second Amendment is the Reset Button of the U.S. Constitution)
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To: Mark was here
Here in South Carolina, LEOs would have a problem as many I know would lose several of their personal firearms and couldn't afford this insurance.
208 posted on 01/18/2006 3:52:25 PM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult
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To: Monitor
Unless the Massachusetts Constitution has a "shall not be infringed" criteria in their document it citizens are at the mercy of the power whores who the electorate sent to represent the people of Massachusetts.

I like that story, but I do wish the reference to the National Guard were not in it. The closest thing to the National Guard would have been the Colonial Militia, very little of which (in Massachusetts at least) was loyalist. Smith and Gage were British Regulars, as where the troops that went on the confiscation/destruction mission to Lexington and Concord. Also along on the trek was Major Pitcairn, a Royal Marine officer. The follow up column, with that cannon, was led by Lord Percy, another British Regular.

Here's the story of the real incident, from a MA Army ROTC site.

209 posted on 01/18/2006 4:04:28 PM PST by El Gato (The Second Amendment is the Reset Button of the U.S. Constitution)
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To: Hardastarboard
I'm sure this will be balanced with one NRA member as well, of course.

Well, not the NRA per se, but it's Massachusetts state affillate, the Gun Owners Action League. Even in MA they couldn't get away with loading the panel that much.

210 posted on 01/18/2006 4:15:52 PM PST by El Gato (The Second Amendment is the Reset Button of the U.S. Constitution)
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To: Conservative4Ever
I still say the last good man to reside in Mass. was John Adams.

And I would even take issue with that, as Adams, for all the good he did during the Revolution, turned around and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts - and enforced the Sedition Act - a complete affront to the First Amendment.

211 posted on 01/18/2006 4:18:50 PM PST by dirtboy (My new years resolution is to quit using taglines...)
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To: pabianice
In cases where a finding of fact and guilt is to be made, one member of any such committee must be a member of Stop Handgun Violence, Inc.

"Committee?" This should surely say "jury," and you can't do that anyway.

212 posted on 01/18/2006 4:19:02 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: TeleStraightShooter
So your suggesting that not one of the the "Life, Liberty & Property" clauses of the 14th does not come into play in regard to owning a handgun in Mass?

Probably not, but the Privileges and Immunities clause, ,and probably the due process claus as well, of that amendment apply and extend the second amendment's protection of the RKBA to actions by state governments. That was an explicit intent expressed by the authors of the 14th amendment.

213 posted on 01/18/2006 4:19:28 PM PST by El Gato (The Second Amendment is the Reset Button of the U.S. Constitution)
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To: zbigreddogz
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
Benjamin Franklin
214 posted on 01/19/2006 8:38:24 AM PST by woollyone (...a closed mouth gathers no feet...)
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To: freedumb2003

Anarchy is not neccesarily a bad thing. Granted, if all law enforcement were to go on strike there would be a period wherein the bad guys would run rampant. After awhile though, the good guys would get fed up and stabilize things again.
Anti-gunners love to refer to "Dodge City" or "the wild west" as some sort of anarchistic 'boogy man,'but both were pretty tame compared to almost any major modern city. Yet there were no permanent police forces to keep order, only a sheriff or marshal who would deputize citizens when he needed them. Unlike today, ordinary citizens maintained order by stepping in and either stopping lawbreakers or by actually arresting them and transporting them to the sheriff's office.


215 posted on 01/19/2006 9:04:39 AM PST by oldfart ("All governments and all civilizations fall... eventually. Our government is not immune.)
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