Posted on 02/21/2010 9:46:46 AM PST by fight_truth_decay
We all predicted this would happen.
In a move typical for that fear-mongering organization with an ever-swelling acronym, the BATFE has written gun dealers in the states of Montana and Tennessee to let them know the BATFE will be disregarding the states' sovereign gun laws.
The "Montana Made" law, just like Tennessee's Firearms Freedom Act, is very simple.
Much of the claimed federal authority to regulate firearm sales and transfers stems from a liberal interpretation of every American tyrant's favorite subterfuge, the "interstate commerce" clause. In essence, this is what gives the BATFE its nasty teeth.
With this in mind, Montana correctly understood that any weapon made in Montana by Montana residents and sold in Montana to Montana residents is Montana's business and Montana's business alone.
Montana thus sought to take charge of its firearms industry with the application of a simple truism:
Any gun made in Montana by Montana residents and sold in Montana to Montana residents is intrastate commerce, not "interstate commerce," and thus does not full under the purview of the federal government.
Potentially, the state would be able to say goodbye to NICS checks; Brady background checks; NFA taxes, bans and NFA databases -- and most importantly, federal "assault weapons" bans, which Montana and Tennessee rightly anticipated.
In effect, the "Montana Made" law would have permitted Montana gun companies to manufacture any kind of weapon banned by federal law -- including so-called "assault weapons" -- and sell them to fellow Montana residents.
Moreover, in this scenario, no one -- neither the manufacturer nor the dealer nor the buyer -- would have to kowtow to the BATFE by paying them a $200 tax and surrendering one's privacy to their notoriously inaccurate and oft-abused National Firearms Registry.
It was a new day for freedom -- and other states besides Tennessee were thinking of following suit: Alaska, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.
Well, the BATFE -- never one to have its power downplayed (or acronym belittled)-- has written letters to both Montana and Tennessee gun dealers letting them know that they proceed at their own risk.
We can only guess what new horrors those words portend -- probably more dead housewives and children as disgruntled ATF thugs shoot-to-kill anyone suspected of perhaps owning a firearm not properly taxed and regulated by Washington, D.C., power brokers.
What else would be new.
A few of our members expressed interest in contacting the BATFE to vent some righteous anger -- the same thing we did when the Department of Defense said they were going to ban all once-fired military brass for resale.
Remember how the DoD reneged on that commitment after just a few days due to the widespread backlash from gun owners and law enforcement?
Well, this is a bit different. Writing the ATF and providing them with your information is akin to giving thieves your home address and the hours you won't be home.
We're going to take a different, less dangerous approach.
We've been talking to state officials from both Montana and Tennessee today to try to figure out the best way we can help these state laws succeed.
For now, click here to read Luke's commentary on his blog and leave a comment as this development unfolds.
*Snip
In Liberty,
Dudley Brown Executive Director National Association for Gun Rights
You’ll find that answer in case law. No doubt the gov. was hit with lawsuits and the issue has been settled.
First of all, if you are in Montana don’t be the test case. Not worth losing your life over, and when push comes to shove the state cops won’t stop the ATF boys either.
Second, be careful what you wish for. If Montana can blow the ATF, then Chicago’s gun ban is valid for similar reasons.
Third, if the interstate commerce clause holds for a man growing wheat on his own farm to feed to his own livestock, it will hold to someone making a gun for sale in Montana.
Well now, hang on, I think we might have a horses for courses situation here. If the residents of CA, NY, and NJ like licking boots that much, the eviction of the BATFE from all the other states will just give them that many more to lick. See, everyone's happy. I fail to see the problem.
Thomas got a federalism case wrong? This I gotta see. Which case?
I had another poster tell me that I was mistaken and that it was Scalia.
I could have sworn it was Thomas but I haven't taken the time yet to verify it.
The case was federal control over states that wanted to legalize pot, the SCOTUS ruled fed law trumped State law in this circumstance, it was in the last few years, I think.
I think the case you both have in mind is Gonzales v. Raich. Thomas wrote a strong dissent.
See Post 73 on this thread for a link to the case and some very brief excerpts.
Oh, no, I’m quite [nauseatingly] familiar with Raich. I thought LVG had a case where Thomas voted for statism. Of course, he did vote against Bean. I think he even wrote that one.
I am in Tennessee and the law doesn’t read as they say. NFA weapons are not in the state sovereignty law. I asked my representative what the state would do when the ATF inevitably decided that the state law meant nothing. She didn’t really have an answer. I’ll ask again.
If this is the case at hand, I can see how a reporter might have gotten it wrong.
I distinctly remember what was said because I was so surprised by it.
I hope to find out it was wrong because Scalia and Thomas are my favorites and I was really disappointed.
Oops, also meant to say thank you for posting that :)
Well then, don't scratch into the Heller case (DC gun law overturned), where you'll find out what a dishonest hack Scalia is when it comes to the 2nd amendment.
And too, note in my post 73 that SCOTUS ordered the 9th Circuit to use the logic of Raich (fed law trumps state law) to uphold a Stewart's conviction for making and possessing a homemade machine gun. From top to bottom, the feds are corrupt on 2nd amendment matters - all three branches, not one honest person in the entire lot, as far as I can tell.
I didn't dig too deep into that decision but I've read discussions about it.
I was mostly happy it went the way it did, it might have been a small step but at least it was in the right direction.
It's just hard for me to find the time and study all of the detail of everything that is happening, there is just too much.
I kind of suspect that is done on purpose though, every day there's a 100 new thing to try and keep up on, it's impossible. Thanks for your input.
Yes I did and I decided not to ping the group because there wasn't anything I could find we haven't been over already. Still in all a well attended thread from outside the ping list. GOOD news.
I think you need to do more research.
Weaver was entrapped by Federal operatives who instructed him to cut off the shotgun he sold them at a particular place on the barrel and then threatened prosecution in order to try to get him to roll over on an alleged white supremacist group in the area. They wanted him to be an informant on his neighbors and the alleged NFA violation was the leverage. (Where do you measure the length of a shotgun barrel from?)
The Feds underestimated Weaver, who would not play ball and who failed to appear in court over the incident. The Feds staked him out, which led to gunplay and the rest of the incident.
Weaver subsequently won his freedom and a significant lawsuit for the wrongful death of his wife at the hands of "Hostage Rescue Team" sniper Lon Horiuchi, who was promoted. Gerry Spence represented Weaver pro bono, even though he did not agree with many of weaver's beliefs, because he felt there were serious issues of Government misbehaviour.
As for Waco, the 'official' line during the Waco investigation, used in Congressional testimony, was that grenade casings had spilled from a ruptured package and allegedly the BATF was going to investigate the possibility of illicit destructive devices.
It was well known that one of the cottage industries of the Branch Davidians was presenting, among other things, novelty items like the "complaint Dept.--take a number" grenade mounetd on a wood base with a numbered tag on the pin.
BATF agents, on a fishing expedition interviewed one of the dealers the Branch Davidians bought firearms from, who called Koresh in the presence of the ATF agents and Koresh offered for the agents to come inspect the firearms present there. The agents declined that offer.
No one has been able to testify that there was a copy of a warrant present at the Waco raid, and the official versions of the story vary. The front (metal) door, which could have established who shot first was not recovered according to the official account.
The BATF is notorious for altering arms siezed as evidence, and there is no evidence of fully automatic weapons or select-fire weapons existing at Mt. Carmel prior to the raid. Reports of what 'sounded like machine gun fire' were shown to be the product of a legal trigger actuator mounted on semi-automatic firearms.
The body count alone, and the dynamics of the failed assault indicate an absence of automatic weapons in the hands of Davidians: the BATF should have lost far more people on a raid that size if the Davidians had had the 46 or so claimed automatic weapons at the onset of hostilities, especially considering that the Davidians knew in advance of the raid, and the BATF knew they knew (the phone line was tapped), but went ahead anyway.
Hardly the actions of someone who thinks they are facing a hostile and well equipped force with automatic weapons.
Please check into the raid more, in both cases, and do not rely on sources like CNN for your information. During the Congressional hearings, with a 5 minute rule, CNN would show the Democrat's thespian antics, then cut to commercial for the duration of the Republican questioning, then back to the hearings for five (democrat questioning) minutes, then back to commercial (for the Republican questions)...
I was aware of CNN's pro-Clinton bias, but admittedly was shocked at such blatant censorship of what was going on.
C-SPAN carried the hearings the first day, then after the end of Special orders in the House, which ended any time from 6PM Central to Midnight, and the portions which were televised ran anywhere from an hour to six, so it was almost impossible to catch the hearings on tape unless you stayed awake and watched them.
The cover-up (which is what that was) reeked.
Irrelevant (to the jurisdiction of the BATF) stories were circulated in the media regarding rumors of everything from a meth lab to child abuse, which were used to sway public opinion against the Davidians (a relatively obscure church group, a branch of the Seventh Day Adventists) and frame them as a cult out of control.
Had the objective been to arrest David Koresh, he could have been picked up jogging, and all the bloodshed, the siege, and subsequent holocast (burning the building, evidence, bodies, and all but a few of the survivors to that point) could have been avoided.
IMHO, this was an illegitimate, grandstanding operation which went sour.
Were Koresh, with hostile intent and forewarning, in command of fifty or so adults capable of wielding the two Barrets and the 46 (claimed by the BATF afterwards) fully automatic weapons, with a half hour to organize, people would have been at the windows with automatic rifles and an ample supply of ammunition, the Barrets would have been located to take out the two pickups acting as tow vehicles, and the remainder would have been instructed to sweep the canvas-covered cattle trailers the BATF used to ferry in the agents from back to front, trapping the live ones amidst and behind the dead and dying. That would have been an "ambush".
That did not happen.
Instead there was dialogue at the front door, a 911 phone call to try to get someone to "call it off" (which incidentally, exposes the wiretap), and then scattered and building resistance to the attack which led to only four Federal assault force fatalaties. Had the Davidians had the assets claimed, and with a half hour forewarning (a TV crew asked the postman, who was a Davidian, how to get to Mount Carmel because there was going to be a big raid there and they were there to film it, the postman phoned Mt Carmel and told them), with forethought and malice ambushed the BATF, there might have been four survivors, not four fatalities.
A critical look at events does not bear up the official story, and the later news magazine versions of what happened there are even further off the mark, and significantly distorted.
“And too, note in my post 73 that SCOTUS ordered the 9th Circuit to use the logic of Raich (fed law trumps state law) to uphold a Stewart’s conviction for making and possessing a homemade machine gun. From top to bottom, the feds are corrupt on 2nd amendment matters - all three branches, not one honest person in the entire lot, as far as I can tell. “
Federal law can only trump State law where Federal law is constitutional permitted.
And your rights one of the main reason none of the bill of rights really applied to the States was to keep the Federal government from abusing it to usurp the rights of the States.
One way or the other Montana need to ignore the Federal court ruling against its peoples gun rights just as California did.
If the court doesn’t want to act like a court they should not be treated like one. This is not anarchy, this is law and order as determined and enforced by the elected government and authority of the people.
The Federal court has no authority to rule itself or its appointers new unconstitutional powers. We cannot as freedom loving men and women in good judgment respect the acts of a such a tyrant.
California showed us the way, let us follow.
The only reason CA gets away with flouting federal pot laws, is a policy decision by the feds to not enforce the federal pot laws. "On the law books," federal law trumps the state.
The policy decision regarding enforcement of gun laws is to enforce them with vigor. Stewart was convicted, his conviction was upheld, and he may be in jail today, for all I know.
-- The Federal court has no authority to rule itself or its appointers new unconstitutional powers. We cannot as freedom loving men and women in good judgment respect the acts of a such a tyrant. --
I agree that it lacks the rational logic and moral authority. But the feds are asserting rule of law by subterfuge and the power of brute force. Overwhelming brute force works as an authority too. The US is just a glorified banana republic.
I think you mean Lon Horiuchi
” The only reason CA gets away with flouting federal pot laws, is a policy decision by the feds to not enforce the federal pot laws. “On the law books,” federal law trumps the state.”
indeed this policy choice was not the case until Obama took office, California has been ignoring the Federal pot acts for a lot longer then that and doing so quite successfully. Despite the so called “War on drugs” the feds have not the resources to seriously enforce domestic laws.
This is made more evident seeing how California is by far not the only state doing this, a great many states are ignoring the Unconstitutional federal drug acts. as a result the Federal government already finite enforcement resources were are already heavily taxed.
Montana and Tennessee merely need to wait for more of the rest of the conservative states to follow suit, and regardless of Federal enforcement of unconstitutional federal laws, it will be for the most part legal.
“
The policy decision regarding enforcement of gun laws is to enforce them with vigor. Stewart was convicted, his conviction was upheld, and he may be in jail today, for all I know.”
There are many people in California and many other states who were similarly persecuted, but many many more who were not.
“I agree that it lacks the rational logic and moral authority. But the feds are asserting rule of law by subterfuge and the power of brute force. Overwhelming brute force works as an authority too. The US is just a glorified banana republic.”
That there is the issue, the Federal government was never meant to have the “power of brute force” to enforce domestic laws like this as they were never meant to have domestic laws like this peroid.
Despite the unconstitutional existents of the ATF, FBI, ect... The Federal “law enforcement” forces are still relativity few in number.
In our efforts to nully their unconstitutional acts we need merely to wait until enough of our sister states have done like wise to create such a large area of “civil disobedience” as to render their unconstitutional act practically dead and thus powerless.
Eventually congress will stop wanting to spend money in purest to power they are not effectually obtaining, and repeal the law.
“Case law does not change the powers of Government. Our Government was designed to have only those power specifically enumerated by the constitution. If they have usurped additional powers, and even if the USSC agrees with those usurpations, it is still not a legitimate power of Government. “
This is true, common law case law is suppose to take into account 3 equal factors:
1: Written law (literal meaning).
2: Past custom/practice (practical law)
3: Past ruling precedence(past rulings).
In an effort to empower themselves to make their own law, the Federal court has ignored parts 1 and 2 in-favor of the otherwise law making power of part 3.
This is a usurpation of our rights and fundamental abuses of common law, which does not place past precedence above both past practice/custom and written law.
Their placing of part #3 above both parts #1 and #2 makes the supposition that the court is infallible, that the law abiding citizens are wrong(part #2) and that the legislator does not make the laws it intends to make(#1).
This is wrong as it is a betrayal of Common law it is also a betrayal of all constitutional law.
if #3 is to be taken above both #1 and #2, then the court thou rulings is itself able to make law. #3 as you will note is the only one in which the court itself makes.
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