Posted on 05/04/2002 9:19:51 AM PDT by mvpel
...[s]avings could result from the potential reduction in crime resulting from a larger number of citizens possessing firearms for self-defense.
No offense intended.
This is too vauge and open to abuse. What does "strict scrutiny" mean, the DA read it twice before going to bed?
For most people, the logic behind forbidding a nutcase, child, or violent criminal from carrying firearms in public is clear. The issue of unconstitutional Federal overreaching aside, California also has such laws.
Not all of us are content to wait for a SCOTUS RKBA ruling that may never come, while California's gun rights are eroded further and further as gun rights activists in the state fight a losing rear-guard battle against the likes of Senator Perata.
In order to satisfy strict scrutiny, a law must be neither vague nor substantially over- or underinclusive. (See Schad v. Mount Ephraim (1981) 452 U.S. 61, 71-74 [68 L.Ed.2d 671, 682-684]; City of Indio v. Arroyo (1983) 143 Cal.App.3d 151, 157.) It must further an overriding state interest yet be drawn with narrow specificity to avoid any unnecessary intrusion on First Amendment rights. (McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Com., supra, 514 U.S. [131 L.Ed.2d at p. 440]; H-CHH Associates v. Citizens for Representative Government (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 1193, 1207.)
Right-on !!
Stop the attacks on our God given Rights by the extreme wacko left !!
Guns Save Lives !!
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed !!
An Armed Citizen, Is A Safe Citizen !!
No Guns, No Rights !!
Molon Labe !!
BTW, that wasn't snippy coming from me. Believe it or not, I was really trying to be apologetic for interfering with your state's business. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
The problem is that due to the way the initiative process works, we have to get this on the ballot then get a majority of the state to vote for it.
The current state of affairs in California jurisprudence is that one has a constitutional right to defend life and liberty as set forth in article 1, section 1, but you don't have a right to use a gun to do so:
If plaintiffs [gun owners] are implying that a right to bear arms is one of the rights recognized in the California Constitution's declaration of rights, they are simply wrong. No mention is made in it of a right to bear arms.
[Kasler v. Lockyer (2000)]
If we just put forth an initiative stating "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," the first hurdle would be to get anyone to vote for it in the face of hysterical and heavily financed fear-mongering put forth by the likes of Brady, McKelvy, and Sugarman, and the second hurdle would be to fend off the judicial jokers who argue that "bearing arms" means only in a military context. The wording of the Second Amendment hasn't done us much good thus far, has it?
I mean, out here we have California National Guardsmen, the only people truly protected by the Second Amendment according to our Federal District Court, being pulled from duty because they can't pass their firearms proficiency tests, most likely because they are no longer allowed to purchase AR-15 rifles with which to practice thanks to Senator Perata's SB-23. If the Second Amendment doesn't even protect National Guardsmen's ownership of AR-15 rifles, you can see the predicament we're in out here. We have no recourse in the courts, a fact further underscored by the Calif. Supreme Court decision regarding gun show preemption.
Section 2 takes away the biggest bludgeon that the lying, cheating, craven anti-gun crowd can use against us. It shows "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," to borrow a phrase from the Declaration of Independence, and gives us that much more of a chance to get it passed. Tying it to the existing right to defend life and liberty in Article I, Section 1, rather than having it stand alone, is another such strategy. It puts the gun-haters in the untenable position of arguing against the established right to defense of life and liberty.
I'd be very interested to read further detail regarding your disagreement with Section 2. What do you envision happening? Why do you see these exemptions as hooks on which to hang further infringements?
The restraining order exemption requires a finding of violent conduct before it applies. They would have a very hard time defining the age of a "minor" upwards, since that would affect voting rights. Felons are already subject to a raft of regulations restricting their rights, including their right to vote, and exemping firearms from such regulation is a non-starter. And finally, "mentally incompotent" has a specific legal definition in California just like "strict scrutiny" does. It's set forth in another section of the California code, and redefining it would have a similar kind of ripple effect that redefining "minor" would.
I can't see the good in enacting an amendment which says in effect" the right of citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except when politicians decide that it should be infringed." There is no justification for disarming anyone who is the subject of a restraining order. That hook, added to your amendment makes your amendment worthless.
IMO, the amendment reading as you stated" The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is perfect. You're going to be atacked by hysterical commies no matter what you propose, so why propose something which contains any concession to them at all? I would submit it the way you described it in one sentence and let them stop it if they can. All of this trying to control the outcome by anticipating the arguments of some people who should be hanged anyway is just going to guarantee failure.
Go on the attack. Leave the defensive posture to the commies for a change. Just my opinion, of course.
..."based upon their own violent conduct." If the restraining order is boilerplate or financial, with no finding of violent conduct, then the exemption does not apply. Disarming someone subject to a restraining order because that person has already conducted themselves in a violent manner is sensible, wouldn't you agree?
Plus, it prevents the Million Moms from keening that this amendment gives a license to kill to abusive husbands or some other such nonsense.
The point is to win back the right to armed self-defense, not to commit seppuku on the sword of uncompromising absolutist principles.
Out of curiosity, did you sign during the previous campaign? If not, I would be curious to know why not. I distributed and collected petitions. During the time allotted and with the time I could spend I was still coming up with ideas for reaching more voters.
When the new campaign starts, I will be prepared to move quickly (although one gun store from which I collected signatures has since closed up. ) That is, of course, if I have not yet left the state. Twelve months to early retirement.
They're already putting up billboards with a cute kid pointing a gun at his head down in LA. In Michigan, organizations from several states fought long and hard to prevent shall-issue from becoming reality, and waged an unsuccessful campaign to overturn it. Every single time, they've recycled the same old pack of lies they used when Florida went shall-issue - "blood in the streets," "dead children," "the Gunshine state," "shootings over parking spaces," - even when none of those predictions ever comes to pass.
Far from putting them on the defensive by going for the whole shooting match in the iniatiative, they have the money to put us on the defensive. We'd spend all our time trying to convince our neighbors that despite the glitzy multi-million dollar print, radio, and television ad campaign from VPC, HCI, AGS, etc, that no, it won't allow the crazy homeless guy who mutters to himself downtown carry a gun legally. No, this won't allow the wife-beater subject to a restraining order go out and buy and carry a gun legally. No, this won't allow children to carry guns to school legally. No, this won't let the paroled murderer who can't even vote buy and carry a gun legally. They have the money to set the terms of the debate, and we don't.
Because even if we went with a one-sentence amendment, all of those caveats would still be true due to state and federal law, and we'd pointlessly have spent enormous amounts of capital countering the well-funded lies of the anti-gunners.
It's not the three-cushion bank shots that have us in this position. When was the last time we tried even a one-cushion bank shot out here anyway? It's the politicians like Perata and Scott, and our Ninth Circus Federal District Court that ruled that there is no individual right, and the racists that drafted our Constitution with no RKBA in order to keep the "spics" and the "coolies" from claiming a right to arms. We haven't been making any shots, three cushion or no, we've been fighting a rear-guard battle against their shots against us.
If you want an unambiguous right to arms, including machine guns, there's Nevada to the east and Oregon to the north. In California, we don't even have the right to defend ourselves with firearms, and that's what we're trying to change. And thanks to the only process available to us to bypass the courts and legislature who are standing against us, we have to get a majority of California voters to support it. And in order to do that, I believe, we need to head the gun-haters off at the pass by preemptively framing the debate in terms of "mom, apple pie, and defense of self, family, and home."
What's the alternative? "En Attendant Emerson," as it were, while they crush us out of existence and drive us out of the state with a 25c per bullet ammo tax, Goldilocks gun bans, and discriminatory taxation and fees? It took them 9 years to rule on the Roberti-Roos "assault weapon" ban. How much longer can we fight a rear-guard legislative battle here in the face of the tide of anti-gun bills they keep churning out?
Getting Simon elected will give us some breathing room, I'll grant, but effective self-defense will still be against the law in most places in the state.
This is why I left the state of California. I can not see any hope for gun owners in California. You can always disobey the gun control laws if you want your freedoms but then you may face the consequences of ending up in prison for life or dead from a S.W.A.T. team's bullet.
My advice is to leave the state and let it go to a dunghole and then the people may elect some representatives who actually support the Constitution.
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