Posted on 05/11/2002 10:23:17 AM PDT by forest
Don't bet your life on it. The military has fired on citizens in many instances. Look at the Bonus war, the early labor union conflicts, Kent State, WACO and that is just from memory.
Name them.
He can't, he won't. Squirm time.
I have. No you dont do the "cite" game because you are determined to remain in ignorant bliss. You are all thrust and no parry.
The lament of the factless.
It seems to me that clearly the Second Amendment RESTRICTS THE GOVERNMENT from any infringements on the PEOPLE where personally owned firearms are concerned.
So what form of 'restriction' would be considered Constitutional? It would seem to me that all citizens who are living free among our populace would be equally endowed these aleged 'unalienable rights' No ?
I?ll try to answer in general terms because to get too specific would require a lot of writing.
Back in the FDR era, we had two major problems inflicted on us: The unconstitutional federal regulatory bureaucracy and another set of laws collectively known as the "War and Emergency Powers Act." These are entwined significantly. So, today, everyone in Washington knows that the federal government is tromping all over all of our so called "unalienable" rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Both the Senate and the House had very enlightening hearings on this problem a few years ago.
After a 1973 Senate Church Committee hearing, the preamble to the report let off with the words: "A majority of the people of the United States have lived all their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency."
It gets better, though. The Senate committee had the Attorney General testify and they grilled him about this. The Attorney General stated: "This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal constitutional processes. Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communications; regulate the operation of private enterprises; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens."
As Senator Church commented in the same document (Senate Report 93-549 of 1973): "If the President can create crimes by fiat and without congressional approval, our system is not much different from that of the Communists, which allegedly threatens our existence. These powers, if exercised, would confer upon the President total authority to do anything he pleased."
The problem was, Congress had already been using some of those very same unconstitutional laws to create other unconstitutional law for 40 years!
Justice Thomas is the only member of the Supreme Court to address this problem since 1936. But, one out of nine doesn't help much.
Now . . . as to why the Justice Department asked the Court to not hear Emerson; that's easy. Historically, Government seldom wants the Court to hear a case that could overturn federal law. That's about all there is to that.
Because, once the Court gets the case, it could have the opportunity to overturn many such laws. It all depends on how narrowly or widely the majority opinion is written. Five Justices with a burr up their asses about a topic could overturn 50 years of law Justice thought was written in stone. So, they never want the Court to hear such a case.
And, by the way, the Court has already signaled -- repeatedly -- that it is willing to reexamine federal law on interstate commerce and those associated laws (which includes gun laws). They are just looking for the right case. Is Emerson it? I don't know.
Some background on this can be found at: http://209.15.142.23/reports/headsup/state98.htm That text came about after one of Clinton's State of the Union speeches that got me off on a major rant. Later, it became a book outline, but I never found an agent willing to handle it. The material was just too hot back then.
What's the matter TPAINE are you getting all frustrated? LMAO I am becoming convinced that you are a closet commie.
The bottom line in all this is that we aren't going to win the RKBA battle in the courts. We must winit at the election booth. No matter what the USSC may or may not do with Emerson, for all practical purposes the feds and the states are still going to be able to place a lot of restrictions and regulations on guns unless we have the political power to prevent that from happening. All the parties involved in this issue, courts, lawyers, etc, are saying that "some" restrictions are allowable even if the 2nd is upheld as protecting an individual right. That means they will pass almost any law they want and the courts will uphold them.
They don't have to actually outlaw guns, they only have to make it so expensive and difficult to own them that most people won't bother. That means that we have to fight this battle in the hearts and minds of the American voters, just as we always have. We just have to get much better at it.
Go to SAF.org and check it out for yourself if you have a good hour. They have everything linked that you could want to read, even Emerson's signed BATF form when he bought the Beretta that eventually led to his legal troubles.
The political arena takes work but it provides the possibilty of victories. The work done against David Roberti here in California provides an example of what such efforts can accomplish.
The FEDERAL government.
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