Cause for optimism

D

DC

Moderator Emeritus
X-POP-To: doncicci@mobsters.com
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 18:10:35 -0500
From: Gun Owners of America <goamail@gunowners.org>
Reply-To: Gun Owners of America <goamail@gunowners.org>
To: goamail@gunowners.org
Subject: Brady Repeal, Gun Lawsuits, And More
X-Mailer: Gun Owners of America's registered AK-Mail 3.0b [eng]

Rep. Paul Reintroduces Full Brady Repeal
-- Other pro-gun bills picking up steam

Gun Owners of America E-Mail/FAX Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

(March 19, 1999) - The last two weeks have seen a frenzy of
pro-gun bills introduced in Congress, thus giving gun owners much to
cheer about. While the total number of bills introduced may seem
small-- and pale in comparison to the number of anti-gun bills in
the hopper-- there is much encouragement in seeing new faces showing
up to the battle, ready to take on the Schumers in Congress.

No Gun Owner Tax or Registration. Pro-gun Rep. Tom Coburn
(R-OK) is the newest leader in the fight to reclaim lost ground. He
joined Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) by introducing identical legislation
this week that will begin rolling back the unconstitutional Brady
law. The Smith-Coburn bills (S. 597 and H.R. 1178) will help
protect gun owners by putting a halt to the FBI's dangerous tax and
registration schemes. As mentioned in last week's alert, these two
bills do much more than just set restrictions on the FBI--
restrictions that might otherwise be ignored by that agency. Their
bills contain teeth, since private individuals will be specifically
authorized to sue the FBI for any violations of privacy under the
Brady Law and will be able to receive compensation for attorney's
fees.

The Smith-Coburn bills represent a good first step-- a step
which Congress can realistically take this Congress. Smith's
provision passed with a veto-proof majority last year, and it is
likely that the House could follow its lead this year by passing the
Coburn bill. On the Senate side, grassroots activism has now helped
S. 597 garner seven cosponsors, including Senators Burns (MT), Craig
(ID), Enzi (WY), Grams (MN), Inhofe (OK), Murkowski (AK) and
Sessions (AL).

Ultimately, of course, true defenders of freedom realize that
the entire Brady Law-- including the unconstitutional Instant
Check-- must be repealed. The surest way to safeguard the Second
Amendment and prevent abuses of gun owners' rights is to completely
wipe anti-gun legislation of this type off the books.

Full Brady Registration Repeal. And to this end, Rep. Ron Paul
(R-TX) has reintroduced his bill to repeal the entire Brady Law.
But H.R. 1179 will not only repeal the Brady registration law, it
also eliminates the 1994 semi-auto ban and the limitation on
magazine capacity. Moreover, the bill repeals all the gun control
from the 1994 crime bill, including the provision allowing the BATF
to act as "zoning cops." This latter provision has been used by the
BATF to put over 100,000 gun dealers out of business. Finally, H.R.
1179 removes the "sporting purposes" test which was recently used by
the Clinton and Bush administrations to ban many firearms from
importation.

Pulling the trigger on anti-gun lawsuits. GOA alerted you two
weeks ago that legislation aimed at stopping the anti-gun lawsuits
would soon be introduced in Congress. Indeed, Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA)
has introduced H.R. 1032 to stop the suits being filed by the
country's mayors. His bill already has 40 cosponsors. In the
Senate, Bob Smith (NH) will be introducing a similar bill in the
very near future. Please stay tuned.

ACTION: Make sure you express your support to your
representatives and senators in Washington (202-225-3121 voice,
http://www.gunowners.org/h106th.htm and
http://www.gunowners.org/s106th.htm for fax and e-mail info)
regarding the bills above. In the following weeks, GOA will be
providing activists with postcards that can be distributed to
friends and family so as to generate even more "heat" on
representatives. Keep watching for further GOA alerts that will
inform you when these materials are ready

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
Were Ron Paul's efforts successful; did the Brady Law get repealed? Does effort count if you don't accomplish much?

On a side note.... I clocked myself once - from the moment my pen touched Federal Form 4473, to the moment I got the thumbs-up, I waited less than 10 minutes. There were three people ahead of me.

If this email is from 1999, then NICS was already in effect, yes?
 
Were Ron Paul's efforts successful; did the Brady Law get repealed? Does effort count if you don't accomplish much?
Click to expand...
Ron Paul cannot help it if most other Congresspersons do not know and/or care what is constitutional. But it does demonstrate that Ron Paul stands on the same principles now as he did then.

On a side note.... I clocked myself once - from the moment my pen touched Federal Form 4473, to the moment I got the thumbs-up, I waited less than 10 minutes. There were three people ahead of me.
Click to expand...

Wow. Less than ten minutes for your government to bestow upon you and three other serfs the privilege of purchasing a firearm.
 
Ultimately, of course, true defenders of freedom realize that
the entire Brady Law-- including the unconstitutional Instant
Check-- must be repealed.
Click to expand...

So if one doesn't believe that the instant check is unconstitutional, he or she is not a "true defender of freedom" according to the GOA? :rolleyes:

Is there a compelling state interest in preventing those who have been convicted of felonies, or who have been adjudicated as mentally imcompetent and posing a danger to themselves or others, from purchasing a firearm? Is there a less-restrictive alternative to the instant check?

I know, I'm one of those pesky false defenders of freedom, but has the GOA addressed these legal questions? Perhaps these questions shouldn't apply (I'm no legal expert), so maybe I'm wrong and an untrue defender of freedom....
 
The NICS check is prior restraint. After studying this doctrine, I've had to reverse my previous opinions that it is.

We've often heard this claim, but those who have advocated this view don't seem to understand what the term means. So, here is the legal definition:

Prior Restraint is a legal doctrine that stems from unconstitutional interference with (including a complete ban upon) free speech, first articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697 (1931). Free speech and free press protections have almost absolute priority. The exceptions are if public security or public safety are endangered.

Almost all cases that deal with Prior Restraint, deal with free speech. So let's see if a case can be made that the NICS is prior restraint:

The Government has a compelling interest in seeing to both the public security and the public safety that those on the "prohibited persons" list (GCA of '68) cannot acquire firearms from commercial sources.

NICS therefore, is not a Prior Restraint as defined and used by the Courts since 1931.

NICS is for all practical purposes, a reasonable regulation on an individual right. It passes the strict scrutiny test, in that it is narrowly tailored and the least restrictive means to ensure the above goal.

While it can be argued that gun owners are not a suspect class and strict scrutiny does not therefore apply, since the regulation passes that test, it also therefore passes the intermediate scrutiny and rational basis tests.

In other words, it passes all the criteria that the Supreme Court uses to test the Constitutionality of a law or regulation, both by the States (14A - Equal Protection) and the Federal Government (5A - Due Process). The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is not going to go away.
 
?

The idea that convicted felons and legally adjudicated nutcases should have a constitutional right to bear arms is not likely to gain a great deal of public support.

That's because it doesn't make much objective sense.

Other than that, the prospect of rolling back anti-gun legislation is a very good thing.
 
If my memory serves me correctly, the initial thing with the Brady law was that you had to wait a few days before completing your firearms purchase, as the background check was making its slow paperwork process. NICS made the whole thing take a few minutes, and was/is usually error-free.

If this bill that RP created was created in the days when you had to wait those few days, then yeah sure - that sounds reasonable. But this bill was created when NICS was working... so... what was the point?

Wow. Less than ten minutes for your government to bestow upon you and three other serfs the privilege of purchasing a firearm.
Click to expand...

I feel that the argument in this thread is going to drift into that "slippery slope" angle. So before it does, tell me - what is so terribly wrong with having to wait a few minutes?

Sometimes in politics, when so-called "gun grabber" people are in control of 2 out 3 branches of government, it's better to give a little ground than to fight it all and lose everything (nudge, GOA). Pick the right battles. "Well at least we tried and never compromised" won't cut it.
 
I don't agree that the NICS check is unconstitutional. Nor is it a bad idea. Just as long as they don't delay past the 72 hours under ANY circumstances, and if Lauternberg/domestic issues were removed from the check. I suppose, AS IMPLEMENTED with Lauterberg, I think that it IS unconstitutional. But wouldn't be if Lautenberg were removed.
 
The longest I have had to wait is about 10 minutes and that was because all the phone lines were in use.
 
I believe that NICS is unconstitutional precisely because it is a prior restraint. Most gun control laws are exactly prior restraint.

Interesting to note that there are others who feel differently about felons and their rights as well. Clayton Cramer has written exensively on it, but if self-defense is a natural human right, and if a felon is a human, and if they are no longer in state custody because they have been "rehabilitated" does the state have the right to remove his right of worship, or censor his writings or letters to the editor, or search his home without a warrant or confiscate his property without due process? What about if the state wants to quarter troops in his home?

Felons today aren't what they used to be. While some are still gruesome murderers and rapists, many are tax evaders and indeed people who were in no way violating the rights of others such as those in possession of marijuana. The things that we are making felonies today are not those things that the founders thought of as felonies.

So I believe that NICS is completely unconstitutional. Keeping felons from buying a gun is a prior restraint designed to restrict behavior of somebody prior to a crime being committed (in this case, the purchase of the weapon) and it makes gun salesmen enforcers of the law rather than law enforcement personell (also outlawed and upheld in Printz V Reno).

That's my 2 cents.
 
kjm said:
and it makes gun salesmen enforcers of the law rather than law enforcement personell (sic)
Click to expand...
Like being any kind of merchant makes you a tax collector but not a tax agent...

I think an argument might be made on the prior restraint angle, but only in those states that require all gun transfers to go through an FFL. Otherwise, private party sales are the deal that kills prior restraint.
 
i see that the people here who support the NICS dont seem to care that it doesnt work, despite silly claims to the contrary. if the check works so well, how is it that felons are still able to easily get guns? they also seem to not care that thousands of people every year are falsely denied and have to fight to get their rights back. tell me, if it doesnt work, and it infringes on legal gun buyers rights, why should we keep it? sounds like brady logic to me.
 
The NICS check is prior restraint. After studying this doctrine, I've had to reverse my previous opinions that it is.

We've often heard this claim, but those who have advocated this view don't seem to understand what the term means. So, here is the legal definition:

Prior Restraint is a legal doctrine that stems from unconstitutional interference with (including a complete ban upon) free speech, first articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697 (1931). Free speech and free press protections have almost absolute priority. The exceptions are if public security or public safety are endangered.

Almost all cases that deal with Prior Restraint, deal with free speech. So let's see if a case can be made that the NICS is prior restraint:

The Government has a compelling interest in seeing to both the public security and the public safety that those on the "prohibited persons" list (GCA of '68) cannot acquire firearms from commercial sources.

NICS therefore, is not a Prior Restraint as defined and used by the Courts since 1931.

NICS is for all practical purposes, a reasonable regulation on an individual right. It passes the strict scrutiny test, in that it is narrowly tailored and the least restrictive means to ensure the above goal.

While it can be argued that gun owners are not a suspect class and strict scrutiny does not therefore apply, since the regulation passes that test, it also therefore passes the intermediate scrutiny and rational basis tests.

In other words, it passes all the criteria that the Supreme Court uses to test the Constitutionality of a law or regulation, both by the States (14A - Equal Protection) and the Federal Government (5A - Due Process). The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is not going to go away.
Click to expand...

tell me - what is so terribly wrong with having to wait a few minutes?
Click to expand...

Amendment II states, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

NICS is an infringement in my opinion. And unlike Amendment I where it states that Congress shall pass no law, Amendment II states, "shall not be infringed," which to me, because it does not specifically state Congress or anyone else, then even my State government and other local governments have no constitutional power to infringe on my right to keep and bear arms. Although they do it anyway. Anything that encroaches upon my RKBA is an infringement to me.
 
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