Dem/NRA agreement.

Alan, to be kind, the GOA "alert" was inflammatory.

There was nothing controversial in this bill. Go ahead, call it gun control if you want. It was basicly a bit of house keeping as regards the NICS. It funded what it asked of the States. It gave back to the States a power it should have never taken. All in all, it is a non-sequitur.

I believe that you, sir, have bought into the GOA's paranoia.
 
Violating Federal Law is a crime, probably a felony. Thus, when the GCA of 1968 was enacted, the congressmen who voted for it and the President who signed it into law committed a crime. I personally believe that it should be listed as a "High Crime" as set forth under the rules for impeachment. Therefore the NFA of 1936 (I believe that was the date) is also a crime. Thus, also the "Brady Bill" is also a crime and Sarah Brady is guilty of incitement to a felony under the organized crime statutes.
This latest bill is also a crime for the same reasons. The NRA by being a willing party to the commission of this crime is guilty of "Aiding and Abetting" in the commission of a Federal Crime.
Until the amendment is repealed all "gun control" laws are in fact violations of Federal Law.

Does that add to the discussion enough for you WildAlaska. If not I look forward to your counter arguments.
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How about this counter argument:

Stop the silliness. We are trying to do some analysis here not engage in hysterical polemics.

Thats my counterargument. You would get the same if you were telling me the earth was flat :)


WildtreasonfelonyyikesAlaska
 
Mr. WildAlaska,

I thank you for calling my argument "silliness" and comparing it to the "Flat Earth Theory." Thus does indicate exactly the kind of discussion that you want. You choose to engage in derisive language rather than analyze the very simple idea that I put forth.
That argument was NOT "hysterical polemics" as you so flippantly stated. The idea that violating preexisting Federal Law being a crime is not new. It is, in fact, the basis of any federal prosecution. I do not think it unreasonable that elected officials by treated the same as you or I with regards to the law. Equal protection swings both ways. Fortunately the U.S. Constitution is unarguably Federal Law since its ratification. The Amendments to said law are also law from the date of their ratification until they are repealed. They can be repealed, the amendment regarding the prohibition of alcohol was. If Congress should choose to make laws that are in conflict with preexisting laws, they must first repeal or amend the preexisting law. That is just basic procedure. To not do so is bad form and quite possibly illegal.
For example, the First Amendment is as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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Notice the wording. Congress Shall Make No Law. Therefore if Congress should make a law requiring protesters to register and submit to a background check before getting a permit to hold a rally in a public place, this would be a violation of the preexisting federal law and would be null and void until the preexisting law was amended. To choose to enforce the second law and thereby ignore the first would be a repeated violation of Federal Law and a crime. This same argument can be applied to any law.

Jefferson
 
Jselvy, you seem to have a misconception of what "Law" is. While in the broadest possible sense, the Constitution is the "Law of the Land," it is not a specific law. Nor are its amendments. The Constitution is a grant of power and outlines how the Federal Government is supposed to operate and its areas of operation.

If a government agency denies me the right to go to the church of my choice, that agency has violated my civil rights, but, it has not violated the law. The first amendment is a prohibition upon the government. It is not a "law" per se.

Civil rights violations are cause for tort action in civil court. They are not criminal actions, unless the Congress passes a bill to make such a violation a criminal matter. Then, and only then, has a "law" been violated.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
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The above is not law. It expresses a civil right and prohibits the government from violating that right.

You will please note that in Parker, this case was not brought in criminal court. It was a civil tort action for the violation of a civil right.

Your entire diatribe in post #38, was a non-sequitur, or as WA expressed it, hysterical polemics, given the bent of your post. The real world operates quite differently than from the absolutes some of you seem to think it should operate.

That's because there are very few real absolutes. If you live in this world, you will be taxed. That's an absolute. If you live, you will die. That's an absolute. Just about everything else is some form of compromise.

Now, I could be wrong in all of this. I'm not an attorney and the last time I stayed at a Holiday Inn was in 1997. :cool:
 
I'm told that abridging a right is okay if the abridging prevents you from exercising some right at the expense of the rights of others, even if the two rights are not directly related. Or why you can't have guys wearing white bedsheets over their heads while burning giant crucifixes across the street from an NAACP covention.

Given the recidivism rates of armed robbers, murderers, and rapists, I see no problem with preventing serious felons from being able to purchase firearms legally. If they want a gun, they're going to get a gun eventually - but that doesn't mean we should make it legally feasible. They're not allowed to vote either.

Just as we cannot think of our 1st amendment rights (or rights 3 though 20-something) in absolutes, we cannot consider RTKBA in absolutes either. However, there is a fat, black line between the laws that respect individual rights, and the laws that turn these "rights" into a public privilege. An instant background check is a security measure on owning guns as a right; a 90-day waiting period, a registration fee, or written approval from your local sheriff, make owning guns a privilege.

Still, if I have reservations with pharmacutical lobbyists drafting medical laws, or the steel union drafting our tariff laws, then I cannot be at ease with the NRA drafting our firearms laws - despite being a member myself. If the NRA released a study (think-tank style) and elected Congress members heeded the study, I'd be okay. But it sounds like they had a direct hand in the writing process.
 
Stringent background checks are a violation of basic rights including the right to privacy.
They are not talking about criminals they are talking about medical records.
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In Canada, our scum want information on your love life for the last 2 years. Mrs. even gets a letter of my licence renewal intent if I don't get her to sign it. Give the control freaks an inch, they take a mile.
 
I am surprised and amazed that anyone frequenting this forum would be even moderate about this topic. I guess that is the power of what we think the NRA is and the assumption that the NRA leadership is always on our side.

A list of people excluded from legal firearm possession, owned and maintained by the politicians and bureaocrats of government can only be considered a good thing in a half-thought-out theoretical way. In actual application, it fails in every way.

Think about who adds and subtracts names from that list. Think about who secures the data. Think about who gives the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to individual's rights to keep and bear arms. Think about your rights to be secure in your person and your papers.

C'mon, this junk fails in every way .. oh, I'm forgetting about its obvious success in fooling some of the people some of the time.


It is not over yet. CONTACT YOUR SENATOR TODAY.
 
This is a no-brainer. There are only two possible outcomes - the bill is passed or it is not passed.

If the bill is passed, the definition of mental disqualification becomes narrower, a process is created to challenge disqualifications, and the states get money to help pay for keeping the records they are already required to keep.

If the bill is not passed, NICS will continue to exist without a way to challenge disqualifications and thousands of veterans will continue to be wrongly denied their RKBA.

Deal or no deal?
 
If the bill is passed, the definition of mental disqualification becomes narrower, a process is created to challenge disqualifications, and the states get money to help pay for keeping the records they are already required to keep.
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And the door opens wider....

Hint words...liberal, left, oppressed, mentally ill, criminal...

Free Mumia? I'll give them a cause....

Arm Mumia!:D:D

WildwonderhowtherightisgonnareactwhentheleftisseekinguniversalarmamentAlaska

PS...o what a wonderful legislative victory and a tweak on the shorthairs of the Dem-antis
 
Al, I'm confused. You say the Constitution is not a specific law nor are its amendments. Yet that same Constitution declares itself to be "the supreme Law of the Land" (Art. VI, paragraph 2.) That sounds pretty specific to me. Notice it doesn't say that it's a 'general guideline for establishing laws,' it states unequivocally that it IS the law.
I fully realize that congress and all the various administrations that have held power over the years have changed our understanding of Constitutional law by ignoring some parts and sidestepping around some others, but they haven't gotten around to changing the wording - yet. As I see it, a strict interpretation of the plain meaning of the words of the Constitution bear out Jselvy. I know that getting a strict interpretation of the Constitution in any court in the country would be a stretch but that's also a result of the years of picking and poking the statists have done. I believe it was Jay Leno who said when the Iraqis were trying to come up with a Constitution of their own, "Let 'em have ours, we're not using it anymore."
 
Notice it doesn't say that it's a 'general guideline for establishing laws,' it states unequivocally that it IS the law.
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There's the letter of the law and there's the spirit of the law. Sprit of the law is most often bunk, because it can be taken so many ways, and the person doing the interpreting is usually wearing an agenda over his sleeves. Letter of the law does not, however, equate to total absolute strict literal interpretation, either. The bible says that pi=3. If God is perfect, and the bible is the word of God, should we throw away our calculators?

The purposes of an instant background check are no more of an infringement of your 2nd amendment rights than libel laws are an infringment of your 1st amendment rights.

Let's take your sense of the Constitution to its logical extreme.

  1. Nowhere does it actually or expressly state that we have a right to privacy.
  2. Nah, point #1 will suffice
Thanks for playing.
 
Ah, another chance for me to toss out my favorite amendment. Just because something is not expressly stated in the constitution / BOR does not mean it is not a right:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
 
"Ah, another chance for me to toss out my favorite amendment. Just because something is not expressly stated in the constitution / BOR does not mean it is not a right:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Absolutely. Still, those that ARE enumerated in the BOR should not be open to "interpretation." After all, they're written in plain language, not some foreign tongue. Unfortunately, Amendments 9, 10 and 14 are merely bastard, red-headed stepchildren alongside the more popular ones.
 
Just because something is not expressly stated in the constitution / BOR does not mean it is not a right
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Precisely. I'm not disagreeing with you; someone was going to quote the 9th sooner or later. I'm trying to prove a point - that the Constitution is not as rigid as some would think. And likewise, just because something is not expressly stated in the Constitution/BOR does not mean that it is a right. Otherwise, why would there even be debate over gay marriages, abortions, and kool-aid drinkers?

Do ex-felons have the same rights as the rest of "the People?" They can't vote, employers can discriminate against them, etc. The purpose of the background check is to prevent them from obtaining firearms legally, not to infringe on the rights of us "law-abiders." There was a time when the "right of the People" were only applicable to white landowners.

"but the 13th, 14th, and 15th changed that"

Yep. Those amendments were also never ratified legally. But that's a sidetrack we shouldn't get into.

Where am I going with this? I'm saying that times change, and the Constitution is living document. Letting it adapt does not mean that you're playing loose with it. 20 years ago, background checks would be infeasible, but now the act of filling out form 4473 can take longer than the check itself. It's okay. Your hands are still warm and alive. As national laws stand currently and for the forseeable future (Parker), we are nowhere close to crossing that line over to making it a privilege and not a right.

Still warm, still alive.
 
The Constitution is a "living" document, only in so far as it can be amended. It does not change, with the whims of the times. It means what it meant at the time of its writing.
 
Antipitas writes in part, responding to a post(s) of mine:


I believe that you, sir, have bought into the GOA's paranoia.
__________________
Al Norris

I will not argue with your conclusion, for it could be correct, though I don't think so. More important than that however is the question of process. I also wonder as to your characterization of 2640 being mere houskeeping.

Of course, The House can, if it chooses, operate on the basis of unrecorded voice votes and or suspension of rules, as I understand was here done. Such action, in my view, does seem to acquire a particular smell though. What happens in The Senate might get rather interesting.
 
I read a lot but not everything. One thing I haven't read is Sun Tzu's "Art of War." So I can't say for certain that he mentioned anything about not helping the enemy but I think he probably covered it somehow.
Carolyn McCarthy is our enemy. So is Teddy, Hillary, Chuckie, Ms Feinstein and a whole bunch of other liberals. Now we find the NRA has helped them. So, is the NRA our friend for helping them? Is the friend of my enemy my friend, an ally or a traitor? If, after this joint effort, we hug the NRA to our bosoms maybe we should also consider some sort of normal relations with Iran and Syria. Maybe traitors should be forgiven and welcomed back into society. We might even pass out citizenship papers to every person who walks across our southern border!
I pay my yearly NRA dues and consider it part of my club dues since the club requires NRA membership. Now I'm wondering just how much of my principles I'm willing to give up so I can shoot on a clean, well manicured range. After all, principles are a bit like virginity in that they can only be given up once. Sad to say, the NRA lost its cherry a long time ago and now we're the ones getting screwed.
I know, the NRA does a little bit of good from time to time, often enough to let them keep reminding us of it. Most of what they take credit for is actually done by lesser groups formed within individual states. The highly touted (by some, not me) concealed carry permit system is just such an issue. Within a state, the local groups do all the heavy lifting, lobbying and leg-work. When the bill finally passes the NRA rushes forth to claim the glory.
Already they're telling us what a great job they've done getting the Parker case to where it is. Reading the fine print though, we find the NRA tried to scuttle the case before it could get to court. From the events of the past few weeks my confidence in our President is hovering just above zero. The NRA is little better.
 
Here is a word-for-word comparison of the original HR 297 versus HR 2640 as passed by the House. Verbiage deleted from HR 297 is struck through and shown in red. Verbiage added by HR 2640 is underlined.

Read and judge for yourself.
 
the bill is 1 step forward and 3 steps backwards.

already is an appeal process for the vets it doesnt work saw nothing in the bill to help them with certain which affirms feel good status.

pork bill for states why it passed near unanimous
Ron Paul aka Dr No being the lone voice of dissent.
who got edited out of a number of AP reprints.

I havent seen anyone post the negatives yet but have seen some covere the slippery slope affects. Just alot of Progressive Liberal type spin vs Some people trying to be Strict Constitutionalist.

Not one of the nicest bills to read due to references.

GOA is great for non compromise competition to NRA
neither are as honest as they could be.

Nothing wrong with people demanding more freedom and respect of freedom with advancement or maintaining of power of constitutionally protected freedom instead of disregarding or marginalizing the constitution and freedom in the name of progress which leads to incremental advancement diminishing freedom,rights,privileges and immunity from being commonly shared.

Veterans were fighting to get there privilege restored back in 2000-2001.
Another failure that can be tacked onto the Bush administration and Republican's that had power while they did and squandered it not for the good of the people especially those who serve this nation.

I certainly want to see the Vet's privilege restored as they are fit it would be great if they could get there Right restored but in this Nation that wont happen anytime short of a Revolution. The way this law goes about is not right thats my 2 cents. Others know it as well but have rationalized it beyond sense such is the way it is today.
 
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