Top X reasons why these laws should be repealed...

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gregt

Inactive
Hi All,

In preparation for what I think all of hope will be a Republican controlled House and Senate supported by a Republican President after the 2000 election, I thought it would be good for us to start collecting our thoughts regarding why some bad gun control laws should be repealed. Here are the laws in question:

* Clinton's recent ban of the import of additional types of "assault weapons"
* The so-called "assault weapon" ban of 1994
* The 1989 ban on the import of rifles and pistols with certain politically incorrect features
* The 1986 ban on the registration of new machine guns with private citizens.

So let's brainstorm all of the reasons why these laws should be repealed. As a ground rule, there are no bad ideas, so let's just collect a really large list of ideas. We'll figure out what to do with them later...

Here are some reasons I came up with why the previously mentioned gun control laws need to be repealed:

1. The 2nd Amendment says that "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It doesn't seem logical how outright bans on certain types of firearms is justified under the Constitution. It is true that the courts and liberal politicians have not been on our side with respect to the 2nd Amendment, but that is to be expected when people try to deny basic civil rights. The situation we face today is similar in some respects to the one african-americans faced before the civil rights movement...

2. Equal protection. The current laws facilitate two types of discrimination.
a. The first type of discrimination is against people based on their financial situation. As a theoretically fixed supply of "pre-ban" firearms and magazines and pre-86 registered NFA weapons appreciates in price far in excess of the rate of inflation, only wealthier and wealthier people will be able to own these types of firearms. This means that the federal government is imposing an artificial constraint on the supply of legally traded goods that results in a price structure discriminatory towards those who can not afford to pay the artificially inflated prices for said goods.
b. The second type of discrimination relates to the "law enforcement only" restriction. As somebody pointed out, law enforcement officers are civilians just like the rest of us. These four laws, therefore, have created a scenario where law enforcement officers have more rights than other citizens. This scenario is analogous to one in which only college educated people have the right to vote.

3. These laws are prejudiced by their very design. Politicians justify these laws by claiming that they exist to prevent gun crimes. By that very admission, anybody who supports these laws is making no distinction between the 80 million law-abiding gun owners and violent criminals.

4. The argument that "assault weapons" have no sporting purpose is bunk. Who has a right to tell us that recreational target shooting is not a sport?

So please add to this list. I look forward to your inputs.
 
I will give a very simple answer:

Not one of these laws targets the "criminal" and they all penalize the law-abiding citizen.

1) They do absolutely nothing about a crime that has happened, nor the criminal that has perpetrated said crime.
2) They seek to remove an implement of performing a crime when there is no evidence whatsoever that these "targeted" implements have ever played a major or even significant role in crime.
3) They have no impact on decreasing the crimes they are allegedy seeking to prevent. Rather, they make overnight criminals out of people who have them.
4) They are enacted solely for PR and political gain

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
First ... what part of infringed don't they understand???? Second the NFA rules on full auto was foisted upon us as a tax ( a ruse to allow registration ) that law was repealed , and the ban has been ruled unconstituional in the fed court of appeals in ILL, STATE vs GENESCO, I believe, but since the government wouldn't appeal it , for fear of losing , its only applicable in that federal district.... basically said that the only legal registration was based on tax law , and the tax law was repealed , therefore they have no juristiction for banning the manufacture or sale any longer....and third
the only part of a firearm which is regulated is the frame or receiver which is serialized, and the government has no legal standing in regulating any other part of the piece. Fourth ... the Sullivan Case about sawed off shotguns actually reaffirms the RKBA it said " lacking any evidence ... that a short barrelled shotgun has any application for militia use...." The defendandt never filed a supreme court brief or appeared before the court.... so in reality the case reaffirmed the Second Amendment....
Get and read THAT ALL MEN BE ARMED , by prof Halbrook and THE SECOND AMENDMENT PRIMER by Les Adams .... be literate, that is the key to defeating the opposition.
 
Gregt: I'm a tad curious why you think a Republican President and Congress would be willing to repeal gun control laws. After all, both the Lautenberg and Kohl amendments passed a Republican congress, and the last two Republican Presidential candidates were anti-gun. (In '88, Bush was still lying about it.) I suppose that they wouldn't be in as much of a hurry to enact new gun control laws as the Democrats, but repeal them? I kind of doubt it!
 
Menos..
You meant US v Miller, not Sullivan.
The Sullivan laws was in New York and it prohibited Italian and Jewish immigrants from owning guns

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
I would like to see us take that follow tack. That these laws are intended for one purpose and one purpose only. To deny the american people the means to defend themselves from a planned oppressive government. That anyone who supports this position of banning any weapon is conspiring to enslave the american people. Those who deny the true meaning of the Second Amendment are conspiring to turn America into a police state.

When they come back and accuse us of McCarthyisum (sp) then we need to accuse these people of Hitlerisum.

Richard
 
One of the problems I see is that these laws were passed in the face of excellent arguments against them. Of course, the assault weapons ban was passed in a skeleton house.

None of the so-called anti-crime laws have done a thing to change crime. They did their best to legislate away a tool the criminal used. Guess what? That is completely ineffective. Duh. For some reason this is always lost upon them with the pen. Criminals aren't controlled with laws.

When the 1968 gun control act made it a crime for a felon to posses a gun, no distiction was made between violent and non-violent offenders. Now we have a misdemeanor barring people from owning firearms. What's the next misdemeanor to be added? Speeding?

The problem is the people at large. I spoke once with a coworker about the attacks on the second amendment, and she told me that she simply didn't care about that amendment. When the majority of the people don't care about their rights and freedoms being taken away, and laws on the books going unchallenged, what chance do we have?
 
You need only one reason why these laws are wrong. They are "directionally incorrect" in
our legal and constitutional tradition. For two hunrded some odd years we have struggled to make this a freer and more libertarian society. These laws are anti-democratic in that they prohibit and infringe upon fundamental civil rights protected by the Constitution. Therefore they are steps backward, not forward, for our people. DLS
 
I think I may have one, assuming that those in power see the validity. All of the Executive Orders usurp the powers of Congress by allowing the President to virtually act as a legislative body. This is extraordinarily bad for a republic as I'm sure we all agree. One of the great, non-gun related, examples that most liberal types wouldn't debate is the EO that put Japanese Americans into concentration camps during WWII.
Here's another that I believe the NRA has really dropped the ball. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. The Second Amendment only protects arms which would be useful in the common defense. "From what?" you may ask. Fill in the blank
 
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