Senate to move on gun control
says the WSJ. Contact your representatives and Senator now.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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February 4th, 2013 at 10:47 am
Living behind enemy lines sucks. One of my senators is a big-government, spend-spend-spend, nanny-state liar who never met a gun control law he didn’t like. The other is Dick Durbin. I’ve written them both. Durbin’s canned email response bragged about his gun control work and never acknowledged my position. But I’m going to try again.
February 4th, 2013 at 11:38 am
chief,
Ask him why Feinstein’s fascist bill EXEMPTS him and other government officials and agents. Has he repudicated “the equal protection of the laws” (14th Amendment, one of two which ended slavery)??
The bill is retroactive re: cuirrently possessed guns even though Article I, Section 9.3 bans such: “No ex post facto law shall be passed.” Does he support the government acting UNLAWFULLY?
February 4th, 2013 at 11:43 am
That’s not really what “ex post facto” means. Ex post facto is when they declare some action you took to be illegal retroactively.
So it’s legal for them to ban things you’ve already purchased and charge you with possessing them after the ban, but it’s not legal for them to ban things you’ve already purchased and then charging you for possessing them when it was legal to do so.
It’s an important distinction.
February 4th, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Article requires a subscription to view.
February 4th, 2013 at 12:39 pm
wizardpc writes,
Ex post facto is when they declare some action you took to be illegal retroactively.
Yes, I agree. They want to make standard capacity semi-auto rifles illegal which are currently owned. That’s retroactive: “No ex post fact law shall be passed”
But doing that requires registration which violates the 4th and 5th Amendemnts. In short, we’re dealing with criminals.
February 4th, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Ron, that’s not how it works. Wizardpc is correct.
February 4th, 2013 at 1:05 pm
No, it’s not. If they were going to arrest anyone who ever bought one, it would be. Arresting someone who possesses one after a ban is enacted is not an ex post facto arrest.
You’re not being arrested for buying it before it became illegal to do so.
You’re being arrested for keeping it after it became illegal to do so.
It’s a small but important distinction, like the difference between automatic and semi-automatic.
February 4th, 2013 at 1:05 pm
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/02/today_in_washington_gun_contro.html
http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/crime-and-justice-news/2013-02-senate-democrats-reveal-details-of-realistic-gun-con
Those two links were what google had to offer (though I’m rushed so there may have been more). Gist is the senate dems want to bring a bill or bills with universal background checks, mag capacity limits & some sort of heightened mental health provision for gun purchasers’ records. Also something about making it harder to buy guns in a state with less unconstitutional laws for a resident of a state with more unconstitutional laws. Not sure of the exact mechanism.
But they want it to hit the Senate floor for a vote within a month.
February 4th, 2013 at 4:27 pm
I’m not at all sure (to join in wizard and Ron’s discussion) that cop exemptions are a violation of equal protection, either. By which I mean I’m pretty damned sure they aren’t, as much as I don’t like them.
“Happens to be employed as a police officer” is not exactly a suspect class, mainly because anyone, generally speaking, can become part of that class, or leave it.
There is not yet a “cop caste” that would trigger equal protection issues with a cop exception (especially one limited to cops-qua-cops, while on the job), nor are we particularly close to that line.
(Thought experiment: Is it a violation of equal protection that a 13 year old can’t make a binding contact?
No precedent has ever suggested so, nor does the history of the 14th Amendment’s ratification and interpretation by its enactors suggest that it ever meant such a thing…
Thus it seems that “not applying to every human being in America perfectly equally” is not what the 14th Amendment ever required. Which is supported by all the precedent and all the discussions of it.
While I think cop exceptions are bad policy because they undermine Peel’s principle that “The police are the people and the people are the police”, that’s not enough to make them unconstitutional.)
February 4th, 2013 at 4:50 pm
“Thus it seems that ‘not applying to every human being in America perfectly equally’ is not what the 14th Amendment ever required. Which is supported by all the precedent and all the discussions of it.”
Sounds like the arrogant “precedent” decided by a government official (judge). Just when it is it that an employee is exempted above the employer? And why would it be that one who works UNDER “delegated powers” is deemed of higher estate? The greater always delegates to the lesser.
Just further evidence that we’re dealing with criminals running our government.
February 4th, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Kristophr>Article requires a subscription to view.
Here’s the Standard Mischief:
1. (optional in this case but sometimes needed) clear cookies, etc
2. Take the title of the paywalled article or the first paragraph and plug it into google news.
3. Follow link from google news.
(In this case they’re only looking for the referrer, which in this case is “saysuncle.com”. To get around this, copy URL (rightclick::copy link location) and then paste into the a new tab or window. Removing the URL cruft (in this case, the “?” and everything afterwards) is sometimes helpful.)
February 4th, 2013 at 4:59 pm
If anyone is to be restricted re: weapons, it would be government officials, at least while they were in the EMPLOY and SERVICE to THE PEOPLE:
“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on
Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
And the according to powers delegated to the United States, it can only govern such part of the militia which is EMPLOYED by it (Article I, Section 8.16) Thus ALL Federal laws that would infringe upon or in any way restrict weapons for the people are UNLAWFUL.
February 4th, 2013 at 8:34 pm
SM: Shrug.
I would simply replace the link myself in a post I made if I had that option.
Why should someone reading my stuff have to dance around to get at a link?
February 5th, 2013 at 11:27 am
Kristophr,
My mistake, but the URL seems to work if your referrer is google news. blank or “saysuncle.com” sends you to the paywall.
There were at one time some referral spoofer plugins. There’s not one on my current profile, but that could be fixed.
>Why should someone reading my stuff have to dance around to get at a link?
Because business model. Business model does not have to make sense in the short run. But in the era of declining newspaper sales the WSJ needs to make a profit somehow.