DC vs.Heller: Heller's atty's entire oral argument was actually QUITE deceptive.
I've posted the following in earlier, http://www.dailypaul.com/node/43232#comment-396702 , with updated stats. But in light of listening to AJ's podcast from two days ago, I felt the following was pertinent. I actually heard the whole oral argument from beginning to end on C-SPAN radio. And at one point, I actually mistook Heller's lawyer's voice as the govt's lawyer, especially when he brought up the Glock type polymer pistols as "plastic guns" that CANNOT be detected and NEEDS to be regulated. I nearly fell out my chair!!
I'd like to throw a caveat emptor, it's a bit long...
Don't mind my frustrations at utter lack of even the most basic understanding and premise behind our Constitution, by those currently occupying various taxpayer funded employee housing and work residences, ie. DC and all other "govt" edifices across our once Great Republic.
My 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rant. Yes, I admit, and know that this is a rant, but I shall post, because I love:
While the Justices, especially Suter and Breyer (I care NOT, about properly spelling these unConstitutional traitorous bastards' names) went on and on about militia, militia, militia, as if the context in which the term was used in the Constitution in 1780's has nothing to do with it. While Roberts, Scalia (a neoCON who doesn't think torture is unConstitutional, but in this case, I'll side with him) argued and correctly stressed the people, the people, the people, part of the clause.
Yet, legally speaking all in govt have forgotten the definition of In&Un-alienable rights. Using various precedence of British common law, and British Bill of Rights, which, obviously like habeas corpus from the days of Magna Carta, our system, in a long line of Babylonian, Roman-Catholic-Saturnine Cult derived legal canon, is based on. However, using Blackstone as otherwise probable precedence, they see nothing wrong in having govt justifying regulating what are RIGHTS, NOT privileges. We don't license everyone to practice various levels of free speech in the First Amendment, in our Republic, at least not yet anyway. What the hell makes these delusional idiots think that they have ANY right to regulate, "reasonably, or unreasonably" our RIGHTS (besides, who has the wisdom to be an arbiter of what is reasonable anyhow??), like a driver's license?? TRULY Vile.
Worse, you knew this was coming with an NRA backed brief; Heller's own lawyer erroneously referred to the likes of Glock and other polymer pistols as "plastic guns" that do NOT show up on x-ray!!! A tired argument used by hoplonphobes (ie. fear of weapons, a recently formulated word by the late Col.Jeff Cooper.)
And Heller's lawyer did not stop there. He also advocated that such guns can and SHOULD be regulated! Anyone who's ever shot a polymer pistol KNOWs that the barrel, slide, spring, striker/hammer, are ALL METAL! But for the sake of argument, in the future we can make a ballistic polymer barrel and slide and springs. Its silhouette will STILL show up on x-ray. As if any TSA idiot wouldn't know what a gun's shadow looks like? Sure they think the new Apple MacBook Air is a bomb, but certainly they'd know what object that has a handle a tube and a trigger must be, no? Another in the long line of ridiculous arguments. I damn near lost my voice, pointlessly, screaming at the radio, out of sheer incredulity.
Often in 2nd Amendment cases, they argue, erroneously, whether gun x is a lineal descendant of a firearm from the 1780's. This is irrelevant, as even private ownership of cannons were in active practice, and in fact defended, as the Founders had no illusions about what the 2nd Amendment was for- to prevent govt tyranny. "... the security of a free state" refers to free from tyranny. Thus any and all firearms, smallarms MUST be free to be owned by a law abiding citizen. All of this perhaps, may sound antithetical to the collectivist brainwashed, pussyfied-down meme, driving the "modern" man, but as far as the Founders were concerned, reading their direct words from their day, the Federalist, and Anti-Federalist Papers, contemporary newspapers articles, and their own personal letters and writings, it was clear. They'd laugh at us for bickering over whether a semi-auto AK with a "sports" stock is in fact, any different than a semi-auto AK with a traditional military stock design. Not to mention the lunacy of not having a fully automatic machine gun, when the govt is allowed to have them. How are you to stop govt tyranny with unqualified weapons? Utter nonsense!!! So really, short of a nuke, any law abiding citizen has a RIGHT to own ANY type of tool necessary for ensure the "security of a free state," a free Republic, free from tyranny, whether it be a foreign, or our very own govt, or a private corp. like Halliburton/KBR, BlackWater, or mafia, or drug cartels, or your everyday thug. Capice??
But the DC vs. Heller case is about whether a county/city's mandate to ban ALL handguns is unConstitutional; in the legal framework, whether the right ot bear arm is an individual right vs. a collective right, as far as THIS particular case is concerned. That is the core issue at hand, behind DC vs. Heller. However, it is utterly wrong to take the position that one MAY regulate a Constitutional RIGHT, and treat it like a privilege, just because over the years courts have interpreted it that way.
On the plus side, the govt's arguments sucked. The attorney stuttered. As much as I despise many justices in the SCOTUS, if not all of them, giving credit where it is due, I must say, these bastards are one crafty wordsmiths; the Justices interjected just at the right time with redundant non-sequitur arguments that seemed rational and relevant to a layman, as well as interrupting oral arguments on both sides, by interjecting their own frame of argument, and prosing hypothetical scenarios that bear very little relevance, in essence, to the issue at hand.
Say what you will, but NRA IS the pro-gun control lobby. You want real 2nd Amenment Rights lobby? Join Larry Pratt's Gun Owners of America. hey, FrontSight.com supports them. Ignatius Piazza's endorsement goes a long way for me.
So the decision WILL be in favor of an individual right. But with a heavily regulatory caveat. But they will all spin it in the MSM, AS IF it is a GENUINE win for 2nd Amend. rights.
The gvt argued irrelevantly on armor piercing bullets and full auto machineguns as if that makes up anything more than 0.5% of over 500 million smallarms in private hands in America. In order to implement the likes of Pres.Directive51, to declare martial law, the govt NEEDS to rid our right to bear arms. But they will push heavily for the regulatory aspect of it. Though legally speaking, that is beyond the scope of this case. So once it is finally, once and for all, established that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, they'll have to hear another case to decide the limits of regulating such right like a drivers's license, which by the way Heller's own lawyer argued DOES NOT have problem with registering, or licensing. Anybody getting disturbed, yet?
Though, in gun friendly states, proliferation of extreme gun regulation is NOT likely to be an issue, but for states that are hostile, this will give them new ammunition in regulating weapons with ridiculous renewal fees, registration hassles, and believe me, insurance tie in will not be far behind. Heller's lawyer is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
That is exactly what WILL happen. If you declare a multi-billion dollar firearms and sporting arms industry, essentially for military only, no manufacturer, nor current owners will be happy. That'll mean a reduction in 40-75% of their annual sales. In case of private owners, govt will NEVER be able to confiscate the way they did in UK or Australia. Though they did test in NOLA, during Katrina. As has been the case throughout history, the govt always test tyrannical policies, against minorities living in traditionally poor neighborhoods, where they typically find little to no resistence, as many are often disempowered, nor fully aware of their own rights, nor practice it, nor do the rest of the population care much, as long as it doesn't happen to them. Which is an utter delusion, because what the policestate apparatus does overseas against "3rd world" nations and to the poor at home, eventually the same will be used against EVERYONE. As MLK said so poignantly, "Injustice anywhere, is an injustice EVERYWHERE." You can easily substitute "injustice" with "tyranny." Have we not seen enough policestate thuggery in tasing innocent civilians to deaths, stripping them, hooding them, like in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Just try to confiscate 500 MILLION firearms in private possession, away from Americans. There WILL be a violent revolution, in such scenario. So while they'll grant individual right, they'll spin the regulatory aspect of it as a win, and spin it to death. Compromising principle is no compromise at all. It is a loss, period.
Ask yourselves what good is a right, when you cannot exercise it? Already, small non-chain FFL dealers are being sued out of existence, not just in NY, but all over the country. A right is a RIGHT, is a RIGHT, is a RIGHT, NOT a privilege!
Do these bastards realize that the Constitution enumerates in ways in which the govt is controlled and restricted, NOT We the People?
Besides if you really heard the argument, justices and the lawyers all argued based on the premise that 2nd Amendment is a right GRANTED to the People by the Govt. Not the other way around; all rights enumerated in the Constitution is there because a gvt of the People, and by the People HAS NO POWER that is not GRANTED to it, by its citizenry. EVERYONE there erroneously argued as if 2nd Amendment is a power GRANTED to We the People, by the govt!!! Not the other way around!!! A truly dangerous Constitutional grounds.
And 50% of the argument was framed in a manner in which the "security of a free state" meant with the use of a govt regulated and organized "militia" to ensure a "free state." NOT so that We the People are free from tyranny, as originally intended. Otherwise, why were there no "militia" until 1906?? What the Founders, forgot why they put it there? If we really lived up to their principles, we'd be more like the Swiss, and NOT have a standing army at all. All able bodied males would defend the "State" in revolving periods, voluntarily. We'd be our own police, and the military. Just like we're supposed to have citizen-politicians. And not ruled by some aristocratic class of politicians, as is the case now.
So to that end, Heller's defense team provided a brief submitted by former generals that 2nd Amendment is essential in quickly training soldiers who grew up accustomed to firearms in civilian life. Again bolstering their position that the 2nd Amendment is solely there to provide proper defense for "the the security of the State," NOT in defense of personal liberty. Meaning, you as an individual have no right to keep and bear arms unless you are somehow in the pipeline to protect the State. When in fact, the SOLE purpose of 2nd Amendment is to prevent TYRANNY of govt, be it foreign or domestic! That argument never saw the light of day. Though considering who the justices are and the false premise of phony unConstitutional ginormous govt bureaucracy that they are part of, they'd never entertain such universal truth.
And the sickening redundancy of arguing back and forth between why if the directive is SO clear, why is there a need for BOTH "to keep," and "bear" arms. Well, legal common sense would dictate that just because you have the right to bear arms, does not necessarily mean that you can keep the weapon on you or at your residence. If that phrase was not there, one can easily interpret that one has right to access a weapon, but NOT keep one personally; such legal diatribe has justified Britons only being able to keep handguns at pistol clubs, before all firearms were banned outright in the UK. Though in UK, you saw rich a**holes recently protesting their right to fox hunt with $10,000 double barrel shotguns, in style, against animal rights activists and anti-gun zealots, while their less wealthy citizens were deprived of their right to defend themselves. Sure if you can hire Blackwater to guard your property like in NOLA during Katrina, that's all fine and dandy. But last time I checked we're still a Republic, at least on paper, and not an outright aristocratically ruled kleptocracy. (Okay so we are ruled by oligarchs, but you get my point.)
So as you can see, all in all it was a long one and a half hours of BULLSH*T legal mumbo jumbo. But in plain english, DC vs. Heller SHOULD NOT be a complicated issue. But the Justices and attorneys wanted to have their own little party in the language that they think they're the only ones who can understand it. After all that, we still have to wait until June of this year, just before the SCOTUS bolt for summer vacation, before a decision can be made. It was the most frustrating display of useless verbiage I've ever heard. Not to mention lingering useless arguments on lock box, triggerlocks, blah, blah, blah. I would have hard time working as a Supreme Court Clerk.
Oh let's not forget the obligatory, "handgun makes for easier suicide access"-bogeyman argument. Hell if a kid is determined to go, sticking an exhaust pipe in his mouth would be easier. Another false argument. Besides, when's the last time anyone has ever seen a truly driven person being prevented from what he/she would do, anyways? Just human nature. When desperate, some weep, some mug others, some off themselves, or others. Can we please move on with this lesson. Supposedly, we've been functional homo sapien sapiens for 65,000years (it's completely off, but for the sake of argument, I'll use the commonly accepted academic number). You'd think by now, we'd agree on some universal human behavioral qualities. One can only hope.
Statistically, the number one cause of intentional, direct one-on-one human involved death in America, is committed by medical DOCTORS!!! Try 250,000 ~ 300,000 a year! Guns? 35,000-56,000 depending: that in a nation of 300 million+. Car accidents account for more than 41,000 ~ 60,000 deaths a year.
Got perspective?
And as if guns have a mind of their own? You never hear about a fully loaded M1911 .45ACP weighing around 41~48 oz. crushing a man, a woman, or a child in a babystroller dead, because its parking brake broke off and rolled all of its 2 metric tons into a bystander, anyone? WHAT THE HELL IS THEIR PROBLEM?
And yet, Heller's lawyer did not bring up such statistics in any rebuttal to the supposed disproportionate dangers of handguns, as if there are no other leading cause of deaths in America. In fact, he pushed for regulation every chance he got to argue. Hey, newsflash, buddy, guns don't kill, stupid and/or desperately driven people do. Should we ban all pickup trucks, because in one week more people died from sedans than any other type of vehicle?
Also in DC, while you can "own" non-handguns, like rifles and shotguns, you have to keep it unloaded, with a trigger lock, and keep it disassembled. As if that's even enforceable, unless they knock down every door, every single day of the week, to check it. (Though at the rate they are going, that may not be far behind. They are already attempting it, again, in predominantly poor minority neighborhoods in Boston.)
The govt lawyer argued, deceitfully, that he can re-assemble long guns in such condition in 3sec!! WHat a lie. Well trained cops have 15% accuracy in a real gun fight. ALL operators would tell you that no matter who you are, or how well you've trained, at best you're 50% readiness of your best day at the range. So some fat stuttering lawyer is gonna tell me that he can re-assemble his rifle/shotgun, load it, put the safety off, cock it, and acquire front sight, in 3 sec? And still have time to shoot his assailant accurately in the most stressful situation? NONSENSE!
And as if really there is a REAL difference between owning a semi-AK vs. a full auto AK. If a lunatic is crazy enough to kill, they'll figure out how to do it. Okay, so rarely do truly insane people go postal, it's the marginally sane, but profanely disturbed ones who actually do. Hey, you have to be slick enough to acquire a weapon, from someone else, as guns don't grow in a vegi gardens, no?
So the Brady Center can delude that 10 round limit in a mag is some type of deterrent, all day long. What if the bastard buys 10 magazines? Wow, what do you know, a criminal carrying 100rounds, in 10 separate 10round-limit mags. Bet no one in govt thought of that. If anyone thinks criminals cannot get full auto AK's, they haven't seen the North Hollywood shootout. I'm sure that guy walked into a local FFL dealer and walked out with a full auto AKM, Russian made military grade, head to toe full body armor. Utterly ludicrous.
When you're a criminal, you're a criminal. As if that EVER stopped them from getting full auto for a few Benjamins. The only thing that will stop them, cold in their tracks, in an informed, empowered, independent thinking, Constitutional citizenry.
It only takes one well placed round to kill a human being. So, if the operator is disturbed enough to go postal in a mall or at a school, what does it matter whether the gun was a semi or a full auto? When you're hit with a bullet, you're hit. So whether it's semi or full auto is moot, as Ron Paul also so often argues. Besides in such situation, your best bet is a well armed, personally responsible law abiding citizen carrying a large caliber weapon. Typically it takes 5min-30min for cops to arrive on the scene.
In a situation like a mall or school shooting, many will die before a cop bursts onto the scene. If anyone needs anymore proof, recently
a college professor was held at gun point in an auditorium like class. The academic was NOT told this was an internal exercise by the school's on campus police. Now, guess how long it took the campus security, who was RUNNING this hoax, to respond? 30 min. There's safety for you. NEVER has Ben Franklin's warning, been more true. Those who will trade in their freedoms for temporary security, deserve neither. And the real "terrorist," who was, in fact, terrorizing the teacher and the students, taking advantage of frayed nerves, since this incident took a brief period AFTER Virginia Tech shooting, in that situation? The campus police. They are brainwashing the citizenry to comply with perceived authority, every chance they get.
I ask all RON PAUL RƎVO⅃UTIONaries to come up with your own personal line that you will let NO ONE cross. As Michael Badnarik says, "NO, I WILL NOT COMPLY!!!" Figure it out today. Before you're faced with it.
Pardon folks, my verbiage is as lengthy as the old farts in SCOTUS wearing female drag/skirt/robes in black. Common sense, it seems is always an oxymoron when it comes to govt.
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Because the genie is out of the bottle, and I WANT MY FREEDOM, I WANT IT BACK! I WANT MY REPUBLIC BACK!, more than I WANT SEX!! So say we all!
I AM RON PAUL!! We ARE ALL RON PAUL!!!!!
President RON PAUL: Jan 20, 2009 - Jan 20, 2017
Because, I STILL B E L I E V E!!!!!!!





















Long post to say one thing
Which was the Emmerson ruling should stand. That's assuming anyone actually read it, cited it, or in general ever bothered to be aware of it.
Actually, the Bill of Rights is too long. They should have stopped in the First Amendment with, "Congress shall make no law" and left it there...
The bill of rights
says that 'Congress shall make no law...' that interferes with the free exercise of speech religion, etc. The second amendment does not contain that phrase. It says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, also, it informs the reader of the reason (a militia being necessary...).
Why is the militia necessary to the security of a FREE state? The more people protect themselves, whether from common criminals or foreign invaders, the fewer arms the gov't need possess. (prevents standing armies as well as a police state.)
Now, the idea expressed in this blog that the government may not regulate guns in a reasonable manner is contradictory to the constitution. The constitution does give congress the right to pass reasonable legislation, and there is reasonable legislation about guns that can be passed without the right of the people to keep and bear being infringed. For example: should every american citizen be allowed to carry a gun into the capitol building? Or any government building? Or along the president's parade route? Of course not, so the government obviously has some power over guns. The question is whether the people's right to bear (in terms of having a citizenry capable of defending itself) has been infringed. In this case, it clearly has.
This thing about inalienable rights... they aren't. Life and liberty can both be alienated from you. Further, that's in the declaration. The constitution does not call the rights in the bill of rights inalienable, for certainly an amendment to the constitution striking the 2nd amendment would remove that right. The only rights inalienable are those that you protect through force, making the 2nd amendment that much more important.
Another aspect of interpreting the amendment is in the grammar. According to wiki:
The Second Amendment, as passed by the House and Senate, reads:
“ 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. ”
The original and copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, had different capitalization and punctuation:
“ 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.
I know not everyone is an english major but the former version's commas are completely unnecessary. They don't make the amendment clearer, I wouldnt be surprised if the ambiguity is intentional. In the latter version the second clause, "the right of the People...," is the Independent clause, while the first is the Dependent clause. This means the second clause makes sense without the first, but not vice-versa. That is, the first is additional, explanatory, unnecessary, and discardable, at least more so than the second clause.
The House/Senate version has too many commas, and doesn't make grammatical sense. Separating things by commas places them in different clauses. To separate "A well regulated militia" from "being necessary to the security" places the second clause in a position to explain the first, and therefore ought to be followed by the verb that directly acts upon the subject. The comma between "the right...bear arms" and "shall not" makes even less sense. The only way someone could think to write it this way, unless they were trying to be ambiguous to pave the road for reinterpretation, would be to place commas where some arbitrary person paused while speaking in a very strange way.
I don't know which version was written first, but based on the grammar, the version ratified by the states is much more sensible, and in that version the second phrase is the indispensable aspect of the amendment.
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"To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world."
"Shall not be infringed..."
Thanks, I quite enjoyed your reply.
As far as grammatical standards and punctuations, it is more relevant and crucial to distill the intent, by considering the context of the terms used in that era. "Militia" as the current batch of Statist hack determine that, erroneously, as a standing army. A true republic has none. Does not matter if in practice throughout history has deviated. As much of evidence bear out, the Founders intended the "Militia" to mean, the People.
True, I do not believe any "-ism" throughout history has ever been implemented in utter purity, in practice. But that said, the Constitution was an idealistically formulated document, if you consider the fact that monarchy, aristocracy, kleptocracy, and tyranny were the norm in the 18th century. So, any attempt to depose the status quo, which all 6000 yrs of previously recorded history mandates that tyranny is the norm, makes such radical act of self determination a revolutionary act. Does that mean what has been practiced and accepted throughout history to be correct? No.
Thus by 18th century standards, an attempt to construct a social contract between the People and a government of the People and by the People, by the consent of the governed, is by definition an idealistic goal, a pipe dream. Yet, today, will to practice self-determination is not such an idealistic meme.
Same goes for our notion of what is accepted, has been accepted, or what previous legal precedence was set and accepted, does not preclude it from being challenged as unConstitutional.
With that said, "shall not be infringed." literally means, HANDS OFF! As in, you shall NOT regulate. Period. UnAlienable MEANS they cannot take your rights away, as those powers are NOT granted by the State to you. You are mistaking In-alienable with Un-Alienable. While a regular dictionary may find them interchangeable, they are COMPLETELY different legal precepts.
Besides the Declaration of Independence clearly states "UNALIENABLE Rights," NOT "inalienable."
Just because the State illegally practices something, does not make it legal, nor Constitutional. Rights are NOT privileges. Otherwise our entire legal structure becomes irrelevant.
Matters not whether historically it has been unConstitutionally practiced. Any legalese used to justify and bring forth the argument of "reasonably regulate" is done so to establish the State's non-inherent right, in a rogue attempt to legislate a right, solely reserved to the people. Precedence, obviously can be argued, to indicate a support of your position of "reasonably regulate." But Constitutionally speaking, that just is not so.
Besides, if all were happy with historical interpretation and precedence and practice, none of those words should need to be challenged. But apparently, that just is not the case, either. Because there are some of us who DO believe in what the Founders intended. If that were so, we'd just accept the Dept of Edu, DHS, and the Federal Reserve. Just because it is practiced, or accepted DOES not preclude it from being challenged on Constitutional grounds, nor make it right. Would you ever argue against that DHS, Patriot Act, Military Commissions does NOT violate your 4th Amendment right? Could you honestly argue that the Federal Reserve IS a Constitutional creature? Why do so many people have problem, NOT scrutinizing all Bill of Rights with the same standards? Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the number next to the Amendment to assume it to be listed in the order of importance. They are ALL equally important and should be treated as such.
However, as far as this specific case is concerned, the real issue IS whether 2nd Amendment is an individual right, or a collective right. Furthermore, I absolutely do agree with you that the litmus test to that relevant question is, as you so stated, "...whether the people's right to bear (in terms of having a citizenry capable of defending itself) has been infringed. In this case, it clearly has."
Also the clause, "...security of a free state," does indeed refer to having a FREE State, as in free from govt tyranny, which is what the Constitution at every turn attempts to do: to restrict the powers of the State and explicitly spell out what the govt CANNOT do to its employers, us, We the People.
As such, and what the historical records show of the Founders intended in their own personal letters, memoirs, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, I whole heartedly disagree with you on the sanctioned "reasonably regulate" as well as your interpretation of the term "militia" and the "security of a free state."
However, I do agree with you that certain versions do spell it out, more clearly for the contemporary mind to accept.
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Because the genie is out of the bottle, and I WANT MY FREEDOM, I WANT IT BACK! I WANT MY REPUBLIC BACK!, more than I WANT SEX!! So say we all!
I AM RON PAUL!! We ARE ALL RON PAUL!!!!!
President RON PAUL: Jan 20, 2009 - Jan 20, 2017
Because, I STILL B E L I E V E!!!!!!!
Let's see how the NRA spins this...
that's the only way to know who the REAL 2nd Amnd champions, are.
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Because the genie is out of the bottle, and I WANT MY FREEDOM, I WANT IT BACK! I WANT MY REPUBLIC BACK!, more than I WANT SEX!! So say we all!
I AM RON PAUL!! We ARE ALL RON PAUL!!!!!
President RON PAUL: Jan 20, 2009 - Jan 20, 2017
Because, I STILL B E L I E V E!!!!!!!