Tags
assault weapons, Bruen, Clinton Gun Ban, Court packing, Heller, McDonald, Rep. Cindy Axne, Rep. David Cicilline, Rep. Ted Deutch, semiautomatic rifles and pistols, Supreme Court, The Constitution, The Second Amendment, unalienable rights
On June 24, I posted Bruen: The Constitution Prevails? The Bruen decision—available here–expanded on Heller and McDonald in affirming–not creating– Americans not otherwise restricted from firearm ownership by law, have an unalienable right in keeping and bearing arms. Those arms are the arms commonly in use and commonly owned and carried, which circa 2022, means not only semiautomatic pistols—most of the concealed carry market—but modern rifles like the AR-15 family, the most popular modern sporting rifle in America. Other common and usual arms such as semiautomatic shotguns are likewise guaranteed the law-abiding public. Government may not demand special conditions for Americans to exercise their right to carry such weapons for self-defense outside the home. Law-abiding Americans need not beg government bureaucrats to exercise an unalienable right. Such a “right” is no right at all. The Supreme Court also, in proclaiming the Second Amendment no longer a second-class right declared no lesser standard than strict scrutiny in deciding Second Amendment issues.
One would think that made the Second Amendment clear, but no. In that earlier article I wrote:
Final Thoughts: Obviously, we are not going to see an orderly process of adherence to the law. The remaining anti-liberty/gun jurisdictions are going to do everything they can to harass the law abiding and to delay compliance with the Constitution, which is no more than they normally do. Perhaps the only significant variance from the status quo is the Executive Branch is blatantly declaring its intention to violate the Constitution, rather than more quietly just doing it. NYC and New York State will, at the very least, make concealed carry paperwork and requirements even more expensive and sloth-like.
Congressional D/S/Cs, already laughing at Republican useful idiots for going along with their latest anti-liberty/gun efforts, will redouble their efforts at court packing, illegal gun grabs and federalizing vote fraud. They have until the mid term elections, and even if they lose both houses, until January of 2023 before lame ducks are sent packing. Expect them to try to pass blatantly unconstitutional laws by illegal means during that period.
Everything I have predicted has come to pass. New York and California have passed blatantly unconstitutional bills, and courtesy of The Washington Examiner, Congressional Democrats are hard at work doing the same thing:
House Democrats have introduced a bill banning some semi-automatic firearms in the wake of the Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., announced Monday he is introducing the Assault Weapons Ban of 2018. More than 150 Democrats have signed on in support of the legislation, Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., said.
‘Today I joined @RepCicilline and 150+ of my colleagues to introduce the assault weapons ban. It’s time for Congress to listen to the will of a majority of Americans and pass sensible legislation to get these weapons of war off our streets. #NeverAgain #MSDStrong,’ Deutch tweeted.
The bill prohibits the ‘sale, transfer, production, and importation’ of semi-automatic rifles and pistols that can hold a detachable magazine, as well as semi-automatic rifles with a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds. Additionally, the legislation bans the sale, transfer, production, and importation of semi-automatic shotguns with features such as a pistol grip or detachable stock, and ammunition feeding devices that can hold more than 10 rounds.
Cicilline’s legislation names 205 specific firearms that are prohibited, including the AK-47 and AR-15.
The current House version of this ban is here. The current Senate version is here. Even an Iowa Representative is piling on:
Democratic Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne signaled her support for banning all semi-automatic guns at a tele-town hall with her constituents in July, according to audio obtained by the Daily Caller.
‘But the issue isn’t the fact that our schools aren’t safe, the issue is the fact that it’s guns and the problem is we should not have semi-automatic weapons in anything other than warfare,’ Axne said during the tele-town hall on July 6.
‘So here is the deal, they need to go away, and I will continue to push for that and to continue to push for the bills that we tried to get into our Protecting Our Kids Act which was the one we had out of our House side that didn’t make it through in the Senate,’ Axne added.
Pundits assure us even if the bill passes in the House, it can’t possibly pass in the Senate. I suspect anyone recently paying attention will not be reassured. It’s certainly possible there are enough Republican useful idiots in the Senate to deprive Americans of fundamental liberties, particularly when doing it before November may be their only chance for quite awhile. As always, they’re using tragedy to push what they can’t obtain through sober, well-considered and necessary legislation:
Let’s be sure we understand what’s at stake in this bill. Every magazine fed semiautomatic firearm, rifle, shotgun or pistol, feeds from a detachable magazine. All are banned. Every magazine fed weapon of that type is capable of accepting a magazine of greater than 10 rounds. This is not only a ban on the most common and popular semiautomatic rifles, but all magazine fed semiautos, which is nearly all of the market. Some .22 rifles feed from under barrel tubes, and under this bill, they might escape a ban. Even the ubiquitous Ruger 10-22, which comes standard with 10-round magazines, accepts larger capacity magazines. Even that innocuous rifle would be banned.
Notice that all semiautomatic pistols are also banned. Under such loose language, and it’s purposely loose, all semiautomatic shotguns will be banned, as all could theoretically accept 10 rounds if an under barrel tube magazine were sufficiently long.
Hasn’t the Supreme Court made clear in Heller, McDonald and Bruen these firearms, particularly semiautomatic pistols, are constitutionally protected? Of course it has. Then why would Congressmen and Senators, people sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, write such a blatantly unconstitutional bill?
As I’ve so often written, D/S/Cs see the Constitution as either an aid to their schemes, or as an impediment. When they believe they can hide behind the Constitution’s emanations and penumbras, inventing rights out of thin air, they praise the majesty of the document, but in so doing, they’re praising only their self-imagined cleverness and deceptive corruption. When the clear language of the Constitution thwarts their designs, they cry foul.
They are, you see gentle readers, the self-imagined elite, intellectually and morally superior, uniquely qualified to rule lesser beings, and lesser beings must be disarmed for their own good. Because of their innate superiority, their policies and whims are non-falsifiable. It is not possible for them to be wrong, and no evidence possibly exists which could prove them wrong.
For example, the Clinton Gun Ban, which banned all manner of
“assault weapons,” sunset in 2004 because the government mandated study of its effectiveness found it had no effect on public safety. It was a failure, but D/S/Cs policies cannot possibly fail, so they want to try it again, but this time they can’t possibly fail, because they’re going to spend any amount of money, create huge bureaucracies, put as many Deplorables in jail as necessary, and in general give it to them gooder and harder than ever before, because only then will their brilliant policies be recognized for their brilliance.
D/S/Cs, in this, and surely in more to come, are demonstrating they have no intention of obeying the supreme law of the land. Certainly, if they will not obey the Constitution, with which lower law will they abide? At what will they stop to gain ultimate power?
Adherence to the Constitution is voluntary. They’re no longer volunteering.
Final Thoughts:
Should the Congress pass such a law, one might take solace in the hope some federal court would enjoin its enforcement, but that’s just a hope. If not, it would go into force, and does anyone doubt what the current government would do to enforce it? Perhaps after a few years it might make its way to the Supreme Court, which might strike it down—unless of course the Court is appropriately packed–and then the process of making blatantly unlawful laws would begin again. American’s God-given rights would forever be locked in a legal process, never having the force of law, while the “law” rolls over those the government disfavors.
No people have ever been disarmed for honorable reasons. No disarmed people have ever found greater liberty as a result of being disarmed. Fundamental, unalienable rights, once taken away, are never again restored, because no one would think to take away such rights without the intention of utterly conquering those so deprived of their liberties.
No government that would disarm Americans is, in that unconstitutional, evil act, an American government, nor can it be trusted with power.
The genie is already out of the bottle. If the congress critters think that those in the south, mid-west and west are going to comply, they have been sitting in their conference meeting rooms sniffing their own farts for too long. I laugh at the estimates of 300 million guns in citizen hands – that number is from 15 years ago. Try more like 500 million and still counting. Who is going to turn them in, or collect them – the police hiding behind their shields waiting for someone to take charge ?
Dear Alan Booth:
Precisely. Any active attempt to disarm Americans, particularly “flyover country” is not going to end well—for the confiscators.
What did I miss? Why are you linking to the Assault Weapon Ban of 2018 when they are voting on something similar(?) right now?
Dear SkinnedKnuckles:
Ooops. I forgot to include the link to the current version of the same bill. It’s fixed. Thanks for the catch!
so ban them. then we can ignore it. how are they going to “get them off of the streets?”
Just a bit of FYI… I stumbled onto a self-defense attorney site in CO where apparently he’s built himself up to have quite a following.. some 40,000 subscribers. He does routine video episodes and dissects current self-defense cases like yourself. He’s C&C. I have to think you already are familiar with this fellow. Here’s his latest video on a case from AZ. lawofselfdefense.com
Dear Doug:
I’ve known Andrew Branca for years. We occasionally correspond. He’s the go-to guy for self-defense law in America.
When I stumbled onto his site and saw his high profile I was sure you at least knew of him. I am rather interested in what he says,
Dear Doug:
I’ve been using his formulation on the necessary criteria for the use of deadly force for years, giving proper credit, of course.
I find him interesting because he illustrates the complexities of defending self defense that few.. and I mean very few, who praise the gun and this “inalienalble-ism” of self-defense… that have little concept of such legalities. Personally I think these gun owners who push conceal & carry are just looking for “a right of exoneration” should they decide to pull a trigger in what they declare is in self-defense. The town Marshall declares it a fair fight after asking a witness or two… then let’s everyone go home. Justice served.
Dear doug:
You persist in denying reality and ignoring the law. Self-defense is an unalienable right, the right on which all others depend, for if we have no right to self-defense, what other right matters? Branca provides invaluable information about dealing with our sometimes failing legal system. If a “town Marshall” discovers, based on the available evidence, the law has not been broken, of course everyone goes home, because justice has been served. Branca’s business is education, ensuring when one is forced to act, to defend their life of the life of another, they act within the letter of the law.
You see, that’s what I am liking about Branca. He is a lawyer who specializes in self-defense law, which in itself suggests that there IS law to consider when exercising a decision to use deadly force by determining for one’s self when to exert deadly self defense. Exercising a right to use deadly self defense is NOT a fire-and-let’s-forget event just because YOU determined it was self defense. In other words, a decision to use deadly force under a premise of self-defense has to meet generally state law scrutiny, meaning the decision requires a bit of preparedness in understanding legal discipline before making the decision. Some states actually do require a bit of that preparedness to be allowed to carry. Yet states, like AZ, who just allow a willy-nilly carry-if-you-want… might make C&C gun owners a bit legally vulnerable.
Example.. that Indiana mall shooter. No one questions his take charge action and ability to act quickly, and shoot accurately in saving the day. But I am curious.. under what justification was he acting under when even according to Branca’s elements, that fellow was not under direct threat, he could have easily run away. Yet he turned to engage… even to having some level of time to aim a perfect shot at the distance away he was. So.. then I ask.. have not we gone beyond “self defense” and now include acting as a Good Samaritan for a public good? Is it ok to now prance around with your C&C and think you are some sort of superhero… or quasi-law enforcement officer?
Dear Doug:
If you continue your study with Branca, you’ll discover self-defense applies not only to oneself, but to others. The Good Samaritan was fully justified in stopping the killer because others were in imminent danger of serous bodily injury or death. As I’ve always pointed out, it is best to avoid having to use force if at all possible, and the Samaritan could have simply turned away, but many people are alive today because he chose to risk his life for them. As the Bible says, there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend, or to risk one’s life for a stranger.
I was speaking of the legal exposure in using your firearm for a non-self-defensive encounter… not addressing a spiritual morality. Hell, yeah.. I’d have done the same thing as he did.. no question. Yet in some states that might pose a self-defense question requiring judicial process or review.
Dear Doug:
That’s an issue I addressed here: https://statelymcdanielmanor.wordpress.com/2021/06/28/self-defense-in-a-world-gone-mad/
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