Something Worrisome In The Heller Decision

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This part of the Heller decision is something that may cause some problems in the future:

Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

I could see the gun control lobby clinging to this line of “dangerous and unusual weapons” and bringing various appeals up to the SCOTUS based upon it.

Which then depends on the makeup of the court five years from now. Obama becomes President we know how it will look and then we could look forward to a 6-3 decision in favor of weakening our second amendment rights.

That is how important this election is. For those thinking of staying at home, or throwing their vote away on a Keyes or a Barr, because of their disagreements with McCain in the past….think about that.

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Spot-on Curt!

An O’Bama presidency would be a disaster for America.

Everything that the Left said about George Bush would come true if O’Bama is elected.

You mean the same John McCain who was a charter member of the Gang of Fourteen?

The same one who said he’d NEVER have appointed Justice Scalia?

Lie to yourselves if you want. Lie as much as you feel like. Keep on trying to convince yourself that John McCain is a man of character, who wouldn’t appoint whoever the ACLU and Senator Kennedy suggested, just for the opportunity to appear ‘bipartisan’ and ‘maverick’.

Stop lying to me.

Dave, there is no question that McCain is actually a Democrat. But at least, I think, he’s an old-school democrat, e.g. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy. These men understood the need for national defence and were not closet Marxists.

Not so with the current crowd. Apart from the name, I see very little in common between today’s democrats and democrats of 50 years ago.

While I would prefer a solid conservative president, nominating Scalia copies to the SC, and vetoing every needless expansion of federal authority over our lives, sadly, we have no such viable candidate this year.

So it comes down to either McCain or Obama.

The same John McCain who endorses NFA-34, GCA-68, and the Brady Act; who voted for the 1996 Lautenberg Amendment; who hates gun shows and is always prattling about closing the “gun show loophole”?

“Scalia copies”? You mean the Antonin Scalia who thinks constitutional safeguards against tyranny should be ignored if they interfere with his beloved SWAT teams? The Antonin Scalia who has the same contempt for the Fourth Amendment as Justice Stevens has for the Second? The Antonin Scalia who endorsed torturing prisoners and denying them habeas corpus? The Scalia whose opinion in Heller affirms existing anti-gun statutes such as NFA-34 and GCA-68? The Scalia whose “right” to bear arms is nothing but a mere privilege subject to government restriction or revocation?

It was “solid conservative” Ronald Reagan who promised in 1980 to abolish the BATF if he was elected president. Instead he expanded the size and power of the BATF, attempted to appoint anti-RKBA Robert Bork to SCOTUS, and wrote Republican members of Congress in 1994 urging them to vote for Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban. It was “conservative” Gerald Ford who appointed Justice Stevens to SCOTUS and “conservative” GHW Bush who appointed Justice Souter. It was “solid conservative” Robert Dole who congratulated Sarah Brady in 1993 when the Brady Act became law and who refused to schedule a vote in the Senate against the AWB after Republicans gained control of Congress in 1995.

It’s “solid conservatives” who are largely responsible for the misnamed PATRIOT Act which eviscerates the Fourth Amendment.

i see that case as being something that could be used in several ways…

first the NC supreme court has ruled that for the purposes of their “going armed to the terror of the people” law… that guns were unusual and dangerous weapons… so im still not sure how that will bear out…

on the flip side, the only reason that machine guns are not in common use at the current time is because of a series of more restrictive laws that has prohibited them… someone with a proper legal team and deep pockets could argue that the laws that made that weapon uncommon did so in violation of the constitution….

Bingo!

One of the main reasons I’ll be supporting Obama financially and voting for him in November is the very real possibility of restoring some balance to the Supreme Court.

We can’t afford any more ideologues like Roberts, Scalia & Alito or complete mediocrities (and ideologues) like Clarence Thomas.

Hillary Clinton would certainly make an interesting Justice.

Cheers!

Okay, all… I’ve been reading the 157 pg opinion all day to find the actual basics. Was planning on doing a post, but maybe I’ll just cover basics here on this particular section.

The dissenting Supremes were all a’twitter about how this this leaves much unexplained in what the 2nd amendment *does* protect. So let me start from the premise.

The whole crux of the argument was about whether the 2nd Amendment applied only to individuals who were members of a militia and their “common use” weapons, or whether it was a right to all individuals for not only militia, but self defense, recreation etc. This, of course, meant both sides have different definitions of the framers concept of militia. Different story, different time…

The two camps started from two different bases.

Concurring justices said it was a right emulating old English law (sans the “Protestant” limitation) for both militia AND self defense. They also agree that there are limitations on what type of guns are covered under the 2nd Amendment… will get back to that in a minute, because that’s where Curt’s coming from.

The dissenting judges start that the framers set this up as militia – ala military use – type protections. Needless to say, had more agreed with them, our entire right to arms would go down the toilet. We came very close to setting ourselves up for a serious govt takeover entoto. But I digress…

Back to the “type of weapons” covered, as both dissenting and concurring agree that types of weapons can be limited. Per Scalia, this is still an issue of what and how to come. You see, it’s based on individuals have “common use” arms that are appropriate for self defense, etal. Back in framers times, it was different than today.

And in fact, Scalia does make the point this opens up what US v Miller (the dissenters major foundation, in error tho…) does allow in types of weaponry for future cases.

We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller’s phrase “part of ordinary
military equipment” could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act’s restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller’s “ordinary military equipment” language must be read in tandem with what comes after: “[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes like self-defense. “In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.”

Scalia, from further down, INRE more advanced auto weaponry and the possibility this could make things:

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

This opens up the Supreme’s to address… when a case rolls around and if a fed AG doesn’t issue an opinion prior… whether the right to possess “common use” weaponry has advanced to include some common military use weaponry.

But this is not part of this specific case addressing a hand gun, trigger locks and operable use by a beltway resident. And it is that “future” possibility that has the dissenters all up in “arms”, so to speak.

Arthurstone, your idea of “balance” leaves much to be desired. Evidently your concept of “balance” is everyone agreeing with you.

The Scalia whose “right” to bear arms is nothing but a mere privilege subject to government restriction or revocation?

AnnoLiberatis, you need to read the opinion. Scalia spends the bulk of his opinion stating the right to keep and bear arms does not only apply to militia, but to individuals for self defense, recreational, etal. He says, in no uncertain terms, that this is a codified *pre-existing right*, established from old English law, that will not be infringed.

That said, both concurring and dissenting agree there are limitations that may be imposed on the type of arms, inidividuals, , licensing, etal (I’m not saying I agree with any of these one way or the other, just stating these are areas in which the Supreme’s agree via precendents i.e. US v Miller).

But it cannot be denied that Scalia emphasized the right for individuals to bear arms – a right that some framers felt was so basic and understood it didn’t need to be codified – was so codified. And boy are we thankful for that later thru the centuries.

There are nuances and devils in the details. But this is the foundation of his opinion.

I am amazed at the incredible inconsistency of Steven’s opinions.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

Guess who recently ruled that the combination of the Senate the Congress and the Executive, with clear and over ruling majority had made law in both the federal level and the state level that the court saw fit to cast aside based on their “feeling” that there was some absent but growing consensus, and then turned around and complained that Heller vs DC should go the other way “because” the district of DC had made the law in an orderly fashion. The district of DC is so much more Representative than either a full state legislature, executive and judicial system, and more Representative than a super majority of the US legislature and executive, so that the district of DC should be empowered to override the constitution?

Amazing.

MataHarley, I DID read the opinion in Heller. Every single word. You might try reading the Declaration of Independence, the opinions of the Framers published during the ratification of the Constitution, and various federal and state anti-gun statutes (none of which were struck down by SCOTUS in Heller).

Per the Declaration of Independence, individual rights are unalienable (that which cannot be taken away). Scalia wrote that self-defense is an “inherent” individual right then he affirmed anti-gun statutes which deny (under threat of years in prison) millions of Americans who committed no violent offense the means to exercise that inherent right. It’s swell in Scalia’s view that a woman with a marijuana or tax conviction 20 years ago is prohibited by GCA-68 from possessing a firearm to defend herself from a wannabe robber, rapist or murderer. Or that thousands of police officers and military personnel with certain misdemeanor convictions lost their careers when the 1996 Lautenberg Amendment was enacted, expanding GCA-68.

As the 5th Circuit did in Emerson, Scalia & Company claimed there’s an individual “right” to possess firearms (and then only certain government-approved ones) yet that so-called “right” amounts to nothing more than a privilege subject to restriction, even revocation, by the government. Is this really so difficult for you to comprehend?

What part of “shall not be infringed” and “unalienable” do you and the folks at SCOTUS have so much trouble grasping? The majority held the words “the people” contained in the Second Amendment mean everyone in the USA just as they do in the First and Fourth Amendments then promptly contradicted themselves. As Stevens noted in his otherwise deplorable dissent, the majority didn’t seriously apply “the people” to cover everyone; Scalia expressly excluded felons (even those convicted of nonviolent, victimless, mala prohibita crimes) and other GCA-68 “prohibited persons” from the Second Amendment whereas they’re not excluded from the protections of the First and Fourth Amendments. The USA was founded by felons who committed treason, sedition and armed rebellion against their lawful government. Even before the War for Independence, Ethan Allen was a wanted, convicted criminal; John Hancock was the most notorious smuggler and tax evader in the colonies.

How does “shall not be infringed” square with Scalia’s support for laws forbidding the concealed carry of firearms, preventing Americans from owning militia-suitable arms (the very type of weapons the Framers were most interested in insuring the populace possessed), and denying millions of citizens protection under one of the Bill of Rights? Good luck finding a shred of historical support for the “limitations” on gun ownership Scalia affirmed or in Americans obtaining a “license” from a government bureaucrat before exercising an unalienable, inherent human right. I’d enjoy watching you or Scalia explain to Patrick Henry or Ethan Allen that they need to obtain a license before they could purchase a firearm and register it with the government.

The Founding Fathers’ primary purpose in enacting the Second Amendment was to ensure an armed citizenry capable of resisting a tyrannical government (as they had just done). Antonin Scalia has a long history of rationalizing and excusing heinous criminal misdeeds by government henchmen. Tyrannical governments aren’t resisted by “law-abiding citizens” since the very act of resistance is a crime to such governments. Restricting firearms ownership to persons a government deems harmless and then only non-militia suitable arms (no M-16s, short barrel shotguns, etc. per Scalia) defies the most important reason for the existence of the Second Amendment and the plain language in that document.

MataHarley,

I also read the entire Heller decision, but it must have been a different version than yours. While using the term “individual right,” Scalia and his brethren made it obvious they really regard firearms possession as a mere privilege which can be sharply restricted, even rescinded, at the will of Congress or state legislatures.

I’m one of those scum-sucking convicted felons Scalia rails against; as opposed to unconvicted felons such as G.W. Bush (a drug felon), Bill Clinton (guilty of perjury, tax evasion, draft evasion and drug use), and a majority of other Americans who are unconvicted felons whether they recognize the fact or not. I played a trivial role in a non-violent crime in 1986; after 22 years I’m still waiting for someone to explain who the “victim” was in my case. I served a year in prison, five years probation and then had to wait ten more years before my “privilege” (per the DOJ/BATF) to possess firearms was automatically restored by the state I resided in. According to that state, my “privilege” to possess rifles and shotguns was restored the moment my sentence was complete but, thanks to a 1998 SCOTUS ruling, the Feds refuse to recognize a partial restoration of firearms privileges. It would have been a 5-year wait but a conservative Republican governor thoughtfully doubled the length of the waiting period as soon as he took office.

For 17 years I was a (per GCA-68) “prohibited person” forbidden to possess a firearm despite what Scalia claims is an “inherent right” of self-defense. Had I committed a federal felony or one in certain states, I would never be legally able to own a gun without receiving a virtually impossible to obtain pardon. As difficult as it must be for you and Antonin Scalia to understand, my life is as precious to me as yours is to you. When I became a convicted felon, I didn’t lose my rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth or any other provision of the Bill of Rights … just the Second Amendment and then only under an interpretation which defies reason, the language of the document, and the historical record of the RKBA.

After years of publicly bragging about his speeding (usually without being ticketed by cops who admitted they feared losing their job), South Dakota’s conservative Republican congressman and ex-governor Bill Janklow ran a stop sign in 2003 and killed an innocent motorcyclist. While lowly private citizens are routinely sentenced to 10 years in prison for such a manslaughter conviction, Janklow only had to spend 100 days in a private cell in a county jail and after just three years his conviction was completely erased from the record; he’s still allowed to practice law, possess firearms, even have a concealed carry permit. As a member of Congress at the time of his homicide, a court ruled taxpayers were liable for all civil damages accessed against Janklow.

Despite killing an innocent man (and showing precious little remorse), Janklow is now technically one of those “law-abiding citizens” which Scalia held is “allowed” to possess firearms. Millions of Americans who never harmed any other person are perpetually prohibited from possessing any firearm, despite what Scalia calls an “inherent right” to self-defense, thanks to GCA-68 and other anti-gun statutes affirmed in Heller. I have a problem with this, MataHarley, even if you don’t.

You mean that there are consequences, punishments and repercussions for violating the law? Some that can go beyond the simple time spent in incarceration? Sorry but boo hoo to you. You broke the law and couldn’t buy a gun for awhile. Here’s a thought, don’t break the law. Demonstrate that you actually want to be a party to the social contract of our society and you’ll reap the benefits.

Guess what, putting people in jail violates their inalienable right to liberty. Shall we let everyone out of prison because of that?

who wouldn’t appoint whoever the ACLU and Senator Kennedy suggested

McCain has indicated that he would be listening to Fred Thompson when it came to appointing judges. One of the more sensible things I’ve heard him suggest. He is weak on a lot of fronts, but I do think he’ll be solid on judges so long as he still has enough Congressional support to get them approved. As with other things, there is always the risk that we’ll see McCain pull out the Grand Bipartisan Compromise aka selling us down the river, but at least he is starting out on the right side of the issue (not like, say, his stance on illegal immigration).

AnnoLiberatis and Karen76, you’re both jumping all over the “choir” here.

If you both didn’t notice in my post about Scalia (ala making no bones that arms possession is enshrined in the Bill of Rights and applies to militia and citizens alike), I’ll repeat my own disclaimer:

That said, both concurring and dissenting agree there are limitations that may be imposed on the type of arms, inidividuals, , licensing, etal (I’m not saying I agree with any of these one way or the other, just stating these are areas in which the Supreme’s agree via precedents i.e. US v Miller).

Note that no where did I say I *agree or disagree* with arms regulation. In fact, as you can see, I stayed out of that fray deliberately.

What I did was dispute AnnoLiberatis’s assertation that Scalia considers the 2nd Amendment a “privilege”. He does not. He specifically states is is a “right, enshrined”, subject to regulation. In the eyes of the Supremes, regulation is a different animal than denial. Altho, in reality, some regulation does ultimately result in denial.

To demonstrate that the 2nd Amendment is operating as to Scalia’s interpretation, once your sentence was completed, you were not denied certain types of firearms. Thus you were not denied the right to bear arms. You were just limited in what arms you could bear.

And BTW, some of my best friends are felons, in situations similar to yours. Yes, they are annoyed about the limitation. However many have a fine collection of long arms in it’s stead.

Scalia points out that the 1st and 4th Amendments are also subject to regulations. INRE this, AnnoLiberatis incorrectly says: “other GCA-68 “prohibited persons” from the Second Amendment whereas they’re not excluded from the protections of the First and Fourth Amendments. “

You cannot use the 1st Amendment as a defense for unlawful purposes (specifically referred to on pg 49 of the opinion), and property can indeed be seized under certain conditions (i.e. police power, eminent domain, escheat and property taxes). Both of these are protections under these amendments, limited by regulation.

It might be noted that with CA’s “assault weapons” language, equating to anything with a threaded barrel amounts to an assault weapon because you can use a silencer, this makes many action pistol enthusiasts and the Olympic shooters illegal in California. I know because I was one of those fighting that tooth and nail. Our failure to stop CA’s assault on gun owners is one of the reasons I relocated my butt elsewhere.

But CA is just another example of legislators who don’t know sheeeeeet about the law, making laws. However the Supreme’s (state or feds) cannot overturn these unless challenged in court. That’s the way our system works. There is recourse, but you have to use it.

Now what remains to be seen is how current regulation will be affected with this opinion. Chicago and SF are in for a fight. And I suspect they are not alone for those that will be challenged with their current regulations.

Despite killing an innocent man (and showing precious little remorse), Janklow is now technically one of those “law-abiding citizens” which Scalia held is “allowed” to possess firearms. Millions of Americans who never harmed any other person are perpetually prohibited from possessing any firearm, despite what Scalia calls an “inherent right” to self-defense, thanks to GCA-68 and other anti-gun statutes affirmed in Heller. I have a problem with this, MataHarley, even if you don’t.

You are assuming too much, Karen. I most certainly remember Janklow, being a rider myself. I never said I didn’t have a problem with his situation. It, however, has nothing to do with anything I commented on INRE the SCOTUS opinion.

There are scads of sentences and decisions I have problems with. I even have problems with this one. However I was viewing the SCOTUS opinion, sans my own personal opine. Just da facts, maam… just the facts.

So please don’t be throwing what *you* think I believe into the mix. Thank you.

MataHarley,

I suggest you work on improving your reading comprehension as well as your grasp of American jurisprudence. While the state in question (Alaska) restores a felon’s “privilege” to possess rifles and shotguns as soon as a sentence is completed, in the 1998 Caron decision SCOTUS ruled a state’s partial restoration of firearms privileges has no effect on federal anti-gun statutes; only a full restoration means anything to the Feds. Your felon friends possessing “a fine collection of long arms” are violating GCA-68 and pertinent case law, and are looking at ten years (possibly more) in prison thanks to sheeple like Buzz. At sentencing, judges just love to exclaim, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse!” … even when they were personally ignorant of the relevant case law ten minutes earlier. The last time I checked, Alaska officials were still assuring felons their privilege to possess long guns had been restored (and it was under AK state law) and the BATF was arresting people who followed that advice for violating GCA-68.

I understand Scalia said the Second Amendment protected an individual RKBA; so did the 5th Circuit in Emerson. That didn’t keep the 5th Circuit from affirming Dr. Emerson’s conviction even though he had no criminal history, just a restraining order based on an unsubstantiated, unsworn statement by his wife in their divorce hearing. When a government can arbitrarily restrict, license, revoke a person’s freedom of action when they didn’t violate another person’s individual rights then that government is asserting only a “privilege” exists regardless whether Scalia or anyone else calls it a “right.” Then there’s that pesky phrase “shall not be infringed” which Scalia, Buzz, et al. conveniently ignore.

Once again, there’s no “felon exception” to the First and Fourth Amendments; no one on SCOTUS even suggests that. It’s only the Second Amendment which isn’t applied evenly to all Americans and that’s a consequence of GCA-68 which Senator Thomas Dodd drafted using an English translation (obtained from the Library of Congress) of the Nazi Law on Weapons of March 18, 1938. Dodd replaced the word “Jews” in the original document with an ever-growing list of “prohibited persons.” But you already knew that, right?

I’m keenly familiar with California’s AWB. My husband and I fled California due to its reprehensible anti-gun statutes. Lamentably, we couldn’t flee the BATF and amoral dolts such as Buzz.

Buzz,

You would have made a “good German” circa 1938. Bill Janklow spouted the same twaddle you do right until his arrest for manslaughter. I never entered into your nonexistent “social contract” and my only contract with the U.S. government was when I accepted a commission as an Army officer. Here are some more folks you wouldn’t like:

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of an individual. — Thomas Jefferson, 1819

All of our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land. — Dr. William K. Clifford

No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. — 16A American Jurisprudence 2d § 203 at 90-91 (1998)

if someone is so dangerous that they cannot be trusted with a firearm, then they are too dangerous to be free in society… after all, knives, chemicals and cars kill far more people per year; but they are not prohibited from those…

how about we re-vamp the criminal system and start keeping the dangerous criminals in prison for life?

then things like the cop here in charlotte that was shot 2 weeks ago by a FL man with 19 felony convictions will stop happening

You have a good point, Karen… INRE the GCA-69/Lautenberg vs state restoration of rights. And one I hadn’t thought of since my mind wasn’t running in that direction. Altho I’m not exactly going down the same legal road as you on that issue.

Emerson showed us that the SCOTUS was just not willing to go down the road of GCA-68/Lautenberg for Timonthy Emerson, completely dodged not only Lautenberg, but just said the regulations were not unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment (surprise surprise), and remanded it back. Then again, Emerson served time because he possessed a firearm while under a restraining order, which came under (Lautenberg). I’m less likely to use Emerson as an example since we’ll never get around SCOTUS saying limitations are within bounds.

But I understand you when you say the partial state restoration – despite the fact they had voting, running for office and jury services rights restored – triggers the GCA-68/Lautenberg federal law. Legally, that’s not supposed to be the end of the road.

Which brings us to a whole ‘nuther enchilada… Congress, and their meddling with ATF fund allocations. Because of their appropriations bills language since 1992, the have caused an effective denial-via-inaction by the ATF for restoration recourse in the 925(c) petitions. I’ve seen a few of these go thru the District Courts and US v Bean in the SCOTUS, but all higher opinions point out they have no power other than judicial review of the process. And of course, since the process was never done, so there is nothing to review.

Up until now, I guess the legal minds have not seen a way around Congress nullifying the application process by refusing money. Which brings up a good question now. Can one of these 925(c) cases benefit from the Heller decision as Congressional denial of due process in restoring a Constitutional right (even partial) when it has been so restored via the State? I wonder if anyone will embark on that legal path. I sure would.

But INRE enforcement… Frankly, I don’t hear of BATF banging on many people’s doors to enforce GCA-68/Lautenberg. If they want the former felons for something else, they may wish to use it… rather like getting Capone on tax evasion. Harrassment is harrassment, and I’ve certainly had a fair share on my ride. But this busting ex-felons for rifles is hardly a wide spread enforcement from what I’ve seen.

MataHarley, I’m painfully aware what Charles Schumer engineered in 1992 regarding 18 U.S.C. Sec 925(c), and what an allegedly pro-RKBA Republican majority in Congress a few years later refused to correct. My husband rejected probation or parole and served 3 extra years in prison in order to accelerate the administrative restoration process under 925(c). It was just days after his sentence was complete when Schumer got the funding vacated, precisely as BATF officials wanted.

Since Scalia expressly stated in Heller that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to felons (a notion which would have astonished the Framers), I suggest the “legal path” you mentioned would be as futile as expecting compassion from Buzz or the IRS, marital fidelity from Bill Clinton, or respect for the RKBA from the BATF.

While I appreciate the lucidity of your last post, I want to correct your term “ex-felon.” Like millions of other Americans, I’m an ex-convict and felon; not an ex-felon. The words “ex-convict” and “ex-felon” aren’t synonymous (Buzz: that means the words don’t share the same meaning). Here in the Land of the Free the only way a felon can become an “ex-felon” is to receive a nearly impossible to obtain pardon or have a sweet deal like Bill Janklow and be sentenced to what’s usually called a Suspended Imposition of Sentence.

I’m frankly amazed by your remark that “busting ex-felons” for GCA-68 violations (and similar state laws) isn’t widespread. There are thousands of people currently rotting in state and federal gulags who would disagree with you. That happens to be the BATF’s primary function. Phillip W. Bates was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for merely possessing a shotgun while working as a duck hunting guide in Arkansas. The 8th Circuit stated, “We are not unmindful of the apparent absurdity in sentencing an individual to fifteen years imprisonment for the equivalent of duck hunting” then affirmed the sentence. Buzz must be delighted.

Several years ago a felon working in a moving van crew in Iowa found a cartridge in a rug he was carrying from a house. The BATF was notified, he was arrested and sentenced to years in prison. Senator Chuck Grassley said this was crazy and the law (GCA-68) had to be changed; it wasn’t. The last time I held my nose and visited the BATF website they were bragging about how long a prison sentence a felon received for merely possessing an empty cartridge casing (any component – a primer, casing, bullet, smokeless powder – qualifies as ammunition under GCA-68). Black powder is classified as an explosive; the possession of a single firecracker by a felon is liable for a sentence up to 10 years in federal prison.

On August 29, 1998, my husband and I found ourselves staring down the muzzles of numerous SWAT rifles, shotguns and pistols and threatened with death (despite our being passive and obviously unarmed) at a fictitious traffic stop instigated at the behest of the BATF. My husband was arrested, all of our assets seized so he couldn’t hire an attorney, denied bail without a hearing, and then issued a court order prohibiting him from speaking in his own defense to jurors or during his sham 10-minute-long bench trial. All for peacefully possessing the same gun collection he’d owned since age 14. I was a felon and this was 7 years before my “privilege” was restored. I possessed the same guns he did; I’d purchased several of them years earlier when I was still a first class citizen. Yet I was never arrested, let alone prosecuted. Unlike my husband, I’m not a former FBI agent and hadn’t written articles which were published in newspapers and magazines across the USA criticizing the federal misdeeds at Ruby Ridge and Waco and our eroding individual liberties; articles which infuriated senior FBI/DOJ/BATF officials. Buzz probably wouldn’t have liked them either.

Humm… not much of a chance for dull moments in your life, eh Karen? It’s easy to see your perspective being deep seated for your personal experiences.

I was talking with a friend about Heller last night. Both of us believe that this decision is going to start a sweep of challenges to various regulations in the states. While Heller is specific and regional, what it states applies to all who take issues into court. Trigger lock mandates, ammo criteria, magazine capacity, concealed carry…. perhaps even a wider variety of auto and semi auto weaponry as “common use”…. these and more are ripe pickings. I truly think it’s early to guess just how widespread an effect Heller is going to have. But I’m quite sure that we’re going to see it, and I’d say not so far down the road.

One thing my friend said stuck with me. The gun congrol crowd is now on the defensive with this decision. The tables have turned. And the NRA is likely to enjoy a boost in membership.

We specifically discussed Heller and 925(c)s. This was something he hadn’t thought of either. I know you are looking at it as not so rosy, based on Scalia excluding felons specifically as a regulated class of citizenry. So let’s see if I can get that fine mind of yours working in a slightly different approach. And that’s attacking the base problem that Congress is impeding the due process of a Constitutional right to individuals (not collective, not organized milita or standing Army) RKBA.

You can’t sue Congress, but you can sue Executive branch departments. A lawsuit against the BATF for violation of 2nd and 14th amendments (both the due process and equal protection in Sect I) may be the ticket. The combination of these two amendments would be an unusual case. But I don’t think it’s impossible in 925(c) specifics. And it sure would be one great way to put Congress, and the games they play with citizens’ rights, in their place.

I’ve sent off a few emails to a few exploring this. Would love to get a hold of some of the defense attorneys for Bean, etal, to see if they are exploring resuming their fight, but with a different tact in light of Heller.

Perhaps there are 1000s languishing away in prisons by the BATF, Karen. Most of ATF raids I’ve read of involve those they suspect of trafficking, not merely ex convict possession (and thank you for your legal clarification of the two terms…). Since those I know who are, like you had sentences in their youth, and have since served in the US armed forces, the ATF just isn’t sniffing around their doors for this stuff. Granted if they got caught possession during a routine traffic stop/arrest they could indeed face the music.

But I’d say 1000s is even still a small percent of felons who do possess rifles, with their state laws blessings. Naturally there are those caught in that net who don’t deserve such harrassment, just as there are some who genuinely deserve the BATF’s post sentence scrutiny.

I think what bothers me most is not the regulations, which is a dead end route… i.e. inevitable via SCOTUS precedents. But regulations – most especially on liberty and Constititonal rights – can not be in place without rightful due process. The “due process” exists in the 925(c)s, but is deliberately thwarted by Congress under approrpriations.

This sneaky workaround to strip “unequal” citizens of due process for Constitutional rights is nothing less than unAmerican in nature.

The NRA? Oh, please. On May 16, 1995, while speaking before the National Press Club, Tanya Metaska (then head of NRA-ILA) was asked if there was any anti-gun statute the NRA endorsed. Instead of saying “no,” she stated the NRA “fully supports the Gun Control Act of 1968.” My husband and I nearly fainted. On May 18, 1995, Wayne LaPierre was asked by Larry King on CNN if the NRA wanted to abolish the BATF. Instead of saying “yes,” LaPierre exclaimed the NRA “didn’t want to restrict the BATF in any way.” We immediately resigned our NRA Life Memberships and wish we still had the thousands of dollars we squandered in contributions to that duplicitous group. In 2004, we watched a NRA spokesweasel praise pro-AWB G.W. Bush and endorse NFA-34 and GCA-68. As libertarian author and columnist Vin Suprynowicz wrote, the NRA is the largest gun control organization in America.

Your proposed civil action against the BATF for enforcing a federal statute (just supported by Scalia in Heller) wouldn’t pass the laugh test in any U.S. district court. While he was still confined in a federal gulag/Unicor slave labor plant manufacturing human silhouette targets for BATF and IRS agents to shoot at, my husband filed a civil action against the BATF’s administrative forfeiture of our gun collection. To the astonishment of several attorneys who said he didn’t have a prayer, he won (on Fifth Amendment grounds) in 2003. In 2005, the DOJ signed a court-approved settlement agreement in which they promised to return all of our firearms and ammunition to me. I’m still waiting for them to honor that agreement or the judge to enforce it. It’s shaping up to be a long wait.

As far as your comment the BATF “isn’t sniffing around their doors for this stuff,” I invite you to explain that to Kenyon Ballew, Randy Weaver, Phillip Bates, David Olofson, and thousands of other Americans who might take issue with you. Only “a small percent” of drug users are arrested by police or the DEA – G.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, numerous other members of Congress and thousands of current LEOs avoided apprehension for their past felony drug possession – but that’s small comfort to people who had their lives ruined by the War on Drugs. I find it curious that politicians and LEOs who enjoyed recreational drug use themselves have no problem enacting and enforcing such laws against other Americans and a dull-witted populace apparently approves of such amoral behavior.

Your assertion “some who genuinely deserve the BATF’s post sentence scrutiny” is so pernicious and morally reprehensible that only a person of little wit may excuse it. Every BATF agent swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution then spends a career betraying that oath and abrogating the rights of his fellow countrymen. The RKBA is an unalienable individual liberty; I wish you and Scalia would write that down. Only a person who uses a weapon to violate the rights of other people should be punished for that violent act, not the mere possession of arms. That includes the jack-booted SFPD SWAT goons who, doing the BATF’s scut work, threatened to kill me with their shotguns and assault rifles if I moved or didn’t move. Of course, I am 5’2″, 115 lbs and I was “armed” with a cup of coffee in one hand and a slice of toast in the other so it’s understandable why the brave “brothers of the shield” were so frightened of me.

The DOJ has successfully prosecuted felons for “constructive possession of firearms” even though the defendant lived on the West Coast and the guns were kept by relatives on the East Coast. “Constructive possession” means whatever a conniving prosecutor can convince 12 Buzz types it does. In a motion to the court last month, the DOJ admitted I was no longer a “prohibited person” but raised the specter of constructive possession by my husband. In my reply brief I mentioned that during his 3 years of “supervised release,” DOJ officials gave my husband written permission to attend gun shows in multiple states even though this would place him in immediate proximity to thousands of firearms and tons of ammunition. MataHarley, if you can concoct a plausible explanation for this I’m sure the U.S. Attorney’s office here in Sioux Falls would love to hear from you. If you have cogent explanations how a judge in an allegedly free country can issue an order forbidding a pro se defendant from speaking in his own defense at trial and how federal agents can commit perjury in an affidavit for a search warrant then fabricate evidence (both rulings by the judge) with impunity, I know my husband would like to read them.

What’s with the NRA tirade, Karen? Do tell me where in that sentence did I express an opinion on the NRA?? All I said was both my friend and I expect the NRA will enjoy a boost in membership. Or were you just venting at the mere sight of the letters?

I will not be one of those renewing my NRA membership BTW. I dropped it years ago for being disgruntled myself, and have no plans to go back in. If you construed that as an endorsement, you did so in error. It was merely an observation that’s bound to happen.

Your proposed civil action against the BATF for enforcing a federal statute (just supported by Scalia in Heller) wouldn’t pass the laugh test in any U.S. district court.

The point is the BATF is *not* enforcing a federal statute. Period. Any appropriations mandates are in conflict with existing federal law. Remove that due process 925(c) statute, and it becomes even more a violation of rights. You may be tossing this into the garbage, but I’m not so sure others will. If they fail, at least it will not be for lack of trying to find new ways to use the tool Heller provided. Your 5th argument didn’t pass lawyers’ laugh test, and you won. Do not doubt others may see and take paths you deem impossible.

Scalia stated the opinion should “not cast doubt on the longstanding prohibitions” to felons, mentally ill, etc., but he also recognized this opinion genuinely left regulated limitations open to challenge on page 66 of the decision.

JUSTICE BREYER chides us for leaving so many applications of the right to keep and bear arms in doubt, and for not providing extensive historical justification for those regulations of the right that we describe as permissible. See post, at 42–43. But since this case represents this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field, any more than Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145
(1879), our first in-depth Free Exercise Clause case, left that area in a state of utter certainty. And there will be time enough to expound upon the historical justifications for the exceptions we have mentioned if and when those exceptions come before us.

I suspect da sheeeeet will be a’comin’ and we won’t know what’s left standing for some time to come.

You’re again lecturing to the choir about Congress. I lived in DC 30 ago, and was well aware of the drug usage by the elected elite. Maybe those same ones, still there, are too old now to indulge and still function the following day. Who knows…. But it’s always made me laugh they refuse to mandate drug testing for themselves. And what can I do about it? About the same thing I can do about forcing them to implement term limits, or stop giving themselves raises. They create laws, then exempt themselves. Nothing… ‘cept not vote for them. But I am, just like you, still at the mercy of other, gullible voters who keep placing these bozos into office.

Your assertion “some who genuinely deserve the BATF’s post sentence scrutiny” is so pernicious and morally reprehensible that only a person of little wit may excuse it.

Spoken with all the gracious charm of a cobra, girl… Here you are assuming that your personal legal interpretation of rights as unlimited, usurps the SCOTUS. Sorry… can’t give you that. Precedents, precedents, precedents. I have to accept this as law of the land. Altho I do agree it’s a head trip trying to reconcile a codified pre-existing right that “shall not be infringed”, along with that right not being unlimited by “police power”, state and Congressional regulations. But somewhere framers’ intent and logic played into the precedents.

Let’s pretend there’s no precedents, the world you describe with unlimited rights offers no protection for my rights, infringed, when you decide to abuse yours. What you suggest would require a utopian setting. Not likely with humans. Thus I believe the framers fullly intended some rule of law when an individual was so irresponsible as to abuse those pre-existing rights. The degree of that limitation is, however, always worthy of question and correcting. But hey… I didn’t make these laws.

As for my “morally reprehensible” statement that some may deserve to bear post sentence scrutiny. Let’s clarify that. It’s morally reprehensible to you because you support unlimited rights, and abuse of it be damned. I find that just as “morally reprehensible”, not to mention a possible end to what little “civil” society we have left.

A perfect example of that would be those same Gitmo detainees, granted Constitutional rights by this same court. I would not like them to serve time, be released and restored full Constitutional rights they managed to obtain merely by being parked on territory the SCOTUS redefined as sovereign. Nor do I want Gitmo detainees exercising unlimited free speech by openly preaching overthrow of the US apostate government, while instructing jihad to our kids unabated… all under some morphed idea of unlimited Constitutional rights. Not everyone’s some innocent babe, caught in the web of unfair legislation., and there is some value to rule of law.

Of course many incarcerated have had their lives unjustly ruined. Never said they didn’t. WACO, Weaver etal appalled me as much as it did you. However my complaints and wrath accomplished nothing to change it. I tend not to expend anger in useless tirades and rants, but prefer to direct that energy to finding a way to keep it from happening again. But then I’m not one with a lawsuit that can possibly change things like Heller, which is the only way to change it other than re elect new representatives.

This justice system is far from perfect, and getting more imperfect every day. But for now, the larger population percentage is not unjustly incarcerated, and heaven knows how many guilty walk free because of clever lawyers. For how long is the question. It’s the imperfect system we have because it’s designed and run by humans. But it’s a long shot better than others.

As for BATF oath of office, law enforcement officers “enforce” per dictates of their superiors. It is not their job and expertise to “interpret”. Get harrassed, your only recourse is to run the judicial system. But while they are standing in your doorway with an assault rifle, expecting them to magically adopt your personal legal interpretations of Constitutional just ain’t gonna happen. Reality trumps ideology. The courts have not ruled as you believe.

As for plausible explanations for what our judicial system does… I have none. Baffles me at every turn myself. I know that as long as you remain in the lower courts, you’re subject to the mercy of the guy in the robe and his mood for the day. It’s his domain and he can ignore precedents all day long.

But if your argument is well founded in precedents and law, you take the case high enough in the food chain where a judge can not afford to ignore precedents. And then, hopefully, you’ll have an attorney who didn’t blow it like in Lewis vs US… were he could have had the felon/2nd Amendment issue addressed, but his attorney never brung it up….

You’ve never seen a “tirade” by me. I’ll let you know when it happens. Your remark about the NRA gaining membership may only have been an observation, but I suspect most people reading it would have interpreted it as approval. I’ve been reading similar comments by Buzz types on ar15.com and similar boards and they’re posted by ethically-impaired dullards who worship the NRA mindlessly. I was attempting to pass along some facts about the NRA which members will never read in its publications or hear at the annual meetings.

If my present ability to read your mind is deficient perhaps it’s due to the “legal” drugs in my system right now. The only reason I’m wasting my time on the Internet (I just stumbled across this site after a Google search on Heller) is because I’m stuck at home recovering from surgery for ovarian cancer (one of my ovaries they removed was the size of a dinosaur egg) and awaiting chemotherapy which will cause my hair to fall out. After living with him for 30 years, I may have adopted some of my husband’s strongest personality trait – a pathological inability to suffer fools gladly. Not that I’m calling you a fool; that would be Buzz.

“Cobra”? Compared to my husband, I’m a bunny rabbit. His published articles about the federal misdeeds at Ruby Ridge and Waco (coming from a former FBI agent), had Janet Reno, Louis Freeh, John McGaw, et al. in a rage. We knew the Second Amendment was dead in America, but he naively thought the First Amendment was still in effect.

There have been plenty of legal challenges to the defunding of Sec. 925(c); all ultimately unsuccessful. There’s nothing in Heller to change the situation. There’s a far greater likelihood of Congress simply repealing Sec 925(c). If a pro-felon lobby exists in Washington, D.C., you’d need a scanning electron microscope to find it beneath the LEO sycophants in Congress.

There’s no comparison between your proposal and the fact my husband thought of a Constitutional “loophole” a bunch of attorneys here never considered. The BATF sent notice of their administrative forfeiture of our gun collection to our residence despite knowing my husband was confined in jail (a jail they put him in). Since they never gave him legal notice that constituted a violation of due process.

If believing the words “unalienable” and “shall not be infringed” makes me a “utopian” in your opinion I can live with that. I submit your blind regard for the “rule of law” and “precedent” makes you a “utopian” (what it actually makes you is far less charitable). Germany under Hitler and the USSR under Stalin had the “rule of law.” The Nazis didn’t seize power in a military coup; it was done in adherence to the liberal constitution of the Weimar Republic. Judges in “special courts” sentenced people to concentration camps; there were defense lawyers, precedent, all the legal niceties. In Korematsu v. U.S., SCOTUS held it was perfectly legal to confine 110,000 innocent people, most of them American citizens, indefinitely in concentration camps. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, SCOTUS ruled black people could never become U.S. citizens. No judge had any problem with Americans being imprisoned for criticizing John Adams or members of Congress under the Sedition Act of 1798. The ink on the First Amendment wasn’t even dry before your anti-“unlimited rights” crowd violated it. SCOTUS affirmed imprisoning Americans for years who merely spoke out against conscription, U.S. entry into WWI, etc. in violation of the Sedition Act of 1918. SCOTUS didn’t begin to enforce the First Amendment until the 1920s.

Under our system of government, the U.S. Constitution is supposed to be our supreme law of the land. Any statute, regulation, executive order which violates that document is null and void. Even the scoundrel John Marshall admitted that in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison (although as a Federalist he was silent about the Sedition Act of 1798). MataHarley, under your “rule of law,” how is it SCOTUS allows judges to forbid jurors from being informed of their right to decide both the law and facts in a case (a historic right SCOTUS admits exists)? How can the government seize people’s assets without any due process solely to prevent them from being able to hire competent counsel or afford bail? How can prosecutors file motions in limine and get court orders prohibiting defendants from arguing the unconstitutionality of statutes to jurors at trials, thereby negating the primary reason for having jury trials as a bulwark against tyranny? In responding to his Sec. 2241 petition, the judge admitted 70 of the 74 counts he sentenced my husband for were illegal under prevailing case law (your beloved “precedent”) then refused to amend the sentence. Under your “rule of law,” how could a district court judge tell the DOJ they could file a civil forfeiture action against our gun collection after the statute of limitations had expired? Under your “rule of law,” why did the same judge refuse to dismiss said action when it was filed (as the DOJ conceded) without approval of the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury as required by law? You’ll get back to me on these, right?

Gitmo? You do realize hundreds of persons confined at Gitmo were completely innocent, right? That’s not my lowly opinion but that of military interrogators. People were grabbed and thrown into Gitmo for no better reason than Afghan warlords handing personal adversaries over to the U.S. for cash bounties or a man wearing a Casio watch. FBI agents visiting Gitmo reported numerous federal felonies perpetrated by military and CIA personnel – from committing torture to impersonating FBI agents. The DOJ refused to prosecute (gee, there’s a surprise). What happened to your “rule of law”? Do you really expect innocent people incarcerated, even tortured, for years to leave as friends of the freedom-loving USA? The U.S. government executed or imprisoned Germans and Japanese after WWII for war crimes less egregious than those you seem indifferent to when perpetrated by Americans. Speaking of the “rule of law,” when did Congress declare war on Iraq and Afghanistan as required in the Constitution?

There is no moral distinction between Gestapo and SS officers and BATF agents. None. Unlike the Gestapo, BATF agents swore an oath to adhere to a Constitution which promises protection for individual rights and expressly forbids the U.S. government from enacting the anti-gun laws which BATF agents willingly enforce. I expect LEOs and legislators, like all human beings, to exercise a moral conscience and not rationalize heinous misdeeds with the specious “just following orders,” “judges said it was OK,” “they’re just Japs, not real Americans,” “they’re only ragheads/felons/niggers,” “for the children,” etc. defenses. The U.S. Constitution is not some arcane document which only a handful of great legal minds can interpret. Most “interpretation” of the Constitution by judges consists of legal sophistry to ignore/circumvent/violate the clear language and original intent of the Framers.

Since SCOTUS only accepts a few score of cases each year, I’m a little fuzzy how folks can “take the case high enough in the food chain.” Heller was the first time since 1939, and only the second time in history, that SCOTUS granted a petition for writ of certiorari to hear a 2A case. Based on the court’s composition at the time of Lewis, there’s zero reason to suspect they would have ruled favorably. Finally, judges all the way to SCOTUS routinely ignore precedent whenever they find it convenient for their personal agenda.

No need to “read my mind”, Karen. When I approve or disapprove of something, I’m pretty straight forward. But the short paragraph about the NRA was defined by the first sentence.. “One thing my friend said stuck with me..” followed by his view that the gun control crowd was now on the defensive, and that the NRA was likely to have a more active membership for upcoming challenges. I agree with his predictions.

I suspect we could have long conversations on the Gitmo detainees (of which most have been released that you allude to), jury nullification and just stuff in general. But suspect this one may have exhausted itself in our degrees of disagreement.

I am very sorry to learn of your bout with cancer. May your feisty attitude beat it down, and keep it down.

Karen, I guess that means he’s not going to answer your questions, explain any of that “rule of law” stuff, and defend his morally and intellectually untenable positions. I never saw that coming.

MataHarley is impressed because the “larger population percentage is not unjustly incarcerated” in the USA. The same was true in Nazi Germany, the USSR, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Red China. America currently imprisons over two million people, more than any other nation; approximately 718 people per 100,000 population, a per capita ratio seven times higher than in Red China. Perhaps Buzz or MataHarley have some dandy explanations for that.

At last count I’ve lived in or visited 38 countries, including some military dictatorships. The only place I’ve ever been accosted by police and threatened with arrest and incarceration for feeding a crippled, flightless duck is here in the Land of the Free.

The only place I’ve lived where it was a felony for a private citizen to possess a billy club is the People’s Republic of California. I never met a CA attorney who was aware of the statute but “ignorance of the law is no excuse” is what a judge would proclaim at sentencing. I unwittingly violated that obscure statute every day for two years before discovering it by accident while studying criminal law in college. The notion possessing a piece of wood or an aluminum baton could be a crime, let alone a felony, was beyond my comprehension. Had my “offense” been discovered, I would have become one of those felons Buzz despises and never gone on to become an Airborne Infantry officer, hold elective office, and become a CPA and CFO. I sure miss the America I was born into as opposed to today’s Amerika.

Again, AnnoLiberatis, you assume too much from words.

I am not “impressed” with wrongful incarceration, as you deliberately misrepresent. But I also recognize that wrongful detention will happen in any system worldwide. Yet, sans perfection from an imperfect species, our system offers better recourse for wrongful imprisonment than elsewhere. That’s a far cry from your assumed “impressed”.

I don’t know what you want addressed in the “rule of law”. I’ve said, and you’ve ignored repeated, that I do not agree with many… and perhaps most… opinions and judgments of our judicial system at all levels. What would be the point of arguing with you or anyone who places no value in our system’s structure and due process? My personal anger at what I consider a wrong decision will not recant what they have deemed is “rule of law”. But I also recognize that my battles with what I believe is un Constitutional enforcement do not lie with confronting law enforcement officers doing their jobs, but in confronting the court. It is only there you have the slightest chance of changing a wrong.

While I find flaws and dangerous trends awakening in this country – another disclosure you will conveniently ignore – I do not equate it in the same degree to “Nazi Germany, USSR, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Red China.” Frankly, I see no value in agreeing or disagreeing with your constant negative slams, sans any constructive solution to reversing a dangerous trend. To me, you’re just another professional victim who likes to whine, without offering reasonable ways to right the wrongs that do occur. I am not of the mind we’ve descended so far as to warrant armed rebellion. If that’s your solution instead of electing better representation and battling in the judicial system, then boy are you hanging around on the wrong site.

That you “lived in or visited 38 countries, including some military dictatorships” but “The only place I’ve ever been accosted by police and threatened with arrest and incarceration for feeding a crippled, flightless duck is here in the Land of the Free.” speaks volumes for your opinion of the USA. Thus you and I find no common ground to communicate for your apparent distaste for this country. So forgive me if I don’t rue any decision you make to relocate to some better utopia, nor care to engage you in point to point BS on each and every flaw that exists in this country.

BTW Karen76/Anno… pick one personality and stick with it, if you please. Or have we now met Mr. Karen?

Sniff.

Sniff..

Mata,

Is the scent of socks in the air again?

It’s entirely possible, Ayi Chi. With all those drafty philosophical holes in anarcho-capitalism, or extreme libertarian anarchy, all kinds of odors can waft thru….

My gawd!

We finally get a decent and reasonable ruling out of the SC ( albeit by too narrow of a margin) and instead of reveling in that and looking for opportunities to broaden the breach in the Liberal/Democrat lines, we get people here pissing and moaning that there has been and remains injustice.
Fack yes things aren’t golden and haven’t been for many a year. But this was a victory and an important one that opens lines of attack to roll back past losses as well as tremendous opportunities to separate the Democrats gun rights advocates from the anti gun lobby and split the Democrats.

I’m real sorry if someone here got a bum rap in the past and is suffering for it today. Guess what? life ain’t often fair and we all have stories to tell.
I got a broken back in a bad para insertion while wearing my favorite Uncles clothes and although I thought I had made a full recovery I’ve been pretty much immobile the last two days. I’ve lost half a dozen friends in sands of the Mideast. But I will still cheer every some bitch we flip the switch on despite the “unfair” things that have happened and just can’t be undone.

Get with the program, put your eyes on the horizon, point your nose at the real enemy and take out your frustrations on them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to test the effectiveness of muscle relaxers and 21yr old Balavine.

Useful writing . I learned a lot from the insight , Does anyone know where my assistant might be able to get ahold of a blank ATF 3210.1 version to fill in ?

@lavina ritenour: Hi Lavina! my assistant filled out a template ATF 3210.1 document at this place http://goo.gl/4tfdZD