We think it’s a civil right that deserves a single uniform standard across the state. No matter whether you’re from Decatur, or from Chicago or from Moline to Lansing, it’s a fundamental right.
Todd Vandermyde
February 22, 2013
Heated testimony at hearing on state’s concealed carry law
See this and much, much more at Video Weekend, Part II: Todd Vandermyde.
[I found it enlightening that no matter how many times and how many ways Vandermyde explained this the legislators, most, if not all of them lawyers, questioning him couldn’t seem to get it. They would even say, “We respect the Second Amendment” then in the next breath say they had an obligation to deny that right to the people they were representing in the interests of protecting them.
Vandermyde would ask questions like, “Well then do you think you should let the police search people without a warrant? Or should the police be able to ignore their Fifth Amendment rights?” Apparently these people could not understand the point he was making.
These people are bigots and should be treated as such. They, as Federal judges have said, are thumbing their noses at the U.S. Constitution, the Federal judges, and the rights of the people they supposedly represent. This is no different that the people in the deep south that abused the rights of people of color 50 years ago and I would not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for them if the Feds used similar methods to enforce their rulings upon them. Send in the National Guard to protect a parade of individuals openly carrying guns down the main streets of Chicago and Federal Marshalls arresting any city or state government employee that attempted to interfere with people peaceably exercising their right to bear arms in public.—Joe]
Well, it’s not like we hire them for their brains. We hire them because they’re good at winning popularity contests. This is probably not the ideal trait to select for.
I don’t think concealed carry is a right. I believe it is a privilege. Until the Supreme Court says it’s a right, it’s not a right.
To bear arms outside the home has not been explicitly confirmed by the Supreme court but nearly all observers believe it will be and at least one lower Federal court has insisted it is. Illinois is under the jurisdiction of one of these courts. So until the SC says otherwise, in Illinois, the people do have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms outside the home.
It may be that ultimately it will not include a right to concealed carry unhampered by a requirement to get a permit from a bureaucratic. Which is why I used the example of “a parade of individuals openly carrying”. But we expect either open or concealed, if not both, will given the status of a specific enumerated right in the near future (speaking in court date time scales) throughout the country.
The point Vandermyde was trying to get across was that Chicago and some other communities believe they should be allowed to place severe restrictions on the right to bear arms in any fashion despite the Federal Court saying it is a specific enumerated right. They cannot grasp that until the Supreme court says otherwise the Second Amendment, including the right to bear arms outside the home, is just as valid and untouchable as the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Bill of Rights is not a smorgasbord for local governments to pick and choose from.
Other Federal Courts have said it is not a right, therefore we have a divide that the Supreme Court has to decide.
Yes. But until the SC rules otherwise it is a right within the jurisdiction of that court that say it is so.
ubu52: “Until the Supreme Court says it’s a right, it’s not a right.”
From that I think it safe to infer that you also “believe” that if the Supreme Court says it’s not a right then it’s NOT a right. That would put you in (not) good company. See below where the Supreme Court said a man, born in America to free parents, had NO rights simply because he had ancestors that were slaves.
Judge Taney, writing for the Supreme Court, wrote
…”The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.
It will be observed, that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States. And this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country, and sold as slaves.”
…
“It ([U.S. citizenship], ed.) would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. ”
…
“Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it.”
It’s a right whether any human or group of humans on Earth says so or says that it is not so– It is a right whether or not anyone personally approves of it. Also; some people need to crack a dictionary and look up the word “infringed”. You could pack the SCOTUS with KKK members too, and that wouldn’t remove the rights of blacks, Jews and homosexuals. It would violate said rights, making the SC justices into criminals, but no Earthly power can alter or remove your rights. But the ubus of the world will be coy about it to the very end. They know better. At some level they know better and at the same time that knowledge pissed them off.
“Apparently these people could not understand the point he was making.”
They PRETEND to not understand. It’s their conditioning, just as a child born into a cannibal society will be a cannibal, and a jihadist a jihadist. They’ve all read the words, “…endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” but they’ve been taught to hate those words with a white-hot passion. It’s a “Charter of Negative Rights” to them. It gets in their way, it limits the power of their god/government/gang of thugs.
It’s a bit weird to me that you would wait for a court judgement to determine your rights. Would you do that for any other right? Would not say, “I’m not going to protest on behalf of (women’s suffrage, the abolition of slavery, equality under the law, etc) because no court has yet ruled to tell me that protesting is okay? Even if the answer to that question were, “yes,” you do realize that the purpose of a Bill of Rights is to limit the powers of government, don’t you? If you wait around for permission to do what’s right, then you’ll never actually achieve it. If i’m getting beaten by my boss every week, it’s irrational for me to say, “Well, I’ll just wait until he lets me fight back; then we’ll see who’s boss!” because that’s never going to happen.
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