I pointed out some years ago that the left, even the most radical, fringe, America-hating communist revolutionary leftist (like some of those in the Whitehouse) understands exactly how a right is supposed to work. We know they fully, completely and thoroughly understand because they’ve spent decades strenuously SHOWING US that they fully understand how a right works, that it means HANDS OFF, NO MATTER WHAT, END OF DISCUSSION, PERIOD!
They therefore can never, ever claim that they just didn’t get it, or hadn’t though enough about it, or didn’t have it presented to them in quite the right ways, or they were too busy, etc.
They’ve even taken their definition of a right beyond mere, total and absolute non-interference no matter what, ever, don’t even THINK about it, and into encouragement and even subsidy of the exercise of a right.
Keep all that in mind during their trials.
If bearing arms is a right, and of course it is, then any permit requirement or any special tax, or any special paperwork, licenses, lists or permission requirement of any kind, ever, is a violation.
To hell with permit reciprocity. The second amendment and incorporation is your legal, reciprocal carry permit, and if ANYONE attempts to hinder or discourage you in that right in any way whatsoever (infringe) they are a scum-sucking criminal, a threat and an enemy, and should be in jail, right now.
This is the Progressive/leftist’s own definition of a right, and I agree with them.
Sure; you can get your permit (I have one) but to fight for the “right” to pay the government for a “permit” to exercise your guaranteed rights is a bit like Jews fighting for the “right” to wear yellow arm bands in 1930s Germany. So I’m a German Jew, proudly wearing my yellow arm band and dutifully showing it any officer of the law who asks, “papers please” and if I don’t happen to have it on me because I forgot or lost my wallet somehow, I get a “beating” for it.
And for THIS sack-of-shit situation we celebrate! Imagine homosexuals celebrating that they can now walk around in MOST public places (but only in their home state and maybe a few others) ONLY SO LONG AS they’re registered with the government as homosexuals and have their homo-card on hand to show police at any moment’s notice for any reason. And as gun owners we celebrate exactly that situation for ourselves.
We’re all damned.
I want to stop arguing over this crap and JUST GET ALONG WITH MY LIFE, UNMOLESTED, but I know that will not happen. You stupid criminal motherfuckers doing the dirty deeds had best be begging for forgiveness from God, because I know it’s not within my power to give it to you and I won’t even try.
The abused always celebrate a pat on the head over a punch to the jaw.
I think we’re just exhibiting a classic presentation of Stockholm’s Syndrome.
I understand “better than it was yesterday” and all. I just want it all in perspective. So there it is.
You permit record and your purchase records, the fact that you’re in a database, now stands as a possible tool for the evil, which of course was the idea all along. All they have to do is pick up that tool and use it.
And a very good perspective it is.
Thank you.
“We’re all damned.”
Cool story, bro.
Shall Issue should be seen as a transition goal.
After-all resiting Con-Carry when you’ve got Shall Issue is simply another form of “I’ve got mine”.
But the philosophical, and political difference between May and Shall Issue is huge.
One is a privilege that must be begged or bribed for, another is a privilege like getting a driving license, something that you just go through the motions and get your card.
That’s not me being approving of Shall-Issue (note my usage of privilege instead of right above), but it is better. And from there further work can be done.
Another benefit of Shall Issue becoming the norm is that Permit-less Carry is also expanding.
As a stepping stone, this is great. Get “Shall-issue,” then extend when and where, then transition to residents can open or concealed carry (with permit), then go to fewer restrictions / lower cost for permit, then go to residents don’t need a permit at all and all out-of-state permits are recognized, then go to total con-carry. One step at a time eases the transition disruption for those that freak out easily over change. Each step in a journey is important, always and most especially “the next one.” Along the way we can branch out on what, specifically, can be owned, carried, and used.
The antis worked incrementally to get us where we are. It’s not unreasonable to assume we’ll have to work incrementally, over a long period of time, to get back to pre-’34-era gun rights.
All well understood, but we are talking about criminals here, massive violations of basic rights they swore to uphold, sometimes resulting in huge disruptions in people’s lives and in death, and for now they’re getting away with it, and we’re treating them like people we need to respect. As we speak, people are sitting in jail for having exercised their constitutionally enumerated rights, and the criminals who put them there are still in office and still getting paid as though they are “serving” the public.
Enforcing the law against these despicable criminals, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for the people at large, is important and should be done without delay whenever possible. Otherwise we’ll only get more and more of them, and there will be no justice. We’re talking about some of the most serious crimes any person could commit, and we’re dealing with these people as though they still have any semblance of credibility and respectability. They don’t. They’re far worse, and almost infinitely more dangerous to the human race, than your ordinary street gangster. You don’t say “one step at a time” when it comes to other criminals. You don’t say, “Well, Mr. Jones murdered fewer people this year than he murdered last year, and that’s an improvement, so we’ll just keep working with him because things are clearly going in the right direction. Maybe we should give him a fucking medal for “best improved”, and a key to the city so he’ll know we mean him no harm, and that might bring him around.”
Yes; I do understand all your arguments perfectly well, and I’ve made many of them myself, but there is another item we almost always ignore in this society anymore, and that is justice. As a people we are supposed to advocate justice.
“we’re treating them like people we need to respect” — no, we are treating them as dangerous psychos who cannot, at this time, be retired by ballot or bullet.
Quite interesting. One may not open carry in the city and county of Denver, CO but may be permitted to carry concealed … but not if one uses any of the now legal marijuana as the state statue specifically specifies:
18-12-203. Criteria for obtaining a permit
(1) Beginning May 17, 2003, except as otherwise provided in this section, a sheriff shall issue a permit to carry a concealed handgun to an applicant who:
…
(f) Is not an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance as defined in section 18-18-102 (5). Whether an applicant is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance shall be determined as provided in federal law and regulations.
My, my, my … what tangled webs we weave.
Whatever we do, we must remember to NEVER give them ANYTHING in exchange for their offer of a federal CCW licensing system, which is what they will offer us to get their pet universal background checks once the states have all turned shall-issue.
Assert a Ninth Amendment right to Liberty. It’s a liar paradox to statists.
M
As a reading of Peruta v. San Diego amply bears out, time, place, and manner restrictions apply to the rights protected under the Second Amendment, just as they apply to the ones protected under the First. Impassioned tirades to the contrary bespeak ignorance of this basic fact of Constitutional jurisprudence. In the long run, our choice is between reliance on the checks and balances afforded by a free press and an independent judiciary, and warranted by the right to keep and bear arms, and advocacy of sedition. I choose to enjoy and enforce the rights and duties of citizenship in the Constitutional republic of the longest historical standing. But my choice doesn’t stop me from enjoying the sound and fury of clamorers to the contrary. Politics is show business for ugly people, and I am nowhere near powerful or pretty enough to disclaim this truism on behalf of supply or demand.
“Constitutional jurisprudence” is rife with error, bad judgement, ignorance, and disregard for basic principles, i.e. putting on a robe does not make one immune to human failings. I therefore have little interest in judicial jurisprudence other than as historical curiosity, or the ability to learn from it of human nature through the long, often repetitious cycles it reveals.
Time, place and manner restrictions would properly apply only when the rights of others are being infringed, as in the oft used “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” argument. If there’s no fire, one has committed malicious fraud, depriving others of their peace and creating a danger, and thus it is not “free speech”. Since no one will assert that fraud is “free speech” the first amendment doesn’t come into play.
Similarly, “keeping and bearing arms” cannot and does not in and of itself infringe on the rights of anyone else, and therefore time, place and manner restrictions don’t apply to the keeping and bearing of arms. If on the other hand, someone points a gun in someone’s face unprovoked, there has been a right violation. The second amendment does not protect assault, and so it is inapplicable in a case of assault with a firearm.
Most, if not all, such time, manner and place restrictions are therefore invalid. To put it simply, and truth is always simple; no victim, no crime.
Now there are always those who will claim Victimhood because they feel offended, for example, at seeing a black man married to a white woman, or seeing a regular peon (one of those people) carrying a pistol openly, or a fat man carrying a large soda and a foot-long hot dog, but there is no such thing as a “right to be free from offense”.
Further, and speaking purely on matter of principle, if we are going to err, we should endeavor always to err on the side of liberty. Unfortunately, there are many in positions of power and influence, and those who lust for that power and influence, who prefer to err on the side of state power for state power’s sake, using all manner of rationalizations (including citations of jurisprudence) as tools of subterfuge.
I assume you’ve read Noam Chomsky. He is a Master of subterfuge, yet it doesn’t take but a rudimentary grasp of basic principles to see right through it. As I’ve heard it said; evil is very powerful against the inattentive, but in fact it has a very small bag of tricks and it is rather stupid.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Lyle. Regrettably, your thoughts fail to reach the crux of the issue. At common law, definitions of basic terms are in perpetual flux. This applies first and foremost to terms like rights, speech, and arms.
Rights, as we know since Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), are often found in the ever expanding penumbra of the First Amendment. Speech is coeval, coincident, and concurrent with action, whence the ongoing uncertainty of the legal protections afforded to executable code, even as innocuous as hyperlinks, q.v. Barrett Brown. Likewise the legal uncertainty of what makes for arms, e.g. within the purview of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, codified at 22 U.S.C. ch. 39, as previously discussed herein. Given that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, none of these controversies will be adjudicated by speaking — or acting — purely on matter of principle.
The outcome of our laws is perpetually liable to unfair negotiation by corporate interests, and not altogether immune to crushing domination of the state. Be thankful for the fragile guarantee of due process vouchsafed by our Constitution.
Lyle, you are absolutely correct that “‘Constitutional jurisprudence’ is rife with error, bad judgement, ignorance, and disregard for basic principles,” but youneglect one key point.
That process (flawed though is may be) is a critical and necessary piece the system we have to work with to get things done peacefully.
The only real alternative is bloody civil war and “Put the bastards up against the wall!” at the end of it. No thanks.
Yup. In the end it always comes down to push verses shove. With regard to working within the system, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. If we limit ourselves entirely to what amounts, ultimately, to pleading and begging to be left alone and have our rights respected, we’re guaranteed to suffer decades of injustice. If we’re quick to stand and fight for those rights, we’re doomed to repeated and near endless violence. In essence then, we’re always being held hostage one way or another, or at least that’s what we’re SUPPOSED to believe.
What about always bringing evil to justice, rather than letting it stand and fester, dooming future generations to do our dirty work for us and clean up after? Why is it incumbent upon the advocates of liberty to stay their hands, be patient, and be tolerant of evil and corruption in high places? Is THAT what our system is designed for?
Interestingly enough, the notion that ‘there is no such thing as a “right to be free from offense”’ is particularly an American notion. In other parts of the world it IS held that free speech ends as soon as someone claims to be offended. For example, this was explicitly stated by the head of state in Holland, in a Christmas speech some years ago. That’s one of many reasons I always say that Holland doesn’t have a real constitution.
Michael; your arguments are primarily appeals to Earthly authority, while the founding principles that built the country are not. No doubt every one of your historical references can be countered with another, but that gets us nowhere.
That is as good an example of the problem as any. I don’t recognize any Earthly authority, other than to acknowledge as obvious that Earthly authorities, to the extent they can even be called authorities, typically have only seduction, deception, intimidation, threats and violence as their tools of influence. Those tools are often purely offensive weapons– I don’t like what you’re doing, so here’s a threat to “nudge” you into some other behavior that I prefer. Nudge always becomes shove, and shove always becomes shoot.
You can rationalize it a thousand ways, but if an Earthly “authority” is not based on, and guided by, the right principles at all times, it is nothing but a threat to peace and happiness, and ultimately to life. To the extent that humans’ self evident rights are to be protected at all, and it will always be imperfect because it relies on imperfect people, that protection will start with, and end with, basic principle.
Lyle, I find it hard to disagree with any of your claims, and even harder to understand why you imagined them relevant to my argument. Long story short, the compact under which both of us suffer earthly authority enjoins either of us from dominating the other with any higher kind thereof, pursuant to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. As a man who hacks Constitutional law for a living, in the matter at hand I’m just hoping and striving to see us all get along while being judged on the content of our character, in honor of two of my favorite American humanitarians. To that end, I’d fain see fewer blowhards trying to shape our body politic to an arbitrarily pronounced proprietary principle. I’m not implying that you are one of them, but can you meet me halfway by explaining the ways and means whereby you differ therefrom?