HR 131, recently introduced by U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)
“Current federal law guarantees the right of law-abiding persons to transport firearms between two locations where they have a legal right to possessand carry them, regardless of state or local laws that would otherwise apply. The firearm must be cased or otherwise not readily accessible. Unfortunately, anti-gun local officials are using overly restrictive state licensing laws to harass and prosecute travelers who have made every effort to comply with the law, resulting in seized guns that are sometimes never returned, delayed travel, legal fees, and sometimes even unnecessary guilty pleas.
H.R. 131 would ensure the law has the effect Congress intended when it passed more than 25 years ago. Specifically, the legislation would make clear that transportation of both firearms and ammunition is federally protected, as well as expand the protections afforded to travelers to include “staying in temporary lodging overnight, stopping for food, fuel, vehicle maintenance, an emergency, medical treatment, and any other activity incidental” to the trip. Additionally, the bill would place the burden of proof clearly on the state to show that the traveler failed to comply with the law.”
Emphasis mine. So some state clowns have been flouting federal law in going after people who travel innocently through their states with gun.
We have the second amendments ostensibly protecting the RKBA, several other laws protecting the RKBA, general laws such as 18 USC 242, and still people are being harassed for exercising their rights.
So we need yet another law to protect the existing laws which protect the second amendment, which protects the inalienable right to keep and bear arms.
You see now this going? If we could simply enforce the second amendment we wouldn’t need all these firearm owner protection measures, of which there are apparently many.
So when this new resolution passes into law, and states and localities set about violating the heck out of it, we’ll obviously then need to pass an HR 131 Protection Act, or something, etc., because apparently if a law is violated, it was because there wasn’t a specific law specifically outlawing the specific violation of that specific law.
This is what happens when too many people believe that law makers can actually solve problems by making laws. It’s a form of denial of reality, and as such it is insane. A whole city could be burning, and in response the city council would call an emergency session to pass an ordinance banning runaway fires. Problem solved, right? Happy days are here again, the skies above….
So apparently we can’t enforce the second amendment without a new “Second Amendment Enforcement Act”. Eventually, every week we’ll need shiny new laws to bolster last week’s laws that are being violated with impunity. But the Governors, State Attorneys General, law enforcement officers, etc., who violate these laws will remain in office and out of prison because their violations will have been committed in advance of the latest, or pending laws prohibiting those violations, ad infinitum.
Is that about it, or am I missing something?
That’s why I end up borrowing guns when I go to gun gatherings or firearm training classes that require flying. For every ten people who apparently get through the tyrannical trio of EWR, LGA and JFK with their firearms, there’s that one who is harassed, locked up and for no good reason and now has a criminal record. To any sort of low-risk/high consequence activity, I say, “no thanks.” I’m hoping that if this passes flying with firearms from or to the Northeast Corridor will be fraught with only the perils of lost luggage and bad food/service.
I use a more drastic approach: since air travel is a constitution-free zone, I refuse to travel by air.
I haven’t flown commercial since 9/11. I find I’ve gotten by pretty well without it, but then I suppose that’s been the intent. Authoritarianism is all about keeping “the masses” down, creating a comparative advantage for those higher up in the chain of command. Nothing pisses off an elitist more than seeing one of his “lessers” succeeding, being positive and energetic, and accomplishing good things without him. It’s torture, and he’ll come up with any rationalization to impede it.
Lulz. East Mordor is still going to fuck with us, any chance they get.
The new law needs to amend the old by adding criminal prosecution for those who pass and enforce these illegal restrictions. A few successful federal prosecutions of overzealous mayors, prosecutors and police officers for civil rights violations might help the others clean up their act.
We already have 18 USC 241 and 242. We need a way to make the Federal prosecutors enforce them.
Yes, therein lies the problem: the people who need to do the enforcing are precisely the same people as the one committing the crime in the first place. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes” applies with a vengeance here.
We already have the Bill of Rights and the Oath. Anything more is for obfuscation or avoidance purposes. It’s a way of maintaining the infringements that are more popular while pandering to those who complain about infringements. It’s cowardice at best. It allows the authoritarian mind to have it both ways. The new laws are temporarily placating us while the infringements continue, or as Uncle has put it; “it’s what you do instead of something”, only he didn’t have this particular sort of thing in mind.
The new laws allow cowards to avoid actually enforcing the Bill of Rights. Enforcing it in full would be “extreme” at this stage, because infringements are such an integrated feature of current society. No one wants to face the upheaval that would ensue at the mere suggestion of enforcement, and so we “kick the can down the street”, for some future generation, or future Congress, to deal with. However; “A job left undone grows larger”.
Such has been the success of Progressive authoritarianism that, I would guess, the majority of second amendment “supporters” would be opposed to full enforcement of the second amendment and of other provisions of the U.S. constitution.
No one alive today has experienced the pre-Progressive era, and no one who ever lived has experienced the true fulfillment of America’s Promise. Worst of all, we tend to use the failings to deliver the Promise as indictments of the Promise itself (which is another signature feature of Progressivism).
Is there any way to have a victims home state (obviously have to be a state that doesn’t do this crap) file charges against those officials in states that do this? I would think it would only take one successful prosecution to put a halt to this, provided there was some real teeth in the results.
Perhaps. Weren’t there some cases of sheriffs out in “flyover country” telling various fed officials they would be arrested if they set foot in the county, attempting to enforce outrageous federal law xyz?
There has certainly been talk of that, though I haven’t heard of any actual arrests. One, Rex Rammell, candidate for Idaho Governor several years ago, promised he would “kick the feds out” meaning a number of departments, and said that he’d been in contact with enough people in Idaho to actually make it happen. His candidacy never really got off the ground, however, as he was relying purely on grassroots to spread the word.
Not until we put mandatory and LONG sentences on officials and law enforcement will it stop. You also have to make it illegal for their office, agency or department to foot their legal bills. This approach has actually worked wonders in Florida. All this does is let us sue an office, agency or department that has access to the unlimited coffers of government to pay for its defense.
No matter what we call it if the people violating the law suffer no consequences, there will be no change in their behavior.
But we’ve had laws that make these things felonies for well over a century. For that matter, the crime of perjury goes all the way back to common law.
The problem is that laws only work if someone brings charges. And the way the system works (at least nowadays) only prosecutors can bring charges, and they won’t do that. Partly because they don’t want to annoy their friends the criminals, and partly because they themselves are the criminals.
Now if the people on their own could seat a grand jury and have it issue indictments, that would be a different matter. But it doesn’t seem to work that way.
“Now if the people on their own could seat a grand jury and have it issue indictments, that would be a different matter.”
Careful what you wish for. If that were possible every Republican who posed a threat to the Progressive agenda would be under constant indictment.
The bottom line is that our Republic and its constitution are ONLY useful to a moral society.
This thread is exhibit A in why Stick Faction thinks Carrot Faction is retarded. I don’t consider myself to be in either faction, but I can see the futility of thinking that one more law or one more court case will stop the cops or the National Department of Agency Bureaus from systematically harassing citizens, suppressing the vote, or rolling apcs down the street and kicking doors in. I’m not saying it’s wrong to pursue legal remedies, I’m just saying…
Even driving sucks. I-95 goes through DC. An alternative route through MD is just as bad.
I-95 follows the outer loop of I-495 around DC. It does go straight through Maryland and through Baltimore, though. I-81 is your best bet, but there’s still a sliver of MD. It also adds a couple hours to your drive.
Until the apparatchiks who ignore this federal provision are PERSONALLY held accountable both criminally and civilly for monetary damages NO LAW will matter. The current law is quite plain and clear. They simply ignore it because
there is no consequences to them for doing so. Unless and until we force the
through legislation that totally eliminates the insanity of ‘qualified immunity’ and
holds public employees personally responsible for the consequences of their acts NOTHING WILL CHANGE.