Quote of the Day
Overlapping school zones can make it literally impossible for people to legally carry firearms, and this is exactly the situation in Billings, and similar communities all over the country. People living in, or moving through these communities can be charged and prosecuted, permanently costing them their Second Amendment rights. Such restrictions clearly make the law unconstitutional.
Adam Kraut
December 6, 2024
SAF FILES 9TH CIRCUIT AMICUS BRIEF IN CASE CHALLENGING GUN-FREE SCHOOL ZONES – Second Amendment Foundation
These types of infringements have been in place for over 25 years. It is long past time for the courts to throw these laws out.
Remember Huffman’s rule of firearms law.
There are lots of laws like GFZ and other firearms law. Some guy was convicted of importing a short lobster and actually did prison time. This wasn’t even US law but a regulation incorporating fish and game laws from other countries, in this case El Salvador which denies this is actually their law. A more robust approach would be to eliminate the doctrine about ignorance of the law being no excuse. There is simply too much law to be anything but ignorant.
It’s unquestionably true that not a single person in the USA knows all the law.
The IRS doesn’t understand the Internal Revenue Code.
Huffman’s rule needs a multiplier of five for crimes committed if the possessor is a Democrat, and a multiplier of zero for the above due to combinations of Haynes v. U.S., plea bargaining advantages granted to those who pile up charges like a buffet, and sons of democratic presidents.
“Possessor”, or did you mean “prosecutor”?
And an additional x2 multiplier is the accused is a Republican, conservative, white, and/or a NRA member.
I recently met a man who served 6 years (100 months) in federal prison for selling a firearm to someone else — in a state where private transfers should be legal — after that person got arrested for a non-violent crime and had the gun “in his possession” (but not physically on his person). To be clear, 100 months exceeds the sentencing guidelines considerably, and the district court and prosecutor have in their filings for the case that his sentence should exceed the guidelines to make an example of him.
Mind you, again, this shouldn’t have been a crime to begin with. But the prosecutor is a Democrat, and the defendant is white, Christian, conservative, and votes Republican. (I did not inquire as to whether or not he’s a NRA member.) And is now prohibited from possessing firearms for life, as is his wife, who works in a gun store and had to surrender several very nice custom guns before he could come home. Because “constructive possession”.
Meanwhile, real violent criminals are allowed to walk out with reduced charges — or no charges at all — because the prosecutor is a Democrat and the suspects’ ethnic background marks them as “disadvantaged”.
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
By congress especially, or anyone else for that matter.
That’s the law. And if you don’t like our laws. Move to Canada. (You might consider Europe though. As it seems there is a movement to make Canada the 51st. state.)
ALL of Canada as the 51st state? To echo Euell Gibbons and pine trees, “Some parts of Canada Are American.” The rest belong to Europe.
You are showing your age. That line was from a TV advertisement in 1974.
I can remember the news reader saying, deadpan, that he died of natural causes.
This is why I don’t want to ban gun free zones, but instead establish the criteria to operate a licensed “Assumed Obligation To Defend” zone.
If a person is to be prohibited the possession of arms, the zone shall:
– Have a hard perimeter
– If the zone is not continuously operated, it must be thoroughly swept before beginning operation
– Have entry points with no-notice inspection failure rates less than 2%
– Have firearm checkboxes at all entry points, and if the entry points are not also exit points, the checkboxes must be moved, unopened, to the patron’s indicated exit point for collection. Checked firearms must be returned to the person that checked them in without delay, unless a law enforcement officer has reasonable articulable suspicion that that specific person is a prohibited person.
– Have an on-duty armed QRF appropriately scaled to the population of the zone and relevant known statistical factors (i.e. higher violence potential at certain sporting events or certain schools)
– The operator of the zone assumes the obligation to defend every disarmed non-prohibited person on penalty of individually being considered an accessory to any violent crime, or an accessory if the failure to maintain standards is willful. The named operator(s) do not have to be physically present, but they must have a deputy present at all times the zone is in operation.
If would be a positive defense against a possession charge that there was evidence the zone was not properly operated at the time, such as any uninspected entry point, anywhere at the perimeter. In fact, it would be a bar against arrest if the specific persons obligated to assume the responsibility for defense in the zone could not be identified at the time of the allege violation.
The only kind of “gun free zone” would be a location where it is physically dangerous to possess a firearm or any metallic object, such as the MRI room of a hospital, or a place where any form of flame is inherently dangerous, such as the operative portions of a petroleum refinery, or even the possibility of a high velocity projectile is dangerous, such as an explosives manufactory.
Too well written with little possibility of exceptions being found!
There were some unfortunate, and funny, incidents with cops and MRI machines back in the day but I think this has been fixed. At least MRI operators are much less paranoid about metal objects these days
The only sensitive places laws I’d support are those where LEOs can’t take their firearms. Citizens should be able to carry anywhere an LEO can.
Sir Robert Peel who invented the modern police in London stated this as part of his reason for establishing the institution: “To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only [no more than] members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
Cops are just citizens and laws should not give them special privileges.
Nitpicking, but jails and prisons might be an exception to your rule.
As a general rule, even LEO’s are not allowed to possess firearms inside jails and prisons.
In fact, if cops need to arrest another cop, they often employ a ruse to arrange a discussion with the suspect cop inside the jail where they can be sure the suspect is unarmed.
Fair enough.
In other news, my daughter, which kind members of this blog helped with her Eagle Scout project three years ago, just picked up her first sidearm.
We bought it the day before the election, right after putting in the paperwork for her CPL, but the WA State database malfunction screwed up the background check process.