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.

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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….

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Sniff.

Sniff..

Mata,

Is the scent of socks in the air again?

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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….

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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.

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