Topic: Gun Control
Are our 14th Amendment Rights being violated regarding the Second Amendment by the States? Have you applied for a Concealed Carry Permit? Were you forced to pay for the permit? If so, your Constitutional Rights are being violated.by EJ Moosa
(libertarian)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The attack on our Second Amendment Rights is continuous from those that want more gun control. The approach today is to raise the cost of compliance with laws regarding our right to keep and bear arms, so that it becomes prohibitively expensive. This approach, however, may prove to be unconstitutional.
"We the People" should not have to pay on an individual basis for our Constitutional Rights. They are guaranteed by our Constitution. So when states pass ordinances that require us to pay fees to exercise those rights, I believe they are violating our Constitutional Rights.
Let's have a look at the case of Harper V. Virginia Board of Elections:
"The case was filed by Virginia resident Annie E. Harper, who was unable to register without having to pay a poll tax. She brought the suit on behalf of other poor residents and herself. After being dismissed by a U.S. district court, the case went to the United States Supreme Court.
In a 6 to 3 vote, the Court ruled in favor of Ms. Harper. The Court noted that "a state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth."
This ruling reversed a prior decision by the Court, Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), which upheld the state's ability to impose poll taxes. "
If the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects us from the payment of fees for an electoral standard, why would it also not apply to the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms? Should we not apply the same standard to the Second Amendment?
Requiring us to pay for a weapons permit should fall into this category. We may still be required to register for a permit, as we are required to register to vote, but no fees should be collected.
Nor should those Constitutional Rights be violated as they will be in Illinois if HB 0687 is passed.
If this bill becomes law, then citizens of Illinois will be forced to purchase insurance in order to exercise their Second Amendment rights, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms should have no relationship to wealth.
These are my thoughts.
I hope you share your thoughts.
(Special thanks to Magpedtod for referring me to the Harper V Virginia Board of Electors decision)
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First, we should understand the full import of the 14th Amendment. We can find hints about the meaning of that amendment thanks, in part, to the New Jersey Legislature as it, along with a few other Northern States, rescinded their ratification of that Amendment. It is also interesting to see just how the Radical Republicans manipulated the balance of votes to get the 14th Amendment ratified.
Now, a very interesting point concerning the ratification of the 14th Amendment and the expansion of federal control and national citizenship, is that initially the votes came in as 22 votes yes and 12 votes no and 3 not voting there were 28 votes needed to ratify the Amendment. With the defeat of the Amendment the Northern Unionist Congress members changed rules to ensure passage by declaring the Southern States remained outside the Union, to deny majority rule in the Southern States by the disfranchisement of large voting blocks of voters. Then to put the icing on the cake, they required all the Southern States to ratify the Amendment in other to be allowed back into the Union. So, in 1861 the North refused to allow the South to leave the Union and in 1867.
The most amazing, most revealing and one of the most important pieces of Legislation to ever come out of a State came from a Northern State after the War. Suddenly, it appears they realized what the goals of Lincoln and his followers had done.
The Joint Resolution, No.1 of the State of New Jersey on the Rescission of the 14th Amendment had some harsh words for those who sought to continue Lincoln's usurpation of the Constitutional government.
In the Rescission, the Resolution states:
"The Legislature of the State of New Jersey having seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States do declare and make known:
"That it being necessary, by the Constitution, that every amendment to the same should be proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, the authors of the said proposition, for the purpose of securing the assent of the requisite majority, determined to, and did, exclude from the said two Houses eighty Representatives from eleven States of the Union, upon the pretence that there were no such States in the Union; but, finding that two-thirds of the remainder of said Houses could not be brought to assent to the said proposition, they deliberately formed and carried out the design of mutilating the integrity of the United States Senate, and without any pretext or justification, other than the possession of power, without the right, and in palpable violation of the Constitution, ejected a member of their own body, representing this State, and thus practically denied to New Jersey its equal suffrage in the Senate, and thereby nominally secured the vote of two-thirds of the said House."
As you can see, the Radical and Totally Dishonest Policies of Lincoln were still wielding the usurping hand of good "ole honest Abe".
It goes on to say:
"The objective of dismembering the highest Representative Assembly in the nation, and humiliating a State of the Union, faithful at all times to all its obligations, and the object of said amendments were one to place new and unheard of powers in the hands of a faction, that it might absorb to itself all Executive, Judicial and Legislative POWER, NECESSARY TO SECURE TO ITSELF IMMUNITY FOR THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTS IT HAD ALREADY COMMITTED, AND THOSE IT HAS SINCE INFLICTED ON A TOO PATIENT PEOPLE.
The subsequent usurpations of these once national assemblies in passing pretended laws for the establishment, in ten States, of martial law, which is nothing but the will of the military commander, and therefore inconsistent with the very nature of all law, FOR THE PURPOSE OF REDUCING TO SLAVERY MEN OF THEIR OWN RACE IN THOSE STATES, OR COMPELLING THEM, CONTRARY TO THEIR OWN CONVICTIONS, TO EXERCISE THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE IN OBEDIENCE TO THE DICTATION OF A FACTION IN THOSE ASSEMBLIES; THE ATTEMPT TO COMMIT TO ONE MAN ARBITRARY AND UNCONTROLLABLE POWER, WHICH THEY HAVE FOUND NECESSARY TO EXERCISE TO FORCE THE PEOPLE OF THOSE STATES INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THEIR WILL; THE AUTHORITY GIVEN THE SECRETARY OF WAR TO USE THE NAME OF THE PRESIDENT TO COUNTERMAND THE PRESIDENT'S ORDERS AND TO CERTIFY MILITARY ORDERS TO BE THE DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT, WHEN THEY ARE NOTORIOUSLY KNOWN TO BE CONTRARY TO THE PRESIDENT'S DIRECTION, THUS KEEPING UP THE FORM OF THE CONSTITUTION TO WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE ACCUSTOMED, BUT PRACTICALLY DEPOSING THE PRESIDENT FROM HIS OFFICE OF COMMANDER IN CHIEF, and suppressing one of the great departments of the government that of tribunal of the nation the jurisdiction to examine and decide upon the conformity of their pretended laws to the Constitution, which was the chief function of that august tribunal as organized by the Fathers of the Republic; all are but ample explanations of the power they hoped to acquire by the adoption of the said amendment.
TO CONCEAL FROM THE PEOPLE THE IMMENSE ALTERATIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW THEY INTENDED TO ACCOMPLISH BY THE SAID AMENDMENT, THEY GILDED THE SAME WITH PREPOSTIONS OF JUSTICE, DRAWN FROM THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS; BUT LIKE ALL THE ESSAYS OF UNLAWFUL POWER TO COMMEND ITS DESIGNS TO POPULAR FAVOR IT IS MARKED BY THE MOST ABSURD AND INCOHERENT PROVISIONS.
It proposes to make it part of the Constitution of the United States, that naturalized citizens of the United States shall be citizens of the United States; as if they were not so without such absurd declaration. It lodges with the Legislative Branch of the government the power of pardon, which properly belongs, BY OUR SYSTEM, to the Executive.
It denounces, and inflicts punishment for past offenses, by Constitutional provision, and thus would make the whole People of this great nation, in their most Solemn and Sovereign Act, guilty of violating a cardinal principle of American Liberty: that no punishment can be inflicted for any offense, unless it is provided by law before the commission of the offense.
It usurps the power of punishment, which, in any coherent system of government, belongs to the Judiciary, and commits it to the people in their Sovereign capacity.
It degrades the nation, by proclaiming to the world that no confidence can be placed in its honestly or morality.
It appeals to the fears of the public creditors by publishing a libel on the American People, and fixing it forever in the national Constitution, as a stigma upon the present generation, that there must be Constitutional guards against a reputation of the public debt; as if it were possible that a people who were so corrupt as to disregard such an obligation would be bound by any contract, Constitutional or otherwise.
It imposes new prohibitions upon the power of the Senate to pass laws, and interdicts the execution of such parts of the common law as the national Judiciary may esteem inconsistent with the vague provisions of the said amendment, MADE VAGUE FOR THE PURPOSE OF FACILITATING ENCROACHMENTS UPON THE LIVES, LIBERTIES AND PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE.
It enlarges the Judicial power of the United States so as to bring every law passed by the State, and every principle of the common law relating to Life, Liberty or Property, within the jurisdiction of the federal tribunals, and charges those tribunals with duties, to the due performance of which they, from their nature and organization, and their distances from the People, are unequal.
IT MAKES A NEW APPOINTMENT OF REPRESENTATION IN THE NATIONAL COUNCIL, FOR NO OTHER REASON THATN THEREBY TO SECURE TO A FACTION A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF THE VOTES OF A SERVILE AND IGNORANT RACE TO OUT WEIGH THE INTELLIGENT VOICES OF THEIR OWN [IT] WAS INTENDED TO OVERTHROW THE SYSTEM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT UNDER WHICH THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE FOR EIGHTY YEARS ENJOYED THEIR LIBETIES, AND IS UNFIT, FROM ITS ORIGIN, ITS OBJECTS AND ITS MATTER, TO BE INCORPORATED WITH THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF A FREE PEOPLE."
Posted By: Charles H. Vincenz
Date: 2009-02-18 14:45:31
Being CHARGED MONEY is a direct violation of the 14th amendent for a carry permit. To defend your life, limb or property should NEVER be dependent on an individual's wealth. The second amendment give's the right for all LAW ABIDING citizens to carry a weapon & the 14th says we do not have to pay for it.<>
You are also paying a fee just to purchase a gun, where you are required to pay for a government agency to do a \"background check\" to be allowed to buy a gun. You are also paying an additional tax if you buy an assembled gun, no tax if you buy the receiver separately, and assemble it yourself.
It has also come to my attention that I am forbidden to buy a gun from a FFL directly if I am not in my home state. Instead, I must have the gun shipped to a FFL gun shop here in Georgia to take posession.
This means that I am not allowed to exercise my Second Amendment Rights in a state other than my home state, unless I have purchased a gun in my home state, and take it with me.
This would also seem to be a clear violation of the 14th Amendment. How can the Federal Government require me to be treated differently depending upon the state I am in at the time?
It is my understanding that it is unconstitutional for the government to try to control or regulate anything by the institution of a tax. More than likely that is why we have not seen a 1000% or more tax on ammo and guns. They haven't thought of a way around that part of the constitution yet. I am sure they are working on it though.
Posted By: Keith Allison
Date: 2009-02-20 09:58:08
The following case law may be of some interest to the readers of this article:
Kelly v. U.S. 379 F Sup 532 - When Constitutional rights have been violated, remedies for violations are not dependant upon fictionalized distinctions.
Miller v. U.S., 230 F 486 at 489 - The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted to a crime.
Simmons v. U.S., 390 U.S. 389 (1968) - We find it intolerable that one Constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another.
Sherar v. Cullen 481 F 2d 946 (1973) - Therre can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of his exercise of Constitutional rights.
Miranda v. Arizona, (U.S. Supreme Ct.) 380 U.S. 436 (1966) - Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule in making or legislation which would abrogate them.
Smith v. U.S. 502 F 2d 512 CA Tex (1974) - Government may not prohibit or control the conduct of a person for reasons that infringe upon constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.
Standler - Supreme Court of Florida en banc, 36 So 2d 443, 445 (1948) - The Bill of Rights was provided as a BARRIER, to protect the individual against the arbitrary extractions of the majorities, executives, legislatures, courts, sheriffs, and prosecutors, and it is the primary distinction beetween democratic and totalitarian processes.
Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137, 176 (U.S. Supreme Court) - The Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the Constitution and not such ordinary acts must govern the case to which they both apply.
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803) - All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.
Robin v. Hardaway, 1 Jefferson 109 (1772) - All acts of the legislature...contrary to natural rights and justice are void.
Imbler v. Pachtman, U.S. 47 L Ed 2d 128, 96 S Ct. - Judges may be punished criminally for willful deprivation of...rights on the strength of 18 U.S.C. 242.
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