TTAG’s resident ammo tester ShootingTheBull410 writes:
“In the run-up to the next presidential election, guns are a liberal talking point. And here’s what they’re saying: ‘Nobody is trying to take away your guns.’ So . . . let’s have ’em put it in writing. How about a ‘Federal Firearms Protection Act.’ A bill that simply says ‘It is and shall forever be illegal for any federal, state, city or local government to ever seize, confiscate, or otherwise deprive any citizen of these United States of their lawfully-acquired firearms.'” Your thoughts?
The 2nd ammendment covers that already, IMHO.
^^^^This
The Bill of Rights says a lot of good things, but we still had slavery, never hurts to add more to ENSURE rights, never to take away.
Exactly, the 9th Circus decision on Peruta is proof enough that clear language, if it was written a long time ago, won’t be honored.
What could possibly be added to “shall not be infringed” to make it more clear or concise.
“…shall not be infringed. No, really. Not even a little bit. Don’t even think it. Don’t go there…you shall not!”
Make them live by their own rules. I like that.
It’s time to use Alinsky’s rules against them.
ADD Language
Oklahoma Firearms Act of 1971
Section 1289.24 – Firearm Regulation – State Preemption
“When a person’s rights pursuant to the protection of the preemption provisions of this section have been violated, the person shall have the right to bring a civil action against the persons, municipality, and political subdivision jointly and severally for injunctive relief or monetary damages or both.”
I like what Joe R. Has here as any attempt would bring a massive amount of court cases that, at the very least, would bankrupt anyone who would consider such a proposal.
yes but when you sue the federal gubment for this and they decide to ‘settle’ for monetary damages using our tax dollars…
No, it’s a joint and several liability, and it’s also a personal liability. A municipality could indemnify a lawmaker from any suits brought due to their infringing violations, but that would get awful expensive.
If you add damages for pain and suffering and loss of reputation and 300% penalty, and it needs to come out of the budget of the offending agency. Then I might support it.
They need to be personally liable for damages as well as the agency
The Agency shall be liable for all damages *after* the individual is *completely and totally* bankrupted of any and all assets…
Joe R.
Close. The federal statute that should apply is 18 U.S. Code Section 242 … “Deprivation of rights under color of law.” That statute requires prison time for the offenders as well as fines that the offenders have to pay themselves.
They’ll just keep trying to change what “lawfully acquired” means…
You can pass whatever ridiculous gun laws you like.
Enforcing some of them may turn out to be a bit tricky.
Not too tricky as long as they don’t mind catching the bullets first.
Laws are about as effective at curtailing leftist tyranny as they are at curtailing inner city gang violence. As we say, you can’t control evil with laws. That goes for the evil of leftism too.
Face it, the majority of America is in love with oppression, tyranny, socialism and peasanthood. You, as a free person doing nothing more than exercising freedom, are their enemy and they want you under their thumb or dead. It’s time people began preparing for that reality.
For the win!
I hereby formally and officially nominate Silver’s comment for best comment of the year on the Internet.
TTaG staff:
Please make Silver’s comment its own post.
This^
+1
That time has long come and gone. We either have the voter power to force politicians (at all levels) to enforce correct interpretation of the constitution, or we don’t. If we don’t, game over; sit back and watch the credits. We have already seen what happens when a determined central government takes on a disorganized and under-gunned group of armed resisters. And that did not trigger more than a yawn across the nation, across the political spectrum.
In the words of our former creeper and chief – define “is”.
Add…
“Attempted violations of this statute shall constitute a capitol offense with the sentence to be carried out immediately against all persons involved.”
Or maybe make the act of unconstitutional firearm confiscation a violent felony… Certain states use that as your shoot/no-shoot, line in the sand so it makes sense to me.
My thoughts? Why are you bothering trying to reason with these people? They’ve proven over and over that once they get you to compromise the goal posts will be moved and then they will hound you until you give in and then the goal post moved again.
The time to reason with them is long since done. We stonewall them until it’s time to physically remove them.
Not trying to compromise at all. Just trying to get them pinned down — or, in other words, taking away the shield they’re currently hiding behind. Strip ’em bare and let’s see what’s what.
The way I see it, this is bipartisan legislation both sides can support, right? Obama has said, repeatedly, “Nobody wants to take your guns.” Hillary has said, repeatedly, “Nobody wants to take your guns.” And many others have said it as well. So, if that’s their position, why not co-sponsor a bill? Let’s get it out there. They’ll either back their position with legislation, or they’ll hide behind it. Either way, the issue will be a real, forefront, talked-about issue.
We just need to get a congressperson to write the bill, and then it can become a real campaign thing — or not; if they back it, then it’s a non-issue. And while the law won’t really mean much, it may mean something to the aspiring grabbers.
We should get Rand Paul on the horn, he’d LOVE to draw up something like this. And your idea is absolutely brilliant.
ShootingTheBull,
I like your expanded explanation … using such a bill as leverage for the various campaigns.
Of course such a bill should be totally unnecessary since we have the Second Amendment. The thing is, politicians who willfully and wantonly disregard the Second Amendment will do the same with your proposed bill if it ever became law. But you probably already knew that.
Agreed. 95% of what exists shouldn’t be necessary, because we have the 10th Amendment, but — there’s what “should be”, and there’s what “is”, and those aren’t always the same thing…
It should include magazines and ammo as well
Ditto. “We’re not taking away your guns, that’s obviously illegal. But we need to license the people who get bullets to make sure they’re only getting the bullets that go with their guns.” Or some other excuse. It’s a war of inches.
That wording (lawfully-acquired firearms) wouldn’t pass, even with a republican majority. Technically (and lawyers love technically), it would be illegal for a cop to take a gun from a suspect, if that suspect purchased the gun legally.
To get it to pass, it would have to be lawfully possessed firearms. And then it just becomes a matter of changing the list of what’s lawful to possess, like CT, NY, MD, CA, etc.
Gun-rights opponents have very specifically stated that they are only interested in taking away the illegally owned guns, while glossing over the fact that they want to expand the definition of illegally owned guns infinitely.
It should be lawfully possessed firearms and appurtenances.
The law should define “lawfully possessed” as “any firearm or appurtenance being possessed by a law-abiding citizens that is not a prohibited person.”
“……or otherwise deprive any citizen of these United States of their lawfully-acquired firearms.”
That’s a loophole any proggy would be proud of.
Listen!, it not just the guns we have that we don’t want taken. Its also the guns we don’t have yet, that we don’t want removed as an option in the future. This line of reasoning begets things like the Hughes Amendment.
I just want my cake back.
Ben Franklin himself said “the cake is a lie”
While I think this is a silly proposal if you want to do it right you would right it to grandfather all current and future gun owners from confiscation if they fulfill the requirements for lawful gun ownership as stated in ATF form 4473.
Like all statutory law it could be repealed by future legislative action. That is why virtually all bills that are called constitutional carry are really legislative actions for permitless carry.
Everyone’s gotta quit the nameless faceless “they” crap.
Never forget, although we are “Under GOD”, and self-determined, we are otherwise only governed by people (not aliens, animals, gods or robots).
Government serves us, and those who work in government are just our neighbors who needed a job.
Each individual, again Under GOD, is only ever = to 1.
Hold your index finger of your right hand up. That’s the highest # of “people” you can ever achieve. Put a Pope’s Crozier on it, put a black robe and gavel, a superbowl ring, let it sit in the Executive Desk at the Oval Office. You only ever = 1.
If you ever think that maybe you might = 1+, then you = 0.
As was already pointed out the basic law of the land stipulates this, using the words “shall not be infringed”, unfortunately the rest of the amendment is a bit obscure with respect to militia, etc. Made sense in the historical context, but now sounds like one has to be a member of a militia in order to not have one’s rights infringed. Sadly, leftists will always find a way around any law. Pass a law to prevent confiscation, they will counter with a way to make buying ammo virtually impossible and a crime to make your own. The Constitution does not explicitly say anything about bearing arms with ammunition in them, right? “Bear arms” means carry them, but the 9th circuit court does not agree that the right to bear arms includes actually having them on you in public, and so on. This will be an ongoing fight.
I appreciate the effort, but the suggested language is more porous than a spaghetti strainer. Moreover, as written, this proposal states that a prison inmate can have his guns if they were “lawfully acquired.”
I agree with STB (after all, he has all those bullets), yet understand the problem. Maybe more so than is evident.
If oppression and lawlessness of the central government is growing, what steps can be made toward reversing the trend? Self-respect, self-discipline, and a whole host of good characteristics that were majority 230 years ago disappeared from the culture. The society prefers leisure, wantoness, dependency, lack of personal responsibility, free everything, and so on. We are in the third generation of children being raised to remain children.
When the public joins forces with the central government to wreck everything that made our nation great, where do we turn? Politicians like being politicians, leftists/liberals/statists like ruling the details of the lives of others, the public likes being selfish an self-centered. So far, the response of the last vestige of polite society is to endure, muddle-through, carry on, tolerate, hope the long nightmare will just go away with the arrival of morning.
We can talk, banter and rant and rave on this and so many other forums, but to what avail? Our 2A champions are divided and rarely act in a singular effort to use their political power to push meaningful change through to implementation. We are always on the defensive. Where are the rock-ribbed politicians refusing to allow any legislation, anywhere, to restrict gun rights in any manner?
If re-stating the second amendment in words a five year old can understand is not an option, and there is no solid wall of litigation demanding an end to infringement of any kind, anywhere, for any reason, where does that leave us? Talking to our navels, waiting for the tide to one day roll over us?
I like it, because it forces them to admit they’re lying. How do we get this in front of them? Petition on change.org?
Your suggestion requires the assumption they will honor their written proclamation.
And they will .. unless it suits them otherwise.
I agree with other posters that we should stand on the 2nd Amendment and raise our fingers.
This won’t work with politicians.
Already in law. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Other than that, it will NEVER happen.
Sadly, its like a married couple renewing their vows.
If the vow never meant anything in the first place, how does renewing it help?
A marriage is ALWAYS ONLY just a promise between two people, who are combatants for each of the un-promised-half otherwise. Regardless of the officiating persona Priest / Judge / Ships Captain. But the couple make the promise among witnesses. The witnesses respect the promise by not interfering, and they demand that each half of the couple take the other off-the-market (for better or worse). It’s the same honor system required for anything else with honor.
Get rid of the BATF and eliminate the NFA and 4473. How did we ever survive prior to 1934 and 1968?
I like it. Lets hammer it into an actual, usable, proposition and…well… propose it.
I have two thoughts about the “No one wants to take your guns” bit.
First, it’s a common political trope to say the opposite of exactly what you intend to do. “No more new taxes” Taxes go up. “Smaller government.” Government gets bigger. “Support the middle class.” But then the middle class pays most of the taxes and get the fewest services. On and on. This is no different and it wouldn’t be any different if the liberals did pass some protection act as the OP suggests. If they can violate the Constitution, they can violate their own legislation.
Second, I don’t believe most anti-gunners really have in mind to take all our guns. They’d like to, but they know that just like NY and SAFE act, it would be too messy, too expensive and they don’t have the manpower. I think they want to outlaw black guns and hi-cap mags, have universal backgrounds checks, make carry more restrictive and make ammo really expensive. So you will still have your guns. But all you will be able to do is look at them in the privacy of your home.
They would not sign such a document until their lawyers got done with it, at which time it would be as massive as the tax code.
Actually, I should have stopped at the first seven words.
I like the thought…but I know that any words from the Dems, in spoken or written form, are absolutely meaningless…remember, “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”!
That is an amazing thought.
Like liberals/gun grabbers would let a piece of paper stop them? Chamberlain’s treaty with Hitler is a better deal than something like this.
Nice idea- but they’ll move the goal-posts for what ‘legally acquired’ means. Or something else. The Progressives are not honorable, decent people. They are determined enemies of freedom. It takes two parties to keep an agreement.
It is not the politicians that pass laws that have the final say rather it is the Dictatorial Power of the Supreme Court that has been for years anti-Second Amendment. Yesterday the California Supreme Court declared no one has the right to carry a concealed firearm for self-defense because they could be a danger to the “ruling elite”. The Court made no bones about it and due to the fact that most jurisdictions outlaw “open carry” this effectively trashes the Second Amendment once and for all despite the prior ruling by Judge Anthony Scalia that said the Second Amendment does not just apply to “the ruling elite”. The Court completely ignored this prior ruling as if it had never existed.
The ATF has been eliminating small dealers and even large ones for years. In my area many large dealers have been shut down without a peep out of the rabidly anti-gun news media. If any other business had been shut down by the government for no legitimate reason the news media would have been howling from the roof tops. The Media, the Federal Government, the Courts and the spineless State Governments who often rely on Government hand outs and money are in a way helpless to protest despite some election year pandering about ignoring Federal anti-gun laws.
People in power want absolute power over the proletariat, it has been that way since the dawn of civilization. For a brief time in history America was an aberration of freedom, something that is not normal in the World and normalcy is soon to be complete once again in the World, no exceptions.
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