John Feinblatt (above left) is the president of Michael Bloomberg’s awkwardly named Everytown for Gun Safety. He’s celebrating the recent spate of “bad news” for the NRA. As prominent members of the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex are paid wont to do, he’s also accusing the NRA of lying about gun legislation.

Given his prominent position in the anti-woman anti-gun and anti-freedom anti-self-defense field, one of the greatest fundraising scams schemes of the 21st century, I’m pretty sure that Feinblatt is quite familiar with the myriad forms of lying which lay at the foundations of their cause.

His latest HuffPo bloviation, Amid Bad Weeks For The NRA, Gun Lobby Misleads The Public About Dangerous Bill, goes something like this:

It’s been a bad few weeks at NRA headquarters.

First, the gun lobby lost …

Stop right there! You’d think that someone as involved in the anti-civil rights movement as Feinblatt would understand the difference between the NRA and the NRA-ILA.

The first is an organization founded in 1871 to train those Damned Yankees how to shoot straight, and has expanded its focus over the decades to include training civilians and cops in gun safety, range safety and self-defense, organizing competitive shooting matches, protecting, enhancing, and training safety officers for shooting ranges, teaching gun safety in schools, etc.

The NRA-ILA is (as the name says) a non-tax-exempt legislative lobbying arm representing the millions of members and tens of millions of active shooters across the country.

Anyway, back to the schadenfreude:

First, the gun lobby lost in the court of public opinion. The Pew Research Center released its annual survey of Americans’ opinions on guns – and the clear majority of us oppose the gun lobby’s policy priorities. …

Actually clear majority of Americans are opposed to the NSSF’s FixNICS initiative, a program aimed at:

improving the current NICS system by increasing the number of prohibiting records states submit to the FBI databases, helping to prevent illegal transfers of firearms to those who are prohibited from owning firearms under current law.

Oops! In fact, the survey says that eighty-nine percent of Americans favor “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns,” with seventy-three percent strongly favoring it.

This is how people like Feinblatt pretend that anti-gunners are the reasonable ones, and we “gun nuts” are the, well, nuts.

They also count on the general public’s ignorance of the subject. For example, 83% of the Pew poll respondents support “barring gun purchases by people on no-fly or watch lists.”

My sister Kathleen and I aren’t allowed to discuss politics, because I am insanely libertarian and she is a Democrat. A few visits ago, however, she asked me how anyone could justify opposing this measure (keeping people on the no-fly list from buying guns).

So I explained the differences between the no-fly list and the terror watch list, and pointed out that no one knows how you even get on the no-fly list much less how to get off it, because the criteria are classified.

She wound up agreeing that maybe I was right.

Feinblatt doesn’t actually mention universal background checks (UBCs), but I want to point out an interesting little tidbit about the Pew poll question on the subject; the poll shows that 84% are in favor of “requiring background checks for private sales and at gun shows.”

Did you catch that? It’s subtle, and I freely admit that I missed it the first few times through, but let me edit it and then read the question again: Are you in favor of requiring background checks … at gun shows.

The way they have the question phrased, they’re strongly implying that background checks aren’t currently required at gun shows. Nope, no bias in this poll.

But enough about the Feinblatt’s B.S. about B.S. poll questions. What other defeats has the NRA suffered?

Next, the gun lobby lost before one of its legal challenges could even reach the Supreme Court. SCOTUS declined to hear the NRA-backed suit Peruta v. County of San Diego – a denial consistent with decisions by four federal appeals courts.

Each ruled that the Second Amendment, contrary to gun lobby ideology, does indeed allow states and localities to decide who can carry concealed guns in public.

And if you actually read the 9th Circuit’s decision in Peruta, or the 10th Circuit’s decision in Peterson, or the 2nd Circuit’s decision in Kachalsky, they all rely on Heller, where the Court said:

For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.

The only problem with their “reasoning” as applied by those courts: these laws were designed to fight the “assassins and robbers” who would hide their weapons to better carry out their evil. People in general could, would and did carry guns openly; that was what gentlemen and honest laborers did.

In fact this is why the 9th Circuit originally ruled in Edward Peruta et al.’s favor; since the Supreme Court ruled in Heller that the Second Amendment’s core right is that of self-defense, and since California effectively bans open carry, then in order to get a permit to carry concealed, citizens should not have to show “good cause” beyond personal self-defense.

Naturally, later court rulings and Feinblatt completely ignore the meaning of Heller’s historical analysis, jumping instead on the threadbare excuse it allows them to rule against law-abiding citizens arming themselves for self-defense.

The fourth federal appeals court decision which Feinblatt obliquely refers to is from the 3rd Circuit Court, Drake v. Filko, out of that bastion of firearms liberty, New Jersey. In Drake, the Court at least had the originality to use a different phrase from that paragraph, and its accompanying footnote to determine:

We’ve been violating peoples’ natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil and Constitutional rights for so long now, that these violations qualify as “longstanding” and they are therefore “presumptively lawful” so we don’t even have to consider whether they might not be constitutional.

Okay, maybe that isn’t exactly what they said, but it is certainly the gist of the decision.

All I can say is it’s a good thing this Court wasn’t the one deciding Brown v. Board of Education or Loving v. Virginia. No doubt they would have held that segregation and anti-miscegenation laws, having been so longstanding, were therefore presumptively lawful.

Now we come to the worst part of the NRA’s weeks, and the “dangerous bill” they are misleading the public on:

With the losses piling up, the gun lobby and its allies are getting desperate. … And as the gun lobby’s “guns for anyone, anywhere” agenda stalls in DC, one congressman is trying to jumpstart it with the argument that enacting “Concealed Carry Reciprocity” would be akin to the current system for recognizing driver’s licenses across state lines.

As you might imagine, Feinblatt and his crew are vehemently opposed to the idea of national reciprocity. So much so that he spends the next 500 words or so explaining how permits to carry are nothing like driver’s licenses and how horrible it would be if a law-abiding gun owner from, say, Georgia, or Wisconsin, or Tennessee, or Indiana, or Texas, or … anywhere were able to visit New York City without facing the prospect of having to spend 3 ½ years there at the taxpayers’ expense.

Feinblatt drones on and on about how some states don’t require training, don’t require live fire tests, don’t prevent “stalkers or abusive dating partners or drunk drivers from carrying.”

Then there are other states that don’t allow sheriffs to arbitrarily “deny applicants who have red flags and pose a public danger,” all of which, as far as I can tell, convince Feinblatt that as soon as this law passes we will have blood in the streets, road rage rampages, parking lot shootouts, etc., ad nauseum.

Yes, these are all the same arguments we’ve heard every single time a state started debating “shall-issue” permit laws, and none of these scenarios came to pass.

In fact, the best the antis have been able to claim lately is that in states where shall-issue passed crime rates went down, just not as fast as they would have without passing shall-issue.

What this all boils down to is the usual fear-mongering with a soupçon of innuendo and lies. As always, the best way to deal with that is by employing the clear, pure light of truth. As John Lott points out in this piece from The Hill:

Permits have been revoked for firearms-related violations at rates of thousandths of one percentage point. Civilian permit holders are less likely than police officers to be convicted of a firearms violation.

So, Mr. Feinblatt, take a couple of deep breaths and relax. No matter how much you’d like to think otherwise, the sky is not falling. It’s going to be OK. Really.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

56 COMMENTS

  2. LMFAO. We’ve won. kapo bloombergs corpse is still kicking and twitching cause reptiles bodies live on for a time even after the brain dies.

    There they stand. Dancing and waving like an organ grinders monkey. “Look at us! We’re still meaningful! We still matter!”

    No. They don’t. The discussion has left them in the rear view.

    • I’ll believe that when the federal government stops illegally licensing firearm dealers and compelling them to violate our 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th Amendment rights as a precondition to getting its permission, which it has no authority to issue or deny, to keep and bear arms.

  3. Polls prove that ten out every every nine people approve of Universal Bathroom Checks. You can look it up!

  4. You still need a little editing on this one. Right after you crossed out “paid” for instance.

      • Apple’s overly aggressive autocorrect is a primary reason I don’t use their products. If I’m going to look like a moron, it’s going to be of my own doing, thank you very much.

      • You do better than I do. I am inclined to go Mr. Furious a lot after I post.

    • …and while you’re at it, Dan Z, it is ad nauseam.

      Great article and analysis! Thanks for this.

    • I was wondering if anyone else would make that association. It’s perfect. Look back on where concealed carry rights were 40 years ago, and look where they are today. These anti-gun nut jobs live in progressive cities like NYC or San Francisco and are under the impression the rest of the country functions and thinks just like the mentally diseased progressives they live with. And they wonder why they keep losing elections.

    • Yeah this is the danger when leftists preemptively ban twitter accounts, close comments, and other things to censor opposing views. They are hunkered down in their progressive bunkers breathing their own stale fart propaganda not knowing how everyone is enjoying the free air and sunshine outside them.

    • I wonder what ever happened to ole Bob. Good bet that Barry and Hillary made he a citizen and gave him a permanent job at the State Dept.

  7. I’d love to have John Lott do some serious looking at all of the states that do NOT require a “permit” to carry concealed. Especially Vermont, that never did. The blood is not running down the streets in these states, any more than it did in the early days of “permitted” concealed carry – or open carry for that matter. The regular people who carry without any permit are no more apt to commit crime than anyone who has the permission slip. And walking down the street, we must be aware and at least a little wary of everyone we meet since there is no way to tell just by looking who has a “permit,” or a gun.

    And, of course, all of this hysteria as if a gun is the only tool a criminal might use to attack people is pretty silly. I survived an attack from a man using his bare hands… because I had a gun. No getting around that logic.

    The Bloomberg zombies don’t use any logic, naturally.

    • You can’t necessarily tell just by looking at someone who certainly has a gun, but you can tell, who is most likely, if they do have a gun, to use it in a criminally violent manner.

      Put another way, but still skirting the political correctness police regulations, we know who the stupid people are, where the stupid places are, and what the stupid things are. Knowing all that makes it much easier to navigate the city and the day without resorting or succumbing to violence.

  8. I was thinking about some statistics the other day in regard to the gun/no-gun issue:

    There are an estimated 300 million privately owned firearms in the U.S.
    These firearms are represented by approximately 100 million owners.
    Of these firearms owners approximately 16 million have obtained Concealed Carry “Licenses” (State Permission Slips, SPSs).
    Of the 100 million firearms owners approximately 5 million have paid memberships in the NRA and/or some other pro gun-rights/Pro Second Amendment organization(s)

    How many people can we presume actually BELONG to any of the anti-Second Amendment organizations and participate regularly and actively, or are PAID to belong?

    How many people can we presume are being PAID TO PARTICIPATE in fighting the Second Amendment?

    Finally, what is the ratio between voluntary and active pro-gun participation vs. PAID and active anti-gun participation?

    It’s possible that the PAID anti-gun operatives are more than those paid by the NRA or all the pro-gun groups (The Gun Lobby) put together.

    I’m further willing to bet that the active anti-gun unpaid participants are significantly less than the membership that paid to join the NRA and other pro Second Amendment groups.

    It seems likely, even not having access to actual statistics, that the number of Americans who actively participate in anti-gun activities on the State and Federal levels, including working for legislative violations of the Second Amendment, is smaller than the membership in the NRA, and that the number of Americans who are informatively and somewhat actively opposed to private ownership of firearms in no way approaches the 100 million number of firearms owners.

    It would be interesting if someone with a much greater knowledge of statistical analysis than I could come up with a reasonable estimate of how many of the remaining Americans are actually just Gun Muggles who mostly do not know about, understand or particularly care about this issue so long as they don’t hear on the evening news of a “gun crime” committed in their city or neighborhood.

    • Fwiw- the estimated number of 300 million firearms in circulation is woefully inadequate. Just since 1998, when NICS came into existence, there have been 265,000,000 ( https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf) background checks. Clearly, that number includes used firearms already in circulation. But so too does it include multiple purchases on 1 check. Perhaps they cancel themselves out? Still, that’s the number just in the last 19 years. How many where around before NICS, already in the hands of citizens? 100,000,000? 200,000,000? I’d suggest that the number is well over 400,000,000. 300,000,000 is a staggering number, but it’s to the advantage of the anti gunners to minimize it as much as possible.

      • The NICS check multiplier I’ve heard is approximately .6. That works out 190 million guns since added.

    • “Of the 100 million firearms owners approximately 5 million have paid memberships in the NRA and/or some other pro gun-rights/Pro Second Amendment organization(s).” I don’t know it it is the same Pew poll, but a recent Pew poll put the number of NRA members at 14 million. Your number is the correct one. The NRA-ILA has an article on it.

  9. Us POTG are losing? Sales still are strong, there have been drops since O is gone and Hildebeast ain’t the CIC. But they are still selling well. Their 300 million gun numbers are low, probably actually pushing closer to double that. I have more than 30 myself as I collect them. The SHUSH bill may get a vote, more states are Constitutional carry and others have shall issue. More women are shooting and carrying. The US has the largest Army if you add up just hunting licensees US Fish and Wildlife is 36 million total for 2016.

    The only losers are the anti’s, but then again I would be all smugness and pouty too if a billionaire was handing me cash to lie.

  10. “The NRA-ILA is (as the name says) a non-tax-exempt legislative lobbying arm representing the millions of members and tens of millions of active shooters across the country.”

    No doubt the antis do regard the NRA-ILA as representing millions of “active shooters”, or at least potential, about-to-snap-at-any-minute, would-be spree shooters.

    Maybe we should refer to them, though, as “sports shooters”, “gun owners actively engaged in the shooting sports”, or something less inadvertently threatening-sounding?

    • Oh Jonathan… why in the world should we cater to these cretins (or any others)? You know perfectly well that anything we say or do will be perverted into their version of all gun owners being “about to snap at any minute, would-be spree shooters.” The very term “active shooter” is pretty silly, when you think about it, and I certainly don’t use the phrase, but it’s not because some anti might get their nickers in a wad over that being somehow “threatening.”

      In fact, I’m just as happy if they truly feel threatened… just as I hope anyone who would lie about me should. I have nothing to gain by twisting things to make them feel comfortable.

    • agreed, an active shooter would be my reason to defend myself and others, wouldn’t make me the “active shooter”

  11. It is really distressing to me that a high percentage of the American people, and the institutions that represent them, are in favor of obliterating our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms by converting it to a revocable government-issued privilege, are in favor of obliterating our 4th Amendment right to be secure from search (and/or seizure) in the absence of probable cause of criminal conduct (Form 4473 and NICS are SEARCHES), are in favor of obliterating our 5th Amendment right to Due Process (conviction) in a Court of Law before any right can be taken from us, are in favor of obliterating our right to be secure from being compelled to give up any right in order to be allowed to exercise a right (long-standing legal doctrine plus 9th Amendment), and are in favor of giving up our 10th Amendment right to be secure from the federal exercise of authority not delegated to the federal government and the State exercise of authority prohibited to the States by the U.S. Constitution.

    Background checks have never prevented a criminal or a mental defective from gaining access to a firearm in the history of the planet and was never intended to. Their purpose is to sucker gun owners into waiving every right they have in order to get revocable government permission to keep and bear arms on the theory that having waived these other rights, they will have none left to claim when government decides to revoke the permission. Are gun owners that stupid? Are Americans that stupid?

    We have a defense: Government also has no lawful authority to scam us out of our rights, either. But we had best demand the abolishment of these violations of our rights now, while we can do so peacefully, because shock troops are not going to listen to the arguments when government decides to revoke the bogus “privilege” it has issued.

    The federal government has no authority to even license firearm dealers. It has no authority to demand a citizen jump through its hoops to get permission to buy or transfer a firearm. It has no authority to issue or deny permission to exercise a right the peaceful exercise of which violates no one’s rights. Furthermore, the State governments demanded and then ratified the Bill of Rights: States have no more authority to violate our rights than does the federal government, and claims of “States’ rights” be damned.

    If we, the people, don’t start demanding our rights we are going to lose them permanently.

    • I’m not disagreeing with you, but you need to work on your understanding of the Bill of Rights a bit.

      A 4473 is more of a violation of the right against self-incrimination (5A) than it is of your right to be free of an unreasonable search. I don’t see how NICS checks constitute searches under the 4A.

      • Unfortunately I have seen appeals court black-robed doofuses rule that in order to claim protection under the 5th amendment against self-incrimination, the defendant has to reveal what it was he did that he is trying to avoid incrimination about in order for the Court to determine if the claim of protection is valid. I’m sure you will agree that is absurd.
        In addition, the form 4473 is a compelled self-search under penalty of perjury and it is in the absence of probable cause of criminal conduct. True, self-incrimination is an issue, and criminals have escaped prosecution for perjury on grounds of self-incrimination. But claiming protection from self-incrimination has always, rightfully or not, raised the suspicion of wrongdoing. There is no legal requirement of that. Furthermore, rather than self-incrimination, the issue under the 5th amendment should be the taking of a right without due process, i.e., conviction in a Court of Law of criminal behavior. Lastly, the NICS check is a search of private records (“papers and effects”) on government databases, and it cannot be claimed to be “public records” if privacy laws prohibit their access without a subpoena.

        The whole Brady Act process constitutes a criminal investigation — a “fishing expedition” — without probable cause of criminal conduct. A cop on the street wouldn’t get away with it. There is no reason why a federal cop or agency should get away with it.

        I notice you do not challenge my assertion that it converts the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms into a revocable government-issued privilege, or that it violates my right to be secure from having to give up a right in order to be allowed to exercise a right (which is an accurate definition of converting a right into a privilege), or that it violates my right to be secure from the federal exercise of authority not delegated — and in many States now, thanks to subversive thug Michael Bloomberg, it violates my right to be secure from the State exercise of authority prohibited to the States by the U.S. Constitution. Are you in agreement with these assertions? (Thank you for your comments, btw.)

        • “I’m sure you will agree that is absurd.” I agree that a lot of 5A jurisprudence is absurd.

          “rather than self-incrimination” – I’d say in addition instead to instead of rather than.

          “Lastly, the NICS check is a search of private records (“papers and effects”) on government databases, and it cannot be claimed to be “public records” if privacy laws prohibit their access without a subpoena.” I don’t know enough about the statutory mechanics of a NICS check to begin to analyze the issue, but if privacy laws generally protect the information, then I can see where the unreasonable search argument comes from.

          “Are you in agreement with these assertions?” Basically. I’m no expert on the unconstitutional condition doctrine and don’t really see the need to go to 9A and 10A arguments until we win the 2A arguments.

  12. As someone who works in the mental health field in a very liberal area of the country, I’m kind of sick of the stigma that people with mental illness get. It is safer to assume that whole segments of the population are mentally ill. In the neighboring state, you can opt for non binary on your driver license, biology out the window. Most who are mentally ill are no more prone to violence than the rest of the population and if it came down to it, would likely use a weapon on themselves first because they are lacking in the energy to go out on a shooting rampage. What people need to be looking for is the sociopath. Most gun shop owners will not sell to a disheveled schizophrenic who is talking to himself about Jesus and ufos. What scares me is the person with an impeccable record with intentions not seen. I mean many our vets are coming back and have been slapped with the PTSD diagnosis and lose their gun rights. These soldiers are the ones I want armed. People are imperfect. Those who are armed have little to worry about. If someone is trying to take my weapons I can only assume it’s because they are insecure about something. The everytown whatever it’s called organization is misleading a lot of misinformed voters

    • Here is most likely what they are “insecure” about: “I have never met a pro-active gun-banner yet who didn’t harbor a secret desire to beat someone senseless with their fists and their feet, or perhaps with a baseball bat, for being … “difficult”. For not doing as they are told. For not agreeing with whatever nonsense they wish to blather. For not worshipping the ground they walk on. Gun-banners hate gun owners because gun owners don’t have to put up with their crap. It must be terribly frustrating, poor things.”

      • So like… tyrants and dictators in the making? Yeah no, makes perfect sense

      • I think you’ve hit on a significant issue here. To the anti’s, we represent a very well hardened target that is a major obstacle between them and their goal of overwhelming governmental control of everyone and everything. The only ways they can move past us is to convince us to disarm or to disarm us by force – neither is very likely and they hate that.

  13. “…Feinblatt drones on and on about how some states don’t require training, don’t require live fire tests, don’t prevent…”

    Hmmmm, those other states don’t seem to have road-rage-rampages or parking lot shoot-outs. I wonder what makes your state so special that someone who has clearly demonstrated they are not prone to violence is suddenly going to become violent?

  14. “In the neighboring state, you can opt for non binary on your driver license, biology out the window.”

    Can you do that for your age too? I would have killed for that option when my buddies and I were in HS and searching for a way to buy booze. I’m mean if you can opt of binary gender, you should be able to opt out of numerical age, too.

  15. I assume you take the “presumptively lawful” from the infamous footnote in Heller.

    “26 We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.”

    This has to be one of the most misused and hijacked footnotes in the history of the Supreme Court.

    This footnote says ONLY that the referenced list of laws are indeed on the books and that the Heller decision DOES NOT ADDRESS them. At all. They are completely out of scope of the merits of Heller, but the gun-haters have used this inconsequential acknowledgement of laws that do exist to claim that since Heller did not strike them down, they must be lawful.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. They were not evaluated, so the court could not act on them one way or the other. They will be one day, when the right case comes along, but what will the gun-haters do then?

    I am relieved that SCOTUS did not take Peruta. Kennedy has been bitten by the liberal insanity bug and is absolutely unreliable on the issue. A loss in Peruta would be devastating, we are FAR better off waiting for his replacement, as long as Trump picks someone similar to Gorsuch to replace him.

      • “Technically, all unchallenged laws are presumed constitutional.” How self-serving for the tyrant(s), and how in error if you take Marbury v. Madison seriously.

        • My point is that the “presumptively lawful” could be simply taken as the laws have not been challenged and ruled unconstitutional and are not struck down by Heller/McDonald.

          My comment was simply a statement in support of TFred’s.

  16. Is that Poppy Montgomery in the pic?

    Well, now we know the other reason these tools play along. They’ve gone full Gene Simmons, (without his commitment, self-awareness, intelligence or charisma): it’s all about the money, and the — er — girls.

  17. How about allowing those that can show that they passed the check to buy guns(in the last 4years) without having to go through it again? The whole reason is they want each gun registered, not anything about a collector being safe to buy another pre WWI handgun or even single shot .22 rifle.

    We are not the ones that will take guns against anyone, but they continue to harrass us collectors for buying and selling our collectables.

    • I don’t know how the law is written where you are, but I live in a Constitutional Carry State, yet if I obtain a CCW license to don’t have to undergo the bogus background check ever again so long as my CCW is valid. And since my rights are unalienable, my right to keep and bear arms is not waived by allowing the State to think it has me under its control.

  19. Look on the bright side! At least Shannon found a pose that somewhat obscures her crazy wall eyed look.

  20. Every time I hear about this organization I turn the name around: “Every Gun For Town Safety”. There. Fixed it.

  21. “Each ruled that the Second Amendment, contrary to gun lobby ideology, does indeed allow states and localities to decide who can carry concealed guns in public.”

    I’m most familiar with Peruta, so I will address that one right now. Peruta did not hold that. The question answered by the court (not the one presented to the court) was whether or not there is a constitutional right to carry concealed. The court, maybe even properly, held that Heller/Miller means that concealed carry can be banned.

    The court specifically did not answer the question of whether the Constitution “allow[s] states and localities to decide who can carry concealed guns in public” because even the 9th Circus knows the correct answer to that is the Constitution does not allow the governments to deny the right to carry in public any more than it can deny the right to speak in public.

    • “The court, maybe even properly, held that Heller/Miller means that concealed carry can be banned.” Scalia was flat wrong when he said that, and I told him it was wrong within a month of the ruling. Besides, if I’m not badly mistaken, he said that in dicta, not in the substantive ruling.

      He was wrong when he said that because under the State Police Power, the State has the authority to regulate the USE of arms in the interests of public safety; it does not have the authority to regulate, limit, infringe, oversee, monitor, or otherwise interfere with the peaceable exercise of the RIGHT. Rights are inherited and unalienable, and beyond the reach of government. And SCOTUS has said so in other rulings. (And BTW, the States demanded a Bill of Rights; the States got a Bill of Rights, and the States ratified the Bill of Rights, thus waiving their police Power over those rights set forth therein.)

      If you are a lawyer, and I presume that you are, you should be aware of the monstrous departure from the U.S. Constitution by the federal government even before the illegal 17th Amendment mutiny against the sovereign nation-States that created it. Are you?

      • It’s not the ratification of the Bill of Rights that did the states in. It was the ratification of the 14A. Before that, the BoR did not apply to limit the states.

        I don’t see how the 17A would be illegal. If the process for amending the Constitution is followed, that is all that is required. The result could be immoral or unwise, but it wouldn’t be illegal. For a long time, I’ve said that the best way to understand case law (especially on the Constitution) is to ignore the written law.

        • “It’s not the ratification of the Bill of Rights that did the states in. It was the ratification of the 14A. Before that, the BoR did not apply to limit the states.”

          So the States demanded a Bill of Rights; they got a Bill of Rights, they ratified a Bill of Rights (thus waiving their ‘State’s rights’ argument where the Bill of Rights is concerned), and then adopted the position that the Bill of Rights didn’t apply to them. i don’t deny that they adopted that position; I merely assert that Article VI makes it a totally bogus position:

          “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” (Article VI, U.S. Const., in pertinent part.)

          The 14th was totally unnecessary had the Constitution been honored from the beginning.

          “I don’t see how the 17A would be illegal. If the process for amending the Constitution is followed, that is all that is required.”

          It was not followed. The 17th Amendment removed from the States (as separate entities from the people) their suffrage in the Senate (and thus their control over their wholly-owned subsidiary, the federal government). Article V establishes how Amendments shall be ratified, and it specifically states:

          “Provided … that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” (Last clause of Article V, U.S. Const., in pertinent part.)

          At least ten States withheld their Consent to being deprived of their Suffrage in the Senate by either voting the Amendment down or in taking no action at all on the Amendment. “Consent” in Constitutional terms requires an affirmative action, since the sovereign nation-States created the Constitutional compact that created their wholly-owned subsidiary, the federal government, in the first place.

          I believe as an officer of the Court you are required to swear or affirm an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, yes? Ya think it might be a good idea to read it? (No ridicule intended; merely bringing the concept to your attention.)

          “The result could be immoral or unwise, but it wouldn’t be illegal. For a long time, I’ve said that the best way to understand case law (especially on the Constitution) is to ignore the written law.”

          I think the best way to understand the both the case law and the written law (at the federal level) is to reject both to the extent they are not specifically authorized by the United States Constitution:

          “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Amendment the Xth, U.S. Const. This is a RIGHT, like any other, and may be claimed by any natural citizen (not “Natural-Born,” which has a different and specific definition, but natural in the sense of ‘not an “articifical person”‘ as limited liability corporations are described).

          If we don’t start claiming our rights as individual citizens, the current trend toward Marxist collectivist/statist totalitarianism will continue to its programmed conclusion.

          • “I think the best way to understand the both the case law and the written law (at the federal level) is to reject both to the extent they are not specifically authorized by the United States Constitution:” Rejecting a thing is not the same as understanding it. Understanding it is not the same as agreeing or accepting it. To have a chance of winning, you have to understand how the other guy thinks.

            “The 17th Amendment removed from the States (as separate entities from the people) their suffrage in the Senate.” I get your argument, but it is a fringe argument. Most people (who know anything about government) would agree that each state has two Senators. And there are several readings of both Article V and the 17A that are harmonious. Indeed, if no state is represented in the Senate, then all states are equally represented and thus not denied equal suffrage.

            If the 10 states that didn’t sign on to the 17A want to make their case, they can sue to enjoin the enforcement in their states. The other states consented.

            The repeal effort might be an easier route.

            • “To have a chance of winning, you have to understand how the other guy thinks.” We know how the other guy thinks. He thinks the same way the Tories in 1776 thought: ‘Those who demand liberty are nothing but rabble rousers stirring up unrest. WE will protect your liberty! Just let us have it.”

              Every repeal argument in history has been a “fringe argument” until people begin to understand it and advocate and then fight for it. In the instant case, your statement that “Most people (who know anything about government) would agree that each state has two Senators” is a case in point: The fact is, most people have barely even a sophomoric knowledge of government as illustrated by that statement. The U.S. Constitution never, ever, conflates “States” with “People.” The reality is that the People of each State have two Houses of Representatives representing them, while the States have none. If you understood why the founding fathers created a U.S. Senate populated by two Senators from each State CHOSEN BY THE LEGISLATURES THEREOF (and not by the People) you would be simultaneously horrified by the predicted results and have a much greater understanding of the results that have come to pass. Do you even understand why we do not have (or at least are not supposed to have) a Democracy in this country?

              “Indeed, if no state is represented in the Senate, then all states are equally represented and thus not denied equal suffrage.” Sir, I am shocked that a member of the legal profession would actually come out with that incredibly sophomoric statement … though I suppose I should not be; I’ve been doing this for forty years and I am invariably astonished by that kind of remark by people who by all rights should know better.

              That whole statement stands the concept of “equal suffrage” on its head. It puts the entire onus of the statement on “equal” instead of “suffrage.” By extension, that statement justifies enslaving a whole identifiable faction of the people on the grounds that ‘well, they have no rights at all, but that’s okay because they have equal rights.” What you just said is that States have no suffrage at all, but that means they have equal suffrage. Sorry, sir. I’m sure you can realize the absurdity of that statement. Equal tyranny and oppression of rights cannot be any measure be regarded as “equal rights.” Denial of Constitutionally-mandated suffrage cannot by any measure be regarded as “equal suffrage.”

              The bottom line here is that the founding fathers recognized that States and People would have entirely different interests and entirely different responsibilities. The purpose of having two houses of Congress was to further cement Checks and Balances: The House of Representatives would represent the easily manipulated, mercurial passions of the people in all their various factions, while the Senate would provide a stable, thoughtful approach to legislation far from the passions of the people and immune from the factionalism that drives the House. It would be very fair to say that virtually all the turmoil and violence and departures from fundamental principles, both in government and among the people, are the direct result of the perfidy of SecState William Jennings Bryan in declaring the 17th Amendment ratified when he knew darned well it had not been ratified. His certification of its ratification even listed one State as having ratified it when that State hadn’t even gotten the question into committee.

              Also, contrary to your suggestion that ten States could sue to enjoin the enforcement of the 17th in their State — that is true, but that is not the only path to restoration of our lawful Constitutional government. The fact is the States are sovereign nation-States in their own right, no less so than Great Britain, Germany, or France. They delegated certain limited powers to their creation, the federal government, but delegating powers for specific purposes does not deprive the sovereign of those powers: ANY State has the lawful power to declare the 17th Amendment null and void for want of ratification, give the reasons why out of a “decent respect for the opinions of Mankind,” and use their sovereign powers to recall their bogus Senators, fire them, choose news Senators legislatively to represent the interest OF THE STATE, and send them to the U.S. Senate to be seated. I know what would happen, but the Constitution would win, and this is getting too long to discuss the manner of it doing so in this post.

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