Gulag America

The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
-- Frederic Bastiat, The Law 

New Jersey Man Serving Seven Years for Guns He Legally Owned

When Mount Laurel police arrived at the Aitkens' home on Jan. 2, 2009, they called Brian - who was driving to Hoboken - and asked him to return to his parents' home because they were worried. When he arrived, the cops checked his Honda Civic and, inside the trunk, in a box stuffed into a duffel bag with clothes, they found two handguns, both locked and unloaded as New Jersey law requires.

Aitken had passed an FBI background check to buy them in Colorado when he lived there, his father said, and had contacted New Jersey State Police and discussed the proper way to transport them.(Jason Nark – NJ Man Serving 7 Years)

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

There are three linchpins to this story of a law-abiding entrepreneur condemned to prison for seven years:

Sue Aitken, a trained social worker, decided to play it safe and called police...

The Good: A social worker mother conditioned to call the authorities to intervene in the private affairs of free people.  Her son, Brian Aiken, was distraught over a dispute with his ex over seeing his son.  He was so distraught he...  he...  (are you ready for this) he calmly continued moving his things to his new house.

The Bad: A nation of mistrustful batwinged lawmakers who know no more about writing just law than I do about writing a ballet.

The stinking statist sewer known as New Jersey (I know, Chris Christie is trying) actually has a law that criminalizes a free man who securely transports unloaded firearms in his trunk.  The law is convoluted and full of tedious rules and legal minutiae, guaranteed to confuse a reasonably intelligent non-lawyer.

Aitken's mistake was leaving God's country, where Colorado law allows us to carry a loaded gun in our car.  Men and women are still free out here.  For the bonus round, go google which state has more gun violence.

The Ugly:  A police force that ignores timeless principles of criminal intent and common sense. A black-robed judicial mullah who turns the legal system into his own petty fiefdom

A worried mother saying she is scared he might "do something" is not probable cause to search a man's car, especially if the person is going about his business and not exhibiting threatening behavior.  If you didn't buy George Bush's preventive wars, you also cannot defend preventive justice.  It opens a pandora's box and it is a violation of our constitutionally-protected rights.

If this were still the United States of America and we were still a free people, a citizen with no criminal record like Mr. Aitken would point out to the cops that he had committed no crime, had no intention of committing one, and then politely tell them to buzz off.  But now, as anyone who has done the perp walk though the the TSA Grop and Grab Gauntlet at the airport knows, probable cause is whatever the authorities say it is.

The judge, since dismissed by Governor Christie for judicial stupidity in an unrelated case, turned the law into a game of gotcha.  Instead of evaluating Mr. Aitken's actions against the law and judging criminal intent, he disallowed his lawyer's line of defense and sent Aitken to jail for seven years.

"Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."
-- Lavrentiy Beria, Head of Stalin's Secret Police

Gordon Crovitz, in reviewing Harvey Silverglate's book, Three Felonies a Day, explains how the vagueness and complexity of unjust laws provide police and prosecutors a sea of ambiguity in which to fish for “criminals.”

He concludes:

These miscarriages are avoidable. Under the English common law we inherited, a crime requires intent. This protection is disappearing in the U.S.

Prosecutors identify defendants to go after instead of finding a law that was broken and figuring out who did it. (L Gordon Crovitz – Three Felonies a Day)

 A man-made law that contradicts natural law and the natural rights of free men is an unjust law.  Legislators who make such law, and imperious jurists who give them the seal of approval must be turned out.

E-mail Governor Christie's office and request he correct this gross miscarriage of justice and grant clemency Brian Aitken.
 
See Also: Reason – Brian Aitken’s Mistake

Why Progressives Must Be Crushed Like Bugs

Daley to Ignore Supreme Court Slapdown on Chicago Gun Ban  

Richard Daley, owner of Chicago and Crime Boss of the Corrupt Democrat Machine that spawned Barack Obama, has announced he won't let an inconsequential thing like the US Constitution stop him from keeping guns away from law-abiding citizens.

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed our God-given right to keep and bear arms, but Chicago progressives are readying a series of fiery bureaucratic hoops a free man must jump through in order to defend himself and his family with a firearm.  I won't stink up this blog by listing them.  

Steve Chapman had this to say about progressive mistrust of personal freedoms:

But really: Whose judgment about the value of guns to law-abiding citizens do you trust? Ordinary people defending their homes against criminals? Or a public official who is shepherded to work each day by police officers?

Indeed.  He goes on to  point out that murders have soared since the gun ban's inception:

The reality that goes unpublicized by the mayor is that the weekend before the Supreme Court decision, at least 26 people in Chicago were shot, three fatally. The previous weekend, the victims numbered more than 50, with at least eight dying. 

Daley downplays the obvious fact that his ban hasn't spared the city from "the full scope of gun violence in America."

After all, the almost total prohibition passed back in 1982 didn't have the effects promised by supporters. It failed to eradicate handguns, of which the city has an estimated 100,000. Nor did the ban establish serenity in the streets. In the decade after it took effect, homicides soared.

This is why liberals can never be trusted to run things.   The right of a person to defend herself is a fundamental unalienable right.  Daley is either drunk with power or he is crazy.

Uncle Ted on Gun Control
And now for some constitutional sanity from the Motor City Madman (who wisely abandoned Detroit for Texas)...





* - Cross-Posted at Rational Nation

Gun Grabbers have their Day in Court

Are the 50 states required to obey the Second Amendment?

Or can they do whatever they want, with no obligation to respect our right to keep and bear arms?

That’s what’s at stake in the Chicago gun-ban case, McDonald v. City of Chicago (Alan Korwin)

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
-- 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution

This will be a landmark decision

Last year, The Supreme Court upheld our right to bear arms in the Heller Decision, but since it was a DC case, it was silent on such bans imposed by states and cities.

The Chicago Case before the Supreme Court is complex and involves much more that just the right to bear arms.  Can the federal government compel states to respect The Bill of Rights?  If so, is this a violation of states rights?

A straight reading of the 2nd Amendment should settle it:  Chicago may not infringe upon a person's right to own a gun.  Unfortunately, progressive lawmakers have trampled and twisted our constitution, and deferential judges have too often let them get by with it.

Jason Adkins at Big Government explains:

But the practice of constitutional law has unfortunately long since been about more than the simple application of the plain text.  That’s because the Constitution—the point of which is to limit government power—is a rather inconvenient roadblock when government wants to do something without restraints.  

Courts, in many cases, have abandoned their responsibility to apply the clear commands of the Constitution and have become extremely deferential to legislatures, especially with regard to progressive policy goals the judges themselves often share.  

Some call this judicial “restraint,” but increasingly, a more accurate term would be judicial abdication.  

This case revolves around not just the 2nd Amendment, but also the 14th.  It's a very long amendment, passed to give teeth to the 13th, which abolished slavery.  Here is the relevant section:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Gun Rights champion Alan Korwin has written The Definitive Article on this case.  He breaks it down so us non-lawyers can understand it.  Here are some excerpts:

Our brief establishes this crucial point: the Second Amendment protects an American right that is long standing, deeply rooted and truly fundamental, and therefore meets the tests for incorporation under the 14th Amendment.

 The idea that the states should also be obligated to respect the fundamental rights in the national Bill of Rights didn’t arrive until 1868, with the 14th Amendment. And that was a result of the end of slavery — the former Confederate states did everything they could think of to deny virtually any rights to newly freed slaves — especially the right to keep and bear arms.

Is Chicago obligated, under the 14th Amendment, to honor and respect your rights? It says no, it can do as it pleases and screw your rights, just like other abhorrent petty tyrants currently running loose without nooses in the United States.

Gun Rights vs. States Rights? 

Here's a critical issue:  If the court overturns the ban, is it a blow to states' rights?  As important is a separate issue:  If the federal government can use the 14th Amendment to force states to respect a right mentioned in the 2nd, will liberals use this precedent to force states to recognize other "rights" that they invent?

Yes, we’re delighted that the states may be forced — by our friends the feds — to honor our right to keep arms and our right to bear arms. We can conveniently overlook and rationalize any concerns about federalism — the concept that states are sovereign and independent, and in many matters can decide on their own how their territories will be run.

Will gun rights activists end up providing cover fire for progressive schemers?

Force from federal mandates seems just fine to protect free speech or stop search-and-seizure abuse, or to protect RKBA. But how well that flies if it’s “newly discovered privileges and immunities” (polygamy? drugs? animal rights? affirmative action? debt? medicine? carbon neutrality? diversity? greenness? diet?) remains to be seen.

Those are far fetched and unlikely concerns, according to most people in the know.

Interesting stuff. I don't see this as a states rights issue because our God-given rights may not be infringed by anyone.  As for the progressive schemers, the tide seems to be turning against them.

The Chicago Gun Ban Case

Supreme Court Appears Ready To Overturn Chicago Gun Ban Ordinance

If the early reports coming out of Washington D.C. are correct, we will not have to listen to the nonsense Mayor Richard Daley has been spinning for years. Mayor Daley has defended the city's handgun ban as being necessary and reasonable. Reasonable? For Whom?

The New American - Partial Victory Could Have Other Implications

So while the anticipated Supreme Court decision may represent a partial victory to some, and an unconstitutional infringement on the powers of state governments to others, the future of gun rights in America generally looks brighter than it did just a few years ago. After all, more and more Americans are beginning to appreciate that the right to keep and bear arms is an unalienable gift from their Creator which “shall not be infringed” by government. And that is encouraging news. 

The Economist

Mr McDonald’s lawsuit against Chicago’s gun laws reached the Supreme Court this week. It was the moment gun-lovers had been waiting for since 2008, when the court struck down as unconstitutional a similar handgun ban in Washington, DC. By a 5-4 majority, the justices ruled then that the second amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms” applies to individuals, not just members of a militia. 

The question now is whether this right applies only in a federal enclave such as Washington, DC, or nationwide. Judging by the questions the justices threw at Chicago’s lawyer on March 2nd, the answer is “nationwide”.

The first ten amendments to the constitution (the Bill of Rights) originally bound only the federal government. But the rights contained in them, such as free speech, have mostly been applied to the states via the “due process” clause of the 14th amendment. (“Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law…”) This is the most likely way that the court’s slim majority will extend gun rights to the whole country. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
-- 2nd Amendment to The US Constitution