Here’s some legislation that’s long overdue. It may take another election to make it into law, though. It would be a big civil-rights breakthrough.
10 thoughts on “The National Right To Carry Act”
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Here’s some legislation that’s long overdue. It may take another election to make it into law, though. It would be a big civil-rights breakthrough.
Comments are closed.
I’m a bit torn on this bit of legislature. I am a CWP holder and I’d like to be able to carry in all states, but I’m also opposed to the federal government forcing states to accept the laws of other states.
Whether requiring citizens to seek a permit from the state before exercising their 2nd amendment rights is even constitutional is another subject. States don’t issue free speech permits or freedom of religion permits why do we need a permit to “keep and bear arms”?
Cecil,
It should already be legal under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constution. This is just the Congress enforcing the FFaCC with regards to this issue.
Agree with Cecil, this is just another example of we need to enumerate or you don’t have the right.
This should be a disqualification of any lawmaker that doesn’t understand individual liberty. Including those founders that got it wrong.
I wouldn’t be against a ‘constitution for dummies’ as long as it didn’t have any force of law but could keep the congress critters busy enumerating all our rights.
The states can individually demonstrate their lack of understanding so those with feet can demonstrate theirs.
Interesting. I saw the story at Instapundit and commented there using an argument I’ve heard from Rand in the past. I don’t like a legislation that defines are rights. The right of self-defense is inherent. If you just take the preamble of the legislation that reaffirms Heller and note the 2nd Amendment “shall not be abridged”, I think you’re done.
If this law passes, then supposedly it can one day be repealed. I don’t know how one could repeal it, so I don’t understand why it is needed. I get the arguments about interstate, but then the Commerce Clause is trumped by the 2nd Amendment.
I see. We should pass up an opportunity to make real progress for civil rights, so that we can make some Ron Paul-like philosophical point.
Passing laws to create civil rights does sound Progressive. I wrote the legislation should just reaffirm Heller and the rights already identified in the 2nd Amendment. Call it a resolution. You don’t need to pass laws for inherent rights you already have and are already recognized in the US Constitution. But I do understand that too many lack the education to comprehend their rights, and Ken’s just another example of such people.
The catch, Ken, is that being forced to go about it this way legitimizes the abuse of the Commerce Clause to de facto repeal the 10th Amendment.
Yes, we’ve already abused the 10th so badly over the decades that it might as well not exist, but it’s still a touch bittersweet to be further violating the 10th in order to restore the 2nd to something slightly closer to its original meaning.
I doubt that this will go anywhere for another 18 months anyways; I recommend that in the meantime, interested states look at L3’s interstate compact idea–this would be a great place to experiment with it. It wouldn’t help with CA/IL/MA, but it would clear up reciprocity issues across most states, and put pressure on the bitter clingers to stop fetishizing firearms and recognize them as basic tools of self-protection.
The law already exists to enforce the 2nd Amendment, so no new law needs passed. Get the US Attorney’s offices in the PRK, MD, NY, NJ and HI to prosecute state governors and attorney’s generals who enforce unconstitutional laws (anything other than constitutional carry [e.g. AK, AZ, VT and WY] under 18 USC 242 which “makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. … The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.”
Of course, our founders struggled with the issue of unenumerated rights. If someone doesn’t agree to fundamental freedom, showing them a blank piece of paper and saying, “Look it’s right here moron!” tends to be ineffective.
You would think we’d saturate our grade school education with the concept, but it seems Al Gore and his ilk have another agenda.
Couldn’t we at least expose them to the fact that ‘rights’ that violate liberty and property are not really rights? Naw, that would make too many political rallies look stupid.
Am I missing something here? IIRC the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. Also IIRC, that says nothing about the precise type of arms that will be allowed. And going further than that, the purpose clause of the 2nd Amendment seems to imply that the bearing of arms is for the purpose of arming a “well-regulated militia” for the defense of the State. (The State here apparently meaning the people of the country, most especially not the current government).
It strikes me that pistols are of limited use for such a purpose. Incidentally, so is a hodgepodge of assorted long arms with widely varying types of ammunition.