dksuddeth

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:h6294:

I'm guessing that Marchant is unfamiliar with the 14th amendment.
anyway, will people eventually get upset enough to throw all caution to the wind and stop voting for the two major parties and realize the opportunity the libertarians or constitution party can offer?

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samcol

I guess I don't disagree with it, but the procedure doesn't seem correct.

Paq

wow

kinda glad they didnt' get on the ball with this back in teh 19th century....

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Chris

hiredgun

It's not really anything more than an election-cycle tactic.

I see this sort of thing (on both sides of the aisle) as an abuse of the system and wonder if there are institutional changes we could make to get our Congress back on track - less time spent on worthless maneuvering and more time on the substance of making half an attempt to govern well.

NCB

Sounds good to me. Does it not seem illogical that people who are here illegally can somehow give birth to a legal US citizen?

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The_Jazz

I can't believe that anyone would try to blatantly circumvent the Constitution like this, despite the fact that it would be struck down immediately by any judge with half a brain.

This has been the law of the land ever since the founding of this country. Anyone want to tell me if Washington's parents were here legally or illegally?

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ratbastid

You can't make a law that's flatly unconstitutional like this. Or... you can make it, but it'll be overturned the minute it hits the courts. This is feel-good-and-reelect-me legislation at its worst.

(BTW, for those of you who are in the ":shrug: Sounds good to me", camp, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of that God Damned Piece of Paper called the Constitution of the United States of America begins with the sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." This bill is utterly unconstitutional.)

flstf

If we want these citizenship restrictions then we should amend the 14th Amendment to read "All persons (legally) born....".

Section 2 of the 14th Amendment goes on to establish voting rights for male citizens twenty-one years of age. I guess they could probably straighten up this wording at the same time but I imagine other rulings already supercede it.

Ustwo

Do you say the same thing when cities try to pass anti-gun laws, or don't let you carry a knife? I'm glad to see you are not a revisionist.

Reguardless, nice try on the bill, but its a waste of time. They would have to get very creative to make it work and not be unconstitutional.

Perhaps mandatory 5 year prison sentances for illegals would do it

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kutulu

That's really retarded. What is the point?

ratbastid

Women were enfranchised by the 19th Amendment in 1920 and the voting age was dropped to 18 by the 26th Amendment in 1971.

In order to have this bill be even passingly constitutional, we'd need to have a new constitutional amendment ratified for it. Can't really see that happening.

It's not out of the question though. Most Americans think the Constitution is an old, dusty document. Certainly our Chief Executive thinks that. Did you know the latest amendmement was in 1992? That's right, the fightin' 27th, which forbade congress from giving itself more than one pay raise per term.

Ustwo

MMmm don't recall that one, lets see 92, election year, silly.... yea that sounds about the kind of thing one could expect in an election year.

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ratbastid

I agree with you there. But it's the sort of thing both sides of the aisle could get under--nowhere near as divisive an issue as immigration. I don't think there's a lot of chance we'll see a constitutional amendment proposed to allow this bogus bill to sail before the election.

dc_dux

This was a relatively quiet year for bills in Congress proposing to amend the Constitution. Most never get more than a handful of sponsors.

Just a sample:

* To ensure reproductive rights of women
* To force the Congress and President to agree to a balanced budget, with overspending allowed only in the case of a three-fifths vote of Congress
* To ensure that all children who are citizens have a right to a "free and adequate education"
* To specifically permit prayer at school meetings and ceremonies
* To allow non-natural born citizens to become President if they have been a citizen for 20 years
* To specifically allow Congress to regulate the amount of personal funds a candidate to public office can expend in a campaign
* To ensure that apportionment of Representatives be set by counting only citizens
* To make the filibuster in the Senate a part of the Constitution
* To provide for continuity of government in case of a catastrophic event
* The "Every Vote Counts" Amendment - providing for direct election of the President and Vice President, abolishing the Electoral College
* To clarify eminent domain, specifically that no takings can be transferred to a private person except for transportation projects
* Providing a right to work, for equal pay for equal work, the right to organize, and the right to favorable work conditions
* To allow the President to reduce any Congressional appropriation, or to disapprove of same (ie: a line-item veto)

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Superbelt

Try and read that document sometimes, Dub. Cities passing anti-gun laws are specifically enumerated in the constitution itself.

The Second Amendment:
"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."
'the people' are the collective of the state.

It applies to the Federal Government only. It has been repeatedly affirmed through the Supreme Court that the Second Ammendment is meant to keep the regulation of firearms to the state and local level. NOT that the possession thereof is an inalienable right.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings:
United States v. Cruikshank (1876)- States and local government may enact their own gun control laws. The 2nd only forbids the Congress from infringing gun rights.

Presser v. Illinois (1886)- Reaffirmed the states rights to control guns.

United States v. Miller (1939)- Decided individuals have no right to arms under the amendment. But "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia."

As per repeated interpretation of the amendment, State and local control action is fine. The Second Amendment only applies to the Federal Legislature.
This was done to keep the states with a degree of independence, and protection from a federal government that could turn into a dictator.

Also:
Morton Grove, Illinois, passed similar law banning handguns from the general populace in the 1980's. The town was sued on Second Amendment grounds and the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ordinance WAS valid, and that there was no individual right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. In October 1983, the SCOTUS turned down the appeal to hear on this ruling. They allowed the lower court rulings to stand.

Not that I would ever WANT my state or locality to ban handguns in and of themselves. But the fact of the matter is, the constitution allows it.

Bill O'Rights

Bingo!
Double bingo!
I dun tink so, Lucy.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms, not the Federal Government. The Federal Government has no rights. It has authority, and it has obligations...all spelled out in the Constitution. Only the citizenry has rights. To make that assumptive leap subverts the whole intent of the Second Amendment.

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Superbelt

I have rulings (and one one pass on a State SCOTUS decision) through four unique incarnations of the SCOTUS that say differently.

It's the states right to regulate firearms as they see fit.
Any state that would be so foolish as to as to ban firearms wholesale deserves to be overrun by the federal government. But it's still a repeatedly affirmed right of the State.

The state IS 'the people'. A state can't do something like that without our will.

kutulu

Why does anything remotely related to the constitution have to devolve into a 2nd Amendment arguement?

Superbelt

I responded, but only because Deucey brought it up trying to expose some imaginary hypocracy.

ratbastid

It's probably the most heavily argued section of the constitution (I mean, really, who has a problem with banning the quartering of soldiers in peacetime?). It's usually pulled out--as indeed it was in this case--as a straw man to attempt to undercut actual sensible points.

The_Jazz

How passionate do you feel about the Interstate Commerce Clause? Or the 3/5th's Clause (although that one was pretty much put to bed 140 years ago.

The First and the Second are really the only ones people get excited about because those are the ones that have the most day-to-day impact for most of us. Exercised your 7th or 8th Amendment rights recently?

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"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

stevo

I would venture to argue the Interstate Commerce Clause impacts us on a day-to-day basis as much as, if not more than, any other part of the constitution.

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kutulu

The 8th Amendment gets talked about a fair amount it just isn't named as the 8th Amendment. Prisoners often file cases claiming cruel and unusual punishment and I've seen may fair share of excessive bail cases over the past few years.

The_Jazz

If you're a judge, lawyer, defendant or bailbondsman, I'm sure you do. However, the 8th doesn't do much for those of us who stay out of courtrooms and jails.

Maybe it does (and I'm inclined to agree with you on that), but the issue that it would was settled long ago. How many times a session does SCOTUS cite the ICC in a ruling? Once?

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

ubertuber

Now that's just lazy. They could at least campaign for the constitutional amendment that this would actually require.

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dksuddeth

This is only correct in the sense that every court has been scared shitless of applying the 14th amendment to the 2nd.

As well as the individual right. The 'people' are you, me, and uncle bob down the road. The collective right is pure invention by an antigun judiciary.

except for the 14th AND let us not forget that the 14th was specifically added because southern states refused to acknowledge that negros now had inalienable rights as well.

A decision that was used to circumvent the 14th by sympathetic judges to southern states to oppress the freedoms and rights of negros.

You MUST read the entire decision, not just the part that affirms your stance, especially when taken out of context.
“The provision in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,’ is a limitation only on the power of Congress and the national government, and not of the States. But in view of the fact that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force of the national government as well as in view of its general powers, the States cannot prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security.”

The single most misinterpreted decision on the 2nd. Miller ONLY decided that militia type weapons were protected, such as machine guns, but interspersed within the opinion was the statement of Individuals appearing with their personally owned weapons"

Part of an increasing tyrannical judiciary, instigated by the FDR admin, to disarm, and render ineffective, any resistance to his unconstitutional new deal programs.

No, the constitution says 'shall not be infringed'. It's only due to a judiciary system that is more inclined to add powers to the government than it is to preserve the rights of the people. All of the circuit courts, as well as district courts opining 'collective rights', are flat out wrong. It's a refusal to actually follow the history and scholarly facts of the individual rights championed by the drafters of the constitution.

The commerce clause is abused and violated as much as the supremacy clause is. It impacts our lives on a daily basis because we've had a USSC that has rarely (only once that I'm aware of) denied legislation from congress as going outside of the bounds of interstate commerce.

Which should really get people to thinking about how appropo is 'stare decisis', especially when it exceeds the authority of congress.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dc_dux

Since we're off on the 2nd amendment....

My understanding is that there is a Supreme Court precedent on "the people" clause and that it recognizes "the people" in the same manner as the 1st amendment.

The "militia" clause is less settled. Presser said the states cant interfere with the right of the federal government to maintain a militia ...it did not go so far as to say that any or all individuals who own guns are that defacto militia or reserve force.

edit: It seems to me if the NRA was confident of the meaning of the "militia" clause, it would have challenged one or more of the many state/local gun control laws in the last 20 years.

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dksuddeth

US v. Verdugo-Urquidez. While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that 'the people protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.”

Arms ownership does not qualify you for the militia.

§ 311. Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Alot of us are militia members and don't even realize it.

The NRA is a near useless organization now. It's compromised so much on gun legislation over the last 40 years as to be near traitorous in its defense of the 2nd. GOA (gun owners of america) is a legitimate 2nd amendment support organization. They are non compromising.

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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

ubertuber

2nd amendment discussions belong in 2nd amendment threads. Lord know we have enough of those kicking around. Seriously...

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ratbastid

You probably meant to post that in yellow, right? If not... I wish you had.