PDA

View Full Version : Project to Repeal Gun Free School Zones and Bear Arms and Armor




Weston White
03-02-2015, 02:36 AM
Project to Repeal Gun Free School Zones and Bear Arms and Armor

I would like to start a project with the intent of crafting a strong case to either strictly limit or repeal the GFSZA and to direct Congress that they lack Constitutional authority to place blatant prohibitions against “civilians” from possessing firearms, ammunition, or ballistic armor.

To first provide a bit of background, initially, the GFSZA was initially overturned by United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), only to reemerge in 1997 due to the sweet (yet ill-conceived) word play afforded by the Commerce Clause. Its key players include Joseph Biden and Janet Reno. Dr. Ron Paul made an attempt within his H. R. 2613 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/2613/text
) (2011) to repeal the Act, which was left to die, unfortunately.

The Court in Lopez made it abundantly clear that “The Act neither regulates a commercial activity nor contains a requirement that the possession be connected in any way to interstate commerce.” Common sense should dictate that an individual carrying a prior purchased, transported, transferred, or borrowed firearm while out and about within a sovereign state has nothing whatsoever to do with the original context of the Commerce Clause.

The Commerce Clause entails only federal regulation over the purchasing, selling, trading, transporting and related mechanisms of articles between two or more states or nations. Under the Commerce Clause, Congress may not, for example, legislate that an individual within a sovereign state may only use a magazines of certain capacity; keep their firearms disassembled and locked away; keep ammunition stored separately from firearms; only carry their firearm within their primary residence; purchase a firearm only after obtaining a state issued license; or for that matter that an individual must eat two cobs of buttered corn imported from Iowa each Tuesday along with two dashes of Morton salt or face a fine; attend Sunday mass or face criminal prosecution; donate annually to Toys for Tots or face conscription; that one must drive their import vehicle no faster than 50MPH on any public roadway, or that all passengers of imported vehicles must wear seatbelts, or that drivers cannot be intoxicated, or that all such vehicles be kept up on federally imposed smog requirements and lawfully licensed and registered, or that all such automobiles be washed, waxed, and vacuumed weekly.

* Further noting that it is absolutely outside of the federal government’s realm of legal concern to determine how individual states should collectively define, charge, and prosecute felonious acts, including criminals with firearms, munitions, or armor (realizing clear exceptions for when civil rights violations are involved, e.g., a state refuses to provide due process or legal resources to blacks or to prosecute a law enforcement officer suspected of raping or murdering while on duty, etc.)


Federal statutes in play:

National Firearms Act of 1934 (Concerns certain firearms taxation and clarifies interstate commerce)
Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (Repealed and reenacted within the succeeding Act)
Gun Control Act of 1968 (Places general restrictions or criminality on interstate firearms)
Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (Amended certain aspects of the preceding Act, supposedly to the benefit of firearm owners)
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (Makes general possession of interstate firearms around school grounds criminal)
Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004 (Provides law enforcement personnel, including retired and federal personnel with certain exemptions under federal firearms control laws)

Weston White
03-02-2015, 02:37 AM
[Reserved for outlining arguments, context, and points of consideration.]

Weston White
03-02-2015, 03:52 AM
General counterpoints of concern—Gun Free Zones and the regulation of interstate commerce:

The Nation has no schools, only the Nation’s several states have schools. Ergo, the Nation possesses zero controlling interest over each state’s locally owned and operated schools.

The federal government’s power of regulating commerce expires once the transaction in interstate commerce has completed.

Most states have related public laws on their own books, thereby resulting in perpetual conflict and confusion under the supremacy of federal laws. Such as in California, CPC626.9, the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995.

Once the ownership of an article of interstate has transferred to or transported into intrastate its federal connection has once and all been severed, the federal government has no authority or say over its future usage, transference, transportation while remaining intrastate (save for certain aspects of federal taxation of that article.)

This act is a blatant power grab over intrastate property that is entirely outside the control and authority of the federal government, including all classes of schools and all public spaces surrounding them within a 1,000-foot perimeter.

This act on its face creates tens of thousands of unintentional violations every single day across the United States as it is impractical for all CCW/CCP holders and off-duty law enforcement personnel, security guards, armor transport guards, and the like to stop unload and lock away their concealed firearms each time they come within one-fifth a mile of any school grounds, which occupy every neighborhood through most cities.

The spirit and context of Amendments Two, Nine, and Ten supersede whatever power derives from the Commerce Clause.

The process involved is unfair to open carriers of concealable firearms and carriers of rifles, and is grossly biased towards individuals residing within states, counties, or cities that do not recognize or provide for the Acts required “licensing”—proffering citizens no legal recourse for states that do not issue such licenses for individuals residing in counties or municipalities where the practice of acquiring a license is greatly restricted or strictly prohibited, and outright denies other reasonable alternatives for constitutional carry or riflepersons (such as carrying unloaded in a lockbox.)

The Act prevents schools the option of offering shooting courses or gun training and safety on campus and the like.

The Act interferes with each individual state’s own social agendas on how to address firearms and schools.

Certainly, the majority of firearms may be involved in interstate commerce; however, firearm owners, state operated schools, and students certainly are not, this act takes a very large leap in these respects.

Ultimately such legislation establishes the precedents that any portion of a manufactured product or property inevitably become relegated to federal jurisdiction by the Commerce Clause as effectively one or more ingredients, compounds, components, or materials are imported into one state or another from another state or nation, be it sodium fluoride imported from China used throughout the United States for water fluoridation, coal, computer processors or hard-drives, concrete, coffee, bananas, honey, sugar, shoes, clothing, vehicles, eyeglasses, jewelry, etc.

This legislation exceeds constitutional authority as the federal government possesses no powers of policing outside of the seat of the federal government and it exceeds the Necessary and Proper Clause (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clauses 17 and 18.)

The Act burdens the states by compelling tax-payers to staff local law enforcement and resources to make arrests, process paperwork and evidence, jail and trail violators, and depose and testify in court to this federal law—which is ultimately creates further conflict in that local law enforcement lack the jurisdiction to act on behalf of federal agents.

This legislation bastardizes the Commerce Clause—including its common law context—which is not intended to serve as a last resort fallback in those rare instances where the federal government does not get its way in the Court.

The Act omits the necessary element of willfulness in knowing or reasonably suspecting that the firearm is as fact connected to interstate commerce, but only that the knowingly possessed a firearm on their person.

The Act works to generate a caste society, by excluding civilian police forces, serving to pave the way towards neo-feudalism. Thus rendering itself to unconstitutionality in that it violates both our National Charter (i.e., the Declaration of Independence) and the Fourteenth Amendment. As it places greater importance among agents of federal and state governments well above the citizens it supposedly represents, it violates the undeniable maxim that all persons are created equal and are entitled to life and all methods of due process.

The regulation of commerce means precisely that—it does not extend to regulation over private ownership or activities of the commerce once purchased and existing intrastate by citizens.

Comparatively, the federal government possesses authority over immigration; however, it does not possess authority to dictate that since most vehicles are imported interstate that all states must provide illegal immigrates (e.g., undocumented workers) with a driver’s license in accordance with federal regulations, or that being that the federal government possesses authority over the securing of free speech and expression that is may therefore prohibit any or whatever form of it.


Dissenting opinion in Budd v. New York, 143 U.S. 517, 550-551 (1892): Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights -- "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- and to "secure," not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. . . . The paternal theory of government is to me odious. The utmost possible liberty to the individual, and the fullest possible protection to him and his property, is both the limitation and duty of government.


Federalist No. 45, Para. 7: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”


Federalist Paper No. 57, Para. 4: “ . . . I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society?

Weston White
03-02-2015, 05:42 AM
Counterpoints against prohibiting firearms and ballistic armor:

Common law has established that governments or its agents are under no legal obligation (i.e., no liabilities exist) to provide any individual any degree of protection; therefore, it becomes highly unethical to deny individuals with a ready means of security against violence, while failing to ensure them with a ready means of protection from violence.

While certainly it is one thing to impose public restrictions or outright prohibitions upon weaponry and the like that is extraordinary violent in nature, it is quite another to ground that basis to all weaponry simply due to it objectively providing a military application. Further noting that the use of military personnel against citizens is strictly prohibited by the United States Constitution and further recognized within legislative acts such as both the Insurrection Act of 1807 and Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

To deny citizens access to modern defensive protections, such as all levels of ballistic body armor and shielding, is to serve at the ready hand of despotism and tyranny—as only a despot or tyrannical ruler would possess a desire to levy domain over those they reign and subjugate into utter worthlessness and death.

Asserting that ballistic body armor and shielding possesses an inherent danger to society is as ludicrous an argument as stating that is it the firearm itself that’s dangerous, not the bearer or it.

The allegation that mass-shooters and criminal minds regularly don ballistic armor is steeped in absolute deception—it is dishonest propaganda. Outside of law enforcement, ballistic armor is rarely if ever used in shootings of any kind; ballistic armor is costly to purchase. In fact there are really only two incidents were body armor was worn by shooters, the North Hollywood Shootout of 1997 (which was played out long ago by lobbyists for law enforcement personnel to devise and fund SWAT and the ongoing militarization of police throughout the streets of America) and the Aurora Theater Shooting of 2012 (which was literally a government funded incident and further was very likely a black-op event to further the gun control agenda (also including the 2012 Sandy Hook School Shooting), which was raging at the time.)

While ballistic armor may prevent gunshot wounds, it provides coverage over only a limited area of the body and the bullet impact still causes pain to the wearer of the armor—so much so that broken ribs may be experienced by the wearer.

The majority of states already provide for public laws on their own books for criminal acts involving the use of firearms, munitions, and ballistic armor, such as California with respect to body armor, see: Ca. Penal Code Secs. 31360 and 12022.2—including the federal government, see: James Guelff and Chris McCurley Body Armor Act of 2002, 42 USC § 3796ll-3(d)(1).

Moreover, the much greater and very real concern that links one mass-shooting to another is the shooters dependence on (over) prescribed SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) medications, which is very likely the causation leading to their violent actions of utter desperation—e.g., the North Hollywood Shooters were on Phenobarbital; James Holmes was taking both a generic form of Zoloft and Clonazepam; and Adam Lanza was prescribed Celexa (and it is debated he was also taking Lexapro). Statistically, in over 90-percent of all mass-shooting incidents, the shooter(s) was prescribed one or more SSRI' prescriptions, including the 1999 Columbine School Massacre and 2007 Virginia Tech Shooting.

Weston White
03-02-2015, 07:19 AM
Now here are some interesting finds (i.e., note the destinctions between inter-state commernce and intra-state commerce) as defined within Black’s Law Dictionary, 3rd Ed. (in-part, citations omitted):

ARMS. Anything that a man wears for his defense, or takes in his hands, or uses in his anger, to cast at or strike at another. …
This term, as it is used in the constitution, relative to the right of citizens to bear arms, refers to the arms of a militiaman or soldier, and the word is used in its military sense. … The term, in this connection, cannot be made to cover such weapons as dirks, daggers, slung-shots, sword-canes, brass knuckles, and bowie-knives. These are not military arms. … But a pistol is properly included within the word “arms.” [p. 139]

COMMERCE. The exchange of goods, productions, or property of any kind. …
Intercourse by way of trade and traffic between different peoples or states and the citizens or inhabitants thereof, including not only the purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities, but also the instrumentalities and agencies by which it is promoted and the means and appliances by which it is carried on, and the transportation of persons as well as goods, both by land and sea. [p. 358]

—Commerce among the states. Transportation from one state to another, and also all commercial intercourse between the different states, and all component parts of such intercourse. [p. 359]

—Internal intercourse. Such as is carried on between individuals within the same state. … More commonly called “intrastate” commerce. [p. 359]

—Intrastate commerce. Such as is began, carried on, and completed wholly within the limits of a single state. Contrasted with “interstate” commerce. [p. 359]

INTERSTATE COMMERCE. Traffic, intercourse, commercial trading, or the transportation of persons or property between or among the several states of the Union, or from or between points in one state and points in another state; commerce between two states, or between places lying in different states. [p. 1001]

INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT. The act of congress of February 4, 1887 … designed to regulate commerce between the states, and particularly the transportation of persons and property, by carriers, between interstate points, prescribing that charges for such transportation shall be reasonable and just, prohibiting unjust discrimination, rebates, draw-backs, preferences, pooling of freights, etc., requiring schedules of rates to be published, establishing a commission to carry out the measures enacted, and prescribing the powers and duties of such commission and the procedures before it. [p. 1002]

Weston White
03-03-2015, 05:12 AM
On this point, I am not entirely convinced that I completely agree with its argument, but it is interesting, more on the compelling side, so I am including this for reference. This is from the work of Dave Champion at his Original Intent Website: http://www.originalintent.org/edu/chapter44.php.

It is made compelling in that the premise of it falls in line with the federal government only being constitutionally empowered to legislate within the seat of the federal government. Mr. Champion had noted an anomaly between the general provisions with Chapter-1 of the federal criminal codes and its Chapter-44 firearms provisions within the USC, specifically that interstate commerce is already defined through Title 18 and then again within Chapter-44, wherein it makes an defintion of including commerce between "any place in a State and any place outside of that State" as opposed to just simply "one State and another". Of course a court would simply find that any place means just that, so end of story.

The primary reason I am not in agreement with this notion is that most of the context of this is simply clarifying that in cases were a crime occurs on federal property or land that is not covered by federal statutes then whatever respective state laws are on the books will be applied for the prosecution of the perpetrators.

However, I do find the highlighted portion within Section 921 to be an important admission, as the purchaser of the firearm within a state is engaging in intrastate commerce, not interstate commerce—for where the firearm was manufactured or shipped from is of consequence only to the dealer, but not the purchaser--which lends to another thought, for example, if my firearm was manufactured and shipped from within my state of residence, but my ammunition, magazines, or replacement stock or barrel shipped from another state, does that qualify my firearm as interstate commerce, beholding me to 18 USC Chapter-44 violations?



18 U.S. Code § 921 - Definitions
(a)(2)The term “interstate or foreign commerce” includes commerce between any place in a State and any place outside of that State, or within any possession of the United States (not including the Canal Zone) or the District of Columbia, but such term does not include commerce between places within the same State but through any place outside of that State. The term “State” includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the possessions of the United States (not including the Canal Zone).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921


18 U.S. Code § 7 - Special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States defined
The term “special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States”, as used in this title, includes:

(3)Any lands reserved or acquired for the use of the United States, and under the exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction thereof, or any place purchased or otherwise acquired by the United States by consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of a fort, magazine, arsenal, dockyard, or other needful building.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/7


18 U.S. Code § 10 - Interstate commerce and foreign commerce defined
The term “interstate commerce”, as used in this title, includes commerce between one State, Territory, Possession, or the District of Columbia and another State, Territory, Possession, or the District of Columbia.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/10


18 U.S. Code § 13 - Laws of States adopted for areas within Federal jurisdiction
(a)Whoever within or upon any of the places now existing or hereafter reserved or acquired as provided in section 7 of this title, or on, above, or below any portion of the territorial sea of the United States not within the jurisdiction of any State, Commonwealth, territory, possession, or district is guilty of any act or omission which, although not made punishable by any enactment of Congress, would be punishable if committed or omitted within the jurisdiction of the State, Territory, Possession, or District in which such place is situated, by the laws thereof in force at the time of such act or omission, shall be guilty of a like offense and subject to a like punishment.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/13

Weston White
03-19-2015, 08:04 AM
Now this is sort of cool (at least). Apparently, I had misread the subsections before (i.e., I didn't pay attention to the numerations), the statute appears to fall in line with that related California statute on carrying firearms within School Zones; as stated within 18 USC § 922(q)(2)(B), both state and federal statutes read similar in context, without a state issued license you can carry a firearm within the 1,000ft perimeter, unloaded and locked away in a box or locked away within your vehicle.


(2)
(A)It shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.

(B)Subparagraph (A) does not apply to the possession of a firearm—
(i)on private property not part of school grounds;

(ii)if the individual possessing the firearm is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located or a political subdivision of the State, and the law of the State or political subdivision requires that, before an individual obtains such a license, the law enforcement authorities of the State or political subdivision verify that the individual is qualified under law to receive the license;

(iii)that is—
(I)not loaded; and

(II)in a locked container, or a locked firearms rack that is on a motor vehicle;