Obama and gun control

Newsflash for the obtuse.

Martial law was NOT declared in Katrina.

Black_And_Blue wrote:Newsflash for the obtuse.

Unnecessary

Black_And_Blue wrote:Martial law was NOT declared in Katrina.

Enlighten me then: What legal justification was claimed (& by who) to confiscate legally owned weapons?

"But even though no martial law exists, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's declaration of a state of emergency [on August 26, 2005] gives authorities widespread latitude to suspend civil liberties as they try to restore order and bring victims to safety. Under the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, the governor and, in some cases, chief parish officials, have the right to commandeer or utilize any private property if necessary to cope with the emergency.

"The law gives mayors similar authority, except they do not have the right to commandeer private property or make provisions for emergency housing, according to a background brief prepared by the state Attorney General's office."

The last part is why School Bus Nagin was sued.

When property is commandeered, the authorities had better have a real good need. Otherwise it is a violation of civil rights.

mikeandgerry wrote:When property is commandeered, the authorities had better have a real good need. Otherwise it is a violation of civil rights.

I agree but what is the NRA's alternative in their ideal world?
Gun owners would be totally unknown & unchecked by any government authority?
A mental patient should be able to walk into a Walmart & buy hand grenades?...Machine Guns? ...(wait for it Paul........)
FLAME THROWERS!!!

NY has the General justification defense in the penal law. I'm sure most other states have a simliar version and it may be applicable in these types of emergency situations. (It IS a defense ina criminal prosecution). I'm paraphrasing because I don't have a penal law in front of me but the gist of it is it is OK to break a law IF the conduct you are seeking to prevent, is more aggregious than the law you are breaking. Good example is you're in a sparsely populated area and witness an accident in which someone gets seriously hurt. You are near a house but don't have a cell phone so you break into the house (burglary or at least criminal trespass) in order to call for an ambulance. You would have the defense of justification. The concept can get pretty broad and in an emergecny situation police are going to do what common sense dictates needing to be done since laws can't possibly cover all situations and when the boots are on the ground they don't have the luxury of sitting behind a desk and debating ad nauseum about WHAT to do.

As an aside I find it curious the amount of looting in Katrina (including the police while in uniform!) when you don't see similar acts when florida/texas gets hit by a hurricane?? At least in Texas I think most looters KNOW someone would blow their A*# away.

This place you speak of.....Texas.

It sounds most alluring.

Devil505 wrote:

mikeandgerry wrote:When property is commandeered, the authorities had better have a real good need. Otherwise it is a violation of civil rights.

I agree but what is the NRA's alternative in their ideal world?
Gun owners would be totally unknown & unchecked by any government authority?
A mental patient should be able to walk into a Walmart & buy hand grenades?...Machine Guns? ...(wait for it Paul........)
FLAME THROWERS!!!

Gun owners should be totally unknown and unchecked by any government authority. YESThat is the point of the "....shall not be infringed" clause. All small arms should be included that put a militia nearly on par with a modern infantry. That's the point of the Second Amendment. It is the people's (and solely the people's) fallback protection against their government.

What part of that don't you understand?

As for the mentally ill, they are wards of the state and no longer have mental capacity. Mental capacity is assumed by law for most privileges and rights, though the left has mucked that up in recent decades too.

Man, you guys can screw things up royally.

gerard wrote:I don't have a penal law in front of me but the gist of it is it is OK to break a law IF the conduct you are seeking to prevent, is more aggregious than the law you are breaking. Good example is you're in a sparsely populated area and witness an accident in which someone gets seriously hurt. You are near a house but don't have a cell phone so you break into the house (burglary or at least criminal trespass) in order to call for an ambulance. You would have the defense of justification.

I totally agree with the justification/need to break the law in a case like that. What I don't agree with is someone crying that they shouldn't be prosecuted for doing so. The law is the law....If you ever need to break one, you must accept the chance of being prosecuted. Let the common sense of the prosecutor (hopefully) or your right to have a jury of your peers, decide whether you should be punished or not.

Devil505 wrote:I totally agree with the justification/need to break the law in a case like that. What I don't agree with is someone crying that they shouldn't be prosecuted for doing so. The law is the law....If you ever need to break one, you deserve to be prosecuted. Let the common sense of the prosecutor (hopefully) or your right to have a jury of your peers, decide whether you should be punished or not.

Well, the prosecutor always has that right. The defense then has to get cited and a judge has to make a ruling on if it fits, should be dismissed etc. However in clear cut cases most prosecutors make a decision NOT to further clog the system and don't even prosecute to start with. The legal system is boloxed up enough with clearly criminal cases that it makes no sense to spend the time on marginal ones at best. (Of course lack of criminal prosecution is no bar to a civil action. The excess of attorneys in this country have seen fit to make it that pretty much anyone can be sued by anyone else for absolutely any reason).

Hey - one upside to the soft economy - I heard the ACLU was actually laying people off too, maybe I can put up that manger in front of the town hall next xmas..............

mikeandgerry wrote:All small arms should be included that put a militia nearly on par with a modern infantry. That's the point of the Second Amendment. It is the people's (and solely the people's) fallback protection against their government.

The second amendment doesn't say anything about the size of the arms, nor does it describe them as handguns and rifles. It simply states arms. That means cannons, flamethrowers, mortars and rockets are legal weapons available to the citizens. Granted, some of these things require paperwork to own legally like machineguns, but they are arms and they were available when the founding fathers wrote the phrase and still can be owned today (well maybe the flamethrower was a few years away back then ).

SO in an emergency when I need to defend myself because the police are the problem or the thugs are the problem, it is ok to break down my door and take my gun. Like the little old lady. You cannot defend that mindset. I would have announced my intensions to them and killed any that came through my door. It is my house. Mine. I will say it again, Mine. You do not give up liberties to live in a civilized country. It is those liberties that make it a civilized country. Go to Brazil or China or etc... and see how things are if you are on the wrong side of some corrupt gov. official.
I am armed because I hunt, but because of this election I now own 2 guns that are more for self defense. Do I need to defend myself everyday? No. Not here in relatively crime free MAine. But I will not be told by the Savior and Bidden and Pellosi and etc. that I am an idiot or to promote the "greater good" I cannot have these basic weapons. SInce when did Mr. Spock set out national policy, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"? Sounds great. But you still, for all your savvy at this, cannot give me one example of gun control reducing the crime rate. It only affects the law abiding.
I know you will have a preprogramed response for this because you do this all the time. That is what irritates people, you keep going back to the same irrational statement, ignoring points made by the opposition. This is argueing for arguments sake and I will end my time in this post with this message and leave you to it. It is hard to argue with yourself but you may be good at it and you may even win!

Kevin (Mini-14 & XD-45C LOADED)

The British have the best example of successful gun control.

Lets hope Obama follows their example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTq2NEUlhDE

Devil505 wrote:Thanks for the compliments Kevin! I guess I overlooked the natural disaster, emergency, (rare events) when a state Governor is allowed to declare "Martial Law," which vastly increases his power & makes many of our Constitutional rights null & void during the short emergency time period. (we could debate the prudence of allowing Governors so much power, but that would be for another topic. Suffice it to say that, short of providing no checks on owning a gun & keeping gun owner's identities secret from the government, there would be no way to stop those rare instances of temporarily losing a few rights, for the greater good.
I'll repeat my request for examples OUTSIDE of Martial Law being declared, when a government authority (within the U.S) has confiscated legal registered guns from their legal owner.

Martial law was not declared, and even if it was the city government was wrong, they were found wrong by the courts, laws were put in place following this to prevent government from doing it again, and a number of other states/cities put in place similiar laws barring government from tossing aside the natural right to self defense and the constitutional right to lawfully possessed and used arms. Also, there was nothing "short term" about the NO gun confiscation. Their intent was to take the guns and never return them, period. They used the event of an emergency situation as cover for perpetrating a long term confiscation of the firearms they took. This is evidenced by their unwillingness to return the firearms to their owners after order had been restored some few weeks later. They were taking guns from people who had fled the area or were fleeing. They neglected to give receipts for a great many of the guns they took. They took many of the guns from people who were not actively using them in any way and they did so at gunpoint.

There was no greater good being played out. It was malicious abuse of authority and the unjust trampling of rights under the guise of an emergency. If it was anything else then they would have let fleeing gun owners retain their arms and would have returned the guns in short order. Instead they tried to hang onto them, they stored them in deplorable conditions damaging many beyond repair.

Another example, while it did not result in actual enforcement, the San Francisco handgun ban that was passed not too long ago would have resulted in legally requiring handgun owners to either move, to sell their handguns, or to turn them into authorities. Thankfully state courts granted injunction and eventually overturned the law. Were guns confiscated? No. But not for a lack of trying. And lest you make the argument that they would have had other options besides turning them in, government mandated sale or relocation is tantamount to confiscation, at least to my sense of common sense. This kinder, gentler form of compulsory handgun divestment is exactly how it started in Britain and Australia, not too long after they stopped being kind or gentle and collected firearms, cut and melted them down to make park benches.

You pass off egregious abuse of power and gross infringement of immediate, life and death constitutional and natural rights as if they were dismissible occurrences that didn't portend things much worse coming shortly down the pike. This is precisely why I say screw your notions of common sense and "greater good". Your judgment of what constitutes it seems way off the mark of what I consider it to be, and so there must be no such thing as either. For if two fine people such as ourselves can be so in conflict over what each is then neither must truly exist.

Wow, I had to read that twice.