Starbucks and Guns (Page 3)

This and `Love it or leave it.' are two of my most-loathed phrases.

Just to stir the pot. My wife and I spent 6 hours locked down in a hospital because a drunk grabbed an officers gun from his holster, shot two officers and a hospital technician before running away. He was found hiding in a parking garage.
http://cbs3.com/topstories/Newtown.Police.Officer.2.295303.html
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/Features/Aftermath-of-...

Obviously this type on incident is rare, but it does happen.

My own feeling about open carry is that I don't feel comfortable with it. Many states have no regulation other then you need to meet age requirements. I much prefer concealed carry permitting where you need education and background checks to be permitted to carry.

Edited by graceful_dave 2010-03-05 10:22 AM

Love it or leave it, you betta give way.
You betta hit bullseye; dis kid don't play...

This is exactly my sentiments as well.  And like you crazyyella, I have a CCL and carry only occasionally (in the safe at home today).   I would never want to open carry for the exact reasons  you mentioned.  As a matter fact, I actually had a situation two years ago that if I would not have been carrying chances are I wouldn't be sitting here typing this post right now.  So, Yes, I whole heartedly believe in a person's right to conceal carry.

Well when you put it like THAT it's kind of fun!!!

Does Miami also have open carry laws, because he says `I grabbed my nine all I heard was shells ...'

No. FL makes OC illegal except on private property with permission.

Having spent a lot of time in third world areas where life is considered to be cheap and having  survived  Betsy, Camille, and Katrina; I reckon I am a bit more pragmatic about things.   I'm all for civilized and idealized behavior, but unfortunately not everyone is.    Best be prepared for when and if the law and order are no where to be found.  Civilization is a veneer that can be washed away in an instant.

Pax vrobiscum.

I wonder if he would have been able to produce a CC permit if the police had confronted more than just the dope fiends.  Would the fact that he was trying to get away before the jackers could jack be used as a line of self-defense?

See, I agree 100% with you Aces.  I am a gun owner and I believe business should make their own decisions based on the desires of their customers and the local law within that state.  It's really that simple. 

Like you two, when I carry, it is my preference to concealed carry.  One of the main reasons for this is because I also prefer a shoulder holster.  That concealed vs. open carry debate runs for pages and pages on gun forums.  It's just like the debate over condition 1 carry and manual safeties.  My preference, according to some, is equivalent of carrying a brick instead of a firearm.  Because I have children, I don't prefer to have one in the pipe and I prefer a manual safety.  15rds in an M9 is perfect for me.

I never have one in the chamber unless I intend to use it as well.  My feelings are that if I can't pull the slide in half a second, I wasn't going to win the fight anyway.  I do have 17+1 capacity in my PX4 in 9mm.  Love the ambidextrousness.  I'm a lefty.

same here....colt defender .45 cal, carried in the small of back, and even though I know I should, I dont have a round in the chamber...

Again it relates to order in the whole idea of ordered liberty in a civil society. Even in the wild west you had to leave your guns at the door when you entered the bar. Since most people would agree that bringing guns into a bar is a bad idea, how is that tyranny of the majority? It is your choice to enter the bar. Within a public-choice, multi-layered Federalist system the ability to move to a place that has laws, in this case guns laws, that are agreeable to you allows you to chose to move to a place which is best for you and your values.

If we continue to erode the federalist system and allow the federal government to remove local control then we will indeed have tyranny because there will be no place to move to to avoid the "tyranny" of the majority.

On a side note, the time I spent in local politics it always seems that it is the tyranny of the minority rules.

We are still the Wild Wild West out here in Las Vegas Nevada and the surrounding cities,  (legal prostitiion too if you're interested in that kind of thing), and yep we got open carry here.  The casinos don't allow it, and you might get hasseled but it is legal.

I carry a concealed little .380 all the time and when I can get ammo, shoot daily, but have no urge to wave it around or have others see it.  Basically the only place I don't carry is the airport, or government offices.  I already had my favorite Swiss Army knife taken.

Even if Starbucks or others are against it, I don't care.  I'm carrying.




Edited by SWIM2LIVE 2010-03-05 7:19 PM

I haven't read through the mass of pages on the subject yet here in this thread, but McDonald had 14th Amendment Due Process implications.

Edited by tjtryon 2010-03-05 7:31 PM

I haven't read it either. I admit in regards to the case and the argument I'm just shooting out of my arse so to speak.

I'm just talking about good old state rights.

Edited by Jackemy 2010-03-05 9:00 PM

I spent about 6 weeks last semester studying the 14th Amendment, so I can speak fairly intelligently about it. If you are not familiar with Con Law, my arguement may seem a little thick, but anyone with a Con Law class or two should be able to follow - it's pretty straight forward. I'm also attaching a assignment I wrote about the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), if you want to read a little more about it. Here's how I would explain it to my Con Law prof:

In McDonald v. Chicago, the arguement is that the 2nd Amendment should apply to state/local government through a process called selective incorporation. Selective incorporation is the idea that a right is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” or “deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions”, which is defined in Duncan v. Louisiana (1968). Selective incorporation, as applied to this case, is defined in the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". The important arguement here will be if the 2nd Amendment is tradition or fundamental to our nation, which I personally believe it is - the country was founded on revolution. If it is fundamental to our nation (tradition), then the priviledges and immunities clause should apply.

There are issues with this, namely the precident from the Slaughterhouse Cases in which Louisiana used it's 10th Amendment powers to essentially physically move and regulate the meat industry, in the interest of sanitization/public safety. The Butcher's Union sued stating 14th Amendment Due Process arguements, but the Court at the time felt the 14th Amendment was specifically designed to protect the newly freed slaves, so they took a very narrow view of the definition. This narrow reading of the citizenship definition allowed the Court to rule that the Privileges and Immunities clause only affected the United States citizenship of the person, and not their state citizenship. As the Court believed the 14th amendment did not affect police powers of the state, their 14th Amendment rights were not violated. McDonald is asking the Court overturn the Slaughterhouse Cases. If overturned, Selective Incorporation goes away as it is unnecessary, because the entire Bill of Rights is applied against the states.

This is a pretty neat case, as it has 2nd amendment, 10th amendment and 14th amendment implications, as well as can overturn a century and a half of precident. I'm going to have to study up on this a bit more - it'll make an interesting brief for my Con Law studies...

Update: Doing some very light reading on the topic, if the Slaughterhouse Cases are overturned, it has implications other than 2nd Amendment. It will allow Grand Juries for state prosecuted felonies, and jury trials for civil cases - something that is currently allowed for federal judicial cases, but not necessarily universal for the states. I'll do some more research over the weekend.



Edited by tjtryon 2010-03-05 10:27 PM




Attachments
----------------
20091118 Assignment 9.pdf (98KB - 12 downloads)

Jackemy (the quote is getting too long):

Thank you I think I understand your thinking now and if find the discussion very interesting.  I understand what you mean about the tyranny of the minority in a lot of politics today.  That being said, shouldn't rights granted by the bill of rights necessarily be considered inviolable at any level?  If not then what was the point?  Why bother to amend the constitution to give citizens a group of fundamental rights that could then be violated at will by the states?  Additionally why would some of the rights granted by the bill of rights be considered inviolable by the states and some not?

You know, it's not like I don't have enough to study already.  Now you guys have piqued my curiosity about the questions I just asked.  I guess it's a good thing it's spring break, now that I only have work, the family and training to worry about I might be able to find some spare time to look into it.

Where things get really interesting is when you look at the 2nd amendment in conjunction with the 14th and then look at what the states of Tennessee and Montana have pursued in terms of rules which over rule the BATF.  The BATF has jurisdiction over interstate commerce of firearms but at the state level, they are saying that if a firearm is made and sold intrastate, the BATF rules no longer apply.

On top of that, if states rights are upheld, states like Pennsylvania have preemption.  No municipality is legally allowed to make rules which conflict with the state constitution.  Now, if SCOTUS rules in favor of the government having authority over states, it shakes things down the chain.

Good questions.



The Constitution spells out the federal government. Whatever rights are not reserved to the federal government are reserved to states rights per the 10th Amendment. The federal government just controls federal jurisdiction. Google dual-federalism .



Dual Federality. You are both a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the state you live in. Whatever is spelled out in the constitution is guaranteed by the federal government, and what is not spelled out is reserved to the states in the 10th Amendment. This was one of the main arguements as to if the states were going to ratify the constitution. With the original Articles of Confederation, the phrase was anything that was not explicitly reserved to the federal government is reserved to the state - meaning that for the federal government to have jurisdiction, it HAD to be spelled out in the constitution. With the new Constitution, and the Bill of Rights that was necessary to get the Constitution ratified, the "explicit" idea was dropped, allowing for more interpretation. In McDonald, the law does not "outlaw" owning firearms, which is contrary to the 2nd Amendment, but it makes it very difficult to own one through the laws that are up for review. Specifically, the laws state:



Note that nowhere does the laws actually ban ownership of firearms, it just affects registration of them, which, technically, makes it impossible to own them legally. There is a slight distinction. Think of it simmilar to the Louisiana Black Codes, which, when Blacks were given the right to vote, the Black Codes did not make it illegal for blacks to vote, it just put a set of near impossible requirements on them to vote (property ownership, poll taxes, literary tests and understanding tests - a separate issue, but there are documented cases of whites given a literary test which required them to be able to spell and write their name, and blacks needed to be able to recite and explain constitutional sections). Again, the existing law in Chicago does not outlaw firearm ownership, it just sets a very difficult/impossible set of circumstances to do so legally.




The 14th Amendment Priviledges and Immunities clause outlines selective immunity. Selective incorporation is the idea that a right is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” or “deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions”, which is defined in Duncan v. Louisiana (1968). This is what the case is all about. If the court rules in favor of McDonald, selective priviledge goes away, and the bill of rights applies universally to state and federal government.

This instance actually has more to do with Article 1, section 3, and the Commerce Clause. The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States". There is a very fine distinction in how this is applied, and I think that if the Tennessee law was challenged, the law would be ruled unconstitutional. Tennessee is hoping to use the precident that came from U.S. v. Lopez (1995) where the Court ruled that there was a slipery slope in trying to incorporate a kid having a gun at school as interstate commerce. If education is now considered interstate commerce, where can congress draw the line?

In regards to the Tennessee law, I think it can be challenged similar to West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937). West Coast Hotel was about labor laws, regarding minimum wage. Similar to the Tennessee law, they can feel public welfare is at stake. The Court ruled that the Constitution permitted restricting freedom of contract by state law where such restriction was in the interest of public welfare.

Before you slam me on my interpretation of the Tennessee law, though I personally think Tennessee's laws are unconstitutional, I agree with what Tennessee is trying to do in limiting the fed. reach into these issues. I am a NRA member and a CCW holder, and have been known to exercise my right to carry when cycling or running, so I am biased in favor of less gun laws. Tennessee unfortunatly got the concept wrong, though, fortunatly, it has not correctly been challenged.

I just checked my email inbox, and my news update from NRA was there. In all fairness, this is from the NRA and biased, bit it is a decent update.

U.S. Supreme Court Hears Chicago Gun Ban Case

Friday, March 05, 2010

On Tuesday, March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. The case may well decide the scope and nature of gun laws in the United States for decades to come. The final decision will be handed down in a few months, most likely in June.

As we’ve reported in past alerts and in NRA magazines, McDonald is one of two challenges to the Chicago handgun ban that were filed immediately after gun owners’ landmark 2008 victory in District of Columbia v. Heller. After the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled—wrongly—that 19th century cases denied any right to Second Amendment protection against state and local laws, both McDonald and the companion case, NRA v. City of Chicago, were appealed.

The Court agreed to hear the McDonald case, but since that decision would affect the NRA case equally, the NRA was also a party to the McDonald case, and the Court granted us a share of the oral argument time.

To make our argument, NRA was fortunate to be represented by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, perhaps the most highly respected and experienced Supreme Court advocate in the nation. Clement has argued more than 50 cases before the high Court and, prior to representing NRA in this case, authored the pro-Second Amendment “friend of the court” brief joined by 251 U.S. House members and 58 U.S. Senators.

Solicitor General Clement strongly argued on behalf of NRA’s members—especially in opposing the idea that the Court could somehow apply only a “watered down version” of the Second Amendment to the states, so that states and cities could still pass anti-gun laws that the federal government could not.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox commented after the argument:

“We are optimistic the Court will hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment and that handgun bans, like those in the City of Chicago and the Village of Oak Park, are unconstitutional under any standard of judicial review. This view is shared by a bipartisan group of 309 members of Congress from both chambers, 38 state attorneys general and the majority of the American people. We look forward to the decision from the Court later this Term.”