Monday, December 7, 2009

Laci on Gun Registration

Laci the Dog published a post on the constitutionality of gun registration. Linking to the Lux Libertas site, Laci gives us a couple great quotes.

Even some pro-gun scholars and advocates reluctantly agree. “I think under the Heller decision, registration would be constitutional,” Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Wash., told CBSNews.com this week. “It doesn’t make it good public policy.”

and

“Registration is probably not unconstitutional,” says Don Kilmer, an attorney in San Jose, Calif. who has sued two California counties for denying law-abiding citizens permits to carry concealed weapons. “There’s a difference between registration as a permissible regulation and registration as good policy.”
What's your opinion? Why have I heard so many times that registration is unconstitutional? Do you sometimes get the impression, like I do, that pro-gun people refer to the Constitution too much? Everything with them is either constitutional or unconstitutional, ever notice that?

What's wrong with just liking guns or just wanting to have guns for self-protection, or any other reason for that matter? Why does it so often have to be placed on the lofty plane of "rights?"

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

23 comments:

  1. "Why does it so often have to be placed on the lofty plane of "rights?"

    Uhm, because it's a Constitutional Right, perhaps?

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  2. Perhaps you missed this part from the article...

    "Now, the question is would incorporation to the States mean that something such as Idaho's Constitutional right to arms, "No law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or ammunition", would be pre-empted by Federal law?"

    44 of the 50 states have the RKBA in their own Constitutions.

    Get ready mikeb, oral arguments in the McDonald case begin March 2nd with a decision in late June or early July.

    The 2nd Amendment will be incorporated.

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  3. "Why have I heard so many times that registration is unconstitutional?"

    Why? Surely you know-- the world of delusion and all.

    Here in Ohio we must register our cars, our homes, our children and our dogs. Seems quite reasonable to register a deadly weapon too. Only a pure anarchist would object to that.

    Why, I might add, don't they all pack up and go to Idaho where they can freely blast away - even at each other for fun>

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  4. If gun registration is constitutional, then a national identification card is also constitutional. A national identification card would be an important tool in dealing with the problem of illegal immigration. Yet many of the same activists and politicians who favor gun registration also oppose a national identification card.

    Why?

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  5. Mikeb: What's wrong with just liking guns or just wanting to have guns for self-protection, or any other reason for that matter? Why does it so often have to be placed on the lofty plane of "rights?"

    Did you really ask that? Owning guns in the Constitution is not part of the "Bill of Likings" -- it's part of the "Bill of...?"

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  6. Mikeb: "Why have I heard so many times that registration is unconstitutional? Do you sometimes get the impression, like I do, that pro-gun people refer to the Constitution too much? Everything with them is either constitutional or unconstitutional, ever notice that?"

    The Heller decision leaves much to be clarified as to which gun laws are constitutional and which are not. At some point, I predict that the Supreme Court will uphold as constitutional some gun laws that many gunowner advocates claim are NOT constitutional. They will then need to accept the judgement of the Court as to constitutionality (although they can oppose such laws on other grounds).

    HOWEVER

    If gun control advocates claim thet Heller is not a legitimate decision and will be completely reversed in the near future (and therefore ANY gun laws including any gun ban is constitutional)...

    Then that would seem to be a precedent for some gunowner advocates to similarly reject the Court's coming rulings that some gun laws are constitutional.

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  7. Registration is unconstitutional if you're a criminal, because it's violation of the 5th Amendment Right to no self-incriminate. See: US vs Haynes.

    "What's wrong with just liking guns or just wanting to have guns for self-protection, or any other reason for that matter? Why does it so often have to be placed on the lofty plane of "rights?""

    To reduce gun ownership to anything less than a right is to open the door even further for more restrictive gun laws. That's a no go.

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  8. FishyJay, The point is some of us think the 2nd Amendment has little or nothing to do with 21st century America.

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  9. I don't know why anyone would oppose a national ID card. They work quite well in other countries.

    About registering guns, Mud-Rake said it well. We're required to register lots of things, why not guns?

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  10. "We're required to register lots of things, why not guns?"

    Registration only serves two purposes: Taxation and confiscation. Cars are registered so they can be taxed for the maintenance of public roads. If you don't drive on a public roads, you don't have to register your car, you don't have to pay any tax (other than sales tax), and you don't have to worry about your car ever being impounded.

    Since guns and ammunition are already taxed at the time of purchase in order to pay for the maintenance of public ranges and it's already been established by the SCOTUS that criminals are exempt from registering guns, the only other reason to register them is to facilitate easier confiscation.

    That's why not.

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  11. Muddy,

    Register your home? Do you live in a trailer? I too live in Ohio and I have never registered a home, a child, a dog or a gun. As for a car, I have only registered those that I wish to drive on a public road. I have a whole field full of cars my father gave me that are not registered.

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  12. Mikeb: " don't know why anyone would oppose a national ID card. They work quite well in other countries."

    Yet there is INTENSE opposition to a national ID card from the ACLU, Democrats, and many others on the left side of the political spectrum. What's interesting is when you ask them why, their answers sound a bit like gunowners objecting to gun registration.

    You are more consistent than most by favoring both.

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  13. FishyJay, The point is some of us think the 2nd Amendment has little or nothing to do with 21st century America.

    Then either repeal it or quit your whining.

    What other parts of the BOR have "little or nothing to do with 21st Century America?"

    Your position is that we should just ignore all of them right? After all if the 2nd is anachronistic then the other 9 are as well.

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  14. FishyJay, The point is some of us think the 2nd Amendment has little or nothing to do with 21st century America.

    What other constitutional rights should be restricted without amending the constitution, just because someone decides they have "little or nothing to do with 21st century America"?

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  15. Several of you seem to have a problem with my comment about the 2nd Amendment. What I said also applies to the 3rd, but I think that's it. Of course I don't feel the 1st is anachronistic, and the fact that I say this about the 2nd and 3rd, in no way indicates how I feel about the BOR as a whole or the Constitution.

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  16. the fact that I say this about the 2nd and 3rd, in no way indicates how I feel about the BOR as a whole or the Constitution.

    I would agree that the third amendment is anachronistic, I would strenuously fight efforts to repeal it, or to treat it in the way that the second is. "It isn't really quartering troops if they are in the National Guard, since the Third hasn't been incorporated"

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  17. "It isn't really quartering troops if they are in the National Guard, since the Third hasn't been incorporated"

    And yet even though the 3rd has never been "officially" incorporated I'll bet that if Gov. Christie decided to quarter NJ's Guard troops in the homes of NJ residents MikeB would dust off that 3rd Amendment and say "HELL NO."

    Wouldn't be so anachronistic then would it MikeB?

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  18. Here in Ohio we must register our cars, our homes, our children and our dogs.

    Oh look, the anti-rights crowd is wrong as usual. You register your dog, your children, and your car with the State?

    I'm damn sure I don't have to register my dog with the state and I'm 100% certain I do not have to register my car.

    Try again when you know what you're talking about.

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  19. Mike W. said, "I'm 100% certain I do not have to register my car."

    Could we hear the way you justify that statement? I have no doubt that you can, you are a master at justification.

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  20. I don't have to. It's a 100% true statement.

    You really are wrong 99% of the time huh MikeB?

    It really must get old for you.

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  21. I have little doubt that the current Supreme Court, being only slightly less rabidly hostile to private gun ownership than any other SCOTUS over most of the last century, would uphold registration as Constitutional, shall not be infringed be damned, should the question come up.

    Things like licensing and fees, though, might be a good deal harder to justify. To do so, it would seem that they would have to overturn Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with such findings as:

    A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution... The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down... a person cannot be compelled ‘to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the constitution.’

    Even readers (and writers) of this blog who still cling to denial of the Constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms will admit, I trust, that the Supreme Court has recognized RKBA as a Constitutional right (one that is incorporated against the states), so how would one square licensing and mandatory fees with Murdock?

    In light of that, I would think even that mandatory training, unless provided free of charge, would be highly questionable.

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  22. Of course you do, Zorro. In your world view, no restrictions of any kind on any guns of any kind makes sense.

    Are you going back in the archives for old unfinished arguments? I thought I was keeping you busy enough on the new stuff.

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  23. It is, as you very correctly point out, hardly surprising that I find licensing and fees for gun ownership and use blatantly unconstitutional, but it should also come as no surprise that the Supreme Court sees the issue from a somewhat less lofty plane than the one from which I gaze upon the shining light of shall not be infringed ;-).

    Somehow, though, I had until now failed to make the connection between Murdock v. Pennsylvania (which was, at heart, a First Amendment case) and gun rights. I brought this up because I think it will make it difficult for SCOTUS to find licensing of gun rights Constitutionally permissible--an entirely different prospect from me finding it unacceptable.

    Are you going back in the archives for old unfinished arguments?

    When I made the Murdock connection, I thought it would be worth bringing up in a discussion about licensing/registration, and I remembered encountering this post when I was looking for something else.

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