USA TODAY: Fact check: Would a U.S. House bill ban assault weapons?

USA TODAY: Fact check: Would a U.S. House bill ban assault weapons?.

Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate, seem to never waste a good distraction.

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Won’t let me read the article without subscribing


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While they mentioned the previous “1994 assault weapons ban” they failed to mention that it was not effective. Why can’t USA Today ask the purpose of using a failed method to curb gun violence? I think we all know. There have to be a lot of anti-2A groups looking at the record NICS checks for the last few months and going into a panic.

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Take your blood pressure medicine and set aside a good chunk of time to read and digest this if you have not already:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/5717/text?q={"search"%3A["hr+5717"]}&r=1&s=1#toc-H8AA5917E301E4EA18739FF9A3A6631C6

Or if you are a PDF or like to print stuff out kind of person:

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I have made my voice heard a few times on this. I hope it helps. This should not pass. In fact, it shouldn’t even be allowed to get this far.

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Similar bills have been through the house during this session of Congress. None of them have advanced but that won’t stop them from trying again. Time for another impeachment.

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It won’t pass but if does we are in trouble as a nation if catch my drift.

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While we have seen bills before, and they even passed and enacted laws
 such as the 1934 NFA, and the 1994 ban
 and the 1968 Gun Control Act


They have never provided any valid authorization in the Constitution to do so.

There is no authority to ban, prohibit, limit, or restrict arms.

When an act injurious to freedom has once been done and the people bear it, the repetition of it is more likely to meet with submission. - Samuel Adams

We the people allow the unconstitutional acts which abridge our freedom, liberty and rights. We the people comply and submit, and those we elect violate their oaths of office, and we still elect them and stand idle as our Republic is altered, perhaps irrevocably.

A Law Repugnant to the Constitution is Void - United States Supreme Court.

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@Kevin29

I believe the term is preaching to the choir. They keep infringing, we have to wait on the Supreme Court to overrule it. That takes time. If we ever get an anti 2A Supreme Court that’s when we are in trouble.

But don’t fool yourself the Supreme Court could end all of this. It chooses not to.

All it takes is a declaration of preemption by the Supreme Court. That only an amendment to the Constitution can change the 2nd Amendment.

States could then focus their energy on the people who don’t need access to firearms.

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I agree! However, SCOTUS found the 1994 ban constitutional and, even in Heller and McDonald opined that limitations applied.

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Which is why I would like to get RBG replaced. Although I think it’s already too late

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Both Heller and McDonald were decided by a Conservative Court. In HellerJustice Scalia wrote:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms

The Supreme Court is heading in the right direction. You have to remember that the courts, especially SCOTUS, usually only answer the question(s) presented in the specific case before them. Just like Heller determined the right was a personal right, not related to the militia and applied in the home. McDonald carried this a step further finding that the right was applicable to the states. The NYC case before the Court now will address transporting a weapon from your home to another location.
SCOTUS eats the elephant one bite at a time.

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I always your analysis, @MikeBKY,( even those times when I wish it wasn’t true. )

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I don’t really like it either but the alternative scares me more. If the court were to speculate, charting out “what ifs” without having a case in controversy and a real person on the other end, there is no telling where things would lead. It’s a lot easier to shoot paper silhouettes than real bodies.

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I’m fine with their being some limitations. Well, not fine. But I am not fine with living in constant fear of becoming a felon overnight because some lobbying group managed to get enough paid politicians to put pen to paper and do so. Every legislative session sees some "all new going to save the (insert cause celebre here) " by getting rid of guns from law abiding citizens. Notice none of their gun laws address who needs to be addressed with gun laws. Criminals.

I would just like there to be a permanent check of some type, without an amendment to the Constitution, so there was a baseline.

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Like right now. Nancy Pelosi and other gun control members of her caucus are trying to slip national registration and national red flag laws into the next round of Covid 19 Stimulus Spending Aid.

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Yes. Legislators must read all of the fine print before the vote. These are some of the most crooked, unethical politicians to ever set foot upon the capital.

As Woody Allen once blithely stated: “You know politicians, they’re a step below child abusers.”

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And that is part of the problem. The Supreme Court is given more power than they were ever intended to have.
A council of un-elected robed individuals determining what they THINK the Constitution says
 while ignoring what it actually says.

While I liked Justice Scalia, where is any reference in the Constitution stipulates the right to keep and bear arms is only those arms in ‘common use’?

Historically, the right to keep and bear arms was considered an individual right, and there were no restrictions on the types of arms. It was not until the more progressive judges and justices of the 20th Century that we started seeing encroachments on our right to keep and bear arms.

I do not recall any Article of the Constitution granting any power to the government in their Few and Defined Enumerated Powers that authorizes or grants the power to restrict arms, be it automatic, semi-automatic, long guns or hand guns. I do not recall the words in the Second Amendment that says, The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, SHALL NOT be Infringed
 EXCEPT where the government determines in it’s sole discretion to limit arms of any type at any given time.

Of course, this view would consider the 1934 NFA as unconstitutional as there is no power to limit arms.

We must remember, under Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, the Supreme Court expanded government power and found the government could regulate your private property under the Commerce Clause, if you did not participate in Interstate Commerce
 by claiming Not Participating Impacts Interstate Commerce So Government Can Regulate Your Activities On Your Property. Wickard v. Filburn, 1942

I have said it before, when we have Judges and Justices acting outside of their authority and exercising powers never granted, and modifying the Constitution and legislating from the bench, we have more than a passing problem.

We do have precedent and history.

Dred Scott V Sanford; 1857. This decision has an interesting view


“It would give to persons of the negro race, 
 the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, 
 the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went .” Asserting the federal government had no power to enact Territorial laws which would infringe property rights (slaves as property), the court listed rights individuals possess upon entering a Territory destined to become a state and again mentioned the right to arms: “
 no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.” “Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms , nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding
 The powers over person and property of which we speak are not only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to exercise them.”*

The court found it an individual right to keep and bear arms, wherever a person went, and to speak
 to enter other states
 the rights to keep and bear arms, the right to freedom of speech, and the right to freedom of movement.

United States v. Cruikshank, 1876;

This decision concerns fourteenth amendment enforcement of individuals rights. The Court refers to first amendment right of assembly and second amendment right to arms as pre-existing rights, "not granted by the Constitution.

While it might be one bite at a time, there are concerns when the court or those who sit upon it, rule based on their personal political views and not as the Constitution is written, and yet it is the very same Court that declared;
A Law Repugnant to the Constitution is Void.

I realize you are aware of all that I has stated, but I wanted to put forth something with which others who may not be aware can consider, review and discuss.

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We have that. It is the Constitution, and the Second Amendment. Neither of which grant a right, only guarantee our rights.

The baseline is, there is no authority or power granted to government to abridge the individual right to keep and bear arms. Just as they can not declare your requirement to have a permit to attend Church, where is the power in the ‘Few and Defined Enumerated Powers’ to require permits to carry, or even own, a firearm?

When an act injurious to freedom has once been done and the people bear it, the repetition of it is more likely to meet with submission - Samuel Adams
This means, when government infringes our rights, acts beyond it’s limited authority and we the people submit and comply, the government will once more act in hostility towards our rights and we will more than likely submit again.
The ‘Overton Window’. As the window moves left, and the people complain, then become accustomed, and then accept
 the window is moved slightly further left and the process starts again.

We saw the Patriot Act and the infringements on our rights, we complained, we argued, we became accustomed and finally accept the TSA hassles and groping, and it has moved further
 with additional limits on the people. There were cases where people were denied their due process because of the Patriot Act
 and as someone who swore to defend the Constitution it is a concern. I did originally say
“If you are not doing anything wrong, there is nothing to worry about”
 for about 2 seconds
 and then it HIT
 the Rights we have are not conditional on ‘not doing anything wrong’, and the government must obtain a warrant, on probable cause, by sworn affidavit
 not simply a blanket letter.

The Red Flag laws which deny due process, are done in secret, and you are not able to cross examine witnesses before you are declared guilty of NO CRIME
 is well beyond the baseline.
The No Fly List which is secret, puts a person on the list that has NOT been charged with a crime, has not been prosecuted or convicted, but is secretly being denied their rights is well beyond the baseline.

We have a baseline, unfortunately we have not demanded the government and those we elect to be held to it. We, the people, must demand the Constitution be adhered to.

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@Kevin29

Believe it or not, as archaic as it sounds, I have read the Constitution. I understand your analysis and position, and I understand @MikeBKY analysis and position.

In the real world we live in, there are going to be some limitations upon our right to keep and bear arms.

I just want to see one set of laws, so that I know where I stand. I’m sick of the anti gun caucus and the anti gun groups.

We are about to have the wheels come.off our society as a whole and the next round of Covid 19 Stimulus Spending is having political " let’s hide this so deep that no one will find the gun control. It doesnt matter if they do we will just blame the opposition for holding up the stimulus funds.

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