First of all I disagree with the man's decision to carry an FAL in his trunk. It should've been a Garand.
When I go out of state - or even out of town - I always have at least 1 long arm with me in addition to any handguns I carry, & enough ammo to last a while in each.
So other than not having a Garand I see nothing wrong with what the man did.
Carried illegally? I'll concede that after y'all concede that the law that made carry illegal is an infringement of a constitutionally acknowledged & protected Right.
Cops just doing their job? Lemme put it this way;
"If the cops insist on playing their role of being an occupying force then the people should play their roles as well - Vive Le Resistance!"
(I forget the source of that quote so if anyone can name the author lemme know)
Cops have a choice as do every one of us; we can either examine the law & support it or hinder it based on our understanding of its legitimacy, or we can blindly follow the law as we march slowly towards Hell.
So if the guy was speeding - which is not concluded unless you value the word of a cop over the word of a citizen - then he should have been ticketed. No problem with that.
But arrested for exercising a Right???
& WildAlaska - mind pointing out to me the exception to "keep & bear" in the 2nd amendment to allow concealed carry laws? I'm aware of the courts logic about this - that regulating the manner in which they are carried does not conflict. I'm also aware that the courts are fallible, & in their logic over this flawed.
But to condemn someone because he violated a prior restraint based prohibition that IS conflicting with at least the federal constitution if not the state???
Disgusting is too mild a word for the attitudes of some here.
What would it take for y'all to back someone facing an immoral law? If the guy was duck hunting with a muzzle loading single barrel shotgun using steel shot & had all the required permits, etc... & charged with some prior restraint based offense (such as not having a pink & yellow ribbon tied around the muzzle as required by law) would you stand up for him or would you dismiss him by saying he should have damn well tied the pink & yellow ribbon on before he went hunting? Course if said fellow was a cop I'm sure personal bias would change your minds. After all, citizens must obey the law - cops must enforce it & never the twain shall meet, right?
Want to know how this should have played out? The gentleman in question should have informed the cop that he'd gladly take the speeding ticket & deal with the matter in court if he chose to contest it, but any attempt at searching him for weapons without probable cause for a violent offense would not be permitted. Then if the cops persisted said cop should have had to contend with immediate & disproportionate force.
To put it simply, the cop attempting to disarm him should have been shot as he attempted to do so.
In this matter the cop in question acted no better than a thief or thug y'all might joke about if he were taken out by a cop.
& the courts? I really care less what the courts say about this. A court stating that we do not have the Right to Arms (of which concealed carry is a part) holds no more weight than a court telling me what color my hair should be or what religion I should practice. Yes, they're will always be simple fools who blindly follow any dictates by a court or legislator or president or king or dictator, but I'll be damned if I'm one of them.
& further, it does not matter if the gentleman in question carried purposefully as a protest or simply carried discreetly. He wasn't robbing anyone, threatening anyone or even taking any action at all. He was merely possessing. His motives are & should be his alone & not for us to question.
He should have followed the legal process to get concealed carry legalized before he carried? Aside from the fact that he was not a citizen or resident of the state he was kidnapped in (to call it an arrest is to give it much more legitimacy than it deserves) we are not subject to the legislative process when it comes to Rights, especially those acknowledged by the Constitution. He broke no legitimate law, therefore no process was needed.
But you refer to the idea of a permit system to justify the exercise of a Right? This is as conflicting with the constitution as would be an outright ban on all firearms. It is not "legal" to require a person to pay a fee in order to beg for permission to exercise a basic, fundamental Right. All CCW laws that require such are no damned better than laws that prohibit carry of any kind. But the allure of being one of the chosen few blinds many people to this fact.
& WildAlaska again, I would terrify you. You contend that this is not civil disobedience & that anarchy is a bad thing? First of all in my view justified civil disobedience of this would have encompassed the use of any means necessary to prevent a deprivation of freedom - even briefly - by the gentleman in question. If the state trooper died as a result I would have little sympathy for him or his family, just like I have little sympathy for un-uniformed criminals who get killed in the course of committing violent crimes against citizens.
Second, it's attitudes such as yours which make anarchy a desirable situation. You seem to revel in the authority of the state over others - even going so far as to say that not only who may carry should be restricted, but who may own a firearm should be restricted.
How dare you even mention the word hypocrisy! You own firearms yet you would deny them to others because of superficial criteria. Again disgust is too mild a word. Out of curiosity if I were ever deemed unfit to possess arms (as I'm sure I would be under your criteria) would you attempt to disarm me yourself, or send someone else to carry out your dirty work?
& I say your dirty work because you & people such as yourself are every bit as complicit in disarming people as the cops y'all send to do it. The only thing materially different is the fortitude to be the first one in the door yourself. In principle you & those who would support your erasure of our Rights are possibly worse - since a cop can attempt to plead that he was just following orders. (I say attempt; you do recall the Nuremburg Trials don't you?)
(& WildAlaska - don't feel I'm picking on you. TheeBadOne & others have parroted your lack of respect for the citizen many times here. Yours was just the most convenient to refer to.)
& will somebody please teach logical discourse if not reading comprehension around here? The Rule of Law is not the concept that every citizen should blindly obey any & every law - it's the idea that the government is not above the law. So if a government passes a law that conflicts with its constitution, that law is not to be obeyed. That is the essence of the rule of law.
It would seem that some think the Rule of Law means that every person must subject himself to the whims of the government until he can beg or bribe said government into retracting the law. Tell me, since when did governments need a concept such as this to encourage obedience? Hasn't the government almost always had a monopoly on force?
The Rule of Law was an idea to prevent a government from disobeying its own rules. Thus a King could not order a man's wife to sleep with him so long as the law prevented such. A democracy could not vote 20% of its population into slavery so long as a rule prevented such.
But it has nothing to do with a citizen obeying a just law, let alone an unjust one. Rule of Law is a concept to protect us from government, not to protect government from us or even each other from each other.
So please refrain from using the Rule of Law as justification for the adolescent condemnation of a man exercising his Rights.
& someone opined that the pro-gun extremists will ultimately hurt the "cause". I couldn't agree more. Ya see, us pro-gun extremist will do our damndest to hurt the cause that some of you support - which is gun control for everyone but yourselves & gun prohibitions on every type of gun that you dislike.
In fact pro-gun is not an accurate term for y'all. You cannot be pro-gun & still support prior restraint based gun control. You can't be pro-Life & support first trimester abortions. You can't be pro-religion if you think all but officially recognized ones should be outlawed, you cannot be pro-literacy if you forbid some people to read. & y'all definitely aren't pro-gun when you condone & support laws that are anti-gun, now can ya?
So the cause y'all want to support & see through, I'm opposed to because I am pro-gun. What y'all should realize is that I'm not a pro-gun extremist, or a gun owning radical; I'm simply pro-gun (I prefer pro-Right to Arms but that's beside the point). Another thing that y'all should realize is that if I'm pro-gun & y'all aren't hip to it (or at least support some prior restraint based gun control), then that makes y'all anti gun now doesn't it? What you should do is stop lying by claiming that y'all are pro-gun & decide how far anti you are & describe yourself accordingly.
More info on that can be found here:
http://publicola.blogspot.com/2003_12_28_publicola_archive.html#107267077693252002
& TheeBadOne,
What happened with the BAC limit is that Congress told the states that unless they lowered there's to .10 then they'd have a portion of the money promised to them with held. It's not an accurate example in the context you meant - unless you reject the principles of federalism & view extortion as a legitimate means to achieve your ends. In fact it's even worse than that because the feds have taken money from the people of a state & then used that money they stole to extort them with. It's kind of like a contractor you work for breaking into your house & robbing you then threatening to with hold your paycheck unless you do as he says. Just thought I'd point that out.
To the rest of you - here's a question that I've been trying to find an answer for. If this man can be kidnapped, have his property stolen & face further detainment for exercising a Right, then what about the rest of us? Couldn't we be in this man's shoes? & if we were, what would you want done? Would a legal defense fund be enough, or would you prefer a couple hundred of your friends assemble outside the jail & demand your release Right Now?
If you have the cash I'd recommend contributing to a legal defense fund. But (& admittedly I'm not an optimist about this sort of thing anymore) I doubt the courts will provide relief no matter how expertly the defense is handled. They simply have too much invested in the governments’ power to risk losing a portion of it to the people. So do y'all think this is enough for purposeful civil disobedience, or would you require years more of being persecuted for exercising your Rights & perhaps a more clean cut example in order to justify taking any kind of action?
In short, if this country's war for independence was started because government troops came to disarm the people, then why have we stood idly by for so long as we're being disarmed one by one? Is one person being disarmed not enough justification? Would ten be enough? 100? 1,000? 1,000,000?
When I go out of state - or even out of town - I always have at least 1 long arm with me in addition to any handguns I carry, & enough ammo to last a while in each.
So other than not having a Garand I see nothing wrong with what the man did.
Carried illegally? I'll concede that after y'all concede that the law that made carry illegal is an infringement of a constitutionally acknowledged & protected Right.
Cops just doing their job? Lemme put it this way;
"If the cops insist on playing their role of being an occupying force then the people should play their roles as well - Vive Le Resistance!"
(I forget the source of that quote so if anyone can name the author lemme know)
Cops have a choice as do every one of us; we can either examine the law & support it or hinder it based on our understanding of its legitimacy, or we can blindly follow the law as we march slowly towards Hell.
So if the guy was speeding - which is not concluded unless you value the word of a cop over the word of a citizen - then he should have been ticketed. No problem with that.
But arrested for exercising a Right???
& WildAlaska - mind pointing out to me the exception to "keep & bear" in the 2nd amendment to allow concealed carry laws? I'm aware of the courts logic about this - that regulating the manner in which they are carried does not conflict. I'm also aware that the courts are fallible, & in their logic over this flawed.
But to condemn someone because he violated a prior restraint based prohibition that IS conflicting with at least the federal constitution if not the state???
Disgusting is too mild a word for the attitudes of some here.
What would it take for y'all to back someone facing an immoral law? If the guy was duck hunting with a muzzle loading single barrel shotgun using steel shot & had all the required permits, etc... & charged with some prior restraint based offense (such as not having a pink & yellow ribbon tied around the muzzle as required by law) would you stand up for him or would you dismiss him by saying he should have damn well tied the pink & yellow ribbon on before he went hunting? Course if said fellow was a cop I'm sure personal bias would change your minds. After all, citizens must obey the law - cops must enforce it & never the twain shall meet, right?
Want to know how this should have played out? The gentleman in question should have informed the cop that he'd gladly take the speeding ticket & deal with the matter in court if he chose to contest it, but any attempt at searching him for weapons without probable cause for a violent offense would not be permitted. Then if the cops persisted said cop should have had to contend with immediate & disproportionate force.
To put it simply, the cop attempting to disarm him should have been shot as he attempted to do so.
In this matter the cop in question acted no better than a thief or thug y'all might joke about if he were taken out by a cop.
& the courts? I really care less what the courts say about this. A court stating that we do not have the Right to Arms (of which concealed carry is a part) holds no more weight than a court telling me what color my hair should be or what religion I should practice. Yes, they're will always be simple fools who blindly follow any dictates by a court or legislator or president or king or dictator, but I'll be damned if I'm one of them.
& further, it does not matter if the gentleman in question carried purposefully as a protest or simply carried discreetly. He wasn't robbing anyone, threatening anyone or even taking any action at all. He was merely possessing. His motives are & should be his alone & not for us to question.
He should have followed the legal process to get concealed carry legalized before he carried? Aside from the fact that he was not a citizen or resident of the state he was kidnapped in (to call it an arrest is to give it much more legitimacy than it deserves) we are not subject to the legislative process when it comes to Rights, especially those acknowledged by the Constitution. He broke no legitimate law, therefore no process was needed.
But you refer to the idea of a permit system to justify the exercise of a Right? This is as conflicting with the constitution as would be an outright ban on all firearms. It is not "legal" to require a person to pay a fee in order to beg for permission to exercise a basic, fundamental Right. All CCW laws that require such are no damned better than laws that prohibit carry of any kind. But the allure of being one of the chosen few blinds many people to this fact.
& WildAlaska again, I would terrify you. You contend that this is not civil disobedience & that anarchy is a bad thing? First of all in my view justified civil disobedience of this would have encompassed the use of any means necessary to prevent a deprivation of freedom - even briefly - by the gentleman in question. If the state trooper died as a result I would have little sympathy for him or his family, just like I have little sympathy for un-uniformed criminals who get killed in the course of committing violent crimes against citizens.
Second, it's attitudes such as yours which make anarchy a desirable situation. You seem to revel in the authority of the state over others - even going so far as to say that not only who may carry should be restricted, but who may own a firearm should be restricted.
How dare you even mention the word hypocrisy! You own firearms yet you would deny them to others because of superficial criteria. Again disgust is too mild a word. Out of curiosity if I were ever deemed unfit to possess arms (as I'm sure I would be under your criteria) would you attempt to disarm me yourself, or send someone else to carry out your dirty work?
& I say your dirty work because you & people such as yourself are every bit as complicit in disarming people as the cops y'all send to do it. The only thing materially different is the fortitude to be the first one in the door yourself. In principle you & those who would support your erasure of our Rights are possibly worse - since a cop can attempt to plead that he was just following orders. (I say attempt; you do recall the Nuremburg Trials don't you?)
(& WildAlaska - don't feel I'm picking on you. TheeBadOne & others have parroted your lack of respect for the citizen many times here. Yours was just the most convenient to refer to.)
& will somebody please teach logical discourse if not reading comprehension around here? The Rule of Law is not the concept that every citizen should blindly obey any & every law - it's the idea that the government is not above the law. So if a government passes a law that conflicts with its constitution, that law is not to be obeyed. That is the essence of the rule of law.
It would seem that some think the Rule of Law means that every person must subject himself to the whims of the government until he can beg or bribe said government into retracting the law. Tell me, since when did governments need a concept such as this to encourage obedience? Hasn't the government almost always had a monopoly on force?
The Rule of Law was an idea to prevent a government from disobeying its own rules. Thus a King could not order a man's wife to sleep with him so long as the law prevented such. A democracy could not vote 20% of its population into slavery so long as a rule prevented such.
But it has nothing to do with a citizen obeying a just law, let alone an unjust one. Rule of Law is a concept to protect us from government, not to protect government from us or even each other from each other.
So please refrain from using the Rule of Law as justification for the adolescent condemnation of a man exercising his Rights.
& someone opined that the pro-gun extremists will ultimately hurt the "cause". I couldn't agree more. Ya see, us pro-gun extremist will do our damndest to hurt the cause that some of you support - which is gun control for everyone but yourselves & gun prohibitions on every type of gun that you dislike.
In fact pro-gun is not an accurate term for y'all. You cannot be pro-gun & still support prior restraint based gun control. You can't be pro-Life & support first trimester abortions. You can't be pro-religion if you think all but officially recognized ones should be outlawed, you cannot be pro-literacy if you forbid some people to read. & y'all definitely aren't pro-gun when you condone & support laws that are anti-gun, now can ya?
So the cause y'all want to support & see through, I'm opposed to because I am pro-gun. What y'all should realize is that I'm not a pro-gun extremist, or a gun owning radical; I'm simply pro-gun (I prefer pro-Right to Arms but that's beside the point). Another thing that y'all should realize is that if I'm pro-gun & y'all aren't hip to it (or at least support some prior restraint based gun control), then that makes y'all anti gun now doesn't it? What you should do is stop lying by claiming that y'all are pro-gun & decide how far anti you are & describe yourself accordingly.
More info on that can be found here:
http://publicola.blogspot.com/2003_12_28_publicola_archive.html#107267077693252002
& TheeBadOne,
What happened with the BAC limit is that Congress told the states that unless they lowered there's to .10 then they'd have a portion of the money promised to them with held. It's not an accurate example in the context you meant - unless you reject the principles of federalism & view extortion as a legitimate means to achieve your ends. In fact it's even worse than that because the feds have taken money from the people of a state & then used that money they stole to extort them with. It's kind of like a contractor you work for breaking into your house & robbing you then threatening to with hold your paycheck unless you do as he says. Just thought I'd point that out.
To the rest of you - here's a question that I've been trying to find an answer for. If this man can be kidnapped, have his property stolen & face further detainment for exercising a Right, then what about the rest of us? Couldn't we be in this man's shoes? & if we were, what would you want done? Would a legal defense fund be enough, or would you prefer a couple hundred of your friends assemble outside the jail & demand your release Right Now?
If you have the cash I'd recommend contributing to a legal defense fund. But (& admittedly I'm not an optimist about this sort of thing anymore) I doubt the courts will provide relief no matter how expertly the defense is handled. They simply have too much invested in the governments’ power to risk losing a portion of it to the people. So do y'all think this is enough for purposeful civil disobedience, or would you require years more of being persecuted for exercising your Rights & perhaps a more clean cut example in order to justify taking any kind of action?
In short, if this country's war for independence was started because government troops came to disarm the people, then why have we stood idly by for so long as we're being disarmed one by one? Is one person being disarmed not enough justification? Would ten be enough? 100? 1,000? 1,000,000?