Random wierd thoughts on Supreme Court precedents...

[Langenator]

So I'm sitting around pondering what would happen if the Army assigned me to a state such as California (I use the PRK as an example because I own a couple of guns that are illegal there, and will soon be buying a couple more). The first thing I would do would be to contact the NRA, GOA, CCRKBA, Jim March, etc, for help in a Second Amendment lawsuit. (Army orders me to go somewhere, I don't have a choice, and I shouldn't have to face the choice of getting rid of my property or becoming a criminal.)

Then I got to thinking about SCOTUS cases that might be used as precedent. And I thought of Dred Scott v. Sanford . Yes, I know the case itself is odious because of its association with slavery. But the basic principle-a person with property that was legal in one state cannot be deprived of that property simply because said property is illegal in another state-is extremely similar, if not the same.

And to the best of my knowledge, the case has never been overturned, since the 13th Amendment made the whole slavery issue moot.

Anyone out there with better legal knowledge care to comment? Anyone know anyplace on the web that i can find the text of the case?

Edit to add: I also like the thought of using something that is thought of as bad/evil for the good purpose of restoring rights to the oppressed serfs of the PRK and similar states.

 

[zahc]

Interesting.

 

[Jim March]

Huh. Interesting line of thought.

First issue is that the core holding in Dred Scott (1856) was that "the US has always been a racist society since colonial times, the Founding Fathers often had a hand in writing racist state laws shortly after the nation's founding, so racist laws are acceptable today". In doing so, they accurately cited some NASTY laws from the late colonial period through about 1800 (and not all in the south, one of the worst was in Mass.).

As morally hideous as Dred Scott was, it was technically correct...it was more about racism and racist laws than slavery.

So the 13th Amendment did NOT overturn it. Neither did 500,000 dead from 1861 - 1865; right after the war's end, southern states began passing "black codes" restricting the civil rights of the newly freed blacks.

It was the *14th* Amendment of 1868 that overturned Dred Scott, in part by specifically co-opting the court's own language. See also:

http://www.equalccw.com/practicalrace.html

There are links to the actual case text, various commentaries and law review articles, etc.

I don't recall the Dred Scott court saying very much about property rights. In fact, the entire situation actually goes against your argument. Approximately 1850 (I forget the exact year), a law was passed allowing slaveowners to chase escapees into the north, and made it a "crime" to BE an escaped slave even in the North. Before that, a slaveowner's property rights went up in smoke the moment an escapee beat feet across the Mason-Dixon Line.

Once that law passed and esp. once the Dred Scott case came down, the "Underground Railroad" had to be extended further north, which is why there's a small black population in southeast Canada to this day - they're descended from the blacks who had to run that far north in the decade or so before the civil war.

 

[Pendragon]

Not to mention the fact that since you volunteered to be in the military, a "reasonable man" would have to forsee the possibility that he would be stationed in a place that does not agree with him. Perhaps if you were conscripted and sent against your will, you would have a case - as it is, you did not choose to go to CA, but you chose somthing that could send you there and thats still choosing in the eyes of the law.

That said, I think it is interesting that when you get ordered to another state, you do not seem to have to register your car in that state as you are still a resident of your home state.

This would allow someone to bring a hot rod from TX to CA that would NEVER pass smog in CA.

I would at least find a relative to hold your property while in CA - there are places in NV that will board your EBRs for a small fee and you good visitation rights when you go up there...

 

[Telperion]

Also, the guns you think may be illegal here probably aren't for you. The CA gun bans have numerous exemptions and allowances for law enforcement and military, so you will have to exhaust those avenues before you can have a valid complaint for the courts.

 

[Langenator]

Now I'm really going to have to do some research on the case. My recollection that Dred Scott was a slave who was taken into a free state by his owner (Sanford). Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that slavery was illegal in said state, thus Scott, being in the state, was no longer a slave.

Now that I think about it, I think Tanney's ruling held that Scott had no legal standing to sue, since slaves were property, not people.

More time spent on the 'net.

And no, I'm not getting sent to the PRK anytime soon. Just a thought exercise. Wtih Ft Irwin being the only remaining major Army post left there, the odds are good I'll be able to avoid it completely.