BSA1 said:
Well the best advice is to do everything we can to keep anti-gun laws from being passed. As we well know it is very hard to get legislators to repeal laws and the court process takes years and lots of money and the end result is far from certain.
I was specifically asking about people who live in CA, NY, and other states I may not be aware of who already find their rights restricted under draconian gun laws.
But even at that, facing any kid of impending anti-gun legislation with a defeatist attitude and the resignation to just go along with whatever is imposed isn't how you defeat that kind of law before it's passed.
Still, should those people comply, not comply, or move?
Also, you're taking the easy way out on not addressing civil disobedience as a "chess" tactic. If you don't want to violate forum rules, you can send me your response via private message.
BSA1 said:
Some basic principles;
First of all I think most, if not all, Americans, regardless of political parties, share concern about the crime rate in America and believe it is much too high.
Second I think most, if not all, Americans, regardless of political parties, agree in principle that guns should be kept out of the hands of criminals.
Third most, if not all, Americans, regardless of political parties, agree that criminals need to be taken off the street. This is supported by the push across the nation for stiffer penalties such as less probation/parole, jail time and longer sentences.
You link registration with reduced crime in your initial post - why don't you address that assertion for all of us right here, right now? You said it in plain English, but I have yet to see a response from you on how the registration of legal firearms by law-abiding gun owners has ever reduced crime. Show me some statistics or some studies. Defend your position.
Then you follow with...
BSA1 said:
Fourth Americans, even when they disagree with a particular law, are a law abiding population.
Fifth Americans respect Government authority and use peaceful means such as the ballot box and the courts to change laws.
Both largely true in almost every case.
Except in some cases where civil disobedience and noncompliance have worked. Such as refusing to give up your bus seat or sitting at an all-white lunch counter in North Carolina in 1960 and refusing to move just because your skin is the wrong color.
It also makes me wonder, what do you think of Weld County Colorado Sheriff John Cooke's refusal to enforce Colorado's latest gun control laws? Or of other Sheriffs who are on record as planning to uphold the Constitution rather than enforce what they consider unconstitutional laws?
When you have peace officers refusing to abide by a law, does that mean that they are bad officers? Or does that just mean that Bloomberg's money was used to purchase a bad law?
http://cspoa.org/sheriffs-gun-rights/
Also, you originally stated...
BSA1 said:
Sixth many Americans still put pride in Individualism and nonchalant attitude towards some laws.
How does that statement mesh with itself or with the other assertions you make? Wouldn't an individual be more likely to climb to the peak of his roof, wave his Gadsden flag, and immediately begin a hunger strike rather than submit? But that's not very nonchalant.
So what does that even mean?
steelerdude99 said:
Unfortunately, the courts are the ones that get to decide the constitutionality of laws. Until an unconstitutional law is deemed unconstitutional OR an injunction suspends enforcement OR the law is repealed, prosecution will continue. One may sit in prison to wait to find out IF they are being detained based on conviction for violating an unconstitutional law. The wait can be years even if someone is in the right to begin with.
Honestly, this is something we all already know.
Which is why Heller was a real victory for us - because SCOTUS affirmed an individual right that we've all known existed for a long time. Some say it's not a big deal , but if they'd ruled the 2nd enumerated a collective right (as argued by anti-gun groups), we definitely would not be celebrating that.
More recently, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Illinois prohibitions on carrying a firearm are a violation of the Second Amendment.
The courts don't always rule against "us" but sadly, it takes a long time for some wrongs to be righted through the legal process.
What do you do while you're waiting for courts to rule?
Well you could comply. You may end up surrendering some precious rights, but you probably won't get shot by overzealous enforcement agents.
Or you could not comply. Then you'd have your principles, but you may be shot or imprisoned by overzealous enforcement agents.
You could flee California and move to Texas. Then you'd have your freedom, your principles, and you would be outside the reach of the aforementioned agents.
That's pretty much what I've pulled together from three pages of this discussion. You don't need to be a chess master to see which choice has the most appeal. Why do anything illegal or surrender anything when there is so much acreage in this country to live on with so much more freedom and so much less hassle?
4v50 Gary said:
I can't help but think of the Boston manhunt where 100 sq miles of Boston was under de facto martial law and house to house warrantless searches were conducted on every home until the kid was found. If it can be done in a 100 square miles of urban area, why not NYC or San Francisco?
In NYC or CA, I think it could definitely be done. In Texas or Wyoming... I don't think anyone would even consider trying it.
And I don't mean to say that the people of the state would put up forceful resistance; I mean to say that the law enforcement and governing officials in those states would probably see such an idea as counterproductive, ludicrous, and unconstitutional and not even consider it.
In other words, even if they could do it, I don't think they
would do it, at least not in the context of gun confiscations.
I know which type of state I'd rather live in.
