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OpenCarry.org proposes 2-pronged national firearm carry enforcement statute

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Referencing the announcement, I would like to offer a few salient comments:

1. I'm glad to see something being put forth from this group of Constitutional advocates. As of this moment, roughly 40 members are online, more than a NASA-sponsored "citizen science" message forum of which I am a member, despite the fact they have 160,000+ members, roughly four times our ranks. By comparison, we're at least five times more active, per capita, than them. I've been significantly involved in commenting on most 2A matters to my Congressman, particularly with respect to the difference between what the supreme law of the says and what 240 years of nonsense has whittled down. I am aware of several others who are active in politics, and thank God for them. If everyone who owns a firearm were on the phone with their Congressman's office once a month, our Second Amendment would have retained a far higher percentage of its former glory than it has. Thus, it's good to see that John and Mike of OpenCarry.org have put together their NFCES proposal.

2. I would have liked to see John and Mike float the initial proposal in segmented or line-numbered form, much like a bill before Congress, here on the forum, open for debate. Contrary to popular misconception, people are only motivated by incentives in simple, algorithmic (rule-following) tasks like you might find on an assembly line. The more work they produce with the fewer mistakes, the more income they make. In these kinds of environments, it works very well.

When tasks become more complicated, requiring conceptual, creative thinking, money is no longer a motivator. It is merely a means to an end.

Rather, there are three things that drives people to dive in and work together on a project involving many complex and interrelated variables such as tackling the social, cultural, economic and legal aspects of maintaining our Constitutional rights in the midst of well-organized efforts to the contrary by national and international media and legal bodies of authority, along with not so well-organized and largely emotionally-driven efforts of various special interest groups.

Those three factors that lead people to better performance and personal satisfaction are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Once people are making enough money to take care of most of their needs (food, clothing shelter, transportation, vacations, saving for the future, etc.), they often wind up doing amazing, sometimes brilliant things, even without being asked, and let's face it, given the great complexity surrounding the issue of how to convince the antis that supporting the Constitution as it's written is actually in their best interests, it behooves all of us to avail ourselves of every resource we can acquire.

To that end, I have spent more than a thousand hours reading others opinions on this forum, and I've often floated ideas here before writing my Congressman, because I am but a single individual. It does not matter how bright, well-educated, and experienced I am. There will always be ideas I haven't considered, complementary perspectives held by those with different education and experience than I.

Now, perhaps I missed it, but I would have liked to been a part of this proposal, particularly given the fact that my current part-time profession is writing business proposals. :) Put another way, traditional, hierarchical management works ok if all you want is compliance. But if you want engagement, self-directed involvement of others is better. To do that, to create a cadre of bright, well-educated, highly experienced, and highly motivated individuals, well, you just need to watch this ten-minute video. It explains it far better than I can.

Bottom line, if you want a proposal that works, one that appeals to the widely diverse crowd, all of whom have their fingers in the pot known as "state and federal legislation," you're going to have to give up the notion that any single individual, or even two individuals, are going to be able to nail it. Do a good job? Yes. Great job? Possibly. Good enough to make some serious headway back to the original intent of our Second Amendment? Unless you're both certifiable geniuses on the order of Dickens, Raphael, Faraday, Spinoza, Michelangelo, Erasmus, Descartes, Galilei, Mill, Leibnitz, Newton, da Vinci, and Goethe, probably not.

Hence my appeal for a group effort.

3. I was going to comment on several key points of the proposal which I would have approached differently, and why. However, in light of my "group effort" comments, above, I'll abstain until the discussion gets rolling, and I'm sincerely hoping that it does!

Sincerely,


since9
Ph.D. Computer Science (work in progress)
M.S. Management (Project Management) - Summa Cum Laude
MBA (Technology Management) - Summa Cum Laude
B.S. Finance, Insurance, and Business Law
 

echofiveniner

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2018
Messages
49
Location
Texas
Great article, let's keep the momentum moving forward. We are are moving against the current, but we can still push.
 

color of law

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Oct 7, 2007
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5,936
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Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Per the article:
“Open carry, therefore, is the right,” says Mike Stollenwerk, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, adding that “concealed carry is a privilege which can be banned or sharply regulated by the sovereign states.”

That is what I thought until I reread Heller for a 1983 lawsuit I'm involved in. When I showed my attorney what I found it blew his mind. As I posted before.
The Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137, 177. (1803) stated: “Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and, consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.” And, in their closing the Marbury court, at page 179, stated: “Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.”

The Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553, 23 L.Ed 588 (1876) declared that the right of “bearing arms for a lawful purpose.” was not granted by the Constitution. The understanding was that it was in existence before the Constitution.

This was clarified and confirmed in 2008, when the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592, 171 L.Ed 2d 637, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (2008) declared “we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment.” The Court then cited Cruikshank as part of its historical analysis. Thus, Heller held that the right to bear arms for a lawful purpose was secured by the U.S. Constitution.

More importantly, Heller did not limit the right to bear arms. It specifically stated, “Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed,” id. The Court reiterated at page 613, “Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers.”

Now that the USSC has declared the Second Amendment applies to the states (McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010)) they too can’t regulate the keeping and bearing of arms in case of confrontation.

Additionally, the Supreme Court in Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U. S. ____ (2016) has held that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” and that this “Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States.”

On January 12, 2018, in the case of VIRGINIA DUNCAN, ET AL., Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. XAVIER BECERRA, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, a BRIEF OF EIGHTEEN STATES AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES was filed. In that brief the eighteen states made clear that:
The Second Amendment guarantees “the individual right … to carry weapons in case of confrontation”—that is, to “‘wear, bear, or carry … upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose … of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.’” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 584, 592 (2008).
Eighteen states agree that the Feds and the States have no authority to regulate the bearing of arms, period.
 

JTHunter2

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2017
Messages
431
Location
Planet Earth
Color - I wish the 18 states "Good luck!" as I think they will need it in this litigious environment. No longer is it enough to have precedents that favor your side when it can be blown out of the water by "activist" jurists. If more states join in (unlikely at this time), our chances would improve.
 

color of law

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Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
5,936
Location
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Color - I wish the 18 states "Good luck!" as I think they will need it in this litigious environment. No longer is it enough to have precedents that favor your side when it can be blown out of the water by "activist" jurists. If more states join in (unlikely at this time), our chances would improve.
I don't disagree. That is why Clarence Thomas took the Supreme Court justices to task in Silvester v. Becerra, 583 U.S. ___(2018).
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-342_4hd5.pdf
 

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Per the article:

That is what I thought until I reread Heller for a 1983 lawsuit I'm involved in. When I showed my attorney what I found it blew his mind. As I posted before.

On January 12, 2018, in the case of VIRGINIA DUNCAN, ET AL., Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. XAVIER BECERRA, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, a BRIEF OF EIGHTEEN STATES AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES was filed. In that brief the eighteen states made clear that:
Eighteen states agree that the Feds and the States have no authority to regulate the bearing of arms, period.

Absolutely OUTSTANDING collection of home run cases.

I also absolutely agree with you that our right to keep and bear arms has absolutely nothing to do with the mode of carry. While I understand Mike's affinity for open carry, I see zero Constitutional preference one way or the other. Furthermore absent such preference, and in light of numerous treatises on the issue by our Founding Fathers, it's only logical that while open carry was the normative mode of carry of the day due to the prevalence of long guns, it's entirely conceivable as well as reasonable that pistols were carried in waist holsters secured by one's belt and covered with one's coat to keep the powder dry i.e. they were concealed. Taken together, our Second Amendment clearly protects our right to keep (own/possess) and bear (carry) arms regardless of our mode of carry.
 

solus

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
9,315
Location
here nc
Absolutely OUTSTANDING collection of home run cases.

I also absolutely agree with you that our right to keep and bear arms has absolutely nothing to do with the mode of carry. While I understand Mike's affinity for open carry, I see zero Constitutional preference one way or the other. Furthermore absent such preference, and in light of numerous treatises on the issue by our Founding Fathers, it's only logical that while open carry was the normative mode of carry of the day due to the prevalence of long guns, it's entirely conceivable as well as reasonable that pistols were carried in waist holsters secured by one's belt and covered with one's coat to keep the powder dry i.e. they were concealed. Taken together, our Second Amendment clearly protects our right to keep (own/possess) and bear (carry) arms regardless of our mode of carry.

Since9, guess you missed this cite COL has repeatedly posted:

The Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553, 23 L.Ed 588 (1876) declared that the right of “bearing arms for a lawful purpose.” was not granted by the Constitution. The understanding was that it was in existence before the Constitution.

I absolutely agree no olde document stated how citizens carry, even James West’s or Bond’s or other movie slight is fair game and has been over the centries!
 

hammer6

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2008
Messages
1,461
Location
Florida
“Open carry, therefore, is the right,” says Mike Stollenwerk, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, adding that “concealed carry is a privilege which can be banned or sharply regulated by the sovereign states.”

I must need to brush up on my English vocabulary- I seem to have missed this in my reading of the second amendment. Can someone please help?
 
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