To Keep AND BEAR

I was talking to my Neighbor over the fence this summer about a trip he’d made across country. He mentioned that he’d spent some time in Cleveland and was a bit creeped out at how bad it has become. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he wished he had his gun when he was there.

I mentioned that eventually we’ll probably see Conceal Carry Permits being looked at under Full Faith and Credit but given that we need a permit to OWN a gun, and even then can only buy guns our state approves of, I think the key 2nd Amendment issue right now is the right to keep arms. Once we’re on a more solid footing the right to bear arms can really be focused on. Of course Uncle links to a story that is going after the bear part

A Clark County judge says Wisconsin’s ban on carrying concealed weapons is unconstitutional. In the case, authorities charged a Sauk City man with carrying a concealed weapon, after he admitted he had a knife in his waistband. He never threatened anyone. In light of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago, attorney William Poss filed a motion to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds. Judge Jon Counsell obliged Wednesday, ruling the law is overly broad and violates both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

Very good to hear. On a side note, there’s lots of talk where the whole taxation on a right exists and doesn’t. I mean we all agree that I shouldn’t be charged for speaking freely, nor should I be taxed for typing this article…tho it is pretty reasonable that I have to pay for this web registration, as well as my internet and phone bill. I think we can ALL agree Massachusetts’ Permit-to-own system is a blatant tax on a right, as well as a wonderful pile of government waste that does nothing but harass people who have done nothing wrong.

But What about Carry permits? Places like Maine and New Hampshire allow people to carry openly without permit or permission (Just legally own or posses that gun, and behave yourself and you’re home-free!), but require a permit for you to cover it up. Wisconsin is similar in that you may open carry without permit or permission…but concealing a weapon is illegal.

But now let’s look out the window at the changing seasons, its gonna be MIGHTY cold in all these states in a few months, cold and snowy. Open carry suddenly becomes rather difficult, given that you’ll likely toss a heavy coat on…also I’ve had guns malfunction on me because they got so cold the oil began to become waxy. Cover up the gun, and keep it close to your body and things will work a lot better….but you’ll need to pay for that, and in Wisconsin its illegal.

Also what about places like Florida and Texas? They get hot as blazes in the summer, and they REQUIRE you not only to pay to carry, but to keep the thing covered up.

All and All, I’m starting to see a very good case for permit-less carry nation-wide. It doesn’t seem to hurt Vermont, Alaska, Montana, and Arizona any, and the people who oppose such laws are full-of-shit, so it seems pretty reasonable to me!

This entry was posted in Guns, Self Defense. Bookmark the permalink.

0 Responses to To Keep AND BEAR

  1. Pingback: The right to bear arms? : Newbie Shooter

  2. I mean we all agree that I shouldn’t be charged for speaking freely…

    But you likely will be charged for a license to march on the courthouse. The idea, as far as I understand it, is that when there’s a compelling government interest in regulating the time, place, and manner of your exercise of your rights, government can charge you for the cost of administering that system. So, since Florida for example thinks there’s a compelling interest in making sure cops can distinguish between people allowed to carry and people forbidden to carry, it’s generally considered acceptable to require a citizen to carry a permit, and charge him for the cost of that permit system. Fees intended to be burdensome or to generate revenue, if I understand correctly, are less kosher.

    States that require a permit for concealed but not for open have a bit more ‘splainin to do about their compelling interest, but the theory would be the same.

    All and All, I’m starting to see a very good case for permit-less carry nation-wide.

    True dat. Since the government interest in identifying prohibited persons can now be met through an instant background check from anywhere, and mandatory safety training has no demonstrated real-world affect on accident rates, the burden and expense of permit systems is hard to justify under strict scrutiny. We’re a ways off from that right now, but it’s a good goal.

  3. Rauðbjorn says:

    Y’know, I’m a proponent of permit-less carry; I figure if you trust people enough to let them own a weapon, you might as well allow them to carry it wherever they want. Mayhap I expect too much of adults. Meyhap I expect too many adults in the Adults:Grown-ups ratio.

    I’m also an advocate of open carry because I feel that 38 ounces of prevention is worth 140 ft/lbs of cure

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Oh yeah, when you OWN a gun, the only think that stops you from carrying illegally is fear of the law. This is the same fear that also prevents people from murdering, robbing, raping, and assaulting.

      Also this is the same fear that has people buying and owning guns through legal channels in the first place.

      Given that all of these things can be ascertained by a cellphone NICS check in a few seconds, permits do exactly NOTHING.

  4. George says:

    Bringing it back to your place, Weer’d. 🙂

    I don’t think the court is convinced that background checks, etc are a problem with the exercising of the right. The argument that I would make, knowing nothing about the law, is that the right to keep and the right to bear are not separable…it is not the “right to keep and the right to bear”, it is the right to “keep and bear”. Therefore it makes no sense that a higher burden should be applied to the right to bear. So…whatever limits you apply to purchase should be applied to carry, ie. if you are not a prohibited person, then you automatically have a right to carry, open or concealed.

    Whether this will fly in court remains to be seen, but I think we have a good argument for universal carry.

  5. Linoge says:

    It is funny that you mention that, George, as Scalia raked Stevens over the coals for exactly that kind of logically-deficient thinking:

    Stevens then claims that “bear arms” was a term of art used, at the time of the Constitution, to refer only to military action. To prove this he points to a friend-of-the-court brief giving some examples where the term happened to be used in this way, and as Justice Scalia notes in the majority opinion, “every example given…either includes the preposition ‘against’ [as in, ‘bear arms against’] or was not clearly [meant to refer to the military only].” Scalia also notes that Stevens thinks “arms” means something different as applied to “keep” instead of “bear.”

    Follow the bouncing ball here: “keep arms” obviously refers to weapons, but “bear arms” is a term of art restricted to the military. “It would be rather like saying ‘He filled and kicked the bucket’ to mean ‘He filled the bucket and died,'” Scalia writes.

    In addition, there are historical documents, including state constitutions, where a right to “bear arms” for self-defense or hunting is explicit. As Scalia states, under Stevens’s absurdist definition of “bear arms,” “to bear arms for the purpose of killing game” translates as “to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game.”

    In any case, while countless hordes of bits have been senselessly slaughtered bickering over what “infringed” and “well-regulated” might or might not mean in modern or historical contexts, it is pretty plain to anyone but a full-blown idiot that the word “bear”, in the framework of the Second Amendment, means pretty damned near the same thing today as it did all those hundreds of years ago – “carry”. Honestly, I hoipe this case gets bumped as far up as humanly possible, for a variety of reasons: 1) to see the illogical gymnastics Stevens will have to go through in order to oppose it, 2) to see Scalia hand Stevens his nether regions… again, and 3) to (probably) have the right to carry a firearm at least somewhat and partially protected by a Supreme Court decision. To be certain, this one case will not restore to use the ability to carry anything anywhere (especially since Scalia wrote against that idea in Heller), but it will be a damned good start.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *