An interesting article over at Firearms News notes Audie Murphy would have been deemed “too young” to be trusted with a rifle at the time his legendary heroics earned him recognition as the most decorated combat soldier of WWII. It goes on to imagine a gun store clerk telling not just him, but “our young combat heroes, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who may have lost limbs and fought for our freedom, that they have no Second Amendment freedom because they are not 21 years old.” [More]
Could anything be more offensive and absurd?
Eugene has weighed in on the discussion:
ReplyDeleteA student asked me over lunch: Some stores have announced that they won't sell rifles and shotguns to under-21-year-olds. Is that legal, given that federal law only limits sales of handguns to under-21-year-olds, and doesn't ban sales of long guns to 18-to-20-year-olds?
[1.] Stores' own age limits don't violate the Second Amendment, because the Second Amendment limits only the government, not private companies. Likewise for the Equal Protection Clause (plus the Equal Protection Clause generally doesn't forbid even governmental age classifications).
[2.] The federal Civil Rights Act doesn't cover retail stores, and doesn't cover age, so it doesn't bar such policies, either.
[3.] But about a third of all states ban discrimination based on age in places of public accommodation, and some of those statutes may well ban refusal to sell guns to 18-to-20-year-olds. These laws vary from state to state, so I can't speak to all of them; but the one I checked -- Connecticut (the alphabetically first on the list) -- does indeed seem to ban discrimination against 18-to-20-year-olds in retail sales, with no exception for guns.
[4.] Likewise, some cities and counties have similar ordinances (even if their states don't); two I found, for instance, are Madison, Wisconsin and Broward County, Florida. (I looked them up just because I remembered from other research that they have broad antidiscrimination ordinances.) Seattle, on the other hand, bans age discrimination, but apparently only against people 21 and above, again without regard to whether the store sells guns or anything else.
[5.] Of course, the state and local laws will only affect the stores' policies in those jurisdictions; a store could have a general nationwide policy of not selling some products to under-21-year-olds, but a different policy in those states that require equal treatment of 18-to-20-year-olds.
That's Volokh, by the way. Kevin Jamison was less than forthcoming with a response.
HinMO
It would also push off potential "gun voters" by 3 years. Meaning it would begin to dilute our numbers. Also, don't forget that what they are really pushing for with this is to up it to age 25 (which is what will probably happen next time there is a shooting)
ReplyDeleteAt age 25 now you are really starting to shape the electorate in significant ways.
David, I know you don't like my comments on "man" vs "person", but my point is to get people to actually STUDY the foundation of any case - the concept of jurisdiction - and then apply it. My law teacher, a genius woman from Utah who grew up fighting the legal system as a truant from high school, taught herself enough to gain recognition from all of the judges in the SLC area. She went on to become a trial strategist for 4 different law firms, became a member of the Trial Advocate's Association, and even studied under no less than Jerry Spence. She gained such a good reputation that the University of Utah Law School asked her to be on their mock trial team, teaching law students how to argue in court - and even though one usually had to be a student, and provide the usual ID (which she never acquired), they waived those requirements just to get her on the team.
ReplyDeleteThe very first thing she covered in class was . . . jurisdiction. That's the basis for ANY case. If you can successfully challenge jurisdiction by showing the judge you have no standing in that court, the case gets dismissed. That's why any case that can go to trial (whether bench or jury) that has a questionable element will have a pre-trial hearing. But even before that (at arraignment) one can establish the lack of jurisdiction by making certain claims - as a MAN and not as a person. Once you admit or allow yourself to be referred to as a person, THAT in and of itself starts establishing jurisdiction.
If you're NOT the subject defined in the corporate statute, you don't belong in that court. It's like trying to bring a parent's rights case before a motor vehicle administrative hearing. A matter involving family can't be heard by the DMV. A driver's license issue can't be heard in federal tax court. And a COMMON LAW issue, can't be heard in a commercial (statutory law) court.
This is not the usual wacko "patriot" stuff we've all heard for decades, the stuff that doesn't hold up in court. This is based on about 40 years of research by several people, including the late Harry Coombs (aka The Informer), James Montgomery, Karl Lentz and a few others, along with Lynn Poulsen's training. If studied and properly applied, it would make the whole gun rights issue go away - along with a lot of other things we're having problems with the governments over.
If you take the side of the attorneys, who stand to lose most by people learning and applying this knowledge, and keep your readers from seeing these comments and the information in them, then it will keep people IN their jurisdiction, simply by being "represented" in the commercial courts. Lawyers are officers of the court and are duty-bound to keep the clients IN the system. If people started properly making their claims at the outset of a case - and getting them dismissed for lack of jurisdiction - then the law profession would immediately see the possibility of losing a lot of money, and MAYBE change their tune. They might start offering their services as COUNSEL, which is the "right" we are guaranteed by the 6th amendment, instead of as attorneys, which is the commerce side of things and we have NO right to.
Obviously you can do what you want. It's your blog. I'm just trying to share what I've learned with you and your readers who, by simply being interested in these issues, stand to gain most from at least considering the concepts discussed.
-MM
What did I do? Are you saying I killed a comment that was on topic and non-trolling/racist? Not to my recollection.
ReplyDeleteWhich leads me to ask the obvious: What does this have to do with my Audie Murphy article, which is what I'm promoting here and inviting comment on?
If people want me to consider something to feature, I'm very approachable. Email and ask. Don't presume to repurpose. What I don't appreciate is them hijacking my journal for their agenda. So it has nothing to do with me disapproving a topic and everything to do with keeping focus on the points I want to make on MY blog.
Now -- do you have something relevant on Audie Murphy and/or
denying rifles to 21-year-olds, or were you under the impression that the reason I'm spending my time here on a Sunday afternoon is so I can promote what YOU want to talk about?
Thank you. My point is that the gun control statutes (any of the federal and state statutes, really) are aimed at a class of people who have subjected themselves to those statutes by entering into some kind of contract with the corporate state or federal corporation. I learned that simple concept from an attorney who, more or less, was spilling the beans as to why we are subject to the statutes and, by extension, the jurisdiction of the commercial "courts" (administrative law magistrates, actually). Your post on Oathkeepers went into more detail re Audie Murphy, and any other soldier who would, under proposed statutes, be prohibited from bearing arms. I commented there, but it never showed up. I've posted comments along these lines before, but they seem to get "lost". The Miller case could have been easily won had Miller (or, rather, his attorney) had shown up to argue before the Supreme Court. But it could ALSO have been won at the federal district court level if Miller had been astute enough to claim that he was not subject to the statute to begin with, by establishing the fact that he was a man and not the "person" (a legal fiction, a commercial entity) defined in statute.
ReplyDeleteI've done word searches of entire state statutes and have found that the person is the preferred term, because legislatures can only regulate COMMERCE. They cannot regulate men and women - and they know it. So they depend on our ignorance of the meanings of the terms, the legal differences between the two, and merely allow us to assume that the statutes apply to us, when they don't.
We trap ourselves. The entire legal system depends on our ignorance of the law (which maxim actually refers to the common law, BTW, not statutory law). That legislation purports to restrict ANY man or woman from exercising a right is based on our ignorance of the application of the statutes. The common law is based on accepted COMMUNITY standards, not some arbitrary whim of a bunch of men of questionable morality 1,000 miles away. If a boy can become a man in a society at age 14, then that standard applies in THAT community, and the exercise of rights within that community should not be dictated by a legislative body that doesn't understand those people. Just ask the Amish.
Audie Murphy was 16 when he enlisted (by falsifying his age on the record). His bio's attribute his rifle skills to his skill at hunting. This was obviously well before legislation that said he couldn't have owned a rifle until he was 18, as you point out, but back then there probably wasn't much, if any, legislation among the states that said a 10 yr old couldn't own a beginner's rifle like a .22 or any other caliber that an adult family member thought s/he could handle. I think we can safely assume that he, and tens or hundreds of thousands of kids under 18 who had homes on farms or in hill or mountain country hunted food alongside their fathers (and mothers who were so inclined), especially when times were lean. I was an Eagle Scout and earned my marksmanship merit badge when I was 13, and although I didn't own my own .22 at the time, I probably could have - even in California.
So what I' saying is that we have a remedy available to us - if we learn the legal concepts involved and simply start asserting our rights that CANNOT be legislated away, and quit "believing" the corporate state and federal fantasy that governments have tricked us into believing. I know it's going to take a concerted effort on the part of many people to start people thinking about what these concepts really mean, but it needs to start somewhere, and to me it seems that explaining this to people who are already halfway there is a good place to start. This is just as important to me as it is to any of us here, and I'd just like to offer this as a simple way out from under the illusion.
-MM