Group taunts Chicago mayor with gun giveaway

[Victor Galis]

In any event I think that these laws are ridiculous, and do not serve the public interest. The Financial Times had a good editorial about gun control in the UK, and just from what I know about DC, I can tell you that it does not make people safer.

-Well not as long as all those other places are allowing their people to have guns, no. It's time the federal government stepped in and did something about all those guns floating around in the US.

[Ned]

Victor, did you know that the Constitution has an amenment that specifically authorization the people to keep and bear arms?

Below is blurb from Encarta. The US Justice Dept. has taken the position that the Second Amendment is intended to keep the pubic armed - particularly those kind of weapons used armed conflicts - assault rifles, etc.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

"Comment: Legal scholars disagree about what right is protected by the Second Amendment. Some scholars have concluded that this amendment affirms a broad individual right to gun ownership. Others interpret the amendment as protecting only a narrow right to possess firearms as members of a militia. Supreme Court decisions have not resolved the debate. However, the courts have held that the Second Amendment does not preclude certain government regulations on gun ownership, such as laws prohibiting ownership of firearms by felons."

[Victor Galis]

Victor, did you know that the Constitution has an amenment that specifically authorization the people to keep and bear arms?

-Yes, most unfortunate isn't it?

The US Justice Dept. has taken the position that the Second Amendment is intended to keep the pubic armed - particularly those kind of weapons used armed conflicts - assault rifles, etc.

-The US Justice Department is run by Ashcroft... your point being?

[Ned]

Victor, so long as Ashcroft is in charge of the Justice Department, the U.S. is not going to file any briefs in support of the theory that the Second Amendment is only intended to allow state National Guard's and has nothing to do with a personal right of individuals to keep and bear arms.

[CygnusZ]

Justice Taney ruled that the Missouri Comprimise was actually an unconstitutional law. The implication of such a ruling meant that slavery (which is mentioned on three seperate occasion in the Constitution) could not be stopped in ANY STATE. The right to own and trade slaves became fully protected against being outlawed. Any anti-slavery law according to this ruling would be illegal. This is why the decision had such a large effect, not because of the effects of ownership in interstate affairs.

Justice Taney's decision was eventually reversed after the civil war.

Birch's liability is not in the sale of the gun, but the selling of the gun with the intent to violate the law (UCC Article 2 sec 403, "Good Faith"). He was aware that the gun was being bought for illegal purposes and yet he sold it. The reciever the gun obviously it participating in illegal activity and HE KNOWS IT. This is why he has opted to remain anonymous.

As for whether the 2nd amendment really guarntee's individuals the right to purchase guns in an unrestricted manner, that is an issue that is up in the air. Obviously arms (arms meaning ANY kind of weapon) are going to be regulated. The need (and effectiveness) for a national militia has long since passed. There are no doubt a great many worthy views to be evaluated on this issue, but there is no real offical USSC answer to the question at this time.

[Victor Galis]

Victor, so long as Ashcroft is in charge of the Justice Department, the U.S. is not going to file any briefs in support of the theory that the Second Amendment is only intended to allow state National Guard's and has nothing to do with a personal right of individuals to keep and bear arms.

-That's part of why I can't stand the man.

[Ned]

CygnusZ,

You said, "Birch's liability is not in the sale of the gun, but the selling of the gun with the intent to violate the law (UCC Article 2 sec 403, "Good Faith"). He was aware that the gun was being bought for illegal purposes and yet he sold it. The reciever the gun obviously it participating in illegal activity and HE KNOWS IT. This is why he has opted to remain anonymous."

The problem with this is that as far as I know it is that possession of firearms is not against "the law" in the State of Illinois or in Oak Ridge. There has to be some law in Oak Ridge that would make the act illegal there. The fact that might be illegal in Chicago is entirely irrelevant because the act is not committed there. If Birch travels of Chicago he might be in trouble under Chicago law. But to prevail in Oak Ridge, either the Oak Ridge city government would have to make the sale of guns to residents of Chicago illegal, or it would have have to be illegal under state law.

[chequita guevara]

But taking the gun into Chicago is a felony. He is giving away the gun in order for the receiver to violate that law. Therefore the Good Faith law applies.

[Ned]

CygnusZ, Below is a brief history of Dred Scott.

I suppose, consistent with this case, the Supreme Court would similarly rule that Chicago cannot make ownership of guns illegal, particularly in a case where a person moves from, let us say, Wisconsin where ownership is legal, to Chicago where it is illegal. The facts are the "same" as in the Dred Scott case.

1799 Dred Scott is born in Virginia as a slave of the Peter Blow family. He spent his life as a slave, and never learned to read or write.
1803 United States purchases Louisiana from France, extending federal sovereignty to an ill-defined territory west of the Mississippi.
1804 United States takes formal possession of what is now Missouri.
1820 After fierce debate, Congress admits Missouri as a slave state. The question of Missouri statehood sparks widespread disagreement over the expansion of slavery. The resolution, eventually known as the Missouri Compromise, permits Missouri to enter as a slave state along with the free state of Maine, preserving a balance in the number of free and slave states. The Compromise also dictates that no territories above 36o 30' latitude can enter the union as slave states. Missouri itself is l ocated at the nexus of freedom and slavery. The neighboring state of Illinois had entered the union as a free state in 1819, while in subsequent years Congress admits Arkansas as a slave state and Iowa as a free state.
1830 The Blow family moves to St. Louis, part of the wholesale migration of people from the southern states of the eastern seaboard to the newer slave states of the Mississippi Valley. The Blows sell Scott to Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeo n stationed at Jefferson Barracks just south of St. Louis. Over the next twelve years Scott accompanies Emerson to posts in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where Congress prohibited slavery under the rules of the Missouri Compromise. During this ti me, Scott marries Harriet Robinson, also a slave. The Scotts later have two children. The Scotts are not alone in this movement. Slaves are constantly on the move, either forced to accompany their masters or sold as part of the ever-widening domestic s lave trade. Slave states and free states, which had previously respected one another's laws on slavery, become increasingly hesitant to enforce those laws as the argument over the expansion of slavery becomes increasingly heated. Slaveholders express pa rticular opposition to legal precedents that permit slaves to demand their own freedom after being transported to places (whether other states or foreign countries) that prohibit slavery.
1842 The Scott family returns to St. Louis with Dr. Emerson and his wife Irene.
1843 John Emerson dies. Mrs. Emerson hires out Dred, Harriet, and their children to work for other families in St. Louis.
1846 Dred and Harriet Scott sue Mrs. Emerson for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court.
1847 The Circuit Court rules in favor of Mrs. Emerson, dismissing the Scotts' case but allowing the Scotts to refile their suit.
1850 The jury in a second trial decides that the Scotts deserve to be free, based on their years of residence in the non-slave territories of Wisconsin and Illinois.
1852 Mrs. Emerson, not wanting to lose such valuable property, appeals the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court. Lawyers on both sides agree that from now on appeals will be based on Dred's case alone, with findings applied equally to Harriet. The state Supreme Court overrules the Circuit Court decision and returns Scott to slavery.
1853-54 Scott, supported by lawyers who opposed slavery, files suit in the U.S. Federal Court in St. Louis. The defendant in this case is Mrs. Emerson's brother, John Sanford, who has assumed responsibility for John Emerson's estate. As a New Yor k resident and technically beyond the jurisdiction of the state court, Scott's lawyers can only file a suit against Sanford in the federal judicial system. Again the court rules against Scott.
1856-1857 Scott and his lawyers appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Scott v. Sanford the Court states that Scott should remain a slave, that as a slave he is not a citizen of the U.S. and thus not eligible to bring suit in a federal court, and that as a slave he is personal property and thus has never been free.
The court further declares unconstitutional the provision in the Missouri Compromise that permitted Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories. In fact, the compromise is already under assault as a coalition of political leaders—some slaveholders, o thers westerners who resent the federal government's ability to dictate the terms of statehood—claim that territorial residents should be able to determine on what terms they enter the union. The decision in Scott v. Sanford greatly alarms the antislaver y movement and intensifies the growing division of opinion within the United State. The newly-formed Republican Party, which opposes the expansion of slavery, vigorously criticizes the decision and the court.

1857 Mrs. Emerson remarries. Since her new husband opposes slavery, she returns Dred Scott and his family to the Blow family. The Blows give the Scotts their freedom.
1858 Dred Scott dies of tuberculosis and is buried in St. Louis. He was buried in Wesleyan Cemetary at what is now the intersection of Grand and Laclede Avenues in St. Louis (now part of the campus of St. Louis University). In 1867, Wesleyan cemetary closed and the bodies were dis-interred and re-buried at other sites. Dred Scott's body was moved to an unmarked grave in Section 1, Lot No. 177, Calvary Cemetary, in north St. Louis County. In 1957 a marker was placed on Dred Scott's grave which reads:
"DRED SCOTT BORN ABOUT 1799 DIED SEPT. 17, 1858
DRED SCOTT SUBJECT OF THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1857 WHICH DENIED CITIZENSHIP TO THE NEGRO, VOIDED THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE ACT, BECAME ONE OF THE EVENTS THAT RESULTED IN THE CIVIL WAR"
1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president in a political contest dominated by the discussion of slavery. South Carolina secedes from the Union, and the Civil War begins.

[Victor Galis]

suppose, consistent with this case, the Supreme Court would similarly rule that Chicago cannot make ownership of guns illegal, particularly in a case where a person moves from, let us say, Wisconsin where ownership is legal, to Chicago where it is illegal. The facts are the "same" as in the Dred Scott case

-How so? If Chicago doesn't want the gun there, they don't have to let you have it. Now if they had a law that said that they could confiscate a gun that had been taken into Chicago, but was now elsewhere...

[Ned]

I think the principal of the Dred Scott case is that one does not automatically lose ownership of a piece of personal property merely because one moves or travels to location where ownership of that personal property is illegal. I don't doubt that the City Chicago could exercise its power of eminent domain and confiscate the gun, but they would have to pay for it.

CG, why you say that possession of a gun in the City of Chicago is a felony?

Also, Uniform Commercial Code is not a criminal statute. Besides, by no stretch of the imagination will the UCC apply to Birch's transactions.

[Victor Galis]

Yes, but in the Dredd Scott case the issue was that Scott sued for his freedom after he'd been returned to a slave state. Had he done anything in the free state, the outcome might have been different.

[Ned]

Victor, I agree that the result would have been different had Scott sued in Illinois.

But since guns cannot sue, let us suppose that I steal a gun in Oak Park that was "owned" by a Chicagoan who was staying there overnight? Is this theft? Can a Chicagoan legally own the gun?

Your legal analysis, please.

[Victor Galis]

A Chicagoan can legally own a gun, he just can't keep it in Chicago. Just as I own many pointy objects, but I can not bring them to my college dorm room.

[Ned]

Well, Victor, this puts another twist on the Birch case, doesn't it? Selling guns to Chicagoans is entirely legal, even under Chicago law.