We Need To Fight Red Flag Laws Head On, Not Hide
Opinion
Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- AmmoLand News’ pundit John Farnam recently wrote a thought-provoking article on how gun owners should behave in states that have adopted “Red Flag” laws, where your guns can be confiscated for an arbitrary amount of time-based on someone else’s word that you are a danger to yourself or others.
Under Red Flag laws your “due process” won’t come for weeks or months after they have already confiscated all your firearms, with no actual crime having been committed. And how does one even PROVE that they are not dangerous? And if a person is truly dangerous, why don’t the Red Flag laws make any attempt to have the “dangerous” person taken into custody or to get them help?
Red Flag laws violate the the following Amendments to the Constitution:
- 2nd (right to keep and bear arms)
- 4th (protection against unreasonable search and seizures)
- 5th (right to due process, just compensation, self-incrimination)
- and 6th (right to confront accusers, cross-examine witnesses, have a public defender).
John and I are looking at this situation from two different angles. John’s advice is meant to keep gun owners from being victims of Red Flag laws by having them stay under the radar. That is a laudable goal meant to save as many gun owners as possible from falling in the unconstitutional Red Flag web. John suggests hiding your gun ownership to as high a degree as possible. Only people with a need to know should know.
I look at hiding gun ownership as giving the gun controllers exactly what they want – gun owners going quietly into the night.
Red Fag laws are not about saving lives. They are about gun confiscation, plain and simple. While keeping a low profile will reduce your chances of becoming a victim, you will still never know if that 4 am knock on the door is coming anyhow.
I think we have to go in the other direction. We need to go on the offensive. We need to remind our fellow Americans, and politicians, that there are over 80 million of us and we are NOT going to go quietly into the night. In fact, we are not going to go anywhere:
- We must educate others, every chance we get. Too many people, including many gun owners, have fallen for the soundbites that seem reasonable on the surface, but are lies and misrepresentations of the real effects of Red Flag laws. Many people simply don’t know the truth. The Virginia Citizens Defense League has a flyer we encourage gun owners to print out and give away at gun shows and other events, and to give to reporters, family, friends, and coworkers – anyone that will take one. Feel free to steal the concept and create your own flyer, if you wish, or just use ours: vcdl.org/resources/PDF/RED_FLAG_laws_flyer.pdf
- We need to write letters to the editor of our local papers and certainly never let a pro-Red Flag letter or editorial go unchallenged.
- We need to call talk-radio shows and discuss the dangers that Red Flag laws bring to our way of life.
- We need to educate politicians. If that fails, then we need to organize protests outside their local offices, which will hopefully be picked up by local news to spread the word even further.
- We need to make it a priority to vote out of office any politician who supports Red Flag laws.
- Gun owners in states with Red Flag laws need to work tirelessly to get those laws repealed.
All that said, John’s article provided some advice which is good under all conditions: Don’t make enemies if you can reasonably avoid it. Be a polite, civil, pleasant, courteous person. Don’t inject yourself into other people’s business.
The ongoing war against gun ownership, and most of our other American values continues to escalate daily and we have no choice but to meet it head on and to defeat it. Our opponents want to divide us and we can’t let that happen. If you own a gun, regardless of whether it is a handgun, rifle, or shotgun, or regardless if it is for self-defense, target shooting, collecting, or hunting, or regardless if you think a gun-control law, such as a Red Flag law, won’t affect you personally, we must ALL stand unified in protecting ALL of our gun rights. 80 million of us, standing as one, makes us an unstoppable force and the gun controllers know it.
Philip Van Cleave
President
Virginia Citizens Defense League
About Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL):
Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
For more information, visit: www.vcdl.org.
The post We Need To Fight Red Flag Laws Head On, Not Hide appeared first on AmmoLand.com.
Source: https://www.ammoland.com/2019/05/we-need-to-fight-red-flag-laws-head-on-not-hide/
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
red flag laws violate the constitution and due process.
U.S. v Mersky (1960) 361 U.S. 431 a statute that regulates without constitutional authority is a nullity even though it be published in the books, recognized by the police and lowers courts, and even though it be unchallenged for decades.
Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed.
Marbury v. Madison if a law is found to be in conflict with the Constitution, then the law is invalid
in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), to wit:
Congress … cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised.
[Miller v. U.S., 230 F.2d 486, at 489 (1956) “The claim and exercise of a constitutional right cannot thus be converted into a crime.”
[Sherar v. Cullen, 481 F.2d 946 (1973) there can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of his exercise of constitutional rights.”
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) (111 pages); — Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943) “No State shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and charge a fee therefore.
City of Chicago v Cullens, et al, 51 N.E. 907, 910, etc. (1906)”A license is a privilege granted by the state” and “cannot possibly exist with reference to something which is a right
Sherar v. Cullen, 481 F. 946: “There can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of this exercise of constitutional rights.”
SHUTTLESWORTH V. CITY OF BIRMINGHAM, 373 U. S. 262 (1963): “If the State converts a right (liberty) into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right (liberty) with impunity.”
Owens v. City of Independence,445 US 622, 100 S. Ct. 1398 Maine v. Thiboutot,448 US 1, 100 S. Ct. 2502 Hafer v. Melo, 502 US 21 Officers of the Court have no immunity, when violating a constitutional right, from liability, for they are deemed to know the law.
United States v. Minker, 350 US 179, at page 187 “Because of what appears to be a lawful command on the surface, many citizens, because of their respect for what only appears to be a law, are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights, due to ignorance.” (Paraphrased)
Hurtado v. United States, 410 US 578 (1973) “It is not every act, legislative in form, that is law. Law is something more than mere will exerted as an act of power…Arbitrary power, enforcing its edicts to the injury of the party and property of its subjects is not law.
Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co.,111 US 746 ” Our rights cannot, by acts of Congress, be bartered away, given away or taken away.
Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 659-60. “Our system of government, based upon the individuality and intelligence of the Citizen, the state does not claim to control him, except as his conduct to others, leaving him the sole judge as to all that only affects himself.
TEREBESI v TORRESO, Decided: 2014) Docket No. 12-3867 Fed 2nd court of appeals; has ruled that government officials have qualified immunity against civil damages if their conduct does not violate someone’s legal or constitutional rights.
Vlandis v. Kline, 412 US 441 –The present case concerns the constitutional validity of this conclusive and unchangeable presumption.. irrefutable assumption was so arbitrary and unreasonable as to deprive due process of law, the Court stated that it had “held more than once that a statute creating a presumption which operates to deny a fair opportunity to rebut it violates due process
Brookfield Construction Co. v. Stewart, 284 F.Supp 94: “An officer who acts in violation of the Constitution ceases to represent the government.
State v. Mastrian, 171 N.W.2d 695 (1969); Butler v. State, 212 So.2d 577 (Miss 1968)
“Any arrest made without a warrant, if challenged by the defendant, is presumptively invalid…the burden is upon the state” to justify it as authorized by statute, and as not violative of constitutional provisions.
Rost v. Municipal Court of Southern Judicial District of San Mateo (1960)
The Legislature, either by amending or otherwise, may not nullify a constitutional provision
Owen v City, 445 U. S. 662; Bothke v Terry, 713 F2d 1404 “When enforcing mere statutes , judges of all courts do not act judicially” and thus are not protected by , qualified or limited immunity,