HayesGreener
Hellcat
EDITORIAL MUSINGS. With all the gun control talk swirling around us over the past couple of years, I have found myself spending a lot of time contemplating what gun control advocates might ACTUALLY be able to accomplish in the current political environment. I don't have a crystal ball, but I do have a pretty good understanding of the Constitutional issues where anti-gun legislation is concerned. Legislators may have grand aspirations for making certain guns illegal and even confiscation, but what they can actually get done will fall short of their goals. They will be in a hurry to get something done, because they will only have both houses for another 20 months. And then there was Obama's assessment of Biden, "Never underestimate Joe's ability to fu2k things up".
The strongest lever the liberals have for gun control involves interstate commerce, importation, sale, and manufacturing activities, where Federal law trumps state and local laws. Basically if it crosses our borders or across state lines, they can control it.
As far as confiscation is concerned, there are 4th, 5th, 10th, and 14th Amendment issues to confiscation that will not pass Constitutional challenge. The individual states have a big say in all of this as well. The storm troopers are not going to kick in your door in the middle of the night to seize your legally owned AR, even if they could find law enforcement officers to carry it out. Most states will refuse to comply, and in my estimation most officers will refuse to carry it out. If you read Feinstein's 2021 assault weapons ban bill that was introduced, they seem to acknowledge this by "grandfathering" guns and magazines that were legally owned before the ban takes effect, but as I read it, would not allow them to be transferred. This might be a hint to legally transfer those items to your heirs before any such legislation is signed into law, perhaps something to be discussed by our great legal minds.
The practical aspect of confiscation relates to the enormity of the task. People talking about seizing, or buying back semi-automatic weapons obviously cannot grasp the logistics of collecting the many millions of such weapons in the lawful possession of Americans, even if the people who possess them were to voluntarily surrender them. There is also a real possibility of armed resistance to such an effort. As Charles Krauthammer once said, if you try to confiscate the guns "there will be an insurrection".
We can quote the line "shall not be infringed" from here to eternity, but the reality is, the USSC has allowed for some control of guns in the past and will probably do so in the future. It is our task to hold the line as best we can, and use the courts and political process to push back.
My best guess is, if anything can pass Congress and be signed by OBiden, it will be enhanced background checks with its exemptions, and possibly Feinstein's Assault Weapons Ban, but it is still a steep hill for them to climb due to the current makeup of Congress. We can stay active and vigilant, and see what develops. Whatever passes must then pass muster from the inevitable challenges before a conservative U.S. Supreme Court.
The strongest lever the liberals have for gun control involves interstate commerce, importation, sale, and manufacturing activities, where Federal law trumps state and local laws. Basically if it crosses our borders or across state lines, they can control it.
As far as confiscation is concerned, there are 4th, 5th, 10th, and 14th Amendment issues to confiscation that will not pass Constitutional challenge. The individual states have a big say in all of this as well. The storm troopers are not going to kick in your door in the middle of the night to seize your legally owned AR, even if they could find law enforcement officers to carry it out. Most states will refuse to comply, and in my estimation most officers will refuse to carry it out. If you read Feinstein's 2021 assault weapons ban bill that was introduced, they seem to acknowledge this by "grandfathering" guns and magazines that were legally owned before the ban takes effect, but as I read it, would not allow them to be transferred. This might be a hint to legally transfer those items to your heirs before any such legislation is signed into law, perhaps something to be discussed by our great legal minds.
The practical aspect of confiscation relates to the enormity of the task. People talking about seizing, or buying back semi-automatic weapons obviously cannot grasp the logistics of collecting the many millions of such weapons in the lawful possession of Americans, even if the people who possess them were to voluntarily surrender them. There is also a real possibility of armed resistance to such an effort. As Charles Krauthammer once said, if you try to confiscate the guns "there will be an insurrection".
We can quote the line "shall not be infringed" from here to eternity, but the reality is, the USSC has allowed for some control of guns in the past and will probably do so in the future. It is our task to hold the line as best we can, and use the courts and political process to push back.
My best guess is, if anything can pass Congress and be signed by OBiden, it will be enhanced background checks with its exemptions, and possibly Feinstein's Assault Weapons Ban, but it is still a steep hill for them to climb due to the current makeup of Congress. We can stay active and vigilant, and see what develops. Whatever passes must then pass muster from the inevitable challenges before a conservative U.S. Supreme Court.