Federal Firearm Laws vs. Natural Law & 10th Amendment
Explore how federal firearm laws may conflict with natural law principles and the 10th Amendment, highlighting the ongoing debate surrounding gun rights and individual freedoms. Understand the implications for legal interpretations and personal liberties in the context of firearm regulations.
After the Uvalde massacre a spate of new gun legislation (confiscation) is being discussed in the House of Representatives, the mainstream news, and among the hysterical liberals.
One thing that isn't being discussed is the fact the federal government has no jurisdiction to enact any gun regulation or ban within the 50 states. They are sovereign entities and this was pointedly stated in the ignored 10th Amendment to the Constitution:
In his Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank - Feb 15, 1791 and 10 months to the day before ratification of the Bill of Rights - Thomas Jefferson made clear that he considered the foundation of the Constitution to be the 10th Amendment--i.e., that "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.
The government relies on a perverted application of the Interstate Commerce Clause to nullify the 10th Amendment under the guise or regulating commerce.
“When Congress today wants to regulate something not authorized by the Constitution, it bows to the doctrine of enumerated powers by claiming that the thing it is regulating ‘affects’ commerce.
—Roger Pilon, “Restoring Constitutional Government”
The Interstate Commerce Scam
Although the courts have interpreted away the Second Amendment, and effectively all the others, the fact remains that the federal government has no authority to enforce its unconstitutional firearms laws within the states. This is because, unlike States, the federal government has only those powers that were delegated to it by the people—and specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
This limitation on federal power is set forth in the Constitution, immediately after the preamble, under Article I, Section One:
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be invested in a Congress...” (emphasis added).
This phrase was still not enough for the Ratifying States; they demanded a Tenth Amendment to make this limitation of power perfectly clear:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
At no time has even the Supreme Court disputed that the Constitution created a federal government with strictly limited powers: See Chisholm v. Georgia, 1 L. Ed. 440 (1793) (“Each State in the Union is sovereign as to all powers reserved. It must necessarily be so because the United States have no claim to authority but such as the States have surrendered to them.”); New York v. United States, 120 L.Ed. 2d 120 (1992).
(“[N]o one disputes the proposition that ‘[t]he Constitution created a Federal government of limited powers.’”) (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457 (1991)).
Most of the powers that were delegated to the federal government are enumerated in clauses under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Even the power “[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers” that were delegated must be enumerated.
Unfortunately, as the anti-Federalists predicted, today there is almost no aspect of one’s personal behavior or business activities that the federal government doesn’t regulate, criminalize, or surreptitiously monitor. It’s impossible to square this fact with the concept of limited federal powers.
So how does the federal government claim to have these non-delegated powers? In the case of firearms and most of the criminal laws, including drug possession, the Supreme Court simply crafted an expansive and deliberate misinterpretation of the delegated power to regulate interstate commerce (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution).
Under their treasonous interpretation, any activity which the government wants to regulate or criminalize doesn’t even have to be a “commercial” activity, nor does the activity have to be “interstate.” The Supreme Court has determined that Congress can regulate anything that may affect interstate commerce—including personal behavior occurring wholly within a State!
By 1995, this perversion of the Constitution was becoming much too transparent for even the easily duped masses. Accordingly, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case of United States v. Lopez, 131 L. Ed. 2d 626 (1995) to “update” their excuses for 60-years of unconstitutional Interstate Commerce Clause jurisprudence. The Lopez case dealt with a federal law called the Gun-Free School Zones Act in 1990 that prohibited possession of a firearm within 1000 feet of a school.
To appear reasonable, by slightly limiting the expanded commerce clause, they struck down the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act. Their ruling was that firearms possession within 1000 feet of a school did not “substantially” affect interstate commerce.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out that the Constitution never delegated the power to regulate any activity within the States, regardless of its effects on interstate commerce —substantial or otherwise—pursuant to the interstate commerce clause:
“While the principal dissent concedes that there are limits to federal power, the sweeping nature of our current [substantial effects] test enables the dissent to argue that Congress can regulate gun possession. But it seems to me that the power to regulate “commerce” can by no means encompass authority over mere gun possession, any more than it empowers the Federal Government to regulate marriage, littering, or cruelty to animals throughout the 50 States. Our Constitution quite properly leaves such matters to the individual States, notwithstanding these activities’ effects on interstate commerce...
“After all, if Congress may regulate all matters that substantially affect commerce, there is no need for the Constitution to specify that Congress may enact bankruptcy laws, cl. 4, or coin money and fix the standard of weights and measures, cl. 5, or punish counterfeiters of United States coin and Securities, cl. 6...
“Put simply, much if not all of Art. I, §8 (including portions of the Commerce Clause itself) would be surplusage if Congress had been given authority over matters that substantially affect interstate commerce. An interpretation of that makes the rest of §8 superfluous simply cannot be correct. Yet this Court’s commerce clause jurisprudence has endorsed just such an interpretation: the power that we have accorded Congress has swallowed Art. I, §8.”
Every president, congressman, judge, prosecutor and federal agent commits a felony when they conspire to deny anyone their natural rights to personal self-defense and collective defense against a tyrannical government.
This right does NOT come from the Constitution. It is implicit in the right to life which stands above every law that interferes with this right.
As I wrote in my book, Ban Assault Bananas, the most fundamental of all rights is the right to life and this right does not come from the Second Amendment nor depend on it. The right to life is meaningless without the ability to protect your life. It is likewise a violation to restrict that right in any manner—whether with waiting periods, licensing fees, or restrictions on your ability to defend yourself. This includes bans on magazine capacity and weapons of any kind that might be necessary to defend yourself against those who would take your life or your freedom.
Unfortunately, government officials and their supporters believe the right to life is a mere “privilege” to be licensed, restricted, limited, or denied as they see fit. To put this in perspective, imagine picking up a newspaper and reading the following headline:
ACT OF CONGRESS MAKES
RIGHT TO LIFE A PRIVILEGE.
States to issue permits.
Most Americans would be shocked to read such a headline, yet it's exactly what has already happened. It just wasn’t published in the mainstream media.
Firearm restrictions, licenses, and various permits seditiously convert a right into a privilege. A license grants you “immunity” from prosecution for committing what would otherwise be a crime or other violation of law.
Violent vs. Non-Violent
I mentioned earlier that the government has no lawful or moral right to criminalize possession of firearms by felons and other categories of prohibited persons. In regards to felons, most offenders are non-violent. Should a person be denied the right to protect himself and his family because he underreported a few dollars on his taxes? If a person is violent, they should stay locked up in prison. But the problem is that the government continues to classify many non-violent crimes as “violent.” There is no end to their trickery.
The government wants you to be afraid of gun violence so that you will accept more gun control laws. But this does not mean the government is interested in protecting you from violent crimes.
What you may know is that some of the most violent criminals are those from third-world countries. What you probably don’t know, however, is that even those who’ve committed the most heinous crimes imaginable are not classified as criminals or felons in this country. This is because the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that federal prohibitions against felons purchasing firearms do not apply to crimes committed in other countries—no matter how grisly. See Small v. United States, 545 U.S. 385 (2005). Does the ban on felons possessing firearms mean anything?
If it still isn’t clear to you that the political agenda isn’t to protect you, but to disarm you, a real-life example might convince you.
On June 15, 2001 a cab driver named John Lutters was stabbed in the neck by a passenger with a pair of scissors—a deadly weapon not subject to a Brady Bill check. Lutters managed to get a wrist lock on the attacker, Travis Hazelwood. Just as the passenger was about to stab him again, Lutters grabbed his own handgun and killed Hazelwood. Still hemorrhaging from the neck wound, Lutters managed to drive himself to the hospital and survived the ordeal.
The shooting was ruled to be self-defense, but this didn’t mean that Lutter’s legal problems were over. A prosecutor named Jack Doyle brought felony charges against John Lutter for not having a “permit” to carry a gun in his cab. Under Connecticut law no permit was required to keep a handgun “within the dwelling house or place of business of such person.” Lutter's place of business was his cab; and in 2002, Superior Court Judge Lubble Harper, Jr. dismissed the permit charge against Lutters.
But this didn’t stop prosecutor Doyle. He appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, arguing that a cab is not a “place of business.” Doyle won and Lutters lost. Never mind that the law doesn’t say that a place of business must be a fixed location: the majority of judges “interpreted” the law that way. Acting unlawfully as legislators, they effectively rewrote the law.
After years of fighting the corrupt court system, Lutters no longer feels safe driving a cab. You see, he's now a “convicted felon” and is barred from possessing a firearm—this time even in his dwelling place. Is Lutters a violent criminal who should be deprived of his right to self-defense?
Governments never admit they intend to limit or completely deny your right to self-preservation; instead, they intend to deprive you of the means to protect your life. After all, they have their gated communities and armed security teams to protect themselves, all paid for by taxpayers they scheme to disarm.
“The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
- HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, quoted in Blackstone’s 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England.
