Coming to a head. The people will only tolerate so much before they break.
We know how President Lincoln handled this.
Second Amendment an individual right
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide D.C. v. Heller, the first case in more than 60 years in which the court will confront the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although Heller is about the constitutionality of the D.C. handgun ban, the court’s decision will have an impact far beyond the District (“Promises breached,” Op-Ed, Thursday).
The court must decide in Heller whether the Second Amendment secures a right for individuals to keep and bear arms or merely grants states the power to arm their militias, the National Guard. This latter view is called the “collective rights” theory.
A collective rights decision by the court would violate the contract by which Montana entered into statehood, called the Compact With the United States and archived at Article I of the Montana Constitution. When Montana and the United States entered into this bilateral contract in 1889, the U.S. approved the right to bear arms in the Montana Constitution, guaranteeing the right of “any person” to bear arms, clearly an individual right.
There was no assertion in 1889 that the Second Amendment was susceptible to a collective rights interpretation, and the parties to the contract understood the Second Amendment to be consistent with the declared Montana constitutional right of “any person” to bear arms.
As a bedrock principle of law, a contract must be honored so as to give effect to the intent of the contracting parties. A collective rights decision by the court in Heller would invoke an era of unilaterally revisable contracts by violating the statehood contract between the United States and Montana, and many other states.
Numerous Montana lawmakers have concurred in a resolution raising this contract-violation issue. It’s posted at progunleaders.org. The United States would do well to keep its contractual promise to the states that the Second Amendment secures an individual right now as it did upon execution of the statehood contract.
Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.
Arizona
Article 2 Section 26 - Bearing arms
Section 26. The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the state shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain, or employ an armed body of men.
A gigantic push back at the state level, based on the above argument, would be so great that my pessimistic butt is automatically doubtful. Obviously, the coastal regions would not fight very hard, but if enough states got on board and protested they might force a politcs driven solution in an issue already poisoned by politics anyway.
it also brings an old argument back to the fore, namely when you set a precedent for eliminating constitutional law, federal or state, where does it end? What happens when free speech or search warrants become politically incorrect?
I hope the states take this ball into the endzone.
a buddy of mine was talking the other day about how he would love to move to Montana. I told him it was too cold. But I am thinking now that I could deal with the weather.
There is a huge difference between what a State puts in its own State Constitution (which is in no way binding upon the U.S. government), and a formal diplomatic agreement such as the Compact involved in the instant case (Montana).
State Constitutions have no controlling status in cases of federal law or interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. However, foreign treaties (which would presumably include a Compact to become a State, though I haven’t researched that point) are specifically defined in the Constitution (Art VI, Clause 2) as controlling:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The country could break apart into constitutional states vs welfare states. I believe it already is with people choosing sides by leaving welfare states to go to states that support constituional rights to a much higher degree, with smaller governments and tax burdens. I’m seriously considering 3 state lines that are 30 minutes away, where two of them have much smaller tax burdens and all of them hold the 2nd ammendment in higher regard.
That’s the point though in this case. If States joined the union under specific conditions, and now the terms are breached by the USA, the states have every right to revert to local law and disregard Federal law. This cant even be classified as sedition.
However, as I’ve already said, we know how Lincoln dealt with a fracturing union
All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the right to keep and bear arms for security or defense of self, family, home, and others, and for lawful common defense, hunting, recreational use, and all other lawful purposes, and such rights shall not be denied or infringed by the state or any subdivision thereof. To secure these rights, and the protection of property, governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That’s Nebraska’s “statement of rights”.
Seriously, if any state seceded for the sake of preserving our constitutional rights, I’d move there. Montana isn’t that far away either. I’d love to see the states deny the powers of federal law enforcement.
I’d like to see the FBI still enforce interstate issues, but agencies like the DEA and ATF simply shouldn’t exist. Not that I think everyone should be allowed to smoke crack and play with explosives, I just think those are issues to be handled by local entities, or the FBI should the issue span more than one state.
The important point is that just because a state has an RKBA clause in its State Constitution does not bind the U.S. Government. Now, if a bunch of states can point to similar clauses in their admission compacts, etc., then it certainly raises an interesting point. So far, I’ve only seen Montana claim there was such an agreement as part of its admission to statehood.
Something tells me that our current and matured government would handle states seceding over broken constitutional laws a little differently than the 1800’s government handled an issue like slavery.
If America attacked one of it’s own states for nothing but secession, it would be considered genocide. Besides, the Confederacy brutally attacked the Union first.
Word! I lived in Tuscumbia and graduated Muscle Shoals high, no less.
I doubt very seriously that this will become a secession issue. Realistically, we need to see some serious dissent and solidarity between states that respect freedom. Hopefully, the big brains at the NRA will be working out some legal angle along these lines.
No other states are mentioned by name in the Amicus brief essay. There are still some strong points though
Militia Act of 1903 was the beginning of the National Guard and directed the federalization of the National Guard. “The National Defense Act of 1916 … transformed the militia from individual state forces into a Reserve Component of the U.S. Army - and made the term “National Guard” mandatory”.[16] Since the National Guard was not invented or authorized until after 1900, there could have been no understanding in 1889 that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to authorize the states to arm the National Guard.
