New gun law aimed at asserting sovereignty

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has signed into law a bill that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation, adding firepower to a battery of legislative efforts to assert states? rights across the nation.

?It?s a gun bill, but it?s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana,? Democrat Schweitzer said.

Since the law applies only to those guns that are made and kept in Montana, its impact is limited. The state is home to just a handful of specialty gun makers, known for recreating rifles used to settle the West, and most of their customers are out-of-state.

But supporters of the new law hope it triggers a court case testing the legal basis for federal rules governing gun sales.

?What we need here is for Montana to be able to handle Montana?s business and affairs,? bill sponsor Rep. Joel Boniek, a Republican and wilderness guide from Livingston, told fellow lawmakers during the bill?s House debate.

The measure is one of many introduced by state lawmakers across the nation seeking to confront what some see as a federal overreach into state matters that will be extended with the national stimulus plan.

 

Along with the gun bill, Montana legislators are considering a resolution that affirms the 10th Amendment principle that the federal government only has those powers that are specifically given to it by the U.S. Constitution.

?The whole goal is to awaken the people so that we can return to a properly grounded republic,? Rep. Michael More, R-Gallatin Gateway and the Montana resolution?s sponsor, said at a House committee hearing Wednesday.

As many as fifteen other Legislatures have also been mulling resolutions that buck federal control in states such as New Hampshire, South Carolina, Missouri and Oklahoma.

?The balance has swung far to the extreme to the empowerment of the federal government, and to the harm of the individual states,? More said.

Opponents of the state sovereignty bids, however, warn they could give legitimacy to the kind of anti-government ideas that fueled the militia movement in Montana and elsewhere.

?When you really actually get in and look at it there is a lot of what we feel is very dangerous, very anti-government language that reads very similar to posters for the militia movement in the 1990s,? said Travis McAdam, the interim director of the Montana Human Rights Network, a group

 

I'm not surprised that you resort to a personal attack on me when your argument comes under pressure, after you were previously willing to pursue me to the end of the earth when you thought you had the upper hand.. It only reflects poorly on you, not me.

As for my supposed failure to read your posts and efforts to take your comments out of context, here is one of your comments from earlier in this thread.

No personal attack here. Just stating of fact. You have consistently taken comments out of context, and even pulled them from other threads, in order to keep your leaky logic afloat. Clearly you have been unable to support your view on the data. That is trollish behavior. Stick to the facts and live with the consequences of your actions.

"The religion of Gun Control is unmasked...   4/9/2009 11:02:47 AM

We have a natural right of self defense and gun control laws destroy that right. Where draconian gun control laws have been instituted, places like Australia, UK and the US, gun crimes and violent crimes of all types went up. Dramatically. Gun control causes crime is a very bad idea."



Those are your words which justified the right to gun ownership and you made no exception for assault weapons. Now you say:

 

Here the the US we have experimented with limiting ownership of "assault rifles" and guess what we found? No effect on crime.

 

That clearly de-links the right to own an assault weapon (as opposed to other type of weapon)  fromyour claims of the deterrent effect of guns on crime and from the right to self defence, irrespective of your claims that it takes your argument out of context.

 ???. You have walked off the deep end here (or you simply mis-understood the statement). Clearly it de-links nothing. It is a statement of fact that when the US increased the regulation of "assault rifles". When we assigned import restrictions, when we outlawed high capacity magazines, when we regulated the domestic manufacturing and distribution of these weapons, the net result was that crimes did not go down. That is perfectly consistent with the results we saw in the UK and Asutralia (data and links already provided. Indeed you have conceded already). The restrictions did not prevent crimes. Therefore their desired result was a restriction of personal freedoms with no benefit to society. You either take my words out of context or you are completely ignorant of what your own argument is. (actually you are a troll seeking some soggy footing for your case which you have vailed miserably to prove)

As for the question on mortars in response to your comment which you didn't answer, I will answer it for you. You don't believe that people should own mortars because you don't believe that the right to ownership is worth the potential loss of life that could result. That is despite the fact that you have no proof that mortar ownership would lead to an increase in the numbers of homocide and you don't have any proof that it would lead to more deaths than any other of the dangerous items that you describe. You are making EXACTLY the same type of value judgement that I am making with military style small arms, just with a different class of weapon.

 Again, no where on these four threads we have debated this topic here have I said that Gov'ts have no interest in regulation of weapons, simply that the more regulation there is the less safe the society. The farther that gov't restricts personal freedoms in this area the worse the results for that society. Further that the fanatic religious alter that gun control advocates worship at is a false idol. It causes deaths, homicides, crimes, and victims. The broad abolition of firearms has never, NEVER, resulted in fewer crimes, h

not to mention the fact that the US is far more heavily populated than Australia.

 

People with guns kill other people easier, quicker and in larger numbers than with other weapons.