VA Dems Drop AR-15 Confiscation After 1000s of NRA Members Show

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Sure, but that's not the kind of "confiscation" we're talking about. We're talking about the seizing of guns that were previously legal and are being made illegal. In a scenario like that, there is time for the owners to remove them from the state. The point being that this is not a constitutional "taking" issue.

IMHO, it is. I understand some people believe the 2A applies to the federal government, not state; that it hasn't been incorporated into the 14th amendment. I disagree. "Keep and bear"-- "keep" means "to maintain possession of." I think it is really pretty straightforward, despite whatspecious, convoluted excuses politicians and lawyers concoct.
"Remove them from the state" .... sure, if it's convenient, affordable, and do-able.
And the adjoining states don't start doing the same thing.
 
Sure, but that's not the kind of "confiscation" we're talking about. We're talking about the seizing of guns that were previously legal and are being made illegal. In a scenario like that, there is time for the owners to remove them from the state. The point being that this is not a constitutional "taking" issue.

Not sure that it cannot be regarded as a taking, See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission and the total takings analysis. Essentially, that dealt with real property that became effectively worthless after the action by the state's regulatory agency. SC claimed that it was not a taking, Sup. Ct. disagreed.

Arguably, VA's action effectively makes the firearms worthless for ordinary use, especially if someone does not have people outside of VA to give them to. No one has really made the effort to build up a legal challenge that extends the total takings analysis to non-real property. In the end, if one has to sell/give/remove property from a state, it more or less effectively terminates someone's property interest, whether the property is "real" or not.

I'll have to bone up on the takings clause jurisprudence as it has been awhile.
 
Moving the gun to another state. So what - it's a loss. Let's say they ban dirty pictures again (clearly a 1st Amend. violation). So you drive your stash of dirty pictures to another state's storage locker. Not going to get any enjoyment out of them, now are you?

Unless, in some dream like future, Congress or SCOTUS negates the basic principle of banning common usage weapons which need to be clearly defined as including the military style semiautos or modern sporting rifles (blah), state bans will continue and resistance is futile in the sense that the guns are useless unless used illegally.
 
IMHO, it is. I understand some people believe the 2A applies to the federal government, not state; that it hasn't been incorporated into the 14th amendment. I disagree. "Keep and bear"-- "keep" means "to maintain possession of." I think it is really pretty straightforward, despite whatspecious, convoluted excuses politicians and lawyers concoct.
"Remove them from the state" .... sure, if it's convenient, affordable, and do-able.
And the adjoining states don't start doing the same thing.

That ship has sailed. After MacDonald, someone arguing that the 2A does not apply to the states is ignoring the "Law of the Land" so to speak.

In real terms, there was considerable debate in Congress over the extension of the 2A and firearm rights in the 14th. In part, Taney's Dred Scott decision rested its argument that blacks could not be citizens of the U.S. because states specifically had prohibited many blacks from owning firearms prior to the Civil War. The 13th and 14th amendments were specifically drafted to overrule Dred Scott by amendment and part of that was to guarantee states could not have firearm laws that prohibited blacks from owning firearms. Since the equal protection clause has been extended to other groups, it is this principle that has led to states opening up firearm ownership to legal residents via court action (not illegal immigrants, at least not yet.)
 
Moving the gun to another state. So what - it's a loss. Let's say they ban dirty pictures again (clearly a 1st Amend. violation). So you drive your stash of dirty pictures to another state's storage locker. Not going to get any enjoyment out of them, now are you?

Unless, in some dream like future, Congress or SCOTUS negates the basic principle of banning common usage weapons which need to be clearly defined as including the military style semiautos or modern sporting rifles (blah), state bans will continue and resistance is futile in the sense that the guns are useless unless used illegally.

GEM. As far as dirty pictures, that has already been litigated. See Stanley v. Georgia, the mere possession of dirty pictures in Stanley's home despite state laws against it was held to be lawful under a right of privacy.
 
That ship has sailed. After MacDonald, someone arguing that the 2A does not apply to the states is ignoring the "Law of the Land" so to speak. ......

Philosophically I have always been troubled by the idea that the 2A prevents federal intrusions (theoretically :evil:) but did not apply to the states. Either one has inalienable rights .... or not. In extremis, ALL states could ban guns and thus nullify the Constitutional protection afforded by the 2A.
Glad to see the matter seems settled.
 
Dirty picture - it was a hypothetical comparison, not a real concern. My point was that moving an item to storage in another state, sounds like you are resisting in a meaningful manner. However, you are not unless, you see the laws changing in your favor or retrieving then to use them in an illegal manner in your state.
 
Philosophically I have always been troubled by the idea that the 2A prevents federal intrusions (theoretically :evil:) but did not apply to the states. Either one has inalienable rights .... or not. In extremis, ALL states could ban guns and thus nullify the Constitutional protection afforded by the 2A.
Glad to see the matter seems settled.

Under Barron v Baltimore in 1836, scotus ruled the bill of rights did not apply to states. However, this understanding was changed by the 13th to 15th amendments post civil war. Barron is no longer good law as a result. The whole silly incorporation doctrine has been caused in the first place by lousy scotus decisions regarding the privileges and immunities clause. Scotus decided to use the due process clause as the way to extend bill of rights protections against the states using the doctrine of fundamental freedoms.
 
It is all too typical to blame someone else for our failures.

The current situation in Virginia is not the NRA’s fault. It is a huge failure on the part of gun owners to support pro-gun candidates by not getting out to vote. Now with the clear and present danger of restrictive gun laws being passed in Virginia WLP and the NRA are still being blamed for what gun owners in Virginia have failed to do for many years.

While members on THR continue to cheer the demise of the NRA even as the events in Virginia unfolds. The simple and harsh truth is gun owners in Virginia have got the Government they deserve when they stayed home on Election Day.
However unpleasant it might be consider, Virginia gun-owners may not have stayed home on Election Day – they were simply out-voted.

And that’s the difficult task at hand: to expand the issue beyond gun-ownership; to put the issue in the context of opposing firearm regulatory measures as to also oppose increasing the authority of the state at the expense of individual liberty – where whether one owns a gun or not is irrelevant to his opposition to AWBs and magazine capacity restrictions.

VA Dems Drop AR-15 Confiscation

This only makes the task that much more difficult – we must be honest and truthful in our opposition to AWBs and similar legislation; there was no provision in the proposed law to authorize ‘confiscation’ of AR 15s.
 
My point was that moving an item to storage in another state, sounds like you are resisting in a meaningful manner. However, you are not unless, you see the laws changing in your favor or retrieving then to use them in an illegal manner in your state.
I certainly don't want to move my guns to another state. But the mere possibility that I could do so negates my claim against the state of Virginia that its (potential) prohibition amounts to a "taking" for which I should be compensated. (We're talking about the 5th Amendment compensation issue, not the 2nd Amendment issue.) This is how all the states with AWBs have avoided compensating their residents. They just say, "OK, take your guns elsewhere." Eventually, we're going to run out of places to take them.
 
there was no provision in the proposed law to authorize ‘confiscation’ of AR 15s.
That is correct, and is why I objected to the word "confiscation" in the title to this thread. What the proposed AWB laws would do is simply turn the unregistered / unremoved guns into contraband, the same as was done on the federal level with bump stocks. There would be no formal program to "confiscate" the guns, but if they turned up as contraband, they would be seized as such.
 
It is all too typical to blame someone else for our failures.

The current situation in Virginia is not the NRA’s fault. It is a huge failure on the part of gun owners to support pro-gun candidates by not getting out to vote. Now with the clear and present danger of restrictive gun laws being passed in Virginia WLP and the NRA are still being blamed for what gun owners in Virginia have failed to do for many years.

While members on THR continue to cheer the demise of the NRA even as the events in Virginia unfolds. The simple and harsh truth is gun owners in Virginia have got the Government they deserve when they stayed home on Election Day.

Same thing happened here in WA and I'm afraid you hit the nail squarely on the head. Lots of people here, including me, blamed the NRA for lack of support because it was pretty much non existent, but that was wrong. The NRA didn't sink WA gun owners, they sunk themselves. True, the NRA left the field in the heat of battle here but they don't vote in our elections, gun owners do and they stayed home. Hiring someone to defend your rights is a lazy man's game. Sometimes you just have to organize, communicate with your reps, get off the couch and go vote. PAC's are just going to take your money and in the NRA's case, spend it like they stole it.
 
There is a saying that “All politics are local” meaning that Legislators ultimately have to face the people they are elected to represent.

I submit for Virginia gun owners a far more effective tactic will be meeting face to face either one on one or a in a small group starting the day after the protest. Meeting with their Representative in their Capital Office is important but a even better tactic will be to attend town hall meetings, speaking engagements such as at Churches and local meetings where your Representative will be present. Put him / her on record by asking polite, point blank questions. These type of meetings are likely to get local News coverage.

Keep the pressure up. Use Campaign Laws to get a list of their donors. Try contacting their donors and ask them why they support anti-gun legislators.

If this sound familiar it is the exact same tactics our enemies are using successfully.
 
Sure, but that's not the kind of "confiscation" we're talking about. We're talking about the seizing of guns that were previously legal and are being made illegal. In a scenario like that, there is time for the owners to remove them from the state. The point being that this is not a constitutional "taking" issue.
I certainly don't want to move my guns to another state. But the mere possibility that I could do so negates my claim against the state of Virginia that its (potential) prohibition amounts to a "taking" for which I should be compensated. (We're talking about the 5th Amendment compensation issue, not the 2nd Amendment issue.) This is how all the states with AWBs have avoided compensating their residents. They just say, "OK, take your guns elsewhere." Eventually, we're going to run out of places to take them.
I'm not so sure it's not a taking, in constitutional sense. The gov't doesn't have to physically or legally take property for a taking to occur, if memory serves. The fact that you would have to move your stuff to another state effectively deprives you of any use of that stuff, and might affect its value pretty dramatically (and not in a good way). I'm thinking that might qualify as a regulatory taking. AFAIK, that doctrine has always been used in dealing with real property, but I know of no legal reason it couldn't be applied to personal property.
 
I'm not so sure it's not a taking, in constitutional sense. The gov't doesn't have to physically or legally take property for a taking to occur, if memory serves. The fact that you would have to move your stuff to another state effectively deprives you of any use of that stuff, and might affect its value pretty dramatically (and not in a good way). I'm thinking that might qualify as a regulatory taking. AFAIK, that doctrine has always been used in dealing with real property, but I know of no legal reason it couldn't be applied to personal property.
You may be right, but that would be a hard case to litigate.
 
You may be right, but that would be a hard case to litigate.
Probably so, but not impossible. Besides, if you have to move your guns out of state, it's at least arguable that you have to transfer them to someone else via an FFL, unless you own a second home out of state where you can store them. So there's a transfer fee, and you've had to sell your property (at best) or give it away (at worst). It wouldn't be an easy case, but the right plaintiff & lawyer might make it.
 
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