Gungnir said:
fiddletown said:
And exactly when did any court, let alone SCOTUS, hold that the provisions of the GCA barring convicted felons from owning guns is unconstitutional?
And when did any court let alone SCOTUS, hold that handgun bans were unconstitutional prior to Heller?
Yet we agree they are... we agreed they were prior to the decision too.
I would dispute your use of "agree" in that context as being imprecise.
Certainly I expected that ultimately we'd get a Supreme Court decision holding that the 2nd Amendment described an individual right. I hoped for that result and contributed money to try to bring it about. And I paid attention to the growing legal scholarship supporting that result. So before
Heller I would have expressed the view that the Supreme Court should find the District of Columbia handgun ban to be unconstitutional. But until it did, the constitutionality of that law remained an open question.
What does it even mean to say that "we agree" that this law or that law is unconstitutional? That's not our decision. While we are entitled to have an opinion, that doesn't make our opinion mean anything. Our opinion of whether a particular law is constitutional in fact is meaningless in the real world. It's the opinion of a court that will affect the lives and property of real people in real life, not ours.
So if it pleases you to believe that a certain law is unconstitutional, go ahead, but that doesn't mean anything in real life -- at least until a court says so. And unless and until a court agrees with you, no doubt people will be going to prison notwithstanding your belief in the unconstitutionality of the law.
fireside44 said:
Gungnir said:
And when did any court let alone SCOTUS, hold that handgun bans were unconstitutional prior to Heller?
Yet we agree they are... we agreed they were prior to the decision too.
Well said.
But meaningless, see above.
divemedic said:
Some Florida felonies:
Stick a coke can into the open port of a fire hydrant: felony 806.10
A guy that is camping, plays with the campfire. He sets an unoccupied tent on fire. felony. 806.01(2)
A teen plays with and discharges a fire extinguisher from the hallway of an apartment complex. felony. 812.014(c)
You are sitting in the parking lot of a Crispers restaurant after they are closed, and you use your smart phone to access the internet via the WiFi connection. You are now a felon. 815.06(1)
Bigamy is a felony. 826.01 So is incest. 826.04
Tripping a horse is a felony. 828.12
If you leave your wife, you have deserted her, and are now a felon. 856.04
Are you a member of the Communist party? Do you advocate civil disobedience? Good chance you are a felon. 876.02
There are others, and I guess people who do any of these things deserve to pay for the rest of their lives.
[1] You have not accurately described these felonious acts. You have misrepresented them to minimize their seriousness. For example, section 806.10 is not about some prank of sticking a can in an open port of a fire hydrant. The statute, itself, reads:
"Any person who willfully and maliciously injures, destroys, removes, or in any manner interferes with the use of, any vehicles, tools, equipment, water supplies, hydrants, towers, buildings, communication facilities, or other instruments or facilities used in the detection, reporting, suppression, or extinguishment of fire shall be guilty of a felony of the third degree..." (806.10 (1))
First, the conduct must be willful and malicious. Second, the conduct could impair firefighters in their job of fighting a fire, potentially resulting in the injury or death of persons and/or the destruction of property. Do you really think it's cool to put a fire hydrant out of commission, even temporarily?
For another example, 812.014 isn't just about pranks with a fire extinguisher. It deals with theft generally. Under that statute, stealing a fire extinguisher, among other things, is a felony. Do you think it's cool to steal a fire extinguisher? What if there's a fire and the fire extinguisher isn't there because someone stole it?
Now 806.01 isn't about accidentally setting your tent on fire. It's about arson, and it's only a felony if willful:
"(1) Any person who willfully and unlawfully, or while in the commission of any felony, by fire or explosion, damages or causes to be damaged:
(a) Any dwelling, whether occupied or not, or its contents;
...
(2) Any person who willfully and unlawfully, or while in the commission of any felony, by fire or explosion, damages or causes to be damaged any structure, whether the property of himself or herself or another, under any circumstances not referred to in subsection (1),..."(806.01)
Are you a fan of arson?
Oh, and tripping a horse could result in the death of the horse or its serious injury. How cool is that? (The statute, 828.12, is entitled "Cruelty to Animals." And there are a number of exceptions, like when you're trying to control a horse that poses a threat.)
[2] What the criminals who commit these acts deserve is decided by the representatives elected by the body politic -- subject to the political and law making process.
[3] The vast majority of people manage to get through their lives without doing any of those things.
