[COMPLETE] Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1981

[Zar]

I believe your criticisms are flawed, Senator Brewer.

First of all, this bill has no effect on any state gun laws, nor does it make it any more difficult for them to regulate them. Let us say that a state has a law banning a certain type of firearm, and a citizen from a different state is passing through this state If a citizen follows the law, and keeps their firearms unloaded or locked, and is clearly passing through a state, then it is quite obvious there is no ill-intent from this citizen. If a citizen does not lock or unload their firearm, stays in the state an extended period of time, or uses the banned firearm in this state, then it is clear that this citizen has not followed the law. To say that both of these cases are similar enough to invalidate the gun laws is absurd.

Second of all, my "triade" was not against state governments, but against your apparent misunderstanding of what the Constitution guarentees citizens, and the whole idea of inalienable rights. Any law that violates these rights is unconstitutional, no matter what.

These sections are indeed "matter of commerce," for it concerns the interchange of goods from one area to another. You are also missing the point whole point of the bill by saying that a judge's discretion can be used when dealing with cases of unintentional law breaking, a citizen should not be punished at all if they "crime" they did was unintentional, technical, and victimless.

I must mention that I find it humorous that you are accusing me of being "demagogic" for protecting an individual's personal freedoms, when your party has tried, and failed, to mobilize the American people against an apparently invisible right wing conspiracy by spreading lies and supressing the free press.

Going back on topic, both Civil Rights and the Second Amendment go hand in hand. The Civil Rights battle required the Commerce in the very same way this bill requires the clause.

The Socialist party clearly does not care about empowering the diverse communities of the MSA if they continue to deny people the means to protect themselves from the increasing amount criminals that they failed to deal with during their catastrophic administration. So far, the Socialist party has shown more empathy towards buffalo and crack addicts than towards hard working people that have to protect themselves.

[BgKnight]

4 Republican Moderate votes IN FAVOR of the proposed amendment.

[Zar]

The amended Firarm Owners Protection Act has passed the Senate, and is now waiting in the House.

[OYID]

Thank you, Senator Brewer. We'll take it from here.

First we congratulate the Senator from Oklahoma for managing to bring down the rhetoric surrounding this bill somewhat, as it's hard to have a serious discussion about gun control when the other side keeps screaming about abstract concepts.

Looking at Republican arguments as they stand, they hold that Sections III and IIIa deal with commerce because "it concerns the interchange of goods from one area to another." Yet moving one's own personal property from one state to another without any intent of selling it there can hardly be considered commerce, can it? Commerce would be moving with intent to sell, which, again, makes said Clause pertinent for Sections I and II of the proposed bill. The reason why the Commerce Clause was relevant during the fight for Civil Rights was because it was interpreted to ban businesses from refusing to deal with individuals based on their race, because businesses are commerce, they involve economic transactions. Again, if a citizen moves a piece of his personal property into a state with no intention to sell it there, then clearly he's not engaging in commerce.

Regarding the first example given by Senator Rice, it is indifferent whether she wishes to argue that the hypothetical citizen "has no ill intent". The fact of the matter is that by bringing a gun into a state that has banned said type of gun, she is simply breaking that state's law, plain and simple. Furthermore, the Republicans continue on with their absurd argument that they do not want to undermine state sovereignty... but at the same time are adamant that state sovereignty does not trump gun rights. If you don't allow a state to enforce its gun bans, regardless of however you want to call that distinct warm stream soaking the state's leg, then you are effectively stripping away that state's ability to regulate guns itself. What's more: you're effectively destroying the possibility for any state to regulate and enforce any type of gun legislation not fitting your Neo-Conservative agenda, establishing a dangerous precedent for the future.

As is customary, the last Republican speech completely glossed over the issue of police brutality as it affects the Black and Hispanic communities, choosing instead to continue to try to ignore it and offhandedly dismiss as "crack addicts" the victims of systemic discrimination and violence at the hands of the police. Similarly, when they try to accuse the Socialists of not empowering minority communities to defend themselves, they conveniently forget to remember, even though Senator Brewer made sure to remind them, of ongoing grassroots community organizing taking place even now in many places along the MSA by the citizenry to defend themselves from criminals, without having to depend in policing institutions mired by racism and a penchant for carrying out an excessive and wanton use of violence against the innocent civilian population. The Right-Wing can choose to ignore police brutality all they want, they may even choose to believe everyone in a big city low-income neighborhood is a "crack addict". The American working class doesn't have that luxury.

"A citizen should not be punished at all if they 'crime' they did was unintentional, technical, and victimless"? Do you seriously realize the radical judicial thought you're putting forth here? Have you really thought this all the way through? Are you ready to accept the consequences of the federal government invalidating the states' rights to legislate themselves on the ground of a "victimless crime"? Does the Republican Party pretend to know what's best for every state when it comes to guns?

Dealing with criminals...Republicans, please. There was a Socialist in office for less than a year, and both Stassen and Cargo let the problem fester for more than a decade. The crime and drugs problem our inner cities are dealing with right now is a direct result of Republican policies that failed to address structural poverty, discrimination and inequality in our society. Crime won't go away with this bill, it'll take, in fact, many years to solve this problem, and in the long time the Right-Wing had the run of this country it failed to address the causes or contain its spread.

The Socialist Party has tried to debate this bill and present our issues. The Republican Far-Right has responded with its customary vitriol and has, distressingly, received support for a bill that plays directly into its own authoritarian inclinations by undermining and beginning the dismantling of States' Rights.

What a day.

[Zar]

I find it troubling that the Socialist party has trouble dealing with "abstract concepts" like freedom, rights, and constitution. Prehaps their ideology simply has no place for these ideal concepts, prefering the vulgar materialism of Das Kapital.

Once again, the sections III and IIIa do fall under the commerce clause, for several reasons. A firearm is a piece of property that needs money to be spent on it for maintenance and for use. Moving these pieces of property clearly effect commerce, It was also never stated that the citizens protected under these sections do not intend to sell their weapons. I also know that these sections are fall under the commerce clause because the interstate transportation of persons, for business or for pleasure, is also protected under the commerce clause. Lastly, the bill that this act is trying to repeal, which prohibited the transfer of firearms across state lines, was never ruled unconstitutional in its over 10 years of existence.

Transporting a firearm across state lines does not break any state law. A state does not have to power to regulate interstate commerce, so their laws are not applicable to the interstate transport of firearms.

Police brutality has nothing to do with this law. The fact of the matter is that if the Socialist party is comitted to protecting innocent people from criminals, then they obligated to support this bill.

I wasn't aware that standing against draconian measures was "radical judicial thought." Maybe it is in the Soviet Remnant, the apparent model for the Socialist party's plan for America.

As i said before, the regulation of interstate commerce does not violate the rights of any state.

The Stassen administration created hundreds of thousands of new jobs and increased the wealth of working Americans. The Roux-Johnson administration single handedly destroyed this growth during their short term in office, which ended with the MSA entering a recession. Which administration has done more to address poverty? It certainly wasn't the Roux-Johnson administration.

No one ever claimed that crime will disappear because of this bill, but it is a step in the right direction.

I hope that the Socialist party with stop grasping from straws in their arguments, but that is asking too much of them.

[OYID]

You can blindly praise Stassen all you want, Representative Freeman, the fact of the matter is that this country ended his tenure ravaged by the plague of organized drug-related crime, which was not as big of an issue before the Republican years, and neither was inner city poverty.

Your first statement is, frankly, barely worth mentioning, I only draw attention to it to further cement how little you should be taken seriously.

Private property, such as guns and ammo, needs to be purchased, yes. Thank you for this amazing insight. "It was also never stated that the citizens protected under these sections do not intend to sell their weapons. ", well, then, is this bill meant to enable weapons dealers to sell guns in states where that's not allowed? Is that what's behind this?

Regarding the matter of commerce, I'll refer you to a basic law reference book so you won't get confused:

The term commerce as used in the Constitution means business or commercial exchanges in any and all of its forms between citizens of different states, including purely social communications between citizens of different states by telegraph, telephone, or radio, and the mere passage of persons from one state to another for either business or pleasure. [Emphasis mine] ((Via))

As you see, the part about "business or pleasure" refers to people, not weapons. "The regulation of interstate commerce"... Nonsense.

Interstate commerce, or commerce among the several states, is the free exchange of commodities between citizens of different states across state lines. ((Idem))

If the gun is moved without intention of selling it, then it's not commerce, and if it is, then its owner is very clearly selling a banned item and thus breaking the law, something this bill would enable them to do because it is a direct attack on state sovereignty.

At any rate, if we look closely at your statements, Representative Freeman, we would be doing a fool's errand, for it seems you have dropped the point about state sovereignty entirely, thus conceding our point that this law aims to undermine and ultimately destroy States' Rights in regards to their ability to draw up and enforce their own legislation within the limits set by the Constitution. After much pretending, you go silent when you can no longer maintain this is not the case, and show that you are indeed hiding an authoritarian project under the auspice of guns.

You say police brutality has nothing to do with this, but again we counter with the growing popular movement of citizen self-defense, which is answering to systemic violence against marginalized populations with community organizing and grassroots initiatives. If you'll stop with your incredibly jingoistic accusations of Communism and listen to us for a second, you'll realize that our original concerns with this bill were, on the one hand, the issue of States' Rights, and, on the other, the need for a well-regulated militia, as stated in the Constitution. Much as we appreciate the Far-Right telling us what to do, we can't help but point out the hypocrisy of Republicans supporting almost complete loosening of current gun laws while at the same time failing to support or, heck, even mention the rising tide of citizen self-defense. Maybe it's because such initiatives benefit the working class you arrogantly dismiss as "crack addicts", instead of the gun lobby and therefore yourself.

Go on spouting insults, slogans and other such nonsense, it won't change the fact that we reached out to you looking for compromise, and you spat back at us your usual filth.

Typical.

[Flamelord]

I will overlook the breach in protocol this one time, and now present this Firearm Owners Protection Act for debate and voting.

[BgKnight]

12 Republican Moderate votes IN FAVOR of the proposed amendment

[Smyg]

4 Republican Liberal votes IN FAVOR of the proposed amendment.

[Drew]

The Progressive Conservatives vote 6 IN FAVOR of the proposed amendment

[Coin]

12 Republican Conservative votes IN FAVOR

[Zar]

Stassen could not finish his vision for America due to his illness and the 1978 midterm elections which prevented further reforms from improving the MSA.

I do think that my first statement was worth mentioning, for a party that claims to be fighting for the "people," they are clearly out of touch with them. Maybe the Socialist Party follows the ideas of Vladimir Lenin, that the working class must be forced to see the error of their ways under the benevolent rule of the vanguard party.

Once again, Representative Murphy ignores the tremendous legal precedent and judicial review of the commerce clause that justifies this bill.

I never "dropped" any issue of state sovereignty, because that is not relevant to this bill, which deals with interstate commerce.

I see no hipocricy in supporting this bill and not supporting your party's ludicrous "Citizens' Protection Bill," it has already been pointed out that the CPB is superfluous, incomprehensible, and most importantly, illegal.

I do not remember any sort of compromise offered by the Socialist party, but I agree that we probably would have rejected it. I fight for what is truthful and just, and neither of those things are open to any compromise.

5 Neo Conservative votes in favor of the proposed amendment.

[Flamelord]

10 Progressive Moderate votes IN FAVOR of the proposed amendment.

[Zar]

The Firearm Owners Protection Act has recieved enough votes to pass the House. I thank everyone that voted for this piece of legislation. It will now be sent to the President for her signature.

[Flamelord]

The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1981

This bill legislates the following:
I. The reopening of interstate sales of non-automatic and semi-automatic long guns, as legally defined by previous acts.
II. Legalization of non-armor-piercing ammunition shipments through the M.S.A. Postal Service.
IIa. Ammunition shipments must be properly marked.
III. Federal protection of transportation of firearms through states where possession of those firearms would otherwise be illegal.
IIIa. Persons travelling from one place to another cannot be incarcerated for a firearms possession-related offense in a state that has strict gun control laws if the traveller is just passing through (short stops for food and gas), provided that the firearms and ammunition are not immediately accessible, that the firearms are unloaded and, in the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver’s compartment, the firearms are located in a locked container.

Is hereby signed into law by the President of the Mountain States of America with the following comment:

I formally sign this bill into law, and would like to thank Congress for acting to uphold the ideals that former President Stone professed.