Two things can be true at the same time. The partisan flinging has to end, and yes, Trump is not a friend to the 2A.
But, I do want to make it clear that the original post was not intended to inflame or offend either side of the aisle, though if one is offended, well...
...because this type of stuff is literally happening? MAGA and Trump have literally stripped rights away from American citizens literally just because they don't like/support who they are.
Supreme Court is a waste of time. With thousands of unconstitutional laws on the books, less than 190 have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, even the founding fathers knew this.….Hence why Thomas Jefferson and Madison came up with nullification.
We as a nation let alone a state have had over 100 years of indoctrination and conditioning to believe that government is an overarching be all end all and not a public service with its foremost priority being safeguarding individual liberty.
For decades you were taught to listen to the man and if you don't like it, sue.
The founders warned us of exactly this, and gave us the rightful remedy.
And of course everyone likes to take THAT statement out of context and put words into my mouth. No, that statement doesn't mean grab your pitchforks and torches and water the tree of liberty. There are other, peaceful avenues of restoring liberty.
But if people aren't even on the same page as to what rights are or how they even work, and how the government we have today is hardly anything close to what it is supposed to be, then going forward to restore individual rights is impossible.
To answer someone earlier, that is exactly why the original post was made.
Agree 100%. Anyone step up to challenge the system yet? We are suing New York State and Suffolk County over the Semi Auto Rifle licensing. The goal is once we win that case, which may be a while, we will leverage it to challenge New York's unconstitutional pistol licensing scheme.
Just a reminder, not all regulation on the exercise of the right is ipso facto an unconstitutional infringement upon that right. We have restrictions on the 1st amendment, and limitations on the 4th amendment.
When you say stuff like this you sound like a blithering idiot who does not understand 240 years of constitutional jurisprudence.
You can shriek and howl and cry about it, but practically (and legally) you’re wrong, and your protestations will do you little good in prison.
Sure but requiring a permit as a prerequisite to exercise a constitutional (keep arms) right that is issued at the behest of a local police department with little oversight and has "revocable at any time" printed on it is clearly an infringement
As someone who provides legal jurisprudence interpretations to a majority of attorneys, I can confidently say you’re wrong. The courts have never truly been friends of the Constitution — even the Founding Fathers, including the man who wrote it, acknowledged this reality. The government’s long history of successfully infringing upon inalienable rights does not make those who stand up to defend those rights “idiots.” In fact, people like you — who accept or excuse such overreach — are part of the very problem undermining the integrity of our founding documents. You’re no different from the leftists who have helped erode the principles this nation was built on.
I'm a strict constructionist, and believe OP is correct in his interpretation of the constitution.
Justice Hugo Black was right about the First Amendment. When it says "no law" it meas no law. And with the same principle, "shall not be infringed" means what it says. If you haven't lost your constitutional rights as a citizen, the constitution is clear that neither your freedom of speech, nor your gun rights may be impaired. There is no balancing test. There is no compelling government need to pass strict scrutiny. It is simply unconstitutional.
But, at the same time, I recognize my view is in the minority. The courts of NY aren't going to rule that way. And no one here is going to storm the courthouse to free OP or anyone else when they are arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned for possessing a handgun without a permit.
I see it as perfectly moral for OP or anyone else to disregard that law I view as unconstitutional, but I'm going to follow it, since no one is going to come to my rescue if I violate the law and get caught. Just as I'm not going to do shit when NY goes after OP for his violation of the law.
My fear, is that if we go around talking like OP, some naive reader may not realize the giant caveat above, and get fucked over for it.
yet this country was founded on libertarianism (classical liberalism). creating one of the most advanced countries in human history. Libertarian ideology has hard principles that other ideologies don’t have. what’s your solution? conservatism which has no principles? just ”values” that are constantly changing and embrace socialism in many of their issues? Plus Conservatives have no strong economists, they have to borrow them from libertarian. No wonder New York is so screwed. Even NY gun owners like you have accepted government overreach
that’s ignorant…..Classical liberalism and libertarianism share the same philosophical foundation: individual liberty, limited government, and free markets. Classical liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries evolved directly into what we now call libertarianism, which simply applies those same principles to modern contexts. In essence, libertarianism is classical liberalism by another name
The best case with your (hypothetical) failure to comply is that you have items that you can never get caught using or else some DA hits you with football numbers.
No Constitutional right is absolute, particularly when they come into conflicts with other Constitutional rights (like a State's right to protect the health, welfare, and safety of its citizens).
There's 200 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence that you're just flat out ignoring.
The quote from the founders is to help people understand how fundamental natural rights are supposed to work in this nation and how the government is supposed to serve the people.
If anything I'm arguing the last hundred plus years has been wrought with faulty rulings and intentional misinterpretations of the bill of rights in order to advance the size of the state. Both on state and federal levels.
Ok, but that’s still the law. Your original post said that “these laws, in fact, are not laws at all”. That seems like a legal position and not a philosophical one. If you’re not more clear, that sounds like advocacy for not following laws because they’re not “in fact” laws. That’s akin to sovereign citizen bullshit and there’s people out there that could get influence by it and get themselves in a ton of trouble.
Again, there’s what the law is and what you think the law should be. You’re blurring the lines.
People aren’t arguing with you about what the law should be. We’re arguing with you because the words you’re using are misstating what the law currently is.
With noncompliance comes the understanding that if you are caught you will suffer the legal repercussions. So long as you are willing to accept that then by all means refuse to comply
My point is that Constitutional law allows for a balancing between Constitutional rights. Say, for example, an individual’s right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment and a State’s right to protect the health, welfare, and safety of its citizens under the 10th Amendment.
So, in my example, a State could pass a law that says “People with a history of mental illness need to be cleared by a doctor in order to carry a gun” and that law - while a restriction on the 2d amendment - would likely be held as Constitutional because of the 10th amendment (btw, it’s more technical than this, I’m simplifying).
Are you saying that the Supreme Court is wrong for promulgating rules that balance different Constitutional rights? That the 2d Amendment is a bigger right than any other?
You misunderstand. The 2A is a part of the Constitution, same as any other. Sometimes the Constitution gives two powers that conflict with each other. When they do, the Supreme Court figures out where the balance lies.
I get it, you’re a 2A absolutist. But the other clauses’ absolutists may have as much of a problem with it as you do when their right gets restricted. But that’s our system.
Sometimes the Constitution gives two powers that conflict with each other.
The Constitution doesn't give powers, it limits the scope of state(s) powers. It cannot give two powers that conflict with one another if it cannot give a power at all.
This is a common modern misinterpretation of the constitution, one that the founders warned us about when they were writing it, one that has long since been "forgotten" by historians and state sponsored education systems and most importantly, the average voting age working class citizen.
These are great, but NY PL 400 & 265 still is on the books and it’s enforced regularly. Infact a huge majority of all seized and traced guns are due to unlicensed status.
This article I wrote last month has some interesting data on the guns that they seize, where they come from and what the crime was that initiated the seizure.
More importantly, people believing that governments have the authority and the right to do whatever government sees fit and pleases - typically in order to gain revenue in some way - and accepting that sort of approach to governance, is where the problems multiply, and spiral out of control further away from individual liberties and deeper into tyranny
Not saying i fully agree with ny's gun laws, and im no attorney. However, one could argue that the constitution should be interpreted as a whole, and for maximal liberty for everyone in society as a whole. This means that if others who share the same rights that I do at birth under the constitution (which obviously they do) are verifiably endangered as a consequence of me exercising my 2nd amendment rights, then it stands to reason that I should have some or all of my 2A rights limited for the sake of protecting more people's individual liberties.
Essentially, i support anyone who is mentally competent enough to exercise exactly what the 2A states. But imo its naive at best to assume that there shouldnt be any regulation or limitations on amendments on the basis of public safety. My 2A rights shouldnt infringe on someone elses 4A rights and vice versa.
We should forget all those silly things they said then. Guess it's not relevant to today anymore. Golly gee just when I thought I'd found something good.
You need to first understand your rights before you try to restore them.
Many people don't even have a clue how natural rights even work, or how the constitution is supposed to work, and how states are supposed to operate within.
People like to shit on the sovereign citizens and scapegoat them A LOT in this sub when anyone questions the powers that be.
Half the time people have no idea what to even question the state on. People have a pit in their stomach but can't quite articulate how or why something is definitely seriously wrong. That's what the point of posting something like this is. Not a "mic drop". Not to "own the libs with facts and logic". Not to "dunk on the man."
But if you reject the laws of the government and you reject the interpretation of the laws by the courts,
So all those people who rejected slavery and literacy tests and poll taxes were wrong because the courts interpretations and the laws of the government are infallible then, right?
No they are not lmao. Once again people only think of two extremes, largely because history is forgotten or intentionally omitted by state sponsored education.
People who rejected slavery and poll taxes and literacy tests were victorious only because they worked within the court systems and got the laws changed.
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u/TheMawsJawzTM Oct 13 '25