Monday, December 3, 2007

Hoplophobe hoops, Circa 1970

Kaveman made an interesting suggestion on the Brady/HuffPo Blog so I decided to look up the IL Constitution. I found the annotated version from the IL.gov site.

Here's what it has to say about Militias:

SECTION 1. MEMBERSHIP
The State militia consists of all able-bodied persons residing in the State except those exempted by law.

The "militia" described here includes both the state"s organized militia who have received military training, and its unorganized militia"composed of all other able-bodied persons who are not exempt. The corresponding provision in the 1870 Constitution was narrower,including in the unorganized militia only able-bodied men aged 18 to 45.


"All able-boded persons". So that, unlike the Federal version, includes women. Yep, I'm a member of the militia so maintain a right to own firearms under that argument.

Then we get to firearms and how the PuSH'ers were intellectually dishonest even then:

SECTION 22. RIGHT TO ARMS
Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and
bear arms shall not be infringed.


The committee explanation stated that “a citizen has the right to possess and make reasonable use of arms that law-abiding persons commonly employ for purposes of recreation or the protection of person and property. Laws that attempted to ban all possession or use of such arms . . . would be invalid.”200


However:

However, the delegate who explained the committee proposal to the full convention stated four times on the floor that it would not prevent a complete ban on handguns.201 A nearly total ban on handguns in Morton Grove was upheld under this section by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago.202 The Illinois Supreme Court, by 4-3 vote, also held that the Morton Grove ordinance did not violate this section. Vigorous dissents by the minority judges illustrate the closeness of the question.203
The U.S. Court of Appeals also held that Chicago’s ban on buying handguns beginning in 1982 did not violate the U.S. Constitution, affirming a federal district court decision that had also upheld the ordinance against attack under this section.204


So you have a right to "Commonly employed firearms" yet don't have a right to "commonly employed firearms". Gotcha.

I see who the "Activist Judges" and hypocritical politicians are and it's not on our side.

4 comments:

The Duck said...

TITLE 10--ARMED FORCES

Subtitle A--General Military Law

PART I--ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS

CHAPTER 13--THE MILITIA

Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of
title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration
of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female
citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are--
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of
the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval
Militia.

Anonymous said...

Just logged onto HuffPo, navigated over to Paul's latest, only to find no comments at all.

Hmmm....

Thirdpower said...

The disappeared for awhile. THey came back. Seems they're having some issues.

Anonymous said...

This just reinforces my opinion of lawyers - those who strain at gnats and swallow camels - as opposed to those know the law and use it for the protection of the citizen.

And you DO know that most of our current crop of kongressKritters are lawyers?

B Woodman
III-per