guns and passports | Pronounced "Four Five"

They are in a sense, related.

The first is that the Supreme Court of the US has agreed to hear a case concerning an interpretation of the 2nd amendment in our federal constitution.

After some reading, it seems clear that the court has 3 options,
1. rule that the 2nd relates primarily to an *individual* right of bearing arms.
2. rule that the 2nd relates primarily to a State of the union being permitted to maintain an armed militia.
3. rule that the 2nd relates to each of the above, however the legality of regulation is not at all under question.

The 3rd option would be I assume the safe way for the court to rule, as it leaves the interpretation in a vague cloud, as it has been for quite some time. Then that ruling would leave no appeal to any rule or regulation that any government official, elected or not might care to implement.

The local dog catcher could in theory, declare that your use of a shovel in your garden constitutes a threat to his person or position while engaged in his official duty to find unlicensed canines. Once he has declared that, he then has authority, upheld by the US Supreme court, to arrest you, and confiscate your weapon.

Does that sound outlandish to you? It surely does to me as well, however throughout human history, the number of outlandish acts perpetrated on citizenry by overzealous officials is startling. The existence of such number of incidents should raise hackles.

I was once arrested in Tacoma Wa. for possessing a knife with a blade longer than 3 1/2 inches. (The police had to let me go, because my Buck folding 110 had been broken at some earlier time, and was not longer than 3 1/2 inches. (yes, they had a ruler!) A Buck 110 folding hunter comes from the factory with a blade length of 3 3/4 inches.)

Now, consider this, go to your favorite steakhouse in Tacoma Wa. Take a ruler with you. Measure that knife blade they gave you. Let’s take that further, let’s go to any of many many many municipalities which have a similar ordinance. While there let us invite ourselves into the home of any of the multitude of government officials from the mayor to the police chief, all the city council, etc, etc.

Take a ruler. Go to the kitchen, start measuring. How many arrests would you expect if the letter of “their” law were to be enforced?

Notice that in this day, the persons who inhabit that domicile need NOT be present! Because of the “war on drugs” and “war on terrorism”, possession of an illegal weapon is interpreted to mean within the bounds of your property, whether you in fact ever had it personal possession or not.

This is the type of regulation that we live with now, and if the Supreme Court rules with option 3, those types of rules will become so commonplace that yes, the mail clerk from the city water treatment plant could arrest you. It would be “legal” and there would be no appeal.

If the Supreme Court rules option 2, then the State of Montana is essentially preparing to tell the US, that it has in affect, negated the legal contract binding the State to the Union. Montana would not be in secession, secession would be where the State acts to break the contract. It seems apparent that would leave Montana as a free state within the borders of the US without having any legal status as a State of the union, nor as a Nationality. Messy to say the least.

I do hope the Supreme Court rules Option 1.

Another scenario that concerns me is the acts of the Department of Homeland Security. I feel for those guys actually. They are charged with the responsibility of dealing with the possibility of terrorist attacks within our borders.

In order to prevent the use of aircraft as missiles, (New York, Sept. 11th 2001), they have decided that they need to standardize the systems used to identify exactly who is on those aircraft. That seems reasonable, however they apparently were not given a budget adequate to the task they set for themselves.

The DOHS does not have the funds to issue a standard ID to each citizen of the US.

That is what they envision as being required, each citizen of the US should have at all times a means of identification that cannot be altered or forged, so that if such citizen were to request a purchase of public transportation, such as an aircraft ticket, a train ticket, a bus ticket, (perhaps with the rash of school shootings, a school bus ticket), the DOHS could positively identify such bad apples as they deem likely to propogate terrorist or criminal acts while in such conveyance.

Now what that means, I am referring to the fact that the DOHS has not the funding for such a task, is that the DOHS has stated that each of the states of the union must adopt the standards and to issue identification which meet those standards, before May 2008.

Note that the DOHS is essentially acting as the mail clerk from the water treatment plant, they were NOT elected, however they have been given the responsibility for a task and the authority to make rules to complete that task.

Now, sometime when all these plans were being planned, some folks in different states began asking questions, like “uhh, who is gonna pay for all this?” The DOHS told those folks, (your state legislatures), “You are.”

Then some other states, such as Montana, told the DOHS that Montana has no legal requirement to comply with the regulations imposed by the DOHS, regardless of the cost or who might be paying for the mess.

The state of Montana then did a quite astonishing thing, the legislature met and passed into Montana State Law, a bill that FORBIDS the state from complying with the rules of identification.

Yep, we did. hehehe.

I’m not sure how this will go down, but it certainly looks like we the people of the state of Montana are drawing a line in the sand. The US Government might want to step back and think about what is about to happen.

There have been a lot of things said about the 2nd amendment, and this national ID thing. I’m not certain that anyone else is putting the pieces together.

I do want to say that I am PROUD to be living in Montana, and I would NOT want to live anywhere else right now.

With that said, I want to also say that a lot of very smart people who lived long before I was born had an idea that each of us is brought into this world with rights, and these rights are NOT granted by the government, further that these rights are interdependent and must be protected equally by our elected government.

When I joined the military, I vividly recall taking an oath, there was some mumbo jumbo, but the clarity comes from the portion of my oath that declared that I would defend the constitution of the united states from all enemies, foreign or domestic.

What strikes me now, is that I cannot recall, at any time did that oath have a time limit. That oath which I spoke then is in effect RIGHT NOW!

To be perfectly honest I see much of what our current governments are doing as in conflict with the constitution. Does that make them “enemies”? No, it merely makes them wrong. However there may come a time, and it may be sooner than some would like when acts are committed that constitute a de-facto state of armed conflict that defines who is an enemy.

I’d like to invite any one who is *not* a citizen of the state of Montana, to leave, quickly, without panic.

Those who remain might wish to consider exactly how important your freedom is to you. If you would prefer to be “safe” then there are many states in the union that have passed laws that are designed to make you feel safe.
(note I did not say you would BE safe, merely FEEL safe)

Freedom is not free. Your “rights” cannot be defended by a government whose intent is making you feel safe. These rights are yours only if you exercise them and guard them yourself.

You only have free speech if you actually speak!
You only have a defense if you have means to defend.
You only have authority if you make a decision.

good luck, I think I hear something in the distance.