Gun Control: Creating Traps For Innocent Victims
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 8 months ago
We have noted that the Manchin-Toomey gun bill has confusing language (a setup for abuses), and that it surreptitiously allows the construction of a national gun registry even though it claims to forbid it. Now we learn that the situation is even worse than we thought.
One begins to wonder if Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) didn’t just take whatever verbiage Attorney General Eric Holder’s staff handed to them and put it in their gun control legislation without even reading it. The Schumer-Toomey-Manchin (STM) bill facilitates undercover sting operations at gun shows to arrest people for conduct they have no reason to believe is against the law. The STM bill lets the Justice Department send people at gun shows to jail for up to five years for a crime they did not even know was a crime.
Here is the zinger buried in the bill:
Whoever makes or attempts to make a transfer of a firearm in violation of section 922(t) . . . to a law enforcement officer, or to a person acting at the direction of, or with the approval of, a law enforcement officer authorized to investigate or prosecute violations of section 922(t), shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
It is neither surprising nor inappropriate that, in accordance with applicable law enforcement guidelines, undercover FBI or ATF agents infiltrate, or send informants to infiltrate, a gun show to see if they can catch people breaking federal firearms laws. But this new law goes overboard, by eliminating any need for a federal prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury that the individual who allegedly broke the law had any kind of criminal intent.
The concept of intent is well founded in English common law (and the Bible, both of which form the basis for much of American law), and enjoys rich history and respect in American jurisprudence. This law undercuts all of that, and thus it is evil. Do you need any more reasons to oppose this legislative abortion?
On April 17, 2013 at 6:17 pm, scott s. said:
This problem of “stings” at gun shows has been ongoing. I think Bloomberg in particular has sent operatives to Virginia to try to induce violations. In this case we have the plant waking up and asking something like “Gee the line is too long/expensive for a NCIS let’s just go across the street and I’ll buy your gun”. Could be especially effective with “walk arounds”.
Something else about this bill. Currently “making” an NFA firearm is illegal, but nothing prevents you from “making” a firearm that doesn’t come within NFA, as long as you are not “in the business” of “manufacturing firearms” (aside from assembling using foreign parts prohibited in 922(r)). Of course there is the very over-wrought concern about 3d-printing, but the general idea applies. The problem is, it seems like there is no way to transfer one of these firearms under the various forms of “gun-show NICS”. Admittedly kind of a hypothetical.
On April 17, 2013 at 8:01 pm, MarineOfficer said:
While I agree that the idea of stings at gun shows is pretty stupid, I disagree with the rest of your post. I am of the belief that people who go to gunshows generally are law abiding citizens, in that they are at the show to check out the wares and look for a good deal on guns, gear, etc.
The criminal intent requirement has been dead in federal law for a long time. Many of the fishery laws require no criminal intent. If you pick up an eagle feather there is no intent requirement. Ignorance before the law is no defense, and there has been an on going erosion of the intent issue.
Let me be clear here…I do not agree with this line of reasoning. I firmly believe that Mens Rea, the evil mind, should be an absolutely essential part of any criminal conviction. However, the supreme court found a while ago that this is no longer required outside the most egregious crimes. What we should remember here is that there are plenty of of firearms laws on the books that allow much of what this new regulation was aimed at. We need to now turn our attention back to finally killing of BATFE to make sure the agency can never attempt these kind of operations.
I’m going to try to link two articles below that address the intent issue:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576570801651620000.html
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/05/the-criminal-intent-report-congress-is-eroding-the-mens-rea-requirement-in-federal-criminal-law
On April 17, 2013 at 9:01 pm, Herschel Smith said:
I appreciate the comment, but I have to confess (and I hope that I say this judiciously), I think it’s educated and smart without the assistance of being wise.
You’ve told me what IS, rather than what SHOULD BE. I fully concur with the notion that intent is increasingly disappearing from American jurisprudence due to laws and somewhat proprietorial (good grief, prosecutorial – this is what autocorrect does) discretion. Nothing I’ve said denies this. And in fact, this law would have been yet another example of that lamentable fact, and one of the hundreds of reasons to oppose this bill.
That said, it isn’t disappearing completely, as there is still a difference between manslaughter and first degree murder, and there always will be. Where the secularists can make inroads to English common law, they do. Where they can’t because the people would revolt, they leave it alone.
I know very little about you, but I assume (you can correct me if I’m wrong) that you do not have children of advanced school age (and I have no idea whether you are married). If your children one day attend public schools (I home schooled mine for the last several years except for one), they will find this notion in spades in the school system. Let me tell you how it plays out.
The kids that know they aren’t attending college know the kids who intend to attend college. The school system has given up on the idea of finding facts, finding fault and finding intent. Hence, the kids who have no intention of attending college abuse the ones who intend to attend college. It happens this way, and hundreds of others.
Let’s say that the school lunch line of a five minute wait. The bad kids will break in line and even punch the good kids. The good kids take it, run away, and avoid conflict at all costs. They do this because they know that the principal will make no attempt whatsoever to find facts or intent if a fight breaks out. Fights means that a kid is defending himself, or even that he isn’t and sits in a corner getting the hell kicked out of him. When it’s finally broken up, both kids get suspended, it goes on record, and colleges don’t accept kids with records. End of story. The competition is too high to accept kids with records, regardless of the fact that it’s disputed. All such records are disputed by every student.
My boys could have beat the hell out of anyone who they fought, but one of them needed to attend a scholarly college to do what he does, and for him we simply planned classes to avoid the bad kids, sent him with his lunch, and prayed that he got out without being in a … ahem … “fight.” Daniel, my Marine, just beat the hell out of anyone who accosted him. It cannot be that way for everyone. The ones who needs to go to college behave differently. Daniel is in college now because of the Marines.
You see, smarts comes from books. Wisdom comes from age and experience. I have that. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. And if you have children of advanced age one day, they will get the hell beaten out of them in school, or they will defend themselves and not go to college, or you will home school them. Welcome to fact-less, intent-less jurisprudence and lack of lawsuits against schools.
And back to this article. I didn’t go into a lot of detail on this, but I discussed the way it should be, not the way it is. Again, I concur with what I see happening, but if you’re trying to tell me that English common law is eroding, you’re trying to “teach your granny to suck eggs.” Been there, done that. And that’s the point of the post. Not what IS, but what SHOULD BE.
Intent is well founded in the Scriptures and English common law. That fact is not in dispute. Your disagreement is an issue of value judgments, and thus you failed to change my mind.
On April 25, 2013 at 8:51 am, jack said:
do you know how to do a pro, pro, and a con about gun control it is a essay and i need work cited
On November 22, 2014 at 6:33 pm, Matheus Grunt said:
Any “law” that violates the Constitution/BOR isn’t law at all, and you don’t need any legit judge in a courtroom to tell us that either.