February 23 2010, 20:51:39 #1453 [Y/N 0 Agree] [Y/N 0 S] [Y/N 0 T] [@]

Anybody have any ideas for bringing down (in the legal sense, not the boom sense) parts of the government? The BATFE is one that I would like to see destroyed, especially the F part of that (firearms).

A couple of ideas:

1. Challenging of the bullshit "constructive possession that means you can get a 10-year felony charge if you own a combination of parts capable of being assembled into a NFA (National Firearms Act) regulated firearm or device.

At the least constructive possession should be (not will be, see the last paragraph of this post) found unconstitutionally vague. If I own the machinery needed to create short barrels, am I in constructive possession? Etc. At what point are the parts I own "close enough" to be an illegal object? And what constitutional ground is there for the government to ban me for being capable of building a device which can be legally owned, albeit currently subject to extreme regulation.

2. Attacking specific provisions of the NFA that give the ATF teeth. For example: Going to court to demonstrate that short-barreled shotguns are protected by the 2nd amendment. This can be done by combining various 2A case law with evidence of common militia/military use of short barreled shotguns, and perhaps some evidence of civilian usage in other countries as well (Canada is one notable exception, they have incredibly strict gun laws but allow shotguns with barrels as short as 6.5 inches).

3. Provide a case to show that the registration of regulated NFA arms is unconstitutional; no other individual right as defined in the Bill of Rights requires any kind of registration or registry to exercise, therefore it is reasonable to say that registration of something that one has a right to own is an infringement as it impedes the free exercise of that right. We also have case law (D.C. vs Heller etc) that supports the view that restrictive registration requirements can be violations of the individual right to arms.

NOTE: I realize that this 3rd idea especially is likely to fail. Not for lack of logic, but because the government holds all the cards - the judges work for the government, the courts are government run and we have been fucked into a corner where we are at the whim of the Supreme Court which has continually decided that the 2nd amendment can be infringed in ways that would never be tolerated on any other right (such as the right to free speech).

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