Fifth Amendment Archives

Why Is Slide Fire Solutions Suing The Feds Over The Bumpstock Ban?

December 13, 2024 Steve MacDonald

A major manufacturer of Bump Stocks – Slide Fire Solution – Has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government, claiming the 2018 Bump Stock Ban violates Americans’ Fifth Amendment rights. The lawsuit underscores the importance of protecting citizens from overreach and preserving the balance between public safety and constitutional freedoms. Slide Fire Solutions contends that … Read more

Laws We Need: Increasing Officer Safety …

July 7, 2024 Ian Underwood

Years ago, someone working for Ron Paul’s campaign was searched by TSA before getting on a plane,. Because he had a box containing close to $5000 in cash campaign contributions that he was transporting to campaign headquarters, TSA agents detained him, questioned him, and ultimately arrested him.

The New Fifth Amendment

January 13, 2022 Ian Underwood

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has announced that he will not cooperate with the committee that is ‘investigating’ the Amble Around the Capitol™️ on January 6 of last year.

And Here We Are at Atlas Shrugged

May 7, 2021 Skip

The first time I read Atlas Shrugged (disclaimer: yes, you could cut a couple of hundred pages out of it and liven up a goodly part of it and it still would be impactful), DCE at Weekend Pundit said I’d need anti-depressants for the first 100 pages as it was at the beginning of Obama’s first term – and now at his third term, I don’t dare pick it up again.

A Brief Introduction to the Federal Court System

December 20, 2019 Norm Silber

The federal court system has three main levels: district courts (the trial court), circuit courts which are the first level of appeal, and the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”), the final level of appeal in the federal system. Only the SCOTUS is specifically established in Article III of the Constitution. The Courts of Appeal … Read more

Regulators Win, Hunters Lose in NH Turkey Hunting Debate

March 4, 2019 Op-Ed

By Jordan Estrada, Merrimack NH In approximately 44 states across the nation, hunters can report harvested game online or over the phone. This year, NH had a chance to join those ranks with the introduction of HB322 – a bill that would create an online check system for reporting wild turkey harvests. But on February … Read more

Freedom depends on who gets to choose and make the decisions

September 26, 2018March 3, 2013 Skip

The abridged definition of “Freedom” is how many choices one can make, unforced and unfettered. I get to make the choice – not you and not Government. When you and Government starting making those decisions for me, that by definition, is less Freedom.

The Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, was written solely because it was felt at the beginning of our Constitutional Republic, that the innate Liberties and Freedoms that were assumed to part and parcel of the Constitution of a limited Government needed to be specifically enumerated to PREVENT an attempt down the line for Government to override them.

And now we see this happening, as the Obama Administration is working overtime to rewrite the the meaning of the First Amendment containing our first and most important Right – that of the free expression of religion (vs Obama’s “freedom to worship within a set of 4 walls”). Rooted deeply with that free expression is the Right not to be forced to violate that – and in this case, the Right to not be involved in the killing of the unborn. But Obama believes that there is an unwritten and unemumerated Right to Government to tell people “this is the way you will think – and it will be what we tell you to think and to behave”.

Ways that Progressives are bound & determined to get rid of guns – including a visit to your home

September 26, 2018February 20, 2013 Skip

Well, it is well known that the Left is going bat crazy in trying to rid the American populace of any guns that are of any consequence in defiance of the real purpose of the Second Amendment – defense against a tyrannical govt. Much has been made that the Founders could not have foreseen modern sporting rifles (aka “the scary looking guns that have Progressives changing their panties often”), so we should be limited to muzzle loading muskets. I thought this observation is truer to the real intent “to have comparable arms to the modern British soldier” – kinda puts that snarky musket comment in different light, eh?

Any ways, we’ve seen all kinds of machinations around the theme of “Progressives don’t trust ordinary law abiding citizens with cool looking guns” whose main technological capability, being semi-automatic, is well over a 100 years old. We’ve seen the list of banned guns, we’ve seen the list of approved guns. We’ve seen the craziness of the number of rounds in a magazine (where 30 rounds for an AR is the STANDARD size, not a high capacity size) to limit them as low as 3 (and NY has made it 7 for any firearm taking a detachable magazine). Cosmetic stuff too – shrouds, foregrips, variable stocks, thumbhole stocks; stuff that have no different in making the basic technology “more lethal”. Gun registries – either legally (as in NY) or de facto (at the national level).

But there have been other stuff proposed that are less well known – but just as useful in removing the ability for lawful citizens to exercise their Second Amendment Rights to contemporary and well known & distributed firearms. So, lets review a few of the more flagrant ones.

From US Senator Diane Feinstein’s S.150 – “To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes”.

A use of the Fifth Amendment to protect the Second

September 26, 2018February 17, 2013 Skip

US Senator Diane Feinstein and NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo have infamously said that they would be fine with an outright confiscation of citizens firearms. We do see talk of Government officials, via either official or de facto gun registration databases, coming to demand peoples’s guns. Some have mentioned voluntary gun buybacks (which I would be fine with from the owners standpoint (not so much using my tax money to do so, however). Some, however have declared that such should be mandatory. Which then triggers the Fifth Amendment:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

Already there is talk that the NY SAFE gun ban may well be unconstitutional as it mandates that gun owners must get rid of their arms and standard capacity magazines (no, they are NOT high capacity magazines with 10-15 rounds for a handgun and 30 rounds for a modern sporting rifle as those have been sold for years for time and in the millions for quantity of sales). In essence, to this non-lawyer (oh, Grokster Tim? Weigh in here if you can!), it seem that the State is “taking” a person’s personal property away without recompense (and in fact, declaring them to be a felon). So would simply paying the owners $50 a pop for mags sufficient? Hmmm, Lars Larson, a talk show host that I listen to in the early evenings if I am out and about has an interesting theory that simply paying for them is insufficient to satisfy the Fifth (and thus, protecting the Second):