"Peter" has some thoughts on gun control and the Dick Act.
DICK ACT of 1902 (Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R. 11654, of June 28, 1902)
This is very interesting and it would be very useful if someone among us were a Second Amendment lawyer or at least a historian to verify if there are subsequent acts of Congress that supersede the century old laws cited below. My impression is that there are indeed such laws. Certainly the insistence that our forces are fighting (overseas) in defense of our country and way of life all too easily dispenses with the argument that the Dick Act forbids using the National Guard in an "offensive warfare." Does that refer to strategy or tactics? When you charge up a hill, is that "offensive" or "defensive"? When you whack a bunch of Al Qaeda brass with a Hellfire missile from a Predator, is that "offensive" or "defensive"? Who is to say?
The gun control crowd was always consistent in their claim that "militia" has been clarified to mean the National Guard -- and therefore individual gun ownership is limited to running around shooting blanks from government-issued weapons normally kept locked up in the armory, during your once-a-month and two-weeks-a-year service in the Guard.
The civil right turmoils in the 50s, 60s and 70s gave the President plenty of excuses to "federalize" the National Guard when governors refused to engage them against southern white mobs or sheriffs. In recent decades our National Guard units have been routinely sent off to war to fight or otherwise serve in active war zones. Ten or twenty years ago the official reason was to give them training and experience under actual combat conditions.
Some of our Guard units are being rotated to Afghanistan as "special advisors" on agricultural techniques in a desert. As if Afghans needed our advice on growing poppies in the barren mountains.... Their peaceful humanitarian intentions do not keep them safe from being blown to smithereens by the Taliban's IEDs or RPGs.
In any case, who in the present Congress and in the various state legislatures will stand up and do whatever is necessary to reset our gun laws and the provisions in the yearly NDAA (defense appropriation bills) to be consistent with the original intent of the Constitution? What does it take for Congress and the states to assert themselves once and for all that there shall be no gun and ammo registration laws for any reason, packaged in any disguise, and under no circumstances shall National Guard or other militia units ever be sent to serve overseas? What part of "repel invasion" is so nebulous as to justify sending National Guard units to fight overseas? Doesn't the enemy have to LAND or threaten imminent landing on our shores before we can REPEL their invasion?
Begin forwarded message:
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 9:36 AM
Subject: Important:: DICK ACT of 1902
DICK ACT of 1902 . . . CAN'T BE REPEALED (GUN CONTROL FORBIDDEN) The Trump Card Enacted by the Congress Further Asserting the Second Amendment as Untouchable
The Dick Act of 1902 also known as the Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R. 11654, of June 28, 1902 invalidates all so-called gun-control laws. It also divides the militia into three distinct and separate entities. The three classes H.R. 11654 provides for are the organized militia, henceforth known as the National Guard of the State, Territory and District of Columbia , the unorganized militia and the regular army. The militia encompasses every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 45.
The Dick Act of 1902 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their State borders.
The National Guard Militia can only be required by the National Government for limited purposes specified in the Constitution (to uphold the laws of the Union ; to suppress insurrection and repel invasion). These are the only purposes for which the General Government can call upon the National Guard.
Attorney General Wickersham advised President Taft, "the Organized Militia (the National Guard) can not be employed for offensive warfare outside the limits of the United States ." The Honorable William Gordon, in a speech to the House on Thursday, October 4, 1917, proved that the action of President Wilson in ordering the Organized Militia (the National Guard) to fight a war in Europe was so blatantly unconstitutional that he felt Wilson ought to have been impeached.
During the war with England an attempt was made by Congress to pass a bill authorizing the president to draft 100,000 men between the ages of 18 and 45 to invade enemy territory, Canada . The bill was defeated in the House by Daniel Webster on the precise point that Congress had no such power over the militia as to authorize it to empower the President to draft them into the regular army and send them out of the country.
The fact is that the President has no constitutional right, under any circumstances, to draft men from the militia to fight outside the borders of the USA , and not even beyond the borders of their respective states. Today, we have a constitutional LAW which still stands in waiting for the legislators to obey the Constitution which they swore an oath to uphold.
Charles Hughes of the American Bar Association (ABA) made a speech which is contained in the Appendix to Congressional Record, House, September 10, 1917, pages 6836-6840 which states: "The militia, within the meaning of these provisions of the Constitution is distinct from the Army of the United States ." In these pages we also find a statement made by Daniel Webster, "that the great principle of the Constitution on that subject is that the militia is the militia of the States and of the General Government; and thus being the militia of the States, there is no part of the Constitution worded with greater care and with more scrupulous jealousy than that which grants and limits the power of Congress over it."
"This limitation upon the power to raise and support armies clearly establishes the intent and purpose of the framers of the Constitution to limit the power to raise and maintain a standing army to voluntary enlistment, because if the unlimited power to draft and conscript was intended to be conferred, it would have been a useless and puerile thing to limit the use of money for that purpose. Conscripted armies can be paid, but they are not required to be, and if it had been intended to confer the extraordinary power to draft the bodies of citizens and send them out of the country in direct conflict with the limitation upon the use of the militia imposed by the same section and article, certainly some restriction or limitation would have been imposed to restrain the unlimited use of such power."
The Honorable William Gordon Congressional Record, House, Page 640 - 1917
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