3rd State Declares Sovereignty From BATFE

[Bohemian]

Alaska, Texas and now Montana...
New gun law aimed at asserting sovereignty

By KAHRIN DEINES - Associated Press - 04/16/09

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has signed into law a bill that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation, adding firepower to a battery of legislative efforts to assert states’ rights across the nation.

“It’s a gun bill, but it’s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana,” Democrat Schweitzer said.

Since the law applies only to those guns that are made and kept in Montana, its impact is limited. The state is home to just a handful of specialty gun makers, known for recreating rifles used to settle the West, and most of their customers are out-of-state.

But supporters of the new law hope it triggers a court case testing the legal basis for federal rules governing gun sales.

“What we need here is for Montana to be able to handle Montana’s business and affairs,” bill sponsor Rep. Joel Boniek, a Republican and wilderness guide from Livingston, told fellow lawmakers during the bill’s House debate.

The measure is one of many introduced by state lawmakers across the nation seeking to confront what some see as a federal overreach into state matters that will be extended with the national stimulus plan.
Along with the gun bill, Montana legislators are considering a resolution that affirms the 10th Amendment principle that the federal government only has those powers that are specifically given to it by the U.S. Constitution.

“The whole goal is to awaken the people so that we can return to a properly grounded republic,” Rep. Michael More, R-Gallatin Gateway and the Montana resolution’s sponsor, said at a House committee hearing Wednesday.

As many as fifteen other Legislatures have also been mulling resolutions that buck federal control in states such as New Hampshire, South Carolina, Missouri and Oklahoma.

“The balance has swung far to the extreme to the empowerment of the federal government, and to the harm of the individual states,” More said.

Opponents of the state sovereignty bids, however, warn they could give legitimacy to the kind of anti-government ideas that fueled the militia movement in Montana and elsewhere.

“When you really actually get in and look at it there is a lot of what we feel is very dangerous, very anti-government language that reads very similar to posters for the militia movement in the 1990s,” said Travis McAdam, the interim director of the Montana Human Rights Network, a group formed to oppose racism and extremism.

One of the few state Senators who voted against the gun bill — Sen. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena — is that group’s director when the Legislature is not in session. She ties the bills’ proliferation to fears about the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama and stimulus spending.

“I do think that there is a kind of renewed vehemence to this kind of right-wing rhetoric being spewed by conservative talk show hosts to rile the troops and they are using the fact that we have a Democratic, black president as one of their rallying calls,” Kaufmann said.

The Montana bills are being sponsored by freshman legislators who ran as part of a broader effort to oust more moderate Republicans in last spring’s elections.

House Resolution 3, the one sponsored by More, follows another states’ rights declaration that deadlocked in the same committee earlier this session, although the committee’s chairman said it may have a shot on its second try.

House Bill 246, the Montana-made gun bill, cleared the Legislature easily before reaching the governor’s desk.

Its supporters next plan to find a “squeaky clean” Montanan who wants to send a note to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives threatening to build and sell about 20 rifles without federal dealership licensing. If the ATF says it’s illegal, the gun bill’s backers plan to file a lawsuit in federal court with the goal of launching a legal showdown that lands in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Montana Shooting Sports Association, which drafted the bill, has said it will raise the money to pay for any legal costs.

“It doesn’t cost us any money and I like guns,” Schweitzer said after signing the bill.

“I like big guns, I like little guns, I like pistols, I like rifles, and I would like to buy a gun that’s made in Montana,” Schweitzer said...

helenair.com

Push your representatives in Washington...

Its long over due to restore the Second Amendment to the UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT and to tell the Government to treat us like creatures of benign neglect and leave us the heck alone!

You can not read anything else into "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED"

give us our freedom back not another stinking bailout tax bill...

[utimmer43]

LOVE IT! What are the odds (question asked tongue-in-cheek) that PA would do something like this?

[benjammin]

Originally Posted by utimmer43

LOVE IT! What are the odds (question asked tongue-in-cheek) that PA would do something like this?

Probably about the same as the chances of MI doing it.

How cold does it get in MT? If it's not worse than here I might have to move soon.

[utimmer43]

Originally Posted by benjammin

How cold does it get in MT? If it's not worse than here I might have to move soon.

OH, It gets cold alright! But that isn't what's keeping me from moving there. The wife just won't have it.

[Sheldon]

Originally Posted by benjammin

Probably about the same as the chances of MI doing it.
How cold does it get in MT? If it's not worse than here I might have to move soon.

So break down and contact your Representative about it.... I am... all it took was our calls to get our shall issue, to loosen the CEZ, to remove the green card AKA safety inspection's so start calling....

[benjammin]

Originally Posted by Sheldon

So break down and contact your Representative about it.... I am... all it took was our calls to get our shall issue, to loosen the CEZ, to remove the green card AKA safety inspection's so start calling....

Dude, I've repeatedly been all over Schauer, Levin and Stabenow over all this gun-related crap they keep trying, the best I ever get is a form letter saying "how concerned" they are about my views. Hopefully your rep is a little more attentive to his/her constituents, but mine just sits there and wastes my money. All the local demorats voted Schauer in after his predecessor (Wahlberg) actually voted AGAINST the first bailout! I congratulated him for that and voted for him, but we (sane people) are outnumbered in this area.

[CathyInBlue]

Not entirely sure, but... I think Indiana is already like that... Let's see what you think:

IC 35-47-5
Chapter 5. Prohibited Instruments of Violence

[...]

IC 35-47-5-8
Machine gun
Sec. 8. A person who owns or possesses a machine gun commits a Class C felony.
As added by P.L.311-1983, SEC.32. Amended by P.L.104-2000, SEC.3; P.L.123-2002, SEC.43.

IC 35-47-5-9
Operating loaded machine gun
Sec. 9. A person who operates a loaded machine gun commits a Class B felony.
As added by P.L.311-1983, SEC.32. Amended by P.L.104-2000, SEC.4; P.L.123-2002, SEC.44.

IC 35-47-5-10
Applicability of statutes relating to machine guns
Sec. 10. The provisions of section 8 or 9 of this chapter shall not be construed to apply to any of the following:
(1) Members of the military or naval forces of the United States, National Guard of Indiana, or Indiana State Guard, when on duty or practicing.
(2) Machine guns kept for display as relics and which are rendered harmless and not usable.
(3) Any of the law enforcement officers of this state or the United States while acting in the furtherance of their duties.
(4) Persons lawfully engaged in the display, testing, or use of fireworks.
(5) Agencies of state government.
(6) Persons permitted by law to engage in the business of manufacturing, assembling, conducting research on, or testing machine guns, airplanes, tanks, armored vehicles, or ordnance equipment or supplies while acting within the scope of such business.
(7) Persons possessing, or having applied to possess, machine guns under applicable United States statutes. Such machine guns must be transferred as provided in this article.
(8) Persons lawfully engaged in the manufacture, transportation, distribution, use or possession of any material, substance, or device for the sole purpose of industrial, agricultural, mining, construction, educational, or any other lawful use.
As added by P.L.311-1983, SEC.32. Amended by P.L.104-2000, SEC.5; P.L.123-2002, SEC.4

Note how IC 35-47-5-10(7) and IC 35-47-5-10(8) are completely separate subparagraphs. The one has nothing to do with the other. Holding a Class III licensed from the US federal government has nothing to with manufacturing, etc., etc. of machine guns for lawful purposes. Recreation on private lands and self defense are manifestly lawful purposes.

My only problem is with the (double) use of the term lawful(ly). If there are, somewhere else in the Indiana Code, references in law to how you are required to conduct your manufacturing, transporting, distributing, using, and possessing, under IC 35-47-5-10(8) of machine guns which came into existence entirely within the borders of the state of Indiana, then IC 35-47-5-10(8) could still be completely neutered.

Granted, this is in reference to machine guns, and not guns in general. The Montanta story posted by the OP mentioned largely custom guns, which I took to mean guns like the gold inlaid musket presented to Charleton Heston at his famous, "... my cold, dead hands" speach.

[FN1910]

In the previous legislatives session in South Carolina a similar bill was introduced. It never got off the ground primarily because no one could find anyone in SC that it would apply to. There are no gun manufacturers in SC that would be involved and so it would only apply to someone who started up a business or a individual making one.

Or this was at least how I heard it. It would not apply to gun modifications unless the gun was made in the state so the deal fell through. If someone is willing to start up a gun company in SC I'll bet we could get it passed.

[CathyInBlue]

Originally Posted by FN1910

... and so it would only apply to someone who started up a business or a individual making one.

I don't get it. Where was the problem? Right now, there's an activity that's wholly prohibitted, therefore, no one is doing it legally. They didn't want to make something legal because no one was doing it legally at the time?

[utimmer43]

Originally Posted by CathyInBlue

I don't get it. Where was the problem? Right now, there's an activity that's wholly prohibitted, therefore, no one is doing it legally. They didn't want to make something legal because no one was doing it legally at the time?

Such is the nature of politics.