Things Are Hotting Up

from teaparty.org: '"Surrender Your Firearms," Connecticut Tells Unregistered Gun Owners' - Feb. 25 (orig. posted on Info Wars.com - Kit Daniels - Feb. 25/posted Feb. 26) 

('State orders owners of newly-banned, unregistered firearms to turn them all in')

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Stan Stanfield · Top Commenter · Stanford University

I need some help with the law here. The Bill of Rights is a list of examples of the kinds of powers that were not being ceded to the federal government in the Constitution ("enumerated powers"). But the citizens of each state still had to secure their rights in their state constitutions. The D of I talks about "certain unalienable Rights" ("that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"), but they need to be secured by "governments" - in such as state constitutions dealing with state issues, and federal constitutions dealing with the national issues. 

For example, the Constitution disallows ex post facto laws - by the federal government (Art. 1, Sect. 9). But each state's position on such rests on its constitution. Does the CT Constitution bar ex post facto laws? 

This all may rest on the meaning of the section in the 14th Amendment that says:"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…" We need to find out precisely what this means. The 14th Amendment didn't wipe out the 9th or 10th Amendments; so I'm in a bit of a quandary here. Any help appreciated.

Also, there may be some historical factor here, where some governmental issues - like the right for individuals to keep and bear arms - were simply understood to be the case amongst the thirteen colonies, and those rights didn't NEED to be specifically enumerated in the state constitutions. But I never learned any of this in school. Nor did many citizens, I'll wager. More's the pity.

 · 3 seconds ago  (Feb. 26)