Return to “Lubbock Federal Court to hear handguns for 18-20 year olds.”
I guess you and I talk to different military folks. Are you perhaps talking about the Russian military?Hoi Polloi wrote:Listen to the talk of any one who has been in the military for 10 or more years and they'll tell you loudly that they themselves don't trust the 18-21 year olds.
No such constitutional amendment is necessary. Every adult enjoys all constitutional rights, unless they have lost those rights. There is also no reason to invade the rights of parents to control their children. The U.S. Supreme Court has already held in numerous cases that children do not enjoy all of the constitutional rights as do adults.Hoi Polloi wrote:Are you then recommending that you would support a constitutional amendment which said, "A person may not be restricted of any Constitutional rights and privileges due to age"?Shoot Straight wrote:The constitution does not put an age limit on the 2nd amendment nor the 1st amendment.
The current UN rights of the child treaty would support such a viewpoint, but that is very controversial as it is a radical overturning of the historical understanding of a parent's right to direct his child's upbringing which includes, for example, being able to restrict the child's free movement, direct the child's religious practices, and so on. This right of a parent is, of course, linked to the child's age. (And there are always exemptions such as emancipation, and we've covered earlier how we have numerous different ages for different rights.)
You're right. I had forgotten that "veteran" was included in the bill. There was a discussion about whether there was a realistic chance that someone would be honorably discharged by age 20, but I forgot that the ultimate decision was to make the statute applicable to veterans.mmestx wrote:To refine this a bit, Texas state law allows for people 18 - 20 to get a chl who are active military, honorably discharged military or military reserves. IMO, once a person reaches 18, they are an adult in all respects and without limitation. Here is a quote from texas law as posted on the TX dps siteCharles L. Cotton wrote:I understand the concern some campus-carry supporters have about the NRA lawsuits. Here are a couple of talking points I think will help.
People 18 through 20 years old can already;
1. Buy handguns, just not from a dealer;
2. Carry a handgun in their car without a CHL;
2. Get a CHL (active military).
Chas.
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/InternetFo ... CHL-16.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
GC §411.172. ELIGIBILITY. (a) A person is eligible for a license to
carry a concealed handgun if the person:
(1) is a legal resident of this state for the six-month period preceding
the date of application under this subchapter or is otherwise eligible for
a license under Section 411.173(a);
(2) is at least 21 years of age;
...
(g) Notwithstanding Subsection (a)(2), a person who is at least 18
years of age but not yet 21 years of age is eligible for a license to carry
a concealed handgun if the person:
(1) is a member or veteran of the United States armed forces, including
a member or veteran of the reserves or national guard;
(2) was discharged under honorable conditions, if discharged
from the United States armed forces, reserves, or national guard; and
(3) meets the other eligibility requirements of Subsection (a) except
for the minimum age required by federal law to purchase a handgun.
(h) The issuance of a license to carry a concealed handgun to a
person eligible under Subsection (g) does not affect the person's ability
to purchase a handgun or ammunition under federal law.
Who carried the load for campus-carry in 2009? Who faded the political heat for putting long-time pro-gun Senators and House Members on the spot for supporting highly emotional legislation? It was the NRA and TSRA and it will be so again in 2011. Why on earth would you publicly condemn the NRA-backed lawsuits? I'm not saying there isn't some merit to your concern, but potentially alienating the only organization that has a chance of passing campus-carry is, to use your terms, ill-advised. If your goal is to get the NRA to abandon much needed legislation and make campus-carry its sole high priority legislation and litigation, then you will fail and you may fatally wound campus-carry in the process.Douva wrote:Just two months after the NRA defended its acceptance of an exemption to H.R. 5175—the “Disclose Act” currently before Congress—stating, “The NRA is a non-partisan, single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to the protection of the Second Amendment. We do not represent the interests of other organizations. That’s their responsibility,” the NRA is dedicating resources both to opposing the “Ground Zero mosque” and to endorsing the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin “Restoring Honor Rally,” two issues that have nothing to do with the Second Amendment.
This hypocrisy does not sit well with non-partisan, libertarian-minded individuals like me who typically support the NRA. We find it incongruous for National Rifle Association spokespersons to claim that the Bill of Rights is absolute and then, in the same hour of talk radio, oppose the First Amendment rights of a religious organization that happens to be rooted in a faith different from that of the NRA's base.
Douva wrote:Charles, the NRA could have pushed this type of lawsuit at a time (i.e., a year from now) or place (i.e., a state in which campus carry isn't a viable issue) where it wouldn't have mattered as much that such a lawsuit effectively negates two of our strongest arguments in defense of campus carry ("we're not talking about letting a bunch of freshmen right out of high school carry guns on campus," and "this will only arm a segment of the Texas population that has a proven track record of safe, lawful concealed carry").Charles L. Cotton wrote:You caught flack because of your unfounded claims that the NRA-backed suits were ill-advised. They are very well thought out and very well planned. They are a logical avenue to extend the Heller and McDonald decisions. You just don't like them because they don't deal with campus-carry. That wasn't your first journey into NRA bashing either; a curious attitude to take against the premier organization pushing campus-carry nationwide. And your other attack on the NRA had nothing whatsoever to do with campus-carry.Douva wrote:I find it interesting that the news reports and the NRA website only mention the suit against the federal government. Nobody is talking about James D'Cruz's NRA-backed suit against the State of Texas.
As I caught some flack for saying in another thread, I'm somewhat concerned that the lawsuit against the State of Texas may hamper efforts to pass a campus carry bill during the 2011 Texas Legislative Session.
Do you care about anything other than campus-carry? Do you care about the 18, 19 and 20 year old college students that make up 3/4 of the student population? I wonder how many members of SCCC are under 21 years old? I wonder if they know you are willing to throw them under the bus?
Like it or not, if campus-carry passes, few if any students will be carrying on any given campus. Ironically, that's something you have argued yourself, as have other campus-carry supporters. However, there are many thousands of Texans between 18 and 20 years old that would benefit from the NRA-backed lawsuits. You would abandon these many thousands for the sake of a relative handful; I will not.
Again, I have supported campus-carry long before either you or SCCC came onto the political scene. I am an ardent supporter of campus-carry, but I am not willing to sacrifice other necessary legislation and court challenges just to pass campus-carry. Here is my top priority list for 2011, based upon the goal of providing the greatest benefit to the most people:
What is your priority list for 2011?
- Employer parking lots;
Range protection;
Remove deferred adjudications from the definition of "conviction;"
Campus-carry.
For those who would argue that 18 is too young, I request that you proceed with caution. What's the difference between age 20 and 21? Why don't we set 25 years of age as the minimum age? As one person commented, that's the age where auto insurance companies give big premium reductions to male drivers. Opponents of the original CHL bill (SB60) argued that the general population (i.e. non-LEO's) were too irresponsible to carry guns. Let's not repeat that mistake.
Remember folks, we are dealing with a constitutional right, not a driver's license or the ability to drink alcohol, neither of which are rights protected by the constitution. The age of majority in Texas and most states is 18. Since Heller held the Second Amendment to be an individual right, current Texas and federal law deprives Texas citizens who have reached the age of majority of a constitutional right. This clearly violates not only the Second Amendment, but also the Fourteenth Amendment as it provides unequal protection under the law. Affirmative rulings in these two cases will also provide a basis for other challenges. As I said, the NRA-backed suits are very well planned.
Chas.
The NRA also could have notified SCCC--the grassroots arm of the campus carry movement--that such a bill was being filed. Or, at the very least, you could have notified us AFTER it was filed. If I hadn't been listening to Cam & Company a few nights ago when D'Cruz's attorney mentioned the lawsuit against the State of Texas (as a an afterthought at the end of an interview about the lawsuit against the BATFE), we likely still wouldn't know about it. And since the lawsuit against the state isn't mentioned on the NRA website and hasn't yet garnered media attention, SCCC might not have learned that the NRA is trying to force the state to lower the minimum age to obtain a CHL, until a reporter surprised one of our representatives with a question about the lawsuit or an unsympathetic legislator used it to rebut one of our witnesses during a committee hearing.
At the very least, you could have responded to my politely-worded concerns with a bit of professional courtesy. Instead, you responded with one of your patented "you couldn't be more wrong" rebuttals and made it very clear that you don't appreciate me questioning the infallibility of the NRA.
You're absolutely correct that there have been a couple of other occasions when I've been critical of the NRA. If you do a little digging, you'll also find instances where I've been critical of SCCC. I know it may not be politically prudent, but I tend to call 'em as I see 'em. However, despite the fact that I don't toe the NRA line, I'm not an NRA opponent, and there have been a number of occasions when I've publicly defended the NRA.
The 18- to 20-year-old members of SCCC realize, as do I, that if we keep moving the goal line further away, we're going to keep coming up short. We met enough resistance last session, just trying to secure the right to carry on campus for a segment of the collegiate population that already has the right to carry outside of campus. If we go into the 2011 session trying to secure the right to carry on campus for a segment of the collegiate population that has, until now, been deemed to young and immature to carry outside of campus, our odds will be slightly worse than those faced by the defenders of the Alamo.
You caught flack because of your unfounded claims that the NRA-backed suits were ill-advised. They are very well thought out and very well planned. They are a logical avenue to extend the Heller and McDonald decisions. You just don't like them because they don't deal with campus-carry. That wasn't your first journey into NRA bashing either; a curious attitude to take against the premier organization pushing campus-carry nationwide. And your other attack on the NRA had nothing whatsoever to do with campus-carry.Douva wrote:I find it interesting that the news reports and the NRA website only mention the suit against the federal government. Nobody is talking about James D'Cruz's NRA-backed suit against the State of Texas.
As I caught some flack for saying in another thread, I'm somewhat concerned that the lawsuit against the State of Texas may hamper efforts to pass a campus carry bill during the 2011 Texas Legislative Session.