Should foreign law influence our gun rights?

[spin]

Gun owners are increasingly concerned with the White House's citing of foreign law when it comes to gun rights. Look no further than the recent Senate confirmation of Professor Harold Koh to be State Department legal advisor in June. Koh, a committed transnationalist, is a passionate opponent of gun ownership.

Koh, recently the dean of Yale Law School, was confirmed as State Department Legal Advisor with 35 votes against him. He now becomes the top U.S. authority on international law, and the top advisor to the president and secretary of state about America's obligations and treaty commitments with the United Nations and other countries.

****snip***

There is no issue on which Koh is further from the mainstream, however, than the right to keep and bear arms. He openly advocates a global gun-control regime, run by the international community and based on foreign law, that would ban all handguns and subject all other firearms to draconian restrictions.


****snip***

Legal experts are all aware that Harold Koh is himself on the short list for the Supreme Court. Now that he holds this prestigious position, he could next be nominated for the D.C. Circuit federal appeals court.

****snip***

Thus Harold Koh's nomination becomes part of a broader pattern, where adherents of foreign law and extreme gun control intersect both at the U.N. and the Supreme Court. Supporters of American sovereignty and the Second Amendment had better join forces quickly, because this part of President Obama's agenda is moving faster than many believed possible.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Foreign-law-shouldn_t-impact-American-gun-owners-8027856-51812847.html

A very interesting lecture by Harold Koh "A World Drowning in Guns" (Fordham Law Review, Vol. 71). can be found at http://law2.fordham.edu/publications/articles/500flspub11111.pdf

[Hoopla Phil]

1. NO! Makes as much sense as foreign law influencing our 1st amendment rights.

By that I mean no sense at all!

[madinmaryland]

2. The Washington Examiner is a rag, and an "opinion" piece by them should be

taken with a grain of salt.

I have not had a chance to read Mr. Koh's piece.

[spin]

20. Read the piece...

He makes a lot of good points, but it's very obvious he is very anti-gun ownership in the United States.

Unfortunately, I can't pull quotes from this document.

[JonQ]

3. No

We should make laws, or repeal them, based on our constitution, upholding our basic rights, and the general good of americans. Foriegn laws may be cited as being either successful or unsuccessful in dealing with a certain problem when a similiar law is being proposed/repealed here. But the argument that some other country does X so we should also do X to be more like them is not an argument that should ever be used.

[Indy Lurker]

27. Exactly N/T

[Euromutt]

38. Your point below the break is well put

Foreign laws may be cited as being either successful or unsuccessful in dealing with a certain problem when a similar law is being proposed/repealed here.

Nicely put. I'm all in favor of considering the laws adopted by other countries, but they should not necessarily form a goal for the U.S. purely on the basis that some other country adopted them. It's not like we should emulate Russia or China, after all. Hell, speaking as an immigrant to the U.S. from western Europe, I'd say we shouldn't emulate the legal developments in that part of the world either.

I'm from the Netherlands, and I hardly recognize my country these days. When I was growing up, any suggestion of a national identity card, or obligation to carry it so one could identify oneself to law enforcement, was invariably shot down with "the Germans did that" during the occupation of 1940-1945. Now those things are law, and I need to carry my passport because my U.S. driver's license isn't considered valid ID by itself.

That said, however, when it comes to international humanitarian law, particularly as it governs the conduct of American government personnel outside the United States, the U.S. could give more deference to treaties being considered by other countries. The objection to the Rome Statute (which created the International Criminal Court) that it violated the constitutional right to a jury trial was risible, considering that American courts martial aren't a jury trial either, to give one example. Certain elements in the U.S., frankly, could do worse than stop insisting that U.S. law should apply outside U.S. territory.

[TiredOldMan]

4. No Way!!

We have more than enough politicians in our country. There is no need to import more politicians and their laws. As bad as our election system is there are other countries whose elections are total chaos. I will not be ruled by them!

[iverglas]

5. should you copy and paste lies in this forum?

Everybody feel free to vote.

He openly advocates a global gun-control regime, run by the international community and based on foreign law, that would ban all handguns and subject all other firearms to draconian restrictions.

Prove that one. Just for starters. I dare you.

I have no idea how anyone could prove a pile of utter nonsense crap, but take your best shot.

[iverglas]

6. should you stop beating your dog???

Everybody vote, now.


If anybody can't decide, try this one:


Should Martians rule the world?

[kimjamey69]

8. Should Martians rule the world

Yes lets try that! We do not seem to be doing a good job, lets get some outside influence.

[krispos42]

39. I need to know about the culture, values, ethics, and history...

...of the Martian bacteria before deciding if their system of governance should be extended to Terra.


They reproduce asexually, for example... how will that affect our laws? Sexual assaults, age of consent, adoption, parental rights, woman's sufferage, equal pay for equal work, abortion... entire swaths of our laws are likely not even dreamed up by the asexual Martians!

It might well cause chaos in Terran laws until these issues are hammered out.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. I, for one, welcome our new martian overlords.

[iverglas]

43. suck up

[iverglas]

7. Ken Kuklowski

is a senior legal analyst for the American Civil Rights Union.

Hmm. The ACRU. Sound familiar? It shouldn't.

http://www.theacru.org/home.html

The ACRU defends the President's prerogatives to secure U.S. borders and protect its citizens (like FISA); we support common sense reforms to protect the sanctity of American citizens’ votes; we defend our fundamental First Amendment rights of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the Boy Scouts' right to adhere to their moral values; we defend our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms; we support judges that revere the Constitution as written; and we believe in limited government. Unlike the ACLU, the ACRU defends the rights of all Americans – not just the politically correct few.

Yes, that's where I'd be getting my news and views.

Latest ACLU Outrages
ACLU Supports ACORN, Voter Fraud
- The ACLU has filed suit in Pennsylvania in defense of ACORN for a declaration that a law there is unconstitutional for preventing the kind of voter fraud which is a hallmark of ACORN efforts nationally. In short, the ACLU claims... (Read More)

CBS Helps the ACLU Lie about American War Efforts
- CBS News has assisted the ACLU in lying about a Bush Administration program to intercept in international spaces, phone calls to and from terrorist-associated phone numbers captured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. This particular set of lies focuses... (Read More)

Another ACLU Effort to Protect Alien Workers in the US
- In the name of protecting the jobs of American workers, the ACLU and its allies are attacking the E-Verify system that was set up to keep American jobs for Americans. E-Verify was created at Social Security so any prospective employer... (Read More)

What is the ACLU doing in your community?
Threatening your school board? Upsetting your high school graduation ceremonies by denying a prayer? Forbidding the expression of Christmas or other holidays? Let us know by emailing us.

Huh. They seem rather obsessed, don't they?

Kinda like another outfit with a capital R in its name ...

I'm not a huge ACLU fan myself, but I know that the enemy of my enemy is often not my friend.

And of course, once again I just guffaw at the kind of crap some people think they can pull in this forum. If only they could take it out for a walk in GD more often ...

[derby378]

9. From the Fordham article

The fifth and final step I call "vertical process," the process whereby rules negotiated among governments at a horizontal, intergovernmental level and interpreted throught the interation of transnational actors in these law-declaring fora are brought down vertically into the domestic law of each participating country - "brought home" if you will - and internalized into the domestic statutes, executive practice, and judicial systems of those participating nations.

Can't say I like the sound of this, nor do I care for his "perishing ammunition" idea. All ammo degrades over time - in regards to AK-47 bullets, the non-corrosive ammo has a shelf life of some 20 years, while the corrosive military ammo can last for around a century. But it all degrades nonetheless.

[iverglas]

13. that's too bad / that's nice

The article:

http://law2.fordham.edu/publications/articles/500flspub11111.pdf

Maybe you could give the page number; it's 29 pages long.


Can't say I like the sound of this

This? --

The fifth and final step I call "vertical process," the process whereby rules negotiated among governments at a horizontal, intergovernmental level and interpreted throught the interation of transnational actors in these law-declaring fora are brought down vertically into the domestic law of each participating country - "brought home" if you will - and internalized into the domestic statutes, executive practice, and judicial systems of those participating nations.

You have something against negotiation of international conventions and the domestic implementation of the provisions voluntarily agreed to by the countries that adhere to them?

Huh.

You must have a problem with a whole lot of stuff that goes on in the world these days then, eh?

Oh. And maybe you can tell us WHAT RULES he is talking about there. I have no idea what you don't like the sound of otherwise, other than the normal process of negotiating and implementing international treaties about anything and everything.

[iverglas]

15. from the Fordham article?

Or from the deceitful article about the Fordham article?

http://washingtonindependent.com/48266/gop-hold-on-koh-confirmation-comes-to-an-end

Google finds that quoted passage at one other place on the net. No prizes for guessing where that is.

[iverglas]

10. Barack Hussein Obama

"Freedom Lovers Beware of Harold Hongju Koh"

etc. ad nauseam.

Just in case you didn't realize he was, like unAmerican.

[damntexdem]

11. Sanity should guide our gun laws -- which it never will as long as the NRA is accorded power.

As to international law, the U.S. should be held accountable when its stupid laxity in gun control results in gun sales that are distressing other countries -- Mexico being the chief example.

[derby378]

12. I'm gonna have to butt in here...

Mexican narcogangsters are obtaining illegal firearms from the US, but some of the sources may surprise you:

An F.B.I. agent in El Paso has been arrested and charged with dealing guns, some of which ended up being used in gunfights between the authorities and drug dealers in Mexico, law enforcement officials said. The agent, John T. Shipley, was indicted Wednesday on charges he dealt firearms without a license for more than two years, buying the weapons from dealers on the Internet and then reselling them to unidentified buyers. Mr. Shipley sold more than 50 weapons, the indictment said. Some were recovered after shootouts between the Mexican Army and drug dealers in Chihuahua on March 8 last year that left seven dead, officials said. Mr. Shipley, who was released on bond this week, has been suspended without pay since March 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/us/10brfs-AGENTARRESTE_BRF.html?_r=2

[spin]

21. The punishment for such activity should be draconian...

such as life in prison without parole.

The punishment for illegally selling firearms or acting as a straw purchaser to obtain weapons for criminal use should be so severe as to discourage this activity. Misuse of firearms for criminal activity can cause death or injury. Illegally providing those weapons to criminals should be regarded as an accomplice to the crime.

[eqfan592]

14. Bogus.

And the Brady Campaign/VPC are any more sane than the NRA? The NRA get's it right more often than either of those organizations combined (which isn't saying much still, but the point is still valid).

The "stupid laxity" you cite involves over 13000 state and federal firearm regulations. Try actually researching this subject from more than just Republican funded org's like the Brady Campaign.

[spin]

22. While I will agree that some firearms make their way from the U.S to Mexico...

I have to wonder how many are sold to citizens who merely want a means of self defense from the drug cartels.

[PavePusher]

47. "As to international law"...

...maybe the Mexican government should allow its citizens the ability to own effective tools of self-defense against the drug gangs, without having to risk imprisonment or death from both ends of the legal spectrum.

Crazy, I know, but the current system sure doesn't seem to be working, time to try something else.

[spin]

48. Many in the government and the police seem to be...

in cahoots with the drug gangs.

Armed citizens might be able to screw the drug trade up to a degree. Why ruin a good thing?

[iverglas]

16. oh, and just by the way

International instruments - treaties, conventions, etc. - signed by a country are NOT "foreign law".

Just in case somebody didn't realize that the entire premise of this piece of shit is, well, a piece of shit.

I've recommended the thread, just because I would really like as many people at this website as possible to see the kind of shit that pieces of are constantly flung around in this forum.

[spin]

18. Thanks for the recommendation...

despite the fact that you disagree with the OP.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SteveM]

17. An international effort for gun-control -- as predicted...

About a year ago I predicted that the smashed gun-control movement in the U.S. would focus on treaties and international legal regimes to effect domestic policy because the "movement" had little traction left within the U.S. I also said that there would be an attempt to resuscitate gun-control by blaming the Mexican drug wars on the easy availability of guns in the U.S. Voila, we are here.

[Tim01]

19. No! We have our own laws. We don't need to be governed by another country. nt

[iverglas]

23. what "other country" is that, professor?

[Tim01]

24. How have you been iverglas? nt

[iverglas]

25. I've been middling, Tim01

Cat #2 is safely under the dirt as of this afternoon.

So, what "other country" is this whereof you speak, please?

[Tim01]

29. Lost both of my dogs not too long ago. Very sorry.

I won't be arguing with you tonight.

[proteus_lives]

26. No.

Why does it matter?

I'll follow Canada and Europe on healthcare but guns?

No thank you.

[iverglas]

28. interesting

Can you think of some way that Canadian or European law on either healthcare or guns might be enforced in the US?

Can you think of a way to look dumber than to answer a question / give an answer based on the moronic premise that they could?

[proteus_lives]

32. Are you ever not a snide little bitty? Is it that hard to be polite?

I think European healthcare might be a good model for the future of the American healthcare.

But I find Canadian/most European gun laws far too draconian to ever work in the US.

[iverglas]

34. you're answering a question I didn't ask

I think European healthcare might be a good model for the future of the American healthcare.
But I find Canadian/most European gun laws far too draconian to ever work in the US.

That isn't responsive to my post.

You answered "No" to the question "Should foreign law influence our gun rights?"

The question didn't make any sense, but you chose to answer it. So my question was à propos:

Can you think of some way that Canadian or European law on either healthcare or guns might be enforced in the US?

If you can't, why would you have answered "No" to that question instead of saying something like "why are you asking such idiotic things?"

[proteus_lives]

35. I felt it was.

Besides, your act has grown tiresome.

[paulsby]

50. correct

ALSO european style healthcare doesn't run afoul of the constitution

european style gun control (and european/canadian style hate speech laws) DO

one can "look to " other countries all one wants. but we still have OUR constitution that restricts govt. encroachments on our rights. that takes precedence.

[iverglas]

53. you seem to have opened a door

european style gun control (and european/canadian style hate speech laws) DO <run afoul of the constitution>


Can you enlighten us about these "canadian style hate speech laws"?

I just like to know that the person I'm talking to knows what they're talking about.

If it's plain that they don't on a subject they choose to raise themself, for really no reason at all, I'll be pretty confident they just generally don't have a clue.

Let me know.

[paulsby]

56. are you unfamiliar with your own laws?

and i've posted on this many times. i'm an instructor in HATE CRIMES investigations fwiw and have had several opp's to train with and discuss comparative law with my canadian brethren. i just got out of suyrgery and can only type with one hand. i'll do what ican...


in brief, inciting hatred against any identifiable group is an indictable offense.

not true in the US.


Sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code make it a criminal offence to:

advocate genocide

publicly incite hatred

wilfully promote hatred
against an "identifiable group."


Under section 320.1 of the Criminal Code, a judge has the authority to order the removal of hate propaganda from a computer system that is available to the public. Such authority extends to all computer systems located within Canada.

see the keegstra case, for example.

or look at the zundelsite case.

In January 2002, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered Ernst Zundel to cease and desist from publishing hate messages on the Zundelsite because his writings violate section 13. However, the Zundelsite continues to post hateful messages because it is located in the United States and is, therefore, outside the jurisdiction of the Canadian tribunal

note that zundel's site violated no US laws.

in brief , canada tradesoff freedom for "civility"

[Tim01]

30. Country versus city.

Not long ago we had a similar thing on a smaller scale.
As the city folk moved out here to the country they decided they didn't like the way the country is and so they tried to make it like the city. It had to do with a farmer discharging his groundhog rifle on his 200 year old farm, next to a brand new sub division. ( I can hear a similar rifle right now next farm over).
So one of the local board member suggested we look at the ordinances used by Faifax, a nearby urban county.
All hell broke loose. Some time during the the rallying leading up to the board meeting to discuss the "fairfaxing" of our county, I went to one of the most vocal anti-"fairfaxing" people and told him I would be at the board meeting.WITH MY BLAZE ORANGE HUNTING HAT, so they would know why I was there. He liked that idea and he spread the word.
The day of the board meeting half the people in the building were wearing orange hats. As one of the guys who spoke said," If you don't like the smell of a pig crap, don't build your house next to a pig farm."

I don't want our gun laws decided/compared to those of other countries. We have our constitution as our compass.

[iverglas]

31. I'm still waiting to hear what foreign country's laws

someone is supposedly trying to impose on you good orange hat folk.

Tomorrow will be fine.

Btw, we here in the outer darkness didn't build our house next to your pig farm. Some might even say that you're the ones who came along and built the pig farm in the middle of a world that never invited it.

[Tim01]

33. You are very sweet, and I am quite fond of you. But no arguing tonight.

Good evening.

[iverglas]

42. I just ran across this

in the course of looking for something completely different, and I knew just where to post it.

http://www.legalhumour.com/Articles/The_Courthouse/Quotes/Lord_Denning.html?page=2#CommentList

Legal Humour Collection > The Courthouse > Quotes > Lord Denning

"In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short . . . Yet now after these 70 years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there anymore . . . He has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket. This newcomer has built . . . a house on the edge of the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle grazed. The animals did not mind the cricket."

---Miller v. Jackson (1977) Q.B. 966, 976

(Oh, but nobody must quote it. It is, gasp and horrors, foreign law!)

[Hangingon]

37. No

[krispos42]

40. The legal arguments might well provide fodder for one side or the other...

... to argue in US courts.

And lawmakers can look at what other countries have done and see if such ideas would or should be implimented here. For example, a national health-care system could be derived from looking at what Canada, Sweden, Britian, Ireland, Japan, and France does and modifying it to fit within our legal and constitutional framework.

Like it or not, what other countries do can influence us, and vice-versa. Because of what we did with democracy, other countries were inspired to follow us in their own way. Because of what Japan did with manufacturing, other nations also followed suite in their own way. Fer instance.

[eallen]

44. This whole business about foreign law citation is a stupid wingnut argument

US courts have cited everything from novels to foreign legal decisions, as long as they have been in business. The notion that what someone says must have no reason or relevance to legal reasoning here is simply stupid.

The wingnuts, of course, are quick to conflate any citation of foreign law with the notion of that foreign law counts as our law. Which except for treaty, it doesn't, and no court has so held.

The issue is a stupid piece of wingnuttery from the right, that everyone with an ounce of sense should reject, whenever it raises its head. It has nothing to do with guns or the 2nd amendment, both of which I support.

:hippie:

[iverglas]

54. ain't it just?

Quelle surprise to find it dredged up and smeared around the Guns forum at DU!

Or not.

[Xenotime]

45. Yes. Until then the world powers will not take us seriously.

and we will fall further behind the rest of the world.

[spin]

46. That works if you worry about how the rest of the world views us.

I suspect that we could enact draconian gun laws and even ban all firearms, and we would still be hated.

Perhaps with good reason.

[Euromutt]

49. Everybody dislikes the superpower of the time

For what it's worth, Spain was universally loathed in the 16th century to a far greater extent than the U.S. has ever been. A large chunk of it is that, when you're the superpower, everybody else thinks you have some responsibility to help fix the rest of the world's problems, and everybody wants to you to loan them the use of your money and your armed forces, to help their own interests. If you don't, they'll resent it, and if you do, whomever they're using it against will resent you. And if you don't do anything, they'll both resent you. I forget where I read it, but some web page summed it up beautifully in a fictitious interview with an Afghan.
"Look at the chaos we've been in in since 2001. Overthrowing the Taliban was the most heinous crime the U.S. ever did to us."
"Would it have been better if the Taliban had been left in place?"
"Oh no! Leaving the Taliban in power would have been the most heinous crime the U.S. could ever have done it us!"

[Euromutt]

51. Who are these "world powers"?

And why should anyone give a rat's ass what their governments think?

I hold dual citizenship: I'm a citizen of the Netherlands by birth, and a citizen of the U.S. by naturalization. I left the Netherlands in 2002, and frankly, I have no intention of moving back. Ever.

While I was gone, it was made compulsory to carry I.D. so that your identity can be established in the event you're arrested or detained (even if the arrest or detention proves unreasonable). The council of police chiefs wants to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy to drug influence in traffic, and advocates introducing a saliva-testing device to test car drivers for drugs; of course, simply taking a saliva sample would allow the government to create a DNA database of every person operating a motor vehicle. At the other end, it emerged eight years ago that the agency responsible for analyzing neonatal heel sticks had been keeping the blood samples in violation of the law, and creating a DNA database based on the blood samples; eight years later, heads have yet to roll, and the database has yet to be dismantled.

If galloping towards a police state is progress, I want no part of it, thank you.

[jody]

52. Foreign law shouldn't influence RKBA & foreigners' comments about RKBA are pure Bull Shit. n/t

[iverglas]

55. It's jody!

Spreading ethnic hatred and xenophobia wherever he goes!

Why don't you just name the name, jody? No need to direct that hatred and fear at all foreigners when you're really just talking about one!

Because you're bored with getting your posts about moi deleted??


Now, if only I knew what this "foreign law" that "shouldn't influence RKBA" is, I could address something of substance in your post.

But since saying "Foreign law shouldn't influence RKBA" is pretty much the same as saying "rain shouldn't make things dry", or "pancakes shouldn't be purple" -- it doesn't, they aren't, and IT CAN'T -- well, I'll just wander off snickering.