Greg Steussel
WeTexans.com Archives
originally https://web.archive.org/web/20131116034941/http://wetexans.com:80/shooting-blanks/
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House Bill 553 by Rep. John Otto has all the trimmings of a great state sovereignty bill. It purports to forbid federal gun regulations from being executed in this state. It has tough language, strong penalties and everything a states’ rights advocate could ask for…until you read the entire bill. On the second to last page you will find the following:
(4) It is a defense to prosecution for an offense under Subsection (b) that the person performed the act consistent with an explicit and applicable grant of federal statutory authority that is consistent with the United States Constitution.
That little bit of language gives the federal government a loophole big enough to drive a gun-confiscating truck through! Every federal agent will certainly contend that they are “perform[ing] consistent with an explicit and applicable grant of authority…consistent with the U.S. Constitution” therefore exempting them from any penalties this law may try to impose.
This type of legislation is typical of the toothless bills we have seen coming out of Austin for several sessions now. This type of legislation allows your legislators to tell you, their constituents, how “tough they are” or “how hard they’re fighting for you” (or whatever else they think they need to say for you to put them back in office) while at the same time gives the wink and a nod to the feds allowing both Austin and Washington to breath a collective sigh of relief that business will continue as usual.
Sadly, Texans are buying it because few know or understand the Constitution and the powers it affords the states, so let’s go back and have a look shall we?
At the end of the American Revolution, the states were declared their own sovereign entities.
“acknowledges the said United States, viz. [that is to say] New Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia [to be] sovereign and independent states.” – Treaty of Paris with Great Britain, Article I
Article V of that same treaty states that British subjects were to be free to travel to “any of the thirteen United States,” indicating that Britain was dealing with thirteen sovereign and individual states, not with one “unitary” nation.
American colonists were leery, rightfully so, of creating another central government like the one against which they just finished fighting a war. George Washington attested to this fact during Constitutional Convention:
“independent sovereignty is so ardently contended for…the local views of each State…will not yield to a more enlarged scale of politicks.”
Assurance was given to the states that they would retain their sovereignty and only give up a small portion their powers to the proposed federal government. The founders explained this principle as follows:
”The laws of the United States are supreme, as to all their proper constitutional objects; the laws of the states are supreme in the same way…the states have certain independent powers, in which their laws are supreme; for example, in making and executing laws concerning the punishment of certain crimes, such as murder, theft, etc. the states cannot be controlled…This balance between the national and State governments…is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security for the people.”- Alexander Hamilton, New York Ratification Convention
“We have thirteen distinct governments . . . the states, and the United States, have distinct objects. They are both supreme. As to national objects the latter is supreme; as to internal and domestic objects, the former.” – Robert Livingston, New York Ratification Convention
”The two governments act in different manners, and for different purposes, the general government in great national concerns, in which we are interested in common with other members of the Union; the state legislature in our mere local concerns….They can no more clash than two parallel lines can meet.” Judge Edmund Pendleton, Virginia Ratification Convention
“The powers delegated in the proposed constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects as war, peace, negotiations and foreign commerce… The powers reserved to the States will extend to all objects which, in the course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.” – James Madison, Federalist #45
Our state legislators should not get a pass for ignorance on this issue. Our representatives in Austin raise their right hand and take a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. In order to defend the Constitution it is imperative that they know what it means. Lest we have forgotten, the Second Amendment to the Constitution states: “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” …even if you are an agent of the federal government and claiming to be acting consistently with the Constitution. There is no wiggle room in the words of that amendment and neither should there be in legislation coming out of Austin “protecting” that right.
