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The Arms Trade Treaty- Rep from Illinois steps up

Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8)-12/07/11 , Introduces Second Amendment Protection Act of 2011 H.R.3594 Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8) introduced the Second Amendment Protection Act that would cut off all funding to the United Nations if the United States agrees to any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of American citizens. The United Nations has been trying for nearly a decade to move forward with the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This treaty poses a very real threat to the sovereignty of the United States and the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.Congressman Joe Walsh : Latest News : Rep. Walsh Defends Constitution from United Nations

John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says this:

"This has little or nothing to do with the international trade in conventional arms," he said. "This will strengthen the hand of a government that wants to regulate private ownership of firearms."

The arms treaty is a red herring issue. No international treaty trumps the US Constitution: The SCOTUS has ruled so in Reid vs Covert.

Quote:

Reid v. Covert

Article VI, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, declares:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; . . .

There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates, as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI, make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in "pursuance" of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important peace treaties which concluded the Revolutionary [p17] War, would remain in effect. [n31] It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights -- let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition -- to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. [n32] In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government, and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined.

....wonder why the guy went through the trouble :confused:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonic82 (Post 663778)

....wonder why the guy went through the trouble :confused:

Job security.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alsaqr (Post 663752)

The arms treaty is a red herring issue. No international treaty trumps the US Constitution: The SCOTUS has ruled so in Reid vs Covert.

Exactly right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonic82 (Post 663778)

....wonder why the guy went through the trouble :confused:

To make points with constituents? That, or he doesn't understand that treaties can't amend the constitution.

Or maybe Joe Walsh sees the threat to our national soveriegnty that is the U.N. and realizes the eventuality that it will pull us into a treaty (or set precedent in the world court that it is overlord of the planet) that would nullify our sovereignty. Thus necessitating a law that would withdraw us from the organization when it worked to that ultimate goal. While the letter of the constitution states that our sovereignty cant be challenged by treaty, I haven't seen our founding document paid much mind here in recent years.
When SCOTUS can interpret "shall not be infringed" to mean "with certain reasonable limitations".......... the integrity of the document and rule of law is compromised.

If you ask me I say he did the right thing. If one more member of the SCOTUS bites the dust we could all be looking at international treaty's trumping the Constitution. Don't be surprised. There would have been a time when the people of this nation would have scoffed and said that the NDAA would never make it through our congress because it was unconstitutional. The problem lies in the fact that the SCOTUS has the ability to interpret and therefore can decide when the Constitution trumps something AND when it doesn't.

Good for this guy, he gets a +1 for standing up for the Constitution, even if the scenario I put forward here never comes to fruition.

Riddle me this: With all those "conservatives" on the SCOTUS why is Roe v Wade still the law of the land? Google up stare decisis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alsaqr (Post 664323)

Riddle me this: With all those "conservatives" on the SCOTUS why is Roe v Wade still the law of the land? Google up stare decisis.

I'm not exactly sure what it is you want me to look at specifically with stare decisis, but I found this notion intriguing. No, I'm not trying to protect the ruling in Roe v. Wade, only offering a possible explanation for why it hasn't been revered by a more recent and conservative SCOTUS.

Quote:

During 1976, Richard Posner and William Landes invented the term "super-precedent," in an article they wrote about testing theories of precedent by counting citations. Posner and Landes used this term to describe the influential effect of a decision cited.

While Posner and Landes' idea did not become popular, the term "super-precedent" has subsequently become synonymous with a different idea: the difficulty of overturning a decision. During 1992, Rutgers professor Earl Maltz criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey for endorsing the idea that if one side can control the Court on an issue of major national importance (as in Roe v. Wade), then that side can protect its position from being reversed "by a kind of super-stare decisis." The controversial idea that some decisions are virtually immune from being overturned, regardless of whether they were decided correctly in the first place, is the idea to which the term "super stare decisis" now usually refers.

The concept of super-stare decisis (or “super-precedent”) was mentioned during the interrogations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prior to the commencement of the Roberts hearings, the chair of that committee, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote an op/ed in the New York Times referring to Roe as a "super-precedent." He revisited this concept during the hearings, but neither Roberts nor Alito endorsed the term or the concept.

Lastly, super-stare decisis may be considered as one extreme of a range of precedential power.

Wikipedia, emphasis added by myself.

**EDIT**

Ohhhh I see what your saying. Sorry, I'm a little slow some times:o. It makes sense then, what your saying. I only suspect that because Roe v. Wade was a power grab of sorts that that is the reason we haven't seen it overturned. However, I could still see them changing the whole "The Constitution rules over treaties" just because doing so means more power for the U.N. and federal government.

I still think its funny that people on here still believe that the government gives 2 ****s and a gigle what the constitution says.

I guess we will all pretend the patriot did not happen too right?