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Did the federal jury do right?
A federal jury convicted Dylan Roof of s federal “crime' under 18 USC 922, for use of a firearm in the murders of people in a church in South Carolina. The CCRKBA is celebrating it as a victory for “law” over the efforts of the anti-gunners to pass still more unconstitutional statutes. It argues for “enforcing the laws on the books”, when some of those laws are anathema to its charter. That is wrong, because the jury was enforcing an unconstitutional statute, and if it can convict of one unconstitutional statute , it can convict of any others that the anti-gunners may get passed.
No, the federal jury did not do right. They convicted Dylan Roof of a federal “crime”, when what he did was only a state crime. There is no constitutional authority for Congress to have passed the statute under which he was charged and convicted (Arms Control Act of 1968). Only the state had jurisdiction, under a state statute. The duty of the jury was to acquit, and send a message to the court that it was acting outside of its constitutional jurisdiction.
Now in principle, had he been charged with treason, that charge would have been constitutional, but the charge was not treason. It was violation of a statute that takes its authority from the court decision in Wickard v. Filburn. Not from the Treason Clauses.
The CRKBA does not do its job when it celebrates the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute. Its job is to hold government to its constitutional bounds. If it and we celebrate enforcement of unconstitutional statutes, there is no limit to what other statutes the government may enforce in the future. That plays into the anti-gunners hands, not thwarts them.
Source: http://constitutionalism.blogspot.com/2016/12/did-federal-jury-do-right.html
