Posr-Heller Federal legislation

WILL THE NRA HELP MY SECOND AMENDMENT CASE AS A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES?

WHY NOT? AFTER ALL, See David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen, THE HUMAN RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENSE, 22 BYU Journal of Public Law 43-178 (Fall 2007)

Hamrick v. United States in the final drafting stage for the U.S. District Court, NRA help is requested but I am still being ignored because I am litigating for the Second Amendment right to OPENLY keep and bear arms in interstate and maritime travel as a U.S. merchant seaman for the last 6 years (since 2002) and the NRA is still MIA for the Holy Grail of Second Amendment and Ninth Amendment rights of ACTUAL FREEDOM.

Citing the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations 1986 it is my claim that the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller opinion on the Second Amendment includes and protects the right of armed self-defense as part of the "right to life" provision in international human rights treaties and presents a "fundamental change of circumstances (Article 62 of both Vienna Conventions) for the "emergence of a new peremptory norm of general international law ("jus cogens"), (Article 64 of both Vienna Conventions) for the "right to life" provisions in international human rights treaties through the treaty clause in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States.

The Heller opinion also impacts the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man under Articles I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, gun culture under Articles XIII, XV, XVII, XVIII, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, and duties to society under Article XXIX to which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights have jurisdiction.

The Heller Opinion presents a "fundamental change of circumstances (Article 62) for the "right to life" provisions in international human rights treaties?

My approach to the Second Amendment, (the flip-side to Heller), applies to the right to "openly" keep and bear arms in interstate and maritime travel for personal safety and security and in defense of self and others and for property as not only a constitutional right but also as a human right under the "right to life" provision of human rights treaties. My approach is proper because Justice Scalia's opinion uses the term "natural right" to descibe the Second Amendment on the following pages:

Page 6 in Footnote 6:

". . . See Heyman, Natural Rights and the Second Amendment, in The Second Amendment in Law and History 179, 193–195 (C. Bogus ed. 2000). . .");

page 10 in Footnote 7

(". . . W. Duer, Outlines of the Constitutional Jurisprudence of the United States 31–32 (1833) (with reference to colonists' English rights: "The right of every individual to keep arms for his defence, suitable to his condition and degree; which was the public allowance, under due restrictions of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation; . . .")

Page 12:

"Justice James Wilson interpreted the Pennsylvania Constitution's arms-bearing right, for example, as a recognition of the natural right of defense "of one's person or house"—what he called the law of "self preservation." 2 Collected Works of James Wilson 1142, and n. x (K. Hall & M. Hall eds. 2007) (citing Pa. Const., Art. IX, §21 (1790));"

Page 20:

By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. See Malcolm 122–134. Blackstone, whose works, we have said, "constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation," Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 715 (1999), cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen. See 1 Blackstone 136, 139–140 (1765). His description of it cannot possibly be thought to tie it to militia or military service. It was, he said, "the natural right of resistance and self-preservation," id., at 139, and "the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence," id., at 140;

Page 21,

"In the tumultuous decades of the 1760's and 1770's, the Crown began to disarm the inhabitants of the most rebellious areas. That provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms. A New York article of April 1769 said that "[i]t is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence." A Journal of the Times: Mar. 17, New York Journal, Supp. 1, Apr. 13, 1769, in Boston Under Military Rule 79 (O. Dickerson ed. 1936);"

Page 39.

"In Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 251 (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court construed the Second Amendment as protecting the "natural right of self-defence" and therefore struck down a ban on carrying pistols openly."

I construe the term "natural right" to be the same by definition as the term "human right." This equivalent usage is proper and acceptable. The Heller opinion therefore becomes a "fundamental change of circumstances" introducing the "emergence of a new peremptory norm of general international law ("jus cogens") (See Articles 62 and 64 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations, 1986)

The Heller opinion also impacts the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man under Articles I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, gun culture under Articles XIII, XV, XVII, XVIII, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, and duties to society under Article XXIX to which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights have jurisdiction.

IMPACTED INTERNATIONAL TREATIES:

● PIRACY AND ARMED ROBBERY AGAINST SHIPS: Guidance to Shipowners and Ship Operators, Shipmasters and Crews on Preventing and Suppressing Acts of Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships (International Maritime Organization's Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) Circular 623 Rev. No. 3, dated May 29, 2002)

Firearms

¶45. The carrying and use of firearms for personal protection or protection of a ship is strongly discouraged.

¶46. Carriage of arms on board ship may encourage attackers to carry firearms thereby escalating an already dangerous situation, and any firearms on board may themselves become an attractive target for an attacker. The use of firearms requires special training and aptitudes and the risk of accidents with firearms carried on board ship is great. In some jurisdictions, killing a national may have unforeseen consequences even for a person who believes he has acted in self defence.

● Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948

● Maritime Labour Convention

THE INTERNATIONAL BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS:

● Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

● International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966

● International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966

● Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

● Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty

SELECTED INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTRUMENTS

● International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 21 Dec 1965

● International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 Dec 1966

● Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 16 Dec 1966

● Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, 15 Dec 1989

● International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16 Dec 1966

● Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 18 Dec 1979

● Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 10 Dec 1999

THE INTER-AMERICAN SYSTEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS

● The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man

● The American Convention on Human Rights

● Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Protocol of San Salvador)

Incorporating the Second Amendment through the
Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

"If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals -- not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall. The success or failure of the American theory of society and government, depends upon our fidelity to every one of those interdependent parts of that immortal charter of orderly freedom, the Constitution of the United States." Albert J. Beveridge, The Assault Upon American Fundamentals, 45 Reports of American Bar Association, 188, 216 (1920).

As to my human rights approach under the treaty clause Michael Anthony Lawrence, "Second Amendment Incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges and Immunities and Due Proceess Clauses, Missouri Law Review, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Winter 2007) lends itself to human rights interpretation:

"natural rights" (same as human rights" found in the following pages:

p. 3, 5,

Footnote 23 on p. 8,

p. 22, 46, 47,

Footnote 212 on p. 49 with text,

Footnote 213 on p. 50 with text,

p. 59, and 64.

"human affairs" p. 4.

"human rights" p. 28.

"human nature" p. 39.

"human art and sophistry" p. 63

"tyranny" p. 48

"abuse of power" p. 11

"Oath of Office" p. 5, 19

Do not forget about Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."

Also do not forget about the infamous U.S. Supreme Court pro-slavery opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 416-417 (1857) to which gave birth to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments:

"The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, throughout the thirteen States by which that instrument was framed; and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as we are bound, out of respect to the State sovereignties, to assume they had deemed it just and necessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State."

What about Second Amendment Rights of Seamen who travel interstate in their privately owned vehicles and aboard commercial constainer ships transitting pirate waters around the world?

In the Heller opinion "Open carry" is covered on:

pages 57 (Nunn v. State);

page 40 (State v. Chandler); and

page 57 (Andrew v. State);

see also generally page 57 (State v. Reid).

Some of the Federal Laws and Regulations I will challenge:

CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS

Title 33--Navigation and Navigable Waters

CHAPTER I--COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

PART 104--MARITIME SECURITY: VESSELS

33 CFR § 104.220 Company or Vessel Personnel with Security Duties.

Company and vessel personnel re-sponsible for security duties must maintain a TWIC, and must have knowledge, through training or equivalent job experience, in the following, as appropriate:

(a) Knowledge of current security threats and patterns;

(b) Recognition and detection of dangerous substances and devices;

(c) Recognition of characteristics and behavioral patterns of persons who are likely to threaten security;

(d) Techniques used to circumvent security measures;

(e) Crowd management and control techniques;

(f) Security related communications;

(g) Knowledge of emergency procedures and contingency plans;

(h) Operation of security equipment
and systems;

(i) Testing and calibration of security
equipment and systems, and their
maintenance while at sea;

(j) Inspection, control, and monitoring techniques;

(k) Relevant provisions of the Vessel
Security Plan (VSP);

(l) Methods of physical screening of
persons, personal effects, baggage,
cargo, and vessel stores; and

(m) The meaning and the consequential requirements of the different
Maritime Security (MARSEC) Levels.

(n) Relevant aspects of the TWIC program and how to carry them out.

[USCG–2003–14749, 68 FR 39302, July 1, 2003, as amended by USCG–2006–24196, 72 FR 3580,
Jan. 25, 2007]

33 CFR § 104.230 Drill and exercise requirements.

(a) General.

(1) Drills and exercises
must test the proficiency of vessel personnel in assigned security duties at all Maritime Security (MARSEC) Levels and the effective implementation of the Vessel Security Plan (VSP). They must enable the Vessel Security Officer (VSO) to identify any related security deficiencies that need to be addressed.

(2) A drill or exercise required by this
section may be satisfied with the im-plementation of security measures required by the Vessel Security Plan as the result of an increase in the MARSEC Level, provided the vessel reports attainment to the cognizant COTP (Captain of the Port).

(b) Drills.

(1) The VSO must ensure
that at least one security drill is con-ducted at least every 3 months, except when a vessel is out of service due to repairs or seasonal suspension of operation provided that in such cases a drill
must be conducted within one week of the vessel's reactivation. Security drills may be held in conjunction with non-security drills
where appropriate.

(2) Drills must test individual elements of the VSP, including response to security threats and incidents. Drills should take into account the types of operations of the vessel, vessel personnel changes, and other relevant circumstances. Examples of drills include
unauthorized entry to a restricted area, response to alarms, and notification of law enforcement authorities.

(3) If the vessel is moored at a facility on the date the facility has planned to conduct any drills, the vessel may, but is not required to,
participate in the facility's scheduled drill.

(4) Drills must be conducted within one week from whenever the percentage of vessel personnel with no prior participation in a vessel
security drill on that vessel exceeds 25 percent.

(5) Not withstanding paragraph (b)(4)
of this section, vessels not subject to
SOLAS may conduct drills within 1 week from whenever the percentage of vessel personnel with no prior participation in a vessel security drill on a vessel of similar design and owned or operated by the same company exceeds 25 percent.

(c) Exercises.

(1) Exercises must be conducted at least once each calendar year, with no more than 18 months between exercises.

(2) Exercises may be:

(i) Full scale or live;

(ii) Tabletop simulation or seminar;

(iii) Combined with other appropriate
exercises; or

(iv) A combination of the elements in paragraphs (c)(2)(i) through (iii) of this section.

(3) Exercises may be vessel-specific or part of a cooperative exercise program to exercise applicable facility and vessel security plans or
comprehensive port exercises.

(4) Each exercise must test communication and notification procedures, and elements of coordination, resource availability, and response.

(5) Exercises are a full test of the security program and must include the substantial and active participation of relevant company and
vessel security personnel, and may include facility security personnel and government au-thorities depending on the scope and the nature of
the exercises.

[USCG–2003–14749, 68 FR 39302, July 1, 2003, as amended at 68 FR
60513, Oct. 22, 2003]

In Heller opinion (Scalia), page 24:

"Joseph Story wrote in his
treatise on the Constitution that "the word 'state' is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community." 1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference to the Second Amendment's prefatory clause: "The militia is the natural defence of a free country")."

Now compare with the prohibition of unregistered civilian military activity:

U.S. CODE

TITLE 18

PART I—CRIMES

CHAPTER 115—TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES

18 U.S.C. § 2386. Registration of Certain Organizations

18 U.S.C. § 2386(B)(1)The following organizations shall be required to
register with the Attorney General:

. . . "Every organization which engages both in civilian military activity and in political activity"

==

The above means "NO MILITIA MAY INVOLVE THEMSELVES IN POLITICAL ACTIVITY." THE MILITIA HAS NO FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS!

==

See also:

CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS

TITLE 27--ALCOHOL, TOBACCO PRODUCTS, AND FIREARMS

CHAPTER II--BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS, AND EXPLOSIVES,
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

PART 478 COMMERCE IN FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION

Subpart C - Administrative and Miscellaneous Provisions

27 C.F.R. § 478.38 Transportation of Firearms.

Notwithstanding any other provision of any law or any rule or regulation of a State or any political subdivision thereof, any person
who is not otherwise prohibited by this chapter from transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm shall be entitled to transport a
firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where such person may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where such person may lawfully possess and carry such firearm if, during such transportation the firearm is unloaded, and neither the firearm nor any ammunition being transported is readily accessible or is directly accessible from the passenger compartment of such transporting vehicle: Provided, That in the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver's compartment the firearm or ammunition shall be contained in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console.

The following excerpt is the direction I am taking with my lawsuit. It is the correct direction after Heller. I am once again asking for financial and legal help with my lawsuit from the NRA, GOA, JPFO, and everyone else.

INTRODUCTION TO MY CIVIL COMPLAINT

First Invitation by the U.S. Supreme Court:
Second Amendment as Subject Matter Jurisdiction (1997)

The first subject matter jurisdiction invitation extended by the U.S. Supreme Court on the Second Amendment was Justice Thomas' concurring opinion in Printz v. United States 521 U.S. 898 (1997):

". . . If, however, the Second Amendment is read to confer a personal right to "keep and bear arms," a colorable argument exists that the Federal Government's regulatory scheme, at least as it pertains to the purely intrastate sale or possession of firearms, runs afoul of that Amendment's protections. As the parties did not raise this argument, however, we need not consider it here. Perhaps, at some future date, this Court will have the opportunity to determine whether Justice Story was correct when he wrote that the right to bear arms "has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic." 3 J. Story, Commentaries § 1890, p. 746 (1833).

SCOTUS RESURRECTED THE PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES CLAUSE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: NEW CHANCE TO INCORPORATE THE SECOND AMENDMENT WITH THIS SECOND INVITATION!

Second Invitation by the U.S. Supreme Court:
Right to Travel as Subject Matter Jurisdiction (1999)

The second subject matter jurisdiction invitation extended by the U.S. Supreme Court on the right to travel as part of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was again from Justice Thomas, but this time in his dissent in Saenz v. Roe 526 US 489 (1999). In Saenz, California, which has the sixth highest welfare benefit levels in the country, sought to amend its Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in 1992 by limiting new residents, for the first year they live in the State, to the benefits they would have received in the State of their prior residence. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code Ann. §11450.03. The U.S. Supreme Court held:

1. Section 11450.03 violates Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 8-17.

(a) In assessing laws denying welfare benefits to newly arrived residents, this Court held in Shapiro that a State cannot enact durational residency requirements in order to inhibit the migration of needy persons into the State, and that a classification that has the effect of imposing a penalty on the right to travel violates the Equal Protection Clause absent a compelling governmental interest. Pp. 8-10.

(b) The right to travel embraces three different components: the right to enter and leave another State; the right to be treated as a welcome visitor while temporarily present in another State; and, for those travelers who elect to become permanent residents, the right to be treated like other citizens of that State. Pp. 10-12.

(c) The right of newly arrived citizens to the same privileges and immunities enjoyed by other citizens of their new State--the third aspect of the right to travel--is at issue here. That right is protected by the new arrival's status as both a state citizen and a United States citizen, and it is plainly identified in the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, see Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 80. That newly arrived citizens have both state and federal capacities adds special force to their claim that they have the same rights as others who share their citizenship. Pp. 12-14.

(d) Since the right to travel embraces a citizen's right to be treated equally in her new State of residence, a discriminatory classification is itself a penalty. California's classifications are defined entirely by the period of residency and the location of the disfavored class members' prior residences. Within the category of new residents, those who lived in another country or in a State that had higher benefits than California are treated like lifetime residents; and within the broad subcategory of new arrivals who are treated less favorably, there are 45 smaller classes whose benefit levels are determined by the law of their former States. California's legitimate interest in saving money does not justify this discriminatory scheme. The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause expressly equates citizenship with residence, Zobel, 457 U. S., at 69 , and does not tolerate a hierarchy of subclasses of similarly situated citizens based on the location of their prior residences. Pp. 14-17.

2. PRWORA's approval of durational residency requirements does not resuscitate §11450.03. This Court has consistently held that Congress may not authorize the States to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, the protection afforded to a citizen by that Amendment's Citizenship Clause limits the powers of the National Government as well as the States. Congress' Article I powers to legislate are limited not only by the scope of the Framers' affirmative delegation, but also by the principle that the powers may not be exercised in a way that violates other specific provisions of the Constitution. See Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 29 . Pp. 17-21.

Chief Justice Rehnquist , with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.

The Court today breathes new life into the previously dormant Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment -- a Clause relied upon by this Court in only one other decision, Colgate v. Harvey , 296 U. S. 404 (1935), overruled five years later by Madden v. Kentucky , 309 U. S. 83 (1940). It uses this Clause to strike down what I believe is a reasonable measure falling under the head of a "good-faith residency requirement." Because I do not think any provision of the Constitution--and surely not a provision relied upon for only the second time since its enactment 130 years ago--requires this result, I dissent.

I

Much of the Court's opinion is unremarkable and sound. The right to travel clearly embraces the right to go from one place to another, and prohibits States from impeding the free interstate passage of citizens. The state law in Edwards v. California , 314 U. S. 160 (1941), which prohibited the transport of any indigent person into California, was a classic barrier to travel or migration and the Court rightly struck it down. Indeed, for most of this country's history, what the Court today calls the first "component" of the right to travel , ante, at 10, was the entirety of this right. As Chief Justice Taney stated in his dissent in the Passenger Cases , 7 How. 283 (1849):

"We are all citizens of the United States; and, as members of the same community, must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own States. And a tax imposed by a State for entering its territories or harbours is inconsistent with the rights which belong to the citizens of other States as members of the Union, and with the objects which that Union was intended to attain. Such a power in the States could produce nothing but discord and mutual irritation, and they very clearly do not possess it." Id., at 492.

See also Crandall v. Nevada , 6 Wall. 35, 44 (1868); Williams v. Fears , 179 U. S. 270, 274 (1900); Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County , 415 U. S. 250, 280-283 (1974) ( Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (collecting and discussing cases). The Court wisely holds that because Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code Ann. §11450.03 (West Supp. 1999) imposes no obstacle to respondents' entry into California, the statute does not infringe upon the right to travel. See ante , at 10. Thus, the traditional conception of the right to travel is simply not an issue in this case.

I also have no difficulty with aligning the right to travel with the protections afforded by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, §2, to nonresidents who enter other States "intending to return home at the end of [their] journey." See ante , at 11. Nonresident visitors of other States should not be subject to discrimination solely because they live out of State. See Paul v. Virginia , 8 Wall. 168 (1869); Hicklin v. Orbeck , 437 U. S. 518 (1978). Like the traditional right-to-travel guarantees discussed above, however, this Clause has no application here, because respondents expressed a desire to stay in California and become citizens of that State. Respondents therefore plainly fall outside the protections of Article IV, §2.

Finally, I agree with the proposition that a "citizen of the United States can, of his own volition, become a citizen of any State of the Union by a bona fide residence therein, with the same rights as other citizens of that State." Slaughter-House Cases , 16 Wall. 36, 80 (1873).

But I cannot see how the right to become a citizen of another State is a necessary "component" of the right to travel, or why the Court tries to marry these separate and distinct rights. A person is no longer "traveling" in any sense of the word when he finishes his journey to a State which he plans to make his home. Indeed, under the Court's logic, the protections of the Privileges or Immunities Clause recognized in this case come into play only when an individual stops traveling with the intent to remain and become a citizen of a new State. The right to travel and the right to become a citizen are distinct, their relationship is not reciprocal, and one is not a "component" of the other. Indeed, the same dicta from the Slaughter-House Cases quoted by the Court actually treats the right to become a citizen and the right to travel as separate and distinct rights under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See id., at 79-80. At most, restrictions on an individual's right to become a citizen indirectly affect his calculus in deciding whether to exercise his right to travel in the first place, but such an attenuated and uncertain relationship is no ground for folding one right into the other.

No doubt the Court has, in the past 30 years, essentially conflated the right to travel with the right to equal state citizenship in striking down durational residence requirements similar to the one challenged here. See, e.g. , Shapiro v. Thompson , 394 U. S. 618 (1969) (striking down 1-year residence before receiving any welfare benefit); Dunn v. Blumstein , 405 U. S. 330 (1972) (striking down 1-year residence before receiving the right to vote in state elections); Maricopa County , 415 U. S., at 280 -283 (striking down 1-year county residence before receiving entitlement to nonemergency hospitalization or emergency care). These cases marked a sharp departure from the Court's prior right-to-travel cases because in none of them was travel itself prohibited. See id., at 254-255 ("Whatever its ultimate scope . . . the right to travel was involved in only a limited sense in Shapiro "); Shapiro, supra, at 671-672 (Harlan, J., dissenting).

Instead, the Court in these cases held that restricting the provision of welfare benefits, votes, or certain medical benefits to new citizens for a limited time impermissibly "penalized" them under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for having exercised their right to travel. See Maricopa County, supra , at 257. The Court thus settled for deciding what restrictions amounted to "deprivations of very important benefits and rights" that operated to indirectly "penalize" the right to travel. See Attorney General of N. Y. v. Soto-Lopez , 476 U. S. 898, 907 (1986) (plurality opinion). In other cases, the Court recognized that laws dividing new and old residents had little to do with the right to travel and merely triggered an inquiry into whether the resulting classification rationally furthered a legitimate government purpose. See Zobel v. Williams , 457 U. S. 55, 60 , n. 6 (1982); Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, 472 U. S. 612, 618 (1985).[2] While Zobel and Hooper reached the wrong result in my view, they at least put the Court on the proper track in identifying exactly what interests it was protecting; namely, the right of individuals not to be subject to unjustifiable classifications as opposed to infringements on the right to travel.

The Court today tries to clear much of the underbrush created by these prior right-to-travel cases, abandoning its effort to define what residence requirements deprive individuals of "important rights and benefits" or "penalize" the right to travel. See ante , at 14-15. Under its new analytical framework, a State, outside certain ill-defined circumstances, cannot classify its citizens by the length of their residence in the State without offending the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court thus departs from Shapiro and its progeny, and, while paying lipservice to the right to travel, the Court does little to explain how the right to travel is involved at all. Instead, as the Court's analysis clearly demonstrates, see ante , at 15-17, this case is only about respondents' right to immediately enjoy all the privileges of being a California citizen in relation to that State's ability to test the good-faith assertion of this right. The Court has thus come full circle by effectively disavowing the analysis of Shapiro , segregating the right to travel and the rights secured by Article IV from the right to become a citizen under the Privileges or Immunities Clause, and then testing the residence requirement here against this latter right. For all its misplaced efforts to fold the right to become a citizen into the right to travel, the Court has essentially returned to its original understanding of the right to travel."

- - -

Justice Thomas, with whom the Chief Justice [Rhenquist] joins, dissenting.

"As The Chief Justice points out, ante at 1, it comes as quite a surprise that the majority relies on the Privileges or Immunities Clause at all in this case. That is because, as I have explained supra , at 1-2, The Slaughter-House Cases sapped the Clause of any meaning. Although the majority appears to breathe new life into the Clause today, it fails to address its historical underpinnings or its place in our constitutional jurisprudence. Because I believe that the demise of the Privileges or Immunities Clause has contributed in no small part to the current disarray of our Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, I would be open to reevaluating its meaning in an appropriate case. Before invoking the Clause, however, we should endeavor to understand what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment thought that it meant. We should also consider whether the Clause should displace, rather than augment, portions of our equal protection and substantive due process jurisprudence. The majority's failure to consider these important questions raises the specter that the Privileges or Immunities Clause will become yet another convenient tool for inventing new rights, limited solely by the "predilections of those who happen at the time to be Members of this Court." Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 502 (1977)."

Third Invitation by the U.S. Supreme Court:
Second Amendment as Subject Matter Jurisdiction (2008) (Again!)

Justice Scalia's opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290, 554 US ____ (June 26, 2008) held that "[t]he Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Justice Scalia answered the first invitation by Justice Thomas with yet another subject matter jurisdiction invitation:

"JUSTICE BREYER chides us for leaving so many applications of the right to keep and bear arms in doubt, and for not providing extensive historical justification for those regulations of the right that we describe as permissible. See post, at 42–43. But since this case represents this Court's first in-depth examination of the Second Amend-ment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field, any more than Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879), our first in-depth Free Exercise Clause case, left that area in a state of utter certainty. And there will be time enough to expound upon the historical justifications for the exceptions we have mentioned if and when those exceptions come before us."

This alone insures that I get a civil jury trial.

Teetering on Judicial Tyranny and Despotism
It should be noted that the Heller opinion came to us on a 5-4 voted. I characterize that vote as a threat to the United States teetering on despotism. I cite Ayn Rand's quotation:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

Four of the nine Justices would have us in another dark period of human history but for that teetering swing vote.

Justice Scalia's opinion in Heller has two quotable points that lends itself to an examination of Second Amendment rights of American seafarers in interstate and maritime (commercial) travel in addition to ordinary United States citizens in interstate and maritime (private boating, i.e., the boating public on navigable rivers and waterways, including the Intercoastal Waterway). The Heller opinion also lends itself to an examination of the Second Amendment as a human right under international human rights treaties. The two extendable points in the Heller opinion are:

Page 9:

"Keep arms" was simply a common way of referring to possessing arms, for militiamen and everyone else." [Footnote 7: . . . J. Ayliffe, A New Pandect of Roman Civil Law 195 (1734) ("Yet a Person might keep Arms in his House, or on his Estate, on the Account of Hunting, Navigation, Travelling, and on the Score of Selling them in the way of Trade or Commerce, or such Arms as accrued to him by way of Inheritance"); ][3]

Page 46:

"As the Constitution of the United States, and the constitutions of several of the states, in terms more or less comprehensive, declare the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it has been a subject of grave discussion, in some of the state courts, whether a statute prohibiting persons, when not on a journey, or as travellers, from wearing or carrying concealed weapons, be constitutional. There has been a great difference of opinion on the question." 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *340, n. 2 (O. Holmes ed., 12th ed. 1873).[4]

In the Page 9 quotation I construe the term "everyone else" to include merchant seamen in interstate and maritime travel as supported by the terms "Navigation" and "Traveling" in Scalia's Footnote 7.

Scalia's Page 46 quotation implies that "open carry in interstate and maritime travel" is an "absolute or near-absolute right" not subject to any regulation at all. This inference needs clarification by judicial challenge. The federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 926A - Interstate Transportation of Firearms, (nearly identical in effect to the strickened DC gun control law), is now ready for such a judicial challenge.
In the following excerpt from Scalia's opinion note the reference to "unknown this side of the looking glass" and the "Mad Hatter."

"JUSTICE STEVENS points to a study by amici supposedly showing that the phrase "bear arms" was most frequently used in the military context. See post, at 12–13, n. 9; Linguists' Brief 24. Of course, as we have said, the fact that the phrase was commonly used in a particular context does not show that it is limited to that context, and, in any event, we have given many sources where the phrase was used in nonmilitary contexts. Moreover, the study's collection appears to include (who knows how many times) the idiomatic phrase "bear arms against," which is irrelevant. The amici also dismiss examples such as" 'bear arms . . . for the purpose of killing game' " because those uses are "expressly qualified." Linguists' Brief 24. (JUSTICE STEVENS uses the same excuse for dismissing the state constitutional provisions analogous to the Second Amendment that identify private-use purposes for which the individual right can be asserted. See post, at 12.) That analysis is faulty. A purposive qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics). If "bear arms" means, as we think, simply the carrying of arms, a modifier can limit the purpose of the carriage ("for the purpose of self-defense" or "to make war against the King"). But if "bear arms" means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add "for the purpose of killing game." The right "to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game" is worthy of the mad hatter. Thus, these purposive qualifying phrases positively establish that "to bear arms" is not limited to military use."

I construe "unknown on this side of the looking glass" as the Rule of Law or the Constitution and the Bill of Rights themselves. On the other side of the looking glass is judicial lawlessness.

All the federal district court and circuit judges that have ruled on Second Amendment cases as Justice Stevens opines have substituted the Rule of Law with a political ideology. If my assessment is logically sustainable then it stands to reason under constitutional law that those rogue judges have not acted with good behavior (bias) and are candidates for impeachment if Congress and the Justice Department were to uphold the letter of the law equally against federal judges as they do against us commom foke.

The four dissenting Justices as does Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the US District Court for DC (my Case No. 02-1435) "believe that the Second Amendment protects only the right to possess and carry a firearm in connection with militia service." The Heller opinion proves this patently wrong and puts me back in play with a forthcoming lawsuit.

Justice Scalia describes Stevens' view that "bear Arms" is restricted to military usage as worthy of the Mad Hatter. A very colorfull way of describing lunacy.

From Judge Huvelle's Memorandum dismissing my Case No. 02-1435 with prejudice she wrote thar "no court has ever so much as suggested that the Thirteenth Amendment confers any right to bear arms, and it is entirely fanciful to suggest that its prohibition of involuntary servitude somehow requires the overturning of a whole variety of gun control legislation."
But now the Supreme Court has held that "[t]he handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District's total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense."

This is my first post-Heller lawsuit for not only my Second Amendment right to openly keep and bear arms in interstate and maritime travel under state, federal, and maritime law but now for my Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial under constitutional law and human rights law.

Don Hamrick v. George W. Bush, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 02-1435 (2002)

MEMORANDUM

On July 18, 2002, petitioner filed a pro se Petition for A Writ of Mandamus, requesting this Court, inter alia, to compel the President of the United States to protect the constitutional rights of sailors in the U.S. Merchant Marine to carry handguns while ashore in the United States, to strike various federal statutes and regulations restricting individuals' right to transport firearms across state lines on the grounds that they violate the Second, Ninth, and Thirteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and to compel the U.S. Coast Guard to approve petitioner's application for "National Open Carry Handgun" endorsement on his Merchant Marine document. Petitioner has not served a complaint and summons on any of the parties he has named as respondents, seeking instead to use a petition-show cause order approach for the resolution of his grievances. Regardless of whether such an approach is appropriate in light of Rule 81(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it is clear that petitioner cannot satisfy the stringent standards for mandamus relief and therefore that his petition must be dismissed.

The remedy of mandamus is an extraordinary one, and is reserved for extraordinary situations. See Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 289 (1988). Under well-established Circuit law, mandamus relief is available only if three conditions are met:

(1) the plaintiff has a clear right to relief;

(2) the defendant has a clear duty to act; and

(3) there is no other adequate remedy available to the plaintiff.

Power v. Barnhart, 292 F.3d 781, 784 (D.C. Cir. 2002); see also In re Bluewater Network, 234 F.3d 1305, 1315 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (mandamus issued "only for the most transparent violations of a clear duty to act"). The present petition falls far short of satisfying these stringent requirements.

The asserted legal bases for the relief sought by petitioner are the Second, Ninth, and Thirteenth Amendments of the Constitution, which, he claims, guarantee the right to carry firearms openly and without a license in interstate and intrastate travel. Petitioner argues that the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear arms" renders invalid any federal or state law restricting what he calls "National Open Carry Handgun" and requires the President and the Coast Guard to take the actions he has demanded. Moreover, according to petitioner, federal and state gun control laws create a form of "legislated slavery" in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Taking the latter claim first, no court has ever so much as suggested that the Thirteenth Amendment confers any right to bear arms, and it is entirely fanciful to suggest that its prohibition of involuntary servitude somehow unambiguously requires the overturning of a whole variety of gun control legislation. As for the Second Amendment, while it is true that the precise meaning of this provision continues to be in dispute in both judicial and academic circles, c.f. United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001), the very existence and intensity of that controversy make mandamus relief a decidedly inappropriate vehicle for fulfilling petitioner's demands. Mandamus is reserved for circumstances in which the claimant's entitlement to relief and the defendant's obligation to provide such relief are unambiguous and undebatable. The Second Amendment simply offers no such clarity.

Moreover, the established law on this subject hardly supports petitioner's cause. In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178 (1939), the Supreme Court found that "absent some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia," the possession of a weapon (a short-barreled shotgun) could be proscribed without running afoul of the Second Amendment. Miller remains the most authoritative modern pronouncement on the amendment's meaning and its conclusion that the right to bear arms is limited by the needs of an organized militia has subsequently been echoed by the Supreme Court and followed in this and other circuits. See United States v. Lewis, 445 U.S. 55, 65 n.8 (1980); Fraternal Order of Police v. United States, 173 F.3d 898, 905-06 (D.C. Cir. 1999); accord United States v. Haney, 264 F.3d 1161, 1165 (10th Cir. 2001) (holding that "a federal criminal gun control law does not violate the Second Amendment unless it impairs the state's ability to maintain a well-regulated militia"). Under this interpretation, petitioner's claims appear largely without merit.

In sum, given the breadth of petitioner's demands and the narrowness of the constitutional provision that he relies on to justify those demands – more specifically, the lack of apparent connection between his right to keep and bear an unlicenced firearm and the needs of any organized militia – petitioner can establish neither that he has a clear right to relief nor that any of the named respondents has a clear duty to act. However the Second Amendment may ultimately come to be interpreted, the current understanding of that text certainly provides no obvious basis either for the wholesale negation of federal and state gun laws or for the open carry endorsement that petitioner seeks.

Since mandamus is clearly unavailable here, the Court must dismiss the petition with prejudice. Therefore, the Court need not address petitioner's claims for declaratory judgment or for injunctive relief. But if petitioner wishes pursue these claims, he is required to use the ordinary procedures of complaint and summons described in Rules 3 and 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Flatow v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 2002 WL 31245261, at *2 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 8, 2002) ("The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide that there shall be one form of action to be known as 'civil action' and such an action shall be commenced by filing a complaint with the court, with related service, answer, and motions obligations thereafter.") (internal quotation marks omitted).

________________________________

ELLEN SEGAL HUVELLE

United States District Judge

DATE: October 9, 2002

Dude, go for the de-caf next time already.

Clearly what we need in Government is a lot more transparency so that there are no half-hidden votes.
Either it's a secret ballot or its not with no privileges extended to any special interest.

> - stuff -
>
> Posted by: Don Hamrick at July 14, 2008 10:56 AM

Didn't read a word of it.

Next time, post a summary in comments, with a link to the verbiage. And get your own blog ... posting pages long screeds in other people's blogs is just stupid and abusive, IMO.

Most blogs I frequent and comment on impose a word or character count limit on comments submitted.

Don Hemrick may have a legal claim, but I don't understand why he insists the NRA ABSOLUTELY MUST pay for his lawsuit. I'm inclined to think that he's simply trying to bleed them out.

I wish him good luck, though, both in finding an angel to fund his lawsuit (it won't be the NRA) and prevailing in court.

In the meantime, I gotta agree with Kristopher: trim your posts, summarize and link to your own blog.

It would also be nice if the posts were on topic and not self promoting. Hemrick has a web site and should promote that, but not here. Using another persons BLOG to promote your own agenda is not cricket, but of course that's up to David.

Personally, I come here to read David's take and those very relevant comments by the other readers.

Don

Please stop posting.

Your legal reasoning will not be accepted by any court in this country. You will just make all pro gun litigation much more difficult. again please stop your efforts.You would be better off arguing about gold fringe on the flag.

Don,

Act like a civilized human being and get your own web site, rather than stealing other people's bandwidth. Seriously. Then, if it's related to the subject, you can post a link to your site. If it's not, then, again, act like a civilized human being and restrain yourself.

Ignore the message. Kill the messenger. Is that your mentality?

Whatta bunch of dumbasses who cannot respect someone standing up for his own rights against.

I brought new ideas to you idiots and you want me to shut up? It's like I am telling a bunch of flat worlders that the world is round. Your reaction is the same.

FROM: DON HAMRICK

I have gone broke pushing my Second Amendment case in the federal courts for 6 years as a merchant seaman. Doing so has ruined me. I am living the life of a homeless nomad hitchhiking from state to state finding time on university library Internet computers and briefly at hotel internet computers to prepare my court documents. You dissenters have no idea the government corruption, harrasment, and threats of arrest I have endured. All you Internet Rambos do is mock and insult someone who is fighting for your constitutional rights.

I am flat broke. My best hope is to find someplace to get my lawsuit printed and mailed.

I am asking for help and I get knocked down and kicked in the stomach by a bunch of Internet vigilantees who think they are protecting David Hardy's blog.

Don, as charming as that was, you need to work on your summary. Take out the part where you characterize yourself as a broke, homeless, loser who trash talks the people you're trying to get money from and get back to us.

After 6 years of criticims from useful idiots like you and the others I am engrained to ignore such ridiculous comments. The truth is the truth pal. This 6 year legal fight cost me everything. But I am not the loser you take me to be because I will not give up this legal fight with the Government. To hell with what you and everyone else think.

FROM DON HAMRICK

After 6 years of criticims from useful idiots like you and the others I am engrained to ignore such ridiculous comments. The truth is the truth pal. This 6 year legal fight cost me everything. But I am not the loser you take me to be because I will not give up this legal fight with the Government. To hell with what you and everyone else think.

FROM DON HAMRICK

MY STANDING TO SUE:

I AM TAKING THE HARDLINE APPROACH IN DEFENSE OF MY RIGHTS. WHY NOT! THE FEDS PILE ON OFFENSE AND THE KITCHEN SINK TO INSURE A CONVICTION THROUGH PLEA BARGAINS. TURN ABOUT IS FAIR PLAY!

The Heller opinion overrules Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle’s Memorandum on the Second Amendment in Don Hamrick v. George W. Bush, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 02-1435 (2002). I am here for a rematch under my Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury and under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 PROCEEDINGS IN VINDICATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS; 42 U.S.C. § 1986 ACTION FOR NEGLECT TO PREVENT CONSPIRACIES TO INTERFERE WITH CIVIL RIGHTS (42 U.S.C. § 1985); and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 CIVIL ACTION FOR DEPRIVATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS. And by such conspiracies to interfere with my civil rights, statutory rights, constitutional rights, and human rights under international human rights treaties through the treaty clause of the U.S. Constitution I seek a Civil Remedy as a PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL for my claims against the United States of engaging in racketeering activity under the RICO Act in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 1964 threefold damages that I have sustained in the original wrongful 12-day detention in Lithuania by the U.S. Coast Guard in 2002 ($14 million) plus additional damages for obstructions of justice by they U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, and federal judges from 2002 to the present through FRAUD AND FALSE STATEMENTS under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(1), (2), and (3); and the cost of the suit during the 6-year span, including a reasonable attorney’s fee (even though I never been represented by an attorney in this 6-year litigious journey for justice), which includes extortion of exempted filing fees from a seaman (18 U.S.C. § 872) in violation of the Seamen’s Suit law, 28 U.S.C. § 1916 as a predicate act of RACKETEERING ACTIVITY under 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A) – EXTORTION – as well as under 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(B) – OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE – as defined under 18 U.S.C. § 1503(a).

How much money do you want?

Just enough to pay for the FedEx/Kinkos estimate yet to be determined. I am still working on the lawsuit: 600 pages but will probably illuminate many of the unnecessary appendixes to reduce the cost.

My current poverty stage is due to waiting on the Heller opinion to be published and to renew my "Merchant Mariner's Document" with the U.S. Coast Guard with the non-existent "National Open Carry Handgun" endorsement just to piss them off again. (Merchant seaman's version of "Have gun. Will travel") I will also have to renew my Passport as well but these will MPT be paid by donations intended for my court case but by wages earned as labor for household moving van line truck driver. Such are the burdens of life and survival.

CORRECTED COPY

FROM DON HAMRICK:

Just enough to pay for the FedEx/Kinkos estimate yet to be determined. I am still working on the lawsuit: 600 pages but will probably illuminate many of the unnecessary appendixes to reduce the cost.

My current poverty stage is due to waiting on the Heller opinion to be published and to renew my "Merchant Mariner's Document" with the U.S. Coast Guard with the non-existent "National Open Carry Handgun" endorsement just to piss them off again. (Merchant seaman's version of "Have gun. Will travel") I will also have to renew my Passport as well but these will NOT be paid by donations intended for my court case but by wages earned as labor for household moving van line truck driver. Such are the burdens of life and survival.

Do you run ads on your blog?

No. I have not learned how to do that because I spend all my free time researching the law up to and including international human rights law.

It's easy. Go to Google advertising.