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RIP James "Jim" Norell
I received word yesterday that my friend, and NRA/ILA "founding father" Jim Norell had died in his sleep. age 74. Jim was with NRA HQ before ILA was created, was there at Cincinnati for the revolt, and became the first head of ILA's public relations department. I'd known him since 1978. He was a brilliant writer, with the ability to come up with astounding insights. He was on vacation in Chincoteague, VA, with his fiancé Tammy, whom I'd finally met at the last NRA annual meeting. I'll miss him greatly at a personal level (we would talk on the telephone 3-4-5 times a week) and the gun rights movement will greatly miss him at a practical level.
His wife Nancy passed on five years ago. Here's the obit I ran for her. She and Jim both played major roles in pushing the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.
UPDATE: Here's Jim's online obit in The American Rifleman.
I am sorry for the death of one who fought for firearms rights. May he rest in peace. God bless him. But ...
You mean the FOPA that took away low prices for fullauto weapons by making it impossible to register new NFA weapons produced or imported into the US. Yeah, that was a great law. Went right along violating the Constitution like the NFA 34 and GCA 68.
The feds do not have any authority to regulate Arms for any reason, and no authority to punish violations of laws about Arms. The only punishment powers the feds can exercise are explicitly granted in the Constitution. If there are implied punishment powers as some believe then the inclusion of the explicit powers was wholly unnecessary and the Framers were idiots. There is no catch-all, expansive clause. Interpreting any clause in the Constitution to negate the need for another explicit clause is invalid.
Hamilton, who was not an antifederalist, himself wrote that in Fed Pap 84 where he said a bill of rights was not needed because the powers granted did not give Congress authority to legislate in the areas covered by a bill of rights. When We the People accept violations of the Constitution and usurpations of power we set ourselves up for even further loss of sovereignty. The US was founded on the concept of the Creator endowing INDIVIDUALS with sovereignty over themselves. The power greedy politicians have turned the founding on its head causing the system to appear as though government gives us rights. I have had many argue that privileges and rights are the same thing but they are wrong. Rights come from God, the Creator, and are inalienable. Privileges come from the government and can be taken at any moment.