Constitutional Carrier Thwarts Robbery In Topeka Less Than Two Weeks After New Gun Law Is Signed

It’s amazing what armed citizens can do to help preserve the peace when government gets out of the way, and allows law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback just signed a bill legalizing so-called “constitutional carry”—allowing citizens to exercise their right to carry a firearm for self-defense without permits—less than two weeks ago.

It has already proven instrumental to thwarting a robbery.

24 year old Joey Tapley was a key witness in Friday’s armed robbery for weapons inside the Academy Sports and Outdoors store in Topeka.

He recalled the moments before the robbery, saying, “I was at the counter buying bullets with my cousin and I heard some loud bangs. I look up and they are just loading up weapons from the counter and then they run off and my instincts kicked in.”

Tapley followed the three suspects described only as white males ages 16 or 17, after they stole several rifles and an undisclosed amount of cash. Once outside, Tapley pulled out his own weapon.

“I told him drop the gun man, mine is loaded , just drop the gun. We made eye contact for a second or two and he dropped two guns and ran,” said Tapley.

Police officers arrested the teens along with an unidentified woman in the area of Southwest 6th and Fairlawn. The teenage boys were booked into the Juvenile Center on assault, burglary and robbery charges. The female was booked on conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery.

Tapley who carries his gun without a concealed carry permit says his heroics wouldn’t have been possible without Governor Brownback’s approval of the law that took effect just under 2 weeks ago on July 1.

“Thats why Kansas made the law. So citizens can carry and protect themselves and others. I guess my instincts just took over,” said Tapley.

The constant lament from opponents of constitutional carry is that without regulation and permitting that there will be “blood on the streets” from unlicensed carriers shooting at anything that moves… the same argument that they’ve been attempting to use (unsuccessfully) against concealed carry for more than 30 years.

Here in reality, we know that the very minimal “classes” required for concealed carry don’t have any long-term effect on students who take 8 or even 16 hours courses. People will default to their level of firearms training, which is not a required part of any concealed carry class in the nation (the shooting portion required in some concealed carry courses is a qualification test only).

Mr. Tapely used his common sense and his gun rights to thwart criminals from acquiring several firearms, and helped put them in jail, showing that constitutional carry works.

Let’s hope that the growing nationwide trend towards reasserting constitutional carry rights continues.

Via: Bearing Arms

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Florida’s congressional districts rejected as gerrymandered

Senate Reapportionment Chairman Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton discusses an amendment on the floor of the Senate Monday, August 11, 2014, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. Behind him are maps of the 2012 Florida congressional districts, left, and the redrawn ... more >

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state’s congressional maps don’t meet the requirements of a voter-approved constitutional amendment that prohibits political lines from being drawn to favor incumbents or a political party. The court ordered the Legislature to try drawing the maps again.

The ruling means there could be an upheaval as incumbents seek re-election and candidates from both parties seek to fill open seats. Florida has 27 congressional districts and the court ordered eight be redrawn, along with any districts they border.

The court chastised the Republican-led Legislature for working behind the scenes to draw the maps.

“The Legislature itself proclaimed that it would conduct the most open and transparent redistricting process in the history of the state, and then made important decisions, affecting numerous districts in the enacted map, outside the purview of public scrutiny,” the ruling said.

A coalition that included the League of Women Voters challenged the lines, saying Republicans who drew them up ignored the new constitutional requirements approved by voters in 2010. A lower court agreed that GOP leaders and operatives made a mockery of the amendment, but only ordered two central Florida districts be redrawn.

The Supreme Court said that wasn’t good enough.

Republicans have maintained that the maps adhere to constitutional requirements despite evidence that political operatives helped draw them.

It’s yet to be seen how the ruling will affect the majority of Florida’s members of Congress who are seeking re-election, as well as their challengers.

Via: Washington TImes

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Two Constitutional Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: Why Conservatives Should Just Say “No” to Nullification

A number of states, including Missouri, Kansas, and Alaska either have passed or are considering state laws intended to invalidate federal statutes, most notably, federal gun laws. Many have modeled their bills on Montana’s “Firearms Freedom Act,” which was recently struck down by a federal appeals court. In so doing, they have drawn upon the political doctrine of nullification, according to which individual states have the right to pass legislation voiding any federal law that they believe to be unconstitutional.

Their inclination to do so is understandable since states are facing an increasingly overbearing federal government seemingly intent on infringing on state prerogatives and on the individual liberties of their citizens; however, this 

The History of Nullification

Historically, nullification has an ignominious lineage. Its chief architect was John C. Calhoun, former Vice President, Secretary of War and State, and U.S. Senator from South Carolina, who used the concept of nullification to defend states’ rights against federal tariffs and, ultimately, challenges to the institution of slavery.

The core premise behind Calhoun’s concept of nullification is that the states were, prior to the framing of the Constitution, independent sovereigns that consented to be bound by federal law only on certain conditions and that they retained enough of that sovereignty to “veto” unconstitutional federal laws. Yet the Constitution contemplates not a league of independent sovereigns but a federated republic. After 1787, the several states were not independent sovereigns in the same sense that Spain or France were independent sovereigns—for instance, they could not wage war, maintain diplomatic relations with foreign nations, or coin their own money. And, in the federated republic that was forged by the Constitution, duly enacted federal laws cannot be vetoed by individual states, even where they appear to encroach upon state prerogatives.

That is why James Madison, in opposing what he considered to be unconstitutional federal laws, did not press for legislation voiding those laws. The Virginia Resolution, which Madison drafted in 1798 in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, were intended as “a legislative declaration of opinion on a constitutional point.”[1].

Via: Heritage Foundation

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New book takes you behind the scenes of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare

The opportunity to stop Obamacare has largely passed, argues Josh Blackman, author of the new book, ”Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare.”

“Despite efforts to defund or stop Obamacare now, the time to stop this law was in 2008. Or 2010. Or 2012,” Blackman told The Daily Caller in an interview about his new tome, which tells the inside story of the legal challenge to overturn President Obama’s health-care law.

“There were three elections that could have stopped the law. If the Republicans had one more vote in the Senate in 2009, they could have filibustered the law, and stopped it dead in its tracks. If the GOP had taken over the Senate and the House in 2010, they could have delayed, or perhaps halted implementation of the parts until after the 2012 election. Had Mitt Romney won the presidency in 2012, he could have signed into law a repeal of Obamacare, before it was implemented. But none of those things happened. In the end of this unprecedented journey, Obamacare survived, and we hurtle towards its implementation in the coming months.

Nonetheless, Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law whose friends and colleagues were instrumental actors in the legal fight to overturn Obamacare, says several legal challenges to the law are still on-going.

“There are a few legal challenges remaining against Obamacare,” he said.

“One suit alleges that Obamacare does not permit the federal government to pay out subsidies to people enrolled in the health-care exchanges in states that did not opt into the Medicaid expansion. If this suit is successful, it would halt the Obamacare exchanges in states that are not participating in the expansion. Another suit alleges that because the individual mandate was a tax (as rewritten by the Chief Justice), and because the Constitution requires that all taxes originate in the House, and Obamacare began in the Senate, the law is unconstitutional. If this suit is successful, the mandate would be unconstitutional. Though, a federal judge has already dismissed this suit and it is being appealed.”

Even though the Supreme Court did not overturn President Obama’s health-care law in its 2011 decision, Blackman says determining who actually won the legal battle remains “complicated.”

“It’s complicated on a few levels,” Blackman explained.

Via: The Daily Caller

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