Author: "For Liberty"

BOISE, Idaho (March 31, 2020) – Last week, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed a bill into law to expand a current “constitutional carry” law, and allow any U.S. citizen over 18 who can legally own a gun carry concealed in city limits without a permit.

The House State Affairs Committee introduced House Bill 516 (H516) in February. Under the new law, any U.S. citizen can now carry a concealed firearm without a permit within city limits in Idaho. Under the former law, people over 18 could carry a concealed weapon without a permit in most places in Idaho, but only Idaho residents could do so within city limits.

Last month, the House passed H516 by a vote of 56-14. On Wednesday, the Senate concurred with a vote of 27-5. With Little’s signature, the law will go into effect on May 19.
Continue reading “Signed by the Governor: Idaho Expands “Constitutional Carry” Law Again”

By: Mike Maharrey

If you ask somebody what constitutionally authorizes the federal government to take various actions to address the coronavirus, you generally won’t even get a direct answer.

People will tell you, “This is an emergency, the government has to act.” Of course, you won’t find an “emergency clause” in the Constitution that suspends the limits on federal power whenever some politician decides to invoke it.

If you press the issue, most people will jump to the general welfare clause. As one person put it, “The Constitution allows the government to pass laws for the general welfare.”
Continue reading “The General Welfare Clause Is Not a Blank Check”

Last week, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill in an effort to offset the economic impacts of the coronavirus. Most people have focused on the $1,200 checks to Americans and bailouts for industries hard-hit by the economic shutdown. But the 883-page bill does a lot more than that, including empowering the central bankers at the Federal Reserve to hand out billions of dollars to their Wall Street buddies in complete secrecy.

The stimulus bill authorizes the Fed to create $454 billion out of thin air and loan it out. The provision gives the central bankers complete autonomy when it comes to deciding who gets the money.
Continue reading “Stimulus Bill Lets Fed Operate in Complete Secrecy”

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.”― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured.

This coronavirus pandemic is no exception.
Continue reading “Suspending the Constitution: Police State Uses Crises to Expand Its Lockdown Powers”

By Publius Huldah

From the earliest days of our Republic, ¹ some years before our federal Constitution of 1787 was ratified; ² the Citizens of the States determined the qualifications for voting, and memorialized these qualifications in their State Constitutions. In keeping with this hallowed practice, the Citizens of North Carolina recently amended Article VI of their State Constitution to add to the Qualifications for voting the requirement that persons voting in person present a photo ID [link].

But lawsuits have been filed in federal court objecting to the photo ID’s; and the judge on one of them, U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs [Mid. Dist. North Carolina], has announced that she will issue a preliminary injunction against the requirement that voters present a photo ID. North Carolina election officials scurried to comply with Judge Biggs’ announcement; and Republican politicians called for an appeal [link].

The purpose of this paper is to show a better way to proceed – to show how North Carolina can enforce the US Constitution and the qualifications for voting set forth in its State Constitution.

We begin by looking at what our federal Constitution says about qualifications of voters.
Continue reading “Why the States must Nullify the National Voter Registration Act Now!”

By John W. Whitehead

“Fear is a primitive impulse, brainless as hunger, and because the aim of horror fiction is the production of the deepest kinds of fears, the genre tends to reinforce some remarkably uncivilized ideas about self-protection. In the current crop of zombie stories, the prevailing value for the beleaguered survivors is a sort of siege mentality, a vigilance so constant and unremitting that it’s indistinguishable from the purest paranoia.”— Terrence Rafferty, New York Times

What do zombies have to do with the U.S. government’s plans for dealing with a coronavirus outbreak?

Read on, and I’ll tell you.
Continue reading “Detect, Deter and Annihilate: How the Police State Will Deal with a Coronavirus Outbreak”

By: Judge Andrew Napolitano

The issue of whether government in America can quarantine persons against their will, ostensibly for their own health and that of others with whom they may come in contact, requires a dual analysis — one of the powers of the federal government and the other of the powers of the states. For constitutional analysis purposes, since local and regional governments derive their powers from the states in which they are located, the analysis of state powers pertains to them as well.
Continue reading “Can the Government Restrict Travel to Protect Public Health?”

From the Rutherford Institute
By John Whitehead

“It takes a remarkable force to keep nearly a million people quietly indoors for an entire day, home from work and school, from neighborhood errands and out-of-town travel. It takes a remarkable force to keep businesses closed and cars off the road, to keep playgrounds empty and porches unused across a densely populated place 125 square miles in size. This happened … not because armed officers went door-to-door, or imposed a curfew, or threatened martial law. All around the region, for 13 hours, people locked up their businesses and ‘sheltered in place’ out of a kind of collective will. The force that kept them there wasn’t external – there was virtually no active enforcement across the city of the governor’s plea that people stay indoors. Rather, the pressure was an internal one – expressed as concern, or helpfulness, or in some cases, fear – felt in thousands of individual homes.”—Journalist Emily Badger, “The Psychology of a Citywide Lockdown”
Continue reading “This Is a Test: How Will the Constitution Fare During a Nationwide Lockdown?”

By Michael Maharrey

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (March 6, 2020) Yesterday, an Alabama Senate committee passed a “Constitutional Carry” bill that would make it legal for Alabama residents to carry a firearm without a license in the state, fostering an environment hostile to federal gun control.

Sen. Gerald Allen (R- Tuscaloosa) prefiled Senate Bill 1 (SB1) on Oct. 1. Under the proposed law, anyone who is legally allowed to own a gun could carry it concealed without a state-issued license. However, gun owners would still be restricted from bringing weapons to certain places already prohibited by state and federal law. Alabama state law currently allows residents 19 or older to apply for permits at the county level.

Alabama residents would still be able to acquire a concealed carry permit in order to carry in states that maintain CCDW reciprocity with Alabama.

On March 5, the House Judiciary Committee passed SB1 by a 6-4 vote.

BamaCarry, Alabama’s “no compromise” gun rights group, endorses and supports SB1 along with House Bill 404 (HB404).
Continue reading “Alabama Committee Passes “Constitutional Carry” Bill”

By: Mike Maharrey

SANTA FE, N.M. (March 9, 2020) – Last Wednesday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill into law that expands protections under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The new law not only increases data privacy in the state; it also further hinders the federal surveillance state.

Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto (D-Albuquerque) introduced Senate Bill 270 (SB270) on Feb. 4. The new law expands provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that passed last year to limit the retention and use of incidentally collected data.
Continue reading “Signed as Law: New Mexico Strengthens Electronic Communications Privacy Act”