Rhummy -
knew one of the elite cabal would stop by.
care to elucidate?
musta got it generally right - otherwise I’m sure you would have noted my error, right?
if you have nothing to contribute, please take your drive-by’s elsewhere. 
thank you
Hey HH. No drive by was intended, and you will note that I was here before you anyway, so I am hardly stopping by. Don’t flatter yourself.
I don’t know what how the law works in this area. As some people, including you, have pointed out, counties etc. will post ‘no fire’ rules or watering bans when the need arrises, and my intutition is that such rules are valid. Is this, as you asked, because the specific authority to do so is based on some rule making authorized by legislation? I don’t know, but would like to find out.
I posted a hypothetical, that the Governor declare a moritorium on search warrants, which I think clearly goes beyond his authority. So my question is, what authority does the Governor have to make rules and quasi-laws through executive order, and what force will those rules be given in a court of law?
I really just expressing my curiosity and hoping someone would provide an answer.
Gov’t law is quirky - my best guess is that the test is “is the response appropriate to the threat?”
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, and jailed Maryland newspaper editors (pro-secession) without warrant.
AFAIK, those actions have never been subject to legal review (Ashcroft may get the chance to defend his “extra-constitutional” actions, maybe not).
Presidential assertions of executive order also include Truman’s integration of the armed forces, and Nixon’s assertions regarding the infamous Watergate tapes.
Executive actions are subject to judicial review - but who is going to challenge, and what is the test?
My best guesses are above.
jonpluc -
my guess:
eventually, someone will ask a court to rule on the validity of this rule (Roe v. Wade was a case waiting for a subject, IIRC) - next week, the ban will be ruled valid.
10 years from now, probably not.
<WAG>: the authority derives from the executive’s oath to protect - implicit in that oath is the authority to take “reasonable” actions to ensure the protection </WAG>
It still seems to me like this is not a ban on weapons, just a restriction as to when and where they can be used. There are already plenty of similar restrictions. I own a few guns, but I am not allowed to fire them on my lawn because I live in a neighborhood. Nobody protests this restriction as a violation of my rights. The question is not a right to bear arms one, but a right to hunt question. I don’t believe this is a guaranteed right, but I’m only guessing on that. As I stated before, you can still keep your guns and your well organized militias, you just temporarily can’t hunt or randomly fire your weapons in the air for celebrations in a few counties. Gun clubs aren’t even affected.
If they started to restrict your right to legally carry, possess or purchase, then it would be crossing the line. If the sniper isn’t caught for some time, then who knows. Like water restrictions, they go away when the drought goes away. Eventually there has to be an election, and if the incumbent is pissing enough people of with their restrictions, then the voters will take care of it.
Has anyone heard whether there is a good reason for this restriction? Has there been a lot of false reports of gunfire?
You’re mistaken. There were a number of cases regarding Lincoln’s suspension. I’ll leave it up to someone with more legal background (and free time) than myself to provide the details, however.
The reason, I thought, was that if only one person was shooting (the sniper) then they could find him by his muzzle flash. They can go back and look at satelite photos to find him by looking for it. The military also has drones up looking now which can do this, IIRC.
I am not 100% sure on this, but it’s what I heard on the news. Seems kind of far-fetched to me. Also, they have suppressors which prevent the muzzle flash from being seen.
This certainly doesn’t affect the right to “keep” arms, but I’m not so sure about the right to “bear” arms. I always interpreted “bearing” to mean (or at least imply) “carrying”. Some one will no doubt correct me on that. While I don’t know the details of the Govenors order, I imagine that not only are there restrictions on shooting guns in the woods, but also on carrying (bearing) the guns through the woods. That being said. I can’t fire my guns in my neighborhood either and not only does no one boo hoo that fact, but I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind thinking that people should be able to fire weapons in my neighborhood. In short, lost4life I agree with you that this isn’t as big a deal as some people are making of it, but I do think it’s walking a very fine line with the Second Amendment.
Tell that to the Montana Freemen.
I’d just like to add to that question. Has the sniper been know to either shoot from or travel through areas where hunting is (or was) legal? I don’t mean the entire county, just the wooded areas where hunting is specifically permitted.
I must say that this type of hysteria is precisely how I developed a deep and abiding distrust of the gun-fanatics.
Based solely on the news reports I read (not much interest to me, but…) it struck me as a reasonable temporary measure.
Per the reports reporting the justification:
The police were rec’ving large and distracting numbers of false reports, stemming apparenlty from hunting use. Whether the sniper has operated in the area is perhaps besides the point (although it appears “the area” he has operated in is quite ill-defined) – the public was, per the reports, calling 911 regardless.
In the interest of using strained resources wisely, it hardly seems an undu imposition on the gun owning public to temporarily refrain from use so as to reduce false reports.
The responses here are paranoid and irrational (again based on my reading to date of the ** actual** events.
Here is a link to the Washington Post - this is a small archive of all of the coverage they have of the shootings:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/metro/specials/shootings/2002/
Here is a link to the article discussing the TEMPORARY moratorium:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37826-2002Oct16.html
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Probably not anymore paranoid or irrational than a candidate for governor and others saying ballistic fingerprinting could have caught this guy already, along with the need for additional gun laws during this crisis.
Also, (I forgot to add this):
Precisely, thanks mornea.
There is a legitimate question pending as to the source of the authority of the Governor to make such rules. I don’t think asking that question is either paranoid or irrational. No doubt this is a serious situation, but that does not mean that we throw the rule of law out the window either.
Would you approve if the Governor wrote out general warrants to allow the police to search every home in the area to find the killer?
I don’t know anything about the details of Maryland law. However, I think that most states, most governments in fact, have legislation that deals with emergency situations. This legislation usually allows the chief executive to declare an emergency under defined conditions and to take necessary measures to deal with the emergency.
Usually the emergency power is restricted to the governor. For example, in California the mayor of a city or the country supervisors will ask the governor to declare an emergency and use the National Guard or other means to deal with riots.
How long this this temporary power can be used is probably a matter of the law in the particular jurisdiction and you would have to look up Maryland. A short discussion of Maryland’s executive orders will be found here.
Well, it is a non-comparable situation, your last point. Hunting is a licensed activity, already implying a State regulated activity. A closely defined moratorium (in both space and time) that simply requires refraining from an already regulated and limited activity is in no way comparable with your last point.
Indeed the characterization in the OP:
Is irrational and unsupported by the facts. In short, the gun fanatic crowd is reacting with unsupported paranoia.
This being said, I am an agnostic as to gun control, it actually interests me fairly little.
I will take a look this afternoon at MD law and see what I can find as to a statute authorizing this sort of thing and report back.
WTF??? Recreational shooting, even outside of shooting ranges, does not mean "randomly firing into the air. That is (or should be) illegal all the time everywhere.
Many people including myself often go target practicing, training, or plinking on their own land or out in the country somewhere other than a real range.
Otherwise, I agree with you, provided the ruling is clearly temporary and local and provided it doesn’t affect transporting or carrying firearms or using them for defense.
BTW, “gun clubs” and “shooting ranges” are not the same thing. Some gun clubs have no range of their own, and some ranges are either publicly owned or a commercial business open to the public, not a club.
Yes, but the police should be able to prioritize the sighting based on location with relative ease. My understanding was that the sniper was sticking close to major highways so that he could escape quickly. While I’m no expert on Maryland law, I imagine that firing a gun along side a major highway isn’t legal, which means there aren’t any hunters there. If the police get a call for gunshots in the middle of the woods, miles from a major highway or other means of a quick escape, they could assign the call a lower priority. I’m not saying they would not investigate at all, just that they wouldn’t use up a lot of manpower on those kinds of calls.
Is there something paranoid or irrational about this kind of thinking?
Presuming the sniper does not shift chosen locations, as he(they?) already has once.
The most recent ones. Excluding a shift in location would be stupid.
Yes.
[reductio ad absurdum]Well, most reports say the sniper is driving a white van. Perhaps we need to ban all white bans.
And of course, there are the reports that he is a Middle Eastern type. Issue an order, perhaps, that all such need to stay at home.
Temporarily, of course.
[/reductio ad absurdum]
Regards,
Shodan