TexasCHLforum.com

ELB wrote:Absent pressure from the courts, I see no reason to expect the COE to make any serious effort to amend their regulations. If bothered by anyone enough to respond, my pessimistic assessment is they will say they need to wait to see how the national reciprocity bill pending in Congress turns out (recall it would allow carry on federal lands).

Not holding my breath.

This is why the pessimist in me says that things like this will NEVER change until we burn this thing down and start over. Why do they persist in repressing freedom? Because they CAN, and nobody will hold them to account for it.

Stop and think for a minute what it means that the federal gov’t is so afraid of its own citizens - the citizens who in theory are their masters - that they forbid those citizens a constitutional right anywhere near or on a federal facility - even a facility where the citizen is not likely to encounter a federal employee most of the time. What are they afraid of? Their fascist laws have zero effect on criminals, and they KNOW this. So what are they afraid of?

What they are afraid of is the liberty of free citizens exercising their rights in a responsible manner, telling gov’t that they need less of it, not more, and that the gov’t can go pound sand. They are afraid of a citizenry that holds first and foremost that the gov’t serves us, not the other way around, and that they only have as much power as we let them have. In addition to that fear, they ALSO agree with Chairman Mao that all political power flows from the barrel of a gun. So, wherever they forbid YOU to have a gun, THEY hold the power.

It is really that simple.

And since power is a more addictive drug than any opiate, they’ll never willingly surrender it. Therefore, it has to be taken from them. I would vastly prefer that this be through the power of the ballot box, but if gov’t doesn’t back down, we may not be afforded that choice. What then?

These are questions every American has to answer for themselves. Are they willing to continue the slide into despotism; are they willing to vote intelligently; are they willing to hoist the Jolly Roger and take matters into their own hands when all else fails?

ELB wrote:This will take awhile.

I agree. It scares me to death that OCT (locally) and NAGR (nationally) might try to get into the mix. But as long as they stay out of it, I think this house of cards eventually collapses......particularly if dems lose big next month and in 2016.

ELB wrote:Exactly 9 months later, the final decision by the court (via Volokh Conspiracy):

From Morris v. Army Corps Engineers (D. Idaho Oct. 10, 2014):

The regulation banning the use of handguns on Corps’ property by law-abiding citizens for self-defense purposes violates the Second Amendment…. The plaintiffs are therefore entitled to a declaratory judgment that 36 C.F.R. § 327.13 violates the Second Amendment, and an injunction enjoining its enforcement in Idaho. The injunction is limited to Idaho because its scope is dictated by the allegations of the two named plaintiffs — Elizabeth Morris and Alan Baker.

The way I read that, we are not suddenly granted the right to carry on Corps land in Texas. The odds are that the ban remaining in the rest of the states is a house of cards that will come down relatively quickly, but don't go do something foolish right now, and give the Corps a basis for arguing further to preserve the bans because "unruly citizens without a 'proper respect' for the prerogatives of bureaucracies" were impatient and got themselves a-rested....... And God help us if OCT screws this up for the rest of us.

Yes, there is something to celebrate — particularly if you live in Idaho — but this is still a time for caution.