Next Monday night, March 15 at 6 PM the Town of Mendon Select Board will discuss a municipal Firearm Discharge Ordinance.
The ordinance would ban firearm discharge on most of the property in any town, given the setbacks from roads, trails and habitable building. They would be banning safe discharge, for other than the very few limited allowed conditions. Were a habitable building be a shed, could another property owner install a shed on their property line to bar their neighbor from using their own property for the safe discharge of any firearm or air gun?
The ordinance would ban air guns, which offer an opportunity for marksmanship training without the noise of a firearm.
Critics call the ordinance a simply draconian restriction and unreasonable government restriction of the use of private property and say it violates the 5th Amendment rights of property owners as well as 2nd Amendment rights.
The ordinance reads, “No person shall discharge a firearm or air gun within 500 feet of the travelled way of a town road or highway, state highway, designated hiking trail, or habitable building.” The ordinance includes exemptions for police, hunters, trappers, and people acting in self-defense.
Mendon Town Office, 2282 US Route 4, Mendon, VT 05701 in the outside mailbox attached to the building. Comments can be submitted to the Selectboard in writing by mail to Sara Tully, Town Administrator at the above referenced Town Office address or by email to mendonadmin@comcast.net.
Categories: Gunrights
Coming to a town near you!
Better change your voting preferences, VT…
Here’s the thing, folks – unconstitutional “laws,” “ordinances” or whatever tyrannically minded do-gooders concoct, such as this, are not laws at all and American citizens are under zero obligation to comply. The Second Amendment is quite clear on this subject.
Unconstitutional Official Acts
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it’s enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted. Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it..… A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby. No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. The Supreme Court’s decision is as follows; “An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it has never been passed”. Norton vs Shelby County 1886 – 118 US 425 p.442.
Alexander Hamilton explains unconstitutional law in Federalist No.76; “No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid”.
Thanks for keeping people informed on this issue Guy. Anti-gun agendas a running rampant in this state. I watched the Senate Zoom hearing on S30 the other day and, some one asked Anne Watson the Mayor of Montpelier about firearms regulations in Montpelier, and she responded that the latest, and only example that she was aware of was the restrictions to buckshot only during deer season, and the way she said it was like she thought firearms ownership and use should addressed as an ongoing, continually evolving issue. Opinions such as this are rampant in this state. I would point to Sen. Phillip Baruth of Chittenden County as an example. I can not remember a legislative session since he has been in Montpelier that he has not championed a new gun regulation or two or three. We are up to our arm pits in gun fearing flatlanders ! Of course if you ask them, they will tell you that without them, their wisdom, worldly experience, and money, we’d be living in caves, and eating dirt. To them I would say, “My grand parents did quite well without you” !
Hi Patrick, I agree obviously with you all, but please try not to lay blame on only flatlanders…there are many loopy left indoctrinated kids graduating from all our colleges here & native Vermonters who are old hippies or many residents here for decades that know nothing OTHER than “democrats: Good” & republicans: Bad”. They are NOT well-informed to state the least & therefore just keep voting the exact same way — as if these nut jobs in Montpelier are doing a fine job.
I’m originally from Long Island myself and live/admire ORIGINAL VT culture better than some natives I’ve met. The right to own a gun is a Constitutional right and VT was long the safest state in the nation UNTIL these pandering fools began shipping hoodlums in to VT to force what they idiotically think is “diversity”.
Locales have CULTURES! Italy did, Poland did, France did, the US south did, VT did – this is NOT wrong or “racist”, yet “woke” Americans all over are proclaiming it is…we need to be “whitewashed” & homogenized. NO.
KEEP VERMONT, VERMONT!
Ms Henry, Some of my best friends are flatlanders, and they know where what I say comes from. They know that I do not tar all naturalized Vermonters with the same brush, but if you were to do a little background check on our elected representatives under the “Golden Dumb” you would find that 2/3rds of those entrusted with legislating there were born,educated, and spent their “formative years” elsewhere before coming here. That does influence their opinions and the way they approach legislation. I can remember going to the State House and sitting in the balcony with my father when I was a youngun. Back then (the early 60s) the vast majority of the legislators were native Vermonters, and quite a few were still farmers. Now most are lawyers, social workers, and other “professionals’. Republican was not a dirty word, and Democrats, and Republicans would go to the Thrush, or maybe the Stockyard and have a drink together. Now…. not so much. As Bob Dylan said, “the times they are a changin’. ” and for those like me, it’s not necessarily for the better. Sorry if my opinions, observations and experience as an old native born Vermonter offend you,
Hi Patrick…Please understand that your comments didn’t offend me whatsoever. As you can easily see from my comments on this & every article, we are literally always on the same page – on this as well.
I was merely stating that as a former NY’er, I’m appalled by what VT has become too – extreme & radical, much like California et al.
But you might not believe the amount of native Vermonters (born & raised, never lived elsewhere, several generations) that have fallen for this crap (excuse my not so nice but accurate verbiage)…look at the votes Socialist Sanders gets. He is akin to a god by so many native Vermonters who I have heard refer to him as a “real” Vermonter – a guy from Brooklyn whose accent resembles those straight out of Hollywood mobster movies!
I just wanted you to know that there are SOME Vermont residents now who weren’t fortuitous to have been raised here, but actually chose the state to live in precisely because of the “ol “Vermont ways” you so describe in your reply to me, and I’m probably almost as disappointed as you that this unique culture appears to be on the way out.
Anyway, yeah….maybe I should close by saying “Keep Vermont The Way It USED To Be!”
Keep up your great posts and maybe some of what you relay might sink in. We’re way outnumbered, but keep up the good fight!
HEY: That’s my line Kathy ! Patrick is confusing Senator Baruth, who is a the worst kind of Vermont transplant, with the good, law-abiding people of Vermont. In my opinion, it matters not where you came from as long as you didn’t come here to change Vermont for the worse. There are those who came here to get away from there and then want to change here to what there was…not in my Vermont!
All Gun control is unconstitutional;this simply cannot be entertained,considered,or allowed!!
That would be my opinion as well Charles, but here we are again.
LL GUN CONTROL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION IS ILLEGAL! Government does not give us our rights. Our rights are not given to us by the Constitution. Our rights are given to us by God and are inherent to us as human beings and by the Laws of Nature. These rights that we are born with are affirmed to us by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the Constitution and specify what the government can and cannot do to us as citizens of the United States. Government’s only power is the power which is enumerated to it by the Constitution. The federal government, a state, county or town can not pass a law contrary to the Constitution. Article 6 the Supremacy Clause makes the Constitution the supreme law of the land. Under our Constitution the government is not delegated the authority to legislate, enforce, or adjudicate laws pertaining to the exercise of our rights under the Constitution – Period. The government is not delegated the authority by our Constitution to require the government’s permission to exercise any right affirmed to us under the Constitution. The government is not delegated the authority by our Constitution to compel us to waive our guaranteed 4th Amendment right to be secure from unwarranted interrogation, search, or seizure in the absence of probable cause of criminal conduct. Or compel us to waive our guaranteed 5th Amendment right to due process as a precondition to being allowed (or denied) the exercise of our right to keep and bear arms. This violation of our 4th and 5th Amendment rights happens every time that we are interrogated under penalty of perjury without probable cause that a crime has been committed when we fill out B.A.T.F.E form 4473 to purchase a firearm. The government is not delegated the authority by our Constitution to compel us to waive our 10th Amendment right to a federal government exercising only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution, and State governments are prohibited the exercise of any power prohibited to the States by the United States Constitution.
The government is not delegated the authority under the 14th Amendment to make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Government is not delegated by our Constitution the authority to license firearm dealers or operate or fund the most powerful anti-rights government agency on the planet called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Since no Amendment in the Bill of Rights has been repealed thru Article V or by a National Convention of States, the only legal way to change the Constitution, all existing gun control laws presently violate five Amendments of the Bill of Rights and goes against the settled lawof two Supreme Court decisions, Heller vs the District of Columbia 2008 and McDonald vs Chicago 2010. Both decisions affirm that the people’s right to keep and bear arms is an individual right and that citizens are allowed firearms in common use, those small arms or those that operate like them and are issued to our National Guard which comprises of citizen soldiers.
The purpose of compelled background checks as a precondition to allowing or denying the transfer of a firearm is to deceive firearm owners and prospective owners into unknowingly waiving their rights guaranteed by the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 10th and 14th Amendments so they will have no rights left to claim when the government decides to register and confiscate our firearms. We have a right to keep and bear arms, not a privilege to keep and bear arms. Our rights are beyond the reach of the government and no citizen has to ask government permission to exercise a right. Government has no authority delegated to it by the Constitution to deceive its citizens into waiving their rights or acquiescing to the loss of their rights by subterfuge, scam, fraud, or force. DO NOT VOLUNTARILY GIVE UP YOUR RIGHTS !
The clock is ticking………….