Bill of rights = Lawful authority to carry a fixed blade?

[Danzo]

Ahhh but Mike has lawful authority and the Magna Carta.

And his thumb up his arse.

I'm going to bed. Hopefully there will be another volume of 'The Big Boys Book of Really Old Laws' copied and pasted when I wake up.



Danzo

[Martyn]

No there wont Danzo, I'm loosing the will to live.

Here's Martyn's summary FWIW...

The long version...
The gentlemen who present the arguments have done an amazing job of piecing together the various acts and rulings. They spend a lot of time giving credibility to the 1668 Bill of Rights and their arguments in that respect are hard to dismiss or ignore. But the whole premise hinges on what the Bill of Rights actually says. Particularly this tenet...

"That the subjects which are Protestant may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law."

They make an "assumption" that it says we can carry weapons for the purposes of self defence with impunity. The only corroboration for this assumption is an excerpt from 21st edition of Sir William Blackstone's book 'Commentaries on the Laws of England' dated 1884, which itself is an amendment of a text dated 1783. A very old, learned opinion, nothing more ...and not necessarily the only opinion on the subject.

That "we can carry weapons for the purposes of self defence with impunity" is not what the Bill of Rights says and it's not what it ever intended to say. The crucial phrase "as allowed by law" puts the tenet into context. If you were a protestant in 1668, the Bill of Rights would of given you the same rights to bear arms as Catholics under the law of that time, today the same applies, except the law today is the the prevention of crime act, 1953. Put simply, it was an equal opportunities law, pertinent to the religious divisions of the time. Their whole argument is fundamentally flawed IMO. The Bill of Rights never intended to enshrine the right to bear arms into our constitution forevermore and I think Mr Burke and Mr Hurst know that full well. I think they are entrenched in their position out of a passion for what they want to be a reality, rather than what is the reality.

Does the Bill of Rights give lawful authority? No. In this regard, the Bill of Rights doesnt intend to place itself above the law of the day, that's why it says "as allowed by law" on the end of the tenet. It's been ruled on to that effect in a court of appeal....

THE QUEEN -v- SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Ex parte MICHAEL JAMES BURKE.


LORD JUSTICE HENRY:
And then, when dealing with the subject's rights, it was declared in relation to “Subjects' Arms”:

"That the subjects which are Protestant may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions (then follow the crucial words) and as allowed by law."
.
That was the Bill of Rights, It was declaratory of the common law. It contained in it its own words of limitation, namely that the right to have arms for self-defence is limited by the words "and as allowed by Law". The law is a changing thing. Parliament by statute can repeal the common law. Parliament has since 1920 (and it may be earlier, but certainly since 1920) imposed limitations on the right to carry firearms, and one of those limitations is Section 5(1) which we are here concerned with. Where the Bill of Rights says that “ the Subjects may have arms for their defence suitable for their condition and as allowed by law”, "and as allowed by law means “and as allowed by law for the time being", and at this time you have to comply with the provisions of the Firearms Act 1968, section 5, as amended, if you wish to have a prohibited weapon; that is to say, you require authority from the Secretary of State. That is the first ground which makes Mr. Burke’s application hopeless.

LORD JUSTICE MORRITT: I agree.

LORD JUSTICE PETER GIBSON: I would pay tribute to Mr. Burke for the clear and courteous way in which he has expressed his grievance at the refusal by the Home Office to grant him authority to hold his handguns. He has provided us with a skeleton argument and an affidavit. It is obvious that, although not a lawyer, he has put in a great deal of research to present to us documents in support of his argument. I have to say that his argument that he has a common law right to hold arms for his defence, which has not been validly removed by the Firearms Act, seems to me to be unsustainable for the reasons given by Lord Justice Henry. I, too, would refuse the application.

Order: Application refused.
[link]

So in legal terms, that is that ...at least until Mr Burke (or someone else) finds a spare £100,000 and decides to risk his liberty, invite arrest and take a criminal case through the courts. That's something he has confessed he is unwilling to do...

...at this moment in time, I do not think it necessary to prove a point and invite arrest - but it will come,

It remains to be seen if that time does come, but at this moment I think he is unwilling to test it because I believe he knows it's an untenable position and a fundamentally flawed argument. Or at least if he doesnt believe that himself, he believes the courts will inevitably reach that conclusion, which amounts to the same thing for all practical purposes.

The short version...
Regardless of your opinion on the veracity of the "lawful authority under the 1668 Bill of Rights" defence, the practical reality is this:

If you tell a police officer that you have a weapon in your pocket for self defence and that you have the right to carry it with impunity because it says so in the 1668 Bill of Rights, ...as soon as the police officer can regain control of his hysteria, he will arrest you under the Prevention of Crime Act, 1953, you will be charged, convicted and you may go to prison for several years.

Thread closed.