bocraw: " ... Damn, this stuff is complicated! Someone simplify it for me please. "
The language of our constitutions is plain and simple enough. It's those who want to infringe on your rights that complicate matters. Many of them will claim that they support your right to bear arms for defense while advocating infringements.
For those who are citizens of Alabama, start here:
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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While the Federal Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, establishes minimum standards, the states have the power and are free to provide greater safeguards and to extend this protection through their own organic law—the State Constitutions. Indeed, the 9th and 10th Amendments to the United States Constitution envisage this fundamental truth.
Gilbreath v. Wallace, 292 So. 2d 651 - Ala : Supreme Court 1974
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"State courts, in determining the scope of rights guaranteed by their own constitutions,... may, in fact, provide more protection for private rights than the United States Constitution requires." 592 So.2d at 170. See also Ex parte Boykin, [Ms. 1921336, Oct. 8, 1993], 1993 WL 394750 (Ala. 1993) ("the United States Supreme Court has recognized that a state may confer procedural protections of liberty interests that extend beyond those minimally required by the Constitution of the United States"); Ex parte Love, 513 So.2d 24, 30 (Ala.1987); Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291, 300, 102 S.Ct. 2442, 2449, 73 L.Ed.2d 16 (1982)…”
Brooks v. Hobbie, 631 So. 2d 883 - Ala: Supreme Court 1993)
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“State courts cannot rest when they have afforded their citizens the full protections of the federal Constitution. State constitutions, too, are a font of individual liberties, their protections often extending beyond those required by the Supreme Court's interpretations of federal law. The legal revolution which has brought federal law to the fore must not be allowed to inhibit the independent protective force of state law-for without it, the full realization of our liberties cannot be guaranteed.”
Justice Brennan of the United States Supreme Court
Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection oj Individual Rights, 90 HARv. L. REv.
489, 491 (1977).
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Constitution of Alabama 1901
Article 1 Declaration of Rights.
That the great, general, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and established, we declare:
SECTION 26
Right to bear arms.
That every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.
SECTION 36
Construction of Declaration of Rights.
That this enumeration of certain rights shall not impair or deny others retained by the people; and, to guard against any encroachments on the rights herein retained, we declare that everything in this Declaration of Rights is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate.
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Every single one of our state officers are required to take the following oath:
Constitution of Alabama 1901
SECTION 279
Required of members of legislature and executive and judicial officers; form; administration.
All members of the legislature, and all officers, executive and judicial, before they enter upon the execution of the duties of their respective offices, shall take the following oath or affirmation:
"I, …, solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Alabama, so long as I continue a citizen thereof; and that I will faithfully and honestly discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, to the best of my ability. So help me God."
The oath may be administered by the presiding officer of either house of the legislature, or by any officer authorized by law to administer an oath.
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The penalty for violating a solemn oath in an official proceeding is defined as a class C felony:
Code of Alabama 1975
Section 13A-10-101
Perjury in the first degree.
(a) A person commits the crime of perjury in the first degree when in any official proceeding he swears falsely and his false statement is material to the proceeding in which it is made.
(b) Perjury in the first degree is a Class C felony.
(Acts 1977, No. 607, p. 812, §4905.)
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There are plenty of unconstitutional gun control laws in the Code of Alabama 1975 that have never faced an all-out challenge to our court of last resort. Those laws are complicated and complex by design, and no amount of discussion here can simplify them.
If you want to keep it simple, then hang on to our constitutions with all that is in you.