Constitutional Or -

Ex Post Facto?

The Domestic Violence Offenders Gun Ban was passed in 1996 as an amendment by Senator Frank Lautenberg, attached to the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill. The law effectively made it illegal for anyone who had ever been convicted of domestic violence to have possession of or own any firearm or ammunition and was made retroactive forever (maybe back to Noah). Among those caught up in the passage of this law were many police officers, some of whom were veterans of twenty years or more in law enforcement who had pled guilty to domestic violence, some as many as twenty years earlier, as was the norm at that time, just to get their case settled. I wrote a letter to my United States Representative stating my objection to the law as written. While not altogether against it (who would condone any kind of violence much less domestic violence) I was objecting on the grounds that it was unconstitutional . Our Constitution clearly states in "Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 3 that: "No bill of attainder or Ex Post Facto law shall be passed". To all, like myself, who never studied Latin it simply means that no law can be passed after the fact and made retroactive. My representave answered my letter by saying that I had made a good point and if it ever came up again he would pass my concerns on to the other members. I thought that was what we elected him for. The constitutionality of that law has never, as far as I know, been challenged in court. The general attitude is that "if it don't affect me then I don't care".

Again, our Constitution, in "Article 4, Section 4" states that: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican form of Government and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on Application of the State Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against Domestic Violence".
When the democratically elected Legislature of Arizona, after repeatedly being ignored while pleading for help on the problem of illegal immigration, passed their own law to protect themselves they were promptly condemned by Washington and many of the other states, claiming racial profiling and calling for boycotts of Arizona and anything that came from that state. It was another clear violation of our Constitution when our Government in Washington refused to protect the Legal Citizens of Arizona and other border states against both Invasion and Domestic Violence. Strike two in the "if it don't affect me mind set".

In 1851, to encourage investments in sailing vessels, congress passed the "Maritime Limitations of Liability Act" which limited the dollar amount of damage an owner (Invertors) could be held liable for after an accident to the value of the vessel after the accident.
In 1912 the Titanic, a British flagged ship on her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg several hundred miles south of Newfoundland and sank with the loss of about 1500 lives (not enough lifeboats) and even though it was British owned they (the owners) filed their case in the United States court asking for protection under the 1851 Maritime Law. Our courts accepted the case and ruled in their favor. All the passengers who survived and the relatives of those who didn't got to split the value of the lifeboats because they were the only part of the Titanic which survived.
In 1990, in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off the coast of Alaska, Congress passed "The Oil Pollution Act" which limits a firms Economic Liability from an oil spill to 75 million dollars - a fixed number that hasn't been indexed for inflation. Any cost above that are covered by "The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund" which is funded by -- you guessed it -- the taxpayers.

In April of 2010 the BP (British Petroleum) oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, fifty miles off the coast of Louisiana, exploded and burned with the loss of 11 lives and has already dumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the gulf. BP has said that they would pay all cost of damage and cleanup but at this time they are being threatened with multiple lawsuits, some of them from Washington. It is hard to learn anything from the news but according to one paper, Bp, earlier this month, has filed for protection under the 1851 Limitations of Liability Law, in the 5th Circuit Court in southern Texas. If (and that's a big if) that be true and if it is upheld by the courts then Bp might only be liable for the 27 million dollars that they now owe in royalties. That may be the reason we are hearing the call for congress to pass a law that would lift all caps on liability. Again it would have to be Ex Post Facto and again that would be unconstitutional. Does the end justify the means? What will be next on their list to be fixed Ex Post Facto? Does it not appear that there too many threats of legal action being thrown around and not enough about what we can do to stop the oil from coming ashore and to clean up what is already there?

Martin Niemoller, while in a Nazi prison during World War two, wrote the following poem:

First they came for the Jews/ and I did not speak out/ becauseI was not a Jew/Then they came for the Communist/ and I did not speak our/ for I was not a Communist/
Then they came for the Trade Unionist/ and I did not speak out/ for I was not a Trade Unionist/
Then they came for me / and there was no one left/ to speak out for me .

If we aren't careful that may be us someday. Thanks, William