Author Archive | Brian Roberts

The Texas House recently passed multiple gun measures designed to protect Texans from undesired, if not unconstitutional, federal gun laws. Two bills related to federal gun laws, HB 1076 and HB 928, are proceeding and at the time of this writing HB 1076 has passed the final vote in the Texas House, 100-47 and HB 928 has passed as well, 102-31. The bills seek to deny state and local resources for enforcement of federal gun laws and in support of this deny funding to state and local officials that do enforce federal gun laws.

Unfortunately, there is a wealth of misinformation published that obscures the legitimacy of this legislation. For instance, the  Dallas Morning News makes numerous claims inconsistent with facts.

Key statements made in this article are incorrect and mislead the reader regarding the content and legitimacy of the bill’s language. Starting in the third paragraph, Ms. Hoppe begins her summary of a “proposal to nullify new federal gun control laws.”. This is in regards to Steve Toth’s HB 1076.

Ms. Hoppe states: “Those gun laws not already on the books in Texas couldn’t be enforced here under the sweeping and unadjudicated argument that they wouldn’t be constitutional under the Second Amendment.”

It is true that the legislation would reject local enforcement of federal laws. That is the point of the legislation in general. In contrast to the implication, it is very workable in practice as state laws would be put in place as needed. This allows the Texas legislature to draft gun laws that are consistent with the Texas Constitution.

However, Ms. Hoppe’s claim that the legislation challenges the constitutionality of any federal law is false. No such argument is being made regarding the Second Amendment. In HB 1076, Texas is merely refusing to participate in the local enforcement of federal gun laws. In fact, the constitutionality of the gun laws is neither challenged nor validated. They simply deny resources and manpower to enforcement. The Constitutionality of this bill from the federal perspective is clear.  In Printz v. U.S., a 1997 Supreme Court case, Scalia rejected federal comandeering of state and local officers regardless of the constitutionality of the federal law. In other words, the federal government cannot, in any case, force states to uphold federal laws. Continue Reading →

Prima Nocta was an unconscionable policy whereby kings were rumored to have authorized regional lords with sexual rights to other men’s brides on the night of marriage. In clearer terms, rape of the populace, authorized by the king.

I can hear the apologists whispering from the past:

“Well, if you don’t want to be raped by the resident lord, don’t get married.”

If implemented, the primary goal of Prima Nocta in medieval times would have been to bring a population to it’s knees in absolute submission. Kings would have done so to exert unchallenged power over an occupied territory, thus proving their superiority. Since the regional lord held both the physical power and this support of the political system no peaceful recourse would be left to the people. The psychological impact would have been great leading to rapid submission, at least for a time.

At the hands of the TSA, Americans are increasingly faced with a limited implementation of Prima Nocta as our own family’s private parts are fair game to the groping fingers of this federally supported agency. While the TSA’s current actions do not amount to rape, the desired effect of the practice is the same. The apologists today are already making the following argument: Continue Reading →

We see Paxton all over Texas campaigning to be the next speaker, we see Straus all over Texas trying to remain speaker, but where is Chisum? If the Republicans call a caucus, would his participation cause split votes and keep Straus as Speaker? Is it possible that he has a third party effect on the election of the speaker?

Why would Chisum decide to stay in the race after the two front runners appear to be Paxton and Straus? Why not drop out and allow those two men to duke it out for Speaker?

Paxton and Straus have the most pledges, and Chisum himself has said that he entered the race for a more conservative speaker to be the next leader. Well, Leo Berman entered the speakers race on the principles of conservative leadership and has since dropped out of the race in favor of Chisum or Paxton.

For this caucus to work, there needs to be two candidates, and only two candidates or else Straus wins again.

We all know that Straus is not the man to lead Texas… everyone that cares about the speaker race needs to take the next step and clear the field for a true conservative speaker.

Now is the time to ask Chisum to endorse Paxton and continue this fight for conservative leadership.