Lewis v. United States,
445 U.S. 55 (1980)
(b) The firearm regulatory scheme at issue here is consonant with the concept of equal protection embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, since Congress could rationally conclude that any felony conviction, even an allegedly invalid one, is a sufficient basis on which to prohibit the possession of a firearm. And use of an uncounseled felony conviction as the basis for imposing a civil firearms disability, enforceable by criminal sanction, is not inconsistent with
Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109;
United States v. Tucker, 404 U. S. 443; and
Loper v. Beto, 405 U. S. 473. Pp.
445 U. S. 65-67.
I didn't ask you what the Court said. To ask the government what the powers of the government are is pretty stupid.
Lewis makes the assumption that Congress is permitted to take the right to keep and bear arms simply because Congress passes a law that says it is so. The validity of that portion of GCA 1968 was not challenged so Lewis wasn't about the power of Congress to make the law, it was about whether the conviction was due process in the enforcement of the law. It wasn't about whether due process itself gave the government the power but only whether the conviction served as due process.
Although the phrase “due process of law” first appeared in the fourteenth century with a very narrow and technical meaning involving the service of appropriate writs, the American Founding generation likely identified the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause with the clauses, prevalent in state constitutions in 1791, that required governmental deprivations of life, liberty, or property to conform to “the law of the land,” as well as appropriate notice and ability to defend oneself in court.
There are certain respects in which “due process of law,” understood as equivalent to “the law of the land,” uncontroversially regulates the substance of governmental action. Most obviously, the core meaning of “law of the land” provisions, dating back to the Magna Carta, is to secure the principle of legality by ensuring that executive and judicial deprivations are grounded in valid legal authority. In this respect, the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause limits the substance of executive or judicial action by requiring it to be grounded in law.
The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is intended to provide a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution.
www.heritage.org
The basis of due process for hundreds of years and including when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created was that life, liberty, or property could only be taken when given due process according to the law of the land. That Congress passes a bill and the President signs it does NOT necessarily make it the law of the land, as proven by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The original intent, as I have explained to you many times, of the entire Bill of Rights and specifically of the 5th Amendment Due Process Clause is that it limits government authority to only be able to do things within the law and not arbitrarily. It is not intended, and to argue that it was is simply ludicrous, to empower the government to pass any law they wish and get any judge or court to apply it to any person taking any right from anyone.
So, even though the Court ruled that the trial was due process does not mean that Congress had the authority to enact a gun ban and the Constitution expressly forbids it. Therefore, the law was not valid and not the established law of the land, constitutionally so due process cannot enforce it.
Would you argue that everything the Court says is the actual meaning and intent of the Constitution? Does the Court ever get it wrong? Or are you a sheep, accepting what the government tells you is the power of the government?
