You know, they could simply reword this amendment so that it prohibits any police agency that gets any money at all from the federal government (which should be every single one of ‘em) from confiscating lawfully owned arms during an emergency.

Frankly, I am shocked that wasnt the actual text that got passed.

Then again, in practice, it may simply end up that unless a given agency sequesters all of their federal funds and separates them from their locally acquired funds, they will have an enormously difficult time avoiding this.

HOWEVER, I must ask why violating this act isnt a criminal offense.

So congress has taken 2 substantial devaitions from their modus operandi:
1) not actually dictating terms to agencies that receive money from them. The control here is far more indirect, at least on its face. This is very out of character for congress, especially when they feel they are on solid constitutional ground.
2) there are no criminal penalties for people who violate this law. Congress criminalizes hundreds of thousands of other forms of activity it doesnt approve of, why not this? Oh right, because Congress doesnt want to put teeth in a law that might end up biting its own henchmen.

In practice I suspect that this law will be seen as stripping qualified immunity from LEAs that receive federal funding and violate the terms of this law. In case you havent been keeping up with news, that is probably ALL LE Agencies in the US. The penalties will be assessed in terms of civil damages, etc. LEOs will have to balance the harm to themselves from disobeying the next Chief Compass and the harm from the lawsuits that will follow obeying.

I mean, it’s not like our congress-critters don’t do the same exact same standard mischief to the several states to prevent them from letting 18 year olds drink, to impose requirements on institutes of higher learning, or to require hospitals to accept people having a medical emergency regardless of whether or not they can pay their bill.

It’s also has been used in the past to impose a national 55 mph speed limit on everybody. Y’all remember that one, right?

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00202

following the “S.Amdt. 4615” link:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SP4615:

and then clicking on “TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S7437”:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r109:FLD001:S57437

clinking on “Printer Friendly Display”:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r109:./temp/~r109S0BXKe

and then searching the page for the word “VITTER”, to identify the specific amendment.

See? This “eternal vigilance” stuff is easy!

That’s probably not a permalink. Text follows:

SA 4615. Mr. VITTER (for himself, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Thune, Mr. Burns, Mr. Brownback, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Domenici, Mr. Gregg and Mr. Byrd) proposed an amendment to the bill H.R. 5441, making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes; as follows:

On page 127, between lines 2 and 3, insert the following:

SEC. 540. PROHIBITION ON CONFISCATION OF FIREARMS.

None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to temporarily or permanently seize any firearm during an emergency or major disaster (as those terms are defined in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122)) if the possession of such firearm is not prohibited under Federal or State law, other than for forfeiture in compliance with Federal or State law or as evidence in a criminal investigation.

By my count, that’s 78 words. Again, I note that when our congress-critters want to protect rights via legislation, and they wish to do so transparently, they can manage to pull it off with a minimum of legalese “terms of art” BS.

I must add also that this is the kind of stuff I’ve been demanding since we got a pro-RKBA majority back in the Clinton error. Namely, stick a small, clearly worded bit of a law onto a “must pass” appropriations bill and roll back the gun control clock one baby step at a time. Fucking took them long enough.

Of course, this does not remove laws, but it adds protections to the RKBA, so that’s pretty good.

These clowns in Congress are not our friends.

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law

I don’t know what effect this would have on state police, etc., though.