I have been using my Swiss Army Trekker to slice apples for snacking at work, but the juices made a mess, and it was a bitch to open due to the crap accumulated. Time to get a cheap knife just for that task.
After a bit of online fooling, I decided that the cheap offerings at Walmart were the solution, so I headed to my local store about an hour ago and found myself staring at a locked case with nobody nearby to open it. I then remembered that the sporting goods section does not get an associate till sometime after 8 am, some 40 minutes away.
Anti theft protection for the expensive stuff that can be easily shoplifted? absolutely understandable. But the Ozark Trail Chinese crap? It must be a question of safety; Corporate not wanting any crazy fella to grab a knife and start stabbing and dicing shoppers, right?
And then I took a quick stroll over the outdoor gear and guess what I found?
But wait! That is not all!
Everything necessary to supply a Rwandan block party was there for the grabbing: folding and fixed blade knives, axes and even machetes!
So now I own a shitty knife to make short work of unsuspecting apples without having to beg for the presence of a Blue Vest. The register scanner did require ID check, but the attendant figured out by the way I look, I am a tad older than the minimum required age to buy the knife and did not ask for ID.
In May 1939, the Supreme Court issued their opinion in United States v. Miller et al.
The Western District Court of Arkansas had heard the case earlier. The defendant (bad guy, 2A side) was a no-good, evil, bad man. He was a criminal doing criminal things.
The cops had been unable to catch Mr. Miller doing criminal things but knew he liked to travel. They waited until he crossed state lines so that a new federal law could be used.
The National Firearms Act was new and untested.
When they stopped Mr. Miller, they found that he was in possession of a short barreled shotgun and did not have a tax stamp for the shotgun.
At trial, Mr. Miller’s lawyer argued that The National Firearms Act was not a revenue measure, but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the State. And oh, by the way, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. —United States V. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)
The District court found that the NFA violated the Second Amendment. It sustained the demurrer —id. which is to say the district court nullified the NFA.
The Miller Court cited past Supreme Court opinions to say, “This usurping of the state’s police powers doesn’t fly.”
They then went on to evaluate the Second Amendment challenge.
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.
—id.
The big takeaway is “judicial notice” and “absence of any evidence”. Courts have evidence presented to them, the jury then decides on facts from that evidence. If it is a bench trial, the judge determines the facts from the evidence presented.
The other way is for the Court to know something that is “common knowledge”. Nobody has to present evidence that water is wet or that fire burns. Nobody has to present evidence that a firearm is an arm.
Those are “facts” that are commonly known, or which are documented in judicial references.
The remark about “firearms being arms” is documented in Heller
The phrase “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia” is the phrase that allowed so many rogue inferior courts to find that individuals did not have standing to make Second Amendment Challenges. Fortunately, that corrupt interpretation of the Second Amendment was corrected in Heller.
Since the Miller Court had no facts that said that short barreled shotguns were useful to the militia/military, they found that they were not within the scope of the Second Amendment.
In other words, the Miller court said that military and military style weapons were protected by the Second Amendment.
The court went on to differentiate the “Militia” from “Troops.” Troops were controlled by the Federal Government in the Armed Forces. Militia was under the control of the state.
The court went on to say that These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. —id. The key here being “physical capable”. There was no requirement to be in an actual functional militia.
The court held that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right because the individual was expected to bring their personal weapons to muster.
The Miller Court found that weapons that are exclusively or predominantly useful in military service—Robert Bevis V. City of Naperville, No. 23-1353, slip op. at 1182 (7th Cir. Nov. 3, 2023) were protected under the Second Amendment. Those that were not useful in military service could be infringed.
The Heller Court was in balance. How the case would be decided was in question. We didn’t know if it would be the death of private firearm ownership or if it would affirm our protected rights.
It is my opinion that the originalists on the court had to negotiate to win over some agenda-driven justices.
For the most part, cases are staying away from the NFA. It could be the third rail that gets a case moved from a win to a case law in favor of gun control. Some current cases are sneaking in little jabs at the NFA. And we see many challenges of the GCA.
Because of this balancing act, Heller explicitly left the NFA untouched. They left the GCA untouched. Those were battles for later.
Some of the comments in “Let’s keep sending them illegal aliens” observe that the data may have been massaged or outright lie when it comes to the assertion that crime is down in sanctuary cities getting the joys of illegal immigration transportation from Texas and other places.
Is crime down in those cities? probably, but also crime is overall lower for the majority of locations in the US according to bits and pieces I have read. So in reality they are not “lying lying” but framing information is such a way that supports their propaganda message.
The other thing is that crime that goes unreported, does not make it to the statistics. How many of these cities now have low-no-bail or even no prosecution of “small” crimes as part of their policy? Citizens are probably not even bothering to report crime because, what’s the use?
And yes, there is probably a good sprinkling of Law Enforcement downgrading calls or delaying response long enough that there is nobody present when they arrive.
Basically, they are not telling the truth, but they are not “wrong” which is how propaganda works.
Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer for the Northern District of Illinois just issued her memorandum opinion and order.
The gist of this is that she has ruled that grants the states motion for summary judgement.
I.e., the state wins.
Because the Seventh Circuit court affirmed that Friedman was still good law, the inferior court, the district court, could then rule for the state based on the Seventh Circuit’s opinion.
The Seventh Circuit says that it never did means-end, therefore its methodology and reasoning is just as good as Bruen.
Since both courts used “text, history, and tradition”, Friedman survives Bruen.
The Seventh Circuit used “two successive” inquires. Not Bruen‘s two-step, nor pre-Bruen means-end, two successive inquires.
The first inquiry is if the weapons regulated by the laws are “Arms” within the meaning of the Second Amendment. The second inquiry is if the regulation matches history and tradition.
This is an interesting twist of Bruen. Heller, as affirmed by Bruen says that if the regulated conduct is within the scope of the Second Amendment, the conduct is presumptively protected. This means that the conduct must be keeping or bearing arms and the regulation must infringe or hinder that conduct. This includes ancillary rights.
Just as —United States V. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) found that taxing ink was a first amendment infringement, so does regulating parts of firearms or ammunition.
So here is the supposed logic of the Seventh Circuit Court. The plain text should not be interpreted as “arms” but of “bearable arms”. “Bearable arms” in turn are weapons in common use for lawful purposes. “Lawful purposes” is the right to individual self-defense” “Individual self-defense” only includes arms that ordinary people would keep at home for the purpose of self-defense, not weapons predominantly useful in military service. “Predominantly useful in military service” means anything that the military uses or is likely to use, or which looks like or might function like a military issue weapon.
Thus, only non-scary weapons are protected by the Second Amendment.
The plaintiffs (good guys) must prove that the “arm” is not like a military arm.
Is it a firearm? Then it is an arm. Do the plaintiffs wish to keep or bear that arm? Then it is presumptively protected by the Second Amendment, and the burden shifts to the government to prove a history and tradition of regulations that are a close match to the current regulation.
One of the interesting things that comes out of these rogue inferior courts is the claim that using text, history, and tradition as the Supreme Court would cause other gun control legislation to fall. Since that can’t be the intention of the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court, in Heller didn’t tear down the GCA of 1968.
Ignoring Heller, where the court found that having other means of self-defense did not allow an infringement of handguns, the Seventh explicitly said that if a subject wanted a 30 round magazine, they could just buy 3 10 round magazines.
The District Court wrote The court follows Seventh Circuit precedent even if it believes those decisions are wrong or mistaken. that might be true, but I do not, for one second, believe that the district court actually cares if the Circuit got it right, as long as she can side with the state.
This order granting a win for the state is a big nothingburger. The District court was not going to issue an opinion that wasn’t appealed. I believe that this case is already on its way to the Supreme Court. One of the cases that is attempting to skip the Circuit courts.
The only thing that might happen is the case is forced through the Seventh Circuit again. Only this time, because this case has a summary judgement which is final, the Seventh cannot vacate and remand unless they find for the plaintiffs.
This judge was a coward. They added nothing. All that happened is that they said, “The boss told me to do it!” and then attempted to wash their hands of repsonsiblity.
