The Supreme Court is not going to be able to duck out on guns for much longer.
First from Massachusetts:
Federal judge upholds Massachusetts ban on AR-15, large capacity magazines.
A federal district court judge in Boston has upheld the state’s ban on assault weapons – AR-15 semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines – finding that the issue is not a constitutional matter but one for each state to determine on its own politically.
“The AR-15 and its analogs, along with large capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to ‘bear arms,’” U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, wrote in a decision Thursday in Boston, dismissing a lawsuit over the state law.
Well, that seems to be in direct contradiction with Heller and McDonald.
Thomas and Scalia write that the government is essentially powerless to prohibit or restrict weapons in “common use.” “The right to keep and bear arms,” they wrote, “is defined not by what the militia needs, but by what private citizens commonly possess.”
Well, even NBC had to admit that the AR-15 is “hugely popular” with one in five guns sold in America being an AR variant.
The city of Boulder Colorado just jumped on the same “ban ’em all” band wagon.
Boulder City Council passes gun ban on first reading.
BOULDER — A controversial city ordinance to ban “assault weapons, bump stocks and high capacity magazines” passed the Boulder City Council unanimously on first reading Thursday night after more than five hours of public testimony on both sides of the issue.
As written, the ban would require anyone legally possessing anything under the ban to either register that gun with the Boulder Police Department (fee charged) or surrender it for destruction.
“I don’t see this as taking away Second Amendment rights,” Grano said. “The Second Amendment does not protect assault weapons. There have been hundreds and hundreds of mass shootings in America. This is a long overdue proposal. I think it’s time to say enough, not in the city of Boulder.”
So in Massachusetts, Boulder (CO), and Deerfield (IL), the argument is that AR-15/Assault Rifles are not protected by the Second Amendment.
In his decision in Worman v. Baker, Judge Young declared that “assault weapons and LCMs [large capacity magazines] are not within the scope of the personal right to ‘bear arms’ under the Second Amendment.”
Unfortunately for all of us Scalia’s opinion in Heller has been used by both sides.
Pro-gun courts have decided that AR-15s are common, and being semi-automatic are not “dangerous an unusual.”
Anti-gun courts have decided that the military appearance and history makes them facsimiles of military weapons and therefore are “dangerous an unusual.”
At this point, there are only two way for this to move forward
One: SCOTUS is going to have to get involved. One more of these cases will have to get elevated to the highest court in the land where “dangerous an unusual” will have to be defined. Does that included common civilian versions of military weapons or not?
This is probably going to happen in the next year.
Two: Covered in my next post.
Since I’m used to that being abbreviated SCOTUS, Supreme Court Of The United States, what does SCOUTS stand for?
It’s me fighting with auto correct
Since I have very little trust in judges, supreme or otherwise, I would rather see some of these unconstitutional clowns impeached for perjury. Even if not convicted by the Senate that might send a hint to their dim and/or dishonest minds that they are being watched and this sort of thing won’t go without a reaction.
With all due respect, J.Kb. (and a fair amount of cynicism, which I’m sure you of all people can understand 😉 ), I disagree.
SCOTUS doesn’t have to do anything. They can let another gun/magazine ban slide, and another, and another, until every district has its own interpretation of what the Second Amendment really means. A patchwork of conflicting laws, in which you are 100% legal where you are, but a felon if you cross the wrong street. We’re almost there now; almost every circuit has weighed in at some point or another, and their decisions have contradicted each other for some time. (Hell, we can’t even get the circuits to agree that the “right to bear arms” means the right to carry for self-defense outside the home!)
And SCOTUS lets it slide. I see no reason for that to change any time soon (maybe if Kennedy and/or Ginsburg retire, but I get the feeling they’ll be around for a while).
The verbiage in Heller didn’t expressly limit it to handguns, so if lawmakers and judges had any integrity (hah!), Heller would apply to semi-automatic rifles, too. “In common use for lawful purposes” should absolutely apply to the top-selling type of long gun in America, with millions in circulation, and which statistically is almost never used in crime.
I can only conclude that the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is currently relegated to a second-class right. SCOTUS says otherwise in its prior decisions, but action (or in this case, inaction) speaks louder than words. The circuit splits would not be allowed to stand if it were a First Amendment issue — or a Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc. But because it’s the Second Amendment at stake they don’t feel the need to hear a case and resolve the split decisions.
Put another way: All SCOTUS has to do to ensure the status quo remains intact is … nothing. And they are VERY good at doing that.
Just my $0.02.
“And what is our resource for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them.”– Thomas Jefferson, in “On state rights”, letter to William B. Giles, December 26, 1825.