In Kolbe v. Hogan (4th Cir. 2016):
We think it is beyond dispute from the record before us, which contains much of the same evidence cited in the aforementioned decisions, that law-abiding citizens commonly possess semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15. Between 1990 and 2012, more than 8 million AR- and AK-platform semi-automatic rifles alone were manufactured in or imported into the United States. In 2012, semi-automatic sporting rifles accounted for twenty percent of all retail firearms sales. For perspective, we note that in 2012, the number of AR and AK-style weapons manufactured and imported into the United States was more than double the number of Ford F-150 trucks sold, the most commonly sold vehicle in the United States.
BOOM!
The Fourth Circuit Court returned the case to the lower court with the instructions to deal with it “under strict scrutiny.” The common plea by the Gun Control faction that Ugly Black Rifles are not weapons in common use and therefore can be regulated to death gets slapped by this court and it is now in the record.
What is next? We have conflicting court decisions across the nation, it may very well end up with SCOTUS.
Hat Tip to Clayton Cramer.
Moreover, we have the F-150 analogy officially in the record.
If a Ford F-150s are the most commonly-sold vehicle in the country, they are by definition “in common use” and “commonly possessed for lawful purposes”. If AR- and AK-pattern rifles are sold at over twice the rate of F-150s and used in fewer crimes*, they can’t NOT be “commonly possessed for lawful purposes”.
——–
* – Making a reasonable assumption here; speeding, driving on a suspended license, driving with expired tags, and other such violations are crimes, and are committed in ALL kinds of vehicles, including Ford F-150s.
@Archer: Furthermore, given more fatalities are attributed to automobiles every year than to firearms, you can’t make the claim that speeding, driving while intoxicated, driving on a suspended license or without a license, and driving with expired or invalid tags are not dangerous crimes.
OK, so I did some quick Googling.
The US has approximately 350 million people, and in 2013 there were 255 million registered vehicles, so that’s about 0.67 cars per-capita in the US.
The US has 1.12 guns per-capita.
That means there are nearly 2 guns for every registered vehicle in the US, and if we ignore suicides, cars cause 3x as many fatalities as guns. Even if we include suicides, the totals are even, which means that cars are nearly 2x as deadly as guns.
Clearly we should be campaigning to ban cars.
They don’t care about deaths at all from anything,they just want people to think that guns are the are the only thing that kills.
Could it be that “strict scrutiny” could be the death of the Hughes amendment? The NFA34? GCA68? We could actually make gains in regaining our freedom.
There was a very good write-up in the ILA about this case that looks at a different aspect. The scathing comments against the foolish words of the lone dissenting judge are priceless!
https://www.nraila.org/legal-legislation/