For our country to meet the requirements of the Constitution, the people do not need to be armed with neither automatic weapons nor handguns. Shoulder-fired guns will meet all Constitutional requirements, and make the people safer than they have been in years.
Harveydad
July 27, 2012
Comment to Candidates Cower on Gun Control
[Harveydad has a long way to go before becoming a scholar on the gun issue. He currently couldn’t even qualify as a student in good standing.
Whether automatic weapons are protected by the 2nd Amendment is not entirely clear at this point. But the handgun issue is exceedingly clear. Just read the Heller vs. D.C. decision.
Neither handgun nor automatic weapon bans has ever, anytime, anyplace, made people safer.—Joe]
Lol. 1919a6’s and SAW’s for everyone then. I’m sure that’s what this scholar means.
Joe, to say that whether full-auto is protected is ‘not entirely clear’ is like saying that whether high-speed laser printers are protected by the 1st is not entirely clear. If, as Judge Kozinski et. al. have written, the ultimate purpose is to throw off tyranny, then shouldn’t we have, at a minimum, whatever it is that is current issue for an infantryman? At the least, that level of parity is useful. The “in common use” phrase was 1st used, IIRC, in Miller, and later echoed (though slightly distorted) in Heller. Given that there were no standing armies, it is entirely logical to conclude that the authors of the Bill of Rights were concerned with “common” military use. The commentaries of the time of the ratification seem to leave little doubt about the “weapons of war”, and Billll just pointed out a tie in to letters of Marque.
I see no lack of clarity here.
Here’s the thing: I like to understand the other side’s arguments.
The best arguments they make are ones that arose when I was in my teens 30 years ago. These were debated in public, talked about by great thinkers, written about both pro and con, faced with facts from old and new scholarship, disputed in editorials, legislatures, courts and the Oval Office, and pretty much settled in favor of the pro-rights side every time. Every time. Every time.
Every time was repeated because I have seen several iterations of these arguments getting made, debated, legislated, disputed in court, and destroyed one way or another. I have seen no new arguments since the great publicity outpouring during the run-up to Heller vs DC in the Supreme Court. And most of those arguments were old. Only a few new ones cropped up for analysis, created from the wild imaginations of those who thought that a lack of daylight equated with the death of the sun, most obviously, with them ignoring all prior evidence, experiment, and analysis.
So what’s new in their arguments? Anything?
If the answer is nothing, I will simply give those flogging the dead horse an opportunity to go away and stop making a mess in front of me, then I will kick them until they remove themselves, taking the carcass along with them.
@jed, The 2nd Amendment (or any law) only protects something if the courts agree to enforce the protection. It is not clear the courts will agree with the plain and clear meaning of the words.
Hence, I agree with you the original intent and even some precidence is there it is not clear the courts will follow the letter of the law.
You are correct the phrase “in common use” was first used (to the best of my knowledge) in Miller.
US v Miller – If it’s a weapon in common use by the military it’s protected.