On the “news” tonight, a confrontation, in Florida, a road rager got out of his car, pistol in hand, walked to the other guy’s car, and started yelling at him. The other guy had a pistol in his hand too. Somehow, no-one decided to pull a trigger, that time.
Now, on to the main event. I have been saying that the Federal ban on machine guns, which has existed since the 30s, due to public revulsion over mob violence, was on very shaky ground, Constitutionally. A Federal judge in Kansas has thrown out a machine gun possession case, saying that the machine gun ban in the US Code is unconstitutional.
For some time, I have been saying the entire body of US labor law is also on shaky ground, Constitutionally.
I expect the prosecutor to appeal. But the current SCOTUS overturned the ban on “bump stocks” that was instituted by TFG after the mass shooting in Vegas. In years past, SCOTUS, with different justices, overturned a ban on handguns, and a law requiring guns to be secured in the home by a trigger lock, or disassembly. SCOTUS seems to think that a ban on any sort of firearm, or any impediment to the acquisition or use of a gun, is an unconstitutional infringement.
So yes, according to the judge in Kansas, who SCOTUS will probably agree with, you can have a full automatic M-16. You can have an M2, .50 machine gun. You can have a 20mm Oerlikon, or an anti-tank gun, because any restriction on ownership is an infringement of an absolute right to have guns.
iirc, some years ago, Walmart stopped carrying certain types of guns. Maybe someone will float a test case to force Walmart to sell those guns, because the company’s not carrying them “infringes” his absolute right to buy them.
Walmart stopped selling ammunition that can be used in semiautomatic rifles and handguns after a 2019 shooting at one of its stores in El Paso, Texas, killed 23 people. The company stopped selling assault-style weapons in 2015 and raised the minimum age to buy firearms and ammunition to 21, from 18, in 2018. It stopped selling handguns everywhere but Alaska in 1993, and ended its sales of rifles like the AR-15 in 2015.
Which means the need for ammunition for a wide range of weapons will now be clear to everyone. A weapon that fires a physical bullet/shell is useless without that bullet/shell–and denies the owner of such a weapon the right to use that device “to protect him/her self”. Remember: Walz was in charge of a field artillery unit, so the need is not speculative. It is just a matter of “how many”. The current answer to that question is “not enough”.
The difference in these cases is the rule-making authority. In the case of bump stocks, ATF banned them. It was not a statutory law.
In the case of the machine gun ban, there is statutory law on such.
While I may disagree with SCOTUS on various things, I am generally in agreement that Congress should be making laws and not agencies (the later should be more about the minutia and not the generalities). In other words, Congress should pass a bump stock ban. They should also have long ago passed a law for or against abortion, gay marriage, etc. Stop leaving up to an unelected body (both the agencies and the courts) to interpret and we would not have such a confusing mess.
Makes no difference. Fundamentally at odds with the Second Amendment, is unconstitutional, regardless if it’s a reg, or a law. The laws against handguns and requiring trigger locks, were DC city ordinances, ie laws. SCOTUS overturned them. Texas used to have a law against sodomy, which only applied to same sex partners. SCOTUS overturned it, because it violated rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. DOMA violates the contracts clause of the Constitution, but SCOTUS has always found some excuse to refuse to hear a challenge. Same thing with laws establishing religion. The “Presidential Day of Prayer”, and “under God” being in the pledge, are Federal laws. You can look them up in the US Code. SCOTUS has always found an excuse to refuse to hear challenges.
Largely agree. However, Congress has not been doing its job for nearly a generation and hence the administrative agencies step in. Also, it is nearly impossible to write a statute for every single thing and what one may think of as minutiae, another may think essential or fundamental so there’s that, too.
In United States v. Rahimi , the U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision upheld a federal statute prohibiting individuals subject to domestic violence protective orders (DVPOs) from possessing firearms.
Can you point to where the Constitution states that domestic violence convictions means you lose your 2nd Amendment rights? Or, might that be found in a federal statute?
Agree on all those points. But there is sliding scale at play and a lot of grey area. The failure of Congress to act doesn’t mean that we arbitrarily rely on other agencies to do their job for them. While one might like the ATF to arbitrary decide that bump stocks are machine guns, we would not want that same ATF to, under a different administration, decide that not only are bump stocks legal, but then so are previously banned machine guns/rocket launchers because they were not originally mentioned in the 1924 ban.
Letting agencies exercise that discretion is a recipe for break-neck changes with each change in executive administration. See immigration for a good example.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
If a court finds you a threat to another person, and, therefore abridges your rights, you have had your legal due process, and your rights, as defined by the law, are forfeit.
In other words, you didn’t read the ruling, at all. Got it.
For everyone else, SCOTUS did not rule in favor of the law on the grounds of the 5th Amendment. They ruled in favor on the grounds that it was consistent with the 2nd Amendment.
I wasn’t addressing the ruling. I was addressing your hypothetical about domestic violence, and why denial of gun rights, in that case, does not violate the second amendment.