Federal judge upholds strict new Maryland gun laws

[natman]

Note that the first sentence presents a hypothetical objection and the second sentence refutes it. The 4th has seen fit to take selected words from the first sentence completely out of context and twist them 180 degrees from Heller's actual position on the definition of the meaning of the word "arms"

It seems more that this court is twisting the meaning of "like." IMHO, the meaning of "the M16 and the like" in Heller was a reference to function likeness -- firearms with "the switch," offering semi-auto, select-fire, and/or full-auto capability. The only way this court could say that AR-15s are "like" M16s is to be on the basis of external appearance, and that IS a perversion of the substance of Heller.

I'll meet you halfway on this; they are perverting the meaning of "arms" as defined in Heller AND they are ignoring the substantial legal difference between a fully automatic M16 and a semiauto AR15.

It wouldn't surprise me if SCOTUS sends this back for reconsideration without even hearing the case via a per curiam opinion, just as they did with Caetano v. Massachusetts in 2015. No matter how an individual Supreme Court justice may feel about the issue at hand, they simply can't allow lower courts to dump on Supreme Court decisions like this. Not if the word "Supreme" is going to mean anything.

 

[LogicMan]

Disagree.

Guns don’t have ‘rights,’ citizens do – and those rights are not unlimited, including the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment; our rights are subject to reasonable restrictions by government, consistent with Second Amendment jurisprudence, such as Maryland’s FSA.

In what way, shape, or form is Maryland's FSA "reasonable restrictions?" Subjecting guns to reasonable restrictions would outlaw 99% of all gun laws on the books. Guns can only be restricted reasonably in the same way that speech can be restricted reasonably.

That may change at some point in the future, depending on how the Supreme Court rules – but it’s hyperbolic nonsense to claim that citizens’ Second Amendment rights are in ‘serious trouble.’

I would say that they are, because the lower courts clearly ignore the Heller decision and twist it to uphold whatever gun control laws that they want.

Disagree.

The Supreme Court isn’t ‘ducking’ anything.

The 4th Circuit’s ruling is in agreement with the 2nd Circuit’s ruling upholding a similar measure, New York’s Safe Act. The High Court rarely reviews cases where the lower courts are in agreement.

So what? Both lower circuits are clearly wrong and in a very obvious way. A job of the Supreme Court is to overturn cases of the lower courts, regardless of whether they are all in agreement. Precedent is irrelevant if it is based on nonsense. The reason the SCOTUS has ignored it I think is because Scalia I think was antsy on the issue of whether Kennedy would actually strike down assault weapon bans, as it was Kennedy who demanded (from what I've read---could be mistaken) that the "reasonable restrictions" clause be put into the Heller decision.

Of course, all that means is that the gun control states can pass whatever gun control they want and the courts claim it all falls within the purview of "reasonable restrictions."

Couldn’t disagree more.

Indeed, this is a dispute between the state of Maryland and residents of that state who believe their Second Amendment rights have been violated, and have sought relief in Federal court.

States have the right to enact measures as they see fit, reflecting the will of the people of a given state, absent interference from Congress.

The notion of Congress interfering with states’ rights and the judicial process is repugnant to the fundamental tenets of federalism and separation of powers doctrine. For Congress to “legislate the 4th Circuit Court's ruling away” would be an egregious abuse of power by the Legislative Branch of government.

It has nothing to do with states rights. Especially not when those measures infringe on people's fundamental rights. Then they have no such right, no more than they have a right to allow for segregation, discrimination, restricting right to free speech, privacy, currently abortion, or any of the other protected rights. The fact that the court and gun control proponents have to actively lie and twist facts to even justify such legislation all the more shows the baselessness of it.

 

[LogicMan]

One problem is this whole notion of "weapons of war." All firearms used by people are weapons of war. They are all either military designs or derived from military designs. There are very, very few firearms, if any, that are not either military designs or designs grounded in military design. Thus ANY gun control law that bans or restricts firearms based on their being "weapons of war" is automatically un-Constitutional.

These facts alone show the absurdity of the court's ruling there. They say AR-15s are close enough to M-16s and thus "most useful weapons for war" and thus can be banned. Well what would they say about the Remington 700, a bolt-action hunting rifle that is among the most widely ever used, itself grounded in a military design as all bolt-actions are (the mechanism is a military design), and currently used by the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps as a SNIPER rifle for decades? What would they say about the common 12 gauge pump-action shot gun, used by the U.S. military in every conflict the nation has been in since WWI, where in WWI it was nicknamed by the Germans as the "trench broom" and they wanted U.S. soldiers captured using it to be tried as war criminals? Or the 1911 pistol, a military design that became the standard sidearm for the U.S. military for decades. Or the 9mm pistol, currently the standard sidearm I believe for the U.S. military? The Remington 700, the 1911, the 9mm, the 12 gauge, all have been used by American civilians for decades. They are among the most common firearms one will find. All are military.

Then look at ammunition. The commonly-used 30.06 ammunition, used a lot for hunting. It used to be the standard ammunition for the U.S. military, used in the M1903 Springfield rifle and the M1 Garand rifle. The .45 caliber cartridge and the 9mm cartridge are also military in origin. I could go on.