SCOTUS musings

[RC20]

That is correct and unless and until it does, then states do have the right to regulate it.

You will find that in this day and age, few justices are agreeable to unlimited. So there will at the least be felons and hopefully mentally incompetent unable to.

That said, having spent a lot of time on the gun range the last few years, I am in doubt as to what incompetent really means.

Disciplined/safe gun owners are questioning the open end of it.

You can cut that 30% down, how much? While its anecdotal, 10 to 20% is not out of line.

I see at lest 25% who legally can own that should not.

I see another group of 25% that needs training but will listen.

Maybe 50% are safe gun handlers

 

[zukiphile]

Disciplined/safe gun owners are questioning the open end of it.

Just as not everyone who speaks is a free speech advocate, not everyone who shoots safely is a 2d Am. advocate.

 

[Sharkbite]

Maybe 50% are safe gun handlers

As a professional trainer for a couple of decades, i dont think its that high. I would assign a percentage around 25-30%

Fingers on triggers when not appropriate and zero muzzle awareness is way too common

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/5/federal-appeals-court-upholds-new-jerseys-law-limi/

https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...urt-upholds-nj-ban-on-high-capacity-magazines

“New Jersey’s law reasonably fits the State’s interest in public safety and does not unconstitutionally burden the Second Amendment’s right to self-defense in the home,” said the court.

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/183170p.pdf

Some points in the decision:

1. It's about self-defense
2. Hi cap magazines are too dangerous
3. Limiting them does not impact home self-defense
4. It's just fine under Heller

 

[Aguila Blanca]

You will find that in this day and age, few justices are agreeable to unlimited. So there will at the least be felons and hopefully mentally incompetent unable to.

I'm not concerned about felons. Once someone has been convicted of a felony, a variety of constitutional rights are forfeit, and I have no problem with that. The question of restoration of rights automatically once the entire sentence (including parole) has been served is a question that I think is open to debate.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Some points in the decision:

1. It's about self-defense in the home
2. Hi cap magazines are too dangerous
3. Limiting them does not impact home self-defense
4. It's just fine under Heller

FIFY

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Good catch and point

 

[Aguila Blanca]

This decision is just another in the string of decisions that completely violates the intent of the Heller decision. Heller has been bent, folded, spindled and mutilated, and until there is a secure originalist/textualist majority at the SCOTUS we should expect to see more of the same.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Or you can slice it, there are 100 million gun owners in a population of 350 million and 20 million of those are high cap magazines.

That really kills the percentage of common.

Lawrence vs. Texas covered about 3.5% of the U.S adult population. So, even using your math, the court found a much smaller minority protected by the Constitution.

Although, it strikes me as strange generally that a document designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority extends a basic constitutional right only if it is in “common use.”

Just as not everyone who speaks is a free speech advocate, not everyone who shoots safely is a 2d Am. advocate.

As we are reminded routinely when reading this forum.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Here's another take on the misuse and problems of Heller. Nice section on the 'common' problem.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/09/heres-supreme-court-already-repealed-second-amendment/

From the same author as to why Kavanaugh is not a guaranteed savior:

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/24/dont-rely-justice-kavanaugh-protect-gun-rights/

Heller Is a Catastrophe in Waiting

As I explained previously, Heller, based upon an egregious misreading of the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Miller (1939), coupled with an express rejection of the Second Amendment’s underlying goal, allows the prohibition of any arms that are not “in common use,” with “common” defined however legislators, executives, and judges see fit. Contradicting itself, Heller even expressly endorses a ban on the M16, the most common rifle in the organized militia (see 10 USC 311) for the last 50 years.

Furthermore, the malleable “common use” standard could be used as the basis for banning semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15, today the rifle most “in common use” by the militia’s unorganized component and the rest of the citizenry, and the ammunition magazines they and semi-automatic handguns are designed to use. Potentially more importantly, it establishes a rationale for banning all arms of the future, especially those employing technologies not yet introduced, on the basis that they are not yet “common” by any definition of the word.

The author points out that the court can't be predicted so we can't know if Kavanaugh would do XY or Z.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I’m not sure if that author didn’t listen to Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony or reached a 180 degree opposite conclusion. I thought Kavanaugh’s comments on common use were very reassuring as to existing small arms.

The real test will come when there is some technology breakthrough that is a revolutionary step forward and the common use test will forever cap the technological level of the citizenry. I’m not sure where Kavanaugh will go there.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

The real test will come when there is some technology breakthrough that is a revolutionary step forward and the common use test will forever cap the technological level of the citizenry. I’m not sure where Kavanaugh will go there.

Like, perhaps, smart guns?

Or micro-engraving firing pins, or electronic ignition?

I'm all in favor of banning those right now.

 

[unclejack37]

I think you guys are getting this common use thing a little skewed.

Regarding the broader claim that the Second Amendment allows some regulation, Justice Antonin Scalia does in fact mention “presumptively lawful regulations” such as those concerning “M-16 rifles and the like.”27 But including firearms and magazines in common lawful use today under such regulations raises two issues. First, “M-16” is a specific military designation. Unlike “AR-15,” which refers to a “pattern” of rifle of which there are hundreds of derivatives, “M-16” refers to a particular machine gun (i.e., a fully automatic weapon that fires continuously with a single trigger pull) regulated by the 1934 National Firearms Act. Second, Scalia’s language needs to be read in the larger context of the opinion, which holds that the Second Amendment protects all arms in common lawful use. M-16s are not in common lawful use; 15- to 30-round magazines undoubtedly are.

The lower courts are just ignoring what SCOTUS had to say in the Heller case. They must think if they ignore it maybe it will go away.