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Old January 28, 2013, 06:13 PM   #30
speedrrracer
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 15, 2011
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 317
Now I understand what you're talking about.

The recent DHS SOW for PDWs will be of some help. Police use will be of some help.

But let's be very clear -- the so-called "common use test" has never yet been applied. Therefore, we could all be misinterpreting what SCOTUS will actually do when the rubber meets the road.

For example, SCOTUS could easily decide that common use doesn't have any bearing and is not informed by the nature of police weaponry. They could find that the police have extraordinary needs, e.g. SWAT teams, and therefore no, we're not going to accept that argument.

Remember, Heller suggests the core of the 2nd Amendment might be self-defense, so the anti-tyranny defense (that citizens need to be armed on some level similar to the government) might go over like a lead balloon. You and I might believe it, but if 5 out of 9 SCOTUS judges don't believe it, we're SOL.

Alternatively, the court could find that police, while not required to do so, often engage in defense of others to a degree not common among citizens, and therefore they need exceptional firepower that citizens do not, or that police are targets of exceptional violence, or whatever.

Not saying that's how it will go, but keep in mind there is a lot of history where police can have X and citizens cannot, e.g. SWAT teams. This court will surely know that. They may decide that the contents of the average patrol car are OK for a citizen to have, or they may say citizens have no expectation of maintaining the same level of firepower. They may leave it all up to the various states.

Surely Gura will use police / DHS if he feels they can help, but for now we don't even know if he'll ever try such a case before SCOTUS. He's currently still trying to get us the right to carry a friggin' pistol.

My guess is that he's looking for clues, and hoping that SCOTUS will take Kachalsky, not just so that we can have carry protected under the 2nd, but so that SCOTUS may drop some other gems which will suggest the path to take for any potential future litigation. Remember, they did exactly that in the first Heller decision -- pretty much came right out in the decision and said that they would allow the 2nd to be incorporated against the States if it ever came before them. To the surprise of no one (even the Bradys were saying Gura would win that case), Gura then won McDonald, and we now have incorporation.

Last edited by speedrrracer; January 28, 2013 at 07:07 PM.
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