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Old December 16, 2014, 06:21 PM   #1
HarrySchell
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2A Protections Expanded to Cover Non-Firearm Arms

The CT Supreme Court (yah, CT!) has extended 2A protections to dirk knives, Tasers and police batons in the hands of citizens.

Their reasoning is very interesting but appears solid. "Arms" does not exclude non-firearms, which reflects the history of the term of art as used in law predating the wide use of firearms.

Nice to see somebody in CT is awake.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/v...police-batons/
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Last edited by Spats McGee; December 18, 2014 at 10:03 AM.
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Old December 16, 2014, 09:04 PM   #2
Tom Servo
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It's a similar argument to Maloney v. Rice.
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Old December 18, 2014, 10:02 AM   #3
carguychris
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HarrySchell, your link does not work when I try to follow it. [Never mind, it works now. ]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Servo
It's a similar argument to Maloney v. Rice.
It's likely a better argument, as there's no question whether the weapons in consideration were invented by employees of the Shaw Brothers.
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Old December 18, 2014, 10:04 AM   #4
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OP link fixed.
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Old December 18, 2014, 05:03 PM   #5
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The Connecticut case isn't going to help too many people, I suspect. True, it does expand the realm of "arms" to include more than firearms, but I think the Second Amendment always did that. The argument is still going to be about whether or not the weapon has an actual or historical military use, and Heller supposedly put a stake through the heart of the militia connection. The Connecticut judges apparently didn't get the memo.

Beyond that, this case (like Heller) has a narrow application. It applies to an individual who is transporting "weapons" between one place of residence and a second place of residence. The court's logic was that, if he can legally possess the weapons at home #1 and he can legally possess the weapons at home #2, but the law doesn't allow for any way for him to transport them from home #1 to home #1, the law effectively bars his possession of the weapons at home #2 and thereby violates the Second Amendment.

Unless I'm missing something, this decision would not help a person in Connecticut who routinely carries a Ka-Bar or some sort of tactical folding knife or a police baton in his car for self defense. Except for someone in the act of moving from one residence to another, I extrapolate from the decision to expect that the same court would rule that a person who is NOT moving can satisfy the law simply by leaving the weapon(s) at home and not carting them around in a car.

In fact, when I was in my teens and twenties I always kept a hunting knife (fixed blade, sightly smaller and considerably less expensive than a Ka-Bar) in the back of whatever car I was driving for use in roadside emergencies. Once I awakened to the fact that my state had a law like this, with essentially NO exceptions built in, I reluctantly removed the knife from my emergency kit.
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