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Old March 29, 2019, 07:21 PM   #1
4V50 Gary
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California's ten round magazine ban struck down by Federal District Court (UPDATE: Reinstated)

What is interesting is the firearms history cited by the court in its opinion. Page 28 mentions Da Vinci's organ gun, the Girandoni air gun carried by Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery, the Lorenzoni flintlock repeater with internal magazine for power and ball, an allusion to the Henry ("That damn Yankee rifle you load on Sunday and shoot all week.") and the Lefauchaux revolver (20 shots).

Page 33-35 discuss the level of court scrutiny. General level of thumb the higher the level of scrutiny, the more the court seeks to safeguard the Constitution against government infringements. Strict Scrutiny is applied where is a compelling government interest. Generally there are no compelling government interest and most laws that come under strict scrutiny are struck down as unconstitutional. Mid-level scrutiny is applied to less than essential liberties like the rights of gays. The lowest, rational relation, is when the court feels there must be a rational relation between the law being challenged and government reasoning for the law. When this is applied, the government almost always wins. Fortunately here, the court applied strict scrutiny (page 43) nor was the law "narrowly tailored nor the least restrictive means of achieving these interests." That's pretty d*mning of California's law.

http://michellawyers.com/wp-content/...ntiffs-MSJ.pdf

As a former Californiastan resident, I am happy to see tyranny crushed. Now we have to work on Coloradostan.
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Old March 29, 2019, 07:42 PM   #2
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No doubt this will be appealed and the 9th Circuit will stay the decision until they reverse it 6-7 years from now.

Just being cynical from past examples.
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Old March 29, 2019, 07:56 PM   #3
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Or just move to Texas Gary!
Thanks, this is a (small) glimmer of hope.
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Old March 29, 2019, 08:58 PM   #4
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Where I live used to be part of the Republic of Texas. C'mon and git us back. I'm your fifth column against Denverstan.
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Old March 29, 2019, 11:50 PM   #5
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I saw this in the news. Yes,my cynicism ...or loss of naivete prevents me from getting TOO excited...

But things are rather glum in Colorado these days,Gary and I can use a bit of good news while it lasts.

Who knows? If it sticks,Colorado might actually get one good thing via California.
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Old March 29, 2019, 11:57 PM   #6
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I guess we'll see what happens after the 9th strikes it down during an en masse hearing and what comes of the NY SCOTUS case in regards to how that's going to go down and if indeed SCOTUS affirms that strict scrutiny must be applied for all gun and 2nd Amendment cases.

It does seem tho that the judicial branch is doing more to protect 2A than the other two branches are, so hopefully that keeps up. I mean it's pretty simple the confines the gov't was given in regards to the right to own and carry arms: they weren't allowed to do anything.

The only infuriating thing that exists is the "reasonable restriction" wording in Heller, but hopefully, HOPEFULLY the NY case will amend that. At least then all the AWB and magazine capacity and ammo microstamping and various other things can be undone in certain states and prevented federally, but will keep actual reasonable restrictions on stuff like bombs and machine guns. In my ideal world, a machine gun would be treated like an AOW today: you pay a minimal fee for an enhanced background check. I'm okay with that, it's reasonable. Closing the registry and driving prices of already registered machine guns to the price of a new car is not.
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Old March 30, 2019, 08:12 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by 4V50 Gary View Post
Where I live used to be part of the Republic of Texas. C'mon and git us back. I'm your fifth column against Denverstan.
Do you live in Denver Gary? If you do, strap that handgun on yer hip and walk around Pearl Street Mall..will you be approached by a LEO? Almost certainly but he won't tell you it's illegal, cuz it's not.
Bet you've seen this. Good chart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Colorado

Is the 15 round magazine ban(grand fathered, BTW), the one?
Quote:
But things are rather glum in Colorado these days,Gary and I can use a bit of good news while it lasts.
??
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Old March 30, 2019, 09:44 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TruthTellers
The only infuriating thing that exists is the "reasonable restriction" wording in Heller, ...
Except that phrase doesn't appear in the Court's decision in Heller.

I hadn't read this about Heller until just a couple of years ago on this forum. I don't know the origin of the assertion, but it isn't true.
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Old March 30, 2019, 11:00 AM   #9
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Info:

Here's a good summary to my layperson's eyes of court decisions:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44618.pdf

Here's a usage of reasonable restrictions from the popular press:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/on-gu...t-emp_b_484828

Heller is full of the use of the words - restriction and restrictions but not reasonable restrictions. The basis for such are discussed. I did find a reference to Justice Stevens previously discussion the basis for 'substantial restrictions'.

Here's the Brady Bunch - discussing reasonable restrictions:

https://brady-static.s3.amazonaws.co...fterHeller.pdf

Quote:
n the ten years since Heller, courts have almost universally agreed with the Brady view and rejected the NRA view of the Second Amendment. Since Heller, state and federal courts have heard over a thousand Second Amendment challenges to gun laws. In over 90% of those cases, the courts have rejected the challenge, essentially adopting the Brady view that Heller does not prohibit common-sense gun laws.8 The courts have repeatedly held that Heller does not provide a basis to overturn bans on the public carry of firearms, assault weapons, and large capacity magazines. They have also overwhelmingly held that Heller allows for reasonable restrictions on dangerous people possessing and owning firearms, and has upheld safety regulations regarding firearms training, storage, and design.
It might be that the term came from a lower court decision before SCOTUS:

Quote:
The district court dismissed Heller’s claims, stating that it “rejects the notion that there is an individual right to bear arms separate and apart from service in the Militia” and holding that “because none of the plaintiffs have asserted membership in the Militia, plaintiffs have no viable claim under the Second Amendment.”15On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed in a 2-1 decision, concluding that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms,” that such a right is subject to “reasonable restrictions,”...
Here we go: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1388980.html


United States Court of Appeals,District of Columbia Circuit.

Shelly PARKER, et al., Appellants v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA and Adrian M. Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia, Appellees.
No. 04-7041.
Decided: March 09, 2007

Quote:
That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols.   The protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment.  
So the term has some history behind it, even it didn't appear in Heller. It is then used in conjuction with the Heller discussion of some restrictions that are allowable. Such as this interpretation of Heller:

Quote:
Indeed, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is “not unlimited,” and is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”3Rather, the Court identified a non-exhaustive list of “presumptively lawful” gun restrictions, such as gun sales regulations, bans on public carrying of firearms, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, and bans on gun possession by certain classes of prohibited persons.
From the Brady site but showing the take that they put on things: https://brady-static.s3.amazonaws.co...fterHeller.pdf
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Old March 30, 2019, 11:25 AM   #10
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But things are rather glum in Colorado these days,Gary and I can use a bit of good news while it lasts. / ??
.


USN,we covered the Red Flag law . Even the Denver PD came out against it.


No need to do reruns. We are working on making some corrections.


Supposedly,after Pearl Harbor,Yamamoto said something like "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." Time will tell.
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Old March 30, 2019, 11:38 AM   #11
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Please, no one post the guns behind every tree bogus quote!!

Let's hope this CA decision has legs.

I wrote this elsewhere:

Quote:
If the ban is struck down - who knows about the next levels? - then it would seem to imply that the ban against the guns themselves would necessarily be voided. The dangerous nature of the gun is the ability to shoot lots of rounds quickly. The cosmetic features of MSSAs (to use that term) do not truly influence their lethal efficacy. Pistol grips, flash doohickeys, so what.

This was pointed out in the research on why the original AWB didn't not affect any known crime indices at the time. See https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204431.pdf , Koper and Roth. I heard a presentation on the research at the American Society for Criminology. The point was made that guns without the AWB features had equal efficacy, so those restrictions were useless. The gun world said - OK - no AWB. The researchers and the DOJ sponsors said - BAN THE SEMIS - totally.

So a total semi ban would negate that positive effect of the disallowing the mag ban - unless such a ban was challenged. Banning all semis is not unknown. There have been rampages with the nice gun (Mini-14) which led to their being banned (see Norway, IIRC). The Montreal schoo rampaged used a Mini-14. So to take out the ban immune guns like the Minis and Ruger PCCs would seem to be based on actions. So do you get bolt actions, higher capacity guns? Weird.

So it's back to the lever guns - until they are banned - if that held. It's kind of like the abortion issue - anti abortion states will come up with all kinds of restrictions based on this or that to take out the thing they don't like. Heart beat bans are just an emotional ploy as the issue is neurological. Same idea use anything you can come up with.

Let's hope this stands and leads to a more expansive set of findings that lead SCOTUS to clarify the ambiguous nature of the 'restrictions' seemingly allowable in Heller in a manner positive to the RKBA.
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Old March 30, 2019, 01:20 PM   #12
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Quote:
an allusion to the Henry ("That damn Yankee rifle you load on Sunday and shoot all week.")
I believe that "damn Yankee rifle" referred to was the Spencer, not the Henry.

The court decision is heartening, especially the use of strict scrutiny as the standard. It may be overturned later, but for now, its a step in the right direction.
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Old March 30, 2019, 02:22 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer
Here we go: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1388980.html


United States Court of Appeals,District of Columbia Circuit.

Shelly PARKER, et al., Appellants v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA and Adrian M. Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia, Appellees.
No. 04-7041.
Decided: March 09, 2007

Quote:
That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols.   The protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment.
So the term has some history behind it, even it didn't appear in Heller. It is then used in conjuction with the Heller discussion of some restrictions that are allowable. Such as this interpretation of Heller:

Quote:
Indeed, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is “not unlimited,” and is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”3Rather, the Court identified a non-exhaustive list of “presumptively lawful” gun restrictions, such as gun sales regulations, bans on public carrying of firearms, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, and bans on gun possession by certain classes of prohibited persons.
And this is where I have to differ with Mr. Scalia, as well as with the District of Columbia court of appeals. The comparison with "reasonable restrictions" of First Amendment rights fails because the Second Amendment itself says that it is not subject to restrictions. It says "shall not be infringed." It does NOT say "shall not be unreasonably infringed."

"Restriction," "regulation," whatever you choose to call it -- equals infringement. None of the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights comes straight out and says "shall not be infringed." Anyone with a modicum of intellectual honesty would have to admit that "shall not be infringed" means "is not subject to restriction."
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Old March 30, 2019, 02:42 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn E Meyer
So the term has some history behind it, even it didn't appear in Heller. It is then used in conjuction with the Heller discussion of some restrictions that are allowable. Such as this interpretation of Heller:

Quote:
Indeed, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is “not unlimited,” and is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”3Rather, the Court identified a non-exhaustive list of “presumptively lawful” gun restrictions, such as gun sales regulations, bans on public carrying of firearms, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, and bans on gun possession by certain classes of prohibited persons.
From the Brady site but showing the take that they put on things: https://brady-static.s3.amazonaws.co...fterHeller.pdf
If the history behind the term "reasonable restrictions" is use by the district court that had failed to recognize Heller's claim and by gun control/ban advocates, we should not confuse that with the text of the Court's decision.

If someone needs to import the term "reasonable restrictions" in order to interpret a Scalia decision that never uses the term, maybe the offered interpretation is erroneous.

Last edited by zukiphile; March 30, 2019 at 02:47 PM.
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Old March 30, 2019, 03:32 PM   #15
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Quote:
Indeed, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is “not unlimited,” and is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”3Rather, the Court identified a non-exhaustive list of “presumptively lawful” gun restrictions, such as gun sales regulations, bans on public carrying of firearms, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, and bans on gun possession by certain classes of prohibited persons.
It perhaps bears repeating that the expression "presumptively lawful" does not mean "lawful." If Mr. Scalia had intended to say that all existing gun control laws are lawful, I'm sure he would have said exactly that.

However, he said "presumptively" lawful. By that, what I believe he was saying was "There are a metric boatload of other gun laws out there that are not before us for discussion in this case, and so for the purposes of this case we will presume that they are lawful ... until each of them has had its own day in court."

That's what he meant but, since Heller, lower courts have been using [abusing] that statement to justify denying those other laws their day in court by claiming that the SCOTUS has already decided that they are lawful.

It's really a sad day when senior justices on the United States courts of appeals are functionally illiterate.
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Old March 30, 2019, 03:40 PM   #16
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If the District court in 2007 used the term, it pre-dated Heller. It did not appear in Heller but the folks after the decision, seem to have picked it up in their media prose. If later courts used it, I didn't search on that.

Does the use by the District Court earlier on, somehow imply that was a principle used by the restrictions or discussions by Scalia on various items? That I don't know.

You see things in Heller like:

Quote:
Many early 19th-century state cases indicated that theSecond Amendment right to bear arms was an individual right unconnected to militia service, though subject to certain restrictions.
p.38
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

So the use of restrictions in a positive or negative sense is found through the decision and dissents.

Did the Parker prose become that attached to the Heller prose? Seems like it. Given the discussion in Heller of some restrictions - that phrase takes on a life of its own and used against the RKBA.

It make a 'literalism' defense (a term used as a fault in critiques of the Humanities pedantic nature in discussion modern politics) of Heller, miss the issue in some sense. If that's what the media, people and lower courts think - it's a problem.
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Old March 30, 2019, 04:46 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn E Meyer
If the District court in 2007 used the term, it pre-dated Heller. It did not appear in Heller but the folks after the decision, seem to have picked it up in their media prose.
None of which excuses attribution of the term to the Heller decision. It may be that people use that having mistakenly relied on secondary sources, or that they intend to deceive the reader, but in either event the attribution is false.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn E Meyer
So the use of restrictions in a positive or negative sense is found through the decision and dissents.

Did the Parker prose become that attached to the Heller prose? Seems like it. Given the discussion in Heller of some restrictions - that phrase takes on a life of its own and used against the RKBA.
The passive voice conceals the culprit here, people who either didn't read the decision or have misinterpreted what they read have misrepresented the decision itself. That this error is seen in the writing of people largely opposed to Heller itself may not be coincidental.

The existence of restrictions isn't disputed. Heller noting the existence of restrictions cannot competently be construed to mean that Heller legitimated "reasonable restrictions" as a standard for firearms restrictions.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn E Meyer
It make a 'literalism' defense (a term used as a fault in critiques of the Humanities pedantic nature in discussion modern politics) of Heller, miss the issue in some sense. If that's what the media, people and lower courts think - it's a problem.
If the issue is what the Heller decision contains, that's not difficult to resolve. If the problem is that people are using bad information, better information is the cure.
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Old March 30, 2019, 05:11 PM   #18
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Interesting topic - if we resolve the issue of Heller not having the term in it, does it aid in advancing the RKBA cause? The list of conditions Scalia mentioned seem to get thrown up as some kind of restrictions, that seem 'sensible' and should be expanded upon.

The literalism issue is seen a discussion of the Wall (which we DON'T) want to discuss itself.

Trump seeming used the term 'medieval' - https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.1991052957d8

This led to a bunch of scholars having hissy fits over whether such a Middle ages wall could work as wanted: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.1991052957d8

along with actual use of the term Medieval was insulting to the Middle Ages and thus trivializing the debate: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Th...d=wcontentgrid

Here's a quote:

Quote:
Readers who doubted that the moment demanded a defense of the Middle Ages could be forgiven. In a political battle of such high human stakes, the question of whether calling Trump’s proposal "medieval" constituted "an insult to the Middle Ages" (as the Vox headline put it) might seem worryingly beside the point. But the wave of furious responses was entirely predictable. In their parochial, self-serious literalism, they exemplify a style that increasingly pervades public writing by humanities scholars — a style that takes expertise to be authoritative and wields historical facts, however trivial or debatable, as dispositive answers to political questions. Such literalism is bad rhetoric, a way of dissolving argument into trivia.
I've often thought about literalism when someone says assault rifles should be banned and the usual reply was they are not assault rifles because assault rifles are like the Sturmboomerbanger. Saw Guns and Ammo TV have a ludicrous presentation of a fully auto M-16 vs. a semi AR-15, arguing the latter is somehow nice and an MSR and not an assault rifle. Thus, it should be banned.

Not being stupid, antigunners picked this up we MSSA - military style semi-autos being common parlance. NZ uses it legally now.

The point being - is correcting the non-usage of reasonable restrictions in Heller going to get us anywhere as the next refrain after one corrects the assault rifle usage and/or reasonable non-usage in Heller, will be that the weapons under consideration should be banned as they are extremely dangerous and who cares about those two points.
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Old March 30, 2019, 05:28 PM   #19
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Those of us behind enemy lines in Massachusetts, which has a very restrictive magazine ban, are watching this ruling closely.....
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Old March 30, 2019, 05:56 PM   #20
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Fingers crossed as it is a long path to go for a decision which covers the entire country.

I would like our friendly legislators and White House, to perhaps mention this is a good step forward. Maybe the DOJ could chime in. It chimes in on other issues.
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Old March 30, 2019, 06:53 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer
I would like our friendly legislators and White House, to perhaps mention this is a good step forward. Maybe the DOJ could chime in. It chimes in on other issues.
I'd love to see the DoJ filing suit against some of these states with the most restrictive gun laws for deprivation of Constitutional rights. It would be far harder for the courts to ignore the issue then. This assumes they actually care about gun rights though and aren't just paying lip service. The Congress is way too timid to enact national legislation, and it's certainly not going to happen with the current makeup of the House.
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Old March 30, 2019, 07:19 PM   #22
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Those of us behind enemy lines in Massachusetts, which has a very restrictive magazine ban, are watching this ruling closely.....
As are the folks (like me) in Colorado.
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Old March 30, 2019, 07:27 PM   #23
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Methinks to properly discuss Heller, we should go to Heller rather than argue about who said what about what they think Heller said, or might have said, or should have said.

The decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

Right at the start, under "Held," on page 2:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Page2
The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.
So the Second Amendment was intended to "deny Congress power to abridge tha ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms." I apply the same argument about "abridge" that I apply to "infringe." If the Second Amendment was intended to deny Congress the power to "abridge" the RKBA ... we have to ask what "abridge" means. This was Scalia's word, not the Second Amendment, so we can go to any contemporary dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster online, it means:

Quote:
1 : to shorten by omission of words without sacrifice of sense : condense
2 : to shorten in duration or extent
3 formal : to reduce in scope : diminish
4 archaic : deprive
And what are restrictions (or regulations) if not things that shorten in duration or extend, reduce in scope, or deprive us of the "ancient" (to use Scalia's word) right to keep and bear arms?

The holding references pages 22-28, so logically we should probably look there next.

On page 22 Scalia wrote, "Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech was not, see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. ___ (2008)."

In the First Amendment, it says that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So here we find the word "abridge," where in the Second Amendment we find the word "infringe." Since there is a considerable judicial track record regarding allowable "abridgements" of First Amendment rights, apparently Mr. Scalia extrapolated from that to posit that the Second Amendment is likewise subject to "abridgement" (infringement). But ... there isn't much of a track record at the SCOTUS level to back up this assertion/assumption.

After some discussion of the relationship of the prefatory clause to the operative clause, on page 25 Mr. Scalia gets back to the subject we are interested in:

Quote:
Originally Posted by page 25
John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s “command of the militia” could be used to create a “select militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a sepa-CENSORED-rate concern, that “[w]hen a select militia is formed; the people in general may be disarmed.” 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508–509 (M. Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). Federalists responded that because Congress was given no power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people.
From this point forward, Mr. Scalia spends a great many pages addressing the question of whether the Second Amendment is an individual right, or only a collective right to bear arms in the militia. Jumping to page 38, we find this nugget:

Quote:
Originally Posted by page 38 et seq.
Many early 19th-century state cases [not SCOTUS precedent] indicated that the Second Amendment right to bear arms was an individual right unconnected to militia service, though subject to certain restrictions. A Virginia case in 1824 holding that the Constitution did not extend to free blacks explained that “numerous restrictions imposed on [blacks] in our Statute Book, many of which are inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, both of this State and of the United States as respects the free whites, demonstrate, that, here, those instruments have not been considered to extend equally to both classes of our population. We will only instance the restriction upon the migration of free blacks into this State, and upon their right to bear arms.Aldridge v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. Cas. 447, 449 (Gen. Ct.). The claim was obviously not that blacks were prevented from carrying guns in the militia. See also Waters v. State, 1 Gill 302, 309 (Md. 1843) (because free blacks were treated as a “dangerous population,” “laws have been passed to prevent their migration into this State; to make it unlawful for them to bear arms; to guard even their religious assemblages with peculiar watchfulness”).
So here's an historical reference to a state precedent regarding restriction of the RKBA ... but the restriction isn't a general restriction, it's a pre-Civil War restriction intended to prevent free black men from bearing arms (except when in the militia) because "free blacks are dangerous."

Somehow, I don't think such a precedent would gain much traction today. This historical restriction, in fact, would almost certainly fail a constitutional review today because it wasn't aimed at preventing crimes or mass murders, it was aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of free black men. In other words, it was blatantly discriminatory.

When we get to page 54, Mr. Scalia wrote, "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited." The full section, for context, reads as follows:

Quote:
Originally Posted by page 54 et seq.
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”
Here, Mr. Scalia states that he does not seek to call into question longstanding prohibitions on the carrying of arms by felons or the mentally ill, or prohibitions on the carrying of "dangerous or unusual weapons." But felons, in the historical context, refers to people who are in prison; it does not necessarily (in the historical context) include EX-felons, who have been released from prison and who have completed any parole period imposed. In any case, conviction of a felony results in the loss of certain civil rights, and thus it is unfair and illogical to equate laws restriction the carrying of firearms by felons with restrictions on the carrying of firearms by citizens in good standing, who have never been convicted of felonies.

Moving on to page 56, we find this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by page 56 et seq.
Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster.
By "the most preferred firearm in the nation" Mr. Scalia is referring to the overall class of firearms comprised of handguns ... which is the entire class of firearms at question in the Heller case. But the case can obviously be made that a huge number of Americans prefer to keep an AR-15 or an AK-47 (but, especially, an AR-15) in the home for self defense. If you remove class of firearms and focus on the specific type of firearm design and model, the AR-15 would have to be at or very near the top of the list of the most popular ("preferred") firearms in the United States. And in this portion of the Heller decision, Mr. Scalia wrote that banning "the most preferred firearm in the nation" would not pass constitutional muster.

There's more. The full decision runs to 157 pages, and we're only up to page 60. But this post is getting too lengthy. My point simply is that if we're going to discuss what's in the Heller decision, we need to look at the Heller decision rather than argue over what what's-his-name said so-and-so said was in Heller.

Last edited by Aguila Blanca; March 30, 2019 at 07:34 PM.
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Old March 30, 2019, 07:38 PM   #24
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Old March 30, 2019, 07:45 PM   #25
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Quote:
Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is “not unlimited,” and is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.
When is are side going to start making the point Scalia was making when he wrote that . The second amendment is about keeping and baring arms "ARMS" not guns . I have no doubt Scalia meant to not undo other restrictions already on the books . The government restricts the public from buying just about every military stile arm there is except are little pew pew's .

Last I checked I can't get a A1 Abrams , what about different types of missile systems ? Wait I know , how about I get a F22 Raptor fully loaded for my neighborhood watch program ????? yes over the top but with out scalias words in Heller one would be able to have any arm they want . Do you really want the guy next door having a MOAB

Wait what ???? what do you mean the second amendment does not allow to carry any arm of any type for any reason in any place ??? IMO that's the debate and cluster bump Scalia was trying to avoid with those word .

How are side keeps letting the other side get away with thinking he meant restrict even more is absurd . Why else would the in common use portion be in there as well ?

Are side needs better talking points !
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