klehner wrote:
1) John Paul Stevens (retired Associate Justice) would disagree with your history of the 2nd Amendment (link above), emphasis added:
Quote:
For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was
uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation. In 1939 the Supreme Court
unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”
You need to be very, very careful with that decision, based on the specific facts of the case. Also, it directly contradicts your position on "assault weapons."
Jack Miller and Frank Layton were indicted for taking an unregistered short-barreled shotgun across state lines, allegedly in violation of the National Firearms Arm of 1934. The defendants argued that NFA ’34 violated the Second Amendment and the district court agreed. The government appealed.
The Supreme Court never read or heard the defendants’ views, because they were not represented in any form; heard only one side of the matter, the government’s side; did not accept most of the government’s arguments; based its conclusion on a small part of the government’s argument; and declared that a short-barreled shotgun was not a "militia" or "military-type" firearm, protected under the 2A.
In deciding
U.S. v. Miller, the Court declared that ownership of a firearm could be restricted if, and only if, it had no connection to military or militia activity
. U.S. v. Miller strongly suggests that bans on military-type firearms, ammunition, and magazines are unconstitutional, as these devices plainly are central to the militia/military. The strongest challenge to
U.S. v. Miller rests on the Supreme Court’s having implied that the law-abiding person has a civil right to be armed, when it held in 1856 that the government had no duty to protect the average person.
So, I would not be so cavalier in citing that SCOTUS decision. But thank you for the reminder that the AR-banning crowd has this little decision with which to contend ...
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers
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