Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

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kcclark
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Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

Post by kcclark »

U.S. District Judge William Young said in his ruling that the firearms and large magazines banned by the state in 1998 are “not within the scope of the personal right to ‘bear Arms’ under the Second Amendment.”
http://thehill.com/regulation/court-bat ... eapons-ban

Page 4 of the ruling is where things get ugly.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/20 ... 4-6-18.pdf
Another important limitation articulated by the Supreme Court is that the weapons protected under the Second Amendment 'were those in "common use" at the time.'
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Re: Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

Post by Javelin Man »

and.... the First amendment doesn't apply to computers or telephones since they were not around when the Framers wrote the Constitution.
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Re: Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

Post by BEAR! »

Javelin Man wrote:and.... the First amendment doesn't apply to computers or telephones since they were not around when the Framers wrote the Constitution.

Don't forget radios or televisions.
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Re: Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

Post by AlanM »

My 2nd Amendment vs. 1st Amendment Rant:

Disregarding the Puckle Gun which was "a primitive crew-served, manually-operated flintlock revolver patented in 1718 by James Puckle (1667–1724), a British inventor".

IF, as our current day gun banners like to say, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution ONLY guarantees the people the right to own and use single shot, muzzle loaded, flintlock rifles because that was all there was at that time then the following MUST also be true.

The freedom of speech mentioned in the First Amendment to the US Constitution ONLY guarantees:
1. All written communications be performed using ink and quill.
Why? Because it wasn't until the second quarter of the 19th century that metal nibbed pens were invented and eventually came into wide use. A metal pen point had been patented in 1803 but the patent was not commercially exploited. Steel nibs came into common use in the 1830s.

2. All printed communications have to printed on manually powered, flat bed, printing presses.
Why? Well because in the 1790's the powered printing press and the rotary press hadn't been invented yet. They were another pair of developments of the 19th century. The first by the German printer Friedrich Koenig in a series of press designs devised between 1802 and 1818. His first successful one was in 1812.

3. All vocal communication has to be done face to face using, at most, a speaking trumpet or megaphone.
The megaphone has been around since the 17th century but amplified sound is definitely a development of the 20th century, well over 100 years after the passage of the Bill of Rights.

That rules out speeches at venues with electronic amplifiers and tens of thousands of people or more in the audience.

This means by their logic that the freedom of speech isn't applicable to telegraph communication, telephone, radio, television, or anything on the internet.

In my humble opinion you can't have it both ways.
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Re: Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

Post by bignflnut »

FYI, Reagan Appointee...just sayin
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Re: Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

Post by bignflnut »

Young formulates a novel standard to determine whether a firearm is protected by the Second Amendment: Is the firearm similar to a “military weapon”?

He supports the use of this standard by quoting from Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, where the late justice appeared to validate a federal prohibition on fully automatic firearms: “It may be argued that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached [from the clause concerning ‘a well-regulated militia’].”

But Young’s use of this single sentence ignores context at the expense of fundamentally misinterpreting the main premises of Heller. His interpretation also makes no sense as a Second Amendment standard from a purely rational standpoint.

First, it’s painfully obvious that Young has missed the point of Scalia’s remark.

Scalia wasn’t suggesting that the M-16 can be prohibited for civilians because it’s useful in military service. Rather, it can be prohibited because fully automatic weapons aren’t in common usage and can be fairly categorized as “dangerous and unusual” among the civilian population, even though it is most useful in military service.

This is clear from the surrounding paragraphs, which explain that certain restrictions—like the prohibition on firearms possession by felons—are presumptively lawful, as are “sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society,” but generally used by the military (such as tanks and bombers).

SNIP

Second, even if the Supreme Court hadn’t already articulated a standard in Heller and Caetano, the standard created by Young is logically preposterous. Almost all lawfully owned firearms throughout all of American history have been “based on designs of weapons that were first manufactured for military purposes.”

SNIP

It’s illogical to suppose that, even if the Founders intended the Second Amendment to protect only a collective right to arms for service in the militia, the right wouldn’t protect the very arms most suitable for militia service—those designed as “military weapons,” but nonetheless commonly possessed by civilians.
Having completely disagreed that a standing army (in peacetime) is anathema to America, now we're having this conversation about what is an appropriate weapon for professional soldiers to possess vs the arms the common citizen shall be permitted or licensed to possess (nevermind bearing those arms in public).

We're so far from any type of a constitutional standard that even articulating such is considered slaying a sacred cow, as now the permanent identity of veteran/soldier has permeated enough pride-swollen families to make a reversal next to impossible.

Oh yeah, and Heller is being used against us. Remember the euphoria around that ruling? Now those words, because they were not simple, plain and definitive, are being used to destroy RKBA.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

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"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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