California Assault Weapons Ban Ruling: Read It For Yourself
A US District Judge has ruled to overturn three decades of California banning assault weapons in a closely watched 2nd Amendment case.
The opening to Judge Benitez’s ruling:
Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and United States v Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle. Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional.
A federal judge ruled Friday that California’s “assault weapons” ban is unconstitutional.
The court found the state’s ban on the sale of AR-15s and other popular rifles violated the Second Amendment. Judge Roger Benitez ruled the guns targeted by California are in common use. He said the state ran afoul of the Constitution in restricting access to them.
“This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection,” Benitez wrote. “The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes. Instead, the firearms deemed ‘assault weapons’ are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles.
“This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes.”
California’s ban is one of the oldest and most aggressive in the country. It was instituted in 1989 but has been expanded multiple times in the decades since. The state added more guns and features to the ban. Eventually, it banned the possession of unregistered “assault weapons” before the latest iteration of the ban was challenged by gun-rights groups in federal court.
Benitez said the AR-15’s versatility made it widely popular in the United States, and that popularity is part of what gives it protection under the Second Amendment. He compared the modular firearm to a “Swiss Army Knife” and noted its use for home defense and civil defense.
“Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v. Miller,” he said. “Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle. Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional.”
Alan Gottlieb, whose group the Second Amendment Foundation filed the suit alongside other gun-rights advocates, said he was “thrilled” by the ruling. He said it demonstrates that the Second Amendment protects the AR-15 under Supreme Court precedent.
“The so-called assault weapon is the most popular rifle sold in the United States,” Gottlieb told The Reload. “It’s commonly owned and definitely protected by the Second Amendment and two previous Supreme Court rulings in Heller and McDonald.”
Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition that was also one of the plaintiffs, said the ruling bodes well for the group’s efforts to fight “assault weapons” bans across the country.
“In his order today, Judge Benitez held what millions of Americans already know to be true: Bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are unconstitutional and cannot stand,” he said in a statement. “This historic victory for individual liberty is just the beginning, and FPC will continue to aggressively challenge these laws throughout the United States.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D.) slammed the ruling as dangerous.
“Today’s decision is a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians, period,” he said in a statement. “As the son of a judge, I grew up with deep respect for the judicial process and the importance of a judge’s ability to make impartial fact-based rulings, but the fact that this judge compared the AR-15 – a weapon of war that’s used on the battlefield – to a Swiss Army Knife completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon.”
Benitez said striking down the law was necessary to protect the rights of California gun owners even if a majority of Californians support the gun ban.
“While the Court is mindful that government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from gun violence, it is equally mindful that the Constitution remains a shield from the tyranny of the majority,” he wrote. “As Senator Edward Kennedy said, ‘[t]he judiciary is – and is often the only – protector of individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy.’ Law-abiding citizens are imbued with the unalienable right to keep and bear modern firearms.”
Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, has issued several rulings striking down California’s restrictive gun laws. The state has often appealed his decisions and found a friendlier reception in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Gottlieb said the plaintiffs expect California will appeal this ruling as well.
The ruling will not go into effect immediately. Benitez issued a temporary stay requested by California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D.) to allow 30 days for him to file an appeal.
“Today’s decision is fundamentally flawed, and we will be appealing it,” he said in a statement. “We will fight this ruling and continue to advocate for and defend common sense gun laws that will save lives.”
The plaintiffs said they would continue to fight the state if it filed an appeal of the ruling.
“We look forward to continuing this challenge at the Ninth Circuit and, should it be necessary, the Supreme Court,” Combs said.
Read the California assault weapons ban ruling for yourself here:
assault weapons ban
*NOTE* This post replaced the TSN post from earlier with more information and the full text PDF of the ruling. Unfortunately, there is no way to bring over the existing comments, but felt it important to front page this subject and the Read It Yourself information. So just to be clear, the comments are only gone because we redid the post, not for any reasons of content.Report
To answer Kazzy, the AR-15 & similar platforms are one of, if not the most popular rifle in the country, by numbers sold or owned.
So yes, it’s very much in common use in the US.Report
Thanks. What do people use it for? It doesn’t “look” like the hunting rifles I’m familiar with, but my familiarity is very limited.Report
A high-quality AR receiver can be the foundation for almost anything, if you’re willing to spend enough money. Want a semi-automatic that will spray bullets as fast as you can pull the trigger at a range, but don’t care much about accuracy? Cheap components and ammunition. Want a long-range hunting rifle suitable for antelope at 250 yards plus? Expensive components and ammunition, and you’d probably be better off buying a specialized bolt-action single-shot weapon where everything including the receiver is well matched.
Want to walk into a movie theater and kill large numbers of people? You need to be over here on the other side of the shop, looking at large caliber Glock handguns and oversized magazines. Weapons whose designed purpose is reliably delivering lethal amounts of kinetic energy to people-sized targets at close range. Not going to jam. Magazine ejection is flawless. Limiting factor to how many rounds you get off accurately is probably hand/wrist strength. I can recommend exercises if you’re interested, since they’re the same one used in epee fencing.Report
Mike is right in that the base receiver can accept all manner and caliber of components.
So it can shoot a .22LR, a 5.56mm, or rounds upwards of .50 cal (not the infamous 50BMG, but other calibers below that.
It is fun to shoot. Some people swear by it for personal defense. I know a lot of people who love it for varmints and other small game hunting. I know people who swear it’s a great platform for larger game, but I’m not convinced. Doesn’t stop them from using it.
All that said, looks are a pointless characteristic to judge a weapon by. You can build a n AR-15 with wood ‘furniture’ and it would look like a hunting rifle. The Ruger Mini-14 is like that, a semi-auto rifle dressed up to look like a hunting rifle (shoots the 5.56 round, accepts a box magazine, has tons of accessories you can buy for it, etc). Like wise, I’ve seen bolt and lever action rifles dressed up to look like an AR style rifle.Report
@Oscar and @Michael
Thank you for indulging my queries. You point out that looks are just that: looks.
So… if you accept* that certain restrictions on guns themselves** are legitimate with an eye towards balancing the rights of gun owners with the rights of everyone to not get shot in the face, it seems to me that looks are the wrong place to focus and instead, you’d want to focus on:
1.) Firing rate, specifically, how “automatic” the gun as. Full-auto is probably most justifiably banned but when you get to the semi-auto, you’re looking at one trigger pull = one bullet so the “look” has no impact.
[Big gap]
2.) Bullet capacity (magazine size?). Obviously, the more bullets a weapon can hold, the more bullets a weapon can fire. Restrictions here are only so effective since someone can just carry multiple magazines and at that point we’re looking at the ease of switching them out and I’m not sure how effectively you could craft regulations for that.
3.) Bullet lethality: some bullets are going to do more damage to a human body than others. So maybe there is a line somewhere between which bullets we should allow and which we shouldn’t. This wouldn’t have zero impact but it wouldn’t have a profound impact.
Anything else isn’t really going to have any sort of impact on saving lives.
Taken all that together, banning full-auto is a good idea and anything else is nibbling around the edges at best. A quick Google search tells me that full-auto weapons are pretty much effectively banned, with the only ones available legally those which were licensed prior to 1986.
I do believe there are ways to modify semi-auto weapons to increase their firing rate to make them more-or-less function like fully-automatic weapons. I suppose you could seek to outlaw such modifications but that seems like the kind of thing you could only really enforce after-the-fact.
Apologies if my vocabulary is less than accurate, but I hope you get my drift.
* And I recognize some folks don’t even accept that, though I’m fairly confident neither of you fall into that category.
** As opposed to rules related to licensing, training, etc.Report
The coherent ‘bright lines’ have been drawn with respect to the weapons themselves, and have been for some time. And this is a big part of why the debate gets so heated. We’re passed the point of straightforward limiting principles.Report
Basically what InMD said, but to address points in order:
1) A revolver is one pull, one shot, so yeah, firing rate is a pointless argument.
2) Magazine capacity. This is a reasonable target. My WWII era rifle, and most hunting rifles, have magazine capacities under 10.
Here is my sticking point with this issue: I ascribe to Peelian police principles, in that the police are the people we hire to handle crime, just like fire fighters are the people we hire to handle fires, and garbage men are the people we hire to handle garbage. As such your average patrol officer should not have access to any weapon that a private citizen does not. Note I am not talking about SWAT (who should only be getting called out for very specific and limited situations), but what an officer on the street carries on their person or in their patrol car. This satisfies the question of “How many rounds do you need to protect yourself?” The fact that a police officer has a greater (although still small) chance of needing to defend themselves doesn’t change the logistics question at hand. If the cops ‘need’ to be able to carry the max loadout for a given weapon, then so does a private citizen.
3) Lethality: Marchmaine had a point on a previous post about the 5.56/.223 round and how it’s a really troublesome round. Maybe Jaybird can find that for you. IMHO, we don’t spend nearly enough resources on developing less-than-lethal options for police and private citizens to have at their disposal. Especially since it’s a really tough question. How do you stop someone without killing them while minimizing the risk to yourself? You can’t just “Shoot them in the leg” because that’s really hard to do, and it’s still quite lethal (femoral artery, anyone?), so you have to stop them without causing grievous bodily harm. All the options we have today have significant limitations, and given the state of things, you would think more money would be pouring into that..
If we had better options, we could seriously tackle the question of lethality.
As for modifying the fire rate, there are two ways:
Bump stock – Uses the recoil of the firearm to pull the trigger again. Fire rate goes up, accuracy goes to hell. You can (could?) buy bump stocks, but you can also make one out of a dowel rod and some light rope.
Modifying the sear – this is making mechanical changes to the action of the firearm. It is doable, but full-auto sears are controlled parts, you can’t just buy one (you have to own a full-auto weapon and you can only buy the sear for that weapon), so you’d have to get the specs for the sear (not hard to do, thanks to the internet), and then have the machining skills to make the sear and modify the weapon to accept it. And the skills are important, because if you are sloppy with your tolerances, you’ll make yourself a nice, highly illegal, paperweight. You’d be better off making a grease gun (home built sub-machine gun) out of parts from Home Depot. Of course, if you are smart, you can buy (or build) a 5 axis CNC and let that make everything, but that is still different from modifying an existing AR into a full auto weapon. Also, modifying the weapon like that IS illegal. Hell, having a malfunctioning semi-auto that can fire more than one round per trigger pull is illegal.
Once upon a time, there was a firearm that could accept a drop-in full-auto sear, but that firearm is no longer made, and very few remain in circulation.Report
Marchmaine had a point on a previous post about the 5.56/.223 round and how it’s a really troublesome round.
That was here.Report
Thank you Jaybird, much appreciated.Report
Apologies again for ignorance but you guys quickly outpaced my knowledge.
If I’m understanding you both (InMD and Oscar) correctly, you agree with existing full auto bans and most anything else is a clusterfuck of enforcement and impact?
Semi-related: At a local (Metro NYC NJ) carnival this weekend, panic broke out. Apparently, an off duty cop was carrying (presumably all legally and properly) and when word spread of “guy with a gun” there was a stampede for the exists. From what I read, there were no injuries and just lots of panic.
But like, what do we do about that? Nothing? Seems unnecessary. Were people wrong to panic? Was the cop wrong to be armed? I ask sincerely… I really don’t know how we avoid that scenario and all potential fallouts.Report
Comment in mod. Misplaced fish.Report
Can’t speak for Oscar but re: current regulatory structure on full auto I am ambivalent but it is not a hill I would die on. The distinction from AWB is that it isn’t arbitrary. It’s a material, easily distinguished feature. It also makes a real difference in the utility to danger of operation analysis. There’s a case that legitimate civilian use is negligible and you can write a very clear law regulating them.
AWB on the other hand is primarily about aesthetics. The core functionality of what gets lumped in as an ‘assault weapon’ overlaps considerably with other weapons. There are legitimate civilian uses for them and the utility to danger of operation is very, very different. To me you’re getting into real infringement territory, especially because the (lack of) logic behind it lends itself to banning anything.
On carry I’m all over the place so I’m a bad person to ask. There are times I think it’s a reasonable thing a responsible person ought to be able to do. However I also believe that a very visible minority of people who do it just to do it are making all gun owners look like dumb assholes. I legit have no answer to that situation.Report
I was surprised at the difference in my response to looking at stock images of an AR (Holy crap?! Is that for the terminator?) and reading it’s specs (Doesn’t sound considerably different than what I think of as a typical hunting rifle.).Report
Your typical AR fires a rather weak round compared to your typical hunting rifle.
It’s like those really bad-ass looking fantasy knives or swords you see for sale at fairs and gaming conventions. Looks like something Conan would swing, but in reality, the steel is too springy, it can’t hold an edge, and the balance is nowhere close to where it needs to be.
Or a sports car that looks fast just standing still, but has an anemic 4 cylinder and 4 speed transmission.Report
You can change the aesthetic of them pretty dramatically with a wood stock (search wood AR 15). I’ve heard of some enterprising DIYers even making wooden lowers.
And yes, people do hunt with them. A good friend of mine does. There are all kinds of strong opinions about the efficacy and appropriateness (it’s a really weak round for big animals) but it goes on, and from what I can tell seems to be getting more popular all the time.Report
Re: Full auto – concur with InMD. I’d probably do it differently, but there would still be significant regulatory burdens to bear.
Re: Carry – I’m fine with carry, but I’d let communities enforce a limited selection of conditionals. From unrestricted open carry to complete concealed carry except for uniformed LEOs (e.g. your example of a carnival could say concealed carry unless you are displaying a LE badge, or wearing a duty belt and displaying a badge, etc., so an off-duty cop would need to conceal, but an on-duty plain clothes could openly carry as long as it was obvious they were an on-duty cop). And those conditions could be different inside the carnival versus outside of it, because those are different environments.
But it would be a known set of conditions that apply across the board, so you won’t have one town setting up it’s own set of rules, and the next town over has something totally different. And the condition in effect has to be clearly posted. Gives communities flexibility, but avoids the trap of not being able to reasonably know what to expect if you are just passing through.Report
One of the points that keeps being brought up in any given 2nd Amendment discussion is that a bunch of rag-tag dorks with rifles couldn’t stand up to the might of the US Military.
Despite the sheer number of times in the last 50 years where that has happened.Report
No, they don’t. They nibble around the edges of the US military, and are willing to accept that the military will reduce some of their houses and businesses to rubble, and kill thousands or tens of thousands of civilians. But the US military no longer practices Civil War or WWII rules of engagement, and eventually leaves.
If there is no Wichita, then nibbling by Wichita dissidents stops. And there being no more Wichita is probably easier for the US military than there being no more Atlanta was for the Union Army. Certainly easier if they don’t mind contaminating a chunk of southeastern Kansas.
The people calling for a “2A solution” are assuming that guns are magic. That if they wave them at the politicians, the politicians will give in. It must be a horribly depressing afternoon. I find myself tempted to look at match-grade long-range rifles, and thinking about rebuilding some of that skill set.Report
And there being no more Wichita is probably easier for the US military than there being no more Atlanta was for the Union Army.
And this is where Chip’s point below has bite: Will the US military be willing to make there be no more Wichita?Report
These scenarios of the US Army vaporizing Wichita tends to make it into some abstract science fiction that we can’t really speak about.
I was thinking of a more realistic scenario, like where the government passes some law that some group decides is unconstitutional and tyrannical.
Who gets sent out to make the arrest? Not the 101st Airborne. The local police. The AR-15 is fired at a cop, part of the thin blue line.
Killing police officers is never mentioned very much in the “watering the tree of liberty” crowd. Hell most of the guys waving the Gadsden flag have a Thin Blue Line bumper sticker.
Why?
I suspect it is because they really never think of their enemies that way. They like to fantasize about UN blue helmets, Chinese stormtroopers, or just that guy down the street who they really don’t and bet he would be part of any tyrannical gummint. But never Office Shmoe, the clean cut guy with a wife and two kids.
They never like to imagine that they themselves might be the baddies.Report
Any right seems frivolous if you insist on discussing it only in the context of the biggest dumbasses to exercise it.Report
What is a not-dumbassery way to discuss using the 2A to remove a tyrant?
Or is the very concept of doing that dumbassery?Report
IMO? In the vast majority of contexts it is dumbassery. But understanding the silliness of a bunch of chubby guys with their ARs and glocks talking about taking on the new world order or whatever doesn’t mean you can’t also see the value of the 2A among our rights.
And frankly it isn’t like our entire political discourse isn’t replete with rhetoric and theatrics soaked in tropes from 2nd rate sci-fi. We can’t seem to talk about reproductive rights anymore without some similarly absurd references to the Handmaid’s Tale. The fact that it happens, constantly, doesn’t mean the actual topic shouldn’t be taken seriously.Report
They never like to imagine that they themselves might be the baddies.
Speaking of people who never like to imagine that they might be the baddies, you wouldn’t believe the protests we had last year.
You’ll never believe who was being protested!
And when protestors where throwing bricks through windows, they were throwing them through the windows of businesses owned by their fellow citizens. When they were setting them on fire? Fellow citizens.Report
Stop valuing “white” property over black lives.Report
This is a complete non sequitur in a discussion of this ruling.Report
Well, when it comes to the discussion of this ruling, one thing that always seems to pop up in any discussion of the 2nd Amendment is that people argue that the US Military would easily defeat any rag-tag group of people armed with just guns.
Despite, you know, the last 50 years.
And people argue against it as if they believe that, this time, the military would take their gloves off this time.Report
Where has there ever been an example of a modern army brought to a standstill by group of people armed with “just guns”?
There are no examples of this. The guerilla armies of the past century were all armed with at the very least, automatic rifles, mines, and mortars.
So using your logic, we should permit citizens to use these as well.Report
“If you look at the body counts, we actually won both Korea *AND* Vietnam. Iraq as well.”Report
You don’t use your guns to fight the modern army, when that shows up you flee or hide.
You use your guns to make it impossible for very small numbers of gov officials to do stuff.Report
Chip, you’ve heard that saying about doing things with a goat ironically, right?Report
I was referring to your bringing in the riots of last summer.Report
Are the same cops we were protesting last summer going to be the ones in charge of enforcing our new and improved gun laws?Report
You realize that validates my comment, that people who fancy themselves to be freedom fighters standing up to tyranny are as often as not, just friekorps, ushering in a greater tyranny.
Would America be a better place if the guys as CHAZ/CHOP were all outfitted with assault rifles? If 10,000 BLM protesters marched with assault rifles? If the Jan 6 rioters were all carrying assault rifles?
I’m trying to envision a scenario where we could all say, “Yeah, that problem would have a better outcome, if everyone had an assault rifle!”
Can anyone here conjure up one?Report
people who fancy themselves to be freedom fighters standing up to tyranny are as often as not, just friekorps, ushering in a greater tyranny.
So, therefore, we should confiscate their guns?
Would America be a better place if the guys as CHAZ/CHOP were all outfitted with assault rifles?
We were in a place where they weren’t prevented from having them.
If 10,000 BLM protesters marched with assault rifles?
We were in a place where they weren’t prevented from having them.
If the Jan 6 rioters were all carrying assault rifles?
We were in a place where they weren’t prevented from having them.
I’m trying to envision a scenario where we could all say, “Yeah, that problem would have a better outcome, if everyone had an assault rifle!”
Here’s one off the top of my head:
If three or four of the people who only had cell phones when Derek Chauvin was kneeling on Geroge Floyd’s neck were, instead, armed with assault rifles, I can easily imagine better outcomes.Report
In your scenario, where the police are brutalizing a citizen, what makes you think the armed citizens would point their guns at the officers?
History says that they are just as liable to turn their guns on the hated out-group.
See, this is where most of the revolutionary fantasies founder. Most tyrannies are actually popular and have the support of a very large number of the people.
That’s how they come to power in the first place!
The armed citizens who are rising up won’t be confronting the government first; First, they will be confronting the other armed citizens who support the government.Report
In your scenario, where the police are brutalizing a citizen, what makes you think the armed citizens would point their guns at the officers?
Prior restraint on the part of the officers would bring them to a place other than brutalizing the citizen.
Now, maybe they’d have to resort to doing a rough ride instead of killing the citizen out in the open… but if you want a scenario, there’s one right there.Report
History shows exactly the opposite.
It’s weird that we are having this discussion on the anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre.Report
Let’s go to Wikipedia.
First sentence: “The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US.”
This doesn’t seem to be a situation where we needed more gun laws more strictly enforced, Chip.Report
It shows that when given guns, the dominant majority will point them at the hated minority, not the government.
Even if every black resident also had a gun, the massacre would have had an even worse outcome.
I’m not seeing any historical examples that show small arms ownership resisting tyranny.Report
Chip, the black minority in Tulsa did have guns and used them to exact a price. They lost the battle but for all of the takeaways ‘they should have been totally defenseless’ has to be the strangest I have ever heard.Report
Who is saying that the black residents, and the black residents alone, should have been defenseless?
What I’m saying is that the idea of armed civilians resisting tyranny is a fantasy without any support in history.
Instead, the most common examples are of civilians using their arms to install tyranny.Report
It shows that when given guns
In this case, the guns that were given were GIVEN BY THE GOVERNMENT.Report
This only strengthens my point.
That when confronted by tyranny, the dominant group of citizens will eagerly take up arms to defend it.Report
They weren’t confronted by it, Chip.
They were given guns by it.
It’s the Black folks who were confronted by tyranny.Report
Oh, if that word confuses you, let me restate:
That when made aware of the existence of tyranny, the dominant group of citizens will eagerly take up arms to defend it.Report
“Take up arms” seems to imply that they already had them to take up.
I would like to, again, point out that the arms that they were bearing were provided them by the government.Report
This observation doesn’t provide any support for your argument but in fact weakens it.Report
The hated minority was being attacked by a small number of people relative to the thousands of unarmed civilians they were attacking.
My wife’s home town may be instructive. About a dozen na.zis put thousands of Jews onto trains.
Nothing the civilians could do can be expected to stop the army… but stopping a dozen guys from killing thousands is pretty huge right there because the army can’t be everywhere.Report
My argument is that “Black people should be allowed to be armed too”.
I’m not seeing how pointing out the very first line of the Wikipedia article discussing *YOUR* counter-example weakens that argument.Report
Oh, it’s also that “armed people think twice if they think that someone else might shoot back”.
The only evidence I have for that is the difference between no-knock raids against poor folks and the respectful conversations with folks who are well-armed.
I have examples of that last one, if you’d like.
I might even be able to find examples of people complaining about disparate impact in comments.Report
When have the police ever had a “respectful conversation” with an armed black man??Report
Other than Chris Brown and OJ Simpson, I’m not sure that anything comes to mind without googling it.
I’m not sure that that is a good argument for disarming everybody except the people in charge of handing out weapons before a race massacre, though.Report
So the original argument- that “armed citizenry will resist a tyranny”- is not supported, so now the argument shifts to “an armed citizenry is necessary to resist our fellow citizens bent on a massacre”.Report
It’s more that “armed citizenry can resist a tyranny” and perhaps even “armed citizenry might resist a tyranny” and that both statements are easier held than “it’s good that the people witnessing Derek Chauvin didn’t have guns”.Report
Except that neither argument has any evidence to support it and in fact are falsified by everything we see in history.
And your premises here are bizarre- that our choices are either to have a massively armed race war, or surrender to a massacre.Report
You’re excluding a middle.
Try saying this: “Hey. I don’t have the standing to tell that Black woman that she shouldn’t own a gun.”
Try it. See if you can choke the words out despite your inclinations. If you manage to do so, see if the words make sense in retrospect.Report
Until they started beating them on the steps of the Capitol with flag poles and fire extinguishers while dousing them in bear spray.Report
I think that whole conversation is a bit of a red herring with respect to what’s really at stake re: 2A and civil liberties. If we’re at a point where that’s going on the US as we know it has ceased to exist. The place of a private right to own firearms within a structure of ordered liberty will become elementary since ordered liberty will by definition no longer exist.Report
Being me, I think a better question is will there be 38 states that believe there being no more Wichita is preferable to there being multiple countries, only one of which has to worry about there being a Wichita?
I am currently one person, seeking to become a multi-person conspiracy, who believes that there are at least 11 Western Interconnect states that will opt for separation in that circumstance, and a bunch of other states that can be convinced letting those 11 go is in their own interest. Not yet, but eventually.Report
All you need are people willing to give the order and the right people willing to follow it.
You can burn the land, you can bomb it, you can even irradiate it… but you don’t own it if you aren’t occupying it. And the 2nd Amendment does a good job of inspiring prior restraint.Report
During the Vietnam War, the Americans tended to win nearly every outright conventional battle with the Vietnamese. Same with the Russians and later Americans in Afghanistan. The victories were achieved by assuming that Americans and Russians wouldn’t just outright go into flatten the enemy mode and that by being annoying enough and willing to endure many sacrifices on their side, they can get the conventional military to leave.Report
A foundational assumption seems to be “The military won’t treat the dissident Americans like Afghanis… they’ll treat them like Americans!”Report
In all these “homeland defense” scenarios, what is never examined is who is being defended against?
Who is in the crosshairs of the AR-15? Zombies? Russians?
The answer of course, is a fellow American citizen.
A police officer, a neighbor, someone from the hated out-group.Report
You forgot “criminal” or “home invader”. And the vast majority of guys who own an ARs don’t have any warrants so the cops ain’t coming to their house to bust them.Report
Homeland.
Not home.
The opinion says “Homeland”.Report
My insane in-law.
Someone stalking my daughter(s) (this hasn’t happened).
My paranoid insane meth(?) using neighbor.
Whoever broke into my house a few years ago (no one was home).
Whatever animal is damaging a tree I’d like to save.
Stupid hyper-aggressive dogs who don’t understand they’re not on their home ground (this has happened maybe three times).
The stalker hasn’t happened but all the others have. I’ve had situations where a gun would be really useful.Report
So this judge thinks Heller is bullshit. Mmk.Report
That’s a pretty bad take, Em. DC’s handgun ban was also 30+ years old when it was held unconstitutional. Even if you don’t agree with the analysis Scalia’s open ended dicta ensured conflicting interpretations of where to draw the line.Report
Agree. The CA ban smacks right up against the whole “in common use” question.
There is zero functional difference between an AR-15 and a Ruger Mini-14, but the AR is banned, and the Mini-14 is legal. The CA ban doesn’t know what the hell it’s trying to ban.Report
Gun bans are the expressions of sentiments.
Nothing wrong with expressing sentiments, of course… but that shouldn’t be mistaken for a good policy.Report
You have that aspect as well as the question of what constitutes historical restrictions on ‘unusual’/highly dangerous weapons that are presumably still constitutional.
Which gets a bit to the discussion above with Kazzy and is IMO a counterpoint to the dissent in Heller as it pertains to machine guns as NFA Title II weapons. You can make a principled case that the ’86 changes pass muster in a way you just can’t with an AWB. I know there are gun folks out there who have a problem with it but I think that is by and large why you don’t see a huge push to relitigate the question of automatic weapons. Even if you don’t agree with the policy outcome there is a rationale supporting it that (i) makes sense and (ii) does not jusfify the banning of anything and everything.
Side note: one of the (many) odd things about MD’s AWB is its silence on machine guns transferred under Title II. You can no longer buy a non-H-bar AR but it seems you could get a fully automatic weapon, assuming you follow the federal rules.Report
Yep. One can argue that fully automatic weapons are on the other side of that civilian/military line and thus significant restrictions are permitted. Personally, I’d do away with the pre-86 restriction, but make the NFA tax stamp cost track inflation from the date of inception (which, if it had, the tax would be in the thousands of dollars, IIRC). Or maybe only allow registered gun clubs to buy newer NFA weapons, with secure storage requirements, because they are hella fun to shoot.
But that’s just the details.Report
It continually amazes me that in all rulings in these gun cases, the phrase “well-regulated” is either elided or given a meaning completely at odds with the English language.Report
That’s because “well-regulated” is subjective. What does it mean to be well-regulated? Do we take the originalist approach, or a more modern definition? If we take a modern approach, your “well-regulated” is someone else’s “over-regulated to death”.
Unless there is a modern, legally accepted definition of “well-regulated” I am unaware of?Report
Serious question though. Does that mean that when the National Guard was integrated as part of the US Army the 2nd Amendment became effectively null? And if it was that easy, why was the 2A put in the Bill of Rights? Not saying there’s a right answer necessarily just that whatever there is it ain’t straightforward.Report
If I remember my American history at all, I remember the founders had a very real fear of standing armies. Plus, there was a very real fear of invasion by a foreign power (UK, Spain, France all had continental presences at the time), so it made sense to have a bunch of guys with guns at the ready in case an army needed to be raised.
Since we’ve had a true standing army (part of which is the Nat’l Guard) since the end of WW2, and an invasion isn’t really in the cards, maybe the 2nd Amendment isn’t necessary any longer.
Being a Constitutional originalist, by definition, doesn’t allow for modern interpretations of the language. In for a penny, in for a pound.Report
What does “well-regulated militia” mean? It’s an interesting question.
First of all, we can note that the object of the regulation is the militia, not the arms. As for the word “regulation” itself, I wouldn’t strictly say that its meaning has changed, but it’s become more specific. This happens. For example, “congress” and “intercourse” used to overlap, but now they hardly ever do. So when we hear the word “regulation”, we shouldn’t assume it refers to a governing body. Actually, like the word “regulation”, the word “government” has contracted in meaning. We used to speak of self-regulation and self-government as personal traits, but now they refer to – honestly, I can’t think of what to call government other than government.
So we’re talking about regulation. To be regulated means to be ordered or organized. To be well-regulated means to be well-organized. It clearly doesn’t mean “to be overseen well” or “to be infringed”, because then the amendment would say, in essence, that since a well-infringed militia is important, gun rights shouldn’t be infringed. And no other amendment refers to “wellness” in this way, such as “Congress shall only make good laws prohibiting freedom of speech”.
To be a well-regulated fighting force means to be well-ordered. Well-drilled, well-led, and well-equipped. That last item is the point of emphasis, given the context of the rest of the amendment. A well-regulated militia is one capable of performing its duties without concern about arms. So, ultimately, “well-regulated” means the opposite of “regulation”, in the modern sense of governmental restriction.Report
The Second Amendment gives the need for a “well-regulated militia” as an explanation for the proscription on infringing the right to bear arms, but does not condition the right to bear arms on…belonging to a well-regulated militia? Honestly, I’m not even sure what you think you see here.
I don’t want to pick on you in particular because I see this talking point all the time, but I don’t see how anyone reading at an eighth-grade level or higher can read that sentence and come to the conclusion that it implies any conditions or limitations on the right to bear arms. It’s like people get so excited when they see the word “regulated” that they can’t finish parsing the rest of the sentence.Report
It’s the only amendment that provides a rationale for its existence. Why is that, do you think?Report
Doesn’t matter, the rationale is just that, a rationale.
If the rationale is important, then the 2A should have been repealed when a standing army was established. In the same vein, it can still be repealed. Personally, I’d much rather it be repealed than all this nibbling about the edges.Report
There has essentially always been a “standing” army, just not a big one. Washington called out the militia to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion because the standing army was out in the Ohio Country evicting indigenous people.
I’ve always found this at least a little amusing given the take contemporary “militias” have. What was the first thing militias were used to do in the United States? March under command of the federal government to suppress an insurrection.Report
It’s still not very big (only ~1M personnel across the whole org), just very well equipped.Report
Why even include that phrase, then? Based on your reading, the last 14 words are sufficient. Surely the first part has to carry some freight.Report
I see that as a yes, and sort of thing.Report
No one has died from the Covid-19 vaccine. 9 people died from a mass shooting in San Jose a week ago.Report
Did someone say that in the comments here?Report
It’s from the ruling.Report
Wait, seriously? WTAF?!Report
It gets better – on page 9 he calls mass shootings a rare event. On Page 34 he says there were only 161 mass shootings in 40 years in California . . . .Report
I hate it when a perfectly good outcome is marred by unrelated nuttery.Report
Its a stupid comparison, but the point the opinion makes is specifically about the weapons being banned, not all weapons:
“Recall that to pass intermediate scrutiny, AWCA must have at least been designed to address a real harm and alleviate the harm in a material way. The evidence described so far proves that the “harm” of an assault rifle being used in a mass shooting is an infinitesimally rare event. More people have died from the Covid-19 vaccine than mass shootings in California. Even if a mass shooting by assault rifle is a real harm, the evidence also shows that AWCA’s prohibited features ban has not alleviated the harm in any material way.”Report
Although, mass shootings are still rare. If we go day by day, in CA, any given day has a ~1% chance of a mass shooting ( ((161/(40*365))*100)=1.1% ).
The COVID comparison, though. As far as I know the number of people in the US whose death can be linked directly to any of the COVID vaccines is ~10. It’s a bad comparison, intent aside.
I personally think all AWBs are stupid virtue signalling, akin to a hypothetical effort to reduce street racing by outlawing cars that are red and have rear spoilers and chrome rims, because they look fast.Report
“…cars that are red and have rear spoilers and chrome rims, because they look fast.”
Good comparison.
One thing we haven’t mentioned much is the aesthetic design of assault rifles, and why they are designed that way.
As has been pointed out, a semiautomatic rifle could look like a regular old wood stock hunting rifle.
But they don’t. They are designed, just like sports cars, to look menacing. They are almost inextricable from the militarized illiberal culture that surrounds them.
You might say this shouldn’t matter with regards to the Second Amendment legal theory, but it should and does matter to the rest of the citizens in deciding our policy preferences.Report
As has been pointed out, a semiautomatic rifle could look like a regular old wood stock hunting rifle.
And indeed, such have existed since early last century. My grandfather owned one with beautiful hand engraving on the wood and some of the metal. He took it and a matching .410 shotgun as barter for groceries during the Depression. I inherited it from Dad, had Mom sell it through a gunsmith she knew, and passed on Grandpa’s warning about it: “The guy used the cheapest possible ammunition; don’t fire the rifle until you’ve had a gunsmith you trust rework it all the way through.”
In addition to the intimidation factor, the AR-15 can be modified. Need a different stock? No problem. Want a longer/shorter barrel? You can do that. The few people I know with one basically designed the weapon from the receiver out.Report
The vast majority of guns, like sports cars, are never really meant to be used for their ostensible purpose.
To be sure, some are very much a utilitarian device.
But some other large percentage of guns aren’t.
They exist as objects inside a cultural setting where they are displayed, and signal some sort of tribal affinity.
Which would be harmless if that culture weren’t so corrosive to the foundational concepts of trust and community.Report
“Trust” here presumably means “the police can be trusted”, which is a weird thing if you also support BLM.
“Community” means… what? Their community presumably supports gun rights.
Keep in mind my neighbors’ places don’t start at my walls. I have trees on the other side of my walls.
I sometimes think about shooting a nuisance animal which is cutting down a tree I want to keep. I could do this safely because behind that tree is only water and/or wilderness. I found a deer hunting stand on my land when I purchased it.
Rifles serve a legal civilian purpose even before we drag in the 2ndAM.
If you really want to, you can try to make the case that we should ban green rifles with bayonet fixtures (i.e. military style). However although mass shooters like to use those, I think they’d just switch if they’re gone.Report
No, trust means, “we citizens trust each other”.
We don’t need to am ourselves just to take a simple walk down the street.
The gun culture I am thinking of is the one which insistently proclaims that danger of deadly violence is everywhere, at Starbucks and the church.
This is corrosive, and makes it difficult for a liberal democracy to exist.
Conservatives more than anyone, understand this. It is the basis for all their writing about the “little battalions” and traditional institutions like civic clubs and fraternities.Report
CC culture is a handguns thing. Rifles are mostly not used in crimes (they’re too obvious).
So why are we talking about banning rifles?
I’m confused. If we’re all supposed to trust each other, what do you want to do about mass shootings?
I’m cool with just ignoring them and trusting everyone if you are (mass shootings with rifles is rare thing to the point it basically doesn’t exist).
I view mass shootings as fueled by media attention and the whole “rifle” thing just window dressing. Take the green ones away and they’ll use something else.Report
You’re putting the cart before the horse, there, Chip.
“We don’t need to am ourselves just to take a simple walk down the street.”
Depends on the street.
Defecting back is a reasonable strategy in an iterated game.Report
They are designed, just like sports cars, to look menacing.
If you did a study of the guns that were most likely to kill people, you’d see that handguns, far and away, are most likely to kill people.
Here are the 2019 numbers.
Handguns were responsible for 6368 homicides.
Rifles? 364.
There is another category for “firearms type not stated” that has 3281 homicides associated and even if you gave EVERY SINGLE ONE of those to “Rifles”, you’d still have just a bit over half of the homicides caused by handguns (and I’m guessing that it’d be an error to give every single one of the 3281 to “Rifles”).
If you wanted to reduce homicides, handguns are where you’d get your bang for the buck.Report
(From JB’s link) For perspective, rifles (364) are slightly less dangerous than “Blunt objects” (397), much less dangerous than hands/feet (600), and way less dangerous than Knives (1476).
Now handguns are more dangerous than everything else combined (ignoring “firearms not stated” which is probably also handguns).Report
Stumbled across this thread today. It helped clarify one of the problems.
Until we fix law enforcement, we won’t be able to fix the gun problem.
Here’s a thread chock-full of cops planting evidence. Planting drugs, planting guns.
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Not that I disagree with you on the larger issue of fixing LE, but how does planting evidence interfere with reducing gun violence?
Not seeing that connection.Report
It gives the cops yet another pretext to have done something.
Perhaps the warrant shouldn’t have been signed and perhaps there shouldn’t have been a no-knock raid but we found a gun on the premises. It was an assault weapon. Perhaps even a ghost gun. The gun owner never registered the gun found on the premises.
It is good that this guy, and this gun, is now off the street.Report
Relevant flashback:
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