National Mass: AR-15 and hi-cap mags not protected by the 2nd Amendment?

[Argonaut]

Law abiding today, criminal tomorrow. Nothing more than the early phase of another final solution.

This is nothing new or just beginning. When John Browning was finishing his last project in the 1920's (his great Superposed shotgun) he commented that it would be the last gun the anti's would take. We have done pretty well protecting our rights up to know, with mr Trump's court appointments I don't see much changing in the future. We do need him for the entire 8 years to solidify our posisition though.

 

[The Heretic]

I'm gonna have to reread my Bill of Rights. I missed the clause in the 2A that said "except arms that 'resemble' military arms" part. Yep. It isn't there.

The court has a flawed understanding of the history and intention of the second amendment - it is explicitly about military arms. The only way I would think a judge could say what he said would be if he was either flat out lying, or did not pay attention in law school.

 

[Argonaut]

The court has a flawed understanding of the history and intention of the second amendment - it is explicitly about military arms. The only way I would think a judge could say what he said would be if he was either flat out lying, or did not pay attention in law school.

It is called revisionist.........bad in both history and in court.

 

[maintainfreedom]

The court has a flawed understanding of the history and intention of the second amendment - it is explicitly about military arms. The only way I would think a judge could say what he said would be if he was either flat out lying, or did not pay attention in law school.

Exactly! Why would the founding fathers want to deliver ultimate power to the government after they just signed off on a tyrannical government?

 

[tourproto]

1. This is MA, and they are at the vanguard of gun control, no surprise there. If it were someplace like Montana I would be a little more surprised
2. Definitely local, but I would not be surprised if OR and WA tried to copy it, as most of the judges here lean far to the left, so it could be problematic at the state level.
3. If Trump can just get one more conservative on SCOTUS it would help a ton to overrule all these stupid lower court rulings once and for all.

 

[Argonaut]

1. This is MA, and they are at the vanguard of gun control, no surprise there. If it were someplace like Montana I would be a little more surprised
2. Definitely local, but I would not be surprised if OR and WA tried to copy it, as most of the judges here lean far to the left, so it could be problematic at the state level.
3. If Trump can just get one more conservative on SCOTUS it would help a ton to overrule all these stupid lower court rulings once and for all.

How cool would it for him to get 3 or 4 more...........Trump in 2020............and support Good Republican senators.

 

[tourproto]

This thread needs to be merged with this one: Federal - Court rules ARs not protected by 2ndA

 

[saxon]

why do we have a Judge and a plaintiff attorney that have never read the GCA of 34 and United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), was a Supreme Court case that involved a Second Amendment challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA)

 

[gmerkt]

they are scared to death that 8 years of Trump appointments will doom there judicial control on the country.

You think he's gonna get a second term? I wouldn't bet the farm on it. First time around was almost an accident; the left wing won't make the same mistakes a second time. I hope Trump gets his azz in gear and squares away the appointments he can get done in four years.

 

[tourproto]

How cool would it for him to get 3 or 4 more...........Trump in 2020............and support Good Republican senators.

Not holding my breath for 3 or 4 (which would be a clean sweep). Will be happy with just one more to tip from 5-4 to 6-3 and it will probably be Ginsberg if we get lucky. Maybe Breyer (currently 79). Short of a hunting accident, Sotomayor and Kagan aren't going anywhere for at least another decade.

And we have a problem that Kennedy is 81 too.

Would also be fine if Trump can replace him with someone who is 50 like Gorsuch, that locks in our 5 for a good 10-20 years.

 

[Argonaut]

You think he's gonna get a second term? I wouldn't bet the farm on it. First time around was almost an accident; the left wing won't make the same mistakes a second time. I hope Trump gets his azz in gear and squares away the appointments he can get done in four years.

I think that after 3-4 years of tax cuts and general prosperity, he will be much stronger than the first time he ran. Anything can happen (denuclearization of North Korea and resolution of the Syrian war) but everything (except the lying press) is looking up right now. He is using some political capital with the tariffs but it is early and things will settle in the next couple of years. He is now over 50% approval in the best polls and many of his best policies have yet to take hold. He is still collecting more than 2 to 1 donations compared to the Democrats, his approval today is higher than Obama's was at this time in his first term. So...........all we can do is keep the support and pressure on and hope.

 

[bbbass]

Yeah, I read the story... the judge is flat out lying!!! I would like to think he will get called on it.

 

[Diamondback]

Not holding my breath for 3 or 4 (which would be a clean sweep). Will be happy with just one more to tip from 5-4 to 6-3 and it will probably be Ginsberg if we get lucky. Maybe Breyer (currently 79). Short of a hunting accident, Sotomayor and Kagan aren't going anywhere for at least another decade.

And we have a problem that Kennedy is 81 too.

Would also be fine if Trump can replace him with someone who is 50 like Gorsuch, that locks in our 5 for a good 10-20 years.

What are you talking about? Kennedy makes it a 4-2-3, with himself and Barry's B*tchboy Roberts being Wild Cards. If we get another Gorsuch to replace Kennedy, that makes a 4-1-4... and I don't see Roberts not having the same ego as Kennedy about "I get the deciding vote on everything, so y'all better blow me on demand or..." TWO more Gorsuchs gives us a 5-4.

 

[bbbass]

They burn witches and heretics don't they?

 

[L84Cabo]

Idiot. The founders didn't hastily write out the Second Amendment to protect us from a rouge deer population. The purpose of the militia is to WAGE WAR in defense of freedom and against tyranny. "Weapons of war" is precisely what 2A protects.

As a sidenote, this is a weakness in our system. Yes there is an appeals process...thank god. But it's damn near impossible to remove a sitting judge from the bench for incompetence, "legislating from the bench", failure to uphold his sworn oath, etc.

 

[nwslopoke]

Trump has to finish this term 1st. He's old. Anything can happen. I don't see 2A being a priority for him. The only thing he is for, is the wall and I hope that never becomes a bargaining chip for the left. Give us guns and you get the wall.

The left would do it. If they gets their guns what do they care about the border? They'll have no more need for it.

 

[awshoot]

U.S. judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

This was a District Court judge, so the next step would be an appeal to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. I have to admit some anxiety over that -- an appellate court decision or worse, a Supreme Court decision giving states the right to ban firearms of their choosing would be pretty bad.

From the article:

U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston ruled that assault weapons and large capacity magazines covered by the 1998 law were most useful in military service and fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment's personal right to bear arms.

"In the absence of federal legislation (1), Massachusetts is free to ban these weapons and large capacity magazines," Young wrote.

...

Young acknowledged that the plaintiffs had cited the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle's popularity in arguing the law must be unconstitutional because it would ban a class of firearms Americans had overwhelming chosen for legal purposes.

"Yet the AR-15's present-day popularity is not constitutionally material," Young wrote. "This is because the words of our Constitution are not mutable. They mean the same today as they did 227 years ago when the Second Amendment was adopted." (2)

(1) So clearly, if Congress could pass legislation limiting such bans, and if the President would sign it, that would put the stopper on these types of laws -- at least in that judge's thinking. A credible threat of such legislation could even get antis to back off some perhaps. The problem with legislation of course, is that a future administration could just reverse it, whereas a favorable SCOTUS decision would require an amendment to the Constitution -- the problem with litigation though, is that one side loses and one side wins and an interpretation allowing states to ban whatever they want would be devastating and also require an amendment to get the rights back.

(2) I totally don't comprehend this. At the time the amendment was written, a private person could be equally (or better) armed than the government in any way imaginable. A Letter of Marque was basically government permission to commit piracy against certain declared enemies -- a private person could run a private navy with cannons and all that. And of course the area of firearms was very level. It's even in the Constitution (though hasn't been used since 1815 apparently): Letter of marque - Wikipedia

Link to the actual decision: https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/04/06/Worman dismissal-SJ ruling 4-6-18.pdf

 

[RicInOR]

Second Amendment Does Not Apply to 'Assault Weapons,' Says U.S. District Judge

In his decision in Worman v. Baker, Judge Young declared that "assault weapons and LCMs [large capacity magazines] are not within the scope of the personal right to 'bear arms' under the Second Amendment."

 

[awshoot]

...
(2) I totally don't comprehend this. ...

Now I get it having read the actual opinion. The judge doesn't make any link back to the constitution, but he does write several pages of sarcasm dripping text about Scalia and his opinions regarding Constitutional interpretation. See pages 32-34. He addressed the meat of the case in pages 26-34 where he holds that because the AR-15 shares similarities with military weapons, it is militarily useful, and thus can be banned. He gets there by many pages of gobbeldygook, but that's his reason for upholding the ban.

There are some other disturbing parts, like how the MA attorney general at one point threatened prosecution for retroactive violations (meaning, lawful behavior at the time it was done, is recast in the future as unlawful) -- the judge just dismissed that part outright for not being ripe. He essentially said that until someone is prosecuted, it's too soon to decide. Which is a load of crap -- the process of clearing one's name in such a prosecution would be punishment enough, and to actually imprison someone for doing something that was legal when they did it, is bubblegum-ED UP -- freakin' tyrannical.

After reading this, I hope it does get appealed.

 

[awshoot]

"Massachusetts District Court" All I need to know. MA has shown complete disregard for 2A rights, one of the most restrictive in the country. They're part of the 1st circuit which is made up of 4 liberal and 2 conservative judges - of course they'll uphold any challenge to the district court ruling. May have to go to SCOTUS.

It's a US District Court for the District of MA, so it is pretty serious -- not an appellate court decision so not THAT bad, but not merely a MA state court either.