Posted on 07/03/2008 9:16:22 AM PDT by jazusamo
Did you understand it was critics of the 5-4 majority decision he is talking about?
Easier to pick your shots on semi. Better to keep heads down on full auto.
If I want to keep heads down, I’ll take a Stoner.
If I want to choose my shots, I’ll take an M14.
But that’s just me personally. I’m sure others would want an M16 to do both those jobs.
Especially if the price of metals went down, an M4A1 could be had for $600.
“Shall not be infringed” covered everything.
Period
I need to put together a SHTF pack.
Maxpedition has a few things I like.
I noticed that a few posts in.
Good, that’s happened before with Reinhard’s writing style.
That type of gun was used to devastating effect in the trenches of WW I, to force German soldiers to abandon those trenches, and subject themselves to even more withering firepower when outside the trenches.
Well, maybe not wrong. The Court noted that there was no evidence to show that short barreled shoguns were militia weapons, since no one showed up to represent Miller that day.
It's an issue of fairness. Can't have judges just arbitrarily deciding what is and isn't "common knowledge" willy-nilly.
Federal Rules of Evidence 201(b)) permit judges to take judicial notice of two categories of facts:
1. Those that are "generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court" (e.g. locations of streets within the court's jurisdiction) or
2. Those that are "capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned" (e.g. the day of the week on a certain date).
Obviously, the military utility of short-barrel shotguns doesn't fall among those categories. Was it generally known among 22-year-old housewives in Peoria in 1939, for example?
Again, the court did NOT say that Miller was not entitled to own one, they said that without satisfactory evidence presented - in a court of law by a witness subject to cross-examination or a certifiable document subject to inspection by both sides of the case - that it WAS militarily useful, they couldn’t simply say on their own authority that it was militarily useful and thus that Miller was entitled to own one.
But they can take judicial notice of commonly known facts (the sun rises in the East). If they choose to do so. In this case they either didn't know or didn't choose to take notice of them.
Actually he died *after* the case came to the Supreme Court, but just before they released their ruling. He was just a no show, as was his former co-defendant Layton, and their attorney, Suderson, they didn't even file a brief, let alone show up for the oral arguments. Layton later pleaded guilty to transporting the shotgun and got probation from the same judge who had thrown out the original indictment. Surprisingly he managed to serve out the probation successfully.
see Compilation of Miller Documents.
From the above link:
Alas, Jack Miller's end was an unhappy one. The Southwest American reported on April 6, 1939, that Miller's body had been found in the "nearly dry" bed of Little Spencer creek, nine miles southwest of Chelesa, Oklahoma. He had been shot four times with a .38. Miller's ".45 calibre pistol," from which he had fired three shots in his defense, was found near his body. He was forty years old.
Little was reported regarding Frank Layton. He pleaded guilty to the charge of transporting a sawed-off shotgun after the Supreme Court decision and was placed on five year's probation by Judge Heartsill Ragon on January 8, 1940. Layton was discharged from supervision on January 29, 1944.
The decision was released on May 15, 1939, but oral arguments were heard (or more property the government presentation was made) on March 30, 1939, *just before* the government's oral arguments were presented to the Supreme Court.
Notice too that the government made the same appeal to English Common Law, which allowed restrictions of all sorts, rather than the Constitution of the United States, which supersedes the Common law when their is a conflict.
Terrific post. Reinhard is a good thinker and a good writer.
In recent years the Washington Post has shown itself to be more reserved than in the past in its support for socialism and the Democrat party. The paper’s editorials, especially, tend to be written in a professional manner, with care and seriousness. (Just compare the Post to that fading embarrassment, the New York Times.)
I have to believe there are people at the Washington Post who read Dionne’s drivel in their paper and plant their faces in their hands wondering when he will hang it up and go away.
You know what’s the scariest thing? If Robert Bork was a Supreme Court justice, the decision would have been 5 - 4 with the liberals winning and Bork providing the winning vote for them.
“It will be very telling if a case comes before the USSC with that set of facts as the argument as to why normal law-abiding people should be able to own full auto machine guns, for instance.”
Normal, law-abiding people *are* able to own full auto machine guns. Every time I go to a gun show I pass a table or two with everything from Mac-10s to MP-40s to pintel mounted 50s.
How do you think it would go over if pamphlets describing the availability of abortions were treated in the same way? 10 fingerprints, permission of the local police chief, background check, $200 tax on transfer, possession of which without any of the above is a felony and conviction of this permanently revokes your right to ever own one again? Sure, the freedom of the press would be fully protected, with some “Reasonable” restrictions.
I was really happy to see Reinhard rip into Dionne, he derserved to be ripped into. Maybe the powers that be at WaPo will wake up one of these days and tell him to take a hike.
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