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Posted on 07/12/2018 1:13:49 PM PDT by Starman417
It’s way past time to level the playing field. We need to abolish the NFA entirely. We need to expose how crazily armed the police and federal agents truly are. The American people have no idea how many tens of thousands of machine guns are in the hands of non military federal agents and state and local police departments.
The latest 3d printing ruling also forced the government to acknowledge that the AR-15 is not a military weapon.
I have one just like it, only that one is mine.
“This author was so close yet missed by a mile. The musket was not the semi auto of the day. It was the FULL AUTO of the day.”
Actually, the Pennsylvania/Kentucky Long Rifle was the full auto of the day...
So Kavanaugh really does read the old ink on ancient parchment?
Thank God. And thank you, Mr. Trump!
Maybe he knows and understands the Tenth Amendment, too?
Imagine the fun we could have with THAT one!
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Keeping our guns is the only reason we haven't gone the final remaining small step into absolute tyranny during the past 30-years...
“Why do the police and thousands of federal agents need machine guns yet they are prohibited from the people?”
And therein lies ANOTHER big problem (one that I’d LOVE to see litigated once Kavanaugh is confirmed or, better yet, when RBG is replaced with someone similar to Kavanaugh on this issue): The 1939 case of “US v. Miller” stated that the (unconstitutional, IMHO) 1934 National Firearms Act WAS constitutionally fine (i.e. didn’t violate the 2A’s prohibition on infringing upon Miller’s right to own arms) because it didn’t prohibit him from owning it; rather, the NFA only imposed a tax, something within the power of Congress to do. Yeah, that is VERY questionable - especially when $200 at that time was like $5,000 today - would such a tax to buy an AR-15 be OK now? I think not. BUT HERE IS THE PROBLEM: in 1986, Title 18, Section 922(o) was put into law, which PROHIBITED the BATF from issuing the NFA tax stamps for full autos made after 5/18/86...IOW, they prohibited the collection of the tax that the “Miller” Court said was necessary to make the NFA legal. Thus, IMHO, you now have a situation where the government created the condition in 1986 to make a previously-constitutional law passed in 1934, suddenly unconstitutional. All we lack right now is a ruling to that effect by 5 Justices.
I think that we have a shot at this. It is not too unlike the situation with carry laws - there were, of course, all kinds of claims that it’d be like the Wild West (which wasn’t, in actual fact, all that “wild”), that people would be gunned down in the streets by the bushel...and it turns out that carry license holders are MUCH MORE law-abiding than even the police. WRT full autos, there has been exactly ONE (1) criminal act committed with a registered full auto, and that was by an off-duty cop.
We are ready for NFA repeal.
Which is exactly what is happening in uk these days.The people have no way to throw off a tyrannical government.
Beautiful
“I want see 10 round magazine limits gone.”
I want to buy suppressors over-the-counter at Wal-Mart with just a quick swipe of my MasterCard. I’d buy three tomorrow if that were the case.
Heck, make that...order them from Amazon, free shipping.
It may just be an eventual possibility!
Repeal NFA....
there it is Folks!
Cheers
A gun that can’t easily kill people is just a really expensive club.
“When the Constitution was written the both the government and the people had the same weapon – the musket – ”
Private citizens also owned cannons and some owned their very own warships. With Congressional approval, I might add.
L
My recollection of the Miller decision differs from your description.
As I recall, the government made two arguments in their attempt to overturn the District Court decision in Miller's favor; that is, the District Court had decided that Miller's keeping and bearing of a short-barreled shotgun was protected by the Second Amendment.
First, the government argued that the protection of the Second Amendment applied only to members of an organized Militia. Second, they argued that the protection of the Second Amendment extended only to arms that are useful to a Militia.
The first argument was never addressed directly, but the Supreme Court obviously rejected it. Otherwise, since Miller was not a member of an organized Militia, the Court could simply have said so and the case would be over and Miller would have lost.
Instead, the Court accepted the second argument by the government; that is, that only weapons that are useful to a Militia are protected by the Second Amendment.
The Court was provided with no "judicial notice" regarding the usefulness of short-barreled shotguns, so they vacated the ruling by the District Court that had been favorable to Miller and remanded the case back to that lower court in order to decide about the usefulness of a short-barreled shotgun.
For various reasons, the lower court never took any future action. Despite that, other courts mistakenly and maliciously misstated the Miller Decision and invented the "collective right" nonsense that prevailed until the Heller Decision.
Although I think the Heller Court attempted to make it appear as though they were not overturning the Miller Decision, I think that they were.
The Miller Decision was that ONLY weapons useful to a Militia are protected. The Heller Decision ADDED Second Amendment protection for arms that are useful for self-defense.
Perhaps we can look forward to a Kavanaugh decision that recognizes that AR-15s are THE militia weapon of the twentieth century and are therefor protected. That could be fun.
Well, not exactly.
One of the first military acts of our own American Revolution was to send a force to take Fort Ticonderoga and move the cannon through the snow-covered northeast to occupied Boston. There the cannon were placed so as to dominate Boston harbor and the British fleet that was anchored there. This action induced the British to pack up and leave Boston to its original inhabitants.
Later our Founders included the Second Amendment in our Bill of Rights so as to eliminate having to steal weapons before being able to fight tyranny. The National Firarms Act has reduced us to the position of our Founders.
If a second revolution is called for I think we will be able to figure it out. For example, I remember hearing some years ago that every sergeant's cruiser in the LAPD has an M16 or equivalent in the trunk. Isn't that a comfort?
The british people today have no way of throwing off the tyranical government since they gave up their guns.
I know that there was a lot of emphasis on the usefulness of a short-barreled shotgun for militia purposes, but the case ALSO relied upon the ability of the Feds to regulate firearms.
Check out this analysis of the Miller case:
http://migration.nyulaw.me/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060964.pdf
On page 26 of that .pdf, near the bottom, and going on to page 27, is the following:
“In any case, McReynolds began Miller by emphasizing the
NFA satisfies the Tenth Amendment only because it is at least
nominally a tax, rather than a regulation. 193 As the government pointed out, “even as to this class of firearms there is not a word in the National Firearms Act which expressly prohibits the obtaining, ownership, possession or transportation thereof by anyone if compliance
is had with the provisions relating to registration, the payment of taxes, and the possession of stamp-affixed orders.” 194 So, whatever it holds, Miller does not hold that Congress can regulate firearms directly. The rejection of Miller’s Tenth Amendment claim highlights the implausibility of his Second Amendment claim. Miller could not just argue that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess and use NFA firearms. He had to claim it prohibits taxation of NFA firearms. Unsurprisingly, McReynolds found this claim unconvincing. Whether or not the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms, it hardly prohibits Congress from taxing particular weapons.”
BTW, don’t assume that I agree with the “Miller” case - I find it an awful case which perhaps had some utility (in the pre-”Heller” world) to fight gun control, IF you could craft the right case and make certain that the firearm in question undoubtedly had “utility as a militia weapon.” Of course, now much of “Miller,” if not the entire thing, is pretty much moot. I look forward to a case after Kavanaugh is confirmed, as I believe that many of the issues that both “Miller” and “Heller” avoided will be addressed. As an Originalist/Textualist, Kavanaugh is VERY well aware of the Article 1, Section 8 power that Congress has to grant “Letters of Marque and Reprisal,” which necessarily presume the private ownership of naval cannon and warships (or commercial ships converted to warships) with which to attack enemy shipping. Such a “big view” of the 2nd Amendment will, IMHO, render the entire NFA unconstitutional...if you can own cannon, why on Earth can you be prevented from owning full autos, suppressors, sawed-off shotties, etc.?
I wish I could but I can't. I'm recovering from cataract surgery and don't yet have working glasses. I'll have to rely on you to do the heavy lifting.
I don't agree with the analysis in so far as it suggests that taxation of firearms would not be an infringement. All I am seeing is that Congress has the authority to tax and that Congress lacks the authority to involve itself in matters that are reserved to the states.
I would certainly agree that the guidance provided by the Miller quote was quite abbreviated. The bottom line remains, however, that the sparse quidance to the lower court only concerned whether the shotgun was useful to a Militia. This would indicate to me that the Miller Court had decided against any authority of Congress to tax arms.
Otherwise, the Miller Court could have disposed of the case by simply asking the lower court to decide whether the tax was permissible and not an "infringement". Or, since it would be a matter of law and not a matter of fact, the Miller Court could have simply declared that the tax was permissible and ordered the lower court to reinstate the charges against Miller.
I've always been impressed by the fact that the District Court which had original jurisdiction found it so easy to simply dismiss the charges and declare the NFA invalid.
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