United States 2nd Amendment Legal Cases and Law Discussion

Battlegrinder

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For context, the original question:

Well, since the conversation has broadened beyond "body armor", I'll ask a question I've had for a while. That is, if the 2nd Amendment guarantees private citizens the right to keep and bear arms as a failsafe against a tyrannical government, then... why should a government that may one day turn tyrannical have the power to regulate weapons, at all?

I'm not even talking about Supreme Court decisions, I'm talking about how if you fear the US government will eventually turn on its citizens, then it doesn’t make sense to give that same government the ability to decide what weapons you can or can’t have. Because then, tyrannical elements within the US government will use and abuse their power to deprive you of what you need to defend yourself, so that by the time they’re ready to pounce, it’s already too late—and that misses the whole point behind why the 2nd Amendment is there to start with. In which case, I’m honestly inclined to think the only interpretation true to the whole point of having it is, indeed, an absolutist one, whatever ramifications that may have.

As Ribs noted, at the time the amendment was written civilians could own the same weapons as soldiers, which all covered under the umbrella of "arms". However, even if the second amendment was supposed to be interpreted liberally and defend not merely firearms but all sorts of arms, regulations would still be needed to define what actually counts as "arms", as laws don't enforce themselves, they must be enforced and interpreted by the legal system. For an amusing example, the very weapons that were in use when the amendment was written are ironically not protected by it, as pre-1899 guns are not legally considered firearms and are not covered by federal firearm regulations (this is why you might hear felons talking about buying antique designs for self defense, the federal prohibition on felons owning firearms doesn't apply to older designs).

In a more maximal context, the 2nd amendment was written in the context of "arms" being tactical, battlefield weapons. New designs and new categories of weapons would need at the very least a court ruling to say they fit the rules. If cannons and howitzers fit the bill, the logically tanks and artillery do, but what about a B 29 bomber, intended to rain explosives on cities miles behind the front, is that still arms? Or are the bombs arms while the plane is just the way to deliver them, and the the plane isn't protected? Or a IRBM or SRBM, are those "arms"?


On the nuts and bolts level, federal regulation and limits on constitutional rights exists because it's universally agreed upon that rights are not unlimited. As the old saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends at someone else's nose. For free speech, libel laws or false advertising is an example, where your right to speech ends once your words start to cause real harm (roughly speaking. It's very complicated). A similar concept applies to gun ownership, though with more leeway because of the inherent dangers guns pose + courts failing to properly defend the 2nd amendment for decades.
 
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posh-goofiness

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How do you think that'd work in practice, out of curiosity?

For one, I'm pretty skeptical of private nuke ownership, though I can also imagine them being prohibitively expensive to buy and maintain, as well as kept under 24/7 lock and key by the handful of super-rich people who do wind up owning them. Not sure I'd want private nukes in the hands of the current elites, though seeing as they have control over a global nuclear stockpile that the taxpayers are footing the bill for, as is, well...
So a few points here. Firstly, all manufacturing, sale, and transfer of nuclear weapons is done by private entities. That's what Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, etc are. Secondly, the same arguments that apply to the lawful ownership of guns, body armor, knives ANYTHING apply here. The restriction of weapons to law-abiding people because of the potential of misuse is wrong. Thirdly, as you mentioned the nuke stockpile is already controlled by the current elites, publicly funded or privately funded it doesn't matter- they still control them. Fourthly, part of the reason the government does not fear us is that they can drone strike, chemical bomb, dirty bomb, and nuke us all into submission.

As to practicalities, I have no solid ideas just a list of loosely connected ideas.
  • it's absolutely crucial that municipalities and states have their own NBC stockpiles. The monopoly by the federal government is a problem.
  • NBC is both hard and expensive to own and maintain, I don't think the number of new owners will be that problematic to police.
  • MAD still applies. More so now because of the proliferation.
 
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Battlegrinder

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So looks like the Dems are willing to nuke the fillibuster and expand SCOTUS to get 'gun control' through.

Correction: A House Representative is willing to bluster about what the dems are willing to do, while in the senate, the body that actually could nuke the filibuster, the idea is dead in the water and in a few more months, entirely off the table once the dems lose the senate.
 

prinCZess

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Lots of talk from the Biden administration of raising the legal age to purchase a rifle from 18 to 21.

Wonder if they are planning on raising the Draft age to 21 as well, or if they still plan to send 18 year olds off to die in some Biden boondoggle with a rifle they can't legally own in the States?
Because it's the only place I could find the relevant clip, this was explicitly brought up and...well, I have nothing polite to say on the topic:
 

Tiamat

I've seen the future...
Because it's the only place I could find the relevant clip, this was explicitly brought up and...well, I have nothing polite to say on the topic:


Comparing Nadler to Jabba the Hutt is too kind, though he certainly looks the part.
 

Cherico

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Correction: A House Representative is willing to bluster about what the dems are willing to do, while in the senate, the body that actually could nuke the filibuster, the idea is dead in the water and in a few more months, entirely off the table once the dems lose the senate.
It's also the kind of thing that causes people to get incredibly pissed off at you for even trying. Packing the court alone would insure that when the republicans get the Senate they will do the same in retaliation.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
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considering what is happening in Canada right now, you Yankees better hold on to every single deadly weapon in your personal arsenals

because very soon, these weapons will be the difference between life and death
 

Bear Ribs

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So, the Biden Administration's found a backdoor they're using to shut down gun stores. It turns out his "Zero Tolerance" policy is for Typos rather than actual Crime. Shutdowns of gun retailers are up 500% due to clerical errors. This has been trending the last day or two, the new strategy is that the ATF is revoking gun store licenses over any error whatsoever on any form. Did you misspell a word? Shut down. Used a period where the auditor thinks it should be a comma? Shut down. Already this is have a severe negative effect on catching actual bad actors, as gun stores aren't nearly as eager to report possible straw or illegal purchases when they know doing so is a potential shut down or their entire business for the slightest mistake, so they're filing as few forms as they possibly can and no longer reporting anything they don't absolutely have to.

 

Ixian

Well-known member
So, the Biden Administration's found a backdoor they're using to shut down gun stores. It turns out his "Zero Tolerance" policy is for Typos rather than actual Crime. Shutdowns of gun retailers are up 500% due to clerical errors. This has been trending the last day or two, the new strategy is that the ATF is revoking gun store licenses over any error whatsoever on any form. Did you misspell a word? Shut down. Used a period where the auditor thinks it should be a comma? Shut down. Already this is have a severe negative effect on catching actual bad actors, as gun stores aren't nearly as eager to report possible straw or illegal purchases when they know doing so is a potential shut down or their entire business for the slightest mistake, so they're filing as few forms as they possibly can and no longer reporting anything they don't absolutely have to.


Jesus.

This will create a chilling effect and firearm retailers will miss actual bad guys as they worry over minute bs like typos and commas. Hopefully, someone takes this to court.
 

Abhorsen

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  • Strict scrutiny seems to be the implied standard
I don't think so. It lays out a new test:
the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.
And explicitly rejects means-balancing and intermediate scrutiny, but I don't know that it even allows strict scrutiny. It seems to go beyond that.
 

Bacle

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I don't think so. It lays out a new test:

And explicitly rejects means-balancing and intermediate scrutiny, but I don't know that it even allows strict scrutiny. It seems to go beyond that.
I think it's judicial speak for "The 2A does not have a 'need' requirement rider, and the 2A applies to the states via the 14thA, so NY and other states cannot attach one to it with state level laws."

This has good precedent for striking down a lot of ridicolous state level gun restrictions, if that test is applied to them.
 

Battlegrinder

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Alito's concurrence is great, not because of it's actual legal merits (Thomas more than handled that), but because it's devoted almost entirely to yelling at Breyer for dragging in unrelated cral and trying to reargue Heller.

Breyer started his dissent by citing a bunch of crime statistics, none of which have any actual relevance (or if they do, he didn't establish it) to the actual question of "is it consistutional permissible to require people to prove they have a specific need for self defense before they can get a conceal carry permit?", and Alito is visiting annoyed at him for wasting time and trying to obfuscate the issue.
 

Battlegrinder

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Wow Roberts manned up for once.

Not really. Like, yeah there's a bunch of pissing and moaning right now, but I suspect it's mostly just performative. "May Issue" carry licensing is a grossly unacceptable infringement of constitutional rights, but as grossly unacceptable infringements for I don't think it's as beloved as the left is making it look like right now.

Now, if Roberts struck down magazine restrictions or "assault weapon" bans as gross infringements, then they'd be really mad and he'd have grown a spine. But this is nothing.



And besides, Dobbs is the real "does Roberts have a spine" test case.
 

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