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That is a good point that I had forgotten about, the law that briefly classified certain semi-automatic rifles as assault rifles. But that law is expired, as y

That is a good point that I had forgotten about, the law that briefly classified certain semi-automatic rifles as assault rifles. But that law is expired, as you note, and semi-automatic rifles are no longer legally or by militaries to be considered assault rifles. Selective fire is the supposed to be the distinguishing feature of that term and concept. That was an unfortunate way to name the law, messing up technical language. Should have just called it the "Excessively Dangerous Firearms" ban or something. I'm surprised the law withstood constitutional scrutiny. Any idea if any challenges of it went to SCOTUS?

skissane 6y ago
Well, 10 years is not exactly "briefly". And Biden has announced he wants to bring the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB) back–although I doubt he'd get it through Congress–red state Democrats like Senator Manchin are unlikely to vote for it, and the Democrats only have a bare majority in the Senate. Still, maybe some future election will deliver a Democratic President with a bigger majority in the Senate and House, and then a FAWB comeback might actually happen. FAWB challenges never went to SCOTUS, as far as they got was Circuit Court of Appeals where they failed. Note the ban expired before DC v Heller, when SCOTUS switched from treating the 2nd Amendment as essentially a dead letter to treating it as a live provision; so it is not very clear how current jurisprudence would treat it. I think some conservatives on SCOTUS would want to overturn a renewed FAWB, but they'll struggle to come up with logic to allow them to do that without threatening the federal (near-)ban on automatic weapons, which is something they probably don't want to overturn. I think in the end they'd uphold Congress and the States banning particular categories of weapons, so long as the categories are not so broad as to constitute an effective ban on owning weapons for self-defence.
- jcrites 6y ago
  True, 10 years isn't a short time in a human life, and probably reprogrammed a lot of people's thinking during that time. It depends what timescale you consider. It's arguably brief on the scale of the lifespan of the US Constitution. There is apparently debate about the etymology of the term. In English it may be fairly recent; others attribute the concept to the German military in World War 2. From the Wikipedia page on Assault Rifle: > Conservative writer Rich Lowry said that assault weapon is a "manufactured term". Joseph P. Tartaro of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote in 1994: "One of the key elements of the anti-gun strategy to gull the public into supporting bans on the so-called 'assault weapons' is to foster confusion. As stated previously, the public does not know the difference between a full automatic and a semi-automatic firearm." > Two scholars have written: "One problem inherent in the study of [assault weapons (AW)] is that the classifications of AW are based on cosmetic features of firearms... For instance, the Colt AR-15 series of semi-automatic rifles—the civilian version of the fully automatic M-16 rifle issued to U.S. soldiers—was subject to the 1994 AW restrictions, but the Ruger Mini-14 rifle was not banned. Yet, the Mini-14 is the same caliber, has a similar barrel length, the same semi-automatic action, and can use magazines that hold 30 rounds of ammunition. The only real meaningful difference between the two firearms is cosmetic: The AR-15 rifle looks more dangerous." (citations omitted) I'm fairly sure such a ban would not survive a challenge with the current SCOTUS, but I'm curious whether any cases made it to SCOTUS challenging the ban while it was active, with the court as it was then. (Any constitutional lawyers on the thread want to pop in?)

skissane 6y ago

Well, 10 years is not exactly "briefly". And Biden has announced he wants to bring the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB) back–although I doubt he'd get it through Congress–red state Democrats like Senator Manchin are unlikely to vote for it, and the Democrats only have a bare majority in the Senate. Still, maybe some future election will deliver a Democratic President with a bigger majority in the Senate and House, and then a FAWB comeback might actually happen. FAWB challenges never went to SCOTUS, as far as they got was Circuit Court of Appeals where they failed. Note the ban expired before DC v Heller, when SCOTUS switched from treating the 2nd Amendment as essentially a dead letter to treating it as a live provision; so it is not very clear how current jurisprudence would treat it. I think some conservatives on SCOTUS would want to overturn a renewed FAWB, but they'll struggle to come up with logic to allow them to do that without threatening the federal (near-)ban on automatic weapons, which is something they probably don't want to overturn. I think in the end they'd uphold Congress and the States banning particular categories of weapons, so long as the categories are not so broad as to constitute an effective ban on owning weapons for self-defence.

jcrites 6y ago
True, 10 years isn't a short time in a human life, and probably reprogrammed a lot of people's thinking during that time. It depends what timescale you consider. It's arguably brief on the scale of the lifespan of the US Constitution. There is apparently debate about the etymology of the term. In English it may be fairly recent; others attribute the concept to the German military in World War 2. From the Wikipedia page on Assault Rifle: > Conservative writer Rich Lowry said that assault weapon is a "manufactured term". Joseph P. Tartaro of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote in 1994: "One of the key elements of the anti-gun strategy to gull the public into supporting bans on the so-called 'assault weapons' is to foster confusion. As stated previously, the public does not know the difference between a full automatic and a semi-automatic firearm." > Two scholars have written: "One problem inherent in the study of [assault weapons (AW)] is that the classifications of AW are based on cosmetic features of firearms... For instance, the Colt AR-15 series of semi-automatic rifles—the civilian version of the fully automatic M-16 rifle issued to U.S. soldiers—was subject to the 1994 AW restrictions, but the Ruger Mini-14 rifle was not banned. Yet, the Mini-14 is the same caliber, has a similar barrel length, the same semi-automatic action, and can use magazines that hold 30 rounds of ammunition. The only real meaningful difference between the two firearms is cosmetic: The AR-15 rifle looks more dangerous." (citations omitted) I'm fairly sure such a ban would not survive a challenge with the current SCOTUS, but I'm curious whether any cases made it to SCOTUS challenging the ban while it was active, with the court as it was then. (Any constitutional lawyers on the thread want to pop in?)