5 ms·

Probably unconstitutional, but never challenged in the Supreme Court, I believe.

long_time_gone 5y ago
It would have been perfectly Constitutional until the Supreme Court changed their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in the Heller case. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
- queuebert 5y ago
  IANAL, but I think there was no interpretation until the Supreme Court made that ruling. The Second Amendment was in a quantum state before that, both an individual right and not. When it becomes necessary to clarify something, then SCOTUS collapses the wave function in that particular area of law.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    John Paul Stevens was a lawyer and a judge on the Supreme Court. He disagrees and includes actual court decisions and opinions. >the Miller Court unanimously concluded that the Second Amendment did not apply to the possession of a firearm that did not have “some relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” And in 1980, in a footnote to an opinion upholding a conviction for receipt of a firearm, the Court effectively affirmed Miller, writing: “[T]he Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a firearm that does not have ‘some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.’ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/john-paul-stevens-court-failed-gun-control/587272/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/john-paul-...
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    SCOTUS didn’t begin to apply the bill of rights to anyone besides the federal government until Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad v. City of Chicago in 1897. The entire notion of individual rights (in the modern sense) guaranteed by the constitution was in its nascency in 1878.
  - camgunz 5y ago
    Nah Heller is the outlier here. Here's the Wikipedia page for its precedent, Miller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller
    - queuebert 5y ago
      Wow, that one sounds nuts: "In reality, the district court judge was in favor of the gun control law and ruled the law unconstitutional because he knew that Miller, who was a known bank robber and had just testified against the rest of his gang in court, would have to go into hiding as soon as he was released. He knew that Miller would not pay a lawyer to argue the case at the Supreme Court and would simply disappear. Therefore, the government's appeal to the Supreme Court would surely be a victory because Miller and his attorney would not even be present at the argument....Miller was found shot to death in April, before the decision had been rendered."
      - camgunz 5y ago
        Yeah, sometimes legal strategies are odd. I guess the point is that 2A was always about militias; essentially everything up until Thomas' concurrence in Printz considered 2A in the context of militia readiness, and the draft of 2A was even more explicitly about militias. It's sort of unassailable, but obviously not actually unassailable, because now we have Heller. Myself, I think 2A is just an anachronism. Militias as they were at the founding don't exist anymore. Almost no one in modern US society meets military readiness standards. Armed forces use bonkers weapons of war the founders could never have imagined. Even individual person-on-the-street weapons are pretty boggling by 18th century standards. And this is just considering firearms, expanding "arms" to whatever the US military considers to be a weapon (software/hardware exploits, biological weapons, chemical weapons). Further, I think "2A as a check on government" is meritless because Congress regulates militias, and the Constitution (Article I, §8) reads: "The Congress shall have power to... provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." Allowing governments to suppress insurrections is the opposite of allowing checks on government. I'm not like, super into gun control--I think the US is too big for a one-size-fits-all policy and I think a lot of implementations just land men of color in prison w/ felonies. But none of the pro-gun 2A interpretations make sense to me, and from where I sit the debate is more a reflection of Congress' ongoing slide into irrelevance and sclerosis as other less encumbered institutions in the US do the actual legislating.
jmedefind 5y ago
Back then the Second Amendment was read as a right to an Armed Militia. SCOTUS probably would of allowed these laws at the time. It's only the in past few decades that the Second Amendment has been perverted into the right to carry any gun you want where ever you want. Ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/09/why-accurate-history-must-guide-coming-debate-about-guns-second-amendment/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/09/why-accura...
- queuebert 5y ago
  That's an Op Ed, not a reference.

It would have been perfectly Constitutional until the Supreme Court changed their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in the Heller case. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

queuebert 5y ago
IANAL, but I think there was no interpretation until the Supreme Court made that ruling. The Second Amendment was in a quantum state before that, both an individual right and not. When it becomes necessary to clarify something, then SCOTUS collapses the wave function in that particular area of law.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  John Paul Stevens was a lawyer and a judge on the Supreme Court. He disagrees and includes actual court decisions and opinions. >the Miller Court unanimously concluded that the Second Amendment did not apply to the possession of a firearm that did not have “some relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” And in 1980, in a footnote to an opinion upholding a conviction for receipt of a firearm, the Court effectively affirmed Miller, writing: “[T]he Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a firearm that does not have ‘some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.’ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/john-paul-stevens-court-failed-gun-control/587272/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/john-paul-...
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  SCOTUS didn’t begin to apply the bill of rights to anyone besides the federal government until Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad v. City of Chicago in 1897. The entire notion of individual rights (in the modern sense) guaranteed by the constitution was in its nascency in 1878.
- camgunz 5y ago
  Nah Heller is the outlier here. Here's the Wikipedia page for its precedent, Miller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller
  - queuebert 5y ago
    Wow, that one sounds nuts: "In reality, the district court judge was in favor of the gun control law and ruled the law unconstitutional because he knew that Miller, who was a known bank robber and had just testified against the rest of his gang in court, would have to go into hiding as soon as he was released. He knew that Miller would not pay a lawyer to argue the case at the Supreme Court and would simply disappear. Therefore, the government's appeal to the Supreme Court would surely be a victory because Miller and his attorney would not even be present at the argument....Miller was found shot to death in April, before the decision had been rendered."
    - camgunz 5y ago
      Yeah, sometimes legal strategies are odd. I guess the point is that 2A was always about militias; essentially everything up until Thomas' concurrence in Printz considered 2A in the context of militia readiness, and the draft of 2A was even more explicitly about militias. It's sort of unassailable, but obviously not actually unassailable, because now we have Heller. Myself, I think 2A is just an anachronism. Militias as they were at the founding don't exist anymore. Almost no one in modern US society meets military readiness standards. Armed forces use bonkers weapons of war the founders could never have imagined. Even individual person-on-the-street weapons are pretty boggling by 18th century standards. And this is just considering firearms, expanding "arms" to whatever the US military considers to be a weapon (software/hardware exploits, biological weapons, chemical weapons). Further, I think "2A as a check on government" is meritless because Congress regulates militias, and the Constitution (Article I, §8) reads: "The Congress shall have power to... provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." Allowing governments to suppress insurrections is the opposite of allowing checks on government. I'm not like, super into gun control--I think the US is too big for a one-size-fits-all policy and I think a lot of implementations just land men of color in prison w/ felonies. But none of the pro-gun 2A interpretations make sense to me, and from where I sit the debate is more a reflection of Congress' ongoing slide into irrelevance and sclerosis as other less encumbered institutions in the US do the actual legislating.

jmedefind 5y ago

Back then the Second Amendment was read as a right to an Armed Militia. SCOTUS probably would of allowed these laws at the time. It's only the in past few decades that the Second Amendment has been perverted into the right to carry any gun you want where ever you want. Ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/09/why-accurate-history-must-guide-coming-debate-about-guns-second-amendment/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/09/why-accura...

queuebert 5y ago
That's an Op Ed, not a reference.