Posted on 06/04/2019 8:36:42 AM PDT by Cassius Flavia Agrippa
The 2nd Amendment prohibits such a ban:
Yes, it does:________ No, it does not:_______
The Enumerated Powers Doctrine also prohibits such a ban:
Yes, it does:_________ No, it does not:_________
That was decided by SCOTUS in McDonald vs Chicago in the affirmative.
“In 1934, Congress knew what the Second Amendment meant, and when they wished to ban silencers/suppressors and machine guns, they didn’t try to pass an outright ban, they passed the 1934 National Firearms Act which instituted a then outrageous $200 tax on each suppressor or machine gun. That is $3,800 in 2019 dollars.”
How does the Enumeration come into play? I think it is very significant here.
An interesting question. Since silencers and suppressors are not firearms then they may not enjoy the same protections an actual guns might. And since the Supreme Court has upheld bans on certain kinds of firearms in the past, i.e. sawed off shotguns and fully automatic firearms, then they may decided that these can be banned as well.
It’s a health thing. Silencers/suppressors prevent hearing loss, thus Article I, section 8 of the U. S. Constitution “provide for the general welfare”.
In my opinion the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the misnamed Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 are all unconstitutional because they clearly infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
My opinion means absolutely nothing though unless the Supreme Court will actually enforce the Bill of Rights, which they have shown little inclination to do throughout history.
Actually, in the Nagant the cartridges swell just enough to reduce to near zero any gas or smoke escaping back from the rear of the cylinder. Brass casings tend to swell and return to prior-to-ignition size. In reloading one of the stages is resizing the casing.
Noob.
Relax.
You busted this topic out of an ongoing thread.
Shoulda kept it over there.
Don’t troll.
SHHHHH... don’t confuse them with facts...
Chances are that he paid his $200 and endured the 8-12 month background check in order to get his tax stamp for it.
If he had obtained it illegally or had fabricated it, that would have been shouted from the rooftops by the MSM. But if he successfully underwent a background check, that undermines their argument for 'universal background checks,' so all you'll hear from the MSM are crickets.
Sorry, but our opinions don’t matter. This is like a twitter or facebook, etc. “poll.” I don’t care how many illiterate, uneducated, emotional people weigh in with “yes” or “no” on some social media matter, nor do I care here.
But perhaps you’re really seeking the reasons behind our opinions, our reasoning about whether to expect SCOTUS to support or restrict availability of sound suppressors (”silencers”).
That’s unpredictable, the SCOTUS response. For example, there is no constitutional right to abortion, but SCOTUS created one by case law, citing the enumerated constitutional “right to privacy” between a person and his/her/its doctor (and lacking a constitutional or case-law ruling that an unborn child is human and has rights). And when CJ Roberts wanted to side with Obama on Obama-Care, he provided the reasoning by which the Obama-Care could be written (but wasn’t) to be legal, if the penalty for not buying a product (unconstitutional to force us to buy a product) is considered a “tax” instead, which is legal to create and impose. So that should have been rejected as it was, as an unconstiutional law, and it should have been rewritten and newly passed by Congress as a tax bill, not a healthcare insurance coverage bill. But noooooo, SCOTUS (or CJ Roboerts) chose to allow it to stand.
So who knows what will really happen? SCOTUS has said we have an individual right to keep and bear arms, but that doesn’t mean that lack of a sound suppressor would prevent us from keeping or bearing arms.
On the other hand, the Constitution has the basic principle that rights not explicitly allowed to the government are reserved for the people, the Enumerated Powers Doctrine, so government doesn’t have the right just to nilly-willy forbid stuff, and it doesn’t have an explicitly stated right to decide if we can have sound suppressors, 30-round magazines, extra-pressure cartridge loads, etc. But it tries, at all governmental levels, to do so, and succeeds in most cases, especially if no one will fight it, or if the appeals and supreme courts won’t hear the cases.
The “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” idea is much misunderstood. Early SCOTUS decisions said that we can’t just use/carry any old weapon, that openly carrying a bloody headman’s axe or scythe down a main street would not be for keeping and bearing arms but for inciting terror and riot among the people, so that would not be allowed. And yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater (when there is no fire, doing so for malicious purposes, to cause tumult and chaos and injury) is not a free speech right. But if there is a fire, and you follow up your yell with appropriate actions, telling people where it is and how to go and where, that is free speech. So you can yell “fire” in a crowded theater, it just depends on how and why you do it.
So I’d say that the 2A is silent on sound suppressors (forgive the pun), but that the EP doctrine does not allow Congress to ban sound suppressors. Weapons of mass destruction (napalm, nerve gas, bombs, nuclear weapons)—those are not individual keep and bear items, though. But again, who knows what (this) SCOTUS will do? I thank God daily for Donald Trump appointing conservative judges to all levels of the court, and I hope he gets many more appointments. That is the only way we have a significant chance of immediate and long-term change in our 2A protections and rights.
I’m not an attorney or legal scholar. These are just my thoughts. FWIW.
“In Heller, arms and devices that have been banned a long time, ergo “not in common civilian use,” the ban is constitutional. This was done so that bans on military arms (in particular, the M-16 and others banned by 1986 Act) would stand.”
For that matter, the entire “in common use” argument is fallacious. Congress can issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal to private citizens (or, presumably, to companies). When issued during the Revolutionary War by the Continental Congress (arguably pre-Constitution), they were issued to those individuals who owned ships with many cannon on them - and I guarantee that this was not “common” in any fashion, as one had to be enormously wealthy to own such equipment. Ditto for the War of 1812 (arguably POST-Constitution), when identical practices were followed, and Letters given to similarly enormously wealthy people (i.e. these ships were not in common use).
Yes, I’m saying that the Supreme Court is just plain wrong in this aspect of the Heller decision - but the practical reality is that this language probably had to be put in to get a majority that otherwise pretty well affirmed the 2nd Amendment. We shall have to wait for a more favorable Court (i.e. sans Breyer and Ginsburg, hopefully both of whom will be replaced soon by Trump).
not in a million years, no!
the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed (emphasis added)
I am of the opinion that any restrictions on a US Citizens ability to purchase, own, store, or carry any firearm is an infringement.
Having said that, the only time that such infringement is constitutionally permissible is when the Citizen is a ward of the state. This may be the case in a mental incompetence hearing or a criminal trial, where the citizen is allowed to present evidence that they should not lose their rights. Further, there needs to be a means by which, once those rights are lost, they can be restored such as being found competent my mental health officials or by completing the sentence imposed by the court in the case of criminal conviction.
I also believe that 2A rights should be closely linked to voting rights. If you cant be trusted to own a firearm, then you cant be trusted to vote.
What about an innocuous piece of plastic called a bump stock?
But one would think that the ATF might have come out almost immediately with information about the device, considering all of them legally owned are registered. Wouldn’t be difficult to find out if it was legal or not.
At least, the ATF might want to cover their butts with the data.
To show the public that they’re doing their jobs.
they didn’t try to pass an outright ban, they passed the 1934 National Firearms Act which instituted a then outrageous $200 tax on each suppressor or machine gun.
The Hughes Amendment, of which you speak, does not make it unlawful to issue any more tax stamps for full-auto machine guns to civilians after 5/19/86. Full-auto machine guns are bought, sold, and registered every day.
What it did do is to close the machine gun registry, so that any machine gun not on the registry as of 5/19/86 cannot be added to the registry and is ineligible to receive a tax stamp. Firearms that were on the registry prior to that date can be bought and sold at will.
However, I agree with you that the Hughes Amendment is unconstitutional and needs to be overturned by SCOTUS.
It can be argued (not by me, but by others) that the tax stamp and background check are reasonable regulations, as hinted at by SCOTUS in Heller, but the "closing" of the "registry" is not. Take two identical Thompson M1921 machine guns built on the same day in 1921 and only one serial number apart. One registered in 1934, and one was found yesterday in grandpa's attic. Both should be equally legal.
But one is legal to buy, sell, and possess (in most states,) while the other is contraband and cannot be made legal to possess by non-government entities.
A sound suppressor is not a weapon. There are sound suppressors on factory machinery. Those suppressors are placed as a health issue to protect the hearing and communication abilities of the factory workers. ... My hearing protection I wear at the range has a suppression function which blocks DB sounds beyond a certain range and allows conversation level DBs to come through.
Sure. But when Circuits Courts misinterpret SCOTUS precedent, as they did chronically with Miller and Presser (reading both cases for the OPPOSITE of what those cases say), SCOUTS can allow the error to stand, and it did, for decades. SCOTUS is hostile to substantial RKBA.
-- Did anyone cite Miller during the Heller arguments? --
Yeah. Scalia misinterpreted it on purpose. Miller says the government can't interfere with RKBA relating to military grade weapons. Scalia said that Miller stands for the proposition that one a ban stands long enough, it becomes constitutional.
We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller's phrase "part of ordinary military equipment" could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act's restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller's "ordinary military equipmen" language must be read in tandem with what comes after: "[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." 307 U. S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms "in common use at the time" for lawful purposes like self-defense. "In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same." State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6-15, 252-254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment's operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.
This read is particularly galling, because the Miller opinion says that the short barrel shotgun is within the ambit of the 2nd amendment, if "this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense," with the Miller decision to reverse and send the case back to the lower court being justified by SCOTUS professing ignorance on this point.
Now that Miller has been misconstrued as a matter of law, all SCOTUS has to do to allow banning of weapons is just delay taking cases long enough that the ban becomes "lonmg standing."
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