[pierrem15]

They're deliberately twisting the "in common use" phrase from Heller to mean arms actually used in self-defense vs. merely possessed for self-defense.

It's a legal sophistry, but it's being used by them and some circuits (like the 7th in Chicago) to gut Heller and Bruen by creating a classification of "military arms" civilians are not allowed to have.

[SecondAmendment]

>. They're deliberately twisting the "in common use" phrase from Heller to mean arms actually used in self-defense vs. merely possessed for self-defense.We know from Federalist 46 the primary purpose of the Second Amendment is as a backstop against Federal tyranny via a militia of common citizens :

Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.

In other words it is clearly unconstitutional to prevent civilians from owning military arms.