[harrowup]

"No State shall make or enforce any law ..., without due process of law

The operative words being clear that the state in regard to assault weapons made it illegal to own same, with due process.

We still have the "right" to hold and bear arms, but the state has insisted we be licensed to do so and has said no license is available for certain types of weapons. It is not ever going to be possible to change this view and the constant debate is debilitating to the public psyche. That doesn't stop you from owning an assault weapon any more than stolen art; your investment is simply restricted to the black market. Become a museum and put an armed Cobra on the front lawn and have at it.

[tpaine]

harrowup wrote:

"No State shall make or enforce any law ..., without due process of law."


The operative words being clear that the state in regard to assault weapons made it illegal to own same, with due process.

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In a discussion of the scope of "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment the Court stated:

Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of the States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment protects. See U.S. Const., Amend. 9.

As the second Justice Harlan recognized:
 
    "The full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause `cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution.
This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property;
the freedom of speech, press, and religion;
the right to keep and bear arms;
the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. 

It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints...