I watched a video from Mark Smith's 4-Boxes Diner youtube channel where he's trying to spin a unanimous 6th Circuit decision that machine guns aren't protected by the 2nd Amendment is a good thing.
The guy busted with the Glock Switch® is a scumbag.
The gist of the spin is that scumbags don't get good decisions and we're better off with a bad outcome because scumbag.
I think.
His delivery is hard for me to follow sometimes.
But I think he's wrong with regards to how I've watched the Supreme Court act.
If all of the circuits agree on something, they don't grant cert.
The 6th Circuit judges are decently good on gun stuff, and they say no machine guns.
That's ammo for the opposition, frankly.
You pretty much need a circuit split on an issue to get them to take a case based on something they haven't already made their minds up on. Even then, there's no guarantee.
Watching some of these gun lawyers being happy with things getting set in amber with painting us into the "bearable, common and not dangerous" only firearms pisses me off.
Starting with the last. Is gun. Is dangerous. So accepting the "dangerous" as means of disqualifying 2a protection just means that we're going to fight a subjective standard in every case.
Common pisses me off for two reasons.
First is the shortsightedness that means that we're never going to get newer guns if they can ban them before they can become common. If these lawyers had been presented with this in the early 1800's we'd have never have gotten caplocks because caplocks were unusual and uncommon; but everyday, common, flintlocks would be OK.
Second is machine guns are unusual BECAUSE of the NFA, GCA and FOPA. They'd be common if it were possible for people to get new ones because people are more interested in them now than they were in 1986.
Lastly, bearable should frighten you because it will become subjective. What's bearable? By one person? What about cannon? Can you ban tanks?
Considering we used privately owned canon in the Revolution, it makes me doubt the founders wanted crew served banned.
Arms means every deadly instrument of the soldier. Last I checked, soldier meant more than just infantry.
Another bolster for arms being more than what you can carry is Congress' power to issue letters of marque and reprisal. That requires privately owned, crewed and operated warships. That's main body Constitution too! Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11.
But even if we limit it to just what the grunts are lugging around, they're not carrying semi-automatic rifles. They're carrying machine guns.
Tench Coxe is rolling in his grave.