I've noticed that whenever the US Supreme Court rules on the 2nd Amendment, it rules in our favor.
I've also noticed that they will move Heaven and Earth to avoid making those rulings.
Thanks to gun blogs and Teh Intarwebtubes most of us pro-gun people are gaining the ability to read these rulings in their original Legalese.
Which brings me to the "anti-gun" Miller vs US ruling.
We should be hammering Miller.
I know we've been avoiding it because it doesn't say what we want about paying the NFA taxes.
But it DOES say something we should be slamming home on "let's all ban assault weapons" which might also help us with NFA and the hated Hughes Amendment:
The government argued and the court agreed that non-military weapons weren't protected; thus it was A-OK to tax short barreled shotguns.
They didn't consider that machine guns, also taxed under the NFA, were definitely military weapons.
The Court keeps refusing to see cases which clarify this.
But we have a ruling, we just need to start pounding it.
If for no other reason than to drink Liberal tears from agreeing that an AR and AK are military weapons and The Supreme Court has ruled they're protected by The Constitution via Miller v US!
Even though they rule in our favor, it NEVER becomes "settled law" like it does for things like say....abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, etc. Second Amendment rights have to be fought and have "end runs" done to weaken them.
ReplyDeleteIf I hold my breath, and stamp my feet until I turn blue while screaming, "YOU"RE WRONG!"
DeleteYou'd still be 100% correct. Dammit.
My friend Scott Palter (who, BTW, used to run West End Games---he produced the games Paranoia and Junta, among others) is quite a political pundit. He says "the ratchet only goes one way.
DeleteMy understanding (and I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong about this) is that:
ReplyDelete1) There was a lot of stuff that wasn't brought up in Miller v US because Miller skipped town and became a fugitive before the case was argued by the court.
2) Not only did the court fail to consider that machine guns were military weapons, but: short-barreled shotguns had been used extensively in WWI, a fact that the Supreme Court was unaware of (because that information was classified at the time of Miller.)
==Dwoght
From way over here on the other side of the Pacific, I have always found it strange that Miller as cited by the gun-banners actually says the exact opposite of what they claim.
ReplyDeleteThe gun-banners always claim that Miller found that the Second Amendment DOES NOT APPLY to military firearms.
The finding of the court was that private possession of firearms suitable for military use IS PROTECTED BY THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
Since no evidence was presented that short-barrel shotguns were used by the military, the court could not find that they were "of military use", and therefore protected.