Committee votes on AWB

[hansberrym]

4. The oft stated claim that "no right is absolute" is true in some sense,

but seems to me to be a good way to unintentionally alienate a whole lot of people/voters.

A quick review of case law regarding the second amendment:
Hickman, 9th Circuit. Held that the RKBA is a state's right and so individuals have no standing to bring a 2A defense.

Silveira, again 9th Circuit, attempting to patch earlier Hickman decision that had become untenable, held that the while RKBA is right of the people, it is a "Collective" right, and so individuals have no standing.

As the debate continued in the public square it became obvious that Silveira also could not withstand criticism: The accused in US v Miller in fact had standing. Moreover the notion of a collective right regarding RKBA came under fire from both right and left leaning sources. Saul Cornel and others argued for an individual rights interpretation, and in Heller SCOTUS found 9-0 on that point, overturning Silveira with regard to standing and on collective vs. individual right.

The dissents in Heller tried to fall back on the narrow individual rights interpretation advocated by Cornell and others (but which had been rejected out of hand in Silveira), and in doing so they claimed that the various state court RKBA cases ought not to be looked at as evidence of the scope of the RKBA in the second amendment, though SCOTUS in US v. Miller took the opposite approach. Both Heller dissents badly bungled the argument regarding the scope of the RKBA, and are a discredit to honest debate on the topic.

US v. Miller taught that the RKBA was intended to protect possession of arms useful in warfare (this is straight out of Aymette v. Tenn which was cited in the US v. Miller holding) and thus sawed off shotguns, saturday night specials, and other weapons useful primarily to the criminal do not under that interpretation fall under the definition of "arms" in 2A.

Now we have all ten Dems on the Senate judiciary committee claiming that possession of certain small arms is not protected by the second amendment because such are easier to handle and have additional military usefulness as compared to similar rifles. It is one thing to question the finer points of Heller which was decided 5-4; it is quite another to ignore US v. Miller, Aymette v. Tenn. and a long string of state court cases which held that arms useful for military purposes are those arms which fall under the protection of 2A. Aymette v. Tenn. states that the right to keep arms of the sort useful for military purposes is an unqualified right of the citizens, however in the interest of public safety the government may pass laws to regulate how such arms may be borne, but cannot ban the bearing of such arms altogether.

The difference between a Ruger mini 14 (allowed under Feinstein's AWB bill) and banned rifles comes down to pistol grips/forward hand grips. As these grips make it easier to handle, control, and aim the weapon, and are standard on military rifles, it is difficult to argue that such grips make the weapon more dangerous in a public safety sense and have less military usefulness than the allowed version.

In my opinion those truly seeking tighter gun control that does not violate constitutional protections should focus on how arms may be borne in public and how ownership is transferred. But to make silly distinctions which go beyond what is already the law (national firearms act) only drags the country backwards into arguments concerning the scope of the RKBA, and leads those who support the second amendment to question the motives of the advocates of such distinctions.