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- cross-posted to:
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California cannot ban gun owners from having detachable magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez won’t take effect immediately. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has already filed a notice to appeal the ruling. The ban is likely to remain in effect while the case is still pending.
This is the second time Benitez has struck down California’s law banning certain types of magazines. The first time he struck it down — way back in 2017 — an appeals court ended up reversing his decision.
There’s no right to magazine sizes. They have a right to guns. Give ‘em a bolt action with a 3+1 magazine. Still have a gun, right?
The 2nd Amendment specifies “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”. I would argue that to be able to functionally “bear arms”, one must be able to be in possession of the means to operate those arms.
The 2nd Amendment does not say “the right of the people to keep and bear bolt-action rifles, shall not be infringed”. Instead, it states “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”.
But this already isn’t true. Even if I could afford it, I can’t buy an F16, anthrax or a nuclear warhead. So, isn’t this just about where the line is being drawn? The line itself both already exists and doesn’t seem to be contested.
You very much can buy an F16 assuming you can find one for sale, a civilian owned company already bought 29 of them from Israel (Same goes for fully functional tanks as long as you fill out the proper paperwork)
Technically true, but it needs to be non militarized, can’t purchase the missile mounts (or the missiles etc.). My point stands.
The jet isn’t the weapon. It’s the missles I agree.
Want people to change their mind, tell them Bill Gates/Elon Musk and such are starting a nuclear program. They’ll want to ban it, they are arms after all.
“Musk is adding AI controlled weapons to Starlink” Immediate call for reform haha
I try to look at these examples from the perspective of the Non-Agression Principle – to come to the conclusion that a specific technology must be kept from the public, it must be shown that that technology, by it’s very nature of existence, infringes on the rights and freedoms of those around it. For example, if we look a nuclear warhead, as you mentioned, it could certainly be argued that it’s private ownership would violate the NAP, as it’s very existence is an indiscriminate threat to the life, and property of any proximal to it. A similar argument could be made for your other example of anthrax. Making a similar argument for an outright ban on the civilian ownership of a fighter-jet is much more difficult to justify, however. I would argue that it would, instead, be more logical to regulate, rather than prohibit, the civilian ownership of a fighter-jet, much in the same manner as the civilian ownership of any other typical aircraft.
It also should be noted that it entirely depends on wording/language. The 2nd Amendment specifically states “[…] the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”. One needs to have a precise definition for “bear”, and “Arms”. Perhaps it could be argued that an individual cannot “bear” a nuclear warhead. Perhaps “Arms” are only those used by the military, or other federal entities. I have no definite answer, but these are the sorts of things that one must consider.
Every constitutional right has limits. There is no legal use of a gun that requires a gun capable of holding more than 6 rounds. More than 90% of self defense situations end with only 2-3 shots being fired. Long, drawn out gun fights with both sides firing 20-30 rounds simply don’t happen in self defense situations. It’s just a fiction from movies. You certainly don’t need that many rounds to bring down a deer. What high capacity firearms do allow is criminals to maximize the damage they do in a short period of time.
Asserting a negative - bold strategy. I’d be interested in seeing your support for such a position.
I frequently legally use standard capacity magazines at the shooting range, though, so you may have a hard time here.
Is this one of those Works Cited: Crack Pipe moments?
Ah - so you only care about mass shootings, the vast minority of firearm violence let alone homicide.
Generally, I would be inclined to say yes, but things become more tricky when the constitutional right in question specifically states “Shall not be infringed”. That being said, the limits in question could certainly lie within the definion of “Arms”, and “bear”.
Don’t forget the original intent of the 2nd Amendment (I encourage you to read the Federalist Papers, to hear it striaght from the source) was to ensure that the people have the capability to resist their own government. Without a populace who believes in it, and will defend it with force if need be, a constitution is no more than a piece of paper, and a dream. Pay close attention to the wording of the 2nd Amendment:
As well as how it would interract with what was stated in the declaration of independence:
It is important to remember that prior to the 14th amendment, the Bill of Rights was understood to only apply to the states, not the federal government. The 2nd when written was never intended to apply to the federal government. Another important distinction is the use of the term “bears”. A person hunting deer is not “bearing arms”. A soldier bears arms. It is a term specifically that refers to fighting for a state, not self defense or any generalized use of weapons. In short, the 2nd amendment was intended to prevent states from disarming militias in order to preserve the ability to assemble a national military. It has nothing to do with one person defending themselves against another.
You raise a good point about the 14th Amendment. I would argue that it even further enforces the idea that the states, individually, cannot create firearm legislation as it would violates the 2nd Amendment, which, in turn, violates the 14th Amendment.
While I do agree that paying attention to the exact terminology used is crucial to the Amendment’s interpretation, from what I can see, the definition that you stated is not without contention.
I agree which is why we need a federal ban on high capacity weapons.
The roundness of the Earth is under contention too.
What is your rationale behind that statement?
Err, no it isn’t. There is a difference between subjective disagreement, and denialism.
SO close to self realization.
3 round mag is a perfectly functional firearm. I own one. Works great.
Nobody’s infringing. When they wrote the amendment a single-fire cap and ball was perfectly acceptable as a firearm, should be good enough for today.
The Second Amendment doesn’t say that it only applies to guns with 3-round magazines or muskets. It applies to all arms.
Ah yes, because the authors could have foreseen personal arsenals, rampant use of guns in crimes, etc. Bullshit argument, that.
It applied to the arms that existed at the time. Funny how 2A’ers are simultaneously originalists (they meant guns for everyone!) and then shun the framework in which the original 2A was written - single fire rifles for protection on the frontier, protecting a growing nation without a large standing military, and to put food on the table.
The Second Amendment is a legal document. The only legal way to change it’s meaning (that the right of the people to keep arms shall not be infringed) is to amend it to limit the definition of “arms”. As written, the Second Amendment covers all weapons, and at the time of its ratification that included modern naval warships and artillery pieces.
When you can’t win the framing of the argument, go for technically correct. IOW, I do care what they thought, it says I get to have a fuckton of guns and a battleship. Must be disappointing to not be able to own a personal and navy for some.
You’re not gonna bend me. The 2A has been bastardized and fucked over as a political football and twisted to allow people to have personal arsenals. Guns were a tool. Fuckers have turned them into statements and fashion accessories.
As long as the government has them, I need them. Disarm the government and I’ll be marginally more open to compromise.
I’m not opposed to owning firearms at all. Disarm the government? Guess you want anarchy, and/or mob justice.
The truly fucked up thing is gun owners are so obsessed with firearms they let everything else slip away. Once they’ve taken everything else they can, they’ll come for the guns too. You’ll finally be right, but you’ll be dead. Fat lot of good that’ll do. Damn fool idea to be so myopic that guns are gonna defeat the government - and for that matter, what a shit world it’s gonna be if people are ever actually put in a position where they have to do so. They just skip to the end where they win in the imaginary battle. But what did they win? The right to be an ostracized and impoverished pocket surrounded by an enemy. Yay?
“Against the government” has to be one of the worst arguments ever.
That is generally the case when one is operating on sheer, blind faith rather than an understanding of the subject.
lol, I grew up with firearms, and still own some. Your declaration of my understanding doesn’t make it so. Blind faith? I don’t even know what you’re trying to get at. Save your thoughts and prayers for the next person.
A piece of plastic is not an arm.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a 30 round magazine or a bump stock.
This idea that somehow the second amendment is unlimited is unprecedented and insane.
I mean… perhaps you aren’t a native English speaker? The text of the law is literally unlimited. Any weapon restriction is an infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.
Perhaps you’re not an American? Perhaps you don’t know the history of your own country?
From Jefferson and Madison banning guns on campus to gun control being commonplace in the old west to the 1934 NFA that outlawed sawed off shotguns to the 1986 NFA that banned full-autos, it has never been unlimited.
Former chief justice Warren Burger called this out in 1991. That’s what conservatism used to look like. What you’re parroting is NRA propaganda. It’s unprecedented and it’s insane.
Ok, we have now established that I am debating with someone from a different country. You obviously care way too much about the freedoms enjoyed by Americans, considering that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to or affect you at all.
That ban is illegal per the Second Amendment. It doesn’t matter what Jefferson and Madison intended, because the text of the amendment, a legal document, prohibits the government from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Period. You can’t change your mind without amending the document, just like you can’t arbitrarily go and change a contract agreement after you’ve signed it.
Same thing. Just because it happened doesn’t mean it was legal. Source: 2nd Amendment, U.S. Constitution
The NFA is so illegal. The ATF needs to be abolished and the NFA should be overturned or repealed. There is no way to reconcile the NFA with the 2nd Amendment.
Man, I hate it when Europeans chime in about the Second Amendment. You really have no idea what you’re talking about.
Wrong. American and from the south, no less. 0 points for you ad hominem attack.
Wrong again. The second amendment had nothing to do with gun control until the 20th century.
It was widely understood to be a collective right to provide for the national defense.
The NRA actually lobbied in favor of the 1934 NFA. Gangsters with street sweepers is not responsible gun ownership.
Just because you say something is illegal doesn’t make it so.
You need to read more.
I’d argue handwaving away rejections of your own nonsense - which appears to hinge on anything but the actual amendment and its intent - as mere “NRA propaganda” is both actively preventing useful, rational discourse and highlighting the extent to which you retreat behind your own biases rather than confront being wrong.
Ooh, cherry picking from a Heller lawyer, I’m sure that’s unbiased.
edit: I liked the part where he mentions the first draft of the Virginia state constitution but not the final draft, but then omits the first draft of the US constitution. Delicious cherries.
Another one: The use of “bear arms” in an 18th century context almost always meant “in military service.” Scalia even acknowledges this, but says only when used in “bear arms against.”
But it doesn’t matter. Halbrook points out that the Pennsylvania declaration of independence says: “That the people have a right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State.” Ok. Why is “in defense of themselves” a specifically enumerated right? Because the term “bear arms” doesn’t apply to self-defense otherwise.
And self-defense was not the point of the second amendment, the security of a free state was.
I guess it makes a lot of sense when you just ignore all counterfactual evidence.
It’s simple. For 220 years, this was not an individual, unlimited right. Then Scalia hand waved away two centuries of precedent and decided the text magically aligned with his activist agenda.
They are, though.
Who wrote that, Benitez?
He’s making shit up and he knows it.
I’m sure you guys won’t complain if every magazine, optic and accessory is required to ship to an FFL for paperwork before getting to the customer. 'Cause they’re “arms” now, right?
That’s an interesting assertion - especially given the lack of actual criticism of his ruling and its arguments.
This wouldn’t be denial, would it?
You might want to revisit his provided statement on the matter - it wasn’t very ambiguous.
That said, you’re certainly welcome to try to push for such - SCOTUS has a history of slapping down such ban-incrementalist measures lately and I suspect that such a laughable overreach is more likely to result in erosion of FFL processes and requirements.
Really. He decides to reclassify a accessories as arms, and that’s not a valid criticism. He’s legislating from the bench.
And you might want to link it. I just guessed.
Applied slightly differently - When they wrote the amendment, civilians had complete parity with military - should be the same today.
Fine. Want to own guns? Say hello to boot camp. Some of those Gravy Seals and Tacticool LARPERs are gonna have a hard time.
I believe you misunderstand, perhaps intentionally. Civilians had complete parity - not army recruits.
As stupid as what you wrote is, funny enough you’re on the right track.
I think a gun safety course taught in middle school with a refresher in high school will effectively end the gun debate and save thousands of lives.
Now you’re not cool because you have a gun. Everyone has shot a gun.
Now you don’t accidentally shoot your friend in the head because your found daddy’s gun and started playing with it.
Now you’re not deathly afraid of the thought of guns because you’ve shot one and realized it’s just a tool like a car or chainsaw.
The 2nd Ammendment doesn’t specify that one has the right to keep and bear arms that were made when it was written, nor any other arms specifically. It, instead, states that one has the right to keep and bear arms, in the general sense, and such a right should not be infringed. Any deviation from the general interperetation is an infringement on one’s rights. One does have to think about what objects are themselves as arms, but this exclusive mentality is very different from an inclusive mentality.
Yes, and flintlocks are arms as well.
So give them access to those, and none other. So their 2nd amendment isn’t infringed and the real deadly guns aren’t being sold on the black market anymore.
Show me where the Second Amendment states that it only applies to weapons available at its ratification. By that logic, the First Amendment only applies to forms of speech and communication that existed in 1791.
The ruling in question highlights magazines are effectively arms and magazine sizes cannot be arbitrarily restricted, even when integral.
At the time the 2nd amendment was written they had muskets. Give them muskets.
This is false. The Chambers gun, the Girandoni air rifle, and other “high capacity” repeating arms existed and were known to the framers of the Constitution.
okay, those are fine too.
You realize “repeating arm” is essentially an AR-15? If you think the second amendment covers repeating arms like the AR-15 then what is your argument?
Cartridges didn’t exist at the time of writing the 2nd. None of those guns used them and the authors of the 2nd had no idea such a thing would be developed. Rifling in firearms was a niche modification that required hand etching of the barrel and not commonly used nor available until the mid 19th century. The founding fathers had no conception of the reliability, accuracy, or speed of modern firearms.
The 2nd Amendment doesn’t specify any limitation on which arms it covers. Any weapon of any kind technically cannot be restricted because of the 2nd Amendment.
The 2nd Amendment specifically says “the right to bear arms”, not “the right to bear muskets”.
It also says it’s so you can have well regulated militias but the wording is vague about the link between the two.
In the context of the constitution, “regulated” means “trained”. So rather than meaning a militia that is heavily regulated by the state, they’re talking about trained people. Moreover, it was understood that the people that were being called up were armed with their personal weapons–not supplied by the gov’t–and that they were going to be shooting on their own time.
The frames of the constitution intended the people to have access to military arms, to be training themselves in their use, and to be ready to use them at a moment’s notice.
They opposed a standing military and police force for all the reasons that we’ve seen over the last (almost) 250 years.
So does the training include keeping weapons safely and not waving them around in provocation? Are there mental health standards to meet? Or does it just mean someone knows where the trigger is?
Interestingly enough, that was a legal obligation in the colonies; powder could not be stored in the house because it was an explosive risk. Currently, some states have safe storage requirements, but they’re legally unenforceable.
That’s called brandishing, and it’s a crime by itself in most states.
Most training starts with safety, and progresses through basic marksmanship. I learned most of that from my father, grandfather, scoutmaster, and the RSO at Boy Scout Camp, and it’s been further reinforced by every RSO at every range and competition I’ve been too.