# Seventh Circuit sez: Second Amendment individual rights get intermediate scrutiny! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066 "2009-11-18T20:51:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066/41 "2009-11-19T21:17:02Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Missed the edit window: > > And it also seems like the rational for these restrictions are circular. Even Scalia stated that a ban on machine gun possession would likely pass muster because machine guns aren’t commonly owned. Well, they aren’t commonly owned because they have been banned for 75 years. > > When they were commonly owned in 1934, shouldn’t the Federal Firearms Act have been struck down? But since it wasn’t, is that a good enough reason to ban machine guns? Because an unconstitutional law was allowed to stand for long enough to make the subject of the law too rare to be considered common? That stuns me. > > Couldn’t he just as easily have said that D.C. residents don’t commonly own handguns so they aren’t a militia weapon? Nitpick: the 1934 National Firearms Act did not actually ban automatic weapons and short-barreled shotguns. It did require federal registration and a tax which at the time amounted to something like 1000% of the value of a sawed-off shotgun, which the federal government swore blue in the face was merely a revenue-generating device, not in any way meant to be prohibatory :rolleyes:. The 1934 law is moot in localities (such as my state of Minnesota) which ban automatic weapons at the state level. I don’t know if anyone has tried to legally own a federally-registered automatic weapon and fought a state restriction over it. In general, for decades people acquiesced to strong state and local limitations on gun possession (no auto weapons, may-issue carry laws, municipal level handgun bans) because there wasn’t the sense of alarm that we were heading down the slope to **total** gun abolition; no one felt that Big Brother was out to completely disarm the citizenry. It wasn’t until ever-expanding Federal restrictions and the open proclaiming of some that yes, a total abolition was what they were working towards, that you got the backlash we’ve seen in recent years. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066/42 "2009-11-19T21:25:32Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > I took these statements at face value. Nothing in those statements says or fairly implies anything about the law being a talisman to prevent harm to my client. Nothing in those statements suggests I need a “reality check”. That said, I’d prefer to discuss the topic in this thread. If you feel the need to pit me, you have that right. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066/43 "2009-11-19T21:50:56Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > There would also be much less risk if he were indefinitely ‘detained’. Is that ok too? Why stop there? Let’s amputate his arms and legs then he will be no risk to anyone ever. :rolleyes: There is proportionality in these things. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066/44 "2009-11-19T23:05:26Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > You are more than welcome to try. If there ever comes a time that you can get 67 votes in the Senate and 38 states to pass it I’ll eat my hat. If we were to revisit the 2nd amendment either by the legislative/state route or by Constitutional convention, I’m strongly inclined to believe it would be “updated” to explicitly note the individual right to bear arms, and dispense with a lot of that 18th century “militia” language. > [@Miller](#): > > And now we release the tigers! 🙂 Once again, illustrating why you’re one my favorite posters here. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066/45 "2009-11-20T00:41:01Z")
> [@](#): > > You are more than welcome to try [to repeal the Second Amendment]. If there ever comes a time that you can get 67 votes in the Senate and 38 states to pass it I’ll eat my hat. To be clear, I don’t expect the Second Amendment to be repealed any time in my lifetime. All I’m saying is that certain decisions could bring support for it incrementally lower, and move the (very long) timescale on which it might eventually be repealed incrementally closer. Then, too, it’s not an all-or-nothing matter: Even with the Second Amendment entirely intact, the gun culture of the United States can change in a nearly-continuous fashion. A world in which the laws are exactly as they are now, but in which every law-abiding citizen independently decided not to own a gun, would be difficult to distinguish from one where ownership of guns were illegal. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066/46 "2009-11-20T04:16:24Z")
Except the second would probably have fewer law-abiding citizens and more guns. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seventh-circuit-sez-second-amendment-individual-rights-get-intermediate-scrutiny/518066.md?page=2)