It would analyzed as a time, place, manner restriction, surely. So the question would be merely whether it was properly tailored to whatever purpose it was passed for. In the hypothetical world in which 200+ page books lead to more deaths than multi-volume version of the same book, such a law would very likely survive First Amendment scrutiny.
But this analogy is unfair to your side, isn’t it? The degree of impact of separating a book into volumes on the book’s communicative content is probably less than the impact of separating magazines on effective self-defense (or other Second Amendment protected interests, to the extent they exist).
What world would that be? Seriously, is there an actual scenario you can paint for us where a causal relationship could be established between the number of pages in a book and the murder rate?
I’m happy to compose a weird sci-fi story for you in which single volumes pose grave threats, but I think you’d be somewhat missing the point if you’re observing that the factual world of the analogy is unlikely to come to pass. The point of Bricker’s comparison was to show that if we treated the Second Amendment like the First, then there would need to be some greater justification for infringement than some theorized harm. But that’s false. The First Amendment allows for such restrictions on little more justification than minor harm-reduction. Presumably, over time Second Amendment jurisprudence will become similarly complex and nuanced, and I would expect magazine capacity to fall into a different category than, say, a handgun ban (though, as I pointed out, I don’t think the book volume analogy is fair to supporters of a strong Second Amendment).
Of course, the very hypothesis that 200+ page books lead to more deaths than their slimmer cousins is suspect – just as the hypothesis that lower magazine capacity is also safer is less than solidly established. Correct?
Yes. Though, as with the other comparison, I’m not sure that helps your argument much. The weakest way to attack a piece of legislation under time/place/manner review is to attack the legislature’s judgment that harm is being caused.
If a legislature were to conclude that magazine capacity affects gun deaths, there is enough evidence for that to survive the scrutiny it would receive under the analogous First Amendment standard of review, whether or not it is the wisest or best factual conclusion the legislature could reach. The far better constitutional argument would be that, again by analogy, the change does not leave open sufficient alternative means of exercising the right (in this case, self-defense) because magazine capacity does affect that at the margins.
But here we’re not yet at that point – we have a bunch of people urging the legislature to adopt this determination.
Agreed. But the two arguments are not mutually exclusive. I can certainly argue that there is no real harm, and that even if there is, the prohibition forecloses alternate means to exercise the right.
Of course. But I took your point to be that the Second Amendment argument is strengthened by reference to how such things might be treated under the First Amendment. So I was addressing, by analogy, how both arguments about the reality of the harm and arguments about time/place/manner restrictions are treated. In both categories, I don’t think the analogy to the First Amendment is helpful to those who want to argue that magazine limits are unconstitutional.
I think I’m missing something. Why would a restriction on 200 page books which lead to greater deaths than multi volume versions of the same book be evaluated under the time, place, manner criteria? That criteria leads to an intermediate scrutiny analysis, however what you are suggesting is far from content neutral. Evaluating the content of the books to determine impact is the opposite of content neutral. I think the analysis you suggest would only be used if this 200 page restriction was placed upon ALL books. Is that what you’re saying? Otherwise, strict scrutiny would apply and I’m thinking such a restriction would fall.
I agree that this is not really a productive use of the gun control lobby’s political capital.
The one situation that the gun control lobby relies on for their push for magazine caps is a mass shooting where the shooter hasn’t practiced reloading their weapon (See Gabby Gifford shooting).
It shouldn’t take anyone more than 2 seconds to reload a magazine and if you practiced, I bet you could do it in under a second.
A well practiced shooter will reload their magazine well before their magazine is empty so you can’t count their shots to wait for them to be empty and the magazines have extra weight and fall out easily without the need to pull them out (see Virginia Tech shooting).
Aside from the fact that it would be virtually impossible to enforce such a ban at the national level, there are very few arguments that really support capping magazine size. I don’t think it would affect my life very much but it would simply be another pain in the ass law that I have to comply with that will make me resistant to any other law that comes down the pipeline.
Then why does a cop need more rounds? If a guy attacks me during a traffic stop you think it’s ok for me to have a 15 round mag in my pistol, but if the same guy broke into my home and attacked me then I’d only need a 10 round magazine?
Few people have their house catch on fire but we don’t tell them how many extinguishers and smoke alarms they’re allowed to have.
BTW, as of this month been on the job 32 years in a major metro area and never shot anyone. By your stupid standard I didn’t need any bullets at all.
Please stop being an anti gun moron. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. Do you see me talking about makeup and what girl you don’t like at work?
