That tells us nothing and is a red herring in its own right.
Of course people can kill people without guns. Been done for pretty much all of human history. A pen, a skillet, your bare hands…most anything can be a weapon.
What this obscures is that a gun is the most efficient means of killing people. If it weren’t our soldiers would be carrying frying pans to bash people with or something.
Making killing simpler and more approachable has a predictable effect that more people will opt for using one. I do not think it is a stretch to suppose someone might have the gumption to use a gun and go after someone but would not try if they had to use a knife and get close and personal (obviously some will but then some won’t).
Doubtless some of those that used firearms would have used another method if a gun was not available to them but I seriously doubt all or even most would have.
No, they cannot. The National Firearms Act of 1934 has deemed each of those “Destructive Devices”, and as such cannot be owned by civilians in a functional form without going through the process required for NFA weapons. The M61 Vulcan is additionally considered an automatic weapon, and as such cannot be registered if it was not made before March of 1986.
Of course, all of this assumes that the manufacturers and/or government would be willing to sell any of them to you intact AND that the local Chief Law Enforcement Officer would sign off on the purchase, neither of which is going to happen. They might be OK with a demilitarized, non-functional weapon of this type being used for a memorial, but they would almost certainly not consent to a private citizen owning any of the above.
So, now that we have the ridiculous examples out of the way, perhaps we can do something more constructive than say “OOH OOH NUKES ARE ARMS!!!” The rhetoric that this topic draws is pointless, inflammatory, and it detracts from anything that might be considered constructive.
I noticed you didn’t mention anything about why those laws are constitutional given that the plain reading of the 2nd amendment clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Are you saying they’re not arms?
I am aware of this. I’m also aware that there are people who loudly oppose these limits and claim that firearm ownership is an absolute right which should not have any limits.
Some of the responses to the OP exemplify a fundamental difficulty in this debate: there are really two questions here, and it is hard to separate them:
Does the Constitution guarantee a private right to gun ownership?
Is a private right to gun ownership a good idea?
In my experience, everyone tends to answer both questions the same way. That is, either you believe 1) the 2nd Amendment prevents the government from making any laws depriving citizens of firearms, and gun ownership is an important right in civilized society OR 2) the 2nd Amendment should be read to allow the government to limit gun ownership to a very small subset of the populace, and letting people own firearms is a stupid and dangerous endeavor. Very few people split the questions. Nobody says “Well I think anyone should be allowed to own a gun, but unfortunately, the 2nd Amendment prevents this,” or “actually, the 2nd Amendment is crystal clear that we must be allowed guns, which is a shame, because gun ownership is a plague on society.”
The OP here has tried to start a debate on Question #1, but inevitably, people come in and start to argue question #2.
I’m one of the rare people who split the questions. I believe the OP hit the nail on the head with Question #1 – it is ridiculous to try to twist the 2nd Amendment to mean the opposite of what it says. But I firmly believe that the answer to Question #2 is “no.” A universal right to gun ownership is bad policy.
There are two solutions that I can see. First, a new Amendment could be ratified that repealed the 2nd. This is not foreseeable. Second, the SCOTUS could emphatically not incorporate the 2nd Amendment to the states through the 14th Amendment. This makes the most sense to me. The 2nd Amendment (like all of the first eight Amendments) originated to protect the people of the states from the Federal government. Not, as the OP suggests, to define the limits of a non-tyrannical government, and not to protect the people from their state governments. I see no reason why the 10th Amendment should not be applied here, and the decision whether to allow citizens to own guns be left to the individual states. Let it be like the grand jury: an unincorporated Federal right.
A red herring indeed. It’s like claiming there’s no point in having speed limits because some people have accidents when they’re driving 10 mph. True - but people driving 100 mph have a lot more accidents. And people with guns are a lot more dangerous than people with frying pans.
I am saying that the Supreme Court of the United States has deemed them to be weapons that the citizenry should not be allowed access to. Unless you would care to argue that Judicial Review is itself illegal, those laws have been deemed legal and have been in place for a long enough time that the legal precept of laches may well apply. Those are established laws and are well nigh unassailable.
Again, it is absurd to say that the 2nd Amendment has no limits. It has tons of them.
I’d oppose this. There’s no reason to treat the constitutional right of firearm ownership any differently than any other personal right. (Grand juries and the setting of fines are issues directly involved with the court system so it makes sense to keep them unincorporated and let each state jurisdiction set its own rules.) If the 14th Amendment incorporates every other personal right, it should incorporate the 2nd Amendment.
It’s totally silly to say you can’t debate whether a decision was correct or not simply because it’s been made. That’s especially true of a supreme court decision that can be changed at any time merely by redeciding the issue in a new case.
Even if you were to accept that the Constitution permits the government to abrogate its citizens right to keep and bear certain arms, how do you decide which ones? Apparently the 2nd amendment is no guide, since it says all arms are allowed.
It sounds like it would easily pass constitutional muster to ban all firearms if we just pass a law saying they are weapons of destruction. Only knives and sticks will be allowed. Why is that any more or less absurd of a limit, from a constitutional perspective, than what we’ve got now?
Those people are wrong. The Supreme Court, even if they incorporate the 2nd Amendment, will not overturn NFA 1934 or GCA 1968. They might overturn the Hughes Amendment, but I wouldn’t bet on that.
The people who argue for no controls whatsoever live in a different world than you and I. There is no need to hold them up as examples of mainstream thought. They are not. The debate is not about limits, it’s about what those limits should be. Those people are no more credible than those who call for a complete gun ban.
The Supreme Court has had ample time and opportunity to toss Miller. They have not. It is not going to change, they are not going to reverse it.
This is a bit trickier, and a good question. As it stands now, it is more about what laws Congress can pass. A prime example of this was the 1993 Assault Weapons Ban. That sunsetted because there was no evidence that it accomplished anything. It probably will not be restored. Somewhere down the road a new law will be suggested, it will be adopted, and it will probably face scrutiny in the courts. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it should be.
No. Given that there is a law that already describes certain weapons as “Destructive Devices”, attempting to backdoor the Constitution by classifying all weapons as DDs could never stand scrutiny. There’s far too much history against something like that for it to stand up.
It’s not a no-brainer. We have limits on speech, limits on religion, limits on unreasonable search and seizure… we have limits on all of our rights. Why should the 2nd be unique in that regard? You have a right to keep and bear arms, and the government, for better or worse, has an interest in what arms those might be.
It currently is. If the Supremes overturn the Slaughter-House Cases like Gura wants them to do in McDonald v. Chicago, the Bill of Rights will be incorporated in its entirety. As it should be. It is the Bill of Rights, after all.
Are you using “scrutiny” as a term of art here, or are you just saying you don’t think the court would buy the new definition?
What would be the reasoning behind the distinction between what has already been classified as “Destructive Devices” and shotgun. If you answer this, please actually give the legal reasoning for making the distinction (i.e., how a law banning private owenrship of destructive devices (as written) passes constitutional muster, whereas an identicial law but for the inclusion of shotguns in the definition of “Destructive Device” would not).
First, he’s not asking whether there has been a ruling, he’s asking you to defend the rationale behiond that ruling given the plain reading of the Amendment.
Second, how would laches apply? In what context? I get the idea you might be outside of your wheelhouse here, at least with respect to the law.
Finally, (though this seems obvious) no law is unassailable, always being subject to attack from the legislative process and judicial review.
I don’t think the court would buy the new definition.
The National Firearms Act of 1934 has distinct definitions. A legal shotgun has a precise definition and is not characterized as a “Destructive Device”. To change that characterization, re-categorizing it as a Destructive Device, would be a brazen attempt to change what has been enshrined in law for over 80 years. If that were the intent of the people who wrote the law, surely they would have done so. They had no trouble writing a precise definition for a short-barreled shotgun (see US v. Miller).
What rationale do I have to defend? Most of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights have caveats and exceptions. The provisions of the 1st Amendment, for example, have been argued to a fare-thee-well, in spite of its plain text.
I’m baffled as to what you’re asking, quite frankly.
Perhaps you’re right, but from my perspective it would be difficult indeed to argue down an 85-year-old law based on the fact that the law has been the law for so long that there is no remedy available to overturn it. On what basis would the court overturn the National Firearms Act of 1934? That it’s illegal? It’s been law for 85 years. Perhaps Aquiescence might be better here?
It is obvious. However, some are safer than others.