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Appeals Court upholds DC registration requirements and gun bans

okboomer

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I have a question regarding the use of "longstanding" in para 2, page 14 ... where Ginsburg is discussing the limitations on the 2A that were based on:

This is a reasonable presumption because a regulation that is "longstanding," which necessarily means it has long been accepted by the public, is not likely to burden a constitutional right; concomitantly the activities covered by a longstanding regulation are presumptively not protected from regulation by the Second Amendment.

Does the court recognize any/all challenges to the regulation in determining whether it is "accepted by the public" when determining bearing on current subject?
 

wrightme

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I have a question regarding the use of "longstanding" in para 2, page 14 ... where Ginsburg is discussing the limitations on the 2A that were based on:



Does the court recognize any/all challenges to the regulation in determining whether it is "accepted by the public" when determining bearing on current subject?

I have not completed my review of this one yet, but I notice a glaring difference between this and Heller.

Heller "does not cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions......"

In this case, and several cited cases, that seems to have shifted to "longstanding" regulations.

I intend to review specifically the cases cited by this court wrt that specific wordplay. If they were referring to Heller to use as background, why do they not cite the wording of Heller properly for that specific?
 
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okboomer

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Do you feel that the whole tone of this ruling is diametrical to the tone of Heller also?

Is this a demonstration of "strict scrutiny" as opposed to "intermediate scrutiny" (page 20)?
 
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okboomer

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4. Assault Weapons and Large-Capacity Magazines

b. Intermediate scrutiny is appropriate
...
Here, too, the prohibition of semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines does not effectively disarm individuals or substantially affect their ability to defend themselves.​


Did they just open the door on state or local regulation of semi-auto rifles such as AR-15?

 

Tawnos

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This reminds me of "the scientific method" versus "the creationist method" comic. Except instead of a copy of Genesis, the guy on the right has a copy of the Brady Campaign handbook, and it's titled "The gun control method".

In other words, the majority opinion appears to have started from their desired outcome and worked backwards, then did a bit of handwaving in the middle where things didn't exactly mesh (e.g. "yeah, so they're 100% common use weapons... uh, still banning them is okay!").

Hopefully the SC will take this one up and we can get a meaningful next step.
 

since9

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Sometimes I think judges make things far more complicated than necessary simply to provide employment for their lawyer offspring.

How difficult would it have been for the Supreme court to say, "X infringes on the right to keep and bear arms and is therefore un-Constitutional."
 

skidmark

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I am only part-way through my first reading of the opinion, but am pausing to note that the Court makes consistent and repeated reference to "self defense" and "hunting" when citing the uses for firearms, and only tangentially has made an extremely limited reference to "sporting" use - and then completely ignores such sporting use as the recreational event commonly known as "three-gun" shooting, or the recreational event of "high power" marksmanship using long guns (or anologs of those long guns) previously or currently in use by the military. It is as if the Court is consciously attempting to narrow the field to "self defense" and "hunting" so that, among all other things, it can say that since there is no hunting that takes place in DC the rule against "assault weapons" is facially valid.

Have others noticed this? Do others reach the same conclusion?

stay safe.
 

wrightme

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skid, I have noticed the same thing. The portions I have read so far, read as if the court reached a decision, THEN went out and picked the information they felt supported the decision, and ignored the exculpatory information. (if that is the correct term and usage).

THe parts that do not support the decision are either ignored, minimized, or word-gamed to make it look supporting. Similar to the "'longstanding' regulation" vs the true "longstanding prohibition."

The proper cite is "longstanding prohibition," yet the court cut/pastes "longstanding" and "regulation" out of context to support their viewpoint.
 

paramedic70002

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Am I correct that a paraphrasing of this is:

"Since the government and the courts have a LONGSTANDING tradition of infringing the Second Amendment, then such infringement is considered Constitutional and proper."

Man I hate complicated legalese!
 

wrightme

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Yep.

SCOTUS, in Heller, stated that the Heller decision did not "cast doubt" upon some existing regulations. The courts seem to liberally reinterpret that to be analogous to "the Heller decision supports existing regulations."

Quite the stretch if you ask me.
 

TFred

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Yep.

SCOTUS, in Heller, stated that the Heller decision did not "cast doubt" upon some existing regulations. The courts seem to liberally reinterpret that to be analogous to "the Heller decision supports existing regulations."

Quite the stretch if you ask me.
Forgive me, any time I see someone talk about this part of the Heller decision, I always try to fill in the extremely important blanks.

Here is the full quote:

"Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.26"

Note the all-important footnote, 26, which states:

"26 We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive."

What this means is that not only did Heller not state that these prohibitions pass constitutional muster, but they explicitly stated (by using the word "presumptively") that they did not even consider the matter. At all!

As is almost always the case in complex court cases, only the issues at the very core of the matter are considered. This nearly universally misunderstood part of Heller is the fictitious "gas" that the anti-gun crowd is running on, but unfortunately, what many of the lower anti-gun courts are also basing their flawed opinions on as well.

I want to know how long before these horribly incorrect opinions make their way back up to the SCOTUS for some serious slap-downs.

TFred
 

wrightme

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Forgive me
TFred
No forgiveness necessary, thank you for the clarity.

I posted the little bit from memory, and did not take the time to present the full quote or analysis. :)


But, yes. They didn't review existing regulations, but only mentioned that the Heller decision did not break all existing regulations in one swell foop. Darn it.
 

DocWalker

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Am I correct that a paraphrasing of this is:

"Since the government and the courts have a LONGSTANDING tradition of infringing the Second Amendment, then such infringement is considered Constitutional and proper."

Man I hate complicated legalese!

What it means is that the goverment and courts are slowly taking away your rights as to not let you notice they are being taken away. Eventually it will get to the point the goverment declares martial law and becomes a dictatership. Might not be in my life time but will be in the next 100 years or so. The 2A was written so that the average citizen could not only protect themselves and their family from harm but to protect it from the goverment it self. If the goverment can over power it's citizens then it can become a dictatership. Eventually the average american will be facing a goverment armed with the latest AUTOMATIC weapons (paid for by the taxpayer) and force the citizens to bow to them. It will be like the goverment having a tank and the citizen a single shot musket.
 

okboomer

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Skid,

Now, I have seen you chastise folks for seeing conspiracies behind every tree and rock :p

But, yes, the deliberate exclusion of any valid use of mil-spec civilian rifles is still sticking in my craw.

And, I was quite annoyed at the response to the dissent where Ginsburg basically dismissed the citation of the Heller decision in support of striking down parts of the DC registration.
 

Redbaron007

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As is almost always the case in complex court cases, only the issues at the very core of the matter are considered. This nearly universally misunderstood part of Heller is the fictitious "gas" that the anti-gun crowd is running on, but unfortunately, what many of the lower anti-gun courts are also basing their flawed opinions on as well.

I want to know how long before these horribly incorrect opinions make their way back up to the SCOTUS for some serious slap-downs.

TFred

As always, with these cases, the devil is in the details.

Excellent summary.

Thx!
 
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