imported post
marshaul wrote:
wrightme wrote:
Not Preventing is not the same as supporting.
You're right, but this isn't what the
Heller decision does.
It unnecessarily addresses the issue of scope, and concludes that the second amendment "cannot protect" ownership of "sophisticated" weapons. It looks at the issue, and supports it. It does not "not prevent" or not address the issue.
But AWD thinks the Heller speaks to "method restriction" of assault weapons.
AWDstylez wrote:
The restrictionon owning assault weapons is a METHOD restriction on the second amendmant. You said there is no such thing. You are wrong. Plain and simply, cut and dry, end of story.
AWDstylez wrote:
This is method restriction. Military style weapons (assualt weapons) are a METHOD of keeping and bearing arms.Heller allows for restrictions:
“The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.”
Method restriction, plain and simple.
The Heller decision supports restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, no one can deny that. Please explain to me how your claims that the right to keep and bear arms cannot be restricted hold any water in the light of the Heller decision.
According to AWD, Heller says assault weapons are allowed to be restricted.
marshaul wrote:
Clearly the Heller decision "cannot protect" the right to own an M-16 rifle. This is a means restriction.
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradi tion of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”...
But to say there is a "means restriction" supported by Heller, we need to get the meaning of "dangerous and unusual weapons."
It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.
I parsed this bit already, but if a critical reading is done, with your world view set aside for a minute, the first sentence claims that:
"if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause."
We see that the first sentence discusses detachment of the prefatory clause from the operative clause.
Following that statement, a discussion of typical arms possessed at home are compared with the "sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large."
We are still left without an accurate definition of "sophisticated arms." I may have one definition, and you may have another that is entirely different.
Now if we keep going, we come to "no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks."
Reasonably, we can now determine a
possible implied definition of "sophisticated arms" as those that could be "useful against modern-day bombers and tanks."
In the end, SCOTUS merely uses this paragraph to prove that the "limited [the] degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right."
That whole paragraph is not about "method limits" wrt the M-16, their variants, or any other firearms. It is most logically concluded to be about "sophisticated arms useful against modern-day bombers and tanks."
Truly, it does not "not prevent," or "support," or "declare," in any way "method restriction" of the M-16. It simply uses that "if" example to say that the prefatory clause may be detached from the operative clause.
In the quoted text you and AWD have presented, there simply is no logical case to support method restriction on assault weapons as indicated by AWD, or on M-16s and variants as suggested by you.
Now lets drop back a bit to AWD:
AWDstylez wrote:
The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.
This quote from Heller is the beginning of page 8 of the "opinion of the court," and is the middle part of the discussion of "arms" for definitions. Further down we find:
Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.
This is a direct contradiction to claims that DC v Heller allows any "method restriction."
f course, I have no doubt that you meant it as an insult. :quirky But, being that I live in Nevada, there is abundant area to shoot that is not a range, and is not prohibited from open or concealed carry, nor from discharge of firearms.
