Bryan Miller shares his thoughts on Heller:
Know what? I’d consider [a ruling favoring Heller] a victory for public safety, for common sense and for the gun violence prevention community. Why? It would remove the debate about guns and gun violence from the static and useless 2nd amendment arena and put it squarely in the ‘reasonableness’ arena, unencumbered by the 2nd amendment argument that the gun industy and lobby and chicken-hearted legislators and pols hide behind. I’m totally comfortable placing debates and decisions about gun legislation and laws in that arena, where the issue of public safety will be supreme.
I hate to break it to Bryan, but this isn’t going to end the debate. It’s just going to alter it, and whether he wants to admit it or not, this shifts the debate considerably in our favor. Yes, the gun issue will end up settling in an area where neither side is entirely happy, but if the second amendment is treated as an individual right, it going to be the gun control movement that’s most unhappy. Most rights are not subject to a “reasonableness” test, but to strict scrutiny, and even if The Court adopts an intermediate level of scrutiny, the burden is still on gun control advocates, not those of us who claim our liberty.
As has been stated before, if prohibition is off the table, there’s a good chance many of the supporters in the gun control movement, who hate guns and want to see them banned outright, are going to give up on the issue.
The RKBA should be subject to no more restriction than the right to Assembly, and should be offered at least as much deference as Miranda offers for the 5th.
We let criminals go rather than infringe the 5th amendment rights of event the most ‘obviously’ guilty.
Assembly rights are probably the best example of what is, and is not, legal. Assembly cannot be infringed on the mere suspicion or possibility of danger, nor can it be infringed in one case while allowed for another.
Sure, fire marshal rules apply to maximum occupancy and one must keep the march or assembly safe, but using any kind of permitting system to SUPPRESS the right is an egregious violation for both assembly and the RKBA.
No licenses to vote or reading tests means that using licensing and registration or fees for suppress the RKBA is on very thin ice if not already sunk.
Cripes, he trots out the old ‘one-gun-a-month’ shyt again. I’ll TELL you what’s wrong with one gun a month:
1. It does NOTHING to deter CRIMINALS, who DON’T OBEY LAWS.
2. If, as a collector, I go to an estate sale and want to bid on more than one gun, either I’m screwed, or the seller has to agree to hold the weapons for me (which will be subject to a fair fee, IF he agrees) until each gun can be released. Ditto if I want to buy a matching-caliber pistol/rifle combo for my cowboy-action hobby, ditto if I find a nice set of duelling pistols that catches my eye. And during all this hullabaloo, if I happen to run across any OTHER great deals, tough sh*t, I’ve already use up my “gun quota” this month… and next.
3. As previously pointed out, how are you going to track my gun purchases without forming an illegal database?
4. Why? If someone is a criminal, one gun a month is too many. If not, there is no good reason s/he shouldn’t be able to buy 100 guns a day (or more). The current NICS system tells you ALL you need to know.
I really couldn’t care less about what Bryan Miller has to say on the Heller decision.
Bryan Miller lives somewhere in New Jersey, a state with firearms laws which are not even based in reality. One such example of this is New Jersey’s “smart gun” law, which mandates that all civilian-owned handguns be equipped with a high-tech access system that is not even commercially available yet. (Police-issue handguns would be exempt from this law, of course, because no cop would ever trust this technology to be 100% foolproof.)
This is what passes for “common sense” gun legislation in New Jersey – a law which will restrict the citizens to owning only handguns which currently exist just in theory and science fiction.
Well Earl, now you don’t have to care. The Supreme Court just ruled it’s an individual right, no matter what Bryan Miller says.