The “slippery slope,” however, is now gone. The U.S. Supreme Court took it off the table yesterday in their D.C. v. Heller opinion. Government is now barred from “taking away” the guns of law-abiding Americans.
Because of this Court decision, proposals such as Brady background checks on all gun sales, limiting bulk sales of handguns, restricting access to military-style assault weapons, and strengthening the power of law enforcement to shut down corrupt gun dealers can now be debated on their merits without them being seen as a “first step on the road to gun confiscation.”
Yeah, except the slippery slope argument was only ancillary.  I’m still going to argue that you’re wrong, and that the laws are unconstitutional. This changes nothing for us, but it does change a lot for them. Now all these proposals have to answer to a very high level of scrutiny, because, you see, they infringe on fundamental constitutional rights. Time will reveal this.
It’ll certainly change things in the 9th circuit since they can no longer just say “I’m sorry, but the 2A is a collective right of state militias, so you can’t challenge law X at all.”
Besides, the slippery slope argument is not gone–between microstamping (both guns and ammunition), “smart guns,” licensing, registration, etc., they can regulate the right (how’s that for an oxymoron) out of existence.
District’s law is permissible so long as it is “not enforced in an
arbitrary and capricious manner.†(Heller v. DC p 59)
That to me means “needs proof a law works with minimal intrusion.”
Good luck getting your junk past Scalia, Paul.
PS- See how they want to limit “Assault” weapons. What happened to ban, banners?
I thought “limit” more or less does mean “ban” to the Bradys. Which, if I am reading Heller correctly, is proscribed by the 2A…
I agree with Kurt — outright bans were already politically impractical if not legally impermissible outside of most urban centers. The gun grabbers have therefore been resorting to a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy for years. If the cumulative effect of gun control regulations is to make handgun ownership so onerous that nobody bothers, then that’s a de facto ban if not a de jure one.
And that’s what we need to be concerned with.
Actually, what Heller changes is that THEY are on the slippery slope now…
And you can tell they don’t much like it…