Sam Adams
Member
More on "dangerous and unusual"
From Heller:
In order to ban M16s (and the like) altogether, the Court would have to ratify the detachment between the prefatory and operative clauses. Scalia also mentioned that it is not the Court's job to nullify the 2nd Amendment.
Such detachment would move to the present day the detachment that the decision said could NOT be made - IOW, the 2nd does NOT only protect muskets, but those weapons in common use (i.e. at any particular point in time).
OK, says someone against the removal of the '86 FOPA ban on new full autos, M16s are not in common use now (2008), nor are any other full autos. Yes, that may be true in the civilian population, but there's a reason for that: the '34 NFA made full autos prohibitively expensive and the '86 FOPA made them illegal. Somehow, I don't see the Court being so obtuse as to not understand this. By that logic, the government could ban the next umteen generations of basic infantry weapons, and we mere citizens will someday be stuck with 500 year old ARs attempting to fight Imperial Storm Troopers with phasers, etc.
Please note that all branches of the armed forces, many police departments, all National Guard units, and all foreign armed forces (with the possible exception of the Pope's Swiss Guard) have full autos. LOTS of them. In fact, they're standard issue. How many full auto m16s and m4s in the US today? I don't know, but I'll venture at least 5 million. That seems pretty common to me - definitely more common than, say, Beretta 92s, which are undoubtedly protected as being in "common use."
Another thing to consider is that if the M16 and other full autos are SOOOO DANGEROUS, why have they NEVER been illegal? Go grab about $10,000-$15,000, fill out some paper work, get CLEO sign-off (or not, if you've got a corp. or trust) and buy the lousy tax stamp and you can buy an M16 manufactured on 5/18/1986. That's fine, that's OK, that's completely legal. But dont' EVER try to buy one made on 5/20/86 or afterwards - strictly verboten, those are - highly dangerous and unusual, don't you know. Guess what, such a ban doesn't even pass rational scrutiny, let alone intermediate or strict. It is simply stupid - as stupid as DC's law. Both banned guns not registered before a date certain, while allowing those registered earlier.
From Heller:
In order to ban M16s (and the like) altogether, the Court would have to ratify the detachment between the prefatory and operative clauses. Scalia also mentioned that it is not the Court's job to nullify the 2nd Amendment.
Such detachment would move to the present day the detachment that the decision said could NOT be made - IOW, the 2nd does NOT only protect muskets, but those weapons in common use (i.e. at any particular point in time).
OK, says someone against the removal of the '86 FOPA ban on new full autos, M16s are not in common use now (2008), nor are any other full autos. Yes, that may be true in the civilian population, but there's a reason for that: the '34 NFA made full autos prohibitively expensive and the '86 FOPA made them illegal. Somehow, I don't see the Court being so obtuse as to not understand this. By that logic, the government could ban the next umteen generations of basic infantry weapons, and we mere citizens will someday be stuck with 500 year old ARs attempting to fight Imperial Storm Troopers with phasers, etc.
Please note that all branches of the armed forces, many police departments, all National Guard units, and all foreign armed forces (with the possible exception of the Pope's Swiss Guard) have full autos. LOTS of them. In fact, they're standard issue. How many full auto m16s and m4s in the US today? I don't know, but I'll venture at least 5 million. That seems pretty common to me - definitely more common than, say, Beretta 92s, which are undoubtedly protected as being in "common use."
Another thing to consider is that if the M16 and other full autos are SOOOO DANGEROUS, why have they NEVER been illegal? Go grab about $10,000-$15,000, fill out some paper work, get CLEO sign-off (or not, if you've got a corp. or trust) and buy the lousy tax stamp and you can buy an M16 manufactured on 5/18/1986. That's fine, that's OK, that's completely legal. But dont' EVER try to buy one made on 5/20/86 or afterwards - strictly verboten, those are - highly dangerous and unusual, don't you know. Guess what, such a ban doesn't even pass rational scrutiny, let alone intermediate or strict. It is simply stupid - as stupid as DC's law. Both banned guns not registered before a date certain, while allowing those registered earlier.
