pdsmith505
Member
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2013
- Messages
- 736
Starting with the obligatory link to the ruling in question:
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/04/06/Worman dismissal-SJ ruling 4-6-18.pdf
Judge William G. Young (a Reagan appointee) stated, among other things:
In his discussion on the scope of the second amendment:
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/04/06/Worman dismissal-SJ ruling 4-6-18.pdf
Judge William G. Young (a Reagan appointee) stated, among other things:
The AR-15 and its analogs, along with large capacity magazines [>10 rounds], are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to "bear Arms."
Both their general acceptance and their regulation, if any, are policy matters not for courts, but left to the people directly through their elected representatives. In the absence of federal legislation, Massachusetts is free to ban these weapons and large capacity magazines. Other states are equally free to leave them unregulated and available to their law-abiding citizens. These policy matters are simply not of constitutional moment. Americans are not afraid of bumptious, raucous, and robust debate about these matters. We call it democracy.
Justice Scalia would be proud.
In his discussion on the scope of the second amendment:
As noted supra, the Supreme Court explained in Caetano that "Heller rejected the proposition 'that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected.'" [citation omitted here, and elsewhere]. Heller did not make such a rejection, however, in order to conclude that all weapons useful in warfare are protected. On the contrary, Heller rejected that premise because it would lead to the "startling" conclusion that "the National Firearms Act's restrictions on machineguns ... might be unconstitutional, machine guns being useful in warfare in 1939." Thus, as Heller concluded, it cannot be that "only those weapons useful in warfare are protected," because some of those weapons are not protected. Id. Weapons that are most useful in military service, as Justice Scalia later observed, fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment and may be banned.
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