"Miller" and the 2nd Amendment.

[Graystar]

Well, they erred that way intentionally...

They just ruled this way to get this case closed.

And you know this...how?

Back then there wasnt much in the form of logistics. You packed your own powder and ammo. I doubt anyone would have said there was a "proper" weapon for a militia.

Oh really...

The General Assembly of Virginia, October, 1785 declared: 'The defense and safety of the commonwealth depend upon having its citizens properly armed and taught the knowledge of military duty.'

It further provided for organization and control of the Militia and directed that 'All free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years,' with certain exceptions, 'shall be inrolled or formed into companies.' 'There shall be a private muster of every company once in two months.'

'Every officer and soldier shall appear at his respective muster-field on the day appointed, by eleven o'clock in the forenoon, armed, equipped, and accoutered, as follows: ... every non-commissioned officer and private with a good, clean musket carrying an ounce ball, and three feet eight inches long in the barrel, with a good bayonet and iron ramrod well fitted thereto, a cartridge box properly made, to contain and secure twenty cartridges fitted to his musket, a good knapsack and canteen, and moreover, each non-commissioned officer and private shall have at every muster one pound of good powder, and four pounds of lead, including twenty blind cartridges; and each sergeant shall have a pair of moulds fit to cast balls for their respective companies, to be purchased by the commanding officer out of the monies arising on delinquencies. Provided, That the militia of the counties westward of the Blue Ridge, and the counties below adjoining thereto, shall not be obliged to be armed with muskets, but may have good rifles with proper accoutrements, in lieu thereof. And every of the said officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, shall constantly keep the aforesaid arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, ready to be produced whenever called for by his commanding officer. If any private shall make it appear to the satisfaction of the court hereafter to be appointed for trying delinquencies under this act that he is so poor that he cannot purchase the arms herein required, such court shall cause them to be purchased out of the money arising from delinquents.'

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

No BR, they say "the possession or use" not "this possession or use" meaning possession/use of short barreled shotguns in general, not on a per-case basis.

Actually they say "that possession or use", though I would agree they meant both terms in a general and not specific sense.

My main point is that this is what a key aspect of the collectivist argument in Miller hinges on and you have to figure out persuasive ways to remove that hinge if you are going to make a good argument based on Miller. Frankly, I don't think Miller is very good precedent to begin with; but at least it is written vaguely enough that it can be interpreted in a number of different ways.

 

[baz]

Early in this thread, ElTacoGrade wrote:

There are several important questions about the 2nd that no court has ever answered:

1. Is the RKBA a collective right, which would be exercised by the National Guard, or an individual right, like the right to free speech?

Does "no court" here mean only SCOTUS? Because the 5th Circuit has explicitly adopted the individual rights intepretation in United States v. Emerson.

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2686

 

[ctdonath]

I doubt anyone would have said there was a "proper" weapon for a militia.

As Graystar quotes, the same people who wrote the 2nd Amendment soon thereafter, in the Militia Act of 1792, specified PRECISELY what weapon every militia member was expected to have.

This is the bit that scares some pro-gun types from pushing an RKBA case to SCOTUS: with that precident, Congress would then immediately declare that every militia member have a gun, and ONLY the specified gun, and that being something obnoxiously quasi-ineffective like a single-shot Thompson-Contender .223 pistol ... and then require possession only continue upon participation in monthly town-square exercises on Tuesdays at 2:34PM, with weapon confiscation (on grounds of failure to train) if ANY exercises are missed EVER.

A SCOTUS RKBA case would be wise to remind the court that:
- the 2nd Amendment is simple and clear
- the Founding Fathers feared that enumeration of rights would be wrongly misinterpreted as a limitation of rights
- the Militia Act of 1792 required every militia member be armed, and registered ... and registration meant the gov't would know who to call on for help, not as a tool to limit weapons ownership
- thus, the 2nd Amendment should be interpreted as broadly as possible in favor of individual citizens, as the Founding Fathers unquestionably intended.

 

[ctdonath]

Congress recently found, in an agonizingly comprehensive analysis, that the 2nd Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right (and demolished the "collective right" theory in the process).

 

[Henry Bowman]

The Congressional study to which you refer was done back in the early 1980s. The recent firearms industry protection act did, however, include an express finding that the RKBA is an individual right.


As I have said so many times before, there is no serious question as to the "individual right" issue. The real issue, that can gut this right, is whether "shall not be infringed" means "subject to reasonable regulation."

 

[Sam Adams]

horge

Using that sad aproach, one might as well forever fix the arms-ownership covered by 2A protection from 'infringement' at Kentucky Rifles and other period pieces.

That won't fly - because I can guarantee you that machine guns were far more forseeable in the late 18th century (there having been a patent in England for one circa 1763) than were faxes, radio, TV and the Internet. Any argument that eliminated the 2A's protection for post 18th century firearms would also, by definition, allow gov't censorship of all fax, radio, TV and Internet communications. Heck, it might even allow for gov't regulation of post-1791 religions. That's a road that the gun-ban freaks don't want to travel down, IMHO (especially those who like Freedom of the Press).

A tax on firearms, like any other limiting encumbrance artificially-attached to a natural RKBA is infringement, period. Free, mandatory registration may not be, so long as the effort involved is easy to the point of non-discrimination vs. the busy.

Mandatory registration isn't free, even assuming that there was no registration fee and that the people involved worked for free in donated space with donated supplies on donated equipment. The simple fact is that every single gun confiscation in the world has been preceded by registration. Without registration, the ultimate infringement of the RKBA (confiscation) is impossible. Confiscation has happened here in the US (ask owners of "assault weapons" in NYC, who were required to register their long guns in 1967 under the pretext of it being necessary to trace stolen firearms, and who got burned in the 1990's when David Dinkins decided to use those lists to contact owners of those very un-PC guns and tell them to make sure that the guns were out of NYC, or they'd be confiscated). Thus, a powerful argument could be made that registration, whether it involves a fee of any kind or not, is actually quite expensive.

 

[horge]

originally posted by Maxwell[
I doubt anyone would have said there was a "proper" weapon for a militia.

ctdonath replies
As Graystar quotes, the same people who wrote the 2nd Amendment soon thereafter, in the Militia Act of 1792, specified PRECISELY what weapon every militia member was expected to have.

Hi ctdonath

Methinks...
A (Republic) Act is a different animal from a Constitutional Amendment.
There is a different sense of permanency, else why the relative ease with
which an Act can be repealed? This is why the specificity of that Act is
absent from the general wisdom of the 2A.

The Constitution can remain nigh-timeless, while lesser documents adjust,
spring up and are discarded in its support, according to the march of time,
and of change.


----

Posted by Maxwell
Registration is never free, someone pays to employ the list keeper. If its manditory then simple book keeping goofs can send folks to jail or stop new firearms sales.

Then theres the ominous question of what their going to do with all that data. If we ever had another race war, do I risk being strung up by some KKK gang just because a corrupt fed saw my name on a list?

It might not be infringement directly, but its too easily abused.

Posted by Sam Adams
Mandatory registration isn't free, even assuming that there was no registration fee and that the people involved worked for free in donated space with donated supplies on donated equipment. The simple fact is that every single gun confiscation in the world has been preceded by registration. Without registration, the ultimate infringement of the RKBA (confiscation) is impossible. Confiscation has happened here in the US (ask owners of "assault weapons" in NYC, who were required to register their long guns in 1967 under the pretext of it being necessary to trace stolen firearms, and who got burned in the 1990's when David Dinkins decided to use those lists to contact owners of those very un-PC guns and tell them to make sure that the guns were out of NYC, or they'd be confiscated). Thus, a powerful argument could be made that registration, whether it involves a fee of any kind or not, is actually quite expensive.

Hi Maxwell and Sam Adams
Two things (the second towards Maxwell's fears of abuse):

1. If the effect is indirect, then the argument is weakened that it constitutes
federal infringement, otherwise the 2A could be used to damn everything from
real estate development to bilateral trade agreements for rising firearm costs.
The 2A is an injunction addressed towards the federal government, and
perhaps, so long as the federal government does not directly impose a
encumbrance on would-be KBA'ers, it is honoring the Second.

Granted, TANSTAAFL, and clerical costs, federal side, are passed onto
taxpayers in general. However, for so long as a specific tax is not solely
taken from firearms purchaers, then the argument of direct infringement is
perhaps weakened: it is arguably a casual, not a causal encumbrance
encountered. It is indirect.

2. Abusus non tollit usum.
Gun-owners above all should know this.
Just becuse guns can be abused does not invalidate their (honorable)
usefulness, right? Nor can the abuse of guns be used to argue the
outlawing of private gun-ownership.

The same applies to well-meaning efforts at firearm registration. There is
some merit to ascertaining that the individual purchasing a weapon is
not a terrorist. Information collection keeps America safe, without a doubt.
If potential evil is the issue, then safeguards can be installed, without
hurt to the intended good .


I apologize if I am being too forward, since I'm not an American.
I but have an interest in your RKBA, and in what becomes of it.


horge

 

[Maxwell]

The same applies to well-meaning efforts at firearm registration. There is
some merit to ascertaining that the individual purchasing a weapon is
not a terrorist. Information collection keeps America safe, without a doubt.
If potential evil is the issue, then safeguards can be installed, without
hurt to the intended good .

Nice to meet you too Horge

Heres a problem for you:
At what point do well meaning limits turn to an attack on our rights?

One mans terrorist is often another mans freedom fighter. If you write the law to allow it today, it will be abused tomorrow. Its as regular as clockwork.

Should the government turn on its people, you can rest assured that they will pull every trick in the book to disarm the populace before hand.
They will "close the list" to prevent new weapons from being legally bought or exchanged.
They will block everyone of a suspect demographic to prevent "misuse".
They will also put in so many barriers that dont prevent ownership, but do prevent you from affording anything of value.

If your a young middle eastern man or black male, you will face more difficulty over your purchase than if your rich, old, and white.
If your poor, a very solid roadblock is already in place. Right now your paying $500 for a weapon that probly costs $200, and for a function where a $20 weapon would have worked.
Forget about NFA listed weapons. A simple pistol with stock or supressor will already be out of your price range.

Arnt all men created equal?
I dont think that being poor or of a minority makes you any more likely to commit a crime, but the law is obviously bent that way.

Now consider this:
If 2a was in place as written, the terrorists of 9/11 could have all had handguns... but so could the passengers.
Is it reasonable to think that 20 armed men could overpower 200 armed passengers?

If a terrorist assaulted a school or store with armed citizens, they wouldnt get very far. If they tried to take over a movie house where everyone inside had a derringer or better, the chances are most certainly against the attackers.

Bandits and suicide attacks are not new. People have always gotten guns from other sources than the stores our atf has chosen to camp. Any law to block one madman from a gun makes the nation less secure by blocking 100 good citizens that could have stopped him, but didnt care to stand in line for the paperwork.

I would argue that the infringement of law is what put us at risk to begin with.

 

[horge]

Hi again, Maxwell.

My thoughts:

On elevated gun prices as infringment
Our '2A' concern might be whether increased increased firearm prices are
directly due to FEDERAL impositions and requirements. Such would constitute
federal infringement. However, the other causes for elevated prices --good ole'
capitalism, for one-- are not federal in their origin, and perhaps lie outside
the 2A's injunction vs. federal 'infringement'.

I'm sure you would agree that taking factors like the cost of firearms,
the location of gunstores, the days that gunstores are open, road conditions,
days off from work, etc., (yes, I am being silly) and treating them as limiting
or violative of the 2A is pretty skim milk from a very fat cow, hehe...



On Racial Profiling
I am decidedly not white
I do feel that anyone against racial profiling needs to get their head pulled
out of the PC sand. If the vast majority of crime X is perpetrated by a certain
sector with easily-identified tells (be it skin color, dress, language or whatnot),
then I want LEO's paying attention to those tells. Moreso if I happen to
bear those tells myself. I want the rest of the population (whatever their color/tongue)
to feel at ease with me because I've been repeatedly double-checked, and it would
behoove me to attack the root of my particular profile's tendency towards crime X,
so I and my descendants don't have to put up with the hassle of checking, and
the burden of (often-understandable) suspicion..



National Security vs. an Absolute RKBA
I feel this is a separate argument from our startpoint, which for you and I
was 'registration as infringement'. But anyway, there is plenty of evidence
to support both unrestricted KBA and limited KBA, and much more
evidence to attack either. Such an argument is supposed to be moot,
as there is your 2A providing its simple clarity.

There should be no restricting legislation vs. ownership of and training
with 'military' weaponry, since that is what a militia is expected to use.
Ditto bearing such arms as can be borne, on foot, horse, cart or a plane,
subject of course to much more basic (and fundamental) property rights,
which reserve to the proprietor the choice of who and what comes onto
his/her property, and other superior laws.


Firearms Registration
With today's technology, registration can be effected with nearly zero
hassle, and far less cost than some might imagine. It can be useful, and yes,
as you have pointed out, the collation of the data involved can be put to
very evil use --but such evil is separate from 'infringement'.

Again, IMHO, if registration is not paid for with a tax specifically
targetting gun-owners/buyers, then it is too indirect to clearly be
federal infringement. Big 'if' there

To my eyes, what you DO have going on in your country is violative of the
2A's injunctions, and directly opposed to the 2A's intentions (a citizenry
well-trained/regulated and well-armed, ready to swiftly organize into
a militia as needed).

JM2Pesos

horge

 

[Maxwell]

You can make a gun for much less than $100 and put it in the hands of a user, but these kinds of weapons are decidedly frowned upon by the law when not banned outright. Then theres the added penalties of licenses and training.
Is that not descriminating with cost?

If you can make a car for $10,000 but only only allow cars that cost ten times that, wouldnt it prevent poor people from driving?
The social implications of limiting peoples movement would be massive, as have the results of limiting the poors access to self defense.


When you allow racial profiling, you allow a very lazy form of law enforcement thats unlikely to work. What happens when an officer is racist or plain ignorant and following orders?
Hes now got an open ticket to arrest me for any infraction, and there goes my civil rights.
What happend to "Innocent until proven guilty" and "all men are created equal"?

While they were off looking for arabs and gang bangers, a woman walked into a post office building and offed 7 people.
Racial profiling dosnt work compared to what it costs us in lawsuits.

There should be no restricting legislation vs. ownership of and training
with 'military' weaponry

I would agree, but your on the wrong end of the weapons spectrum.
The root of all gun control has been "for the public good". The idea that by keeping a weapon off the street it makes everyone safer.

A "militia" weapon by modern day standards would most certainly be NFA restricted (unless you think anyone would take an army without full-auto weapons seriously).
Why bother to take away their sawed off shotgun at that point?

With today's technology, registration can be effected with nearly zero
hassle

Zero hassle?
When I go to the store to buy a new drill, I put down $50 and walk out with it in my hand. That is Zero hassle.

Filling out a single sheet form and providing a drivers licenses is "some" hassle.
Most people experience alot worse for their first weapon.

Then what good will come of this listing?
Lets not forget the underlying point to the 2nd amendment. Empowering the people to self defense and, when need be, to defense against their own government.

Do you think a corrupt official will sit on a list of all the gun owning citizens of America and NOT act on it?
That might be a bit paranoid, but these things have happend before.

 

[Henry Bowman]

The same applies to well-meaning efforts at firearm registration. There is some merit to ascertaining that the individual purchasing a weapon is
not a terrorist.

There is more merit to ascertaining that an individual purchasing food (or just walking around) is not a terrorist. There is no valid justification for targeting only people exercising one [Constitutionally-protected] right. There is some merit to ascertaining that the individual worshiping at a Mosque [or church or synagog] is not a terrorist. But we [and the ACLU] would not abide worshiper registration.

 

[Sam Adams]

Horge

There is some merit to ascertaining that the individual purchasing a weapon is not a terrorist.

In some sense that is true - but there are a lot of caveats that I have about that. I don't think that it is something that we should worry about very much, I don't think that any such plan would be effective, and worst of all, the effect of such "ascertaining" on our most basic right would serve to punish the 99.999% of us who aren't terrorists. Let me explain:

As mentioned, we really shouldn't be too worried about a terrorist buying a gun and using it to commit some heinous act. Hell, there are nearly 300 million guns in civilian hands already, and no shortage of nutjobs who could commit some heinous act - so why worry too much about Osama bin Screwinasheep adding his name to that list? We should be worried about them using a WMD or destroying something like a refinery or oil storage facility, or driving planes into skyscapers - i.e. about massive numbers of people being killed simultaneously, and about the commerce of the nation being brought to a standstill as a result.

Second, you can't stop someone from getting a gun if they really want one. Heck, any terrorist that we should worry about could easily steal one (or more, depending on how well they cased the victim), or make a simple one from plans on the Internet (or any number of books available at thousands of bookshops) and things you can buy at Home Depot, and then use that homemade gun to shoot a cop and get a handgun and possibly the rifle and shotgun in his car. Oh, BTW, one could just as easily steal or make a full auto as a semi-auto gun, so that argument is a non-starter for me.

Third, who would really be affected by this process you endorse? The terrorist isn't going to give a rat's hindquarters about obeying a law against owning a gun, not when they are willing to kill people (in fact, that's what their goal in life is, that's what they DO - kill people and thereby terrorize the rest of us). As mentioned above, we can't stop them from getting or making a gun (if that was even terribly important). So what's the point of restricting the ability of the rest of us - the generally law-abiding - from doing what we've always done? There's none - not unless you're a politician who doesn't like the idea of the unwashed masses having the means to put a bullet in your head if you get carried away with your power - and who finds the "War on Terror" to be an easy way to scare those unwashed masses into relinquishing their rights.

As it is, a criminal background check is mandated by Federal law for anyone buying from a dealer, unless (in some states that allow it) you are the (thoroughly investigated) holder of a carry license - about whom society should have about zero concern regarding their criminal use of any firearm. How about, instead of more of the same, that we actually DO SOMETHING to directly target the terrorists - like control our borders, toss out those here from foreign countries (even England) as "students" who have a clear hatred of this country, etc.?

Oh, BTW, why should anyone who already owns a gun have to undergo a check of any kind? After all, you've already got a gun. Even more laughable is the idea of checking out a guy who's got a safe full of guns - what's one more going to do, besides maybe tip him over backwards if he tries to carry the whole collection (plus ammo) on his back?

Other than that, I have no objections to your proposal.

 

[ctdonath]

Quite. Today I applied for my Georgia concealed carry license: about $50, plus two sets of fingerprints, and now I get to wait 3 months for it. Of course, I could just shove one of several already-owned handguns into my pocket and go about my business; the only thing the paperwork does is get me in trouble if I get caught doing so sans paperwork.

The perversity of registration/licensing is: those who do it are exactly not the ones to worry about. Canada is finding this out the hard way: CA$2B spent on a system that demonstrably did exactly NOTHING to reduce crime; all it did was demonstrate that the compliant non-criminal gun owners are not where the crimes are occurring.

Something is wrong with a country which prohibits, under severe penalties, harmless behavior unless registered, checked & paid for.

 

[horge]

Hi again, Maxwell

As I said, if increased firearm prices are directly accountable to federal taxes, then that is federal infringement. If however, increased prices can be attributed to something else, then something else is hampering your ability to obtain firearms. The 2A strikes me as an injunction vs. federal infringement. If it's there, it's there. If something else is jacking up prices, then it's something else.



Racial profiling is simply generalized categorization. Assuming limited monitoring and interception resources, it helps to narrow the subject field you bring those limited resources to bear upon. If an LEO is racist, he's already racist, whether or not racial profiling is policy, and he's going to target who he will. Of course any sort of specification is less than foolproof, since your template is a generalization, but by applying it as a filter, you can try to better the odds that you play your limited resources against. Race, like gender, is more or less apparent though visual monitoring ---which in turn is probably the least intrusive and lowest-cost form of monitoring available.


"Zero hassle" means the same technology you may have used to pay for that $50 drill.
You fill out forms maybe once, then you swipe your card, press your thumb on the touchpad, and be done with it. Again, what I said was

With today's technology, registration can be effected with nearly zero hassle, and far less cost than some might imagine.

I wasn't describing what is, but what could be. If anything, I signed off by stating that your RKBA was presently being infringed.

My reply to Sam Adams and ctdonath goes further into why I brought up 'registration'.



------------------


Hi Sam Adams, ctdonath,

My proposal?

Woah, there.
Just to be clear ...I am NOT advocating firearm registration.

I am using it for illustration. If you will read a few posts prior, I was hoping to differentiate between firearms taxation and firearms registration, insofar as honoring the 2A is concerned. Firearms taxes cannot be anything but infringement. Firearms registration however can (if carefully conceptualized and executed) impose minimal, near-zero hassle on the firearms buyer, and so avoid constituting 'infringement'.

How it actually is at present for you is whole other barrel of pigs' knuckles.
Moreso whether it presently accomplishes anything worthwhile.


Cheers,
h.

 

[Maxwell]

Racial profiling is just that, a presumption of guilt based on the appearance of my face. It works great for the old white men who dont want to deal with cops, but not so good for the young black/hispanic/arabs among us who just want to own our concealed weapons like other citizens.

There are three problems I will always have with registration:

1) Someone has to keep the list.
This means someone gets alot of funding, officers and weapons to go checking on gunshops and citizens. If being on this list is not enforced, and people dont go to jail for violating the law, then this is all pointless.
No one likes useless paperwork.

2) whats the data used for?
Many criminals go strait for the serial numbers when they break the law to get a gun. Much of the "useful" data is trivial by the time a weapon is used to commit a crime.
The powers that be will always want more data... but frankly, I dont care to register my practice ammo and have my movements tracked by sattillite just to make their jobs easier.

3) Ease of abuse.
my data will be on file and I dont know who is looking at it or for what reasons. The batfe has a history of misusing information.
The point of concealed carry is that those out to do you harm do not know you have a weapon. If they knew, they would shoot you in the back of the head before you realized whats up.

So wheres the point in putting your name and address into a computer for easy reading? Any data collected is sure to leak out, and there our names will be for a terrorist to google.
It wont matter if you have a hidden handgun in your store or office if the first person an attacker targets is you.

 

[Henry Bowman]

As I said, if increased firearm prices are directly accountable to federal taxes, then that is federal infringement.

I'm surprised that no one [that I have seen] mentioned it, but there already is a 10% federal exise tax on all firearms and ammunition (paid by the manufacturer) sold in the US. There have been few complains, probably because, unlike other taxes, this money never goes into the general fund. It goes directly and exclusively to maintenance and protection of land resourses for hunting. Grants are given directly to states who often match the funds from hunting permits revenue.

The late Sen. Willis Robertson who championed the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 was the father of televangelist Pat Robertson’. His father may have never really grasped the importance of this center-piece legislation that has distinguished sport hunting and target shooting in the United States as unique to the world.

The vehicle that actually transforms money into habitat, ecological study into proven conservation tactics, and the idea of harmony between nature and society into reality is the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act. Who fuels this vehicle? Sportsmen.

Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Sept. 2, 1937, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, or the Pittman-Robertson Act, created a 10% excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition. Revenue is deposited in a special trust fund under the management of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be used for state wildlife restoration projects. In the 1970s the excise tax was extended to archery equipment and handguns. One-half of the tax revenue collected on handguns and archery equipment may be used by state fish and wildlife agencies for hunter safety training and range development.

The approximately 200 million dollars generated by Pittman-Robertson each year are matched with sportsmens` dollars at the state level to pay for projects that will restore wildlife populations, expand habitat and train hunters. To date, more than $4.2 billion in federal excise revenue has been generated. (According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

 

[horge]

Hi again, Maxwell!

So wheres the point in putting your name and address into a computer for easy reading?

The point?
Uhmmm...for easy reading?
Hehehehe. But seriously:

Just offhand... a firearms database may be useful for law enforcement in solving crimes involving the use of firearms. Open to abuse? Sure. But again, Abusus non tollit usum. That of course presumes a valid and honorable usum is out there to begin with, and my assumption that a database is useful in crime-solving may not be valid: criminals are quite good at getting around most regulations and bureaucratic systems.

Again, whether registration actually accomplishes anything good or not, for so long as the data collection is hassle-free (technologically possible), and both collection, storage and processing are not paid for by direct taxation of firearms buyers/owners specifically (technically possible, in an I-didn't-inhale sort of way), it may not be federal infringement.


---------

Hi Henry Bowman

Does the tax clearly and directly translate into increased firearms prices, or is it not so clear that it does? If the latter, then it might not constitute 'federal infringement'. The tax is imposed on the manufacturers, who can claim to have 'eaten' the tax loss, and cite other reasons for any price increases. This absolves the federal government.

It almost doesn't matter where the tax-funds go to, for as long as the firearms buyer is made to pay more, and the price increase can clearly be laid at the federal government's doorstep, it is federal infringment upon the freedom with which you exercise your RKBA.

A lot of things make it difficult to fully exercise your RKBA, but only those things which are clearly and directly the handiwork of the federal government are a violation of the 2A, and must be openly challenged.


h.

 

[Maxwell]

Law enforcement still needs hard evidence. Should you find the the pistol and it maintains its serial number (and assuming it was registerd in the US before this crime) it wont mean much without prints, a bullet and a suspect. Otherwise your back to square one.
All the owner has to do is say it was stolen.

Im not so much interested in the rare chance they link a murder weapon to a felon so much as when its used to harass a legit gun owner or shut down the only gun store in town.
I fail to see how an expensive government agency can do better than a simple agreement between manufacturers. You can get a similar quality in information, its less restrictive on the industry to let it regulate itself, I dont have to pay a dime in tax and I'll sooner to trust my data with glock and colt than I would the batfe.
Everyone wins.

Its not the governments job to decide who gets what weapon. We shouldnt have to pay for a massive organisation to track it all and still suffer the enevitable screwups.

 

[Henry Bowman]

The tax is imposed on the manufacturers, who can claim to have 'eaten' the tax loss, and cite other reasons for any price increases.

That's a funny one! See Economics 101. Corporations do not pay taxes. All are 100% passed on to the customer.

 

[Art Eatman]

Henry Bowman, review a little history of the background of the Pittmann/Robertson and Dingell/Johnson taxes.

First off, you gotta recall that in the 1930s, the US deer herd was a small fraction of today's. Same for wild turkey. And we were trying to deal with the Great Depression when all levels of govenment had much smaller incomes from taxes.

Sportsmen got together. Deer, duck, goose, dove, quail and turkey hunters. The primary group of gun owners, back then. No "games players" with AKs and ARs and not all that many pistol shooters.

Those taxes were imposed upon gun buyers and the whole deal met with the approval of those people. The money is allocated pro rata by numbers of hunting licenses sold in each state.

Nothing sneaky or inimical about it.

Art

 

[Henry Bowman]

Art -- I'm not opposed to it at all! Frankly, I've never heard anyone complain about it. But it is a special federal tax on firearms, ammo, and archery equipment. I don't think it is sneaky, even though most gun owners seem to not know about it.

 

[horge]

Originally posted by Henry Bowman

Originally posted by horge
The tax is imposed on the manufacturers, who can claim to have 'eaten' the tax loss, and cite other reasons for any price increases.

That's a funny one! See Economics 101. Corporations do not pay taxes. All are 100% passed on to the customer.

If it's humorous at all, then it hews closely to a grim comedic.
If your case is solid, linking a federal government firearm tax directly to
firearm price increases, then the tax ought to be challenged in court for
federal infringement of the RKBA, in violation of the 2A.


h.

 

[alan]

Graystar wrote:

It was more than simply a “lack of judicial notice.” The court included three excerpts from various militia acts that defined the type of weapon that a militiaman was expected to bear. In all cases, long guns were called for. And THAT is why there was no judicial notice of short guns being used by the Militia. All the judicial notice available called for long guns.

Re the reference to "long guns" and "shorts guns" in the above excerpt, I wonder as to how "short" the Miller shotgun was in the first place. Had it's butt stock been cut off, had it's barrels, I believe it was a side by side double barreled piece, been significantly shortened, or was it a question of being just a bit under the minimum length, either barrel or overall length required by the statute?

Also, in the law, is the term "long gun" actually anywhere defined? I don't know, I'm just asking. Might it be that re this, we face another instance of flying by the seat of ones pants, as with that bit about an imported firearm being "particularly suitable for or readilly adaptable to sporting purposes", where for instance, "sporting purposes" remain undefined, as do other aspects of the phraseology. Correct me should I be in error.

 

[Graystar]

Well, when it comes to Miller, length is based on the NFA definition. Of the three acts quoted in the Miller opinion, two gave actual length measurements while the third called for firelocks, which have very long barrels.

But I think there is something you’re missing that is far more important. In using the process that it did, the Court validated the concept that law defines what weapons are acceptable, not the individual. Indeed, those acts specify penalties for not being equipped as specified. That certainly flies in the face of the notion that any weapon is a weapon of the militia and should be allowed to be kept. That concept simply isn’t true. If anyone had shown up at muster with a flintlock instead of a firelock, they would have been in trouble.

That is why the challenge to the California ban failed. The regulation of firearms is something that has always been accepted as lawful. This concept is even embodied in the English Bill of Rights:

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;