So I gather from the fact that people keep writing these 'assault weapon' bans the way that they do. The Miller decision protected weapons precisely because they had a military use appropriate to a militia; the AR-15 is the single best candidate for protection under that doctrine today. Its similarity to the military's standard rifle means that extant training regimes can be immediately brought to bear as necessary to training up a militia with Army or Marine Corps personnel, should that be necessary; many of them share ammunition with existing military supply chains (though some use the .223 Remington, which can be fired from a weapon chambered for 5.56 NATO but not vice-versa).
Thus, if Miller is in any sense guiding our understanding of the 2nd Amendment, the AR-15 should be protected from Federal bans. It is the single most obvious choice for a militia weapon currently in existence.
Meanwhile, under Heller (which cites Miller to expand on it, not to replace it), the standard is that weapons protected are those "in common use for lawful purposes." The AR-15 is one of the most commonly-used rifles in the United States, for lawful purposes including self-defense, hunting, sport shooting, and for those who wish to be prepared to render militia service if necessary.
Every one of these laws seems to be designed for the express purpose of voiding what 2nd Amendment jurisprudence there is, effectively meaning that there isn't any that proponents of gun control are prepared to accept.
3 comments:
Well, you know, the issue of the [2nd Amendment] is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done.
Eric Hines
if a review of Miller ever comes up regarding the 2nd, it may be a shock- there can be no Constitutional basis for effectively denying machine guns to the citizenry. Although they are technically allowed under tax stamp, the ban on new production and sales has pushed the price to the stratosphere.
People who will declare without hesitation that Roe v. Wade cannot be overturned, and that no judge should be appointed who would disagree, because it is "settled law" will state (with no sense of their own hypocrisy) that Miller and Heller are bad decisions and should be overturned.
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