The stress between the best to life, liberty, and the best to bear arms is reaching its boiling level. We’ve lengthy recognized that Bruen was a soothsaying verdict for this Court docket’s (doubtlessly non-existent) limits on the person proper to bear arms. In a brief period of time, the Court docket might pull the set off on nixing every state’s capability to restrict the possession of assault weapons. From Vox:
The Supreme Court docket may hand down a choice any day now in Nationwide Affiliation for Gun Rights v. Metropolis of Naperville, a case that would legalize assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in all 50 states.
The case challenges a Naperville, Illinois, ordinance and an identical Illinois state regulation, each of which ban assault weapons, which the state regulation defines to incorporate sure semiautomatic rifles resembling AR-15s and AK-47s. Moreover, the state regulation prohibits the sale of a “massive capability ammunition feeding gadget,” which the statute defines as lengthy gun magazines that maintain greater than 10 rounds of ammunition, or handgun magazines that maintain greater than 15 bullets.
The plaintiffs, which embody a gun store proprietor and a gun rights group, declare the 2 statutes violate the Second Modification.
The plaintiffs might be proper. Not the Second Modification of the Founders or the Second Modification of DC v. Heller. That is the brand new renditi0n of the Second, ushered in by the NRA and our esteemed Court docket. The Bruen ruling actually threw the which means of the Second modification in flux in absurd methods:
Understood on this approach, the case earlier than the Court docket is the pure subsequent step.
Ought to the Supreme Court docket settle for that argument and overturn these legal guidelines, it could have sweeping implications for the complete nation. That call would should be adopted all through the complete nation — which might probably imply that neither any state nor the US Congress may ban assault rifles or high-capacity magazines.
And there may be good purpose to concern that this Court docket may, on the very least, determine to make semiautomatic assault rifles authorized all through the USA. In 2011, a federal appeals court docket upheld the District of Columbia’s ban on assault weapons — over the dissent of an up-and-coming right-wing choose named Brett Kavanaugh.
Flash ahead a dozen years, and Kavanaugh is now the median justice on a Supreme Court docket dominated by Republican appointees. So if he nonetheless believes semiautomatic rifles aren’t notably “harmful and strange,” he’s well-positioned to show the opinion he wrote in 2011 into regulation.
Tl;dr: yeah, we’re fucked.
The Founders thought that the price of liberty was everlasting vigilance. We now know what they meant by that. The toll isn’t low cost — we pay for liberty with elevated mortality from highway rage and lifeless kids.
The excellent news? Look, I’m actually scraping the underside of the barrel right here. Possibly the financial want to forestall the common occasion of our youngsters being shot and killed might be answered by the market? There are plethora of bullet-resistant commodities geared toward kids in 4th grade brushing up on their addition.
To Liberty.
A New Supreme Court docket Case Seeks To Legalize Assault Weapons In All 50 States [Vox]
Chris Williams grew to become a social media supervisor and assistant editor for Above the Legislation in June 2021. Previous to becoming a member of the employees, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ within the Fb group Legislation Faculty Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri lengthy sufficient to graduate from Washington College in St. Louis Faculty of Legislation. He’s a former boatbuilder who can’t swim, a broadcast creator on essential race principle, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for biking that sometimes annoys his friends. You possibly can attain him by electronic mail at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
