Federal Appeals Court Delivers Big Second Amendment Win in New Jersey
The state’s attorneys “at every turn have turned a blind eye to the Constitution while prioritizing histrionics over history.”
In a major victory for gun ownership, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down New Jersey’s ban on semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines on Friday. The 10-5 ruling found that both restrictions unconstitutionally infringe on the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The decision is a significant win for the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, which represents more than one million gun owners.
Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs called the ruling “a massive victory for the People and another devastating blow to the authoritarian war on gun owners.”
In 2024, a federal district court ruled that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15 rifles violated the Second Amendment but upheld the state’s restriction on large-capacity magazines. Friday’s ruling went further, holding that both restrictions are unconstitutional.
The New Jersey Monitor reported:
The court’s majority heavily cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision known as Bruen [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen], which declared gun owners have a constitutional right to carry — and that firearm restrictions must be firmly rooted in the historical traditions that existed when the Second Amendment was ratified 235 years ago [emphasis added]. Eight judges joined the majority decision, including five Trump appointees, two Bush appointees, and one Biden appointee.
Judge Paul Matey, a Trump appointee who filed a separate but concurring opinion, lamented “New Jersey’s repeated and relentless assault on the Second Amendment,” adding that the state’s attorneys “at every turn have turned a blind eye to the Constitution while prioritizing histrionics over history.”
“New Jersey’s blunderbuss legislation is now, as it was the last three trips to this Court, unconstitutional,” Matey wrote.
Judge Patty Shwartz, an Obama appointee, wrote in her dissent that the measures were passed to “protect residents,” a claim we hear frequently from gun control zealots although the opposite is often true.
Its legislative scheme is consistent with our Nation’s long-held tradition of regulating particularly dangerous weapons and was responsive to dramatic technological changes and horrific uses of that technology, which legislatures of the past could not have foreseen. The majority disregards democratic will and Supreme Court precedent, risking a dangerous aftermath for the People of New Jersey and those beyond.
FPC WIN: Third Circuit strikes down New Jersey's "assault weapon" and magazine bans in an en banc decision whose 192 pages include numerous concurrences and dissents: https://t.co/XrjnZkKX5L pic.twitter.com/gxyxESuvg7
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) July 17, 2026
Following the ruling, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport issued a statement calling the decision “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect.”
Every other federal circuit court to consider the issue has come out the other way. Assault weapons and large capacity magazines play a dangerous role in the modern epidemic of mass shootings, and New Jersey acted reasonably and lawfully in restricting them.
She added that gun violence must be treated “like the public health crisis that it is.”
Davenport stopped short of saying whether the state will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but indicated that they are weighing their options.
Although this case predates her administration, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, campaigned on maintaining and strengthening the state’s gun laws.
According to NBC News:
In addition to New Jersey, 10 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have laws that generally ban the manufacture, sale, and transfer of assault weapons, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The District of Columbia, New Jersey and 11 other states cap magazine capacity at 10 rounds generally or for certain types of firearms.
NBC cited University of California, Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, who was surprised by the decision. He noted that “federal courts of appeals have upheld assault weapons bans in the past.”
Winkler said the ruling “may be foretelling the Supreme Court’s coming opinion on assault weapons bans.”
Reuters reported last month that the Supreme Court agreed to review lower court rulings that upheld similar bans on semiautomatic rifles in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut.
“What this 3rd Circuit opinion shows is that there are very few gun laws that are safe from being struck down right now,” Winkler added.
As it should be.
Whether New Jersey appeals or not, the broader battle is already headed to the Supreme Court. If the justices apply Bruen as rigorously as the Third Circuit did, many of the nation’s remaining semiautomatic rifle and magazine bans could soon face the same fate.
The Second Amendment is a constitutional guarantee — not a suggestion that states may disregard whenever they believe doing so would make the public safer.
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Comments
Somehow this has to end. The progressive nutjobs keep passing unconstitutional laws that the courts eventually strike down. This kabuki dance is a waste of time and money. The problem is how to bring it to a close so everyone can focus on other matters.
Ted Kennedy to the rescue? Consider Grove City College v. Bell, and the continued federal funding of state and local programs or institutions persisting in anti-civil-rights policies.
The ruling against NJ is a good win. The various details pretty much say “The 2nd means what it says, and stop pretending otherwise.”.
Since the courts agrees the 2nd is a “civil right”, and this ruling is rather clear about the limitations on the state, I wonder if there is any interaction with the 1987 Civil Rights Restoration Act. Can the Feds legally fund anything in the 3rd circuit — from train service to school funding to police to CDBGs — if the state continues to discriminate against the 2nd?
In general, every single state government activity in NJ and MD consists of purposeful discrimination against the 2nd, or is funded by the Feds against the specific wording that Teddy put in the 1987 Act. Can the Feds please just shut the taps on Monday? Should I call Harmeet or Mr. Blanche and ask them to take action?
The right to arms is a natural right, not a civil right. The right exists independent of government.
If you need the government’s facilitation, assistance, or existence to exercise a right (voting, trial by jury, right to petition government, etc.), it’s a civil right. If you don’t need the government’s facilitation, assistance, or existence to exercise a right (rights to one’s life; to property; to freedom of religion, thought, or expression; to be secure in your papers, person, and effects; to arms, etc.) then it’s a natural right. There are no “civil rights” without government.
Does this mean that California’s ban on large capacity magazines is struck down?
No, because California is not in the 3rd circuit.
Cue the whining as totalitarians get their toys taken away. I really hope SCOTUS will stop slow walking 2A issues and take the opportunity next term to forcefully end the 2A shenanigans by blue States. Restrictions on magazine size, extraordinarily high tax on ammo, firearms, magazines, nonsensical/ahistorical restrictions on ‘bearing arms’ just end. All of those are analogous to a poll tax which indirectly restricts ability to exercise the privilege to vote and should be viewed as impermissible and unconstitutional barriers to exercise of civil rights.
Forty-five States do not tax the sales of newspapers in deference to the First Amendment (the remaining five do not have a general sales tax). This principle is not unknown and there’s no reason to not apply it to firearms and ammunition to completely eliminate sales taxes now levied on them, and to constrain taxes on the sale of firearms accessories* (such as bipods, scopes/red dots, and so on) to the same rates as levied by a State’s general sales tax.
*Magazines are not “accessories.” Mags are an essential part of a firearm that’s necessary for the arm to operate the way it was designed. A detachable magazine, for a firearm designed to operate with same, is as essential to a firearm’s function as is a trigger, a barrel, a bolt, a firing pin, ect.. It is a detachable part of a firearm, not an accessory.
That is not true. 13 states do tax newspapers. About 30 states tax magazines. And only three states don’t tax books.
There is simply no such principle that constitutionally protected items may not be taxed. Therefore there’s no reason it wouldn’t be constitutional to tax guns, so long as the purpose is to raise revenue, not to effectively ban them.
Viramontes is on deck. It has the potential to be a big hammer against the grabbers.
Yep. Consolidated Grant v Higgins into it with arguments in the fall, fingers crossed they will finally use the (long delayed) opportunity to gut these totalitarian restrictions forcefully, finally and unquestionably.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with a poll tax. The constitution explicitly permits a federal poll tax, although Congress has never enacted one. And state poll taxes have never come under question.
A poll tax is a flat tax per person. So many dollars each, regardless of income or any other factor. It’s a direct tax, so if there’s a federal one it must be “apportioned” between the states, whatever that is supposed to mean. But states are allowed to have direct taxes, so there’s no problem with it. They’ve fallen out of favor because they’re “regressive”, hitting the poor harder than the rich.
The 24th amendment does not ban poll taxes, it merely bans making the right to vote contingent on paying “any poll tax or other tax”. That means a state can have a poll tax; what it can’t do is link it to voting.
But your second and much more important fallacy is that there is some kind of constitutional principle banning the linkage of any constitutional right to the payment of a tax. That’s just completely false. If it were true then the 24th amendment would have been unnecessary. The fact that the constitution had to be amended to ban linking one specific right to tax payment shows that every other right can still be so linked.
Milhouse,
You are making the error of conflating a specific ‘poll tax’ with a capitation (head tax). They are neither equivalent nor interchangeable. They are distinct. The 24th Amendment specifically bans use of poll tax or other tax as a requirement to vote. The creation of a specific prohibition on use of a ‘poll tax’ to exercise a vote demonstrates the distinction from ‘other taxes’. A general head tax/capitation could still be levied as a revenue generation mechanism. I don’t believe a specific ‘poll tax’ would sustain challenge b/c the underlying purpose is to create a tax on casting a ballot; the name gives it away as distinct from other taxes.
Obviously any jurisdiction can levy taxes to support their governmental operations consistent with the US and State Constitutions. However, what they can’t do is set a particular tax to absurd levels with the intent or effect of precluding exercise of rights.
Finally, you have the argument backwards re tax on constitutional rights. Here I argue that the 24A is the new baseline which disrupts prior thinking and that in light of this any tax directed at 2A (particularly if it is extraordinarily high) should be viewed as analogous to the poll tax prohibition.
No, they are not. “Poll tax” and “capitation tax” are exact synonyms. They are two terms that mean the exact same thing.
No, it doesn’t. The 24A specifies poll taxes only because it was a common practice at the time for racist states to use poll taxes as a barrier to voting, and to enforce it in a blatantly racist fashion. The choice of a poll tax rather than some other tax was pure coincidence. The purpose of the 24A was to ban that practice, but it didn’t want those states to just switch the same practice to some other tax, so it specified that it applied not only to poll taxes but to any taxes at all.
No they are not the same. Is the entomology and origin of poll and capitation synonymous? Sure but that’s a far cry from claiming that a ‘poll tax’ is equivalent to a head tax.
If the Feds pass a capitation tax (head tax) of $500 per year with revenue earmarked to pay down National Debt that is constitutional. It is completely separate and independent of casting a ballot. By contrast if the Feds passed a specific ‘poll tax’ of $500 that only applied and executed on a Citizen casting a ballot that particular ‘poll tax’ is unconstitutional.
They are not the same. The capitation (head tax) exists to raise revenue in a neutral manner independent of any other activity, it is literally a tax on existing. A poll tax by contrast is the taxation applied to the activity of casting a ballot.
Now if you were arguing that other taxes like property taxes could function as an indirect ‘poll tax’ then sure. Historically in the USA that definitely did occur. States often used payment of property tax as requirement to cast a ballot. The 24A ended that practice.
That wouldn’t be a poll tax. It would be a voting tax. You’re insisting that those are the same, but they’re not.
No, it is not. That is just ignorant nonsense.
Thinking that a poll tax is a tax on voting is just as bad as thinking an AR-15 is an assault rifle.
A poll tax is by definition a tax on exercising the privilege of voting. One must pay in order to vote and avoids the tax only by not seeking to vote.
No, it is not. That is pure ignorance. A poll tax is a tax per head. It has absolutely nothing to do with voting. It happened to be a common practice in racist states to impose a significant poll tax, and to make the penalty for non-payment the loss of voting rights, but to enforce it only against black people. They could just as easily have chosen some other tax.
Your misunderstanding of the term is exactly the same as the misunderstanding some have that AR stands for “assault rifle”.
Ok lets explore that claim.According to you a poll tax and a capitation tax are =. It would follow that where the 24A prohibited ‘poll tax’ then you must also claim the 24A prohibited the capitation/head tax. Is that your claim?
The 24A does not prohibit poll taxes. It has no problem with states imposing all the poll taxes they like. It merely prohibits making the right to vote contingent on payment of this or any other kind of tax. It only mentions this one specifically because that was a practice that was actually happening at the time, and the amendment was aimed at stopping it.
I suspect the confusion here is lexical. We today think of the word “poll” as having to do with voting. But law uses its increasingly archaic meaning of “per head.” For example, “Polled Herefords,” a breed of cattle whose heads grow no horns.
Yes, it’s the same confusion as those who are convinced that the AR-15 is an assault rifle, because “it’s right there in the name!” Except it isn’t. Nor is “voting” in the name “poll tax”. A poll tax is a capitation tax; nothing more nor less than a flat tax of so many dollars per head. It has nothing to do with voting except the pure coincidence that some racist states used such a tax as a tool to stop black people from voting. They could just as easily have used some other tax.
Henry,
The 24th Amendment was not about a capitation tax. It was 100% about a tax levied (poll tax) specifically as way to impede Citizens from casting a ballot. By the early ’60s only a handful of States still had a poll tax. The 24A was proposed in ’62 and initially also encompassed a prohibition of literacy tests but that provision wasn’t passed.
I have already conceded the ancient usage of poll and capitation as linguist synonyms, no argument there. However a ‘poll tax’ and a ‘capitation tax’ are definitely NOT the same thing. A capitation tax (head tax) is a uniform payment required for simply existing. In contrast a ‘poll tax’ is a specific tax levy triggered when attempting to register vote.
Perhaps b/c I was a school child in Alabama in the ’70s and ’80s with College in the late ’80s early ’90s and we had the entire history of the Civil rights era jammed down our throat ad infinitum every year I came to appreciate the distinction between the terms.
A capitation tax isn’t = to a ‘poll tax’ in the context of the 24A. Linguistically? Sure, but that discussion is relevant to the English Dept not the Law School or History Dept. In the latter two the relevant facts are the 24A and its purpose. If it wasn’t then the framers of the 24A didn’t need to specify ‘poll tax’ at all they could have skipped over that and simply left it ‘all taxes’. Since they did use specificity and every part of the Constitutional text is meaningful/material then must grant it weight.
The fact is five States used literacy tests AND levied a specific tax, separate from other taxes and only coming into play as a requirement to show certificate of payment prior to being allowed to register/vote. It was widely known as the ‘poll tax’. It wasn’t levied on each person as a capitation tax would be. The tax was only assessed as a barrier to registering/voting.
The ‘poll tax and capitation (head) tax are absolutely NOT equivalent. Not in scope, not in application, not in any form ….except by those who are stubbornly conflating the etymology and/or linguistic definitions with legal usage and historical context of 24A.
Chief, you are simply wrong about this.
The 24A is neither about a poll tax nor a capitation tax, which are two words for the exact same thing, nor is it about any other tax. It’s about restricting the franchise to taxpayers.
Yes. And another name for that is “poll tax”.
No, it is not. What you are saying is just not true. Repeating it won’t make it true.
Your mistake, that because “poll tax” has the word “poll”, and in modern usage that word is used in relation to voting (because voting is “counting heads”), therefore the tax has something to do with voting, is just as ignorant as claiming an AR-15 must be an assault rifle because it’s got AR right in the name, and surely that’s what it stands for.
There is no distinction, and you had ignorant nonsense jammed down your throat, by ignorant teachers.
Yes it is. So is every other tax. The 24A applies equally to all taxes.
They didn’t need to specify it. The language is clear that it treats poll taxes exactly the same as every other tax, so the specification of poll taxes is completely superfluous. It adds nothing whatsoever to the amendment.
That is nonsense. The framers of the 24A were not geniuses; they were politicians exactly like the ones today. They specified poll taxes because that was the mechanism then being used to keep blacks from voting; they added all other taxes because there was no particular reason the racists had to use that tax and they could easily use another one instead.
That is not true. The tax was levied equally on everyone. But the only penalty for nonpayment was that you couldn’t vote, unless your father or grandfather voted. If they did, then there was no penalty at all for nonpayment, so you’d have to be an idiot to pay.
The upshot was that it was only ever enforced against blacks and not against whites, and that’s why, rather than simply enforcing the 15A by requiring colorblind enforcement, the rest of the country foolishly amended to the constitution to permanently ban any link between voting and being a taxpayer, which is the exact opposite of what should have been done.
Banning literacy tests was also foolish; again the proper solution to racist enforcement would have been sending in federal inspectors to require colorblind enforcement. If I recall correctly, Rehnquist was involved in exactly such an operation, making sure that the literacy tests were being enforced equally on everyone. But instead Congress foolishly banned them. But at least that can be fixed by a future congress; the 24A is unfortunately almost impossible to repeal.
In any case, none of this has anything to do with what a poll tax is. The tax in question was a capitation tax, which everyone was supposed to pay whether they voted or not, but which was not enforced except against black voters.
“The 24th Amendment was not about a capitation tax.”
The 24th amendment is clearly about “The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress.” It makes that right independent of any poll (capitation) tax.
The major subject of the amendment is voting; the minor subject is the capitation tax. (Like the major subject of the 2nd is the RKBA, and the minor subject is about the necessity of a militia.)
It doesn’t mean that all “poll” taxes are connected with voting.
Chief, you cannot win this argument.
Because there isn’t one here.
You have made correct statements and Milhouse has responded with the Democrat blather that was used to hide that his fellow Democrats, in the past, were using what was called a ‘poll tax’ to keep the unwanted, particularly black people, from voting.
He’s playing with the semantics, shifting how he’s using the word ‘poll’ so that it’s never the same way you’re using the word ‘poll and always giving him that little frisson he so desperately needs when he thinks he’s gotten someone.
He never realizes that the only one he ever ‘gets’ is himself. Perhaps he should change his screen name to Onan’s House.
Fuck off, you fucking liar from the Prince of Lies. Go back to Hell and lick your Master.
Hey let’s not forget the ruling in the 5th Circuit this week! U.S. Attorney General Blanche declined to continue the suit regarding the carrying of concealed firearms in a US Post Office. The only requirement set forth is that an individual must be a member of FPC or SAF.
https://www.firearmspolicy.org/fpcgarland
Which, constitutionally, is pure shenanigans… But if they’re stupid enough to issue a ruling that will forcibly boost membership in pro-2A organizations, let them be that stupid.
Massachusetts was stupid enough to require every single firearms license holder to belong to an organized gun club, and every organized gun club in the state got its insurance from the NRA because it was the lowest cost by far… but required all club members to be NRA members to qualify. This meant that all state license holders were forced by the state to become members of the NRA. Talk about sowing the seeds of your own destruction.
No, it isn’t. It reflects the fact that a judgement only affects the parties to a case.
So… “this rule is unconstitutional… but ONLY FOR YOU, because you happen to be a member of one of the groups who complained about it?”
Balderdash.
If something is unconstitutional, it’s UNCONSTITUTIONAL. This ruling makes a mockery of equal protection.
It’s unconstitutional for everyone, but the court decision is only binding on the parties.
Let’s word that a little better. It’s unconstitutional according to one judge; the government may disagree, and every other judge in the union may disagree. That one judge is right and they’d all be wrong, but that’s just our opinion.
Per SCOTUS he lacks the power to issue a nationwide injunction, so he could only enjoin the government from enforcing it against the plaintiffs.
But if the government has decided the judge was right after all, then it should stop enforcing the invalid law against anyone.
She added that gun violence must be treated “like the public health crisis that it is.”
Herein is the hidden agenda. Keep saying “public health crisis” and people will eventually accept that firearms are somehow related to public health, allowing into play all manner of new regulatory agencies and little bureaucrats who believe they have the power to regulate firearms.
Public health, like public safety, is one of the incantations that leftists believe is a root password to the constitution. Fortunately, COVID hardened Americans’ skepticism for that exploit.
‘Gun violence is a public health crisis’…mmm OK …but no changing your mind when we DO decide to treat gun violence like a health crisis. Specifically the ‘amputation’ of the roughly two and half dozen irredeemable zip codes which host the bulk of the violence.
Gun violence is not a “public health crisis.” It is not a disease to be cured or a condition to be treated. There is no virus or bacteria or mold spore involved. It’s a law enforcement matter. The problem is the individual who misuses a firearm, not the gun itself. Unwillingness to enforce existing criminal laws is not a “health emergency.”
Judge Patty Shwartz confuses “good intentions” with “constitutionality.”
Why I don’t like Bruen’s “history and tradition” test:
Earlier laws, no matter how long ago they were adopted and no matter their close association temporally with the ratification of the Constitution, can’t be known to be constitutional just because they were never struck as such. These laws, no matter their pedigree, may be unconstitutional. Even if they were reviewed and not struck, this does not make them constitutional. Courts don’t rule a statute constitutional, they they rule it is not unconstitutional by plaintiff’s argument. This does not mean that a law will survive a future review when challenged with a different argument. Today’s “not unconstitutional” statute can be struck down tomorrow by an opinion that concludes that it is, in fact, unconstitutional.
There’s also a “regression” problem. Certainly, if you go back in time toward the ratification of the Constitution, some gun law or other must have been the first. If proper analysis of gun laws demands that new laws must find a historic foundation, upon what foundation was the first law laid? None at all. So, the first firearm law in the country would fail Bruen’s “historical” test, and therefore every successive law would also fail, because none of them would have an historical foundation as required by Bruen.
Consideration of earlier laws is just not a good idea when examining a modern law for its potential unconstitutionality. Any law being examined by a court should stand or fall on its own merits. Additionally, SCOTUS’ decisions in Bruen, McDonald, and Heller have created a new paradigm to guide the analysis of gun laws, older laws (and judicial opinions of them) literally notwithstanding. Older laws, not having been examined according to the analysis demanded now by SCOTUS, can’t be presumed to be constitutional if they’ve never undergone such scrutiny.
“Tradition” isn’t law, so the courts shouldn’t even take notice of it.
Bruen doesn’t say that if an old law existed then a new law similar to it is automatically constitutional. What it does say is that if you propose a new law that has absolutely no precedent in an old law, the new law is automatically UNconstitutional.
Just because you would have no problem at all finding old laws forbidding the ownership of weapons to blacks doesn’t mean that the same law would pass muster today.
Excellent. Which is why natural rights have always been. Since they are God given, they are eternal.
The second amendment is clear that any law that infringes the RKBA is unconstitutional. But that doesn’t tell us what laws do infringe it? It’s certainly not the case that all restrictions on weapons infringe the right. The right doesn’t protect all weapons in all circumstances. So the courts have to decide whether any given law infringes the right and must be struck down, or doesn’t infringe it and can stand.
In exactly the same way, it has never been thought that all restrictions on speech abridge the freedom of speech. Some kinds of speech are not part of the freedom, and therefore laws against them don’t abridge it. For instance there is no right to libel people. There never has been. In the 1780s every state had laws against it, and no one thought those laws abridged the freedom, because the freedom simply doesn’t include libel.
So libel is not, as is commonly thought, an exception to the first amendment; it’s an exception to the underlying freedom that the 1A protects. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom, but a libel law doesn’t do that.
Now the boundaries of the freedom of speech have been well explored over the last century. All the exceptions to that freedom have already been discovered, and SCOTUS has been clear that it’s extremely unlikely that any more remain to be discovered.
But the bounds of the RKBA have no yet been explored, because until recently the 2A was not taken seriously, so the cases haven’t come up that would allow SCOTUS to explore those bounds.
To compound the issue, due to the long period in which the RKBA was not taken seriously as a fundamental human right, we’ve lost any inborn sense of what it covers.
So what’s a court to do? That’s what Bruen answers. Back in the early days of the republic people took the RKBA very seriously. They would not have tolerated laws that infringe on it, unless they only applied to the kind of people whose rights were thought not to matter anyway. So if a state can point to a law that existed in that period, and affected those whose rights were taken seriously, and yet there was no protest against it, then that law is unlikely to be an infringement. It might be, but it’s unlikely.
But if a law only affected despised classes, then that proves nothing; it may be that had we asked an ordinary person in the late 18th century whether the law infringes the answer might very well be: “Yes, it does infringe the right, but it’s only dam knee grows, so who cares?” Obviously we care, and the house should come down.
Why overcomplicate it. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, period. If you point a firearm at the guy who took your parking space, the constitutional infringement argument goes out the window and the government’s duty to preserve a civil society takes over. Keeping a gun in your closet or carrying one while minding your own business is out of reach of law, regulation and permitting.
You’re begging the question. The fact that the RKBA must never ever be infringed doesn’t help you if you don’t know what infringes it. What does the RKBA actually cover? What’s included in it and what isn’t? Just as not all speech is included in the freedom of speech, not all keeping or bearing of weapons is included in the RKBA. So you have to know the boundaries, and only the courts can discover that.
Once you decide that a specific law does infringe the right, then it’s automatically and unconditionally invalid, no matter what the circumstances. “The government’s duty to preserve a civil society” does not override the 2A. There’s no balancing to be done. As Heller put it, the Founders already did the balancing.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it:
If you think you’re getting a fair shake by demanding that your rights be guaranteed on paper, the interpretation of which is subsequently put into the hands of the very people your rights are presumably being protected AGAINST, you’re some kind of idiot.
This nonsense interpretation puts the Bill of Rights into the same pigeonhole with the UN Declaration of Human Rights — the one that says almost straight out, “You have all these rights, except in circumstances where we decide it is inconvenient for us.”
Plus, contrast your statement (“Once you decide that a specific law does infringe the right, then it’s automatically and unconditionally invalid, no matter what the circumstances.”) with what you just said above about the Post Office gun ban ruling.
Henry, the law is invalid, but a court decision binds only the parties. If someone else wants to take advantage of this ruling he will have to sue. Since the principle has already been established, he’s almost bound to win. Generally once the government has lost a case it stops enforcing the invalid law on everyone, but technically it doesn’t have to.
Henry, the interpretation is not put “into the hands of the very people your rights are presumably being protected AGAINST”. It’s in the hands of the courts.
Henry, the post office case is just a district court ruling. Until just recently DOJ was appealing it, which it was entitled to do. It has still not conceded that it was wrong. So it’s entitled to enforce the law against anyone who isn’t covered by the district court’s injunction, until it either appeals to SCOTUS and loses, or decides that it was wrong and changes its ways.
The reason the district court injunction isn’t nationwide is because SCOTUS just got through ruling (to applause from most of the right) that district courts generally lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions (with some exceptions). So it applies only to the parties to the case, which include all members of FPC and SAF, including all future members.
Bruen doesn’t complicate 2A issues instead it very much clarified them. The holding (oversimplified) requires the Govt to:
1. meet the burden of showing some historical analog to whatever 2A law they propose
2. demonstrate that historical analog is relevant, constitutional and widespread
So what Bruen did is flip the script by placing the burden on the govt. By adding in relevant history the scope of 2A becomes far more clear. Frontier settlements often had privately owned and operated artillery. Private merchant vessels as well. Every Citizen could own/carry ‘arms’ of their choice and often of a higher quality, better performance than those of the US military. Couple that with the Congressional power to issue ‘letters of marque and reprisal’; kinda tough to be a privateer without cannon on hand plus a crew trained and ready to operate them. Add in the size of the US Army, the reliance on the ‘militia’ and it becomes very clear that individual Citizens may possess military grade (or better) arms, train with them and ‘bear’ them.
The question boils down to restrictions. The intent of the Left is to so confine the right as to make it superfluous. Taking an old fake goal and turning it into reality….. The RkBA will be “safe, legal and rare”. The Woodrow Wilson “Living Constitution”. Is the judges basis for opposition. The irony is that the RKBA was never fully ajudicated is because everyone knew what it meant. In the 1800’s, a felon having served time in prison had no restrictions to firearm ownership. Today there is a far greater disparity in force of arms than in the 1700’s and 1800’s between the People and the Government. “Good thoughts” are not good enough when so much power can be abused.
“It’s certainly not the case that all restrictions on weapons infringe the right. The right doesn’t protect all weapons in all circumstances.”
More Jesuitical nonsense. The core right is to KEEP and to BEAR. If you USE them improperly, there may be consequences due to other laws which are valid because they don’t infringe upon KEEPING or BEARING. But all “precautionary” laws that say you cannot KEEP or BEAR an arm are infringements.
Again, that’s not necessarily the case. Just as the freedom of speech doesn’t include all speech, it’s completely possible that the RKBA doesn’t include all arms, or all manner of keeping or bearing. The test is what did people in 1791 think was included in the RKBA. And the best way to show that some specific law doesn’t infringe the RKBA is to show that such a law existed in 1791 and no one objected to it. If people then thought it infringed, they would surely have objected — unless it only applied to people whose rights most people didn’t think mattered, and that’s why they didn’t object.
“show that such a law existed in 1791 and no one objected to it.”
Such a test is near meaningless. Under it, the First Amendment would hardly be protected at all, given the institution of the Alien and Sedition Acts practically before the ink had dried on the Constitution. They persisted for years, and I do believe one of the Sedition Acts persists to this day, though it has long remained unenforced.
“Its legislative scheme is consistent with our Nation’s long-held tradition of regulating particularly dangerous weapons and was responsive to dramatic technological changes and horrific uses of that technology, which legislatures of the past could not have foreseen. ” Yet Federal, State and Local agencies are armed to the teeth this these firearms and real assault weapons. Tyranny is the first to reach for them to use should they gain power. They didn’t call firearms the “Teeth” of liberty for nothing. These “terrible” firearms have been around for over 110 years and first accepted by the citizenry and not the government. The AR-15 has been on sale to the public for over 60 years.
Make that over 120… I subtracted wrong…. basing my argument on the Winchester Model 1904.
There really ought to be some penalty for passing blatantly unconstitutional laws.
The only penalty is supposed to be each individual voter deciding not to reelect the person. Unfortunately that only works if the voters care about the constitution. Our problem nowadays is that most voters don’t.
Maybe one solution in a different world….starting at 1;13 into the monologue…..oh, the good old days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9SF7TOyHQ
Until the supreme court says all guns restrictions are illegal the states will keep changing a couple of sentences and passing restrictions on the same items over and over again.
Chief, your entire argument is that the term “poll tax” means a tax on voting, based on the way poll taxes were abused by racist states in the southern USA in the mid-20th century. You claim that this one peculiar practice changed the meaning of “poll tax”, as if the term hadn’t been used for centuries before, and as if it were not a regular part of the English language, and used elsewhere in the world. That’s obviously nuts.
Don’t you remember Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax, and the riots it caused until it was repealed? Did you imagine that it had some connection to voting?! That people who didn’t pay it couldn’t vote, or that people who didn’t want to vote didn’t have to pay it?! Is that how you understood the story at the time? Or did the whole story pass you by? Perhaps you weren’t paying attention to international news at the time?