The Attack on the 2nd Amendment Continues

Constitutional scholars and law school students: a good read...

http://www.volokh.com/2013/02/11/le...onal-issues-in-federal-gun-control-proposals/

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will hold a hearing “Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is Chair of the Subcommittee, and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the Ranking Member. The Subcommittee has solicited letters from the public. My letter is below.

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Feb. 8, 2013

Dear Senator Cruz:

I am submitting this letter for the Feb. 12, 2013, Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights hearing “Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment.”

To begin with, the Subcommittee should acknowledge that crime reduction policy has been a great success in the United States in recent decades. For example, in the early 1980s, the U.S. homicide rate was more than 10 per 100,000 population. Today, that rate has fallen by over half, to under 5. This is comparable to the early 1960s. Overall rates of violent crime have also fallen sharply since their peak of several decades ago.[1]

There are many causes for this progress. Perhaps one of them is that today, 41 of the 50 states respect the constitutional right to bear arms, so that a law-abiding adult can obtain a permit to carry a concealed firearm for lawful protection, or even carry without a permit in a few states. In contrast, in the early 1980s, only about half a dozen medium or small states provided a fair system for licensing the carrying of firearms.

Second, the exploitation of the Newtown murders as an occasion to impose a plethora of new anti-gun laws is unwise. Professor Gary Kleck, of Florida State University, is by far the most eminent worldwide scholar on quantitative data about firearms, and the effect of firearms laws. His book Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America was the winner of the Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology, for “the most outstanding contribution to criminology” in a three-year period.

Kleck’s 2009 article “The worst possible case for gun control: mass shootings in schools” [American Behavioral Scientist 52(10):1447-1464] explains why gun control laws enacted as part of an inchoate desire to “do something” after an atrocious crime such as a mass murder in a school are particularly unlikely to prevent future such crimes. Rather, the “do something” anti-gun laws typically amount to an expression of rage against guns or gun owners, and fail to make children safer.

Regarding some particular proposals that have been raised, as alleged responses to Newtown:

The “assault weapons” issue is one of the most long-standing hoaxes in American politics. The guns suggested for prohibition do not fire faster, nor do they fire more powerful ammunition, than guns which are not singled out for prohibition. External features such as telescoping stocks, or forward grips, make it easier for a user to control the firearm, to shoot it accurately, and to hold it properly. Features which make a firearm more accurate are not a rational basis for prohibition.[2]

Magazines holding more than 10 rounds are not “high capacity.” Semi-automatic handguns constitute over 82% of new handguns manufactured in the United States.[3] A large percentage of them have standard, factory capacity magazines of 11 to 19 rounds. The AR-15 type rifle has for years been the best-selling rifle in the United States. The factory standard magazine for an AR-15 rifle is 30 rounds.

Assertions by some prohibitionists that the aforesaid common guns and common magazines are only made for mass murder are a malicious libel against the millions of peaceable Americans who own these self-defense and sporting tools.

Pursuant to District of Columbia v. Heller, such firearms and magazines may not be prohibited, because they are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” 554 U.S. 570, 625 (2008). As Heller explained, the Second Amendment prohibits prohibition of “an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose” of self-defense. Id. at 628.

Senator Feinstein’s prohibition bill targets an enormous class of arms. Taking into account the at least 4 million AR-15 rifles, plus everything else, the Feinstein ban would likely apply to at least 10 million firearms.

As for the magazines, the Feinstein ban does not focus solely on genuinely “high capacity,” non-standard magazines (e.g. 75 or 100 rounds) but instead bans common magazines holding 11 or more rounds; the gigantic class of what she would ban probably numbers at least several tens of millions, and perhaps much more.

That in itself is sufficient, according to Heller, to make prohibition unconstitutional.

The conclusion is reinforced by Heller’s observation that handgun prohibition was unconstitutional “Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights.” Id. at 628. For substantive rights (as opposed to procedural ones), the two main standards are Strict Scrutiny and Intermediate Scrutiny. The former is for most situations of racial discrimination by government, and for most types of content-based restrictions on speech. The latter is used for government discrimination based on sex, as well as for most “time, place, and manner” regulations of speech in public places.

So we know that handgun prohibition fails Strict Scrutiny and also fails Intermediate Scrutiny. Although formulations of Intermediate Scrutiny vary from case to case, the general approach is that to pass Intermediate Scrutiny, a law must involve “an important government interest” and must “substantially” further that interest.

Now consider Intermediate Scrutiny as applied to handguns. Handguns constitute approximately one-third of the U.S. gun supply. They are used in about half of all homicides.[4]

And yet, a handgun ban fails Intermediate Scrutiny. If a handgun ban fails, then the bans on magazines and on so-called “assault weapons” must also fail.

The large majority of firearms banned by Sen. Feinstein’s bill are rifles. Rifles constitute about a third of the American gun supply. But rifles account for fewer than 3% of U.S. homicides—fewer than blunt objects such as clubs or hammers. The rifles covered by the Feinstein bill would account for even less.

Because handguns (very frequently used in crime) cannot be banned under Intermediate Scrutiny, rifles, or a subset of rifles (rarely used in crime) cannot be banned either.

There are no solid national statistics about the current use of 11+ magazines in crime. Given that 11-19 round magazines are standard for a large fraction of modern handguns, one might guess that 11+ round magazines would be used in some crimes. Even so, such magazines would be used less often in crime than handguns in general. Thus, a magazine ban also fails Intermediate Scrutiny.

It is important to remember that when applying Intermediate Scrutiny to a Second Amendment question, Heller’s methodology (by announcing that a handgun ban fails Intermediate Scrutiny) is that one must not consider solely the criminal uses of an arm. One must also consider the frequency of an arm’s use by “law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” The sheer quantity of what Senator Feinstein would ban is itself evidence that the banned firearms and magazines are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”

Heller makes it clear that some non-prohibitory controls are permissible. Because the Heller case was about a gun ban, the Court did not deeply explore the contours of legitimate non-prohibitory controls. However, the Court has said enough to at least raise questions about the constitutionality of “universal background checks.”

It is often said, by anti-gun lobbyists, that 40% of firearms sales take place today without checks. Notably, the study on which this claim is based was conducted before the National Instant Criminal Background Check System became operational.

Besides that, a great many private transfers of firearms take place between family members, or other persons who have known each other for many years.

More fundamentally, private transfers are not with the proper scope of Congress’s power to regulate “Commerce . . . among the several States.” Pursuant to federal law since 1968, private sales may only take place intra-state. 18 U.S.C. §922(a). They are not interstate commerce. Nor, indeed, are they necessarily commerce of any sort, no matter how broadly defined, since many such transfers are gifts.

In Printz v. United States (1997), Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion suggested that a mandatory federal check on “purely intrastate sale or possession of firearms” might violate the Second Amendment. 521 U.S. 898, 938 (2007).

This view is supported by the Supreme Court’s opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. There the Court provided a list of “longstanding” laws which were permissible gun controls. Heller at 626-27. The inclusion of each item on the list, as an exception to the right to keep and bear arms, provides guidance about the scope of the right itself.

Thus, the Court affirmed “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.” Felons and the mentally are exceptions to the general rule that individual Americans have a right to possess arms. The exception only makes sense if the general rule is valid. After all, if no-one has a right to possess arms, then there is no need for a special rule that felons and the mentally ill may be barred from possessing arms.

The second exception to the right to keep and bear arms is in favor of “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” This exception proves another rule: Americans have a general right to carry firearms. If the Second Amendment only applied to the keeping of arms at home, and not to the bearing of arms in public places, then there would be no need to specify the exception for carrying arms in “sensitive places.”

The third Heller exception is “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” The word “commercial” does not appear because the Supreme Court was trying to use extra ink. Once again, the exception proves the rule. The Second Amendment allows “conditions and qualifications” on the commercial sale of arms. The Second Amendment does not allow Congress to impose “conditions and qualifications” on non-commercial transactions.

Federal law has long defined what constitutes “commercial sale” of arms. A person is required to obtain a Federal Firearms License (and become subject to many conditions and qualifications when selling arms) if the person is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. This means:

a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms;

18 U.S.C. §921(a)(21)(D). Of course a person who is “engaged in the business,” but who does not have a FFL, is guilty of a federal felony every time he sells a firearm. 18 U.S.C. §§922(a), 924.

Currently, the federal NICS law matches the constitutional standard set forth in Heller. NICS applies to all sales by persons who are “engaged in the business” (FFLs) and does not apply to transfers by persons who are not “engaged in the business.”

President Obama has already ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to inform FFLs about how they can perform a NICS check for private persons who would like such a check. On a voluntary basis, this is legitimate, but it would be constitutionally dubious to mandate it.

Finally, there has been talk of new federal laws against gun trafficking and against straw purchases. Fortunately, gun trafficking and straw purchases are already illegal, and there are many people who have the federal felony convictions to prove it.

Allegedly, federal prosecutors will be more willing to enforce the already-existing bans on trafficking and straw purchases if the laws are restated by enacting new legislation. A simpler approach would be for the President or the Attorney General to order U.S. Attorneys to give greater attention to the enforcement of the existing laws. Moreover, new statutes, especially when drafted in a “do something” crisis atmosphere may turn out to be highly overbroad, and to impose harsh new penalties on persons who were not the intended targets of the new statutes. The poorly-named “USA PATRIOT Act” should provide a cautionary example.

Below are some articles which might be interest to the Subcommittee.

“Guns, Mental Illness and Newtown.” Why random mass shootings have increased and what to do about it. Wall Street Journal. Dec. 17, 2012. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323723104578185271857424036.html.

“Arming the right people can save lives.” Good guys with guns have managed to thwart many mass attacks. Los Angeles Times. Jan. 15, 2013. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...l-guns-resistance-nra-20130115,0,955405.story.

My U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on gun violence. Jan. 30, 2013. http://davekopel.org/Testimony-Senate-Judiciary-Kopel-1-30-13.pdf.

“Ronald Reagan’s AR-15.” Volokh.com. Jan. 15, 2013. http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/15/ronald-reagans-ar-15/.

“A Principal and his Gun.” How Vice Principal Joel Myrick used his handgun to stop the school shooter in Pearl, Mississippi. By Wayne Laugesen. Boulder Weekly. Oct. 15, 1999. http://davekopel.org/2A/OthWr/principal&gun.htm.

Pretend “Gun-free” School Zones: A Deadly Legal Fiction. 42 Connecticut Law Review 515 (2009). http://ssrn.com/abstract=1369783.

“Gun-Free Zones.” Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2007. The murders at Virginia Tech University. http://davekopel.org/2A/OpEds/Gun-Free-Zones.htm.

Sincerely,

David B. Kopel
Research Director, Independence Institute
Associate Policy Analyst, Cato Institute
Adjunct Professor of Advanced Constitutional Law, Denver University, Sturm College of Law.

[1] The 2011 murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate was 4.7 per 100,000 population. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 2011, Table 1, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1. The violent crime rate was 386. Id.

Data as far back as 1960 are available via the FBI’s UCR Data Tool. http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/. The tool can provide total crime data, and U.S. population, from which rates can be calculated. In 1980, the violent crime rate was 597. The homicide rate was 10.2. In 1962, the violent crime rate was 162, and the homicide rate was 4.6.

[2] See David B. Kopel, Rational Basis Analysis of “Assault Weapon” Prohibition, 20 Journal of Contemporary Law 381 (1994), http://davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/rational.htm. Cited in Kasler v. Lungren, 72 Cal. Rptr. 2d 260, 265 (Cal. App. 1998)

[3] 2011 manufacturing data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives. http://atf.gov/statistics/download/afmer/2011-final-firearms-manufacturing-export-report.pdf.

[4] In 2011, there were 12,664 murders in the U.S. Handguns accounted for 6,220; shotguns for 356; rifles for 323; “other guns” for 97; and “firearms, type not stated” for 1,587. (Total of 8,583 firearms homicides). Knives were 1,694, and “Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)” were 496.

FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 2011, Table 8, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.

The FBI reports that firearms (not differentiated by type) were used in 41% of robberies in 2011. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 2011, Robbery Table 3. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/robbery-table-3. Firearms were used in 21% of aggravated assaults. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 2011, Aggravated Assault Table, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...the-u.s.-2011/tables/aggravated-assault-table. Given the preponderance of handguns, compared to long guns, in homicides, it is reasonable to infer that handguns are also disproportionately used in robberies and aggravated assaults. Firearms are rarely used in forcible rapes.
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ImageUploadedByTapatalk1361043250.969903.jpg

Americuh!
 
To be fair, there are "constitutional scholars" on both sides of the fence:

http://www.americanprogress.org/iss...tutionality-of-proposed-firearms-legislation/

Tragic mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and elsewhere have prompted renewed national interest in the federal regulation of firearms. In January 2013 President Barack Obama publicly announced support for three new legislative measures to regulate firearm ownership and sales:
  • Banning certain semiautomatic weapons with military-style features—commonly referred to as “assault weapons”—in addition to high-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds
  • Requiring background checks on all firearms sales, not just those purchased from federally licensed firearms dealers
  • Enhancing penalties for trafficking in firearms
Proposed legislation with similar elements has been introduced in Congress. These measures as written would not violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms as recently defined in two landmark Supreme Court decisions—District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010. Under Heller and McDonald the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense in the home. The proposed measures would not violate that right, but rather fall squarely within the scope of “presumptively lawful regulatory measures” that Heller identified as constitutionally sound. Furthermore, these proposals would effectively advance the important government objectives of preventing gun violence and protecting law enforcement officers and would not unduly burden law-abiding Americans or impose upon the core right identified in Heller.
Below we discuss these three proposals in greater detail.
Summary of current proposals

Banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. President Obama’s proposal would reinstate a ban on assault weapons, which were the subject of a federal law that was in place from 1994 to 2004, and would limit the sale of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. A bill tracking the president’s general approach has already been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Both Sen. Feinstein’s bill and the expired law that President Obama proposes to reinstate define an “assault weapon” as a semiautomatic weapon with specified military-like features, such as a folding stock or a grenade launcher, as well as firearms on a list of specifically named weapons.
Requiring universal background checks. President Obama proposes to strengthen the currently existing National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, by requiring every gun buyer to submit to a background check—not just those who purchase firearms from a federally licensed firearms dealer. Approximately 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers often at gun shows or through online transactions. Under current federal law these sales are exempt from the background check requirement. A bill aimed at achieving the president’s goal of universal background checks was introduced in the last Congress by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY).
Enhancing penalties for gun trafficking. President Obama has also announced support for increased efforts to stem the flow of firearms to criminals, taking aim especially at so-called straw purchasing. Under current law, convicted felons cannot purchase firearms from a federally licensed firearms dealer. Straw purchasing is a technique used to evade this prohibition by using a third party without a criminal record—the “straw buyer”—to purchase weapons from a licensed firearms dealer under false pretenses. The president’s proposal is similar to legislation introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Richard Durbin (D-IL), as well as a separate bill introduced by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Mark Kirk (R-IL). Both proposals would impose criminal penalties on the straw buyer. The Gillibrand and Kirk proposal would also impose penalties on the ultimate firearm recipient.
The Second Amendment under Heller

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court issued its most significant opinion regarding the Second Amendment since 1939, striking down a total ban on handgun possession in the home as inconsistent with the right to keep and bear arms conferred by the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,” even apart from collective service in a militia. In striking down the District of Columbia’s ban on handgun possession, the Court took note that the handgun is “the quintessential self-defense weapon” and that it is “the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home.”
Two years later in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment is fully applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment because it protects the “fundamental” right to self-defense. The Court emphasized that at the core of the Second Amendment is the “basic right” of self-defense, and that this right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”
Even as the Court affirmed and reaffirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess weapons, it also stressed that the right to bear arms is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” In particular, the Court identified a nonexhaustive list of firearms regulations that are “presumptively lawful,” including:
  • Longstanding “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill”
  • Laws “forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings”
  • Laws “imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms”
  • Laws prohibiting “dangerous and unusual weapons”
In Heller and again in McDonald, the Court emphasized that legislators retain “a variety of tools” for combatting the problem of gun violence—repeating assurance that Heller “did not cast doubt” on measures such as these and that “experimentation with reasonable firearms regulations will continue under the Second Amendment.”
Thus Heller and McDonald make clear that the individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense may be subject to reasonable regulation. This is entirely consistent with other cherished liberties in the Bill of Rights, such as the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. (See, for example, Ward v. Rock Against Racism, which ruled that restrictions on the time, place, and manner of speech, such as noise limitations, are permissible, and United States v. O’Brien, which ruled that content-neutral regulations of expressive conduct, such as burning draft cards, are permissible). And as the Supreme Court has emphasized in the First Amendment context, state and federal legislators “must be allowed a reasonable opportunity to experiment with solutions to admittedly serious problems.”
There is no question that gun violence in the United States is a serious national problem. As the Court noted in Heller, “We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country.” In addition to devastating mass shootings such as those in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado, approximately 1 million Americans have been wounded or killed by gunfire in the last decade. In 2010 alone firearms were used in an estimated 11,000 murders, 128,000 robberies, and 138,000 aggravated assaults. Social scientists have calculated that the lifetime medical costs for gunshot injuries in the United States in one year alone is $2.3 billion, of which $1.1 billion was paid by taxpayers. When lost earnings, pain, disability, and the costs of lost life are included, the aggregate economic cost of gun violence to American society approaches $100 billion annually.
The proposed measures do not infringe the Second Amendment

Banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines

The proposed ban on “assault weapons” with military-style features and high-capacity magazines is consistent with the Second Amendment. Heller made clear that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to own “any weapon whatsoever” and “dangerous and unusual weapons” may be prohibited. Courts that have examined bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines post-Heller have agreed that such bans do not infringe the Second Amendment because “[t]he prohibition of semi-automatic rifles and large capacity magazines does not effectively disarm individuals or substantially affect their ability to defend themselves.” (See also People v. James—“Heller does not extend Second Amendment protection to assault weapons.”)
A ban on assault weapons is consistent with the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller because these weapons are both “dangerous and unusual” and are not well-suited to self-defense in the home, which is the “central component” of the Second Amendment right. Assault weapons do not constitute a significant percentage of firearms in circulation in the United States—an estimated 1 percent or less prior to the 1994 federal assault weapons ban. Assault weapons are also dangerous to an extraordinary degree. The prior federal assault weapons ban covered weapons with features such as protruding pistol grips, which help the shooter stabilize the weapon during rapid fire or spray fire from the hip position, and barrel shrouds, which protect the shooter’s hands from the heat generated by many rounds fired in rapid succession.
Other characteristics of assault weapons, such as telescoping stocks, principally facilitate concealment and thus have little value to those who use firearms lawfully—but obvious appeal to criminals. Firearms incorporating these characteristics enable the shooter to inflict a high degree of lethal damage rapidly and often indiscriminately. These features are thus better suited to offensive and mass assaults than responsible self-defense, particularly in urban areas where rapid and indiscriminate firing would pierce walls and injure innocent bystanders.
The Supreme Court has not yet addressed the applicability of the Second Amendment to ammunition magazines. But if ammunition magazines are within the protections of the Second Amendment, then it stands to reason that high-capacity magazines would also fall within the scope of Congress’s authority to regulate “dangerous and unusual” weaponry. High-capacity magazines enable the firing of more than 10 rounds without requiring the shooter to pause and reload. High-capacity magazines are therefore well suited to enabling offensive, indiscriminate, and rapid firing, and ill-suited to self-defense situations where rapid and indiscriminate firing is more likely to injure innocent bystanders.
The tragic mass shootings in Tucson, Arizona; Aurora, Colorado; and Newtown, Connecticut, were all carried out by assailants using high-capacity magazines, and there is evidence in some of these cases that the shootings halted or were stopped only when the shooter was forced to pause to reload or switch weapons. High-capacity magazines also pose a particular threat to law enforcement, as they are used in 31 percent to 41 percent of fatal police shootings. As noted in Heller II, “the evidence demonstrates that large-capacity magazines tend to pose a danger … particularly to police officers.”
Requiring universal background checks

The proposed expansions to the existing background check system are also consistent with the Second Amendment. Heller made clear that the individual right to bear arms does not extend to felons or the mentally ill. Such “longstanding prohibitions” have been uniformly upheld in post-Heller cases in the federal courts. Both United States v. Barton and United States v. Smoot upheld the federal ban on possession of a firearm by convicted felons. If Congress may prohibit felons, the mentally ill, and other unfit persons from possessing firearms, it follows that Congress may also take reasonable measures to enforce the prohibition such as background checks at the point of sale. Indeed, Heller specifically observed that firearm sales would continue to be subject to reasonable “conditions and qualifications” enacted by legislators. The Court in Heller assumed that such regulations would exist when it ruled that the District of Columbia was required to permit the plaintiff to own a handgun, “assuming that [he] is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights.”
Experience with the existing National Instant Criminal Background Check System has demonstrated that background checks can be effective at reducing violent crime without burdening the ability of law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms. The national background check system has proven to be a meaningful check on access to firearms by convicted felons and other “prohibited persons.” Since 1999 the system has blocked prohibited purchasers from buying firearms at federally licensed dealers more than 1.9 million times. The most common reason for denial was a prior felony conviction. In 2009 alone approximately 150,000 applications for a permit to transfer or purchase a firearm were denied as a result of background checks. Here again, the most common reason for denial was a prior felony conviction. Given the efficacy of the system, a court would be unlikely to conclude that expanded background checks during firearm sales would unduly burden the Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms.
Enhancing penalties for arms trafficking

The Second Amendment would also not be infringed by the enhanced penalties for gun trafficking currently under consideration. The proposed measures outlaw “straw purchasing”—the practice of using a third-party intermediary to purchase weapons from a federally licensed firearms dealer for ultimate delivery to a felon or other person prohibited by law from buying the weapons.
Such measures would be constitutional because they do not impede the possession of firearms for self-defense by “law-abiding, responsible citizens,” which the Supreme Court found to be at the core of the Second Amendment. Straw purchasing is not done for a “lawful purpose,” but occurs only to circumvent legal restrictions on the purchasing of weapons by felons or the mentally disturbed. The Supreme Court left no doubt about the constitutionality of current, longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons, therefore straw purchasers violate that prohibition by purchasing arms under false pretenses and with the intent to transfer the weapons to another person.
Conclusion

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for lawful self-defense, and that this right is violated by a total ban on possession of handguns by law-abiding citizens in their homes. But many forms of firearm regulation remain constitutional, including laws to prevent firearm possession by criminals and limitations on the possession of dangerous and unusual weapons. The measures endorsed by President Obama and proposed by Congress are safely within these confines and reflect the sort of reasonable regulation that the Supreme Court endorsed in Heller and has accepted in a host of other constitutional contexts.

Winnie Stachelberg is the Executive Vice President for External Affairs at the Center for American Progress. Arkadi Gerney is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Robyn Thomas is the executive director of the Law Center to Prevent Violence.
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Love this one, typical NJ democrat lawmakers....in an effort to jump on the bandwagon the state assembly has passed 22 bills in the statehouse. One is a changing the ban on magazines from having a capacity of greater than 15 rounds to a max capacity of 10 rounds. To shoot thirty times I'd have to spend that extra 3/4 second changing mags again (and that's a leisurely mag change for anyone with training)...OH my...

Another is a bill which would make mandatory sentence of 6 months if you are caught with an unlawful firearm in a gun free school zone, as is the norm with these folks they didn't educate themselves with the laws already on the books. According to the local press, this would actually REDUCE the sentence for this by 6 months...

Most of it will not pass the full legislature but the stupidity is nothing short of disgusting when you consider that these folks are looked to for leadership.
 
Feinstein's Assault Weapons Ban All But Dead
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Politico reports the bill's death knell may have sounded Monday night as Feinstein learned in a meeting that her legislation won't even be part of the gun-control bill Democrats plan to introduce for a vote next month:

After a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday, a frustrated Feinstein said she learned that the bill she sponsored — which bans 157 different models of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines — wouldn’t be part of a Democratic gun bill to be offered on the Senate floor. Instead, it can be offered as an amendment. But its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat.
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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/feinstein-assault-weapons-ban-gop-dead
 
“The enemies on this are very powerful,” Ms. Feinstein said, referring to the National Rifle Association.
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Why is it that any time there is opposition to gun control measures, that opposition is always chalked up to "the NRA"? Gun control folks don't seem to be able to imagine that sometimes it is "the citizens of the United States" that are against those measures.

It is always nice to see Senators referring to US citizens who don't agree with her view to limit Constitutional freedoms as "enemies". Nice touch, ma'am.
 
Hacker15e said:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/feinstein-assault-weapons-ban-gop-dead
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Awesome. This is why teabaggers are morons (or at least one reason). The baggers were screaming like mad because the NRA refused to endorse Senator Reid's Republican opponent last election cycle. Reid has always had an "A" rating from the NRA, and his Republican opponent had an "A+." The baggers were using this as justification for ditching long-time NRA ally Reid and endorsing his opponent. The NRA was smart enough to realize that a Senate Majority Leader with an "A" is worth ten times what a junior senator in the minority with an "A+" is. Glad that Reid isn't toeing the Administration line on this one, and is instead sticking by his NRA roots.
 
I don't really think Reid is showing some sort of pro-firearms POV by making that decision.

Instead, I think that there are a lot of Senators who want to pass some sort of firearms legislation, but are fearful of the 2014 election if they are on record voting for an AWB or magazine capacity limitation. So, Reid has been taking headcounts of who would and would not vote each way, and since he can't at a minimum find the 51 required (much less the 60 required to defeat any filibuster attempt), he is simply "saving" those Senators from having to make that particular vote on record.

I don't doubt for a second that he'd vote for both of those measures if there weren't political consequences with the electorate for doing so.
 
Why? Why would you believe such a thing about a guy who has had an "A" rating from the NRA for as long as I can remember? This guy has been a staunch supporter of 2nd Amendment rights ever since he's been in the Senate. You're falling into the same silly trap as others of believing that just because someone has a (D) next to his name that he must be willing to sign off on silly gun control. Give the man his due.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
believing that just because someone has a (D) next to his name that he must be willing to sign off on silly gun control. Give the man his due.
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No, not at all. I frankly could not care less what party lawmakers are registered with. When it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, there are supporters and enemies on both sides of the aisle. Reasons for being a supporter or being an enemy are varied, too -- sometimes it is personal conviction, sometimes it is simply representing the predominant will of the constituents represented, and sometimes it is for political gain or posturing.

In the case of Reid, he's mostly been a NRA "B" average guy in the past (I used to be a Nevada resident in the 90s), and I remember him participating in a number of what I'd consider "pro firearms" events during that time. He spoke a lot about being around firearms as a kid and then as a cop. I don't doubt how he feels about firearms.

That being said, he is also a wicked smart politician who, like many politicians, likes his job and wants to keep it. Such desires often overshadow personal convictions, especially if those personal convictions aren't as important as others.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
You're mad at him for smart politics? Ok. :rolleyes:
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I'm mad at him for not having a shred of human decency.

He is oblivious to what we do when we train with live ammo and using that for political gain.

Just as Feinstein is with firearms, and using that for political gain.
 
Nark said:
I'm mad at him for not having a shred of human decency.

He is oblivious to what we do when we train with live ammo and using that for political gain.

Just as Feinstein is with firearms, and using that for political gain.
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Politics is all about using circumstances to get things done. When an opportunity presents itself, you use it.
 
http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...ocId=CNG.55a4474a0e660aed75daa2de87d21389.7e1

So, President Obama gets a direct vote on the gun control measures he was advocating (which, IMHO, was a legitimate request)...and when it doesn't go the way he wants it, it is 'shameful'. And he adds to it the false dichotomy/straw man argument that, because the Senate did not vote for this line of lawmaking he was advocating, that they did not care about 'the lives of all our children'.

"Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders not just to honor the memory of their children but to protect the lives of all of our children," Obama said. "A few minutes ago a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn't worth it,"
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I support President Obama's desire to provide a safe society for our children and all the rest of the citizenry. I find it ridiculous that he (and other lawmakers) are hanging the entire ability to ensure that on this ridiculous method of ensuring it.
 
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