Court Rules 2nd Amendment Covers Firearms Parts Good News Those Who Build Guns
cowboystatedaily.comThe bigger question is constructive prohibition, i.e. can the government kill civil rights with a thousand cuts.
This opinion is mostly standing/housekeeping.
Here's a clean interpretation of the ruling https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/2...
And the actual ruling [pdf]: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/0101...
Why bother with a thousand cuts when you can just pack the court and do it with one, as was accomplished today when the court effectively struck down the voting rights act?
Nitpick: the court isn’t “packed”; it’s has 9 members since 1869.
The VRA wasn’t struck down either. The court just ruled that race based gerrymandering isn’t legal if it results in partisan advantage in such a district.
That's a funny way of saying they ruled that race-base gerrymandering is legal in effectively all circumstances.
The supreme court's ruling is basically: "Racial gerrymandering is insulated from legal recourse as long as it's packaged as partisan mapmaking"
> Nitpick: the court isn’t “packed”; it’s has 9 members since 1869.
I'm sorry but this is an unserious, bad faith nitpick. The court is absolutely packed by carefully manipulating the membership. The confirmation process for most of my lifetime has been an intensely partisan operation to ensure only the most hardened political operatives land on the court, with the intention of turning it into the 'super legislature' that it is. This argument does a disservice to the people who worked so hard to pack it.
> The VRA wasn’t struck down either
I mean, that's your opinion. but you're not on the SC and someone who is says that this decision's effect is to "eviscerate the law."
packing SCOTUS has always referred to attempts to add justices, which is what was attempted by FDR
Incorrect.[1]
Thanks for giving the citation based on reality and keeping it calm and rational in contrast.
You're welcome to cite whatever modern piece that rewrites to whatever definitions you like. I actively encourage you to stick your head in the sand and scream at the top of your lungs.
The literal public education textbook I was required to learn from explained court packing decades ago as increasing the number of justices to imbalance an existing court, which is explicitly what FDR was trying to do. If the English language has changed that much in my short lifetime, I'm pretty sure I grew up on mars.
You don't need to be upset, the mature thing to do is to retract your claim about it having 'always' referred to increasing the court size. That's just facially incorrect, as I demonstrated. Furthermore, what does your 'well ackshually' in this situation do to address the obvious problem of a dysfunctional branch of government suffering from capture by partisans? Let's not pretend that you'd be okay with this if the court was packed with card-carrying democratic socialists.
Pedantry is serving nobody any good here. It distracts from the core debate which is far more serious than the evolution of a dictionary word. It meant one thing. Now it means more. Let's move on and stay on topic.
No because if you grew up on mars you'd deport yourself. Go eat one.
Who knew that the "well ackshually, technically, we're not banning guns, we're just requiring a serial number! (one that you cannot legally apply)" strategy wouldn't work.
"Neener neener neener" isn't a valid legal theory.
> "Neener neener neener" isn't a valid legal theory.
Works surprisingly (depressingly) well when there’s no pushback. We’re not controlling news media, we’re just issuing broadcast licenses. It’s not a movie and videogame censor, it’s just a state agency for mandatory age ratings. (In at least one Western country that was literally a rebrand.) Or closer to TFA’s locale, we’re not regulating commercial activity within a single state, we’re just controlling its impact on the interstate market. (Don’t worry, it’s all for a good cause, child labor is bad after all.)
>We’re not controlling news media, we’re just issuing broadcast licenses
See also:
"your 4th/5th/8th amendment rights aren't being violated because this is an administrative matter not a civil one"
>Don’t worry, it’s all for a good cause, child labor is bad after all.)
On an unrelated not the people who hold up the banning of child labor as some good thing really peeve me because it's ignorant of history. Child labor went away because industrialization made a man with a machine more valuable than a child with or without a machine.
Then once child labor was mostly gone the government went back and banned it in the few places it hung on. Textbook low impact pandering. Not any sort of accomplishment or hard fought thing. And it worked, because they're still crediting the government with it over a century later.
Those two things are in fact different. Does requiring a VIN on a car mean that cars are banned?
You don’t actually need a VIN on a car, you just won’t be able to register and drive a VINless car on public roads.
Some states seem to have designated even private roads as “public” if there is uncontrolled access (seems ripe for a court challenge though). But offroading or gated roads would be fine even here.
Some YouTubers have fun importing cheap Chinese cars that aren’t street legal and destroying them with extreme offroading.
> You don’t actually need a VIN on a car, you just won’t be able to register and drive a VINless car on public roads.
Somehow I doubt that many 2nd amendment supporters would be okay with "You don't need a registration number on your gun, it'll just be illegal to carry/use it anywhere except private property"
Some would, some wouldn’t. There are some who only care about home defense or sport shooting on private land. Open carry and CCW folks would be quite upset, yes.
The biggest problem with this (for the first group) would be conveyance from buyer to seller or to/from a range or hunting grounds.
Car/traffic laws don't apply on personal property (Though noise ordinances still would), but that won't stop cops from trying to ticket you anyways.
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/dep350/receive...
FWIW: this isn't a universally-applicable statement, plenty of states forbid DWI during any and all operation of motor vehicles, including on private property.
I think in almost all states DUI applies to private roads accessible to the public, such as parking lots and driveways. Mythbusters drove drunk on a closed course in California and that was legal.
Only a few states absolutely forbid operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (I know Washington is one). That said, you’d have to do something pretty absurd to attract the attention of law enforcement if you’re staying on your own land.
If they didn't want you to drink, John Deere wouldn't have put a cupholder on it. C'mon, that's entrapment!
>That said, you’d have to do something pretty absurd to attract the attention of law enforcement if you’re staying on your own land.
That's just BS. If the cops show up for any reason and they think they can get a DUI out of it they will try and write one.
This is most definitely completely false. All EPA laws apply to all vehicles originally sold as road legal forever.
Ontario, Canada has stunt driving laws that extend past the road to parking lots, farmer's fields, and more.
Do F1 cars have VINs? I’m pretty sure you don’t need a VIN on a car if it stays off public roads. Also driving is not a right enshrined by the constitution.
Well, One is a right, the other is a privilege.
> Does requiring a VIN on a car mean that cars are banned?
Of course, Chinese cars in the US are effectively banned by regulations. Proof that VIN can be used for banning.
Tell me you have never actually read the statute without telling me.
Per the statute text, you may not manufacture a firearm for personal use in Colorado: the statute requires an FFL's license number (which you do not have) to be placed in the serial number string.
FFLs didn't exist in 1790 - therefore this fails Bruen among other standards.
"Neener neener" seems to be working out well for the gun rights advocates in the source article, who enjoy the absurd fiction that a lower receiver is a firearm and the entire assembly they attach on top of it is just "gun parts".
"Absurd fiction" aka "established law for decades." This concept of "serialized part" is a construct stemming from Democrat-established legislation.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is difficult to understand?
I think you know that you're deploying the "neener neener" strategy on me and I'm not interested in engaging with it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/rule_of_lenity
If one wants to make something illegal, the onus is on the lawmaker to write precise legislation. This is centuries-old legal doctrine.
"Established law for decades" seems to me to be almost the opposite of "neener neener", which I take to be more along the lines of "cutesy legal tricks".
Which part of "well-regulated militia" is difficult to understand? ;)
Basic English skills? Why would the prefatory clause limit the latter? Even the most left-leaning [current] SCOTUS justices didn't/don't attempt to make this argument.
'A well balanced breakfast being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed.'
Whose rights shall not be infringed here, the breakfast's or those of the people?
"A well-balanced breakfast, being necessary to the health of a free State, the right of the people to keep and use Toasters, shall not be infringed."
Who has the right to keep and use toasters? The people, or the well-balanced breakfast?
> Which part of "well-regulated militia" is difficult to understand?
The word "regulated", which has no semantic overlap with the modern meaning of the same word.
>who enjoy the absurd fiction that a lower receiver is a firearm and the entire assembly they attach on top of it is just "gun parts"
It's the ATF and congressional Democrats (who are very much not "gun rights advocates") who created that "absurd fiction".
The actual opinion: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/0101...
Full case record: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68598045/national-assoc...
Ok, so those bills in NY and WA about making it illegal to sell printers that don't detect firearm parts are dead in the water, right?
Those are different circuit courts where this ruling doesn't directly apply. However anyone who wants to challenge those laws would be stupid to not bring this to the judge - even though it doesn't apply, the judge still needs to justify why they are ignoring it and on appeal the circuit court will mention this ruling (either why they agree, or why they think it is wrong) - assuming the appeal is accepted.
It will be fine to print a gun but there will be laws outlawing your ability to print an iphone case and printers will have to detect parts from any registered manufacturer. So we will get the worst of all worlds. printers only for guns and not for people to build useful things.
Unjustified cynicism aside, the same technical reasons that a ban on printing gun parts is infeasible apply to printing iphone cases. There's no feasible way to detect what a printer is printing.
Don't underestimate the state's ability to spy on what you (and your devices) are doing or their willingness to erode your freedom even with massive false positive/negative rates.
Fine, there's currently no feasible way to do that
I very much wouldn't put it past this government from banning unauthorised part printing in some draconian DMCA-esque law bought and paid for by John Deere and Apple, but is there any current proposals for such a law?
Unironically this because guns have fairly stringent constitutional protections and lots of jurisprudence to that effect whereas flimsy hand wavy bullshit about public good is enough to regulate anything else.
You just need a gun design that has a part that can double as an iphone case...
You joke but phone mounts for firearms are a thing. People use them to record gun PoV videos and to make range estimation (such as dope charts) more accessible.
my bet it is that it only affects the states in the 10th circuit, but could be assumed to be the law of the land, until a case is brought in which case there is only an issue if a different appeals circuit rules differently
Correct, it's only /binding/ on courts in the same District but they are often persuasive when cited in other districts if the decision is well reasoned and less controversial. This one will likely be contested, the circuits have very different ideas about gun rights.
If even the district court rules this way it's hard to see a World where the supreme court doesn't also rule that way.
Unless there's been court packing by then of course.
I've given up trying to logic out what the court will decide on many issues, they're quite willing to find new legal arguments to allow their preferred outcome in a particular case.
This is incredibly good news to anyone that believe in freedom of speech and expression.
that's the first amendment. this article is about the second amendment.
It's possible GP got it wrong, but there is a "code is speech" angle on this. Shapes can't be illegal.
The second protects the first
I'll believe that the moment I see it. Seems to me like most of the 2nd amendment crowd is more likely to cheer on the destruction of freedoms than defend them. There are a whole lot of freedoms being violated in the US right now including violations of people's first amendment rights. You can even go on youtube and find countless examples, but somehow all the bullets seem to be mostly going into suicides, school children, and gang members.
I'm not even saying that shootouts are a good way to handle the situation, or that people should be trying to put things right by shooting other people but the idea that the 2nd amendment is protecting us from violations of our freedoms or the abuses of government is clearly pure fantasy.
It's as much a fantasy as any other "nuclear option", including the literal nuclear option.
Violent revolutions are a part of our history, and they still happen around the world today. Unless things go very, very poorly in the next few decades, we probably won't see another one in the USA in our lifetimes. We can all admit that that fact makes the 2nd amendment's usefulness feel fantastical.
But on deeper reflection I would hope that we can acknowledge that violent revolution is not an impossibility, it's merely an improbability. And anybody who tries to tell you that hundreds of millions of small arms are inconsequential in a fight is uninformed, to put it lightly.
The fact that the current level of rights abuses (which I would agree is much too high and climbing!) has not lead to a violent revolution is a feature, not a bug.
> It's as much a fantasy as any other "nuclear option", including the literal nuclear option.
Mutually assured destruction is what makes the literal nuclear option a valid deterrent. That doesn't work with the second amendment though because one side has guns and the other side has guns and tanks and drones and nukes and the ability to control all public communication networks, etc.
Violent revolutions are a part of our history, but back at a time when having muskets was enough to get the job done. It's completely unrealistic to expect that to work out in today's environment and the government knows that. Hundreds of millions of small arms are inconsequential in a fight when you're fighting against planes and drones that can drop bombs while flying higher than bullets fired upwards can ever reach.
That said, while the success of outright revolution (at which point the constitution doesn't really matter) can be reasonably debated, what can't be argued is that the 2nd amendment has been effective at protecting our rights. Our rights are routinely violated. The 2nd amendment is total failure when it comes to protecting our rights and when it comes it preventing violations of those rights. The government does not fear the people and that becomes increasingly clear as the mask slips away and they stop even pretending to be anything but openly corrupt.
Tanks and planes require logistics and people. You don't shoot at the tanks directly, you shoot at the people loading them, or the refinery towers that fuel them, or the people that have to eventually get out of them.
What are they going to do, level factories and skyscrapers when their logistics are threatened thus destroying their own logistics and economy that is supporting them? An insurgency is not like a nation state war, it is asymettrical warfare where even telling who the enemy is is incredibly difficult and many exist among your own personnel.
> What are they going to do, level factories and skyscrapers when their logistics are threatened thus destroying their own logistics
They've already got planes and tanks. They can also be strategic about what they target, protecting what's important to them while targeting what's important to the population. The people flying the planes and drones won't have homes in the communities they bomb. Our government has already opened fire on Americans, already dropped bombs on American cities. Like I said though, how well they'd do in a revolt is theoretical. What isn't theoretical is the failure of the 2nd amendment to protect our freedoms.
> That doesn't work with the second amendment though because one side has guns and the other side has guns and tanks and drones and nukes and the ability to control all public communication networks, etc.
I don't want to be too blunt, but this is the "uninformed" I was talking about. The same asymmetry was present in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The ability to level cities is not actually that helpful when the goal is to control the population. Modern revolutions don't involve standing armies that you can kill will tanks.
> outright revolution (at which point the constitution doesn't really matter)
It doesn't matter beyond the point of revolution. It matters a lot that it was in effect before the revolution.
> what can't be argued is that the 2nd amendment has been effective at protecting our rights. Our rights are routinely violated.
I'm not sure if you just don't understand the concept of a last resort or if you actually think that we're at the point of last resort already, in which case my only question is: Do you own a gun yet?
> The same asymmetry was present in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Those also occurred overseas. The government didn't already have control over the population like they do here. They didn't have massive amounts of data on every last person there, and everyone those people knew. They hadn't been tracking all of their movements. If the founding fathers had tried to gain independence while still in Brittan the fight would have been much much harder.
We can argue over how well a revolution might go in theory, but the second amendment's failure to protect our freedoms isn't theoretical. Our freedoms are being violated all the time. It failed. That means that having the "last resort" option doesn't prevent our government from violating our rights. The second does not protect the first.
A last resort isn't effective at defending our freedoms under the government we have. It just maybe gives us a very very small chance to throw the old system away and replace it with something new that would restore our rights.
Personally, I'd like to think that it's still possible to vote our freedoms back, but there's been a lot of efforts made to reduce or prevent our ability to accomplish that and recently voter suppression efforts appear to be escalating alongside talk of "third terms" and election canceling. It's certainty not encouraging. In my case, under an absolute worst case scenario, the most effective use of a gun would be suicide. At best it might save me from looters. I can't imagine it being any use against a drone strike.
Your acceptance criteria for a last line of defense is pretty strict. Governments break the rules, a lot. If we tried to overthrow every government that broke the rules we'd be in a permanent state of violent revolution.
You don't seem like a violent person; quite the opposite. Most people are like that, myself included. I'm mad at the government. Steaming mad, even. But killing? Not even remotely close.
I get that it's easy to discount low-probability futures as meaningless, but I won't do that either. Maybe the insurance policy that is the 2nd amendment has paid out $0 so far. I don't think that's the case, but for the sake of argument let's say it's so. Even if it were so, history and current events indicate to me that we should keep paying for the policy. We think we've got it bad now, but our guy is an absolute kitten compared to some of the tyrants our species has cooked up.
I didnt see a single firearm when the FCC censored Jimmy Kimmel via licensing revoking.
Weird how the NRA party is currently trampling on freedom of the press, freedom of expression and protest, but America's well armed patriots are just sitting around polishing their barrels about it.
Do you mean the Democrats, because of the 2013 Obama administration repealing of the act preventing domestic news manipulation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_the_United_State...
(personally i think both parties suck, but what you wrote i think refers to that)
No. I'm talking about the current administration, which has done far worse in attacking first amendment rights than Obama ever did by any sane measure.
If you're going to do a whataboutism at least try to make it work. America's gun owners were practically chomping at the bit to start shooting over Obama's imaginary Marxist revolution, as much as they couldn't care less about Trump's actual authoritarianism today.
10th circuit, no other circuit ruling on the case, a state bringing the case
I could see this standing, there's no point in the state appealing, as Colorado couldn't reach another appeals circuit, and appealing to the Supreme Court limits SCOTUS to an appellate court and no original jurisdiction so the court has no reason to rule on this
I think you misunderstand how the courts work. No other court would rule on this case because it wouldn't be heard in another circuit and the Supreme Court is the ONLY court anyone can appeal to after a circuit court, the only other options are convening a larger group for an en banc hearing but that doesn't apply here afaik.
I was trying to save Colorado taxpayers and people that disagree some time and energy. To focus on what they can control which isn’t this.
Additionally I was alluding to the process of using a other circuit by bringing a case in another state that has similar laws as Colorado, thats the only way for a potential circuit split, forcing SCOTUS review.
Splits don't actually force the Supreme Court to take it up on any thing approaching an immediate time frame. There was a split about what "exceeding authorized access" meant in CFAA for ~10 years before the Supreme Court deigned to take it up and resolve the difference.