Bearing Arms by Cam Edwards 12/12/2023
A coalition of twenty Democratic attorneys general, including several from states without a prohibition on so-called assault weapons, are sounding off in support of California’s gun ban. In an amicus brief filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Miller v. Bonta, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell and the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington contend that California’s ban doesn’t violate the Second Amendment because the arms that are prohibited aren’t protected by the Constitution in the first place.
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U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez disagreed with that assertion in his decision in Miller, noting that AR-15s and other so-called assault weapons are in common use for lawful purposes across the United States. That was enough for Benitez to determine that the guns in question are protected by the language of the Second Amendment, but the Democratic attorneys general argue that Benitez got it wrong.
The District Court wrongly concluded that Plaintiffs-appellees’ conduct—to possess and carry “firearms like the AR-15 rifle that are commonly-owned for lawful purposes”—is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text. Assault weapons are not “arms” that are in “‘common use’ for self-defense today”—a prerequisite for Second Amendment protection. For instance, weapons like M-16s that are “most useful in military service” do not fall within the protection of the Second Amendment.
Despite their contention that only arms that are in common use for self-defense are protected by the Second Amendment, what the Supreme Court said in Heller is that the “definition of ‘bearable Arms’ extends only to weapons in common use for a lawful purpose. … [which] is at its core the right to individual self-defense.” While the central reason for the right to keep and bear arms might be self-defense, the Court itself has explicitly stated that weapons in common use for a lawful purpose are prima facie protected by the Second Amendment’s language. That was made explicitly clear not only in Heller but in the Caetano case a few years later where a unanimous Court determined that electronic weapons were covered by the Second Amendment despite the fact that they weren’t around in 1791.
More:
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2023/12/12/democrat-ags-declare-assault-weapons-arent-protected-by-the-second-amendment-n78373
