One More Massacre

The defendant showed up for his hearing appearing to be in a stupor. Legal defense tactic? The BG is trying to game the system? Or the man has really gone off the edge?

Personally I am going to guess, the shooter thinks he is the smartest guy in the room, and wants to fool people.

Democracy4Sale wrote: Magazines that hold more than 11 rounds should be outlawed. If the SOB has to pause to reload, then at least someone has a chance to knock him down or take him out.

The fatal flaw in what you want is that ex post facto laws are not allowed under our Constitution. Every single high capacity magazine that has already been manufactured would still be a legal magazine to own. Care to guess how many millions of them there are out there? When you stop and figure that there were over 337K new AR-15s sold in a single year, and that anyone who buys an AR-15 is going to buy more than one magazine for it, you quickly realize the number of existing high capacity magazines in in the tens of millions. Might make you feel like something is being done, but the cold hard reality of the situation is that you will never, ever, be safe from something like what happened last week happening again regardless of what laws you get passed. The government can't protect you, never has been able to, and never will be able to, from this kind of senseless act of a madman.

Push hard enough and you might just convince the citizens who currently own millions of AR-15s and similar weapons, along with those tens of millions of high capacity magazines and billions of rounds of ammunition, that they need to make use of those arms in the manner that the framers crafted the 2nd Amendment intended to protect when they prohibited the government from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear the type of individual arms that would be needed if it ever became necessary for the people to alter or abolish the government by force of arms.

The genie isn't going back in the bottle folks. The knowledge of how to build these things is out there and the materials as well. The difference between a 10 round magazine and a 30 round magazine isn't that great. A little sheet metal, a basic knowledge of brazing, a bigger spring and the follower from a low capacity magazine is all that one needs to make a high capacity magazine. You haven't been safe from someone deciding to misuse high capacity magazines in firearms for well over 100 years now and you never again will be - it is time to accept that very basic reality. The only thing that keeps you safe in this society is the decency of your fellow citizen. That's the only thing that has ever kept you safe, even when the only firearms out there were black powder muzzle loading muskets.

What PS said. Even local rules permit pre-ban mags. So if they passed a new 11 round limit on new magazines to be sold, I would make quite a lot of money selling $12 magazines for $100 as people tried to buy up the pre-bans before they were all gone.

Last time Congress gave enough advance warning that magazine factories were running 24 hours a day churning out high-caps.

Actually you are both wrong. The prohibition against ex post facto laws would prevent you from being prosecuted for the sale of items prior to the passage of the law. It would be constitutional to outlaw future sales of those items. i.e., if Congress passed legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of high capacity magazines, then you could legally possess those items, but it would be illegal for you to sell them after the passage of legislation.

It might, and I stress the word might, be possible to stop the sales of something manufactured after a certain date that was new on a temporary basis, or even to prevent the sale or transfer of existing items on a temporary basis, but an outright removal of the ability to sell existing private property in perpetuity would essentially amount to a seizing by the government in violation of the 4th Amendment, not to mention an infringement under the 2nd.

Guns aren't ivory tusks Dog - the ability of the government to act with regards to arms is quite a bit different than any other object in commerce. Now, they might be able to require a stamp be purchased whenever the magazines are sold or transferred, as they do with fully automatic firearms manufactured prior to 1986, and prevent the sale of ones manufactured after a random date to civilians, as they do with fully automatic weapons manufactured after 1986, but no one, and I mean no one, believes that Congress could stop the future sale of fully automatic weapons manufactured before 1986 or high capacity magazines manufactured before the effective date of new legislation. Even an attempt to prohibit the sale of high capacity magazines manufactured after the effective date of new legislation might trigger a constitutional challenge to the law, and along with it a challenge to the 1986 law prohibiting the sale of fully automatic weapons manufactured after 1986 - a challenge the federal government would likely lose in the wake of recent decisions. That's a sleeping dog that no one on the left wants to disturb, I promise you.

PrintSmith wrote:

Democracy4Sale wrote: Magazines that hold more than 11 rounds should be outlawed. If the SOB has to pause to reload, then at least someone has a chance to knock him down or take him out.

The fatal flaw in what you want is that ex post facto laws are not allowed under our Constitution.
.

How has that been working for you lately?
How did that work for FDR in 1933?

"ex post facto"?....What's that got to do with what I said?

Stand back... The resident Sovereign Citizen wacko is cracking up again...

PrintSmith wrote: It might, and I stress the word might, be possible to stop the sales of something manufactured after a certain date that was new on a temporary basis, or even to prevent the sale or transfer of existing items on a temporary basis, but an outright removal of the ability to sell existing private property in perpetuity would essentially amount to a seizing by the government in violation of the 4th Amendment, not to mention an infringement under the 2nd.

Guns aren't ivory tusks Dog - the ability of the government to act with regards to arms is quite a bit different than any other object in commerce. Now, they might be able to require a stamp be purchased whenever the magazines are sold or transferred, as they do with fully automatic firearms manufactured prior to 1986, and prevent the sale of ones manufactured after a random date to civilians, as they do with fully automatic weapons manufactured after 1986, but no one, and I mean no one, believes that Congress could stop the future sale of fully automatic weapons manufactured before 1986 or high capacity magazines manufactured before the effective date of new legislation. Even an attempt to prohibit the sale of high capacity magazines manufactured after the effective date of new legislation might trigger a constitutional challenge to the law, and along with it a challenge to the 1986 law prohibiting the sale of fully automatic weapons manufactured after 1986 - a challenge the federal government would likely lose in the wake of recent decisions. That's a sleeping dog that no one on the left wants to disturb, I promise you.

Under the Heller decision, Scalia held that the government may indeed regulate the sale and use of "unusual" weaponery. You may have your opinion but it is not supported under the constitution or the law of the land. Congress can indeed stop the sale of fully automatic weapons regardless of the date of manufacture. There is nothing to prevent it from doing so. Whether or not it is a "taking", it can still do so if it believes there is a essential purpose in doing so. For example, in a fully analogous situation, Congress outlawed the taking, possession, sale, barter or transfer of bald eagle parts except that one could possess bald eagle parts if lawfully taken before 1940. The Supreme Court held that while the pre-1940 eagle parts could be possesed, they could not be sold, bartered or transfer. Andrus v. Allard.

That is comparable to the situation with fully automatic weapons. Scalia even mentioned that Congress could ban fully automatic weapons in the Heller decision.

At one time drugs such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, etc. were legal. Once the sale and possession of the drugs were banned, one could not sell them even if they were manufactured prior to the date of the legislation.

There are many other similar analogies as well.

Something the Dog Said wrote: Actually you are both wrong. The prohibition against ex post facto laws would prevent you from being prosecuted for the sale of items prior to the passage of the law. It would be constitutional to outlaw future sales of those items. i.e., if Congress passed legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of high capacity magazines, then you could legally possess those items, but it would be illegal for you to sell them after the passage of legislation.

just like making pot illegal has stopped sales.

What can be "unusual" about the most commonly used magazine for the AR-15 rifle Dog? The 30 round magazine has been the standard magazine for the rifle and its variants (M16, M4 and others) for well over 50 years now. How on earth could you hope to classify the most common magazine for one of the most popular rifles as something that was "unusual"?

If, as you seem to believe, Congress could stop the manufacture and sale of all fully automatic weapons ever made without running afoul of the Constitution, why has that dog yet to bark?

What makes all of your attempts at comparison invalid is the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. There is no amendment that establishes that the right to keep bald eagle feathers or ivory tusks shall not be infringed. The 2nd Amendment says just that - that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A complete ban on the most common type of individual arm found on the battlefield couldn't be anything other than an infringement of the right to keep and bear that armament. The holding in Miller, which Heller didn't supersede, is that what is protected are the arms "in common use at the time". Note as well that Heller came before McDonald and may, in fact, be altered somewhat as a result of that later decision. The ruling in Heller was that a total ban on handguns by the District of Columbia constituted a violation of the 2nd Amendment. Pray tell us by what form of logic it would be supposed that if a total ban on one kind of arm is unconstitutional, how a total ban on any kind of arm in common use at the time would not also be unconstitutional. The purpose of having arms in common use at the time refers to those common on a battlefield so that an invasion or insurrection could be properly put down. During the time of the founding, that would have been smooth bore muskets, cannon, mortars and the like. After the end of the civil war, that would be a breech loading firearm, today, the type of arm that is most commonly in use is the automatic weapon. If the forces of the Queen of England were to invade today, their common soldier would be equipped with what is the most common type of arm in use by today's armies - a select fire rifle capable of fully automatic operation. It is not an unusual or dangerous weapon - it is in fact the most common of weapons to be found on the modern day battlefield. That we no longer have a formalized citizen militia in no manner detracts from the purpose of the amendment - the right is an individual one, not a collective one.