> At 08:10 PM 1/9/2004, Greg Broiles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Did you actually read the opinion, or just read some screwball summary of it?
Obviously not well enough. Thanks for straightening me out. > > >In Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942) the Supreme Court > >[...] > > Nope. That opinion was written, as the citation indicated, by the Court of > Appeals for the First Circuit, not the Supreme Court. > > > unbelievably held that U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) had not > > intended "to formulate a general rule" regarding which arms were > > protected by the Second Amendment and therefore many types of arms were > > not protected. > > While I do think that the 2nd Amendment does, in fact, protect an > individual right to keep and bear arms, I think that the 1st Circuit's > reasoning re _Miller_ in _Cases_ is actually quite reasonable. The opinion > points out that interpreting _Miller_ so that it says the 2nd Amendment > means that Congress can regulate firearms, but only ineffective or useless > ones, is nonsensical. While I don't think the Ninth Circuit reads _Miller_ > in a reasonable fashion, I don't think the "only useless weapons may be > regulated" is an especially rational interpretation of it, either. > > >A plain reading of Miller meant only weapons with non-military application > >could be regulated by Congress and that could not be right because it > >challenged the 'right' of government to have a force monopoly. So the > >Court's reasoning was that the Founders could not have meant for the > >federal government to have any effective deterrent to its tyranny from the > >citizenry. Even after absorbing the opinion, I cannot fathom how > >convoluted a reading of the historical record those on bench needed in > >order to arrive at their conclusion. Pretzel logic indeed! > > Yes, that is an unreasonable conclusion to reach. It is also unreasonable > to conclude that the 2nd Amendment means that no regulation of weapons is > constitutionally permissible. Its hard to square the Founder's purpose of providing the common citizen, through a militia (which a National Guard), with an effective physical deterrent to governmental tyranny with many restrictions on the type of weapons a citizen in good standing may keep and bear. Though allowing the guy next door to own a nuke or a F-15 may be going too far, its not unreasonable for any of us to keep and bear any arm that our police forces (including S.W.A.T. teams) field. >Even the 1st Amendment - which contains the > words "shall make no law" - is interpreted to allow some regulation of > speech. (e.g., shouting theater in a crowded fire, etc.) Only if there is no fire. When a government comes to a bad end there is indeed a fire in the theater.