"Philip F. Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
I gave you the cite from Mugler v. Kansas. How do you read the
segment: "If therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to
protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has
no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable
invasion of rights secured, it is the duty of the courts to so
adjudge ... "
Certainly efficiency can be judged at the 0% efficient level according
to that cite. The passage seems to say that you can't have laws
lacking a substantial relation to the public purpose stated for the
law. Such 0% efficient laws could be rejected by a court according to
Mugler v. Kansas.
I think Steve's point was that the reasonable relationship test is
usually applied with "relationship" meaning not "can be proven to
have an effect" but rather "we can speculate that the law has some
sort of purpose aimed at this." That's making allowance for fact that
legislature is entitled to judge the probability that a law will be
effective in the future.. In practice, the test sometimes become "a
non-psychotic can imagine a relationship."
So for registration -- the legislature could have thought that at
least a few criminals will (a) register their guns and (b) leave
their guns with their victims, and thus be tracked down. If the
probability of this seems barely above zero, and the expense far out
of proportion, that's for the legislature to judge, the court's not
here to repeal ineffective laws.
[In debates on the question, I usually just give a string of quotes
about how registration could be at best marginally effective, would
be costly and burdensome far in disproportion, etc.,and then give the
sources. Nat'l Coalition to Ban Handguns, and NCCH, predecessor of
the Brady Campaign. Back when they started, they thought they had a
shot at banning all or most handguns, and were worried that
registration would become a compromise that headed this off.
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