@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:Talk aboouyt red herrings. How many times has oralloy repeated some variation of
Quote:Harmless cosmetic features like a pistol grip are no danger to the general welfare.
Reality is hardly a red herring.
MontereyJack wrote:THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN DID NOT BAN PISTOL GRIPS. IT DID NOT BAN FLASH SUPPRESSORS.
Sure it did. That was the whole point of it.
MontereyJack wrote:They are not "harmless cosmetic features" either. A harmless cosmetic feature is coloring a gun pink. Pistol grips improve stability and control against recoil.
Not really. But even if they did, there would still be no legitimate reason to ban them.
MontereyJack wrote:Flash suppressors are used on assault weapons which typically have shorter carbine-length barrels, where more propellant escapes the shorter barrel (the "flash") and destroys night vision in combat. It also lessens revealing the shooter's position. Those are FUNCTIONAL features, not cosmetic.
The fact remains, there is no legitimate reason to ban them.
MontereyJack wrote:The assault weapons ban listed a number of specific makes and models of guns, and recognizing that there were many other perhaps less-common weapons and new ones were continually being developed, put in a working list of a few features common to many assault weapons to cover other members of the genre (flash suppressors for example are apparently on the large majority of assault weapons because they make functional sense in combat.) Tnd such weapons had to have AT LEAST TWO of those features to be banned. The Assault Weapons bBan banned WEAPONS not features. A gun could still have a pistol grip. It could still have a flash suppressor. It couldn't have both. You repet and repeat and repeat something that didn't ever apply, oralloy.
Banning combinations of harmless cosmetic features is just as unconstitutional as banning a single harmless cosmetic feature.
MontereyJack wrote:When they pass the next one, it will include a considerably larger number of specific weapons and will probably have a more comprehensive definition of types of weapons banned.
They aren't going to pass a next one. The House Democrats have made it clear that they have no interest in any form of an assault weapons ban.
MontereyJack wrote:Even the previous version would pass rational basis review because it clearly had a purpose and clearly applied to certain types of weapons which are capable of killing large numbers of people in a short time.
No. Assault weapons bans only deal with harmless cosmetic features. They have nothing to do with how lethal a weapon is.
And the fact that there is no legitimate reason for banning harmless cosmetic features, means that doing so would violate Rational Basis Review (to say nothing of the even sterner standards of scrutiny that might be applied by the courts).
MontereyJack wrote:And since even Scalia has said The American culture of gun violence can reasonably be regulated, and since he is inclined to apply 18th century standards to weapons and assault weapons with their potential for killing large numbers of people in a few seconds, which would almost certainly constitute a terror weapon in 18th century terms, your idea that an assault weapons ban wouldn't pass constitutional muster is legally flatly wrong.
No. Harmless cosmetic features do not confer any potential for killing large numbers of people, and would not in any way transform a weapon into a terror weapon in 18th century terms.
And the fact that there is no legitimate reason for banning them means that any such ban would never pass muster with Rational Basis Review (and the courts may well choose to apply an even sterner method of scrutiny).
