Also, there is a limit to the 2A somewhere, it does not protect ANY weapon, ANY place, ANY time, it does not protect shoulder fired missles, tanks, or recoiless rifles. A cut-off at FA weapons would be a no-brainer for the SC to create even if it hadn’t had the NFA of 34 to cement it in with MILLER back in 1939.

I say this as someone who is pretty radical agout gun ownership and would love to have them. But if the SC was going to formulate a test today in a vacum it could easily follow Don Kates suggestion in his 1986 Michigan Law Review article in which he stipulated a 3 part test – that the weapon have utility for personal defense, police work, and in the militia. FA weapons don’t pass all 3 and may not even pass the militia test (as I point out above).

Granted they are not in “common” use now in part because they’ve been restricted, but even if not they wouldn’t be as ubiquitious as pistol and rifles, most people aren’t going to carry a Thompson in the car for self-defense, and shooting FA is not cheap. So I don’t blame Fincher or Olafson, the decision was made long before they tested the courts on it.

We better count ourselfs lucky that Heller was decided in our favor at all and figure out how to make sure that semi-autos don’t go the route of FA arms. Reading Scalia’s decision I can see a future court saying – well, semi-autos are really dangerous an unusual (unusual in that people don’t carry them for self-defense), so bye-bye. Scalia’s decision can almost be read as limiting the right to have handguns in the home. Granted I think it will eventually be expanded to include reasonable carry outside but what limits we might get someday on that, and on what weapons, remain to be seen.

That is where I think Gura failed most, in not making enough of an argument that the MILLER decision really was more than just a decision to send the case back to the lower court, it did indeed formulate a test – a good test – for what arms are protected. If he had got the SC to buy into that then all we would have to do is show that semi-autos are exactly the type of weapon the 2A would protect. Instead, Scalia seemed to focus on the personal self-defense angle of the 2A (which of course forms the basis for national defense) at the expense of the idea of the militia based defense. Therein lies the danger to semi-auto rifles.

So unless we want the argument between the “prags” and the 3%’s to begin to have real-world implications lets make sure the next Congress knows we’re serious about keeping our right to keep and bear those arms.

Similarly, “common use” is not a time-dependent variable. The common use of fully automatic firearms is well documented from the era of Bonny and Clyde onward.

Yes, because they believed it was going to lose. When Parker started out, O’Conner was still on the bench. Feel confident she would have ruled the same as Alito and Roberts? How did Rehnquist feel about the Second Amendment?

NRA turned out to be wrong on this one, and I’m glad they were unsuccessful. But that’s hindsight. It was a 5-4 decision, and two of those votes weren’t on the court when this all got started.

What “silver bullet” are you referring to?

Remember that the NRA attorneys tried to scuttle your much celebrated Heller.

Screw that. I’m not going to help out a guy who sets himself on fire, then runs around demanding everyone help put it out. Guys like Akins I understand. Pushing the boundaries of the law is important, and if he had been successful, it would have been a victory for us. But what happens when you manufacture your own sten gun is a well defined legal outcome that results in going to federal prison.

My statement on Olofson is here

If you expect public sympathy™ to do gun owners ANY good when the leftists control the media, education, the money to hand out to the folks who you expect to sympathize with you, well, the definition of insanity comes to mind.

I’m just going to say F most gun owners and worry about other things since they’ve become too metrosexual and Klintonian relying much too much on image and polls to stand up for their rights. Marching sheepishly to the back of the bus because the people don’t like you. Too damn self centered to do anything besides those things ignored by the law givers.

You give him any money? Demonstrate? Write letters? Make calls?

If he appeals will you give him any support or just leave him under the bus?

Where were you on the Akins stock?

How about the Olofson case?

What did you do to support ANY of them?

No one.

:)