Debate about Gun Control

[Mikebert]

(06-20-2016, 09:23 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-17-2016, 01:12 PM)Mikebert Wrote: It seems to me that the Supreme Court made abundantly clear that they have NOT yet ruled on whether a ban on more powerful weapons is a violation of the Second Amendment.

Not in a recent case.  They were clear that military weapons are protected in US v Miller back in the 1930s, but that case also contained elements of the Collective Rights interpretation.  That case is old enough and elements of it have been put in question by recent cases that it is worthy of review by a modern court.  I'd spurn the modern courts as political, as stretching the reading of the text and intent of the authors, but US v Miller was no less political.

2008 is not recent?  I was refering to this portion of Heller.

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

For example, based on that statement above I would say the 2nd Amendment does not necessarily given one the right to own a nuke (Justin 77 argued that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed the right to bear any military weapon, even a nuke).  Not all law-abiding people will continue on to the future to be law-abiding.  People can (and do) go beserk.  When they do so with a revolver they may kill a dozens, with a nuke it could be tens of thousands.  All I was saying is there must be some line between owning a handgun (Heller) or shotgun (Miller) that is guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment and a personal nuke, which I should hope is not.