Like when a federal judge in California declares that a commonly owned and used firearm…isn’t.
An ‘arm’ as defined by common law and as protected by the Second Amendment.
As reported by American Military News, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton ruled July 22 that any ban of a semi-automatic rifle like an AR-15, an AK-47 knock-off, or other firearms is not unconstitutional because, well, they’re not firearms, really.
They’re something else. Something much…worse.
Staton ruled to uphold California’s current law banning the ownership, manufacture, or sale of “semiautomatic rifles and the bullet buttons that alter a conventional rifle into a rapid-fire weapon,” according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle.
That’s because those kinds of rifles are “incredibly effective killing machines” that no one really needs for self-defense, which countered what the California Rifle & Pistol Association asserted in a lawsuit challenging the statewide ban.
Staton, in her ruling, “cited congressional findings that semi-automatic rifles have a rate of fire, 300 to 500 rounds per minute, that makes them ‘virtually undistinguishable’ from machine guns, and that they are the ‘weapons of choice’ for gangs, hate groups, and ‘mentally deranged persons bent on mass murder,'” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
And, according to the Los Angeles Times, Gov. Gavin Newsom called such guns “weapons of godd@mned mass destruction” following a shooting in his state over the weekend, in another gun-free zone.
Meanwhile, the gun group cited a 2011 ruling by then-U.S. District Judge Brett Kavanaugh in which he wrote that “the Second Amendment should be interpreted to allow possession of semi-automatic weapons and prohibit mandatory gun-registration laws” — two views that are absolutely in line with the Second Amendment, which states the “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” in any way.
There is no provision in the Second Amendment allowing ANY gun ban
As usual, Left-wing attorneys who support Staton’s ruling, like Eric Tirschwell of Everytown for Gun Safety, a known gun control group, claim that “reasonable gun control laws” are acceptable.
But are they really? Would “reasonable speech control” or “reasonable religious restrictions” or “reasonable limits on petitioning government” or “reasonable relaxations of privacy rights” be acceptable? How come only “reasonable gun control” is seen as permissible under a Constitution that specifically states there are to be no infringements on the right to bear arms — for whatever purpose (self-defense, hunting, sport shooting, etc.)?
It isn’t permissible, of course, and would never be acceptable but for Left-leaning judges who rule from a political point of view rather than via constitutional interpretation, as they have sworn to do. (Related: Maryland Democrat now calling gun owners “terrorists” in latest escalation against the Bill of Rights and American patriots.)
You know what else? There is no provision in the Second Amendment or anywhere else in the Constitutional that allows the Judicial Branch to cite “congressional findings” as a guideline when ruling on a gun issue.
There are no provisions allowing for any banning of any designated “firearms,” period — no matter how many rounds they fire or how powerful they are.
Also, when did “virtually indistinguishable” become a legal standard when differentiating between different classes of firearms? Either a gun is a machine gun — or it isn’t.
And speaking of machine guns, what’s the ban on those weapons all about? The Second Amendment forbids banning of guns because that’s an “infringement” on the right to keep and bear them.
The framers were pretty specific when it came to drafting a Constitution that sought to both recognize and protect essential human rights like self-defense and the right to keep and bear arms.
This ruling is an outrage and a massive insult to our founding document. It must be overturned and the judge disciplined for ruling against a fundamental constitutional right.
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