Wednesday - August 13, 2014

Time For A Judicial Recall

I swear, if I had to rewrite the Constitution, not only would I add term limits for ALL federal employees (or perhaps some kind of national draft of college graduates to do a 5 year hitch pushing papers), I’d throw in some kind of No Confidence vote. Especially for judges, who are nearly impossible to get rid of. And some of them are about 93 sizes too big for their britches ...

Say what???

The case in question is Kolbe et al v. O’Malley et al which named numerous plaintiffs including the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore, Maryland Licensed Firearms Dealers Association, Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), among others which challenged the constitutionality of Maryland’s strict new gun laws.
...
In what looks to be a terrible ruling for Maryland gun owners a federal judge has essentially ruled that guns that were regulated by the state of Maryland last year, including AR-15 and AK style rifles (as well as other magazine fed, semi-auto rifles with certain features), “fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms,” according to a 47 page opinion by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake.

From the ruling ( “LCM” means Large Capacity Magazine, a magazine that can hold more than some arbitrary [ and historically decreasing ] number of cartrdiges ):

A. Infringement of the Second Amendment Right

The court must first determine whether the weapons at issue here are of the type falling within the Second Amendment’s scope. The defendants do not appear to claim Maryland’s ban on assault weapons and LCMs is longstanding such that it is presumptively valid.  ...

The court must instead evaluate whether the banned assault long guns and LCMs are in common use for lawful purposes. ... If they are not—or if they are dangerous and unusual —they fall outside the Amendment’s protections, and Maryland’s law banning the weapons is valid without further analysis.

20 pages of blah-blah-blah later ...

Upon review of all the parties’ evidence, the court seriously doubts that the banned assault long guns are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense in the home, which is at the core of the Second Amendment right, and is inclined to find the weapons fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual. First, the court is not persuaded that assault weapons are commonly possessed based on the absolute number of those weapons owned by the public. Even accepting that there are 8.2 million assault weapons in the civilian gun stock, as the plaintiffs claim, assault weapons represent no more than 3% of the current civilian gun stock, and ownership of those weapons is highly concentrated in less than 1% of the U.S. population. The court is also not persuaded by the plaintiffs’ claims that assault weapons are used infrequently in mass shootings and murders of law enforcement officers. The available statistics indicate that assault weapons are used disproportionately to their ownership in the general public and, furthermore, cause more injuries and more fatalities when they are used.

As for their claims that assault weapons are well-suited for self-defense, the plaintiffs proffer no evidence beyond their desire to possess assault weapons for self-defense in the home that they are in fact commonly used, or possessed, for that purpose.

Finally, despite the plaintiffs’ claims that they would like to use assault weapons for defensive purposes, assault weapons are military-style weapons designed for offensive use, and are equally, or possibly even more effective, in functioning and killing capacity as their fully automatic versions.

So even though there might be nearly EIGHT AND A QUARTER MILLION of this type of rifle owned by citizens, it still gets labeled as “unusual” and a “cop killer” even though that particular use is distinctively rare (and a statistic kept by the FBI).

And here’s true wisdom from the bench: because evil black rifles like the AR15 (and the AK47) LOOK like “Army Guns”, and army guns are made ONLY to take the killing to Teh NMEE, they have NO defensive use, only an offensive use. And, best of all, they are “possible even more effective” - in other words, MORE DEADLY - than actual genuine machine guns.

Therefore they deserve a double dip of scary sauce, and are thus properly illegal in the state of Maryland. And those ultra naughty evil LCMs too, because OMFG, how many more toddlers could be killed in the 5 seconds wasted changing out a smaller magazine.

This woman, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake, a Clinton appointee, is a completely illogical idiot ruled by her feeeewings. Tear off that black robe, take away her gavel, and get her the hell off the bench. Forever. ASAP.

PS - given that rifles are NOT registered in nearly all the states, just how on earth would Ms. Judge be able to say with any certainty that those 8.2 million rifles are owned by merely 3.15 million people (1% of the population, give or take)?  And even if that was true, how could a “mere” 3.15 million owner make anything rare enough to be called “unusual”? That’s about as unusual as pigeons in a city park. As rare as chickens on a farm. As rare as flies on sh.. ... well, you know.

Whack a doodle doo.

PS - I have a relative who owns an 1822 Springfield musket. Converted to percussion ignition for the Mexican War, it’s complete with the original 18” long toad-sticker bayonet. Although it’s days of firing a massive .69 caliber ball are long since past, at nearly 11lb and 7 feet long with bayonet, it’s still a damn deadly weapon. And so unusual ... I doubt if there are 500 of them left in all the world. And though civilian owned, it was originally military issue. Guess that one ought to be banned as well!

PPS - talk about having it both ways. Or denying it both ways. This decision makes the case that actual military style firearms, the kind any “well regulated militia” would want to use, are properly denied citizen’s ownership. So now we’ve got Miller, 1939 saying that non-military weapons can be regulated and made illegal, and this case, Kolbe v. O’Malley saying that military-"ish" weapons can be regulated and made illegal. And of course, under BATFE’s “Class III”, actual genuine military weapons already ARE illegal and/or highly regulated. Both sides of the coin, plus the edge.

PPPS - I guess the “home” is another way of saying “a free State” now? And “defense” now means “security”? Because I’m pretty certain that “home defense” doesn’t actually explicitly come up in “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Posted by Drew458     on 08/13/2014 at 02:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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