MaverickNH
NES Member
Following the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upholding of a decision supporting Chicago's gun registration requirement (discussed here and here).
Sorry, Mandatory Gun Registration Is Constitutional
excerpts:
"Halbrook's brief filed in federal court on July 31 says, simply, "An arm protected by the Second Amendment may not be required to be registered... It cannot be imagined that the Americans of the founding generation would have deemed any requirement that all of their firearms be registered with the Crown or, later, any government entity, as consistent with their right to possess firearms, any more than they would have viewed speaker registration consistent with the right to utter opinions."
(more on Halbrook's Nazi paradigm here and here.
"Dave Kopel of the Golden, Colo-based Independence Institute takes a hybrid view of the constitutionality of registration. "Registration of militia guns, the gun which a person brings to militia service, to fulfill his militia obligation, is almost certainly constitutional," he says. "As for non-militia guns... the First Amendment parallel is Supreme Court rejection of registration of NAACP members."
"So does Don Kilmer, the California attorney suing over concealed carry. "Based on the Second Amendment, registration can only be linked to militia service, such that you would be required for example to register militia-style weapons," Kilmer says. "You may be required to let the government know you have an AR-15, but you may not need to let them know that you have an over-under shotgun that you use for sporting clays and duck hunting. Of what good is a 12-gauge over-under going to be for the militia?"
"Alan Gura, who argued the Heller case before the Supreme Court last year and seems to be heading there again in a lawsuit against Chicago, suggests a way to square the Second Amendment with 18th century history. "My answer on this would be, sadly, (registration) is constitutional although perhaps only if the government is serious about organizing a militia. The fact is that the framers had gun registration for this purpose, and the D.C. Circuit (in the case that led to Heller) specifically approved of registration being constitutional."
Additional commentary here:
"Registration of weapons suitable for militia would be constitutional as
part of militia regulation at the unit level, to assess unit strength and
assign duties, but the risk to militia of having detailed reports falling
into enemy hands would dictate that only summary reports be made to higher
echelons, that do not identify specific weapons or who they belong to.
This is actually also the practice in the regular military. In combat, the
details of who has which weapons is normally classified, and properly so.
The constitutionality involved is that all regulation must be only for
militia effectiveness, and never for some vague notion that the people
have to be protected from those with weapons.
What is missing from the picture is the duty to keep militia organized,
trained, and armed to a level at which they can prevail over any military
forces, including our own. If this were done there would be little
question of public safety from weapons. When we are all soldiers and all
police, criminals and their crimes will tend not to occur in the first
place."
Sorry, Mandatory Gun Registration Is Constitutional
excerpts:
"Halbrook's brief filed in federal court on July 31 says, simply, "An arm protected by the Second Amendment may not be required to be registered... It cannot be imagined that the Americans of the founding generation would have deemed any requirement that all of their firearms be registered with the Crown or, later, any government entity, as consistent with their right to possess firearms, any more than they would have viewed speaker registration consistent with the right to utter opinions."
(more on Halbrook's Nazi paradigm here and here.
"Dave Kopel of the Golden, Colo-based Independence Institute takes a hybrid view of the constitutionality of registration. "Registration of militia guns, the gun which a person brings to militia service, to fulfill his militia obligation, is almost certainly constitutional," he says. "As for non-militia guns... the First Amendment parallel is Supreme Court rejection of registration of NAACP members."
"So does Don Kilmer, the California attorney suing over concealed carry. "Based on the Second Amendment, registration can only be linked to militia service, such that you would be required for example to register militia-style weapons," Kilmer says. "You may be required to let the government know you have an AR-15, but you may not need to let them know that you have an over-under shotgun that you use for sporting clays and duck hunting. Of what good is a 12-gauge over-under going to be for the militia?"
"Alan Gura, who argued the Heller case before the Supreme Court last year and seems to be heading there again in a lawsuit against Chicago, suggests a way to square the Second Amendment with 18th century history. "My answer on this would be, sadly, (registration) is constitutional although perhaps only if the government is serious about organizing a militia. The fact is that the framers had gun registration for this purpose, and the D.C. Circuit (in the case that led to Heller) specifically approved of registration being constitutional."
Additional commentary here:
"Registration of weapons suitable for militia would be constitutional as
part of militia regulation at the unit level, to assess unit strength and
assign duties, but the risk to militia of having detailed reports falling
into enemy hands would dictate that only summary reports be made to higher
echelons, that do not identify specific weapons or who they belong to.
This is actually also the practice in the regular military. In combat, the
details of who has which weapons is normally classified, and properly so.
The constitutionality involved is that all regulation must be only for
militia effectiveness, and never for some vague notion that the people
have to be protected from those with weapons.
What is missing from the picture is the duty to keep militia organized,
trained, and armed to a level at which they can prevail over any military
forces, including our own. If this were done there would be little
question of public safety from weapons. When we are all soldiers and all
police, criminals and their crimes will tend not to occur in the first
place."
