Worman v. Baker (MA AWB) Oral Arguments 1-9-2019

The opening paragraph and the rapidity with which the decision was issued tells us all we need to know. It's clear that the outcome was a foregone conclusion long before the hearing took place:

For most of our history, mainstream scholarship considered the Second Amendment as nothing more than a guarantee that the several states can maintain "well regulated" militias.
This judge thinks the Supreme Court got it wrong in Heller and knows that he's not likely to be set straight.

The Second Amendment is unique in that there is fundamental disagreement about the meaning of the words and the intent of the framers. The difference between guaranteeing an individual vs. a collective right is profound and simply does not exist anywhere else in the Constitution. Large numbers of politician and members of the judiciary believe that the Supreme Court was wrong in Heller and continue to regard the Second Amendment as a collective right effectively rending it a dead letter. They do this because they know it's unlikely that a circuit court will over rule them and that the Supreme Court is seemingly happy to let the Second Amendment become a 'constitutional orphan'.

The lower courts in are full-scale revolt against Heller and the precedent it set. Judge Young's snarky comment about Scalia is the judicial equivalent of flipping gun owners the bird.
 
Note that the final comment states that the AR15 is not covered by the 2A. One of my original problems with this case is that the plaintiff threw in a 2A claim rather than limit the case specifically to the overreach and extra-legal enforcement action by the AG. I predicted that this was giving the court a "not covered by the 2A" claim to hang a decision on, and allow it to largely sidestep the "overreach" issue. Although there was some discussion of the AG's interpretation, the final summation by the court addresses the 2A issue ... one that should never have been in the plaintiff's filing in the first place.

Comm2A had very little input on this case. We were at a meeting with the NSSF (and others) shortly after the Healy ban, but we were not active participants in formulating case strategy.

Agree. Not trying to be decisive with our own side - but there are/were those that foresaw a "throw shit against the wall and see what sticks" approach as being fundamentally flawed for this reason. IMO an extremely narrowly focused attack on the re-interpretation would be been better. Today's ruling claims that these decisions are up to the legislature - but the legislature wrote a law that is being re-written by the AG. It is certainly not within her rights to invent new laws out of thin air.
 
Somehow the idea of the firearm "being designed for military service" -- if true -- was looked at as a bad thing. So what? Tang was designed for space travel. That doesn't make every kid who drank it an astronaut.

The GPS was also designed for military service. Lets ban assault cell phones.
 
But we are afraid of pretentious vocabulary.


He just won the dubious distinction award of judicial competence.
On the bench today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club — the ‘hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.'”
 
Somehow the idea of the firearm "being designed for military service" -- if true -- was looked at as a bad thing. So what? Tang was designed for space travel. That doesn't make every kid who drank it an astronaut.

The GPS was also designed for military service. Lets ban assault cell phones.
................... Come on man You know that the truth doesn't fit the agenda the left is trying to cram down our throats!!!
 
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We're hosed. 4th is gone, second is next. It's only a matter of time.

I was going to say the first should be next but, honestly, it's already been f***ed at a pretty extreme level. The limitations on political protest are getting more and more stringent all the time.

Will be interesting to see if go time happens in my lifetime. I doubt it. They're more sophisticated about how they implement tyranny these days than they used to be.

I've been tuning out of politics more and more and this is why. Glad I don't have kids.
 
I know my saying this may torque a few people in this forum off, but for all the talk about how the Heller ruling supposedly helped us constitutionalists, I'm more and more thinking it really didn't. In particular, Scalia really screwed us with his majority opinion "the right secured by the second amendment is not unlimited" language. I long ago lost count of the number of times the left has repeated this statement in the Heller ruling to justify anti gun legislation.

We continuously shoot ourselves in the ass - pun intended - when we try to argue that semi-auto firearms are ok to own, but machineguns, AT-4s, MK-19s and whatever else are NOT ok to own "because there are already laws against that". These laws are no more constitutional than the ones they're trying to pass now. The fact is that by virtue of being tax-paying citizens of the US we already ARE part owners of those more modern weapon systems in service with the US military. The fact is that whatever to government has in it's inventory, we have a right to. It's ours already. The "security of a free state" demands that the people have the ability to be as well armed as their government. Period.

So yes, the right secured by the second amendment IS unlimited. Scalia was wrong.
 
Scalia really screwed us with his majority opinion "the right secured by the second amendment is not unlimited" language. I long ago lost count of the number of times the left has repeated this statement in the Heller ruling to justify anti gun legislation.

That line may have been what was needed to secure a majority in Heller. Unfortunately, it created a much bigger ambiguity than any other case that I am aware of. Now the court doesn't have the will to take on another 2A case and address what "limitations" are and are not permissible.

Keep in mind, without Heller, we would not have any practicable 2A rights today.
 
Stun guns are not protected by the second amendment because "there is nothing in the record to suggest that they are readily adaptable to use in the military." COM v. CAETANO, 470 Mass. 774 (2015)

The AR-15 an its analogs, along with large capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to "bear arms"

Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
 
Stun guns are not protected by the second amendment because "there is nothing in the record to suggest that they are readily adaptable to use in the military." COM v. CAETANO, 470 Mass. 774 (2015)

The AR-15 an its analogs, along with large capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to "bear arms"

Damned if you do, damned if you dont.

MA SJC vs US District Court
Needs not be consistent or make sense.
 
A small step would be for a dealer to sell stripped lowers pitting the existing precedent that a lower is not a firearm against the AGs conclusion that it is.

Thought to be a unicorn - but such dealers in MA do exist. Some dealers in MA refuse to recognize the edict being proclaimed from on high - which is not MGL.
In fact some are working with more than just lowers. And no - I will not be elaborating on anything additional about fight club.
 
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