Joel Gehrke @ The Washington Examiner:
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens called for Congress to tighten gun laws in the wake of shootings such as the one that took place in Aurora, Colorado.
Stevens noted that the legal precedent for restricting gun rights —United States vs. Miller — still stands, despite the ruling in the 2005Heller case that overturned the Washington, D.C., ban on owning handguns, even in one’s own home.
“[Miller] was generally understood to limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to the uses of arms that were related to military activities,” Stevens said today during a question-and-answer session after a speech today with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Legal Action Project. “The Court did not overrule Miller [in Heller]. Instead it ‘read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns . . . Thus, the Second Amendment provides no obstacle to regulations permitting the ownership or the use of the sorts of the automatic weapons used in the tragic multiple killings in Virginia, Colorado, or Arizona in recent years.”
Stevens criticized Congress for failing to pass such laws.
“I find it almost difficult to accept the fact that, notwithstanding the recent tragedies that I mentioned — you mentioned — how little activity there’s been in lawmaking bodies to address this issue,” Stevens said during the question-and-answer session. “The fact that Congress doesn’t address it, I find mind-boggling, to tell you the truth.” The event began with a video montage newscasts covering recent shootings, such as the Batman shooting and the attack on a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.
He added that the Heller decision leaves the door open to banning the carry of weapons in public. “There’s a very powerful argument for saying it does not extend to disagreeing with local communities about decisions about which public places they should not be permitted to be carried [in],” Stevens said.
When someone invades my home, they will be greeted with a 22″ 12 ga pump. Seems it is very effective in causing intruders to need to launder their pants. It also is a legal weapon normally used by law abiding people.
this guy is an idiot.
they are not automatic they are semi automatic. automatic weapons are machine guns and are completely regulated. that distiction made, we will always have tragedies and using his grade school logic then we should ban motor vehicles becuase more people die horrible deaths from their misuse than firearms. why not? if its just a numbers game and about tragic life cut short then automobiles really are horrible lethal devices responsible for the deaths so many more people than privately owned semi auto firearms,
he is a fool and a nave and the murder of countless millions at the hands of various statists desiring to reshape thier nations through the genocide of some undesirable sub group or another is due directly to statist utopian fools like himself wanting to concentrate the power of violence in the hands of government officials alone.
also stevens is a dooshbag, I didnt want to leave that pertinant bit of info out……
@rumcrook: I agree, the loons ALWAYS equate those EVIL black tricked out semi-auto rifles with fully auto assault rifles, which are only used by idiots that don’t really want to hit anything or in the movies. Legally you can’t have a full Auto unless you’ve got the appropriate license, or are Holder buying and selling to druggies in Mexico. One might expect a sitting Justice to know the difference.
(Sigh) Democrats give me more and more reasons to never vote for another one of them again. Any Dem who agrees with retired Justice Stevens in this will never get my vote.
Something is wrong with a judge says and infringement is not an infringement. The second amendment does not protect our right to hunt, it protects our right to throw off a goverment which seeks to curtail our freedom. It is not illegal to own an automatic (machinegun) weapon. You must obtain a $200 tax stamp to own one. That and the government has limited the number of guns which qualify for the stamp. Illegally.
NBC’s new show, Revolution, is surprising in one aspect. That it presents a militant “government” that denies firearms to the common people as being bad, or wrong.
And for everyone that believes firearms should be regulated heavily, or even removed completely from the common citizen, that show describes the situation of having just such a government in power as factually accurate as anything else I’ve seen. History is replete with the abuses by government over a disarmed citizenry, including the wanton killing of the citizens themselves. Anyone who believes that “Utopia” can occur with a disarmed citizenry is not being intellectually honest with themselves, or others.
As for Justice Steven’s mislead, or misinterpretation of semi- and fully automatic weapons, what else would you expect from someone who leans as far left as he does?
I’ve noticed that with the left. They like to claim they are protecting the Constitution when it suits them. When their views violate the Constitution, they simply say it doesn’t mean what it clearly means. That is how the ACLU handled the issue of gun control.
It’s a “collective right” they say. It meant the National Guard. Therfore you do not have a right to bear arms. Problem solved. See how that works?
There were no automatic arms used in Colorado or any other mass murder since the St. Valentines Day massacre. These people are idiots! What that lunatic had was a semi-automatic M-16 variant. If they really think any form of gun control works, have them explain the continuing massacre in Chicago which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. They can’t. They’re all morons!
@johngalt: I too am surprised that they do indeed playup gun control and it’s detrimental effect on freedom. Very surprising.
@Zelsdorf Ragshaft III: $200 tax stamp, interesting, I didn’t know that. Of course here in the Peoples Demokratic Republik of Kalifornia we have to have AR15’s with ‘non-removeable’ magazines. We’re limited to 10 rounds in any weapon. Sucks to be us.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
– TJ
Thanks Justice Roberts. Thanks Justice Stevens.
@UpChuck.Liberals:
OK, I’m stumped. How do you reload a non removable magazine? Seems awkward or dangerous to say the least. Then again, these are probably all Chinese made AK-47’s so, they can keep them as far as I’m concerned.
Edit: The more I think of it, the dumber that seems. California also no doubt requires guns be unloaded when transported. And it also means that the tendency would be for the owner not to bother clearing the magazine. Dumb, dumb, dumb!
@UpChuck.Liberals: I too, reside in CA. What I wonder is if this is a Federal issue, just as immigration is, why is it a state has the right to restrict beyond what the feds do. I think CA is sueable. I wish the NRA would take up the issue.
@Ditto: Welcome to our world. That’s why we have a ‘bullet button’ it requires a ‘tool’ to drop the mag. After all we can’t have people running amock with those EVIL ‘NOT A” High Powered Assult Rifle among the innocent sheeple of the PRK can we? The Lefty Loons in this state are beyond clueless, in fact they give clueless people a bad name. Want some more fun info? If we don’t keep the magazine in while transporting some ill informed cop might assume it’s ‘removeable’ and thusly we run afoul of the law until we convince them that it’s a ‘legal’ weapon.
@ Zelsdorf, the CalGuns Federation is working on it. Seems that the fools in Sacramento are running afoul of Federal Law no to mention their own laws, not the Liberals give a rats patootie about law.
@UpChuck.Liberals:
Unfortunately it stands to reason that said police officer might simply assume that since the magazine is in place, that the gun “may be loaded”. Depending on the cop, it could be having to talk your way out of a citation or having the officer pull his firearm out and order you on the ground.
People who don’t know jack about weapons should be banned from writing laws regarding them.