Cory Booker introduces bill requiring Federal license to own guns

Increasingly, various entities... and has been confirmed by some of the legal experts on this forum (at least my interpretation of what they have written).

That regulation and restriction of firearms does not equate to infringement.
I like and prefer to interpret the 2nd amendment as written, but being that we already have regulations and restrictions on firearms that have stood for decades, I must also assume that restrictions and regulations are not considered to be infringement.
 
RR said:
Increasingly, various entities... and has been confirmed by some of the legal experts on this forum (at least my interpretation of what they have written).

That regulation and restriction of firearms does not equate to infringement.
I like and prefer to interpret the 2nd amendment as written, but being that we already have regulations and restrictions on firearms that have stood for decades, I must also assume that restrictions and regulations are not considered to be infringement.
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To make your intermediate sentence true I would add the word "necessarily"

That regulation and restriction of firearms does not necessarily equate to infringement.
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While not every reg will be an infringement, that doesn't mean a regulation can't be an infringement.

A reg that has been narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest wouldn't likely be seen as an infringement. A law that prohibits shooting across roads, for instance, seems pretty well tailored to avoiding the compelling interest of not accidentally shooting travelers. No infringement there. I could even see a minimal fee to the feds for a sale from one of its licensees (a kind of fee that doesn't exist now except for NFA stamps) as no real infringement.

When we get out to administrative burdens like UBCs the primary purpose of which is to make private transfers harder and more expensive, I don't see the narrow tailoring or compelling interest. DC's requirement that all sales be run through the District's only FFL is an infringement. Chicago's administrative requirements for a license to possess that it then made essentially impossible were an infringement.

I also see lists of specific arms one is permitted to purchase such as in MA and CA as an infringement, their only purpose appearing to be market distortion.


That's my take on a conventional strict scrutiny analysis of gun regs. Alan Gura once suggested that none of these conventional levels of constitutional scrutiny are correct; essentially that no infringement is permitted. I don't see that in our constitutional future even if we get better justices.
 
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In my limited view, I see advice from lawyers more likely to be aligned with how a law would be applied in the courts of today, as opposed to what the actual language might say or what the original intent of the law was. It's a reflection of how far adrift the "rule of law" has taken us with our justice system of today.
 
I could even see a minimal fee to the feds for a sale from one of its licensees (a kind of fee that doesn't exist now except for NFA stamps) as no real infringement.
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I'd say that would depend on the amount of the fee. The $200 NFA tax was higher than the cost of the arms being taxed (in most cases, significantly higher) and along with the needed paperwork, if you don't think this had a chilling effect on people seeking to legally own NFA items, you're quite wrong.

The FED gets a fee from its FFL licenses, (which the Clinton administration raised from $30 to $300) but that's "not" a fee for 2nd Amendment rights, its a fee to engage in business...

There are many people who believe that as long as you are own some kind of gun, (single shot, muzzleloader preferred:rolleyes:), that your rights are not infringed.

Heller, essentially held that while some regulation was allowable, complete prohibition of entire classes of arms (such as handguns) was not.

Personally I believe that arms are inanimate objects, without free will, and entirely unable to act without a human being involved, and therefore, laws against them (or any OTHER inanimate object) are irrational.

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to believe otherwise.
 
44AMP said:
I'd say that would depend on the amount of the fee. The $200 NFA tax was higher than the cost of the arms being taxed (in most cases, significantly higher) and along with the needed paperwork, if you don't think this had a chilling effect on people seeking to legally own NFA items, you're quite wrong.
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I agree that the amount of the fee would matter, and that anything more than nominal, $5-$10, should be seen as a problem. When people carried cash, my test for a "nominal" amount was whether people commonly carried that much cash. That test doesn't work as well as it used to, but I don't see $200 as nominal.

If we were starting from clean sheet of paper, I'd say the NFA wouldn't pass strict scrutiny. I don't see any compelling governmental interest in gross restriction of:

1. Fully automatic rifles and pistols. My unsupported and unresearched WAG is that if these things weren't restricted, weren't forbidden fruit, very few people would want them. I don't see what they are actually good for, and don't want one, but it's no skin off my nose if someone else wants one. I do think in light of Miller, extra restrictions on fully automatic rifles are particularly hard to justify constitutionally.

2. Suppressors. The government is protecting us from keeping our hearing? This is the thing I would like to see sold without any regulation whatsoever, just like a car muffler.

3. Short barreled rifles and shotguns. Like #1 above, not my thing, but I don't see what we are being protected from.


I don't think you will see it overturned, even as odious as it is, because it has an historical momentum and $200, while too much, isn't what it used to be.
 
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He is relevant, and people like him.

These extremists are inching closer and closer to being in the White House. Had Russia not intervened in our election, these extremists would have more power right now. :rolleyes:
 
Folks, do remember where you are. LAW and CIVIL RIGHTS

Discussing proposed/pending legislation, fine. Discussing court cases and how they relate to our right, fine.

POLITICS, and particularly who did or didn't do what NOT DIRECTLY RELATED to our firearms rights is not fine, and one more word on that, and we're done here.

If we were starting from clean sheet of paper, I'd say the NFA wouldn't pass strict scrutiny. I don't see any compelling governmental interest...
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I agree, and if there had been a competent defense in the Miller case, we might not have an NFA today. But this begs the question, would the proposed "Booker" license law pass such scrutiny?

How would the govt prove a compelling need for what is being proposed??

I doubt that matters much to Booker, or any other legislator who supports the idea, after all, their job is to pass such crap, its up to us to deal with it AFTER it becomes law...
 
1. Fully automatic rifles and pistols. My unsupported and unresearched WAG is that if these things weren't restricted, weren't forbidden fruit, very few people would want them. I don't see what they are actually good for, and don't want one, but it's no skin off my nose if someone else wants one. I do think in light of Miller, extra restrictions on fully automatic rifles are particularly hard to justify constitutionally.
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After Vegas that will never, ever, ever happen.

Ever.
 
1. Fully automatic rifles and pistols. My unsupported and unresearched WAG is that if these things weren't restricted, weren't forbidden fruit, very few people would want them.
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I disagree. I think they would be as popular as anything IF there was no legal restriction. Perhaps more so.

I don't see what they are actually good for, and don't want one, but it's no skin off my nose if someone else wants one.
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If they weren't good for anything, the military wouldn't use them. For civilian use, full auto is fun recreation, (assuming you can afford the ammo), and POSSIBLY useful in a self defense situation.

This isn't the 1920-30s where full auto guns were more expensive that others, AND nearly all designs were FULL AUTO ONLY. Compared to sporting arms, the common full autos of that era were heavy, and more expensive, the Tommygun, the BAR, and war trophy bring back belt fed machine guns. Pretty much full auto, ONLY.

And, I agree, for a civilian, other than recreation, there isn't much use for full auto, ONLY. But, today (and for a while now, like half a century or more..) we have had what is called "selective fire" weapons. You choose safe, semi, or full auto with the selector lever or button, etc.

there are many designs of select fire arms that are literally no different from their semi auto counterparts OTHER than the "happy switch". And this is why the anti's have been so successful with the push to ban "assault weapons" because many look exactly like their full auto versions, which are, and have been NFA weapons because they do fire full auto.

I think, if they had never been restricted, select fire would be fairly popular arms, if their price point was not drastically different from their semi version. I think a lot of buyer would get one, just for the ability to have one, "just in case", especially if it were available at little or no extra cost.

Now if the restrictions were lifted today, there would be a huge demand, due to generations of "forbidden fruit" and people wanting to get one, before the Govt changed its mind (again).

Look at military look alike semi autos, which have been on the civilian market for over half a century. They were NOT the most popular guns in the country, they were a small segment of the market. Again, mostly because they were heavy, and expensive, or (in the case of the AR) not in a caliber good for deer in most places. Few deer hunters wanted to lug a 9lb FAL that cost them $150 when a Win/Rem bolt gun in the same caliber was a few pounds lighter and cost them $100 or less...

The fall of the Soviet Union brought a literal flood of Combloc design military style semi autos at dirt cheap prices. This increased the popularity of the type more than a little, but it wasn't until people started pushing the govt to ban them that they became hugely desirable.

It is, ironically, the anti's own efforts to ban them that made (nearly) everyone want one. They (the anti's) literally CREATED the "problem" that they are so upset about.

I do think in light of Miller, extra restrictions on fully automatic rifles are particularly hard to justify constitutionally.
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I agree. further restrictions on FULLY AUTOMATIC rifles are not justifiable. Considering the tax, the wait time (months) all the investigations needed, including written approval from your local chief LEO, AND that the supply of legal, tranferable full autos is FIXED (only guns on the registry as of May 19, 1986 are allowed to be transferred to civilians, and no new ones may be added to the registry) I don't see where any further restriction serves any purpose what so ever. The only really possible further restriction would be an outright and complete prohibition of ownership.

Our big problem at the moment is people wanting to put all SEMI AUTO (only) arms into the same class as FULL AUTO.

In my state, as of July 1 2019, ALL semi auto rifles are now legally identified as "semi automatic assault rifles". The law now requires an extra waiting period (10 days), mandated training (which does not exist) and some other things, and it doesn't matter if its a Marlin model 60, a Ruger 10/22, a Remington 742 or M1 Garand, or an AR or AK variant. Doesn't matter what cosmetic features it has, or even if it has a detachable magazine, ALL semi auto rifles are now legally "semiautomatic assault rifles" under the law.

I wish it were otherwise, but it seems we are living at the end of an era.
 
44AMP said:
I do think in light of Miller, extra restrictions on fully automatic rifles are particularly hard to justify constitutionally.
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I agree. further restrictions on FULLY AUTOMATIC rifles are not justifiable. Considering the tax, the wait time (months) all the investigations needed, including written approval from your local chief LEO, AND...
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I actually meant that restrictions on fully automatic rifles in excess of those restrictions on arms generally are particularly hard to justify in light of Miller. If the idea is that people are expected to show up with arms of a type suitable for militia service, then restricting modern military arms is exactly what you don't want to do. One who submits the ordinary 4473 and passes the check should be able to take possession of automatic arms with normal magazines, since that is what organized forces use.

For my use, one that doesn't involve modern military tactical doctrine, a fully automatic feature that spends ammunition more quickly than my index finger can just gives me a bigger bill for missing the target even more than I do now.
 
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zukiphile said:
For my use, one that doesn't involve modern military tactical doctrine, a fully automatic feature that spends ammunition more quickly than my index finger can just gives me a bigger bill for missing the target even more than I do now.
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While making it exponentially easier to achieve the aforementioned misses.
 
I am a big fan of the 3RB myself. With a little practice two shots will almost always be touching and the third a hair high. Shot placement willing, it doesn't get much better than that.
 
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