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US supreme court refuses to overturn Illinois assault weapons ban (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Law was passed following Highland Park shooting in 2022, and has been challenged by gun shops and gun rights groups

The US supreme court has refused to overturn an Illinois ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, which was passed following the deadly mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, in 2022.

The court rejected the request, made by a gun shop and a national gun rights group in an appeal of a lower court’s decision not to allow a preliminary injunction to block the law.

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[-] yeather@lemmy.ca 23 points 10 months ago

The Supreme Court is probably waiting for something more impactful. Like a full on challenge instead of just this request that halts the stop date.

[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 18 points 10 months ago

Technically they are supposed to use that as precedence but with most of the justices, precedent doesn't mean shit.

[-] Crismus@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Also using the donation angle is bad when the Supreme Court has been accused of having conflicts of interest with gifts/bribes.

That's not an argument that the Robert's Court wishes to turn into a Precedent.

[-] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

I also wonder if even they know that shooting down such laws is a terrible idea.

[+] yeather@lemmy.ca -16 points 10 months ago

Killing these laws is a great idea. Shall not be infringed and all.

[-] Kata1yst@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago

There is no guarantee of assault weapons, only "arms". What that means exactly was purposefully left as a matter for society to decide.

[+] yeather@lemmy.ca -9 points 10 months ago

That last like sounds faily clear and cut to me. Shall not be infringed.

[-] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago

Its an old, outdated document which is responsible for the death of thousands of people every year.The 2nd amendment needs to be removed for good. But since americans love their guns more than their children this is unrealistic. So best that can be done is to actually well regulate this "militia".

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Funny, cause you use pretty much every day... assuming you don't have a firearm, so...yea.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca -4 points 10 months ago

The constitution is perfectly in date, as a living document that can be changed at any point it is always in date. The second amendment needs to be protected, not removed. If you cannot see that then you can try and get that amendment passed. But until that point it shall not be infringed.

[-] Kata1yst@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The question here, is what are "arms"? It does not promise unrestricted access to "all arms". Or to "any arms". It also does not define arms here or anywhere else in this document.

It simply says "arms". In legal texts, especially of the time, this implicitly grants the people interpreting the law (our judicial system) the privilege of deciding what undefined terms mean. This means the courts get to decide what is okay and what isn't. And that's probably a good thing. The founding fathers were intelligent by just about every measure. They realized that for a legal code to last it had to be flexible, to account for changing times. So many words are undefined legally, and there are many mechanisms to change the laws set forth.

For example, I could take an extremely permissive (and might I add, literal) interpretation of "arms" to be "all weapons" and carry the given example further to interpret this as my right to own a HIMARS artillery rocket system. And it would be necessary, since George over in Shelbyville 10 miles south recently acquired an m777 and hasn't liked me since I rear ended him in the highschool parking lot.

Now, intuitively, most people accept that military equipment such as medium range artillery shouldn't be owned by civilians. In fact, we have many laws to that effect. Instead we've chosen to interpret "arms" as just guns, which actually bucks the actual English definitions both of today and the time. So it's really about interpretation.

Perhaps we say "arms meant muskets, or even some rudimentary single shot pistols to our founding fathers" and that's our new legal interpretation of the second amendment. Or perhaps we say "no assault weapons" and try our best to narrowly define that as a legal term that carries real weight.

Either way, it's just a word in an amendment added after the writing of the Constitution. It can be changed or repealed. Nothing is ironclad.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca -4 points 10 months ago

It’s very well established colonial Americans could own the most high end and powerful weapons of the period for their personal use and continued to do so until around the Civil War, this being large cannons. It is also well established the founding fathers understood technology advances and the second amendment should cover any future weapons of war. See private ownership of cannons, privateering, the St. Albans Artillery Regiment, and the Kalthoff repeater for more details.

Your misreading of the second amendment is the main reason you have this viewpoint. When most people think of the second amendment they think of its purposes for hunting, recreational shooting, or self defence against other individuals. However, the purpose of the second amendment is to keep the citizenry armed against the government itself lest we fall under a tyrannical government again. The militia in this case is standard citizens using their own arms against the government in ad hawl units. The founding fathers just fought and won a war against such a government mostly because of their ability to acquire such weapons, and the first thing Britain did when they suspected rebellion was attempt to ban weapons.

In any case, your last point is true. It is just a word in an amendment to the highest document in the land. In which case it takes precedent to all other laws. If you wish to control arms, you need to have an amendment to do it, and until then they shall not be infringed.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The second amendment tells us its purpose expressly and it's not to protect the citizens, it's to protect the state. You have it backwards. Read it again.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca -3 points 10 months ago

“Security of a free state” is the but you are referring to I assume. To secure the free state you must simply remove the tyrannical and authoritarian. The second amendment tells the citizens they are the last line of defence to protect the government against itself. An armed populace is a free populace, and that armed populace shall not be infringed upon.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

An armed to the teeth populace at large doesn't protect anyone's freedom though, as we now see.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The armed to the teeth populace has protected my freedoms quite well. It’s always is the people, or children, who should have never had weapons for one reason or another that have poisoned the idea in your mind, and in all of those cases a more armed populace is a more safe populace, as those kinds of people choose schools, grocery stores, etc. where people dont usually carry.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago

That's because you have no brains.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

The only person without brains here is you. Couldn’t even come up with a better response?

[-] toiletobserver@lemmy.world -5 points 10 months ago

A small step forward

[-] pensivepangolin@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

More likely only a pause before a far larger step backward.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca -4 points 10 months ago

More like a giant leap forward for gun rights.

this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023

197 points (96.7% liked)

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