The Attack on the Second Amendment Continues
Although the Supreme Court made clear that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, not a privilege and not a collective right, some states (recently, Maryland) and some Federal appeals courts still cannot comprehend it. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-4 to uphold the state's (Maryland) ban on assault weapons Tuesday, overturning the ruling of a three-judge panel that had ruled against it a year ago.
The United States Army, the largest branch of the U.S. Military, in 2015, dropped below 500,000 active soldiers for the first time in 10 years. Semi-automatic rifles are not by the United States in war. The M4 has been in service since 1994. The M4 is capable of firing in semi-automatic and three round burst modes (like the M16A2 and M16A4), while the M4A1 is capable of firing in semi-auto and fully automatic modes (like the M16A1 and M16A3). To be an assault rifle, the firearm must have selective fire: full auto or a burst mode. The Supreme Court held in McDonald v. City of Chicago that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments in addition to the federal government.
The right does not extend to machine guns: it protects arms in common use, not phasers or photon torpedoes. In what is also obvious, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a right to arms that can be carried (“bear”) by an individual, not arms that require teams or squads to operate.
What is obvious to anyone that can possibly detect the obvious is that the Armalite rifle is a civilian semi-automatic rifle in common use: very, very, common as dirt use. Right now, over 5,000,000 AR-15's are owned by United States civilians.
United States citizens own over 10 times the amount of Armalite rifles today than we so much as have active soldiers in the Regular Army. They are used for hunting, target practice, and self-defense. Civilian police officers use AR-15 rifles more than any other rifle, for the defense of self and others. That's precisely how many of the 5 million Armalite rifles are used: for the lawful defense of self and others. For from being “assault rifles” or weapons of war, the opposite is true. They are anti-assault rifles owned and used almost entirely by civilians in the United States.
The Armalite semi-automatic rifle can be the ideal home defense arm, easy to use for women, senior citizens, and most everyone: with moderate recoil, and far greater accuracy than possible from a handgun. It is a far better threat deterrent than any handgun or shotgun, and is simply a better tool for the legal defense of self and others than most platforms. The persons who have the most need for 30 round magazines are those who would have great difficulty changing a magazine — such as elderly persons or persons with disabilities. Although one can change magazines, persons being attacked by criminals will typically prefer not to spend any time under immediate, inescapable threat of hearth, home, and life to do so.
In 2014, according to the FBI, 660 murders were committed unarmed, 1,567 were committed with knives and only 248 murders were known to have been committed using rifles of any type.
The role of government is to protect Constitutional Rights, not to steal them.
Copyright 2017 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.
