New Zealand Acts To Implement Assault Rifle Ban - Why Not The U.S.?

The late SC Justice Antonin Scalia - your total conservative - asserted in the Heller case that no citizen has the right to own an assault-style weapon.  New Zealand PM Jacinda Ahern announcing the assault weapons ban proposal.

"Sandy Hook happened 6 years ago and we can’t even get the Senate to hold a vote on universal background checks w/ #HR8.

Christchurch happened, and within days New Zealand acted to get weapons of war out of the consumer market.This is what leadership looks like" - Alexandra Ocasio -Cortez this morning

The real question, now that New Zealand has acted to have an assault rifle ban within 6 days of the Christchurch massacre   (which saw 50 Muslims slain by a white nationalist nut) is: What is taking the U.S. so long to implement a similar ban?    

For those behind the news curve- understandable in the Trump era with its endless histrionics, BS and daily flouting of laws and norms -  assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics are on track to be banned in New Zealand.  This is after Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, announced sweeping and immediate changes to gun laws following the Christchurch mosque shootings.  Ardern yesterday said point blank:

“I absolutely believe there will be a common view amongst New Zealanders, those who use guns for legitimate purposes, and those who have never touched one, that the time for the mass and easy availability of these weapons must end. And today they will,”   

Adding: "In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country,”

And wonder of wonders, even the gun sellers there seem to get it. In a text this a.m. - from the CEO of New Zealand Hunting & Fishing Co. (one of the island nation's largest gun retailers) we saw:

 "Any government measure to permanently ban such weapons merits support. Weapons of war have no place in our business or our country."

How far do the new regs go?  Parts that are used to convert guns into military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs) have also being banned, along with high-capacity magazines and parts that cause a firearm to generate semi-automatic, automatic or close-to-automatic gunfire.  

P.M.  Ardern also directed officials to develop a gun buyback scheme for those who already own such weapons. She said “fair and reasonable compensation” would be paid.  This is analogous to an Australia scheme implemented after the infamous Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

On April 28, 1996, a 28-year-old Australian,  Martin Bryant,  ate lunch at Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, a historic penal colony and popular tourist resort. After his meal, Bryant returned his tray, removed a semiautomatic rifle from his bag, and opened fire. By the time Bryant was caught a day later, 35 people were dead and 23 wounded in what became the worst mass shooting in Australian history.

Unlike the U.S., the Aussies got serious about controlling their military-style weapons. Among other things, the Australian government banned automatic and semiautomatic firearms, adopted new licensing requirements, established a national firearms registry, and instituted a 28-day waiting period for gun purchases. It also bought and destroyed more than 600,000 civilian-owned firearms, in a scheme that cost half a billion dollars and was funded by raising taxes. The entire overhaul took just months to implement.

The  New Zealand buyback scheme is estimated to cost between $100m and $200m. P.M. Ardern said the government was still working out how to fund it.

New Zealand, a country of less than 5 million people, has an estimated 1.2-1.5m firearms. The number of MSSA weapons is not known, but there are 13,500 firearms which require the owner to have an E-Cat licence, which the government is using to estimate the number of MSSAs.

We also know, as reported also this a.m. (CBS) that New Zealand has no constitutional right to bear arms.  But technically, neither does the U.S.  A point I've belabored in multiple earlier posts. And given the U.S. has some 400 million guns in circulation, and has had 1,988 mass shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012, there is a need for the nation to get its collective head straight.  

What does that mean? Let's go through the salient points again.  I begin with the claim anyone has the "right" to own an AR-15 or any other military-style assault weapon.

In 2008, then Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, delivered a dual opinion still not absorbed by most gun owners. The court said the District’s ban on handguns in private homes went too far, but that regulation of gun ownership was compatible with the Second Amendment:

Scalia wrote at the time:

"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

To get the language straight, and in Scalia's terms, it is useful to replace "assault weapons,”  with  the phrase:  “the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as ‘dangerous and unusual’ and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.”  And, if these weapons are subject to regulation, then they do not make for a "constitutional right".

As Joe Scarborough put it the morning of Feb. 21, 2018, just after the Parkland massacre:

 "Some say this is embedded in the constitution. It is not!"

Adding:

"Go back and read Heller, 2008, what Scalia and the Supreme Court said. You're right, you can have handguns in your home, and shotguns to protect your family. But the court has allowed states  - like Maryland (2017)  to ban assault style weapons.  They let this and other laws stand   - without challenge - as constitutional "

Scarborough went on to further clarify, which I can't render any more transparent:

"If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

Now let's get to the core of the matter, the wording of the Second Amendment itself:

"A self-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."

If one claims to be an "originalist" - which most of the Right does in terms of constitutional interpretation  -  it ought not take an astrophysics degree to comprehend the amendment.   At the time this was written, muskets were the primary weapon, and no major organized standing army existed such as we have today. Indeed, the Continental Army of Washington, though it prevailed over the British, had massive war debts to pay off. There was no way to keep thousands of men under arms for sustained periods, as well as clothing and feeding them - far less recycling them with newer equipment each year!

It therefore became necessary to authorize the basis for a non-centralized force or "Militia" in order to supplement any governmentally- organized army called up. This "Militia" originated in the countryside, from citizens living across the land in various villages, towns and states. In effect, the 2nd amendment drafters were asserting the necessity for a subsidiary people's army to assist the main one. Citizens then became in effect, necessary to the security of the nation. One could then describe the state militias as "adjunct armies".

Indeed, some interpreters of the amendment believed the original content was even more diluted than I portrayed. They see the "well regulated militia" provision as actually devised as protections from any marauding, "loose cannons". These interpreters insist the framers would never in a million years have envisaged people (individuals) possessing permanent private weapons in their own homes.  And the notion of individuals owning military-style weapons like the AR-15 would have been as foreign to them as Moon rockets.

In  a controversial 1939 case, FDR's Solicitor General framed the argument to the Court:

"The Second Amendment grants people a right that is not one which may be utilized for private purposes but only exists where the arms are borne in a militia or some other military organization provided by law and intended for protection of the State."

The SC decision was unanimous.  This was barely 79 years ago, so what happened in the interim to debase the amendment to be unrecognizable today?

While the Court's decision prevailed for several more decades, it started to unravel by the 1970s as various Right wing extremist groups coalesced to challenge "gun control"  based on spurious private gun ownership  interpretations. By virtue of the infusion of millions of bucks  into state legislative campaigns they successively overturned laws in legislatures - much like the abortion opponents are now doing in many red states.

Chief Justice Warren Burger himself was adamant that  the claim of a right to keep special weapons on one's own was bogus. writing:

"This is one of the greatest pieces of fraud on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

Alas, as the strength and political power of the NRA metastasized, it was just a matter of time before more and more state legislatures (like in Florida) were bought out and their NRA political slaves passed laws contravening Justice Burger's and the earlier 1939 ruling. This is why the only way things will change is to vote out the NRA political slaves, as David Hogg and the other Parkland school massacre survivors have maintained.

In the meanwhile, this nation can only dream of  having a leader like Jacinda Ardern, who had the courage to act as opposed to letting the bodies pile up from cowardice and offering mere "hope 
and prayers".

See also:

Conservatives and the Right

White Nationalism, Born in the USA, Is Now a Global Terror Threat

Students Make Voices Heard Again - As Communities Around The Country Pass Stricter Gun Laws

Students packed into New York's Washington Square to make their voices heard again - this time for an anti-gun vote in the November midterms.

Not to be denied their first amendment rights, thousands of students staged another walkout and mass protest Friday in schools across the country - even as assorted communities are taking matters into their own hands re: gun laws.  Here in Colorado, students from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland FL also joined Columbine students to rally Thursday night in Clement Park near Columbine High for a get out the vote message, urging all those of voting age to get signed up.  As one of the kids said:

"The only thing a gun obsessed politician fears is a vote against him or her."

Bingo! He's nailed it. The guntard politicos only fear being displaced from their pseudo reigns. Below is one of the activist Columbine kids:

This first ever "Vote for our lives rally" drew nearly 500 in Littleton and many thousands more around the nation and preceded the Friday student protests-walkouts, which were tied to the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. As if to punctuate student concerns a shooting at Forest High School in Ocala, FL left a 17-year old student injured. Fortunately for those students, the perp misfit (Sky Bouche) wasn't wielding an AK -47, Bushmaster.223, or AR-15. Unfortunately, for 4 slain Waffle House patrons in Tennessee, the degenerate that fired into that establishment did pack an AR.  But the dumb gunnies still insist "more people are killed  each year by fists than guns", yeah right, and pigs fly upside down.

Meanwhile, as reported in the Weekend WSJ (p. A6), NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre told a conservative audience, e.g. at CPAC in February that "current laws" - if vigorously enforced - "are sufficient to curb mass shootings".

Well, hardly  if so many millions of assault type rifles are out there, as well as over 300,000 bump stocks which can easily convert any semi-automatic into an effective automatic (and we saw what that could do last year at the Las Vegas massacre).

So now assorted localities are taking matters into their on hands.  As reported in the WSJ on Friday (p. A6)  Deerfield, IL has now "unanimously  passed an assault weapons ban".  The ban will mandate that all owners of such weapons - residents turn them in by a specific deadline. Failure to do so will result in "violators being fined as much as $1,000 a day from the point the law take effect".  Thus, if any violator delays ten days ditching their AR after the law is enabled, he or she will owe a nice tidy sum of $10,000.

Meanwhile, the city council in Lincoln, Nebraska and the Maryland General Assembly (MD already has an assault weapons ban that has been tested under the 2nd amendment and been preserved) voted to ban all bump stocks.  Then in Coral Springs, FL there is a major push to limit the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines in the city. In addition, Coral Springs, along with two other municipalities is suing the state to be able to do so.  (Many states, like Florida, for some idiotic reason prohibit  municipalities  from drawing up their own legislation.)

Then there is Boulder, CO whose city council has approved an ordinance that would ban the sale and possession of any assault weapons in the city, Infraction may result in a long jail term, possibly up to 2 years.  Predictably, on Saturday a bunch of NRA- backed losers came out to squeal ...errr, protest, about the ordinance - barking the usual false "Nazi" comparisons - which any dumbo that's studied the actual history of the Third Reich knows aren't true,  and carrying fake and real AR-15 rifles as they marched. One bozo quoted in The Sunday Denver Post (p. 2B) whined:

"This demonstration is because of the extremes that the Boulder City Council is going to. If they weren't I wouldn't be here."

Aww. . .boo hoo hoo. This turkey actually believes he has a 2nd amendment right to own an AR. Newsflash,  he doesn't.  He needs to process the words of conservo pundit Joe Scarborough from two months ago:

"If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

 If that Boulder assault weapon ordinance protester doesn't like the ordinance perhaps he needs to move to Texas or Kansas and out of the "People's Republic Of Boulder".

The beauty of all these local actions is there is very little the gunnies (perhaps other than in FL) can do to thwart them. We already know as I've stated at least a half dozen times before, that assault weapons are not protected under the 2nd amendment. This was in the famous  2008 SC case District of Columbia vs. Heller:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html

The majority opinion was written by arch-conservative Justice  Antonin Scalia who - while upholding the right to own arms - adamantly asserted that those weapons "most useful in military service" fall outside the scope of the 2nd amendment.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal ("Ban On Military  -Style Rifles Upheld", April 7-8, p. A3) notes that earlier SC ruling was once again upheld in a Massachusetts . And I am sure it will be upheld in the more recent Deerfield IL, Boulder CO, etc cases too - for the same reasons.  

As federal judge William G. Young  wrote in the MA  ruling:
"The AR-15 and its analogs - black, semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips and other military features - are simply not weapons within the individual constitutional right to bear arms."

The kids from Parkland and around the nation are now having an effect, with a powerful energy to reclaim gun sanity.  That sanity underscores that there is a higher freedom to live and let live than to be suddenly cut down in a hail of assault rifle bullets as those people at the Waffle House were early yesterday.

The beauty is that the gunnies and guntards will not be able to stop them, or stop the movement now in motion and gaining more steam every day. And that is irrespective of how many photo-shopped images of David Hogg with Hitler, or in a Nazi uniform, they put up on their stupid blogs.

David Hogg Is 100 Percent Correct On His Gun Control Stance - Never Mind The Right's Haters

After the Laura Ingraham faceoff with Parkland survivor David Hogg, with the conservo guntards and snowflakes still melting down in screaming fits, it behooves us to try to get it into their thick skulls that Hogg is not against the Second Amendment.   As Hogg and fellow classmate Cameron Kasky made clear last month on HBO's Real Time, neither condemns the Second Amendment or wants it repealed.

It's not the Second Amendment that needs  condemnation or rejection but rather ignorant and juvenile interpretations  of it, i.e. which claim that one is entitled to own an AR-15 or any similar military type assault rifles under that banner. I had previously skewered this balderdash in my citation of the 2008 SC case District of Columbia vs. Heller:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html

The majority opinion was written by arch-conservative Justice  Antonin Scalia who - while upholding the right to own arms - adamantly asserted that those weapons "most useful in military service" fall outside the scope of the 2nd amendment. What exactly is there about this ruling the guntards don't get - or are they plain and simple "gun-tarded"? Do they need to be spoon fed and walked through it paragraph by paragraph, or sentence by sentence? 

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal ("Ban On Military  -Style Rifles Upheld", April 7-8, p. A3) notes that earlier SC ruling was once again upheld in a Massachusetts case whereby:

"A federal judge ruled that the Constitution offers no protection for the military style rifles used in recent mass shootings - dismissing a legal challenge by gun owners and dealers in the state."

Adding:

"Judge William G. Young's ruling followed the reasoning of an opinion last year by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a Maryland law similar to Massachusetts."

The piece also noted that Judge Young  cited the 2008 Heller case that assault style weapons fall outside the province and protection of the Second Amendment. As he wrote in the ruling:

"The AR-15 and its analogs - black, semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips and other military features - are simply not weapons within the individual constitutional right to bear arms."

The same legal cases are now also being invoked  (according to a Denver Post report two days ago) to ban all AR-15s and other assault type rifles in Boulder, Colorado-  along with bump stocks and high capacity magazines.

Seems to me if the guntards want to whine, piss and moan about gun control "infringement" on their rights, they'd do better to condemn Scalia's 2008 ruling on the unconstitutionality of  a "right" to own AR-15s in  the Heller case.   As long time conservative pundit Joe Scarborough put it two months ago, soon after the Parkland shooting:

"If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

But the guntards ignore all reason, and all legal basis for limiting military grade weapons, preferring to scream like banshees on their blogs and spew hate at Hogg. who is merely the messenger. All Hogg is really demanding is that the same standards Antonin Scalia already upheld in D.C. vs. Heller, be implemented nationwide.

The biggest howler in all the protracted hyper reactions of the Right, is the absurd belief that Hogg  is being fed prompts and scripts by Left groups, George Soros, or Media Matters.  Again, as I noted before, because these knuckle draggers can't conceive themselves speaking articulately and knowledgeably at the age of 17, they refuse to accept David Hogg can do it. Hence, he must be part of a halfwit "conspiracy"  - as confected by the dunces -  like Steve Duncie- ...errr Doocy...on 'Fox and Friends'. (Doocy is the resident genius on "Fox and Friends" who once tried to roast marshmallows using just his bare hands and a plastic spoon, e.g.
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2010/11/19/fox-amp-friends-attempt-to-roast-marshmallows-w/173553

He also once averred that the Swedes are "pure" because they only marry other Swedes, not "other species".)

All this is part of the  disproportionate vitriol directed at Hogg, much of it driven by pure envy given Hogg's motley crew of haters wish they had  half  the brains he has. The Right's snowflakes' hate is also spurred by the kid's resolve, given  he has not been deterred by their attacks. He continues to speak and write in whatever venue allowed for the limits on military style weapons with pistol grips and high capacity magazines..

Among the Right's vitriolic haters is Virginia Lamp, aka Ginni Thomas, the wife of the dumbest, most unqualified candidate ever to be appointed to the Supreme Court (as the classic token black). Lamp wrote  on Monday - in one of the most lame brained posts ever - accompanied by images of Holocaust survivor shoes:

"To all the kids that walked out of school to protest guns. These are the shoes of Jews that gave up their firearms to Hitler. They were led into gas chambers, murdered and buried in mass graves. Pick up a history book and you’ll realize what happens when u give up freedoms and why we have them," 

Well, at least we can see she's a good I.Q. match for hubby, Clarence! She doesn't even know that Jews were allowed to keep their guns until  November 11, 1938, when the German Minister of the Interior issued the Regulations Against Jews Possession of Weapons.    Assuming she can count  using the fingers on one hand this was five years after Hitler was appointed to the Chancellory by Paul von Hindenburg.  Why didn't the Jews rise up in those intervening years? Huh? Speak up, Lamp and fellow cretins!

Again, NO one has any intent to  "take guns away" or make anyone "give up freedoms", as the hysterical Hogg haters  (and Parkland activist haters) like Lamp  insist. They can still stock all the other weapons they want:  shotguns, pistols,  bolt action rifles, you name it - just not ARs or their cousins (like the Bushmaster .223).  Maybe, these complainers and Hogg attackers need to go back to school and study some of the legal aspects related to the Heller case. They'd sure as hell make much more constructive  use of their free time than spamming juvenile Hogg -Hitler images!

Kudos to Hogg for taking on almost single handedly the entire vile NRA-linked  network of fools, lobbyists, hacks and yahoos who'd rather spend time creating fake images of Hogg with Hitler than learning more on specific legal cases limiting the ownership of assault- style weapons. 

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jill-richardson/78566/this-popular-pro-gun-argument-doesn-t-make-any-sense

Excerpt:

"As our nation debates gun rights vs. gun control, there’s a stupid argument that keeps resurfacing on the anti-gun control side. I’m not anti-gun, but I am anti-stupidity, so this is bugging me.

It’s the idea that because criminals, by their very nature, do not follow laws, we should not pass any laws limiting gun rights.

The thought goes that if we, say, require universal background checks, good, law-abiding people will follow that law, but criminals will still buy illegal guns. Therefore, why bother with the background checks?

This is ridiculous for several reasons.

First, that’s not how laws work. We don’t say, “Well, we could ban rape, but rapists would still do it anyway. I guess rape should be legal.”

Second, it could deter some people. There are some people who believe in following laws, or at least don’t want to get punished for breaking them. Even if the illegal gun buyers are unethical, many gun sellers will refuse to violate a law.

Third, not all criminals plan their crimes in advance. Some gun violence is done in a fit of passion.

Yes, the person premeditating murder might go get a gun in advance.

But let’s say it’s someone who would not be able to get a gun legally if there were universal background checks. Maybe they’re a convicted felon, or they have a mental illness that predisposes them to violence, or they’re a domestic abuser.

If this person flies into a murderous rage, it’s harder to get a gun quickly, because nobody can legally sell them one."

Sorry! You Have NO Constitutional Right To Own An AR-15!

Justice Antonin Scalia - your total conservative - asserted in the Heller case that no citizen has the right to own an assault weapon.

Seeing the Parkland, FL kids this a.m. confront the hidebound Reepo lawmakers in the Florida legislature was dumbfounding.  The kids had been assembled in groups of 10 to thrash out questions with these nitwits but soon learned they could as well pound sand or talk to walls.  One girl asked the leader of the House why such vicious weapons were needed at all, such rifles that are military issue and designed specifically for combat. The fool actually responded that they were often used by his constituents for hunting, especially for wild Boar!

This ought to have brought the kids to peals of howling laughter, but most took him seriously because - obviously - they lacked any inkling or knowledge of what hunting such game was like in the past. But to most of us who grew up in the sixties, the idea of hunting a wild Boar with a military style weapon is laughable. What? You think you're going against an Abrams tank!? It's a fuckin' animal, for god's sake!

In the olden days we'd select a  Remington 30.06 with hollow points to do the job, but nowadays the real hunter -  as opposed to a frightened dwarf (who needs a semi-automatic)-  would more probably choose the the Savage 11 FCNS Hunter, simply because it's totally capable of bringing down a 300 lb. boar from 400 yards away.   The point is that it's laughable any real man or hunter would resort to an AR-15 to kill a hog unless he was ass-faced pathetic and a total loser and weakling who needs an unfair advantage against game. That's why that FLA House idiot's response was codswallop.  As blogger David Lindorff put it recently:
,
An AR-15 is not a hunting weapon. In fact there’s a reason it’s called an “assault rifle.” As a hunter, unless you’re an atrocious shot and are hunting random flocks of small birds, you certainly don’t need to be able to fire powerful ammunition of two bullets per second — the rate at which experts sayan ordinary person could be able to pull the trigger."

But the kids, at least for now seem to have bought this daft rationalization of why military style weapons are needed in civilian society.

The larger point is that NO one has the constitutional right to own an AR-15 or any other assault weapon, by which I mean all semi-automatics originally designed for military use.  I already cited the controversial 1939 case wherein FDR's Solicitor General framed the argument to the Court:

"The Second Amendment grants people a right that is not one which may be utilized for private purposes but only exists where the arms are borne in a militia or some other military organization provided by law and intended for protection of the State."

The SC decision was unanimous. 

Now, fast forward to 2008 and  Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court reversed a long-held position and ruled that the Second Amendment did give Americans an individual right to own firearms.  The court said the District’s ban on handguns in private homes went too far, but that regulation of gun ownership was compatible with the Second Amendment:

Scalia wrote at the time:

"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

To get the language straight, and in Scalia's terms, it is useful to replace "assault weapons,”  with  the phrase:  “the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as ‘dangerous and unusual’ and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.”  And, if these weapons are subject to regulation, then they do not make for a "constitutional right".

As Joe Scarborough put it this morning: "Some say this is embedded in the constitution. It is not!"

Adding:

"Go back and read Heller, 2008, what Scalia and the Supreme Court said. You're right, you can have handguns in your home, and shotguns to protect your family. But the court has allowed states  - like Maryland (2017)  to ban assault style weapons.  They let this and other laws stand   - without challenge - as constitutional ."

This is important to know, because without being armed by facts, and in the heat of argument, the assault weapons defenders will throw all kinds of lies and BS at you, as that Florida House moron tossed at the Parkland student,  re: needing an AR- 15 to hunt wild boar.

As Joe Scarborough put it:

"On the substance of the matter let's be clear because there's so many people that say so many stupid things every day. Ignorant things about guns like on my twitter feed. Like rights to assault weapons. But look,  those are not constitutionally protected rights because states can limit those rights  Like the first amendment, second amendment rights are limited.

If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

The Stoneman Douglas students need to learn and process these facts when they go up against those who try to tell them owning these weapons is an American "right". No it is not. It may be a desire for some 5 percent of guntards, but it is no right.

Footnote:  In the guntards' most recent setback, a "2nd amendment"  challenge to California's 10-day mandated waiting period for gun purchase, the Supreme Court by an 8-1 verdict again set limits on their "rights" - siding with the state.