Supreme Court Gun Ruling Doesn’t Block Proposed Controls

[SecularMotion]

WASHINGTON — Despite the sweeping language of a 2008 Supreme Court decision that struck down parts of the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law, the decision appears perfectly consistent with many of the policy options being discussed after the shootings in Newtown, Conn.

Legal experts say the decision in the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, has been of mainly symbolic importance so far. There have been more than 500 challenges to gun laws and gun prosecutions since Heller was decided, and vanishingly few of them have succeeded.

The courts have upheld federal laws banning gun ownership by people convicted of felonies and some misdemeanors, by illegal immigrants and by drug addicts. They have upheld laws making it illegal to carry guns near schools or in post offices. They have upheld laws concerning unregistered weapons. And they have upheld laws banning machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.

Nor does Heller impose any major hurdles to many of the most common legislative proposals in the wake of the Newtown shootings, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles and the author of “Gun Fight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” Among the responses that Heller allows, he said, are better background checks, enhanced mental health reporting and a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/gun-plans-dont-conflict-with-justices-08-ruling.html?hp

[ellisonz]

1. Here's the key passage:

(2) Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.

That's Scalia, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito.

[Atypical Liberal]

2. Problem we have here

The problem we have here is that the weapons "in common use at the time" are too dangerous.

Why don't we allow machine guns anymore? Because they are to indiscriminate, right? We don't want the 1920's again where someone unloads a machine gun in a restaurant or a drive-by.

Problem is, the semi-automatic variants are just about as good. Good enough to wipe out a room full of children before 6 adults could to anything about it.

Bring on the new justices.