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Statesman
 
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Post 25 Aug 2022, 2:09 pm

United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that involved a Second Amendment to the United States Constitution challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).

The case is often cited in the ongoing American gun politics debate, as both sides claim that it supports their position.
From the decision
The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.


District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms in the United States, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee.[1]

Look even SCOTUS can't agree on what the 2nd amendment actually means.
Confirming that its poorly written .
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Post 25 Aug 2022, 2:56 pm

Noted w/o comment
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Post 11 Sep 2022, 7:07 am

If it were demonstrated that militia were no longer necessary, would the rest of the second amendment then become moot?

Only the USA hasn't relied on militia since the war of 1812. And it was the events of that war that saw the country move toward more centralised and professional armies, with eventually the militia either being subsumed (National Guard) or obsolete.
Last edited by danivon on 15 Sep 2022, 5:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Adjutant
 
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Post 11 Sep 2022, 9:06 am

I used to have that opinion. But now I tend to think that the central idea was that the federal government couldn't strip citizens of arms to prevent them from banding together-militia or not--to stop an out-of-control federal gvt acting autocraticaly, ignoring the constitution, infringing on individual rights, etc...

On the other hand, available guns have no chance of stopping a modern army (unlike Lexington and Concord, probably the inspiration of the amendment) which makes the whole idea somewhat obsolete, anyway...
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Post 11 Sep 2022, 2:19 pm

It would not be moot. I am sure that the left leaning element in America see the need for guns to stop the "Extremist-Anti Government Anarchists".

Sarcasm intended.

The Amendment is there for a reason. It does not mandate that you carry a gun. I would be against such a mandate.

Having just been at the battlefields of Lexington and Concord (and the road back!) I can see how it was the impetus of that Amendment.