WA’s ban on assault weapon sales withstands another round in court

1. There is only (1) constitution within the United States of America. And that is the US constitution. States are going to learn a valuable lesson here shortly on that matter. Any person/s who ruled that these arms are illegal should be effectively removed from office or the bench.

   • Jim, nope. https://leg.wa.gov/state-laws-and-rules/washington-state-constitution/

     • Incorrect. The United States Supreme Court decides law of the land. There is only (1) supreme constitution that the states must follow. States do not get to run their own show. They’re learning that right now.

2. Yes, but the “arms” at the time when the Constitution was written, were muskets; not the long-range, and accurate semi-automatic weapons that account for the bulk of mass shootings today! Our brilliant US Constitution needs an update too.

   • That is irrelevant and the SCOTUS has made that clear with the Bruen ruling (2022). Might want to take some constitutional lessons.

     • The Bruen decision out of New York dealt with the issuing of handgun carry permits and had nothing to do with prohibiting the banning of assault rifles like WA is attempting to do. Ms. Hagen makes an entirely valid point~ the framers were writing about muzzle-loading muskets, not the destructive weapons of war we know today.

       The framers wrote “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” must not be infringed, “arms” of course being the weapons known at that time, the ones that won the Revolutionary War.

       I concur with conservatives who interpret the Constitution in light of the time it was written~ weapons of modern warfare, bazookas, howitzers, assault rifles, etc. etc. can and should be banned from private hands. The Second Amendment is not a suicide pact.

       And just for the record, there are 51 constitutions “within the United States of America,” not just one. Each of the 50 states has its own constitution.

       • Incorrect.

         The Supreme Court’s Bruen decision (2022) fundamentally changed gun law analysis by replacing tiered scrutiny with a historical test, demanding that modern gun regulations must have “analogues” in U.S. history for self-defense in public, expanding Second Amendment rights, and sparking numerous lawsuits challenging restrictions like concealed carry permits and bans on certain firearms, though subsequent cases like Rahimi have tried to clarify its application.

         Key Changes from Bruen:

         New Legal Test: Instead of balancing government interests (like public safety) against individual rights, courts must now determine if a gun law aligns with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

         Historical Analogy: The government must prove that a current restriction is similar to those in place at the time the Second Amendment was ratified (1791) or, at the latest, the 14th Amendment (1868).

         Public Carry Right: The Court affirmed a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense, striking down New York’s “proper cause” requirement

       • The meaning of arms according to the SCOTUS and fore-fathers means whatever one can use as an arm (weapon). Not just firearm. That could be a gun, knife, bat, stick, car, butter knife etc…

       • There may be 51 constitutions but only (1) reigns supreme (Law of the Land).

   • By this logic, the first amendment doesn’t extend to commenting on the Internet because it also didn’t exist yet. I guess I should be careful what I post!

     Also, the bulk of mass shootings are done with modified pistols these days. You just don’t hear about them because they happen in cities and don’t match the psycho spree killer narrative. I doubt any AR-15 was used to spray bullets at the birthday party in Stockton where several children died this week. Those peoples’ lives matter, too.

3. It’s amazing to me the blasé attitude of some “gun rights” folks when it comes to homicide by gunfire in America. One young activist even said: “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

   In his tortured worldview, it’s OK for some Americans to get killed by guns every year, it’s just collateral damage to endure to preserve the Second Amendment.

   • You should hope that somebody in favor of gun rights is capable of acknowledging the downsides. That’s actually what a nuanced, balanced opinion looks like. Instead, you consider it an indictment of their thinking. I would suggest you interrogate that opinion further, the next time you encounter it, and learn why, weighing everything, that person thinks it’s more worthwhile to have a right to keep and bear arms, even if that inevitably means that some people will also be hurt. They may still be wrong, but three-dimensional thinking on a sensitive topic like guns is a good thing which should be encouraged.

     The young activist you’re misquoting, by the way, is Charlie Kirk, who died as a result of gun violence. In the aftermath of his death, some people tried to make a claim that he had, in effect, been hoisted by his own petard. But Charlie Kirk never endorsed gun violence. Neither do the other people whose opinions you are mischaracterizing.

     • Yes, of course Charlie Kirk “never endorsed gun violence,” but by his own words he accepted needless gun deaths each year as a reasonable price (what I call collateral damage, what you call “downsides”) for society to pay for preserving the Second Amendment. Such conclusions are alien to my values, and I disagree most profoundly.

       Kirk’s death by gunfire is a tragedy and should never have happened; without irony I grieve for his family.

       I copied his words from a news site I believed to be credible, but whatever his exact words, I got the intent of his words correct, without mischaracterizing.

4. The second amendment is basically a generality that can be interpreted about anyway one would want to. It’s just an assumption. The assumption being that “a well regulated militia (being) is necessary to the security of a free state.” That really meant that every “citizen” had to have guaranteed access to “arms” to insure the freedom of the state being maintained. It doesn’t say anything about what those arms are, how they were to be stored or what each individual “citizen” could have in his/her immediate possession or even who was considered a viable “citizen” who should have access to “arms.” Every thing beyond that basic assumption (generality) is subjective interpretation of what it means, conflation about what it means, and conjecture about what it means. Taken literally at face value, I guess the amendment means anyone and everyone has a right to keep and use a tank or an atomic bomb if they can just gain access somehow – in the interest of maintaining the freedom of the state. Since our legislative branch majority (Republicans) have pretty much given their powers over to the executive branch and the legislative branch has said the executive branch can pretty much do what ever it wants to whomever it wants, only the rich and loyal to the President have any real rights and “legal” protections now.

   • Militia infers (or assumes) a defensive purpose. Objectionable are offensive armed attacks on the general non-threatening population. Also, state constitutions do have powers such as “must issue” vs “may issue” weapons licensing, for example.

5. The post American Revolution era armed “Militias” were used both for defensive and offensive purposes. “Citizen” armed bands were formed to defend settlements and early territories from any sort of external “enemy” and they were formed to actually attack indigenous people that were labelled inferior savages so their lands could be taken for tobacco and cotton plantations in ever expanding settlements and territories where most of the labor was of the slave variety; captured in foreign lands or bred like livestock after the initial importations. (Pretty ugly history really). Elements of the second amendment such as “citizen”, “free state,” “arms,” “Militia,” and, “well regulated,” were never specifically defined so any ideas of what it really means in terms of useful laws to be enforced are pretty open ended and an anybody’s guess proposition in the end. Fully automatic weapons were banned nationally in the prohibition era as lots of innocent people were getting caught in cops and robbers type crossfires and it’s been a pretty major debate about what people should or shouldn’t have in the way of arms for personal protection ever since. My Red Ryder BB gun came with an application to join the NRA in 1954.

6. The current Court likes to look at the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. The first major ruling on the Second Amendment was US v Miller in 1939 where the Court ruled Congress could prohibit sawed off shotguns because they were not useful to a well regulated militia. The Court in Miller looked at whether the firearm was useful to a well regulated militia. Under this view of the Second Amendment, handguns can be regulated since a handgun was not a weapon used by a militia in the 1780s. What the Second Amendment protects under Miller is long guns and shotguns that are manually loaded and fire a single round with a single pull of the trigger. Miller states that the right to bear arms is not necessarily about the individual but rather the collective right of citizens in the community to come together in a common defense. This idea of a local common defense is relevant today in the limitations of the armed forces to be deployed domestically. It is the local militia or posse that is called out for service locally, not the Federal Armed forces. Again, the firearms necessary for this service are primarily basic rifles.
   Finally, the idea of an individual right to bear arms was not articulated until the Heller case in 2008.

   • The current SCOTUS is now invoking historical analogue (Bruen ruling) test. States must meet those tests otherwise it’s unconstitutional.

     The Supreme Court’s Bruen decision (2022) fundamentally changed gun law analysis by replacing tiered scrutiny with a historical test, demanding that modern gun regulations must have “analogues” in U.S. history for self-defense in public, expanding Second Amendment rights, and sparking numerous lawsuits challenging restrictions like concealed carry permits and bans on certain firearms, though subsequent cases like Rahimi have tried to clarify its application.

     Key Changes from Bruen:

     New Legal Test: Instead of balancing government interests (like public safety) against individual rights, courts must now determine if a gun law aligns with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

     Historical Analogy: The government must prove that a current restriction is similar to those in place at the time the Second Amendment was ratified (1791) or, at the latest, the 14th Amendment (1868).

     Public Carry Right: The Court affirmed a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense, striking down New York’s “proper cause” requirement

     • Jim, once again the second amendment does not say anything about the right for “individuals” to keep and bear “fire arms.” It does say the right of “people” to keep and bear Arms.” “Arms” could have also referred to knives, swords, or even clubs when this was written. It does not refer to “self defense”, only defense of “the free state.” So this begs a whole lot of questions with leeway in interpretations by the courts. Does the “free state” mean a specific space or area of land where everyone living there as citizens are just free by the luck of being there or does it refer to a state of an individual person being free anywhere to defend him/herself with an “arm”? Does “Person” refer to just Males owning property with voting rights or everyone including indigenous human beings, females, and slaves who all (of the latter) were viewed as inferior forms of human life during that era. My point being that the Constitution has little use in determining what “arms” even are and who should be allowed to have them and why. The lawyers and judges just make stuff up that sounds good and officious with little real logic or reason behind their conclusions and decisions about “fire arms” because the term “fire arms” isn’t even in the Amendment to begin with.

       • The only part you have correct is ‘Arms’ meaning/referring to knives, guns, swords, clubs etc…Which is what the fore fathers intended it to be.

         “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 right of the people to keep and bear arms.

         People meaning…You, me and everyone else.

       • “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” in the context of a “well-regulated militia”!! Sadly, this simple and relatively clear language got twisted into an unregulated “guns for everyone” by our activist supreme court. Every year we pay the price of this activism with thousands of needless deaths by firearms, deaths that some gun fetishists are OK with for the sake of preserving the Second Amendment as currently interpreted (see my earlier comments above).

   • Great information Mark. Apparently, the current majority Republican Party, their beloved and all powerful MAGA President, and a spineless and subservient Supreme Court majority, didn’t get the MEMO about the Amendment really being about civil defense of the state, i.e., state Militias, rather than individuals using guns, knives, tanks, shoulder fired missiles, grenades or whatever else they can get their hands on, on the pretext of being needed for self defense. Gun nuts, just love guns and want everyone else to love them too. My Nephew has over $70,000 tied up in guns including a brand new Thompson sub machine gun (altered to single trigger pull firing). As a child my sister forbid him to play with toy guns or have them in the house. Great plan! I just hope he stays sane as an adult.

     • Incorrect. The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, along with nine other articles of the United States Bill of Rights. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the right belongs to individuals, for self-defense in the home. In the 21st century, the amendment has been subjected to renewed academic inquiry and judicial interest. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision that held the amendment protects an individual’s right to keep a gun for self-defense. This was the first time the Court had ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun. In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Supreme Court clarified that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Second Amendment against state and local governments. In Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), the Supreme Court reiterated its earlier rulings that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” and that its protection is not limited only to firearms, nor “only those weapons useful in warfare.” In addition to affirming the right to carry firearms in public.

7. The Second Amendment states “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 initial Second Amendment case was US v Cruickshank, 1886 which held that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed shall only apply to Congress and not on the states. In Presser v Illinois, 1886 the Court ruled the Second Amendment only applied to Congress and not the States. States had the power to regulate militias and firearms, not the federal government. There were no other cases until Miller when the Court ruled states could regulate sawed off shotguns because they were not part of a well regulated militia. The first case to hold that an individual had a right to bear arms free of any government regulation was Heller in 2008., over 200 years after the ratification of the Constitution and the Second Amendment. Heller applied to the Federal government as it dealt with gun regulation in DC. McDonald applied Heller to the States in 2010, over 100 years after US v. Cruikshank. Each branch of government has a specific role. The legislature writes the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws, the courts interpret the laws.

8. In ruling on cases, the Court uses the doctrine of stare decisis which states that once an issue is decided, it should not be reconsidered except in exceptional circumstances. This rule is to promote the concept that the law is permanent unless changed via legislative initiatives. In this instance the Court in Heller and McDonald had no grounds on which to reconsider the Court’s prior rulings.
   Unfortunately, the present Court has frequently overturned established precedent for no other reason than they think it was incorrectly decided. That is not a valid reason to reverse a case. If it were, Supreme Court cases would have little authority because once a new majority is on the Court, everything is fair game to change.
   Under Supreme Court Law prior to the year 2000, States were allowed to regulate guns since the right to be protected was the State’s right to a militia.

9. Based on the concept of stare decisis, I believe that Bruen is incorrect in that it fails to consider all of the prior precedent regarding the Second Amendment. Furthermore, the present Court has had a very poor record of respecting prior case and precedent, overturning established doctrine in voting rights cases, environmental regulations by overturning Chevron, second amendment cases and Presidential immunity.

10. Closing the comments now. Thanks all.

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