February 5, 2016
By Dahlia Lithwick
In December the Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging a Chicago suburb’s ban on selling and owning assault weapons. Two justices—Clarence Thomas joined by Antonin Scalia—offered up a bitter dissent when the court refused to weigh in. But the high court, which hasn’t heard a major gun case since 2010, nevertheless let stand a lower court’s ruling that the 2013 ban, adopted in Highland Park, Illinois, did not violate the Second Amendment or the court’s recent jurisprudence interpreting it. Gun groups were furious. This week, those same groups are rejoicing.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case called Kolbe v. Hogan, sent the state of Maryland’s ban on assault weapons back to a federal trial court for a second, more scrupulous review. In a 2–1 decision, the majority of the appellate panel found that the semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines banned under a new Maryland law “are in common use by law-abiding citizens” and cannot be banned under the Second Amendment. The ruling sets the wheels in motion for another major gun fight at the high court. It will now likely have to answer this question: In a country where one bloody massacre seems to follow another, and 33,636 people were killed by firearms in 2013, does the court want to be in the business of handing out AR-15s like so much Halloween candy?...
This is just about the most ridiculous ruling I have ever heard of. No. It is the most ridiculous decision I have ever heard of. Supposedly what Kolbe v Hogan says is that if a gun, any gun, is in abundance in society it cannot be banned.
This is real simple; Al Capone lost the right to use an automatic weapon because of laws that took away the right of gun owners to turn the streets of American in into the middle east!
Something has changed that?
By Dahlia Lithwick
In December the Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging a Chicago suburb’s ban on selling and owning assault weapons. Two justices—Clarence Thomas joined by Antonin Scalia—offered up a bitter dissent when the court refused to weigh in. But the high court, which hasn’t heard a major gun case since 2010, nevertheless let stand a lower court’s ruling that the 2013 ban, adopted in Highland Park, Illinois, did not violate the Second Amendment or the court’s recent jurisprudence interpreting it. Gun groups were furious. This week, those same groups are rejoicing.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case called Kolbe v. Hogan, sent the state of Maryland’s ban on assault weapons back to a federal trial court for a second, more scrupulous review. In a 2–1 decision, the majority of the appellate panel found that the semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines banned under a new Maryland law “are in common use by law-abiding citizens” and cannot be banned under the Second Amendment. The ruling sets the wheels in motion for another major gun fight at the high court. It will now likely have to answer this question: In a country where one bloody massacre seems to follow another, and 33,636 people were killed by firearms in 2013, does the court want to be in the business of handing out AR-15s like so much Halloween candy?...
This is just about the most ridiculous ruling I have ever heard of. No. It is the most ridiculous decision I have ever heard of. Supposedly what Kolbe v Hogan says is that if a gun, any gun, is in abundance in society it cannot be banned.
This is real simple; Al Capone lost the right to use an automatic weapon because of laws that took away the right of gun owners to turn the streets of American in into the middle east!
Something has changed that?
