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The
Below Comments Relate to this Newslink:
Two Liberal Judges Just Gave the Supreme Court Cover to Legalize Assault Weapons
Submitted by:
Mark A. Taff
Website: www.marktaff.com
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For years, state bans on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines had enjoyed an unbroken winning streak throughout the nation’s federal courts of appeals. That run came to a halt last Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit struck down New Jersey’s bans on both, granting civilians a Second Amendment right to military-grade weaponry. Given the 3rd Circuit’s conservative tilt, this outcome was no surprise. But the margin of the vote split was stunning: The court, sitting en banc, ruled 10–5 against the Garden State’s laws, with Judge Arianna Freeman—a progressive appointee of President Joe Biden—writing the majority opinion. |
| Comment by:
Judge100
(7/26/2026)
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Semiautomatic AR-15s are not “assault rifles” by the military definition that an assault rifle is an intermediate cartridge rifle with selective fire (both semi automatic and full automatic fire capability). As Judge Matey noted in his concurrence “there is [now] no objective meaning of an “assault rifle,” a term referring to a long gun with some combination of features that some regulator has decided should not be combined.”
The authors treat the “common use” test as if it were developed in Heller. In fact, the Heller decision relied on the 1939 U.S. Supreme Court decision of United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) to determine that the guns protected by the Second Amendment are “of the kind in common use at the time.”
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| Comment by:
Judge100
(7/27/2026)
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| The authors reference a Washington Post article discussing 11 mass shootings, including the Las Vegas concert shooting, involving 30 modern sporting rifles out of the 32 million the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates are in America, to suggest “both assault rifles and large-capacity magazines are heavily favored by mass shooters”. In two studies by Texas State University (one in cooperation with the FBI) of active shootings, the most powerful weapon used in over 59% of the incidents was a handgun. A study of public mass shootings (four or more dead) by the Crime Prevention Resource Center found that the most powerful weapon used in 68% of mass public shootings was a handgun. |
| Comment by:
Judge100
(7/27/2026)
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| The authors claim that gun manufacturers convinced people to buy AR-15s even though they have limited use for any legitimate purpose, like hunting or self-defense. By some magic, they convinced people to spend hundreds of dollars for weapons for which they have no use. Even the Washington Post article they cite states, “AR-15, [is]a weapon that has soared in popularity over the past two decades as a beloved tool for hunting, target practice and self-defense “ The authors claim that the AR-15 is rarely used for self-defense is like saying that fire extinguishers are rarely used for putting out fires. The AR-15 is “used” for self defense by being ready for use in case of need just like a fire extinguisher is there to be used for fires. |
| Comment by:
Judge100
(7/27/2026)
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| The authors promote the idea that assault weapons bans are protections from mass shootings. Well, the Department of Justice studied the federal assault weapons sales ban and concluded the law had little or no effect on crime. In 2017, statistician Leah Libresco and her colleagues at FiveThirtyEight, a data journalism site, spent three months studying gun crime. While initially favoring banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines, as well as other gun control measures, they ultimately concluded that they “can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them” |
| Comment by:
Judge100
(7/27/2026)
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| As of 2020, more people are murdered in America with hands, fists and feet (662) than with rifles (455). If MSRs accounted for all rifle murders, and a separate MSR was used for each rifle murder, those 455 MSRs would account for fourteen ten thousandths of one percent of the 32 million MSRs owned by civilians in America. |
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