Feds: Second Amendment Not A Second-Class Right

"This court recognized that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right..."

In a strange twist, a FEDERAL Judge put the spurs to Californian lawmakers.

Federal judge blocks new California high-capacity magazine ban, but fight looms | Fox News:

A federal judge in California on Thursday blocked a state law that would have barred gun owners from possessing high-capacity ammunition magazines. San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled that the ban approved by the Legislature and voters last year takes away gun owners' Second Amendment rights and amounts to the government taking people's private property without compensation

(H/T: The Gun Feed)

Californian lawmakers .... and the anti-second amendment majority of Californians who voted them into office ... will scream and shout, counter-sue, invoke their states' rights privilege, and from that point this is going to get nasty.

And very interesting.

Also, probably (for pro-second amendment folks) occasionally disappointing.

There are plenty of states which already restrict "Magazine Capacity" in their laws.  To say that a federal judge with an understanding of the Constitution is going to make a difference in the nation's most populous (with Texas) state and most Liberal (can't think of one that's MORE-SO, offhand) is to say that Wishing On A Star will bring Jiminy Cricket to the rescue.

From the Constitution:

Section. 2.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

... which might lead one to assume that Constitutional Rights are interpreted the same by every state.

... but sadly, you would be wrong.



The Constitution was written in the age of muzzle-loading firearms; which were damned expensive since they were all hand-made by skilled craftsmen.   Americans needed those firearms to protect and feed their families and their communities.   The assumption that it was a NECESSITY ruled both every day life and The Law.  Who thought that the Constitution would need to include a clause which eschewed high-capacity muzzle loaders?  Magazines weren't even a warm glow on the horizon.

You can be sure, though, that even if they would have considered technological advances in firearms to include automatic weapons and "high-capacity magazines", they would have protected them in the Constitution because DAMN!   That sure would have been handy when the Iroquois raided the settlement!

It's not as if the forefathers of the Constitution didn't have foresight ...it's amazing how many possibilities they covered in their vision of the future ... they just didn't have any reason to expect that honorable men would be chipping away at their constitutional rights 200 years down the road.

Besides, that wasn't their problem, it's OUR problem!  They doubtless assumed that if their progeniture was not competent to defend their individual rights against a class of luddites, then we (their great-many-times-over-grandchildren) probably didn't deserve the right to ... as the state of New Hampshire proudly stated: "Live Free Or Die".

San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez got it exactly right.   Americans are guaranteed by the Constitution to "keep and bear arms", and that includes everything that goes along with that right.  Freedom to buy ammunition, to have access to firearms which are in current usage, and to not only keep, but bear (carry) them.

Sure, a lot of people are squeamish about a lot of people wandering around with guns .. carried either openly or concealed ... nowadays.   Can't blame them; more Americans don't own a firearm than DO own a firearm (okay, we have more per-person than most countries can boast).

But while we hear a lot of "I Have A Right To Feel Safe" comments from folks who think guns are "ICKY", it's just the same right as folks who aren't afraid of guns feel.

You probably aren't reading this if you don't think you have a right to feel safe, and in this violent society many more of us feel safer when the guy sitting next to us in the coffee shop is a cop with a gun on his hip.

It's just that some of us are unwilling to hang around the entrance to the coffee shop, waiting for an armed, uniformed policeman enters.  

We would rather not count on the cop on the beat to protect us, because we drink more coffee than them, and less kool-aid than the people who are afraid of firearms.