NRA-ILA | Trial Judge Mocks the Late Justice Scalia While Upholding Expansive Gun Ban

NRA-ILA | Trial Judge Mocks the Late Justice Scalia While Upholding Expansive Gun Ban: But we don’t have to guess what Justice Scalia might have thought of Massachusetts’ ban on popular semiautomatic rifles, because he joined an�opinion written by Justice Thomas�that dissented from the Supreme Court’s refusal to review a Seventh Circuit decision upholding a very similar ban from Illinois. Characterizing that and similar circuit decisions as “noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents,” that dissent explained the proper test under�Heller�for which arms are protected by the Second Amendment.� “Heller, Thomas wrote, “asks whether the law bans types of firearms commonly used for a lawful purpose—regardless of whether alternatives exist.” Moreover, it “draws a distinction between such firearms and weapons specially adapted to unlawful uses and not in common use, such as sawed-off shotguns.” The dissent noted, “Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles,” and “[t]he overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes … .” The dissenters then concluded, “Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.” Nevertheless, Judge Young concluded his opinion by insisting that “Massachusetts is free to ban these weapons and large capacity magazines” and that “Justice Scalia would be proud.” We can only hope that Justice Thomas and his Supreme Court colleagues will one day have a chance to review the Massachusetts ban or a similar law and explain just how wrong Judge William G. Young and his likeminded antigun activists in the judiciary truly are.