The TLDR of the opinion is that they held the BATFE acted outside of statutory authority, acting as the legislature making new law with the administrative policy.
They were found to not be machine guns per the statutory definition. So they can't arrest people for having one (unless a new law is passed). Prior to the BATFE's policy change they didn't 'approve the sales' more so they didn't bar the sales.
What’s to follow though? ATF or DoJ are not going to challenge any of the ruling, especially after this case. It’ll remain on the federal register, but stayed from enforcement indefinitely
the dead people tax strikes again. everyone i know who owns a human killing device is top-notch at the ridiculous rationalization required to bring said evil into their homes.
Some people honed a technique that does what a bump stock does without one. It's all really inaccurate obviously, but also obviously horrific for soft target crowds.
I wonder how these arguments are going to go someday when we have weapons that can just emit a field that instantly gives people cancer or vibrates their hearts to death or erases a person's memory. The MAGAs will all argue that is their right to leave out beacons that covers a certain radius and will just run around chuckling "you triggered? you mad bro? you got sudden bone cancer or an exploded heart bro? can't remember your kids? cry more ahahaha" and Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas will say of course these are fine, erasing peoples minds and having them drop to the ground when they encounter certain frequencies are just what the founding fathers intended (but keep those things a long fucking way away from us, of course)
This case wasn't about rights it was about administrative policy and legislation. They seemed to actually be subtlely nudging for Congress to act in the opinion.
They've been doing that a lot, and for good reason. The whole gist of originalism, and the legitimate gripe conservative scholars have with substantive due process, is that during the latter half of the 20th century the judiciary usurped Congress' power in actualizing new legal concepts and theories by creating rights out of thin air. Even RBG admitted that Roe was on shaky ground, because in a representative democracy the only entity capable of making laws is Congress. If the law says "the sky is red", and that law creates obvious societal problems, it's not the job of the judiciary to say, "no, the sky is blue". The job of the judiciary is to say, "the law says 'the sky is red'" and that's the law that shall be enforced, and then to interpret the words if there's any disagreement about what "red" means. A functional Congress elected by a sensible electorate in a healthy democracy free of corruption (HA!) would see the obvious error and pass an amendment that changed the law on the books into "the sky is blue."
The nine unelected Members of this Court do not possess the constitutional authority to override the democratic process and to decree either a pro-life or a pro-choice abortion policy for all 330 million people in the United States.
The ball, one might say, was tossed by the justices back into the legislators’ court, where the political forces of the day could operate. The Supreme Court wrote modestly, it put forward no grand philosophy; but by requiring legislative reexamination of once customary sex-based classifications, the Court helped to ensure that laws and regulations would “catch up with a changed world.”
Roe v. Wade, in contrast, invited no dialogue with legislators. Instead, it seemed entirely to remove the ball from the legislators’ court.
That is why, in 2009, we took care to avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act when asked to do so, and instead resolved the case then before us on statutory grounds. But in issuing that decision, we expressed our broader concerns about the constitutionality of the Act. Congress could have updated the coverage formula at that time, but did not do so. Its failure to act leaves us today with no choice but to declare §4(b) unconstitutional.
In short, the only suitable remedy to legal conundrums is a new and updated law. The fact that our democracy has deteriorated to the point where Congressional representatives are really just mouthpieces for interest groups and have insufficient dignity to even attempt overt moral judgments about how to form a more perfect union, explains why the judiciary keeps very clearly reminding them what their job is. Political compromise is hard and takes immense amounts of work and sacrifice, and SCOTUS is reiterating that they're not going to bail a dysfunctional Congress out by legislating from the bench.
It wasn't a merits decision. It was about the previous administrations abuse of the executive to reclassify things that already have a statutory definition.
SO the point of the militias were that the Founding Fathers believed that giving any executive access to a standing army would, eventually if not immediately, act against the rights of humans.
So instead we were supposed to have a populace ready and trained in military activity by the states' ordained and defined by Congress militias.
The 2nd was to try and stop a ruler from having access to force.
And now we have a standing military, a military-armed police, and paramilitary civilians.
Worst civilization decision evar.
We are so far from the Federalist Paper #29 argument for the 2nd Amendment; we need to amend the Constitution.
federalist 29 is like 13 paragraphs it is worth reading
The problem now is that in the modern global age we have plenty of enemies who have massive standing armies. China and Russia leap to mind. That sort of thing may have worked when America was physically isolated from outside forces by a several months long boat ride. Not the case anymore.
Abolishing everybody's massive standing armies would be a pretty good idea, but I don't foresee that happening any time soon.
Bump stocks suck. Half of the entire gun violently shaking back and forward is just as cumbersome and impractical as it sounds. Bumping can also be done without them (sometimes accidentally, be careful).
Did the truth ever come out around this shooting? The whole thing seemed very suspicious and the news story seemed to go away pretty quickly compared to other similar events.
Or I’m an ostrich and just completely missed everything to do with it.
I don't know what "truth" needs to be found. Shooter's dad was a diagnosed psychopath on the FBI most wanted list, seems like a case of apple not falling far from the tree.
I think the media waxes and wanes on their discipline about whether to give too much attention to high profile incidents, to tamp down copycats who are "inspired" by the "glory".
That said, I don't think anything was really hidden from us or you. A guy flipped out and did a horrible thing, there's probably not that much to say about it.
I mean the rate of fire was way higher than even a bump stock would allow and the number of shots fired would have required way more magazines than was found with the guy. Largest mass shooting in history and we have no motive, no explanation, and no resolution.