Gun Control & RKBA

branford: The "popularity" of the AR-15 platform, for whatever reason, is important, if totally not dispositive, in the context of regulation in light of the Heller and McDonald decisions. Whether you or others don't like or agree with the decisions is irrelevant as these holdings are in fact the law of the land

You must've given heller a skim through, missing scalia writing this: Like most rights, the {2ndA} right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

Note: AR15's are not in common use, despite their pseudo 'popularity'; they are in limited use by a small fraction of americans &/or largely far right gun owners who trump up their value; they are best kept in safes due their higher price, predominantly being an upper class white man's toy, where they cannot be so easily stolen, & are best not carried in city or town streets due the alarm caused.

Lawrence Tribe: “Heller recognized that dangerous or unusual weapons may be and have historically been heavily regulated or banned,” Tribe’s testimony runs. “It is not inconceivable – indeed, it seems quite likely – that the court‘s pause to distinguish unusually dangerous weapons from widely possessed handguns had precisely the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which included a prohibition on high-capacity magazines, in mind. At the very least, the Heller majority recognized that the govt could keep machine guns —M-16 rifles and the like—out of the hands of civilians. The Supreme Court thus emphatically rejected the extravagant, or as Justice Scalia characterized it, startling notion, still promoted by some, that the Second Amendment could fulfill its original purposes only if citizens were guaranteed a right to arm themselves to the teeth, matching in their private armories essentially the full array of weapons possessed by the United States Military.”

Yes Lawrence, some gun enthusiasts want to enjoy all the benefits of possessing many of the more potent military style firearms, without having to serve one single day in any military force, whether army marines navy or well regulated militia.

tribe, cont'd: Even more important to the constitutionality of the assault weapons ban is the absence of any connection to the core {2ndA} right to defend oneself with a firearm. At this committee‘s hearing .. , several witnesses criticized the assault weapons ban on policy grounds, but in my role as a constitutional lawyer listening intently for arguments relevant to the proposal‘s {2ndA} propriety, I was struck by the failure of anyone‘s testimony to support these features as essential to self-defense. In fact, I have searched in vain for any reasoned arguments that pistol grips, forward grips, telescoping stocks, grenade or rocket launchers, and barrel shrouds are indispensable or even contribute to self-defense. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/30/can-the-government-ban-assault-weapons-constitutional-experts-weigh-in/