It’s never made sense that someone who is legally able to buy a handgun in their own state, say, Louisiana, is prohibited from buying and taking possession of one in another state. Say, Texas. They can pay for a handgun in another state, but under federal law, the Texas dealer has to ship the gun to an FFL in Louisiana before the buyer can take possession.
A fifth Circuit case — Elite Precision v. ATF — argued that state lines shouldn’t matter, just as they don’t in sales of rifles and shotguns. You fill out the same paperwork and pass the same background check, no matter where you are. The 4473 is used everywhere and NICS is NICS wherever you go.
Last night, a Fifth Circuit three-judge panel reversed a lower court decision, ruling 2 to 1 that the federal interstate handgun sales ban violates the Second Amendment.
Plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought a permanent injunction against several provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 922 that collectively prohibit the buying and selling of handguns across state lines. The only issue is whether those provisions are constitutional under the Second Amendment. They are not: Under Bruen, they implicate the Second Amendment’s plain text, making them presumptively unconstitutional, and the government has failed to meet its burden to justify the provisions as consistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation. We reverse and render judgment for plaintiffs.
Strangely, the court decided that having the right to keep and bear arms includes the right to buy them. Crazy, no?
Oh, and we need to get this paragraph needlepointed on a pillow:
Even to the extent that the Ban can be circumvented by the licensee-to-licensee transfer workaround (which vests full veto power over interstate handgun sales in a group of third parties financially dependent on the government’s licensing regime), the Ban invariably calls for the payment of a fee over and above the cost of a handgun. We must pause before endorsing a cost attached to the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. To the extent that prior decisions from this court hint there is an acceptable cost that may be imposed on the basic exercise of Second Amendment rights, they are abrogated by Bruen and its progeny.
Oooh…so good.
We’ll need to see what the DOJ’s approach to this is. Will they appeal? Or, as with the Silencer Shop/Jensen ruling, will they let it stand? Also, this Fifth Circuit banger conflicts with a similar ruling from the Second Circuit, setting up another juicy circuit court split that will be ripe for SCOTUS scrutiny. Don’t touch that dial.
“Strangely, the court decided that having the right to keep and bear arms includes the right to by them. Crazy, no?”
‘buy them’ – not – ‘by them’.
Not enough coffee yet?
😁
Never attribute lack of caffeine to the evils of Auto Correct…{!-{>
It was the murder of John Lennon that caused the change in the federal law. I believe his killer purchased the gun in the hawaii islands. The guy was a known violent mentally ill person. But because our society got soft in dealing with those kinds of sick people.
He was allowed to go free and later murder Lennon.
No. GCA68 did that. There was a logic to it when background checks could only done by states because databases (what are those?) were not nationally shared.
This law has always been ridiculous. So is the adjoining states law for long gun sales.
It’s the same background check done by the same agency wherever state I may be in. Maine, Mississippi or Montana nics is nics so why does it matter?
It’s all unconstitutional anyway.
Not all states use NICS by itself. Some also have local/state resources run checks on persons, and those wouldn’t be available to out-of-state entities. If those “extra” checks are mandated by state law, then any SCOTUS ruling to the contrary is going to cause an interesting mess.
What this law has done is give the gun grabbers in CA, MA, NY, IL, WA, MD, NJ, etc much more power. You couldn’t go across a state line and buy a firearm they banned selling in their own state. From the gun grabber perspective, this law was immensely powerful. The wailing and gnashing of teeth will be a beautiful thing.
If SCOTUS rules a resident of one state can buy a handgun from a dealer in another state, it’s going to gut some state-level gun control laws.
For instance, one neighboring state (MN) has a handgun purchase permit law, requiring buyers to get a local sheriff to run checks on buyers BEFORE they make a purchase. Currently, the only way MN can enforce this is to tell all licensed dealers in the state that they can’t sell a handgun to a buyer that doesn’t have a purchase permit, and enforcement would be to dump sanctions on the dealer.
If a MN resident can suddenly legally buy a handgun from a dealer outside the state, the system falls apart because there is no way for the state to sanction an out-of-state dealer for a failure to demand a MN Purchase Permit.
This is one of the maybe three or four situations where Democrats remember states’ rights is a thing.
They’ll be whining about state sovereignty and federal overreach about this just as with voter ID.
When it comes to infanticide, AWB’s or just reaching into your wallet they’re all in on that federal overreach and any dissenting state is toying with insurrection.
They’re blatantly disingenuous. It’s wild how many people don’t notice.
They Say You Haven’t Needed The Second Amendment… So You Don’t Need It
(Colion) “The New Republic called the idea that Americans are armed to resist tyranny a ‘pop constitutional concept.’
A pop concept.
Like it’s a trend.
Like the Founders picked it up at a concert.
But that argument is not some modern internet fantasy. It goes straight back to the Founding, to Federalist 46, to James Madison, and to the basic structure of a government that is supposed to be checked by the people — not the other way around.
The article is about Viramontes v. Cook County, the AR-15 ban case in front of the Supreme Court, and it focuses on a brief arguing that the Second Amendment helps deter tyranny.
Instead of answering that argument, the article turns it into a straw man about murdering civil servants and assassinating elected officials.
But deterrence does not mean violence.
The whole point of deterrence is that you never have to use it.
That is why the fire insurance analogy matters.
You do not cancel the policy because the house has not burned down.
And you do not erase the Second Amendment because its very existence has helped prevent the kind of tyranny it was meant to deter.
This video breaks down the ‘pop constitutional concept’ claim, the Heller language about public and private violence, Madison’s argument in Federalist 46, the tyranny straw man, and why the argument they laugh at hardest may be the one they fear most.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiHJThbLw2o
It’s the Same Concept the U.S. position is against any other country or entity. Military Strength Is A Deterrent.