ANOTHER EFFING MASS SHOOTING!

This time in a Denver suburb.

When the fuck are people in the US going to get their shit together about the Second Amendment--

The issue is standing army v. a militia--not "gun rights".

Remember what Justice William O. Douglas Said about the Second Amendment in Adams v. William, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S. Ct. 1921, 32 L. Ed. 2d 612 (1972)::

The police problem is an acute one not because of the Fourth Amendment, but because of the ease with which anyone can acquire a pistol. A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment, which reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

There is under our decisions no reason why stiff state laws governing the purchase and possession of pistols may not be enacted. There is no reason why pistols may not be barred from anyone with a police record. There is no reason why a State may not require a purchaser of a pistol to pass a psychiatric test. There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police.

The leading case is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." Id. at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, "must be interpreted and applied" with the view of maintaining a "militia."

The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be [p151] secured through the Militia -- civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.

Id. at 178-179.

Critics say that proposals like this water down the Second Amendment. Our decisions belie that argument, for the Second Amendment, as noted, was designed to keep alive the militia. But if watering-down is the mood of the day, I would prefer to water down the Second rather than the Fourth Amendment. I share with Judge Friendly a concern that the easy extension of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, to "possessory offenses" is a serious intrusion on Fourth Amendment safeguards.

He knows a lot more about Miller than that fat asshole Scalia and his clone Scalito.