Via Arms and the Law, I see that amici for DC are online now. After reading the rather confusing brief from the U.S. Department of Justice, my next stop was the one by the Violence Policy Center. Given that they have a long history of spreading misinformation (including the invention of the term “assault weapon” in order to intentionally mislead the public), I was prepared to find plenty of doublespeak..
..until I got to the first(!) paragraph and saw this:
If the Court were to hold that private individuals unaffiliated with a militia have a Second Amendment right to keep handguns for use in their homes, the Court should also hold that such a right is subject to reasonable restrictions, and that the
District of Columbia’s handgun ban is an eminently reasonable restriction.
Wait, what? A total ban on handguns is a “reasonable restriction” on the right to own them?! So then would a total ban on books or even vocal cords would be a “reasonable restriction” on the right to free speech?
I’m, well, speechless. Seriously. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
Then a couple of paragraphs down, we find this gem:
The reasonableness of the handgun ban has become even more obvious since 1976. Since 1976, handguns have evolved to become even deadlier. Today’s handguns are increasingly designed to maximize lethality and mimic military-style weapons. Replacing the revolvers of thirty years ago, modern high-capacity semiautomatic pistols have the alarming ability– demonstrated all too often in mass shootings and the tragic deaths of innocent people –to kill more efficiently and more
effectively than their handgun predecessors. Affirming the court of appeals’ judgment would open the District’s doors to these modern semiautomatic pistols and other deadly handguns. Such a result would have catastrophic consequences.
“Modern semiautomatic pistols?” “The revolvers of thirty years ago?!” But, err, these “modern” semiautomatic pistols have been around for over one hundred years! By the 1930s, the Mauser C96, which was designed in 1896, had forty round mags available for it. Is that one of those “modern high-capacity semiautomatic pistols” which didn’t exist before “the revolvers of thirty years ago?”
If you believe that, I’ve got a patent on a new invention to sell you. I call it the wheel..
And on that note, my brain just exploded, so I think I’ll call it a night.