Just wanted to throw this hypothetical question out here to see what people think. Would you speak out and defend someone's 2A rights who actively tries to strip you or others of their 2A rights either by their own force or by lobbying the government to take your guns from you against your will? Political or organization affiliation is not a factor.

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A few articles were published claiming Eugene Stoner never intended for the rifles based on his patent to be available for civilian sale. This was based on taking statements from his surviving family members out of context. Stoner, Jim Sullivan, and others behind the AR-15 all worked to develop civilian versions of it and other similar rifles well before any of them were interviewed by the media for anything regarding gun control. The design has continuously been on the open market since the 1960s. Here it is direct from the source: video of Eugene Stoner interviews with transcripts and citations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqKKyNmOqsU

Ask a gun control proponent about safe guarding schools with armed secuirty and metal detectors as the gun laws they want just aren’t likely to pass and something should be done. They will refuse anything that isn’t gun control. They literally do not want any approach that isnt a political goal. Ask yourself why. Surely they want kids to live right? If they can’t get their political goals surely they would want every other option to stop school shootings right? They do not want it though. It’s gun control or literally nothing. But why? Isn’t something better than nothing? If the goal was saving kids yes but it isn’t really the goal. Dead kids are catalysts to them. They need school shootings to happen to gather support for their policies. If schools were ever properly secured the public would have far less of an interest in it. The only logical reason to not secure schools is if you want the shootings to continue and when you realize that their goal is to gather support for hun control it makes a lot of sense why they actively refuse securing schools. The vultures need something to exploit.

The prevailing idea that the second amendment codifies an individual right of American citizens to own firearms is simply incorrect, and an unfortunate interpretation by the Supreme Court. The second amendment is primarily -- if not entirely -- about the right of the people to serve militia duty. The Bill of Rights was technically never meant to be an official enumeration of the rights of Americans, but rather was meant to place further restrictions upon the power of the federal government, in order to oppose the potential for abuse of the Constitution and to appease the concerns of Antifederalist politicians. Hence, the Bill of Rights and all the amendments within it must be viewed with that purpose in mind.

The second amendment was written primarily as a means of resolving a concern about the militia clauses of the Constitution, namely Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16:

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Some politicians were concerned that this declaration transferred exclusive power to Congress, and left the state governments with no power to organize, arm, or govern their own militias. Some believed that there were not enough stipulations in the Constitution that prevented Congress from neglecting its stipulated responsibilities to the militia or from imposing an oppressive amount of discipline upon the militia, which might serve the purpose of effectively destroying the militia as a pretext to establish a standing army in its place. As it happens, many statesmen saw a standing army as a danger to liberty, and wished to avoid the need for raising an army, and to do so by means of using the militia in its place.

This sentiment is perhaps most articulately expressed by George Mason in the following excerpt from a debate in the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 14, 1788:

No man has a greater regard for the military gentlemen than I have. I admire their intrepidity, perseverance, and valor. But when once a standing army is established in any country, the people lose their liberty. When, against a regular and disciplined army, yeomanry are the only defence,--yeomanry, unskilful and unarmed,--what chance is there for preserving freedom? Give me leave to recur to the page of history, to warn you of your present danger. Recollect the history of most nations of the world. What havoc, desolation, and destruction, have been perpetrated by standing armies! An instance within the memory of some of this house will show us how our militia may be destroyed. Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia. [Here Mr. Mason quoted sundry passages to this effect.] This was a most iniquitous project. Why should we not provide against the danger of having our militia, our real and natural strength, destroyed? The general government ought, at the same time, to have some such power. But we need not give them power to abolish our militia. If they neglect to arm them, and prescribe proper discipline, they will be of no use. I am not acquainted with the military profession. I beg to be excused for any errors I may commit with respect to it. But I stand on the general principles of freedom, whereon I dare to meet any one. I wish that, in case the general government should neglect to arm and discipline the militia, there should be an express declaration that the state governments might arm and discipline them. With this single exception, I would agree to this part, as I am conscious the government ought to have the power.

As a resolution to these concerns about the distribution of power over the militia between federal and state government, the second amendment was written. There were multiple different drafts by various statesmen and government bodies leading up to its final form as we possess it today. Many versions of the amendment were significantly longer, and often included clauses that affirmed the dangers of maintaining a standing army, and stipulated that citizens with conscientious scruples against participating in military combat would not be compelled to serve militia duty.

One proposed draft by Roger Sherman, dated July 21, 1789, uses much different wording from that commonly used by its peers:

The Militia shall be under the government of the laws of the respective States, when not in the actual Service of the united States, but Such rules as may be prescribed by Congress for their uniform organisation & discipline shall be observed in officering and training them. but military Service Shall not be required of persons religiously Scrupulous of bearing arms.

In this proposal, we can see the important distinction being made between Congress' power over the regulation (i.e. "uniform organisation & discipline") of the militia, and the power of the respective state governments to regulate their own militias where congressional authority no longer applied.

Sherman's proposal can be compared to an earlier proposal by James Madison, using more familiar verbiage, written on June 8, 1789:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

You may notice the similar sequence between Sherman's proposal and Madison's: they both begin with a clause that effectively protects the autonomy of the state militias, then a clause that affirms the importance of the federal government's regulation of the militia, then end with a clause protecting conscientious objectors. Both proposals effectively say the same things, but using different verbiage.  This textual comparison provides a certain alternative perspective on the second amendment’s wording which helps to clarify the intent behind the amendment.

After multiple revisions, the amendment ultimately was reduced to two clauses, making two distinct assertions: first, it presented an affirmation by the federal government that a well-regulated militia was necessary to the security and freedom of the individual states, and affirmed the duty of Congress to uphold such regulation.

This interpretation of the amendment's "militia clause" can be corroborated by the following comment by Elbridge Gerry during an August 17, 1789 debate in the House of Representatives regarding the composition of the second amendment:

Mr. Gerry objected to the first part of the clause, on account of the uncertainty with which it is expressed. A well regulated militia being the best security of a free State, admitted an idea that a standing army was a secondary one. It ought to read, "a well regulated militia, trained to arms;" in which case it would become the duty of the Government to provide this security, and furnish a greater certainty of its being done.

Gerry believed that the phrasing "being the best security of a free state" could potentially cause the amendment to be construed to mean that a standing army ought to be viewed officially as a secondary security behind a well-regulated militia. Presumably, this could potentially create the danger of Congress deliberately neglecting the training of the militia as a pretext to rendering it inadequate and thus justifiably resorting to this "secondary security".  (This was exactly George Mason’s fear, as conveyed during the Virginia Ratifying Convention, quoted earlier.) Gerry believed that the addition of the phrase "trained to arms" into the militia clause would have the effect of exerting a duty upon the government to actively preserve the militia through the maintenance of such training.

Gerry's comment is illuminating because it demonstrates that the militia clause was originally viewed as more than a mere preamble to the "arms clause", but rather that it was an independent assertion in its own right. The clause itself did not stipulate the power of Congress to regulate the militia, as that had already been achieved in the militia clauses of the Constitution; rather it was a reaffirmation by Congress regarding that regulation, in accordance with one of the explicit objectives of the Bill of Rights to build confidence in the federal government, as stated in the Bill of Rights' original preamble:

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

Another piece of evidence to corroborate this interpretation of the militia clause is to note the basis from which the clause derives its verbiage.  The militia clause borrows its language from Section 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, an influential founding document written in 1776.  Section 13 goes as follows:

That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

The second amendment’s militia clause is essentially an adapted version of the first clause of the above article.  It is important to note that the purpose of the Virginia Declaration of Rights as a whole, and all of the articles within it, was to establish the basic principles and duties of government, more so than to stipulate specific regulations of government.  This likewise holds true with the second amendment’s militia clause; rather than being only a preamble to its following clause, the militia clause stands as a distinct declaration of governmental principle and duty, just as its predecessor does in the Virginia Declaration of Rights.  

Earlier drafts of the militia clause also frequently borrowed phrases from the first clause of the above article, especially the phrases “composed of the body of the people”, and “trained to arms”, which Elbridge Gerry had once proposed adding into the amendment.  Furthermore, many of the earlier drafts of the second amendment as a whole would borrow and include the remaining two clauses of the above article which addressed the dangers of standing armies.  One example of this is a relatively late draft of the amendment proposed in the Senate on September 4, 1789:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.  That standing armies, in time of peace, being dangerous to Liberty, should be avoided as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil Power. That no standing army or regular troops shall be raised in time of peace, without the consent of two thirds of the Members present in both Houses, and that no soldier shall be inlisted for any longer term than the continuance of the war.

As you can see, the second and third clauses from Section 13 of the Virginia Declaration are included in this draft virtually verbatim.  And, clearly, these “standing armies” clauses are by no means a preamble to anything else, nor do they provide a reason or justification to anything else, as has been argued about the militia clause.  It only stands to reason that, considering that the militia clause and the two standing armies clauses originate from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, that all three of these clauses would likely retain the fundamental meaning and function in the second amendment that they possessed in their source document.

The second amendment’s multiple connections to Section 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights indicate that the intent of the amendment was not only to protect particular rights of the people, but that the original intent was very much also to declare governmental duty in the spirit of the Virginia Declaration.  Furthermore, these connections speak to the fact that the focus of the second amendment was very much upon the militia; if not entirely, then at least as much as it was focused on private gun use.  This is indisputable, given that Section 13 of the Virginia Declaration is entirely concerned with the militia, and never so much as hints at the subject of private gun use.

Second, the amendment prohibited Congress from infringing upon the American people's right to keep arms and bear arms. As for this second part, the right to keep arms and bear arms was not granted by the second amendment itself, but rather the granting of such rights was within the jurisdiction of state constitutional law. States would traditionally contain an arms provision in their constitutions which stipulated the details of the people's right to keep and bear arms within the state. Every state arms provision stipulated the keeping and bearing of arms for the purpose of militia duty (i.e. the common defense), and many additionally stipulated the purpose of self defense.

As for the terminology involved, to "keep arms" essentially meant "to have arms in one's custody", not necessarily to own them; and to "bear arms" meant "to engage in armed combat, or to serve as a soldier", depending on the context. Hence, the second amendment as a whole addressed the concerns of the Antifederalists in regards to the militia, by categorically prohibiting Congress from infringing in any way upon the people's ability to serve militia duty or to equip themselves with the tools necessary to serve militia duty. The amendment's prohibition is general, and does not specifically address private gun use by citizens, as whether a given citizen had the right to private gun use (such as for self-defense), and to what extent the citizen had the right, was subject to vary state to state. The amendment simply prohibits any congressional infringement whatsoever upon the right to keep arms and bear arms.

Given the historical discussions surrounding the second amendment, its drafting history, its textual derivations, and the wording of its opening clause, it is only reasonable to interpret that the primary function of the amendment is to protect the institution of militia duty, not to protect civilian gun use.

As further evidence, here is a link to a historical debate in the House of Representatives in which politicians argued over the composition of the second amendment. Notably, you will notice that the entire House debate centers around militia duty, and not a word whatsoever is spoken in regards to private gun use. (And the limited information we have about the Senate debates on the second amendment likewise say nothing about private gun use.)

In addition, here is a useful resource from the National Constitution Center, which gives an easy-to-understand visual representation of the various precursors, proposals, and drafts which led up to the eventual creation of each of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. The drafting history of the second amendment is quite helpful in understanding its historical context and underlying purpose.

Opening brief here.

TLDR: the defender BOTCHED his 2A argument.

Background: On 6/29/2022, federal and state LEOs executed warrants on George Peterson at his home, which happens to be the location for his FFL. The state search and arrest warrants were the result of delinquent parish sales taxes. The federal search warrant was based on alleged straw purchases, improper record keeping of 4473s, failure to complete and forward multiple firearm purchase forms, and issues related to quick time to crime traces involving firearms sold by his FFL. Feds seized his entire inventory and records, personal and business electronic appliances, and, unexpectedly, his unlicensed suppressor. Peterson argued that he purchased a “solvent trap” and a kit to convert it into a suppressor, and forgot about it until the search. He had no intent to keep the suppressor a secret nor refuse to pay the $200 tax. Basically, what’s hairy is that he was unsure if the conversion would render that suppressor operable or not, so he didn’t want to do so for an inoperable solvent trap, but after conversion, he forgot to do the paper work.

The opening brief then talks about the denial of motion to dismiss (MTD) and that of motion to suppress (MTS). We will talk about the denial of MTD.

Peterson points out the government having its cake and eating it too by saying that the suppressor is not a firearm when it actually is statutorily defined as such. Peterson relies on Heller to explain why suppressors are protected explicitly and implicitly. Regarding explicit protection, it says that silencers “are an integral part of a firearm, used to ‘cast … or strike’ a bullet at another person.” In reality, silencers themselves only allow bullets and exhaust gases to pass through, not to actually propel the bullet, so personally, I find this angle of attack somewhat of a stretch. Regarding implicit protection, it cites to US v. Miller in saying that “proper accoutrements” are protected, and suppressors count as such. This explanation is better, as accoutrements facilitate one in “bearing” arms. It also says that it receives implicit protection by saying that suppressors improve accuracy, reduce disorientation after firing, and mitigate users’ health, especially hearing.

Here’s one fatal flaw: while Peterson claims that the serial number and registration requirements imposes a burden on the right to possess silencers for lawful purposes (correct), they don’t pass intermediate scrutiny because they aren’t tailored to achieve government interest (I personally agree, but this is forbidden). It cites Murphy v. Guerrero by pointing out that the Northern Mariana Islands’ weapon identification card (WIC), which is to be issued between 15 and 60 days upon receipt of application, [c]ompletely prevent[ed] an individual from exercising his right to keep and bear arms.” He then says that the NFA average wait time is eight months, which is way longer than the WIC. Peterson then says that the government’s interest in suppressor regulation is “insubstantial” because they are rarely used in crime compared to handguns, which are not regulated under the NFA. Peterson then says that he has a clean record prior to this conviction, so NFA registration requirement is not “narrowly tailored” to the public purpose of keeping arms out of the hands of convicted felons.

The opening brief in its conclusion ask that the 5th Circuit reverse the denial of MTD, or alternatively, reverse the denial of MTS and have the district court hold an evidentiary hearing (it didn’t).

Personally, I feel that this lawyer has been living under a rock. Nowhere in the brief is Bruen mentioned. This lawyer didn’t even point out how District Judge Jay Zainey erred in denying the motion to dismiss (see my previous post on how he erred). This is why amicus briefs are strongly recommended, especially when there are subpar defenders. A particular example of such in my opinion? US v. Rahimi. The public defender in my opinion didn’t articulate clearly, and Kagan called him out. I hope that the amicus briefs give SCOTUS guidance in correctly issuing its opinion.

Dear National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR),

STOP sending me mail with "Firearms Disqualification Notice" on the outside of the envelope. Are you bonkers? Tell your marketing team to stop huffing whippits in the breakroom and try to engage your constiuency base with more grace, tact, and pointedness and less dumb f*&^%& ery.

Sincerely yours,

An irritated consumer.

Buried at the 48:30 minute mark of this podcast (https://www.smartless.com/episodes/episode/2138f342/3-presidents ) that just aired April 29, 2024, Biden says …

“Number one, we’re going to, in a second term, God willing, we’re going to make sure that we do something about gun violence in this country. The idea that we allow assault weapons to be sold with magazines with 100 rounds is just bizarre.”

… and the hosts chime in …

“The democrats never said they want to take your guns away. … You just don’t need to kill a deer with an AR-15.”

… to which Biden remarks …

“The 2nd Amendment, which I, when I taught law school — the 2nd Amendment wasn’t absolute ever. You weren’t able to have a cannon when you were — this — the [tree of] liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, I mean, that’s a bunch of crap.” *omits the word “tyrants”

It’s a handy summary of just some of this administration’s anti-gun agenda in less than a minute. Enjoy!

GOA claims "Simply by selling one firearm, individuals could be required to obtain a Federal Firearms License and conduct a background check or face criminal prosecution."

https://www.gunowners.org/goa-and-gof-join-state-of-texas-in-suit-against-bidens-universal-background-check-rule

But the new rule defines someone "engaged in the business" as “a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business to predominantly earn a profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.”

As far as I can tell, this rule change is more the silly but harmless "look, we're doing something!" flavor of gun control vs. actual infringement, where basically all they did was remove the qualifier that one must also be making sales "with the principal objective of livelihood.”

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/09/08/2023-19177/definition-of-engaged-in-the-business-as-a-dealer-in-firearms