XPost: misc.survivalism, talk.politics.guns, alt.politics   
   XPost: alt.california, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: rob.lee@lynch.confederacy   
      
   Jonathan Ball wrote:   
   > I note it's time for a refresher.   
   >   
   > Some limitation on the types of arms protected by the second amendment is   
   > clearly within the scope of the amendment. Mr. Justice Scalia in the Heller   
   > decision:   
      
   Justice Thomas, *WITH WHOM JUSTICE SCALIA JOINS*, dissenting from the   
   denial of certiorari.   
      
   "[O]ur central holding in" District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570   
   (2008), was "that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and   
   bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the   
   home." McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780 (2010) (plurality opinion).   
   And in McDonald, we recognized that the Second Amendment applies fully   
   against the States as well as the Federal Government. Id., at 750; id., at   
   805 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).   
      
   Despite these holdings, several Courts of Appeals--including the Court of   
   Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the decision below--have upheld   
   categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for   
   lawful purposes. See 784 F. 3d 406, 410-412 (2015). Because noncompliance   
   with our Second Amendment precedents warrants this Court's attention as much   
   as any of our precedents, I would grant certiorari in this case.   
      
   I   
      
   The City of Highland Park, Illinois, bans manufacturing, selling, giving,   
   lending, acquiring, or possessing many of the most commonly owned   
   semiautomatic firearms, which the City branded "Assault Weapons." See   
   Highland Park, Ill., City Code SS136.001(C), 136.005 (2015), App. to Pet.   
   for Cert. 65a, 71a. For instance, the ordinance crimi nalizes modern   
   sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semiautomatic rifles), which many Americans   
   own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting. The   
   City also prohibited "Large Capacity Magazines," a term the City used to   
   refer to nearly all ammunition feeding devices that "accept more than ten   
   rounds." S136.001(G), id.,at 70a.   
      
   The City gave anyone who legally possessed "an Assault Weapon or Large   
   Capacity Magazine" 60 days to move these items outside city limits, disable   
   them, or surrender them for destruction. S136.020, id., at 73a. Anyone who   
   violates the ordinance can be imprisoned for up to six months, fined up to   
   $1,000, or both. S136.999, id., at 74a.   
      
   Petitioners -- a Highland Park resident who sought to keep now-prohibited   
   firearms and magazines to defend his home, and an advocacy organization --   
   brought a suit to enjoin the ordinance on the ground that it violates the   
   Second Amendment. The District Court for the Northern District of Illinois   
   granted summary judgment to the City.   
      
   A divided panel of the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The panel majority   
   acknowledged that the prohibited weapons "can be beneficial for self-defense   
   because they are lighter than many rifles and less dangerous per shot than   
   larger-caliber pistols or revolvers," and thus "[h]ouseholders too   
   frightened or infirm to aim carefully may be able to wield them more   
   effectively." 784 F. 3d, at 411.   
      
   The majority nonetheless found no constitutional problem with the ordinance.   
   It recognized that Heller "holds that a law banning the possession of   
   handguns in the home . . . violates" the Second Amendment. 784 F. 3d, at   
   407. But beyond Heller's rejection of banning handguns in the home, the   
   majority believed, Heller and McDonald "leave matters open" on the scope of   
   the Second Amendment. 784 F. 3d, at 412. The majority thus adopted a new   
   test for gauging the constitutionality of bans on firearms: "[W]e [will] ask   
   whether a regulation bans weapons that  were common at the time of   
   ratification or those that have some reasonable relationship to the   
   preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, . . . and whether   
   law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense." Id., at 410   
   (internal quotation marks omitted).   
      
   Judge Manion dissented, reasoning that "[b]oth the ordinance and this   
   court's opinion upholding it are directly at odds with the central holdings   
   of Heller and McDonald." Id., at 412.   
      
   II   
      
   The Second Amendment provides: "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." We explained in Heller and McDonald that the Second   
   Amendment "guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in   
   case of confrontation." Heller, supra, at 592; see also McDonald, supra, at   
   767-769. We excluded from protection only "those weapons not typically   
   possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes." Heller, 554 U. S.,   
   at 625. And we stressed that "[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out   
   of the hands of government--even the Third Branch of Government--the power   
   to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth   
   insisting upon." Id., at 634 (emphasis deleted).   
      
   Instead of adhering to our reasoning in Heller, the Seventh Circuit limited   
   Heller to its facts, and read Heller to forbid only total bans on handguns   
   used for self-defense in the home. See 784 F. 3d, at 407, 412. All other   
   questions about the Second Amendment, the Seventh Circuit concluded, should   
   be defined by "the political process and scholarly debate." Id., at 412. But   
   Heller repudiates that approach. We explained in Heller that "since th[e]   
   case represent[ed] this Court's first in-depth examination of the Second   
   Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify  the entire field." 554 U.   
   S., at 635. We cautioned courts against leaving the rest of the field to the   
   legislative process: "Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope   
   they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not   
   future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad."   
   Id., at 634-635.   
      
   Based on its crabbed reading of Heller, the Seventh Circuit felt free to   
   adopt a test for assessing firearm bans that eviscerates many of the   
   protections recognized in Heller and McDonald. The court asked in the first   
   instance whether the banned firearms "were common at the time of   
   ratification" in 1791. 784 F. 3d, at 410. But we said in Heller that "the   
   Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute   
   bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the   
   founding." 554 U. S., at 582.   
      
   The Seventh Circuit alternatively asked whether the banned firearms relate   
   "to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." 784 F. 3d,   
   at 410 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court concluded that state   
      
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