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from the founding-fathers-didn't-have-tazers dept.
Massachusetts' ban on the private possession of stun guns—an "electrical weapon" under the statute—does not violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the state's top court has ruled.
The decision says ( http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/stungunMA-ruling.pdf ) (PDF) that the US Constitution's framers never envisioned the modern stun-gun device, first patented in 1972. The top court said stun guns are not suitable for military use, and that it did not matter whether state lawmakers have approved the possession of handguns outside the home.The court, ruling in the case of a Massachusetts woman caught with stun gun, said the stun gun is a "thoroughly modern invention" not protected by the Second Amendment, although handguns are protected.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday March 10 2015, @04:22PM
<sarcasm>Don't worry this case like the old one I linked to are not about a judges understanding of what are useful to the military and in actual use but about their personal feelings on ownership of arms.</sarcasm>
The issue in the first case was around the ownership of a sawed off shotgun and there the government argued that there was not military purpose for one of those. Even though during WWI sawed off shotguns were very effective and even had a name for how they were used and they were very effective in trench fighting. One thing of note in the old case is that the defendant was black and there seemed to be a lot of racism at play in that one and in this new case I wonder if a similar thing is going one. I have no way to tell as the defendant's race isn't mentioned and I can't find a picture of her but it wouln't surprise me to find out the defendant is a minority.
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