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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 Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday March 10 2015, @10:36PM
But hey, don't let your lack of reading comprehension keep you from ranting about things I didn't say.
"It is also not unreasonable to have SOME degree of limitations on who can own firearms. It's no problem that, say, a mentally retarded person has a right to free speech; it's a completely different thing to allow them to keep and bear an Uzi. Which, again, I believe that the second amendment allows."
I thought you were saying it allows the government to place those restrictions. Apparently not.
The Constitution is a collection of limitations on our individual rights.
Irrelevant to what I said. According to what some people suggest, it would be the government arbitrarily deciding that the founders couldn't have envisioned technology X, and then deciding that they have constitutional authority to ban it on that basis. That is completely arbitrary, as well as unconstitutional.
The Constitution is the result of a risk decision. For example, in the fourth amendment the framers considered the risk of allowing the government carte blanche search and seizure authority to exceed the risk posed by the crime that might otherwise be prevented or punished by such authority.
That's too safety-oriented for my liking. Freedom should prevail over safety a grand majority of the time. It's not just a matter of X being more dangerous than Y for me.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday March 11 2015, @12:45AM
Fair enough; I'll concede that my wording was ambiguous. I was saying that I believe the second amendment does permit them to own an Uzi.
Anyway, we're clearly in agreement that the current state places no restrictions on ownership of "arms". We do seem to disagree as to the wisdom of such a position. My only point is that, to me, there is some level of "too much" for individual weapon ownership. That "too much", IMO, falls somewhere between "pistol in my house" (what, to me, is the bare minimum definition of "keep and bear arms") and "thermonuclear weapon in my house" (which, to me, is a clearly over the top activity that still fits the definition of "keep and bear arms"), and I don't think that should be a controversial position among advocates of the right to keep and bear arms.