Devil5052 wrote:I think a little common sense here would work wonders.........I just can't imagine a legitimate reason for a municipality denying a law abiding, mentally competent, adult citizen the right to own a firearm, for any lawful purpose.
By the same token, I would favor denying that same citizen the right to carry a loaded flame thrower down the streets of Manhattan. (for those who would argue that he should have the right to carry a flame thrower in New York........How about if he wants a private, tactical nuclear weapon?!?.......is there any line here??)
"We The People" have a collective right to defend ourselves against the unnecessary dangers that such weapons pose, don't we?
Again with the flame throwers and nuclear weapons. Please stop throwing out these insane arguments for "reasonableness". You, I, everyone knows that some cities and states will attempt to hang their hat on "reasonableness" by shaving things as closely as they possibly can, requiring years if not decades of further court actions, rights denied, and innocent lives destroyed as these jurisdictions ignore any semblance of reasonableness in their effort to maintain the unconstitutional spirit of their gun laws.
What am I talking about? DC saying that they will (at some point, who knows when) allow people to purchase revolvers and single shot handguns. No semi-automatic handguns, though. Those are apparently "unreasonable". The type of firearm which constitutes at least half the modern, common handguns available for purchase today. Is that reasonable? I don't think so, and I bet not too many other gun owners and potential gun owners would either. No this measure of "reasonableness" will be set be effete liberal snobs and a largely unthinking, brainwashed local citizenry who, after 30 years of being denied their constitutional rights and told guns, all guns, are bad bad bad while their violent crime rates have gone up up up probably couldn't even hope tell you the practical functional differences between the types and styles of handgun.
What other "reasonable" hairs will they split? Only double action, no single action? This is often a recommendation for personal defense handguns most likely to be used in close quarters situations, but is very bad for target shooting, hunting, and other such common "precision" uses that are equally protected uses under the constitution. Is it reasonable?
Is it reasonable for a jurisdiction to allow permit issuing officers (judges or sheriffs, most often) to use subjective, ill-defined criteria (indeed barely defined criteria in many counties and some states) in their decision to issue a premises, sportsman, or carry permit or not? What about in a state where the subjective criteria are literally different for two people in two different counties whom are separated and distinguishable by nothing more than 2 miles distance between their dwellings? Is that reasonable?
How about games played with understaffing issuing offices and other support apparatus for the issuance of permits, resulting in ridiculous lengths of time to process an application and issue the permit? How about playing games with the number of recognized instructors for mandated instructional lectures and courses? Or fee schedules? Reasonableness?
How about calibers. .45ACP will be allowed, but .50DE will not? .357 fine, but a handgun that shoots 410 gauge shot shells, forget it? Reasonable?
Magazine capacities, attached lights or laser sights, the mere presence of an accessory rail of any kind (hell, they consider a bayonet lug to be a defining characteristic of an assault weapon, why not?), etc. Reasonable points of restriction?
Bet your life that all these and more will be tried and each and every one will require years of legal wrangling and total tens of millions of dollars or more pissed away on the process.
In light of the presence of the 2nd amendment there should be a default to the more liberal (as in individual freedom) structuring of gun laws, requiring the case to be made to impose a restriction and enacted as a law (definitely not by a judge). This implies that the restrictions should come slowly, one careful piece at a time in the direction of more restrictions from a starting point of maximum individual liberty. But it hasn't and won't happen that way for a great many people. Instead some cities and states have opted and will continue to opt to impose the maximum restrictions they possibly can, wait for a judge to rule the restriction too strong, and then shave a very little bit away and claim they made a good faith effort to comply, and then wait another 5-10 years for it to work its way through the court system. Rinse, repeat. And, as this case has proven, 5-10 years is probably an underestimate. The DC handgun ban has been in effect for something like 25-30 years!
If this kind of effort and progression to find the edge of reasonableness from the starting point of maximum liberty curtailment allowed under the constitution was made against the freedom of religion or to vote or against the 5th amendment rights, damn near every person in this country would be in a furious uproar over it. And rightly so. But because its guns, and guns are bad, guns do nothing but kill, gun owners are irresponsible, gun ownership results in stolen guns used to kill people, and on and on with that mindless blather... well, then that's alright to take that inverted, never otherwise taken path to defining the rights of gun ownership and the limits of the 2nd amendment. It's appalling.
Somehow a handful of states and cities have gotten things backwards, forcing millions of people to suffer unconstitutional restriction of their fundamental rights for decades. Those backward thinking forces will continue to act to maintain unreasonable, ineffective, unconstitutional gun control laws, even in the face of this rebuke of their unconstitutional policies and their overall spirit of minimizing a critical individual freedom. Of course, I'm assuming the goal is to reduce the number of violent crime victims and maximize personal liberty and not simply to "defang" the law abiding populace. They've certainly have made great strides in the later while failing miserably at the former.
Think I'll strap on my Bowie Knife and go to Charlie Browns for dinner tonight. 
or else we will. 
Most of these gun laws started in Detroit back in the 1960s. because Honest law abiding blacks were trying to defend themselves against the animals in the street. The racist democrats saw armed blacks as a threat and anacted the first gun laws. P.S. M.L.K was a republican.
