[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Simply calling on congress to ban assault weapons is not unconstitutional. For one thing, he's simply called on congress to do something, he didn't actually do it.

Furthermore, not being able to buy certain guns does not impinge on your right to bear arms. The 2nd amendment states you have a right to a gun, but it does not stipulate what type of gun.

For instance, do you have a right to own a Bazooka? A Gatling Gun? Owning those is already illegal in the United States. Likewise I don't think you can buy military grade weaponry either, and that's not considered unconstitutional by any of the gun owners I've met. If those laws are constitutional, then the same logic applies to an assault rifle ban. Because it's not banning firearms as a whole, but simply a class of firearms.

I already explained this above in a previous post.
Also, Gatling guns are not illegal in the US, but they are very expensive due to being hand crafted.
You can buy them.
Machine guns are also legal to purchase, but very expensive and regulated heavily (which I contend is uncontstutional at this point, the NFA of 1934 did its job fine).
Rocket launchers and grenade launchers are also legal to buy with a class 09 FFL.
Here are the FFL classes available to citizens of the US:

FFL (Federal Firearms License)
Type 01 = dealer of Title 1 firearms
Type 02 = pawnbroker
Type 03 = Curio & Relic collector
Type 06 = manufacturer of ammo
Type 07 = manufacturer of Title 1 firearms
Type 08 = importer of Title 1 firearms
Type 09 = dealer of destructive devices
Type 10 = manufacturer of destructive devices
Type 11 = importer of destructive devices

SOT (Special Occupational Taxpayer)
Class I = importer of Title 2 firearms
Class II = manufacturer of Title 2 firearms
Class III = dealer of Title 2 firearms

SOT status is used in conjunction with the corresponding FFL.
For example...
Type 01-FFL Class III SOT = dealer of Title 1 & 2 firearms
Type 07-FFL Class II SOT = manufacturer of Title 1 & 2 firearms

I'd use the FFL class system as a basis for a Martial Arts style (meaning 1st Dan through 10th Dan after proper training) system applied to the Civilian Marksmanship Program in order to comply with the 2nd amendment and the US Constitution. The more competent and trustworthy you prove you are, the more access you should have to higher levels of weaponry.

However, back on point.
Yes, banning a paramilitary rifle is a direct infringement on the 2nd amendment.
There is no question about this.
Banning standard capacity magazines (used by every police department in the US)is an infringement.
Police are not military, and thus under the 2nd amendment, if the police can have it, the citizens can have it in the United States.
In fact, according to the US vs. Miller case, only military weapons are protected by the 2nd amendment.
I'll re-post the decision in US vs. Miller.

“…in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a shotgun having a barrel of less that eighteen inches in length at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that is use could contribute to the common defense…”

Therefore, US v. Miller make four things clear:

•1) The original meaning of “militia” had not changed in 159 years and it still meant “every able bodied man between the ages of 17 and 45.”

•2) The Federal Constitution and Bill of Rights are the SUPREME LAW of the land and take precedence over State laws.

•3) Weapons which are not of a military nature or useful to the common defense are not useful to the militia and thus not protected by the 2nd Amendment.

•4) There IS a “litmus test” for determining what weapons are and are NOT protected by the 2nd Amendment, and that test is simple: the weapon must be of a military nature and useful by the militia to a) uphold the laws of the union (Constitution and Bill of Rights), b) put down insurrections, and c) repel invasions.

Now, we can argue all day about whether banning assault rifles is a good idea or not (frankly I don't know), but I don't see how banning an assault rifle is legally any different from banning bazookas, Gatling guns or other military grade weaponry.

It's not a matter of being a good or bad thing, it is whether or not it is lawful in the US, and clearly the SCOTUS has already ruled on this through Presser vs. Illinois, US vs Miller, and DC vs Heller. The argument is over, the 2nd amendment protects such weapons and the collective rights model is dead.

As for mandatory registration, other fundamental rights you have are also regulated. You have a right to free speech, but you don't have a right to shout fire in a crowded theater. If by owning a gun you present a danger to your community, your right to own a gun is nullified (say if you're a former criminal, or severely mentally ill).

Registration does not equate to competency as Nancy Lanza proved. Under Connecticut law all of her weapons were registered, and it did nothing to prevent this event.
The reality here is that Nancy was irresponsible and the Gun Free Zone act of 1995 provided the perfect killing field for her son. This problem in the US is more about fixing the Gun Free Zones than it is about guns.
Israel had this problem in 1974 with the Ma'alot Massacre and this is how they solved it.

So again, I don't see how anything he wrote was unconstitutional. Maybe you don't agree they're the right approach, but saying they're illegal is disingenuous.

It is unconstitutional when it infringes on the right to keep and bear arms, in fact it also violates the 9th amendment which states:

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Since the Presser vs Illinois case clearly states the people have the right to keep and bear arms without the 2nd amendment, the case for the so called "assault weapon and high-cap ban" becomes eroded to the point of being nonsensical.

I'll quote Presser again:

“It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question [the Second Amendment] out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government.”

There's no two-ways about this, gun control has run its course in the US because it is now at odds with both the Constitution and the SCOTUS rulings.
The laws we have can be challenged, and have been as in the McDonald vs City of Chicago case of where the ban on handguns has now been declared unconstitutional.
Justice Alito gave the majority opinion of the court:

Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day and in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is the “central component” of the Second Amendment right. . . . [and that] this right applies to handguns because they are 'the most preferred firearm in the nation to 'keep' and use for protection of one's home and family'. . . Heller makes it clear that this right is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition'. . . . It cannot be doubted that the right to bear arms was regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as the States legislated in an evenhanded manner (ibid, pp. 19-20 and 33).

The DC vs. Heller case defers to US. vs. Miller on what kinds of firearms are protected and what kinds are regulatable. In other words, paramilitary arms are protected, hunting arms are not unless they have a usefulness to the common defense.

So the argument is basically over, what we have now are politicians and the media ignoring the SCOTUS and the Constitution to push their pet agenda.
Obama has verbally signed on to that agenda and is thus in violation of his Oath of Office which states the following:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

His use of EO's to attempt to legislate against the 2nd amendment is a breach of the separation of powers within the constitution.

You should understand that the 2nd amendment does not protect hunting or sport shooting. The founding fathers made it very clear what is was for.

Tench Coxe (1755-1824 American political economist):
) “The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American …the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

James Madison: “The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Besides the advantage of being armed, it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.”

Thomas Jefferson: “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every Free State.”

Rep. Elbridge Gerry (of Massachusetts 1789): “What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty…Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins…”

Patrick Henry: “Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”

Richard Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee in his Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788): “A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms . . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them . . . The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle.”

George Mason: 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. . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.[1]

Alexander Hamilton Federalist paper #29: There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instill prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests?

It is obvious that the 2nd amendment is a deterrent to tyranny put another way, it is to prevent a political party from abusing and twisting the federal government into a totalitarian state.