Sunday, June 30, 2013
A Farewell to Arms
Magpul Industries Corp., the highly successful gun accessories business centered in Erie, CO, has announced that it will move out of Colorado regardless of the success (or not) of the lawsuit to declare unconstitutional the 15 round magazine limit going into law tomorrow. Yesterday, Magpul gave away standard capacity* magazines, and sold others pretty cheap, at Infinity Park in Glendale, CO (walking distance from my work) at an event that pulled in about 4,000 people (my estimate). Everyone was there for the free/cheap magazines but they had bands and beautiful Dana Loesch gave a stemwinder speech extempore. It was kinda fun but a lot of waiting in the heat (about 88 degrees with clouds).
Here are some pictures of the event.
Here are some lawyer thoughts. It is clear to me that the Heller and McDonald cases make it inescapable that the constitutionality of laws that infringe on our keeping and bearing arms must be decided using strict scrutiny. That is, the state must show a compelling reason for the law, a compelling state interest, and the law must be very narrowly tailored, and there must not be any other less onerous way to effect the compelling state interest.
I can't think of a compelling state interest for limiting gun magazines to 15 rounds. Because that 16th murder victim is especially precious to the state? Really, help me out here. What is the compelling state interest the state attorneys can state to the court with straight faces?
* The first assault rifle, the STG 44, used 30 round detachable box magazines. The AK 47 (of which there may be 100 million in use around the world) uses 30 and 40 round detachable box magazines. Our AR-15 and M-16 started off using 20 rounders (like the BAR and M-14 used) but we soon started using 30 round magazines and that now is the standard sized magazines for those rifles. High capacity detachable magazines use drum technology (like the Thompson and PPSh 41).
Asking why we need those size magazines (as my liberal friend Tony asked recently) is the wrong question. Need is not the measure. Why do you need your phone calls to be private? What are you hiding? The freedom protected by the enumerated right allows us merely to want that capacity magazines and we can have them as a matter of right. Preventing us gun owners from using the size magazine we want infringes on our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The clause about a well organized Militia in the Second Amendment is the subordinate clause which explains one reason why we have that right. The federalist papers, particularly #46, explain that one of the other reasons is for the citizens to be armed sufficiently to overthrow too tyrannical a government. Hunting, target shooting and self defense were not even mentioned as supporting reasons by the drafters of the Constitution and its immediate amendments.
Here are some pictures of the event.
Here are some lawyer thoughts. It is clear to me that the Heller and McDonald cases make it inescapable that the constitutionality of laws that infringe on our keeping and bearing arms must be decided using strict scrutiny. That is, the state must show a compelling reason for the law, a compelling state interest, and the law must be very narrowly tailored, and there must not be any other less onerous way to effect the compelling state interest.
I can't think of a compelling state interest for limiting gun magazines to 15 rounds. Because that 16th murder victim is especially precious to the state? Really, help me out here. What is the compelling state interest the state attorneys can state to the court with straight faces?
* The first assault rifle, the STG 44, used 30 round detachable box magazines. The AK 47 (of which there may be 100 million in use around the world) uses 30 and 40 round detachable box magazines. Our AR-15 and M-16 started off using 20 rounders (like the BAR and M-14 used) but we soon started using 30 round magazines and that now is the standard sized magazines for those rifles. High capacity detachable magazines use drum technology (like the Thompson and PPSh 41).
Asking why we need those size magazines (as my liberal friend Tony asked recently) is the wrong question. Need is not the measure. Why do you need your phone calls to be private? What are you hiding? The freedom protected by the enumerated right allows us merely to want that capacity magazines and we can have them as a matter of right. Preventing us gun owners from using the size magazine we want infringes on our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The clause about a well organized Militia in the Second Amendment is the subordinate clause which explains one reason why we have that right. The federalist papers, particularly #46, explain that one of the other reasons is for the citizens to be armed sufficiently to overthrow too tyrannical a government. Hunting, target shooting and self defense were not even mentioned as supporting reasons by the drafters of the Constitution and its immediate amendments.
Labels: Magpul Industries; Standard Magazines; Dana Loesch
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:50 AM 
