More Than Ten Rounds is Unusual And Dangerous

[RYP]

I always holding your gat sideways was unusual and dangerous..

Federal judge rules pistols holding more than ten rounds dangerous and unusual
March 27, 12:54 PMAtlanta Gun Rights
Ed Stone


Get alerts when there is a new article from the Atlanta Gun Rights Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.
Email Address


Judge Urbina (Photo Dan Rosenthal)

Yesterday, federal district court judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that a DC ordinance banning pistols holding more than ten rounds was constitutional and did not violate the right to bear arms.

After the Supreme Court in 2008 struck down DC's categorical ban on functional firearms in the home, the city reacted by passing a series of ordinances that it called "Reasonable Regulations." Basically, in DC, it is currently legal to have a pistol not capable of holding more than ten rounds, in the home, unloaded and either disassembled or with a trigger lock.

Dick Heller, the only plaintiff to make it to the United States Supreme Court in the landmark Heller case, sued the city of DC again over its new regulations, challenging the registration and licensing scheme and the ban on weapons holding more than ten rounds. It is not known why Heller failed to challenge the ordinance requiring weapons to be unloaded and disassembled or locked away.

Judge Urbina, a Clinton appointee, upheld the DC regulations as protecting DC's "compelling" governmental interest in public safety. He reached this result by refusing to apply a "strict scrutiny" standard of review to the right to keep arms, and instead applying an intermediate standard of review. The difference between the two is significant. A strict scrutiny standard of review is almost always fatal to a government regulation, as the government must prove that the regulation is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. Failing such a showing, the law will be held unconstitutional. Intermediate review, on the other hand requires only a showing that the regulation is substantially related to an important governmental interest for the regulation to be upheld. As one might expect, this is a much lighter burden for the government. In the words of Judge Urbina, the lower standard of review permits the government to "paint with a broader brush" when imposing restrictions upon a civil right.

The Supreme Court, in its Heller opinion, left the standard of review open for future cases to decide.

Judge Urbina then explicitly held that the Second Amendment right is not "fundamental."

the Supreme Court did not explicitly hold that the Second Amendment right is a fundamental right, despite the fact that it stated that "[b]y the timeof the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects" and noted that Blackstone "cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen." Id. at 2798. If the Supreme Court had wanted to declare the Second Amendment right a fundamental right, it would have done so explicitly. The court will not infer such a significant holding based only on the Heller majority’s oblique references to the gun ownership rights of eighteenth-century English subjects.

In other words, the right to keep arms in the home may have been fundamental in the eighteenth century, but the courts are not inclined to hold that it is fundamental today. They reserve that important category for "rights" not mentioned in the constitution, like sodomy and abortion.

The DC laws upheld by Judge Urbina include registration, licensing, a ban on any pistol that holds more than 10 rounds. As noted above, Heller did not challenge the requirement that the weapon be kept unloaded and either dissasembled or secured by either a trigger lock, gun safe, or some other device.

The decision not to challenge the last requirement is extremely puzzling, since the Supreme Court struck down DC's prior law requiring that the a weapon be kept unloaded and locked. The Supreme court held that this requirement to unload, disassemble or lock up the weapon:

makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.

That is pretty clear language.

The opinion holds that any weapon capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition is "dangerous and unusual" and therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.

You may read Judge Urbina's 30 page opinion for yourself by clicking here.

You may read the DC ordinances on guns by clicking here.

Also, please be sure to read David Codrea's Examiner article, in which he calls this decision "nothing less than subversive" and notes that gun control activists are publicly celebrating.

[Woodsman]

Sweet yet another example of more government against the people.
I expect this doesn't mean that law enforcement officer's guns having more then ten rounds is unusual and dangerous though.

The "right to bear arms" has been a staple of the constitution since its onset and that RIGHT has continuously been shit on by governments from "scrutinizing the language" (sort of a "what is the definition of sexual relations" approach) to flat out restrictions such as this.

Outlaw the guns and only outlaws will have guns.

I wanna be a cowboy, baby.

[Devlin]

I guess this Judge has never seen someone who is well trained do reload drills.

[Hitoru]

Dangerous and unusual:

[el3so]

I do not want to know where that chain is going...

[coldharvest]

I do not want to know where that chain is going...

oh! you're such a liar

[mapandcompass]

the lower standard of review permits the government to "paint with a broader brush" when imposing restrictions upon a civil right

Sounds like an easily deployed "standard of review" threatens some pretty serious foundations of the US government. Fail.

[Woodsman]

Dangerous and unusual:

Friends of friends do that shit. I guess they are getting ready for the rape and torture camps.

[el3so]

Friends of friends do that shit

Wow, the economic crisis must have really hit your country hard.
Just a layman here, but wouldn't applying the meat-hooks to the Achilles tendons make more sense?

[Woodsman]

Friends of friends do that shit

Wow, the economic crisis must have really hit your country hard.
Just a layman here, but wouldn't applying the meat-hooks to the Achilles tendons make more sense?

If you saw the pics I did, you wouldn't believe the variety of where they attach the hooks...and based on the size of some of these hangers, I gotta believe h.d. shark leader is a necessity to use for the rigging...

[JamesInTheWorld]

The 10 round mag law is city ordinance in a bunch of cities in Virginia already

Pretty much all shoot-outs only last a few rounds so this is one of those laws that does nothing but make stupid people that know nothing about firearm encounters feel good

~James G

[Lost Boy]

I carry a single stack M1911 .45 ACP anyways, so I couldn't care less about the restriction from a practical standpoint, but I object to this idiocy as a matter of principle.

[Chimborazo]

The 10 round mag law is city ordinance in a bunch of cities in Virginia already
~James G

I think that was taken care of by a statewide preemption law several years ago. What localities?

[JamesInTheWorld]

The 10 round mag law is city ordinance in a bunch of cities in Virginia already
~James G

I think that was taken care of by a statewide preemption law several years ago. What localities?

It was city ordnance in Richmond in the 90’s, I was working in Richmond when the ordinance came into effect – it may have changed now,


~James

[Chimborazo]

The 10 round mag law is city ordinance in a bunch of cities in Virginia already
~James G

I think that was taken care of by a statewide preemption law several years ago. What localities?

It was city ordnance in Richmond in the 90’s, I was working in Richmond when the ordinance came into effect – it may have changed now,


~James

Yeah, it's long gone. And effective July 1, permit holders can now carry into ABC-on licensed establishments as long as they don't drink (this is statewide). A few other decent laws were passed too.

Here's the preemption law:

§ 15.2-915. Control of firearms; applicability to authorities and local governmental agencies.

A. No locality shall adopt or enforce any ordinance, resolution or motion, as permitted by § 15.2-1425, and no agent of such locality shall take any administrative action, governing the purchase, possession, transfer, ownership, carrying, storage or transporting of firearms, ammunition, or components or combination thereof other than those expressly authorized by statute. For purposes of this section, a statute that does not refer to firearms, ammunition, or components or combination thereof, shall not be construed to provide express authorization.

Nothing in this section shall prohibit a locality from adopting workplace rules relating to terms and conditions of employment of the workforce. Nothing in this section shall prohibit a law-enforcement officer, as defined in § 9.1-101 from acting within the scope of his duties.

The provisions of this section applicable to a locality shall also apply to any authority or to a local governmental entity, including a department or agency, but not including any local or regional jail or juvenile detention facility.

B. Any local ordinance, resolution or motion adopted prior to the effective date of this act governing the purchase, possession, transfer, ownership, carrying or transporting of firearms, ammunition, or components or combination thereof, other than those expressly authorized by statute, is invalid.