{"id":103603,"date":"2024-08-11T23:31:15","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T04:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=103603"},"modified":"2024-08-11T23:35:49","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T04:35:49","slug":"103603","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=103603","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Maryland, AR-15s and the Fourth Circuit<\/a><\/p>\n

Should you be so unfortunate as to live in Maryland, and more unfortunate as to own an AR-15, you\u2019re a criminal,\u00a0as the Fourth Circuit Court recently affirmed.<\/a> This despite the Supreme Court\u2019s Heller, McDonald<\/em> and Bruen<\/em> decisions having made clear the Second Amendment acknowledges the individual right to self-defense in one\u2019s home and elsewhere, and common and usual weapons are presumptively constitutional. Unfortunately none of those decisions specifically mention the AR-15, the most popular\u2014common and usual–rifle of its type in America. This opened the gun ban door a crack, which the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0Circuit majority used to push the door wide open:<\/p>\n

We have described the AR-15\u2019s capacities in abundant detail to demonstrate just how far outside the animating purposes of the Second Amendment this weapon lies. While we know that the AR-15 thrives in combat, mass murder, and overpowering police, appellants have failed to demonstrate that the weapon is suitable for self-defense. This is likely because such a showing would be difficult to make. Indeed, many of the weapon\u2019s combat-functional features make it ill-suited for the vast majority of self-defense situations in which civilians find themselves.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It would be hard to imagine a more deceptive and less informed recitation of legal mush.<\/strong> The majority decision goes on to claim the \u201cheightened firepower\u201d of the AR-15 is a terrible risk of overpenetration, and the 30-round magazine, standard since the Vietnam era, is also useful for mass murder, because self-defense shootings commonly only involve a few shots. The majority would also have us believe the AR-15 is particularly useless for home defense. They conclude their specious arguments with this:<\/p>\n

In sum, the AR-15\u2014with its military origination, combat-functional features, and extraordinary lethality\u2014has \u201cthe same basic characteristics, functionality, capabilities, and potential for injury as the M-16.\u201d And its all too frequent use in terrorism, mass killing, and police murder shows that the AR-15 offers firepower ill-suited and disproportionate to fulfilling the Second Amendment\u2019s purpose of armed self-defense. Therefore, just like the M16, the AR-15 is \u201cmost useful in military service\u201d and \u201cmay be banned\u201d consistent with the Second Amendment.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where to begin? The AR-15 has been on the civilian market since the 1960s, and while Armalite\u2014\u201cArmalite Rifle,\u201d not \u201cAssault Rifle\u201d certainly wanted military contracts, only the Air Force initially adopted the rifle for base defense. The Army eventually adopted it, and after decades of development, the select-fire M4, not available to civilians, is the current issued rifle.<\/p>\n

Both the M4 and AR-15, the M4\u2019s semiautomatic only, look-alike cousin, fire the .223\/5.56 NATO cartridge, which is of only intermediate power, and has long been known as an unreliable\u00a0penetrator and man stopper. The Military is currently developing a higher-powered cartridge, and rifle.<\/p>\n

Is the AR-15 a \u201ccommon and usual\u201d arm?\u00a0\u00a0Best estimates place\u00a0more than 23 million in citizen\u2019s hands.<\/a>\u00a0However, Americans have purchased more than a million guns a month\u00a0for 60 straight months,<\/a> so that figure is surely low.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirepower\u201d is a military concept inappropriately applied to individual arms. The majority\u2019s argument is emotion-laden and obviously taken directly from the writings of anti-liberty\/gun cracktivists, while the dissent is well-reasoned, relying on the law, the Founder\u2019s intent and accurate history.<\/p>\n

\n
Obviously, the AR-15 is not \u201cmost useful in military service,\u201d which is why the automatic-fire capable M4 is the issue military rifle. Gun banners hope to be able to ban any class of firearms, in this case, a semiautomatic rifle of intermediate power. That precedent, if upheld, would allow the banning of all semiautomatic firearms, which, like the AR-15, are useful for self-defense.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

They also hope to ban \u201clarge capacity\u201d magazines for the same reasons by using the same tactics. While it\u2019s true most armed encounters involve relatively few rounds fired, attacks by multiple armed thugs are becoming more common, in and out of the home. In such encounters, a 30-round magazine can be the difference between life and death.<\/p>\n

Certainly, we carry handguns because it\u2019s difficult to carry long guns of any type as we go about our daily business, but because handguns are more convenient does not make rifles unconstitutional. Anyone knowingly entering an armed encounter with less than a rifle is looking to die. The police are increasingly abandoning shotguns and adopting AR-15s for patrol carry. Are the police now the military? Should citizens be less well armed, less able to defend themselves?<\/p>\n

The 4th Circuit has now clearly established a split among the lower courts, which will allow the Supreme Court to grant cert and further define the limitations of the state in banning popular, common and usual guns. In our uncertain times, a decision in line with their Heller, McDonald<\/em> and Bruen<\/em> jurisprudence would be welcome, and conducive to the preservation of our representative republic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maryland, AR-15s and the Fourth Circuit Should you be so unfortunate as to live in Maryland, and more unfortunate as to own an AR-15, you\u2019re a criminal,\u00a0as the Fourth Circuit Court recently affirmed. This despite the Supreme Court\u2019s Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions having made clear the Second Amendment acknowledges the individual right to self-defense … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-crap-for-brains","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103604,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103603\/revisions\/103604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}