The Second Amendment is a relic and needs to be reevaluated in the wake of another mass shooting. The problem is that the Supreme Court took an extreme rightward shift, and now we have Justices such as Clarence Thomas who make poor decisions (see his choice of a spouse for confirmation on that). This one aged like milk.
Highland Park, Illinois, the Chicago suburb that was the scene of the most recent mass shooting on the 4th of July, banned assault rifles like AKs.
Via Business Insider:
That 2013 ban was swiftly challenged, and the case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately rejected to hear it and instead let a lower court's ruling in favor of the ordinance stand.
But at the time, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas — who joined the nation's highest court in 1991 — opposed Highland Park's prohibition on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, writing in a dissent that the "overwhelming majority" who use such weapons use them lawfully.
Thomas' dissent was filed in December 2015 and joined by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who earlier in 2008 said, "like most rights, the right — Second Amendment — by the — the rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited."
However, in Thomas' dissent that Scalia joined, he called assault weapons "modern sporting rifles" and made references to the Second Amendment.
"The ordinance criminalizes modern sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semiautomatic rifles), which many Americans own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting," the dissent read.
Thomas said the city's ban is "highly suspect because it broadly prohibits common semiautomatic firearms used for lawful purposes."
"Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles," read the dissent, adding, "The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting."
It sounds like Scalia evolved then devolved while Thomas remained in the past. Someone should ask Thomas if he believes that the Founding Fathers envisioned citizens in the U.S. armed to the teeth with weapons of war while the NRA owns our politicians. I suspect he's busy right now, though, covering for his insurrectionist-supporting wife. He's not making any friends lately.
