So, Dianne Feinstein has promised to introduce legislation in the next session of congress to ban semiautomatic rifles. Without going into a whole lot of detail of why I don't think this will pass (Republicans) or whether it's a good or bad or just law, I'm going to pretend this passes both the Senate and the House and point something out I'd been pondering a wee while ago.
I actually think this could be challenged on Constitutional grounds as a violation of the Second Amendment's militia clause. The reason I believe this is actually based on the
1939 Supreme Court ruling in
US v Miller. In that case, Miller argued that having to register a shotgun with a barrel length of less than 18 inches violated his Second Amendment rights.
The court ruled:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than 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 its use could contribute to the common defense.
A militia is basically the last line of defense for a nation and as such needs to have much of the same or similar equipment as the military. Semiautomatic rifles such as AR-15 type rifles, however, can meet the minimum standards for a militia if not the military and being that the AR-15, designed originally for the civilian market and later adopted by the military as the select-fire M-16, can, in fact, contribute to the national defense.
