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Just saw
this thread in GD. Would like Toms take on it.
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Ummm... Fuck NJ? Fuck Maryland? Fuck Christie... Fuck Obama... Fuck the second, third, fourth, seventh, and ninth circuits... oh, hell... just fuck everybody
Oh... wait... you wanted substance? Sorry... my mistake.
Basically, this is a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering MD, VA, WV, NC, SC) on an appeal from a lower court about the validity of MD's recent AWB. About the only thing good to come out of the ruling was the determination that the lower court erred in it's decision to apply an intermediate level of scrutiny when considering the constitutionality of the AWB. The court instead instructed the lower court to revisit the case, but apply strict scrutiny. What that means is, to be found constitutional, the law must be found to be "narrowly tailored, to accomplish the stated goal with the most minimal impact to the constitutional rights of the people". What this means is that, most likely, the AWB law will be found to be unconstitutional, as it clearly infringes on the "fundamental right of the people to possess arms, even in their own homes, where the 2A right is clearly the strongest". Should be interesting.
The other two things it did, was affirm that retired police officers are a "special class", and it's not a violation of the Equal Protection clause for them to have special privileges over the common peasant... err... citizen. Meaning, it's cool to ban something from the regular citizenry, but grant privilege to one who served the state.
Lastly, it found that a bullshit phrase like "substantially identical" is not unconstitutionally vague, and is therefore valid law. But... if the AWB gets overturned in count 1 for failing the strict scrutiny test, then this piece is immaterial.
However... all of this means the square root of fuck-all here in NJ, as we are not subject to the whims of the fourth circuit. It is POSSIBLE, though not very likely given past performance, that this could trigger a SCOTUS challenge, as other districts have applied intermediate scrutiny to the question of AWB's. I say unlikely, because we've had other situations where circuits have disagreed with each other, and SCOTUS has basically told the plaintiffs to get bent... they weren't listening (I suspect, it's because the pro-2A folks on the court, led by Scalia, sensed that the tide had turned in the court, with Kennedy no longer having the testicles to rule with the other conservatives on 2A issues - therefore, to not risk a bad USSC decision, they decided not to grant cert on those cases, thereby at least preserving the ambiguity of the status quo).