4th Circuit panel rules federal law requiring handgun buyers to be 21 or older is unconstitutional

The Constitution defines the enumerated powers of the government. If it isn't mentioned, it isn't granted.

From Heller: "Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."

Does locking a gun in a safe also present the same obstacle for a citizen to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense as a trigger lock does?

 

Hmm.. so now, suddenly, "safe storage" will quell the violence and murders on our streets? Really? This is what you think?

 

The constitution exists within the context of the jurisprudence that surrounds it; the court gets to clarify and apply its meaning through said jurisprudence.
Thus, if the court determines a requirement for (x) violates the constitution, then the constitution prohibits (x).

Certainly, you see the trigger lock requirement violates the constitution because the "security" provide by the trigger lock renders the firearm inaccessible for use in self-defense; a requirement to keep a gun in safe, from which is is at least as difficult to obtain a secured firearm, then can only violate the constitution that much more.

 

I just never understand this. Why do democrats want citizens to not be able to protect themselves? Is it just to facilitate their codependency on organized crime to facilitate its success?

 

So YOU are extrapolating, from one ruling, what another ruling should be, as if you were a judge, yourself, in the fictional case of a regulation requiring safes. First of all, that's not how legal rulings work, as I'm sure you know. The ruling applies only to the actual case before the court. When it is on something that is applicable beyond that case, as here, it would apply to all regulations requiring trigger locks, as it was from a Supreme Court ruling (the Heller decision). But that does not mean that it applies to anything outside what is specified, in the ruling, no matter how similar of an analog that other thing might seem. Put simply, this ruling made requiring trigger locks unconstitutional. It did no such thing, with regard to any other storage safeguard, including safes, despite, I will grant, setting a precedent. So, while there might be a strong case to be made against safes, based on this ruling, it still would be a separate case, with new litigants, presenting new arguments, in front of a changed Court. So you are really skipping a step, to just assume the result of this case, which has yet to be brought. By that same argument, after Roe v. Wade, one might have said it was pointless to make any law restricting abortion below 26 or 28 weeks gestation, which that Supreme Court deemed to be the cut-off. And yet laws have been passed. And it is far from a given, how the Supreme Court will rule on them. So, regarding your authoritarian tone on the, as yet, unadjudicated question of gun safes, what happened to the attitude you expressed to @DaveBN , about civilian opinions on Court questions (their argument's reasoning, notwithstanding), that these opinions are meaningless? Your own opinions, excepted?

 

Lets say a case challenging a legal requirement to keep your guns in a safe makes it to the USSC.

Given the ruling from Heller...
"Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."
... do you think the court will uphold or strike said legal requirement?

They will strike. of course.
Why? They "extrapolate" existing jurisprudence to similar circumstances; the function of a gun safe is similar to a trigger lock.

 

As I replied to Rucker61, who made this case to me first: the ruling did not apply to any current or future gun safe regulatory requirements. It only applied to what it specifically ruled on: trigger locks & disassembling. To use Rucker's term, it is meaningless that you see these different things to logically present the same case. That will be for the Court to decide, if & when that time comes. Until then, it is an unsettled matter, your scholarly opinion notwithstanding. If the case were to come before the same Court that made the Heller decision, I would grant that the odds would favor your opinion. However, we already know that will not be the case. It would be a different Court, at a different time, hearing a different case. The ruling on this speculated case, at present, can only be a matter of conjecture.

 

I'll ask again: Do you think that a safe "makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense" in the same manner as a trigger lock does?

 

And, it creates precedent of future ruling, for the justices to refer to when making future decisions.
Like, oh, a requirement to keep your guns locked up in a safe.
The mental gymnastics necessary to craft a ruling that does not go against the precedent and yet allow such a requirement to stand are staggering.

 

That is for them, not you, to extrapolate. I am not arguing against your case that these things are similar; I am pointing out that just because you see it that way, does not make it de facto law, which is how you are (mis-)presenting it. I noticed you ignored my analogy, to Roe. It is possible, were this case to come to the Court, in the future, that the defenders of the regulation will be able to make a stronger case, than was made in D.C. v. Heller, that the regulation is necessary for public safety, which is also a Constitutional charge of the government's but which, it does not appear, was counter-weighed against the right to keep & bear arms, in the Heller case.

 

Have you not forgotten that non-judicial opinions, in your eyes, are meaningless? Please see my preceding reply to @TOG 6 , as I do not wish to have to make all my points in stereo.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...nconstitutional.589950/page-7#post-1072779394

 

Why do you believe public safety was not taken into consideration in the Heller decision re: trigger locks?
Can you demonstrate the necessity for and efficacy of a requirement to keep firearms locked up?

 

Even though you neglected to quote my post, before going on to misstate what I, "want," I will try to explain it to you. I hope you are sitting-- not everyone sees things exactly as you do! To many, yours is a false choice, that a gun must be ever at the ready, at a moment's notice, or else it means that a person is unable to protect themselves. Does that just blow your mind that anyone might think that the couple of seconds it takes for a gun-owner to open a safe, might be a reasonably minor delay, if it will insure that there will be fewer guns in the hands of criminals (stolen from unsecured storage) to actually be a threat to citizens, in the first place?

 

The public safety is not mentioned in the quote from the Heller decision. If this factor was weighed in the decision, it will be mentioned in the ruling. If you can find & copy it, that would show it was at least, in some way, taken into account. If it is not mentioned in the ruling, why on earth would you assume that it was a factor in their deliberations?

 

Outside of judicial opinions, in your opinion, do you think that a safe "makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense" in the same manner as a trigger lock does?

 

So, if I read your post correctly, a gun owner should accept a higher risk to themselves and a restriction on their right to self defense to perhaps reduce the risk to society?

 

I most definitely do. There are a few ways to lock a gun up without being to restricted to quick access but a safe or a trigger lock is not one of them.

here is one example. Mind you that these are not cheap at all

 

No.

 

Weird.

 

Are you not aware that both individual & societal risk/safety, are important considerations? It comes down to proportionality. Without specifying a given measure, I do not believe that any delaying of access to one's weapon, no matter how slight, automatically equates to, "higher risk," in any meaningful way. By that way of thinking, "concealed carry," laws would also be unconstitutional, & contributory to gun-owner risk.

If you are that slow of a draw, and are under such fast & furious attack, perhaps you should consider having a pistol surgically attached to your firing hand.

 

LOL
Because it is not mentioned in the ruling, they didn't consider it.
LOL

Heller:
We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54–55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.

There you go.

Now then:
Can you demonstrate the necessity for and efficacy of a requirement to keep firearms locked up?

 

Read again; that only says that the proposal of prohibiting handgun ownership, outright, is not a Constitutional option. This has nothing to do with safety measures for those who do own guns.

 

You missed the point. The court - did - consider public safety and decided that the enshrinement of rights take certain policy choices off the table.
Policy choices like handguns bans and trigger lock requirements.
Now then:
Can you demonstrate the necessity for and efficacy of a requirement to keep firearms locked up?

 

You missed the point. They did NOT say that ANY & ALL impediments to immediate use of any firearm is unconstitutional. The Court ruled, as you stated, that trigger lock & disassembly requirements, for whatever had been the state or municipality's purported purpose (probably child-safety), was not Constitutional. They gratuitously added that outright banning of handguns was also not an option. Those are the ONLY, "policy choices," which were given any consideration. You are reading this as a ruling against ANY STORAGE REQUIREMENT, WHATSOEVER, which it is not. Anything OTHER than outright banning, trigger lock, or disassembly requirements, is still potentially in play. (In fact, if other defendants presented a better case, maybe for a different stated purpose, & had evidence to support their claim, then even those other things, theoretically, if not likely, could be ruled Constitutional, by a future Court.)

The other point you are shooting your questions wide of, is that what I can, "prove," in your eyes, is irrelevant. The question should be: what regulation can a skilled attorney convince the Court is a reasonable, & Constitutional, one.
As there are all manner of potential storage requirements (& this is not a subject about which I have first-hand knowledge, much less, expertise), combined with the fact that this thread's subject is specifically the gun rights of 18, 19, & 20 year-olds-- not the Constitutionality of firearm storage regulations-- I am not going to chase after that rabbit.

 

What reason did they give for disassembly and trigger locks being unconstitutional?