At 20:25 9/6/2001 -0700, keyser-soze@hushmail.com wrote:
I was referring to the raft of federal firearms regulations and prosecutions which ignore the clear interpretation of Miller v. U.S.: that the right to keep and bear arms with obvious military use shall not be regulated.
The opinion didn't exactly say this because Jack Miller, a bank robber and moonshiner, could not afford representation before the SC and in fact died of apparent self-inflicted wounds before the hearing date.
I read he was a moonshiner and was murdered, possibly by competing moonshiners.
His co-defendent Frank Layton apparently decided he wasn't interested in defending our rights under the 2nd and took four years probation.
I read he fled.
But despite the lack of defendent representation the opinion, written by Justice James Clark McReynolds, was notable in that it did not completely cave in to the government demands.
The case was returned to the lower court where Miller, if living, could have made further arguments on his own behalf. He could have easily and correctly argued that short-barreled shotguns had been popular military weapons in the trenches of the First World War. It was lucky for the federal government that he was dead.
Isn't that amazing.
The courts and Congress have turned this opinion on its head to suit their own purposes and because many/most in power see such citizen empowerment as nothing short of a Constitutional suicide pact and refuse to accept it. They can't remove the Second but they can try and interpret it away.
What is your source for all this? This case is a point of interest for me and such details as you have provided are not contained in the text of the ruling, so where did they come from? Reese