Jerry Nadler's Lesson on Guns Goes All Kinds of Wrong
If you are familiar with the Heller decision, you’ll be aware that the test put forth by now-deceased Justice Scalia is that the Constitution protects guns that are in “common use.” He came to that conclusion by supposing that at the time of the writing of the Second Amendment, the Founders clearly intended for common weapons such as muskets to be owned and kept by Americans.
Personally, I thought Scalia’s argument was arbitrary and didn’t go nearly far enough in protecting the true intention of the Second Amendment, which was to allow citizens to possess weapons of war in order to wage war (including things like cannons). Still, there’s no doubt that an AR-15, the most common sporting rifle in the country, is in “common use,” meeting the standard put forth by Heller. That means that any attempt to ban them at the federal level is clearly unconstitutional. Nadler is apparently too stupid to realize that he’s providing the basis by which any law he passes would be overturned.
Yet, Nadler may have been one-upped in the same hearing by another Democrat. Rep. David Cicilline decided to talk about pistol braces, claiming they become bump stocks and make guns automatic.