In both case they ruled the only weapons protected by the second amendment were those of military grade and had to be bought kept and maintained by the individual.
I don't agree with that, especially about
Lewis. The body of the
Lewis opinion refers to "a/the firearm" or "a/the gun" . . . A descriptor of the type of firearm (pistol/shotgun/rifle/revolver) is never offered and Lewis' gun's conformance or lack thereof to the
Miller "rule" is never alluded to. Many legal scholars have questioned why the quote of
Miller appears in footnote 8 or the citation of
Miller happens at all;
Miller had nothing to say about felony disablement of the right to arms. Footnote 8 has never been cited as deliberative in any other case, the only people who regularly cited it were anti-gunners . . . Why? I can't say other than they want to make the ridiculous argument that because felon disablement does not violate the 2nd Amendment, every gun control law they ever wanted to enact also passes constitutional muster.
The only thing that stood in the way of George Calvin Lewis, Jr. freely owing a gun was his prior felony conviction. The Court makes the point a couple times that he could have used the remedies within the law that created the felony disability to remove the disability and then own the firearm legally (if he were successful in those appeals).
As an aside, I have always noted when discussing
Lewis with anti-gunners, (who have always claimed
Lewis for their -collective right- side), that the Court never says Mr. Lewis, if he were successful in his appeals to have his conviction expunged, would
still need to join his state's militia to have his right to keep and bear arms restored. I could never figure out how that little detail escaped them . . .
Even for
Miller, the correct way to read the Court's 'suitable for militia use' (paraphrase) criteria is to always restrain government not the citizen. The Court is telling us
that type of firearm
always enjoys the highest degree of exemption from governmental impact. If one were to take a "you're not allowed to have that" from
Miller you would need to refer back to
Aymette and its "dangerous or unusual" threshold. But that, in and of itself, is NOT a criteria to trigger governmental action to restrain civilian action.
Under
Aymette, the ownership of a dangerous or unusual weapon could be protected if it meets the criteria that renders government impotent. They are, if the weapon is of the type "as are usually employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military equipment" or that it could be "employed advantageously in the common defence of the citizens".
In
Miller, there was nobody there to represent Miller's side so there was no evidence presented to demonstrate that "
a double barrel 12-gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length" met any of those standards, thus it was deemed dangerous and unusual and the federal government was legitimately empowered to restrict its ownership via the taxing authority.
And with all that I still don't see the connection to the topic of the thread or my post.
