It’s as true now as it was over a year ago – as true now as always:
There is no ‘need’ to possess an AR pattern rifle/carbine; it’s a want, not a need.
And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to possess an AR 15 for whatever personal, subjective reason – target shooting or personal defense.
But one shouldn’t try to advance the ridiculous lie that one ‘needs’ an AR 15 to defend against ‘government tyranny,’ it’s factually untrue.
Indeed, there’s nothing in the history, text, or case law of the Second Amendment that recognizes insurrectionist dogma; nothing that recognizes the wrongheaded notion that armed citizens alone, absent government authorization, not members of a government authorized and regulated militia, are sanctioned to ‘take up arms’ against a Federal government incorrectly perceived to have become ‘tyrannical.’
What Second Amendment case law does say is that private citizens cannot unilaterally declare themselves a ‘militia’ – only state governments and the Federal government have that authority (Presser v. Illinois (1886)).
With private citizens alone lacking the authority to form a militia and ‘take up arms’ against ‘the government,’ they also lack the ‘need’ to possess particular firearms, such as AR 15s.
Consequently, the ‘need’ argument in opposition to AWBs is devoid of merit.
The argument of merit against AWBs is that they constitute government excess and overreach, that they fail even a rational basis justification, and that they would not have the desired outcome of reducing gun crime and violence.
