Competing Views on Whether the Requirement to Serialize Firearms Violates the Second Amendment
BY Herschel Smith
2 years ago
From U.S. v. Reyna, decided yesterday by Judge Robert Miller, Jr. (N.D. Ind.) (for a case reaching the opposite result, see this post):
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Guns with obliterated serial numbers belong to “those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes” so possession of such guns isn’t within the Second Amendment’s scope. Heller. Guns with obliterated serial numbers are useful for criminal activity because identifying who possessed a firearm is more difficult when the serial number is destroyed. By using a gun without a serial number, a criminal ensures he has a greater higher likelihood of evading justice.
Mr. Reyna might be right that a deserialized gun is just as useful for self-defense as a gun with its serial number intact, but that doesn’t suggest that deserialized guns are typically used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.
Nice try. Now do Bruen.
Do like Judge Benitez ordered and go find me laws written at the time of the 2A requiring serialization of firearms. I dare you. Supply us with a complete catalog of said laws.
We all know how you want the 2A to read: “Given that intermediate scrutiny allows us to prioritize our view of public safety, the right of law enforcement to know at all times what you’re building in your basement shall not be infringed.”
But the 2A isn’t really about the rights of law enforcement is it, and Bruen did away with the idiotic notion of scrutiny, didn’t it?
On December 16, 2022 at 3:53 pm, Mario said:
“The test courts must apply is whether a firearms restriction would have seemed reasonable to the founding generation that crafted and ratified the Second Amendment. If not, the law must give way to the Constitution.”
Justice Clarence Thomas
On December 16, 2022 at 9:48 pm, PGF said:
Bruen may have done away with scrutiny but Iowa just got conned into amending their state constitution to require it. And the gun rights crowd, as they always do, celebrated the step backward as a win.
On December 16, 2022 at 11:20 pm, Miles said:
PGF;
Iowans didn’t get ‘conned’. One of the men involved in the near decade long process since the amendment was first introduced into the state congress acknowledged they knew what they would be running into, but it was too late to change anything since the issue had been voted out of the state congress to be voted on, right at the time that Bruen was decided and judicial scrutiny for RKBA was changed to “THT”.
As it is, per Bruen, through McDonald, no Iowa court can use strict scrutiny, but must use THT, and the rest of the amendment, which is an important addition to Iowa law, to wit:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right.
will be in force.
On December 17, 2022 at 3:16 am, Dan said:
The phrase “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” is just about the simplest, most straightforward and easily understood phrase in the entire Constitution. The gun grabbing commie leftist know exactly what it means. They simply DO NOT CARE. The Constitution is AT BEST an ancient curiosity to them. NOT something to be obeyed.
On December 17, 2022 at 8:31 am, Heywood said:
As I have said more than once on this site, there are still far too many people on our side (or could be persuaded) that don’t understand that serial numbers and background checks are for nothing more than registration and eventual confiscation. Period. (The vast majority of the commenters I see here get it) We have allowed the grabbers to change the language and the context and the lamestream media does their bidding. I give you “high capacity magazines”, “assault rifles”, “weapons of war”, “I support 2A, BUT”. We need to quit ceding ground on language and intent.
On December 17, 2022 at 4:04 pm, Joe Blow said:
I say, if you’re going to sell it, it should have a serial number. If not…. don’t. Nobody will know anyways. 3D printer go Brrrr.
On December 17, 2022 at 9:02 pm, Mike-SMO said:
The serial numbers are a law enforcement convenience that allows stolen items to be tracked. An obliterated serial number screamed “Stolen!”. Progressive ideology has prevented the effective prosecution of such cases, thus the utility of the serial numbers has fallen. The presence of such numbers is now grounds for selective prosecution (persecution) of disfavored groups, and a potential violation of Constitutional rights. Thank you, Progressives.
On December 18, 2022 at 5:25 pm, Bill said:
Concern about serial numbers is whistling past the graveyard, the government supremacists can’t stop the signal. Gun prohibition is dead and they don’t know it yet.
On December 22, 2022 at 1:20 pm, Chris Mallory said:
“The serial numbers are a law enforcement convenience”
Mike you should have stopped right there. If I own a piece of property, be it firearm, car, electronic device, it is none of the government’s business how I alter it, unless that alteration presents a clear danger of harm to another. So, taking the brakes off my vehicle and driving on the public road, yes the government might have some business in regulating that. Removing every trace of the VIN? No one’s business but my own.
The convenience of government employees ranks very close to the bottom of my concerns, about the same level of concern as I have for “officer safety”, next to none.