Sorry about not posting. Life intrudes.
Most of the gunblogosphere has been commenting on the case of Brian Aitken who is now serving a seven year sentence for doing something perfectly legal in almost every other state in the union. It’s even legal in New Jersey, unless a prosecutor can convince a jury otherwise. A New Jersey jury, but a jury all the same.
The title of this post comes from a New Jersey Superior Court decision wherein a man was convicted of possessing an “assault weapon” – a Marlin Model 60 .22 caliber rifle he’d won in a shooting competition and had never even taken the manufacturer’s tags off the triggerguard – because said .22 could hold more than fifteen rounds in its tubular magazine. Another law unique to New Jersey.
Do you want to know why McDonald v. Chicago was such a big deal? Because laws like the one that put Mr. Aitken in jail exist only because of the 1875 Supreme Court case U.S. v. Cruikshank wherein the Court stated that the Second Amendment protected the right to “keep and bear arms for a lawful purpose” only from FEDERAL infringement. The states were free to infringe to their heart’s content.
And New Jersey has.
McDonald says that the right is and should be protected against state infringement as well, and if the Federal government can’t make it illegal, no state government can either. Make no mistake, this fight is going to take decades, but if we don’t keep it up people like Brian Aitken and Albert K. Kwan, and people you’ll never hear about will continue to get railroaded.