Austin American-Statesman: Right to bear arms does not include assault-style weapons
In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in Texas that snuffed out the lives of 19 children and two adults, our state leaders have told us deadly combat-style weapons had little to do with the massacre. NRA officials claim limitations on the Second Amendment will infringe on the right of law-abiding citizens to own weapons, but they oppose any restrictions on dangerous people from legally purchasing these weapons.
In Texas, an 18-year-old boy not old enough to drink alcohol can go to a nearby sporting goods store and buy a semiautomatic assault-style weapon designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible (Gov. Abbott doesn’t distinguish the difference between a hunting rifle or shotgun and a rapid-fire, semi-automatic weapon like the AR-15 that can fire either 30 or 60 rounds a minute).
What these gun advocates believe, ingrained in the NRA culture, is that the right to bear arms is absolute. Before 2008, when a conservative US. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that there was an individual right under the U.S. Constitution to own a firearm, courts had consistently ruled that this right belonged to a state-organized militia. But in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, the conservative Supreme Court majority concluded that the amendment protected a private right of individuals to own a firearm for self-defense.
In that majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the individual right to bear arms was not unlimited and has restrictions: “We do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the First Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose,” Scalia stated.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-bear-arms-does-not-120012387.html
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