Why Gun-Rights Backers Win While Other Conservative Causes Lose

[pipoman]

24. except...

The "century of precedent" is actually one completely flawed and repeatedly misinterpreted decision, USA v. Miller in which the only argument heard by SCOTUS was that of the government because Miller was dead and nobody from his side showed up to present the case. Other than that I don't know of any other SCOTUS decisions that could be defined as precedent setting.

Gun advocates had little to do with the Democratic Congress declining to send reauthorization of the assault weapons ban to Shrub II, who said he would sign it if presented. The reason he would sign it, and the reason they declined to reauthorize it was because of an eminent challenge to the ban which almost certainly would have not only been precedent setting, but also would have struck the ban down based on the previous precedent of 'is the firearm in question "in common use for lawful purposes"...something which could easily be shown because of the vast number of these firearms in private ownership. Also the definition of "assault weapon" in nearly every law is overtly ambiguous.

As for the lack of new regulations, lawmakers are having a difficult time coming up with new laws which are not already in the 20k or so laws already on the books, and could withstand a constitutional challenge.

The NRA is a good boogy man, and they are definitely right wing ideologues. They represent only around 5% of gun owners in this country. The article is simplistic.