Gun control advocates have become so dependent on emotional arguments they often seem incapable of offering rational ones. So, I was keen to read a new Bloomberg column (via The Washington Post) that explains why “The Second Amendment Allows a Ban on the AR-15.”
The piece doesn’t get off to a promising start, as author Noah Feldman props up a familiar straw man:
If we each have the right to bear arms, is there a constitutional right to a military-style semiautomatic rifle like an AR-15? What about a rocket-propelled grenade launcher? A small tank?
Notice how he jumps from the oxymoronic “military-style semiautomatic rifle” — not a real thing — to a small tank. Anyway, the proposition is that we should not have access to military-grade armaments. (Feldman is unaware that owning a small tank is legal.)
Throughout the piece, Feldman treats the Second Amendment as some kind of courtesy “extend[ed]” by the state, rather than an inalienable right that can only be limited in extraordinary circumstances. The best way to avoid this confusion is to plug the words “First Amendment” whenever you see “Second Amendment” and the words “newspapers” every time you see “guns.” Though perhaps these days that won’t help either.
The main problem in the piece, however, is that Feldman misunderstands the Supreme Court’s 1939 United States v. Miller decision, which he contends is “background to the current doctrine” that makes it permissible to ban a semiautomatic rifle.
Miller revolved around a small-time bank robber
