congress finds the following.... (s397)

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beerslurpy

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(a) Findings- Congress finds the following:

(1) The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

(2) The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the rights of individuals, including those who are not members of a militia or engaged in military service or training, to keep and bear arms.

(3) Lawsuits have been commenced against manufacturers, distrib
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But there is more! The 14th amendment rears its head in the Purposes section!
(b) Purposes- The purposes of this Act are as follows:

(1) To prohibit causes of action against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition products, and their trade associations, for the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.

(2) To preserve a citizen's access to a supply of firearms and ammunition for all lawful purposes, including hunting, self-defense, collecting, and competitive or recreational shooting.

(3) To guarantee a citizen's rights, privileges, and immunities, as applied to the States, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, pursuant to section 5 of that Amendment.

(4) To prevent the use of such lawsuits to impose unreasonable burdens on interstate and foreign commerce .

(5) To protect the right, under the First Amendment to the Constitution, of manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition products, and trade associations, to speak freely, to assemble peaceably, and to petition the Government for a redress of their grievances.

(6) To preserve and protect the Separation of Powers doctrine and important principles of federalism, State sovereignty and comity between sister States.

(7) To exercise congressional power under art. IV, section 1 (the Full Faith and Credit Clause) of the United States Constitution.
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Guess they agree with my interpretation of the 14th amendment.
 
The one real hawkeye goes around arguing for. You know the 1860-1910 SCOTUS interpretation of "the 14th amendment does not incorporate the bill of rights at all and isnt binding upon the states."

Thomas.loc.gov search for "lawful commerce"
 
For those more in the know than I.

What sort of basis does this provide (if any) in an attempt to change the "sporting purposes" clauses of various regs?
 
None. The only way we are going to get rid of sporting purposes is if either:

a) the supreme court rules that sporting purposes is an illegitimate test to subject 2nd amendment protections to

b) congress repeals it

This law is a good sign of things to come if we can get a filibuster-proof majority in the senate, but it isnt really a basis upon which to do anything else. But lots of congressional findings that the 2nd protects an individual right cant be a bad thing.
 
Thanks beerslurpy.

So at best it is just something to point to in an argument for consistency and legislative leanings.

Well, it's a start.
 
Personally, I think "sporting purposes" should be: A firearm is suitable for sporting purposes if it may used in a lawful manner by the People. In other words, if there are target shooting competitions, for example, with 40mm Bofors, then the 40mm Bofors is suitable for sporting purposes. :D

The best way, though, I think for such an interpretation to happen, is to have informal target shooting recognized by the ATF as a suitable sport to sastify "sporting purposes". If it can be plinked with, it can be owned.
 
Yeah tehbucket, but sporting purposes wasnt written into the law by you or me.

The actual definition reads more like "suitable only for sporting purposes"- so although a Pancor Jackhammer could be used for skeet shooting, it could also be useful in self defense or combat and therefore is illegal. Ditto the Galil which could be used for hunting but obviously has features useful for combat and therefore is illegal. And so on ad infinitum. And of course, they get to decide what is a sport- sure would suck if someone like me came along and made a triathalon of "select fire rifle/combat shottie/indirect fire."

This is definitely something we need to do away with at the earliest opporutnity. I personally think that I should be free to create whatever sports I want (including artillery and machine gun competitions) as long as all involved are consenting. It certainly doesnt pick my pocket if the neighbors decide to have novel forms of shooting competitions on their acreage. Unless the bullets are coming my direction or keeping me awake at night, I dont much care what they are doing.

The whole idea of the government telling me what sports are legitimate and forbidding me to own other firearms reeks of socialism and tyranny in general. It has always been about using reasonable sounding pretexts to take our stuff.
 
This law is a good sign of things to come if we can get a filibuster-proof majority in the senate...
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What, pray, do leftist extremist threats of filibusters have to do with the price of ping-pong balls in Pakistan?

A majority is a majority—providing it's willing to act like one.
 
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