Feinstein's take on "common use"

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From a PBS Newshour correspondent on 9/5:
https://twitter.com/LisaDNews/status/10 ... 5246050304
Lisa Desjardins
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@LisaDNews
TOPIC ONE: Guns.

Feinstein: I'm talking about your statement that assault weapons are in "common use". They are not.

Kavanaugh: Semi-automatic rifles are common in the United States. Many many are owned.

Feinstein: you are saying numbers mean use? These are not commonly used
Curious as to whether this is a new, weird line of attack against the "common use" argument.

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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I was watching it as it happened and it was a real face palm. If "common use" does NOT mean numbers, just what does it mean?
Does she mean hunting, target-shooting, varmint control, or home defense? If not number, and not these things, just what IS "Common Use"?
Yet another thing the supposedly brilliant Scalia left undefined in Heller!
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:56 pm I was watching it as it happened and it was a real face palm. If "common use" does NOT mean numbers, just what does it mean?
Does she mean hunting, target-shooting, varmint control, or home defense? If not number, and not these things, just what IS "Common Use"?
Yet another thing the supposedly brilliant Scalia left undefined in Heller!
"In common use" as an undefined de facto standard preceded Heller. It's a bastardization of the phrase from US v Miller (1939). On what basis would you have had Scalia define "in common use" and exactly how would you have had him define it?

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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DispositionMatrix wrote: Mon Sep 10, 2018 4:15 pm
YankeeTarheel wrote: Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:56 pm I was watching it as it happened and it was a real face palm. If "common use" does NOT mean numbers, just what does it mean?
Does she mean hunting, target-shooting, varmint control, or home defense? If not number, and not these things, just what IS "Common Use"?
Yet another thing the supposedly brilliant Scalia left undefined in Heller!
"In common use" as an undefined de facto standard preceded Heller. It's a bastardization of the phrase from US v Miller (1939). On what basis would you have had Scalia define "in common use" and exactly how would you have had him define it?
He was supposed to be the genius. He knew it was ill-defined, yet he kicked the can down the road while he arbitrarily decided that "prefatory clause" could be ignored, the ONLY text in entire Constitution that is ignored without being overwritten by a later amendment. Yet he couldn't define "Common Use" so we wouldn't have Sen. Feinstein asking her question! I know what "Common Use" means to me, and, yes, it DOES mean that broad, widespread heterogeneous distribution, but I cannot pick a number or a percentage.

But if AR-15s and AR-10s and other military-derived semi-auto rifles are the most common long guns in America (and I believe they may be), then one COULD (IMHO) claim "Common Use" without a reasonable rebuttable.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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Feinstein is agenda driven and blinded by her ignorance. Numbers matter, semi-automatic weapons are among the most common in ownership among gun owners. That is common use. Add in use by law enforcement which is a civil branch, no argument what is common.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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sikacz wrote: Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:41 pm Feinstein is agenda driven and blinded by her ignorance. Numbers matter, semi-automatic weapons are among the most common in ownership among gun owners. That is common use. Add in use by law enforcement which is a civil branch, no argument what is common.
I'm not a lawyer, but I know that what you and I think a term means does not necessarily mean that in the law. Somewhat vague terms create problems for future cases. Law is, somewhat strangely, made at the margins--at the very edge of what is... and what isn't. "It depends on what the meaning of is, is" is the infamous example of that.

If a cop stops you doing 75 in a 65 zone, you're pretty much speeding. But if he catches you doing exactly 80, where, in many states means reckless driving with far greater penalties, your attorney, if he/she is any good, is going to argue that there is enough of a margin of error in ALL speed measuring equipment that the charge cannot be, with any assurance, that you actually WERE going 80 or more. Margins.

In football, the out-of--bounds marker is about as wide as a human foot. But to make the definition clear, if, on the replay, there is no discernible bit of grass between the shoe and the line, the rule says you stepped on the line. A clear definition at the margin.

One of the reasons, almost 100 years ago, that the Senate rejected the League of Nations, was that "aggression" wasn't defined. They were not impressed when President Wilson opined "I'll know aggression when I see it." No definition of the margin. But Wilson was an historian, not a lawyer.

Yeah, I agree with you that semi-automatic weapons SHOULD be considered "common use" and even the so-called "assault weapons" are also in "common use"--they are in every gun shop I've been in and millions are out there. But Feinstein, like ALL lawyers, is pushing against a term that doesn't have a clear, defined, established definition UNDER THE LAW. Every lawyer does that--it's "Plan B".
You know the advice given young law students:

"If you have the evidence, pound the evidence. If you don't have the evidence but have the law, pound the law. If you don't have the evidence, and you don't have the law, pound the table!"

Senator Feinstein is pounding the law.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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Maybe she means that, compared to handguns, knives, baseball bats, feet, etc., there aren't enough people being killed with them to make the cut of "common use". And, looking at it that way, I guess she would be correct. But then why the big push to ban them..?
"In every generation there are those who want to rule well - but they mean to rule. They promise to be good masters - but they mean to be masters." — Daniel Webster

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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Maybe she means that, compared to handguns, knives, baseball bats, feet, etc., there aren't enough people being killed with them to make the cut of "common use". And, looking at it that way, I guess she would be correct. But then why the big push to ban them..?
"In every generation there are those who want to rule well - but they mean to rule. They promise to be good masters - but they mean to be masters." — Daniel Webster

Re: Feinstein's take on "common use"

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rascally wrote: Tue Sep 11, 2018 12:08 am Maybe she means that, compared to handguns, knives, baseball bats, feet, etc., there aren't enough people being killed with them to make the cut of "common use". And, looking at it that way, I guess she would be correct. But then why the big push to ban them..?
For the same reason Republicans keep pushing who the undocumented immigrants are upping the crime rates and are voting illegally. Many of them believe it, their supporters believe it, and it's an easy, simple "solution" to a complex problem.

I suspect Feinstein, whose career was, effectively, really launched by the murder of her boss, Mayor Moscone (she was deputy mayor), has a personal antipathy to all firearms. And this leads her to want to ban any firearm she can. She can't realistically push a ban on revolvers, bolt-action and lever-action rifles, but a ban on super-scary-looking AR-15s which, in all ways are essentially the same as M-16s and M-4s in single-fire mode--and have been used in some of the worst recent mass shootings (Newtown, Parkland, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs Texas, Pulse Nightclub). And all happened after the "Assault Weapons Ban" expired. So that's her leverage==> "Scary, Military-style weapons easily obtained and used in horrible massacres of innocents." I don't doubt she wants to ban all firearms, and is smart enough to know that you start at the margins first, then move the boundary gradually.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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