Posted by David Kopel: The Peculiar Story of United States v. Miller: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_20-2007_05_26.shtml#1179865714
A fine [1]new article forthcoming in the NYU Journal of Law & Liberty provides fresh insights on the Supreme Court's last major gun control case, U.S. v. Miller (1939). For example, he shows that the case was brought by the federal government as a test case to quell Second Amendment popular opposition to the Attorney General's efforts to create federal handgun control. The federal district judge who wrote the one-sentence opinion declaring the National Firearms Act to violate the Second Amendment was a gun control advocate with strong political connections. The prosecution of Miller was perfect as a government-initiated test case, since Miller had an established record as "a pliable snitch" who would cooperate with the government, ensuring that the Supreme Court saw no meaningful opposition to the government's position. Frye also argues that although Miller was written by the now-reviled Justice McReynolds, the meaning of the opinion is fairly clear, recognizing the individual right to arms as a common law right guaranteed by the Second Amendment, while still permitting reasonable gun controls. References 1. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=981831 _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
