Second Amendment Attorney and VSSA Life member Stephen Halbrook has a piece over at the Volokh Conspiracy on his new book America's Rifle - The Case for the AR-15. He gives us a taste of what you will find in the book:
One of the hot-button issues that is being relitigated after Bruen is whether banning semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 violates the Second Amendment. I argue that it does in my new book America's Rifle: The Case for the AR-15. It covers text and precedent, English and colonial history, the Founding, and how the constitutional right to arms kept pace with the development of firearms. The expired federal ban of 1994 was a true aberration from a Congress that has almost never actually banned a type of firearm.When Bruen was decided, six states restricted permits to carry handguns—California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Five of those states (excluding Hawaii) plus Connecticut also prohibited possession of rifles they derogatorily call "assault weapons." A week after Bruen was handed down, the governor of Delaware signed a law adding that state to the list.
Halbrook goes on to give us the history of the 20th Century efforts to ban guns:
In most of the 20th century, the antigun movement focused on banning handguns. Rifles and shotguns were said to be good, pistols and revolvers bad. The Colt AR-15 Sporter rifle hit the civilian market in 1964, the same year that Colt made its first deliveries of the M-16 to the Air Force. The AR-15 is semiautomatic, requiring a separate function of the trigger for each shot, while the M-16 is automatic, meaning it fires continuously as long as the trigger is pulled back. Despite that basic difference, they looked similar on the outside, causing the Violence Policy Center see the potential for confusion in the public. The idea of labeling the AR-15 and like rifles "assault weapons" and banning them was born.
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