A federal judge in New York dismissed a challenge to the state’s requirement that every ammunition sale undergo a background check.
In his decision, Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr., appointed by Barack Obama, cited a colonial Virginia statute dating back to 1756, which prohibited Catholics from owning or possessing some arms.
This historical precedent, according to Geraci, reflects a longstanding “national tradition” of “restricting access to firearms for individuals deemed dangerous or unfit.”
Well, fine, then he’s saying blacks can’t own guns either? Black people couldn’t own guns in 1756.
That statute was apparently the best he could do, and he had to go to before the country’s founding to find his so-called justification.
According to Bearing Arms, the statute didn’t last very long. It’s not even close to the ammunition case.
The statute preceded the ratification of the Second and 14th Amendments. The Supreme Court has already cautioned judges not to look for support for modern gun control laws in statutes before the Amendments were ratified.
The 1756 statute was a wartime measure to suppress opposition, and it didn’t ban Catholics from owning all arms. There’s no connection between the two cases.
Read more at Bearing Arms. Geraci even accepted at face value an assertion that the New York State police almost instantly and without delay complete 98.6% of background checks. That’s not true.
Hopefully, they can appeal.
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