Both sides of the political aisle have their sacred cows and both sides hate the other enough in this country that they push legislation aimed not at making our society better but at attacking their political enemies, real or perceived. There has been a troubling trend in this country in recent years in which legislatures are increasingly weaponized against segments of the population. It likely has issues under the First Amendment as well given its planned limits on protesters. Baruth's proposal is clearly unconstitutional on these grounds, as it attacks the right to carry the most popular type of handgun. Semi-automatic handguns are overwhelmingly popular, in common use, and absolutely protected by the Second Amendment. Revolvers represent only about 18% of the handgun production for 2016. The majority of the pistols manufactured would be semi-automatic as single shot pistols are not particularly popular. ATF data on manufacturing available for 2016 shows that 4,720,075 pistols were manufactured in that year as opposed to 856,291 revolvers. The majority of handguns sold in the U.S. Heller was in fact a semi-automatic handgun. It is significant to note that the handgun at the center of the dispute in D.C. It's illogical at best to say we have a right to carry a revolver in the same place we're forbidden from carrying a more common pistol. If a weapon is protected by the amendment, and both it and our state equivalent protects a right to carry weapons for self-defense, it logically follows that we have a right to carry the same weapons we have a right to own in most of the places we normally spend our time. Thus while the court has allowed for regulation of extremely dangerous weapons such as weapons of mass destruction, explosives, and likely machine guns, a ban on a very commonly owned civilian semiautomatic rifle or handgun fails to be acceptable under the Second Amendment. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons." The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Justice Thomas stated the following: "Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. Highland Park case in 2015, Justice Thomas, with Justice Scalia concurring, wrote an opinion on the subject. While the Supreme Court has not to date heard a case specifically concerning bans on semiautomatic firearms, when certiorari was not granted in the Friedman v. Heller (2008) found that the Second Amendment protects "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation." The Supreme Court in that same decision also stated that the Second Amendment "extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."
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