Friday’s appeals court ruling in the New Jersey case goes further than a July 2024 ruling from a federal judge, who said that the state’s ban on AR-15s specifically was unconstitutional but upheld the provision barring larger magazines.
The third US circuit court of appeals said on Friday in its opinion that the state’s ban on all semiautomatic rifles it deems to be “assault firearms” and its restriction on “large capacity ammunition magazines” were unconstitutional.
New Jersey’s attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, a Democrat whose office defended the law, told the Associated Press that the decision is “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect”.
“Gotta maximize the body count of school children”
-These judges, probably
Because there are ~450 million of them in the US and parents can’t actively watch their children at all times. The reality is it can happen, even to good parents who watch their kids. It’s the same reason we should teach them about drugs or sex or anything else that a child shouldn’t be exposed to but inevitably some will. A little education can prevent a tragedy.
If a kid is in a home where they might encounter a syringe of heroin, they are removed from that home. Do the same for guns. Nuts can choose whether they want kids or guns.
Kids don’t spend 100% of their time at home. They go out in public, they go to friend’s houses, they go to parties. They will, 100% of the time, find themselves in situations where irresponsible people are making decisions. Your job as a parent is to equip your children to navigate an unsafe world.
In some places, that means knowing what to do if you stumble upon a black bear on a trail. In other places, it means knowing what to do if you find a little baggy of white powder on the ground. In the United States, it means your kid should know what to do if they find a handgun in a bathroom at a truck stop while out on a field trip. That is not a situation a parent can prevent unless they are constantly hovering over their child. It’s never likely but it can happen to anyone.
What would be irresponsible is not teaching your kid these skills so that they have to figure it out on their own, especially when they don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.
So ban guns from truck stops. Or anywhere else a kid might go. Or just ban them entirely.
Again, 450 MILLION guns. You can ban them all today, even if everyone agreed, we would be pulling guns out of cellers and closets for the next 100 years. “Ban them all” is not a thing you can just do. That would require a constitutional amendment, one that basically one supports, so good luck with that.
“Anywhere a kid might go” is literally every public place. Concealed carry is not outright banned in any state. I support pretty heavy requirements for concealed carry, but even an outright ban would not prevent this. Even so, most states have very loose requirements (or none at all) and there’s basically no political will to change that.
Teach the kids about guns. This isn’t even a political position, this is a very straightforward policy to mitigate risks that presently exist and are not going away any time soon.