Use and manipulation of the pejorative term assault weapon is a classic case of an Alice-in-Wonderland world where words have no meaning. The Second Amendment provides that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Arms, such as rifles, pistols, and shotguns, do not lose their constitutional protection because the legislature describes them with a derogatory term. Indeed, no pronouncement of a legislature can forestall attack upon the constitutionality of the prohibition which it enacts by applying opprobrious epithets to the prohibited act . . . .
New Yorks Not So SAFE Act
The Second Amendment in an Alice-In-Wonderland World Where Words Have No Meaning
Also published in Albany Law Review (NY) Wed. March 4, 2015
Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and author of the Independent books The Right to Bear Arms, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France, Gun Control in the Third Reich, The Founders Second Amendment and That Every Man Be Armed.
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