It's "Miller v United States" all over again - but this time with a lawyer

[vaskidmark]

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/13-7120_jhek.pdf

Guy gets busted on marijuana possession charges and has Armed Career Criminal charge added because he has an unregistered short-barrel shotgun.

So far the only flaw is that Mrs. Menendez says you have to pay a $200 tax.  IIRC it's only $5 for an AOW.

The Justices jump in pretty quickly about "what about a nuclear bomb, or a biological weapon, or rockets, or artillery?"  (For some reason they did not address Mothers in Law as potentially dangerous by mere possession.)

Miller lost because his attorney did not have train fare to DC and thought his written pleadings would be enough.  Johnson's attorney had plane fare.  I don't think she will be able to get the NFA repealed but she might make it a lot harder for folks to tack on essentially unrelated federal charges.  Johnson could have been nicely put away on state-level pot and felon-in-possession charges, but oh no! they wanted to really bust his chops and figured Armed Career Criminal would do the job.  Now it looks as if a good portion of how they use that is going to be pulled out from under their feet.

stay safe.

[TommyGunn]

Miller lost because his attorney did not have train fare to DC and thought his written pleadings would be enough.

Well, picky point, but IIRC (which is debatable in this instance I admit) Miller's lawyer didn't show (that is correct) but, also Miller himself and the co-defendant (whose name I forget) were no shows at SCOTUS, one being dead and the other .... not available, for some reason.
The solicitor general (appearing for the government's case) was actually the ONLY lawyer there, representing (of course) the government's case. 
IIRC SCOTUS remanded the Miller Case back down to lower court (where the NFA had been blasted, folded, punctured, stapled and otherwise mutilated) for re-hearing.
The defendants having vanished, nothing further happened, except that since SCOTUS never declared the NFA unconstitional, it is presumed by default Constitutional today.

I hope this turn goes better .... but I am nt holding my breath because after what SCOTUS did with Obamacare I believe they will twist it to be whatever they want, in order to be politically correct.
Call me the cynic.

[AJ Dual]

So far the only flaw is that Mrs. Menendez says you have to pay a $200 tax.  IIRC it's only $5 for an AOW.

Minor nit-pick, it's "only $5" for an AOW you buy from a SOT, or private transfer for an existing AOW.

It costs us plebes $200 to make/register an AOW on a Form 1, same as an SBS, SBR, Suppressor, MG (post-'86 notwithstanding), or DD.

Something in the decision that makes for precedent that could eventually get the Hughes Amendment voided would be a huge win. People are learning the process with the Internet, and the $200 is a constantly shrinking burden due to inflation anyway. (It's something like $3500 in 1934 dollars...) I'd love to see NFA '34 gutted... in theory, but in actual practice, the scramble to "Re-ban machine guns" if it happens seems likely to leave us with something worse.

The optics on it are not good, nearly impossible to defend in the MSM, and I foresee even red-state GOP support for such a bill, at least enough to get us 51 Senators, 218 in the House, and shooting it across Obama's desk not being that hard to get.

I hope this turn goes better .... but I am nt holding my breath because after what SCOTUS did with Obamacare I believe they will twist it to be whatever they want, in order to be politically correct.
Call me the cynic.

The political willpower backing Obamacare was such that they had something on Roberts, and were willing to use it. And considering how strong SCOTUS Justices' hold on their office is, and how difficult it is to remove one of them, it must have been pretty awful. I can't really see any other explanation on a gut level. Even the most high-minded jurist as pure-driven snow on the separation of powers, judicial restraint, and federalism would know the ACA was such a turd that he'd not be willing to uphold it on the whole "Not my job to strike BAD laws, just Unconstitutional ones"-thing that Roberts pulled. Especially seeing as there was umpteen other ways to attack it constitutionally.

I don't know if it was pictures of his kids getting off the school bus in rifle crosshairs, a bimbo-eruption, a DUI fatality that got covered up... but whatever it was, I don't think the political will exists to try and blackmail Roberts again over gun control. There's been enough other cases that the Left would have found to be far more important strategically (Citizens United etc...) that they'd have played the blackmail card again over it if they were going to.

IMO, the Left likes the status quo on RKBA in America, and having it upheld or expanded in the SCOTUS actually works to their favor. It keeps it constantly going as a wedge-issue to motivate their base, (VOTE! Don't forget SCOTUS picks!) keeps sweeping federal gun control form being implemented which fail-safes them from getting shellacked like they did in '94. And it allows them to tilt at it legislatively without fears of actually achieving it in a meaningful way to get the gun owners riled.