"in common use"

The common use test was good enough for the USSC in Caetano, and they set the low end currently at ~200k concerning stun guns. If USSC likes it, than it's good enough for me. Other circuits that have applied Heller/McDonald faithfully have also called out this test, such as the original SDCA Duncan ruling concerning magazines. (One since confirmed by 9th 3 judge panel, overturned by 9th en banc, GVR'd by USSC, now back to original district.)

The problem with the “common use” test is that once there is an advancement in firearms technology, it can be banned from civilian use.

Imagine that has always been the law, and it’s the late 19th Century. Some Congressmen get reports of inventors making self-loading guns, and decide to ban them from civilian ownership before they come into common use. Fast forward to today. You’re allowed to own manual repeaters like bolt, lever, and pump action guns, along with revolvers, but nothing semiautomatic.

Does it still seem like a good idea?

We are in fact due for major change in firearms technology in the near future. I have no idea what it will be, just like no one in 1800 imagined the percussion cap, no one in that year imagined the metallic cartridge. Both wrought significant changes.

In 1880, no one imagined smokeless powder, or the benefit of self-loading firearms.

In fact, we haven’t really had a revolutionary advancement in firearms technology in well over 100 years, just incremental improvements, mostly in materials. Things like the use of lightweight alloys and polymer. If you could hand a Glock to John Moses Browning, he’d marvel at the materials, but would understand how it operated.

So if the “common use” test stands, what advances might we miss out on? Directed energy weapons? Portable Gauss guns? Caseless ammo? Self-aiming guns? Guided bullets? Something not even conceived of yet?

There is no way to know.

But what we do know is that anti-gun politicians will use whatever means at their disposal to limit what law-abiding citizens can own as far as weaponry.

…The whole concept of the gun laws is subjective. Word games. Folderol. Pretending that words are a substitute for facts and action.
…It doesn’t matter what the Anti’s say or how well they say it. The time is fast approaching when the doers ascend and the sayers are revealed as powerless and redundant.
…Slow, at first….then fast and very fast. High Noon approaches. Sophistry will evaporate when Frank Miller gets off the train.
…I’m not typing anything you don’t already know.

As Always Love Your Jurisprudential Scholarship David. Seriously it Should be a Required Class at Every Law School. You’re SO Erudite and Heads Above Most Liberal Constitutional Law Scholars. Have Enjoyed Reading this Site Immensely.

With Kind Regards,

You are all right about the absurdity of the common use test. It seems highly likely it is a fiction invented to justify banning us from owning "icky" machine guns.

The pathetic thing about the "common use" test is that there is a large volume of case law from the 1800's and even early 1900's (US v. Miller) regarding what guns Americans have a right to own.

A minority of these courts said Americans have the right to own all weapons.

Every single court that ever ruled on the issue said Americans have, at least, the right to own military weapons.

Nobody said it was okay to ban military weapons. Nobody mentioned the "common use test."

The most restrictive test applied was the "military use" test.

Heller and/or McDonald addressed those concerns, stating that scarcity due to .gov action does not bootstrap into constitutionally protected activity. (I believe it was DC that said handgun ban was OK because long guns were available, but Chicago may have also.)

I wouldn't be too quick to accept Miller as controlling; since there was no advocate for Miller, the USSC swallowed what the .gov gave them concerning "legal" civilian owned weapons. Go ask any tunnel rat in 'Nam if a sawed off shotgun was a useful militia tool.

"In common use" really ought to refer to arms in common use by the military.
Because, in addition to self defense, the right to keep and bear arms is intended to maintain a militia made up of citizens not already in the organized armed forces.
Ensuring that citizens have the same arms as the military will greatly enhance the defensive force in case of a foreign invasion. See, e.g., Switzerland.

What about the The Absurdity of the Ultimate Divide & Conquer in this Saga? That Being The Sporting Purposes Test Just Contrived Out of Thin Air in 1968 for the Gun Control Act Public Law 90-618.

Did Bruen By Supreme Judicial Fiat Make the Sporting Purposes Test Null & Void? Or Does the Supreme Court have Yet to Fell this Onerous Omnipresence of Firearms Law?

What's good for SCOTUS and good for you is good enough for the rest of us, is that your opinion? Opinions, even unanimous ones by SCOTUS, the Cabinet, and the Congress are as irrelevant to law as are elephants' ears. Exactly where does in say, in all of Anglo-American jurisprudence, that an opinion makes the law? There are bribed opinions, corrupt opinions, political opinions, bigoted opinions, irrelevant opinions, narcissistic opinions, false opinions, self-serving opinions, unconstitutional opinions, and opinions written out of spite, hatred, dementia, and a desire for destructiveness, but never have I heard of much less read a SCOTUS opinion that was completely true, and completely valid, or evenly nominally documented by undemanding law school standards. In fact, it is all too frequent that there is no majority of opinion at all, just enough of either yeas or nays to excuse the court granting or denying, or affirming or returning. It became obviously dishonest the very second John Marshall failed to recuse himself in Marbury v. Madison, at which time political dishonesty and gross misrepresentation of the law by the judges themselves became standard for the High Court. Current practice runs from extra-Constitutionality to rank unconstitutionality, from disingenuousness to outright misrepresenting to pure pretense and invention. The words no one dares say are "intolerable," "unconscionable," "treasonable," and "unforgiveable." Please re-read the oaths Federal judges take. They say nothing about defending and protecting the judges' own opinions. Judges voicing personal opinions in court ought to require at least recusal, and failure to do so at least impeachment.

Sorry, I am Mr. Anonymous, and despite years of journalism still not used to filling out forms. I don't like anonymous opinions either, rather like Confidential Source, Always suspect these are just ways to justify more unsupported opinions, including swearing out affidavits for raids on law-biding gun owners.