As this column is being published, hearings will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern time in the Hart Senate Office Building as Dianne Feinstein presides over testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on her “Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.”
Among the witnesses scheduled to address the committee will be noted Second Amendment attorney, author and documentary filmmaker David T. Hardy, who also posts at the indispensible Of Arms & the Law blog. He’ll be in the second panel, appearing this afternoon, albeit he has not been allocated enough time to cover everything he is prepared to testify on.
“With only five minutes to speak, I'll have to hit only the high points,” Hardy explained in an email announcing his inclusion in the hearing. With his abbreviated testimony, he’ll be providing the committee with a copy of his complete testimony, which he’s posted in his website archives so the public can read it, too.
Among Hardy's conclusions:
To pass constitutional muster under any applicable standard of review, a law must bear a provable, not speculative, relationship to an important social goal, and not unnecessarily impact other exercises of a constitutional right. S. 150 fails under this standard …
- S. 150 arbitrarily bans guns by name, including firearms that have little in common, some which do not even exist in the U.S.
- It arbitrarily bans firearms by features, where the features have no relationship to criminal use.
- It would ban all semiautomatic rifles or shotguns with a “pistol grip” – and virtually all semiautomatic rifles and shotguns have these, so it effectively bans all semiautomatic long guns.
- It arbitrarily applies restrictions to peaceful private citizens, while exempting LEOs who had to be retired due to mental disorders.
Click here to read Hardy’s complete testimony and click the “Live Webcast” button here to watch the hearing.
UPDATE: Kurt Hofmann weighs in.
2/28 UPDATE: The video of yesterday's hearing is now posted. Proceedings start at around 20:51.
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