United States v. David Robinson Jr. Challenging the NFA re. SBRs 11CCA

[Sputnik]

Has anyone heard anything more on this case? It seems very interesting the way Mr Kirk is laying it out as it is challenging the NFA, the classification of SBRs particularly, as unconstitutional. If the gov prosecutors really hung their hat on US v Miller that seems like it could be a very advantageous mistake on their part allowing our side to chisel some holes in the entire NFA. After all you can't say 2A only protects weapons useful to a militia yet ignore the fact that nearly every soldier with a rifle is actually issued an SBR.
Or...is this another like Rahimi (criminal defendant) where bad facts make bad law?

[command_liner]

Progress is really quite slow on this, but I am happy to see it moving along.
Something like 25 years ago, a young Alan Gura did a CE course/lunch at McCormick and Schmidt in Irvine. He was talking about
his upcoming Heller litigation and future pathways of litigation. Some of us stayed late. I asked about litigating the concept
of taxation of rights protected by the Constitution. Alan said he "was very interested in bringing a case" on this topic. All the older
guys (lawyers) rolled their eyes.

Across the years in this forum I have stated that the the NFA is in grave danger. The biggest danger is the 1934 testimony in the
Congressional Record, which explains what the government cannot do, and how the NFA was *only* valid under the taxation power
of the Congress. There was a recent ruling (case name??) on a "tax" that never resulted in any revenue, and that law was overturned.
If the military use ruling kills the SBR provision (as it should) and the tax-without-revenue ruling kills the rest of the NFA, that will be
a good result.

On Edit: the important parallel tax issue is
HOBBY DISTILLERS ASSOCIATION, ET AL., v. ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX AND TRADE BUREAU, ET AL.,

https://www.taxnotes.com/research/federal/court-documents/court-opinions-and-orders/court-holds-ban-home-distilleries-unconstitutional/7kgrg

This is a serious win for liberty, but the connection to the gun issue takes a bit of learning and thinking. Very clearly the judge
had read the NFA deliberations.

The issue here is VERY SIMILAR to the machine gun issue at the heart of the NFA. Gura could take this and run with it.
I am pretty sure the "4 Boxes Diner" and the video guy above have not made the connection yet.

Yes, the original NFA proposal was to ban everything. The key to understanding the way the NFA ended up is to go back
and read the 1934 testimony in the Congressional Record. It is all about taxes and the taxing power.

[Bhobbs]

[7.62mm_fmj]

It seems like the NFA's SBR restrictions were part of a larger effort to remove all concealable firearms from the public in deliberate defiance of the 2A. I heard that handguns were supposed to be included in the NFA but that was deemed too unpopular to get the legislation to pass, so they pulled that language out. So what we're left with is a half-baked taxing regime that should not survive scrutiny.

Under the NFA, SBRs aren't banned but simply taxed, and you must apply for and obtain a tax stamp. But in the time since the NFA was passed, the Supreme Court ruled the government cannot single out an enumerated right and tax it. See Minneapolis Star v. Minnesota Commissioner (1983) regarding the taxing of ink and Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943) regarding taxing the selling of religious merchandise. You would think that alone should be enough justification to remove the tax provisions for SBRs from the NFA.

Going further, it should be easy to show SBRs are in common use throughout the nation now, even if they weren't back then. That alone should be good enough to quash California's ban on SBRs (also suppressors, for that matter). Of course such a ruling would then be sent to the 9th Circus for a slow death by activists in black robes.

[Silence Dogood]

Before this case or another like it challenging some of all of NFA gets to SCOTUS, we need to educate all Americans on the history of NFA, GCA, FOPA (specifically Hughes Amendment) to sway public opinion in our favor--at a minimum gain the support of FUDDs and unify gun owners & 2A advocates. A plurality if not a majority of the current makeup of Supreme Court justices seems to care enough about public opinion to likely rule contrary to the logical arguments made in OP's video if it were to come before them today because public opinion does not support abolishing the NFA.

The logic being presented here makes sense to me but too many people today who are ignorant of the history think "MGs are illegal", for example, having no understanding of the nuances of the current legal landscape, tax stamps etc.

18 months ago when the final brace rule was released, Fuddbusters did a>135min. livestream. After dedicating roughly 105 minutes to going through the then recently released ATF document line by line, Matt Larosiere and Ivan the Rat get into "theory craft" on the border subject of the brace rule (which for anyone who hasn't been paying attention was in 2024 ruled against) and the NFA. Their admittedly rough "stream of consciousness" discussion covers a number of the issues inherent in the logic being posed against NFA in this case. I think the 18 minutes of discussion from approximately 1:45 to 2:03 is worth reviewing in the context of the present discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg4RnTWiazE

[Sgt Raven]

SCOTUS has asked DOJ for a reply brief on Robinson v. United States, a SBR case and set it for Conference on 09/29/2025.

[Sputnik]

Man, Im getting old. I didn’t even remember I started this thread. It has been over a year though…it’s still crawling through the system.

[Sgt Raven]

^^^^^^^
I searched to see if there was a thread before starting a new one.