I think in this article, Professor Charles plays on the ignorance of the layperson general audience quite a bit. I want to respond to some pieces of it. To begin with though, I agree with him that the district court ruling is likely to be reversed by the appeals court. Even if it isn't, this iteration of the Supreme Court is not likely to strike down the Hughes Amendment (let alone the NFA). When even Justice Alito is suggesting Congress can ban bump stocks, machine guns are not something we're winning anytime soon. That said, the district court ruling he criticizes was correct even if you think machine gun bans are constitutional. Why? Because as Jake omits in this entire article, the government didn't even try to meet its historical burden. It barely presented any historical analogues at all! The ruling noted:. . .
