this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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Friday’s appeals court ruling in the New Jersey case goes further than a July 2024 ruling from a federal judge, who said that the state’s ban on AR-15s specifically was unconstitutional but upheld the provision barring larger magazines.

The third US circuit court of appeals said on Friday in its opinion that the state’s ban on all semiautomatic rifles it deems to be “assault firearms” and its restriction on “large capacity ammunition magazines” were unconstitutional.

New Jersey’s attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, a Democrat whose office defended the law, told the Associated Press that the decision is “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect”.

"Gotta maximize the body count of school children"

-These judges, probably

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[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 59 points 1 day ago

I, for one, am stoked about the renewed opportunity to buy (or make) more effective weapons for fighting fascists with.

[–] Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Ok, 2a people that enjoy this access to tools that can spray bullets, how can we stop the mass killings with firearms? Because I'm ok with letting you have your toys if you can solve that problem.

[–] magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (3 children)

The vast majority of shootings aren't related to schools, and could be solved by the following measures to make society less hostile, pushing less people to violence:

  • UBI
  • Free Healthcare
  • Free College
  • End war on drugs

These two would help cut-down on domestic abuse and kids finding guns:

  • Red Flag Laws
  • Safe lockup laws

Furthermore, most school shooters are dudes under 30 buying way more guns than they can afford via credit card knowing they won't have to pay the debt. So don't allow people under 30 to buy rifles with credit cards.

Assault rifle bans make no sense. Most states with bans consider a standard AR-15 build to be an assault rifle but not a mini-14.

They both shoot the same bullets, just as fast, with the same magazine capacities available. But one looks like an old hunting rifle, while the other looks modern and scary.

The things that make a gun considered an assault rifle have nothing to do with how powerful it is, and more to do with how easily you can clean and repair it, or how nice the ergonomics are.

Its literally a giant waste of political clout designed to piss off the right people.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 3 points 13 hours ago

Ty for writing this up!

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 4 points 13 hours ago (4 children)
  1. Target gangs holistically. Change drug laws to limit their income potential. Target all levels for prosecution rather than primarily the top.
  2. Overhaul mental health laws. This is pretty hard to do. It needs to be easier to get someone committed against their will than it currently is, but it also needs to be possible to recover rights after being committed. The institutions that used to do this need to be recreated with better safeguards against abuse of patients.
  3. Increase exposure to guns at pretty much every age. This is more about accidental shootings. Handling guns in a safe environment reduces the curiosity if kids find one, shooting classes age junior high or high school age would also help reinforce this.
  4. Reduce gun free zones or require places that ban guns to accept security liability.
  5. Enforce existing laws, a significant number of shootings have warnings that were ignored by negligent or apathetic administrators or police. Both taking actions that are generally available and legal now, and ensuring accountability for failures would help.
[–] Soup@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

The fact that you never once said “attack poverty since its reduction directly and drastically drops crime rates and improves mental health conditions” is pretty telling. Always about reactive punishment with you weirdos, never about proactive targetting of the underlying issues, and certainly never in any of the ways that we’ve seen to be actually helpful and productive.

I used to have my license here in Canada, I think guns are really cool and a day on the range is lovely, but they aren’t at all worth the damage and lives lost. Most people who really want them use the same kinda logic as I did when I was a child to try to get my mom to buy me a Wii, thinking I was clever.

At least point 5 is on the money, even if 3 and 4 are insane.

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[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 0 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

Much of that is utterly unhinged. No wonder they’re called gun nuts. Increase children’s exposure to guns? Reduce gun-free zones?

Many countries have proven the best course is to put heavy penal sentences on gun violence and negligence, to severely limit the people allowed to handle guns, the quantity of guns they can have, and to tightly restrict the places and times they can handle them.

Not to spread them around more.

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[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Like every civilized country does. Limit who can get lead dispensers (gun law knowledge test, practical exam, psych eval, etc.) and making owners responsible for securing them. Most shootings happen with stolen or otherwise illegal hole punchers (either child from parents or just stolen, e.g. from car). Where I live, you could get jail time for leaving a gun unsupervised in a car or not locked in your home. Or at least would never be allowed to own one again.

But the courts struck that down as well and there is basically no hope of fixing this shit, e.g. via constitutional amendment, cause too many people are busy pushing laws that only harass lawful owners like assault rifle bans (newsflash, a shotgun kills kids just as good as an AR) and many people on the 2A side are now in defense mode instinctively pushing back on any gun laws, even reasonable ones.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Just wish people on the 2A side would actually doing something with it, even if it was just showing up to protests in numbers à la Black Panthers. All it’s done, from this outside perspective, is allow a huge number of people to cosplay as rugged militia rebels but who, far more often than not, just end up sucking boot for their nearest tyrant.

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[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 21 hours ago

But they don't pretend there's a way to have access to the guns and stop mass killings. They simply don't care about the mass killings.

[–] gukleszl4hs48ughgxhr5xgd@fedia.io 13 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Civilian AR-15s aren't assault rifles. AR doesn't stand for assault rifle...

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)
[–] Ostrakon@lemmy.world 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

They're already violating the law making these mods dude. I doubt they would stop at legal acquisition.

Bump stocks are absolute ass for any sort of accuracy, and should absolutely be banned. Perhaps the worst way to enable full auto on any gun.

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world -2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (2 children)

They’re already violating the law making these mods dude.

Right. I'm sure the illegality of making these mods would be a turnoff to mass shooters. My point is that, to reduce the casualty count, the medium of illegality ought to be reduced. Where an AR15 can kill 60 and wound 400+ at a long distance, maybe a reasonable limitation on accessing machine guns such that the only accessible guns are single-shot long-rifles or pistols might have had that number reduced to 10 dead and 60 wounded.

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[–] Triumph@fedia.io 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And those modifications are already illegal for any semi auto firearm.

It's just a 5.56 (usually) semi auto rifle. There are others that aren't AR-15s.

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

And those modifications are already illegal for any semi auto firearm.

The modification being illegal isn't much of a deterent to mass murderers.

The only real effective way to limit their scope of killing is to limit their access to the underlying tool: the AR15. Someone's scope of killing by modifying a 9mm handgun with extended grip =/= modifying an AR15 with extended grip. They differ in all sorts of capabilities: accuracy, capacity, recoil, etc.

[–] green_goglin@thelemmy.club 7 points 23 hours ago (18 children)

So, you’re good with Mini-14s?

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This same argument is used to kill right to repair. Banning potential crime is always bad.

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[–] Triumph@fedia.io 11 points 1 day ago (13 children)

If everything that could be used to kill someone was made illegal, we wouldn't have very many things.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone -4 points 16 hours ago

Good thing nobody is asking for that.

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[–] BlackVenom@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Damn

The legality of something doesn't make it effective.

So

We should make Y illegal and that'll be effective.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

You're gonna cry about having to register a firearm too, so why stop there. Just ban it, then compromise on registration at minimum.

I own a handgun, I'm not against them. I am against how easy it is to get them. I bought one at a metro stop for cash, no paperwork, 100% legal in my state.

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[–] Fishnoodle@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Good. Hopefully Illinois will follow

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 8 points 1 day ago

And Washington and California.

[–] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They will. Such laws are being struck down all over the country.

It's amazing how many people are OK with their state government wasting money and infringing people's rights with blatantly unconstitutional laws like these that ban arms in common use.

[–] unitedwithme@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago

Hell yeah brother!!

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[–] Klox@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

I'd be fine with this if the people responsible for these guaranteed future outcomes were held to account. Until we have a justice system that reflects fair penalties on poor leadership, we're fucked.

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

"Gotta maximize the body count of school children"-These jusges, probably

"Because bans on AR-15s magically stopped school shootings in the U.S."

  • Pro fascism Bootlickers, probably
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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I hate this fucking country and the people in it.

Refuse to even consider not owning a fucking ar-15, and for what? So you can feel tough? Certainly nobody is using them to actually fight tyranny.

And you sure as shit don't need AR-15s to hunt.

I guess the most important thing is that you feel big and tough when you hold it.

[–] hoch@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I like to shoot paper targets with mine. Oh no, the horror!

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca -4 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

No need to own an AR-15 though.

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