Source: http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/miller.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 05:51:57+00:00

Document:
♦ the strongest challenge to U.S. v. Miller rests on the Supreme Court’s having implied that the law-abiding person has a civil right to be armed, when it held in 1856 that the government had no duty to protect the average person.
Only once in the Twentieth Century has the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted any part of the Second Amendment. That case was U.S. v. Miller, which the Court heard and decided in 1939. 1 The Court held that the National Firearms Act – under which machineguns, shotguns with barrels under 18" in length, short-barreled rifles, and firearms silencers had to be registered and a $200/item tax paid was constitutional.
Few who discuss this decision have actually read it, and so know that the Court heard only one side of the matter, the Government’s. Fewer still have read the entire record, and so know that the Court rejected most of the Government’s claims about the Second Amendment. In keeping with our pledge to give you all of the facts, we set forth below not just the facts in the record, but facts that might have moved the Court to decide differently, had anyone represented Miller before the Court.
Miller and Layton were represented by Paul E. Gutensohn, of Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Gutensohn, who had been a member of the Arkansas bar since February 1934, apparently was a solo practitioner. He became a Federal prosecutor after military service in World War II.
Gutensohn asked the District Court to quash the indictment. Gutensohn declared that his clients had committed no crime because the National Firearms Act, "is not a revenue measure and is an attempt to usurp the police powers of the State and reserved to each of the States in the United States, [and – auths.] is unconstitutional … " After quoting the text of the Second Amendment, Gutensohn declared that, "said ’National Firearms Act’ is in violation and contrary to said Second Amendment and particularly as charging a crime against these defendantsunder the allegations of the indictment, is unconstitutional...."
In short, Judge Ragon found no basis to uphold the indictment of Miller and Layton, i.e., that they had committed no crime when they transported a short-barreled shotgun across state lines, because provisions of NFA ’34 violated the Second Amendment.
On the same day, Paul Gutensohn received – on behalf of Miller and Layton – notice from the government that it intended to appeal to the Supreme Court. Judge Ragon permitted the appeal. 8 Miller and Layton had 15 days to object to the appeal. 9 There is no record of their having offered any objections. 10 Because Miller and Layton did not have legal representation after the District Court proceedings, the Supreme Court never heard their views. There is only one brief on record in this case, that filed for the United States. Attorney Gutensohn only represented Miller and Layton in District Court. If he explained to District Judge Ragon the reasoning for his clients’ challenge to the indictment, no record was made and kept. As a result, the Supreme Court did not have before it any argumentssupporting Miller and Layton.
There were no amicus curiae (friend of the Court) briefs, filed by parties with an interest in the outcome, e.g., the National Rifle Association. Such briefs can provide the Court with additional insights into the matter before it. Prior to World War II, the filing of an amicus brief was most unusual.
Formally limiting the government’s powers was the main goal of the American Revolution. That goal had been achieved only by the use of armed force. It is plainly absurd to argue that the Framers intended directly – or indirectly by creating a foundation on which some later law-makers might build – to provide for an actual or potential government monopoly on the use of armed force or on the ownership of arms themselves.
When they wrote the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, they adhered closely to English Common law, which provided that arms could be owned and carried for self defense, so long as the intent of these actions was not to terrorize others. The type of arms that could be owned or carried for self-defense could be regulated by law, but bans on the ownership or keeping of arms were unlawful.
In 1939 the Supreme Court was not asked to recognize that Americans never have had a right to protection by the government, and so have a right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Because the average person’s right to self-defense – and to the possession of firearms for that purpose – has not been explicitly recognized,criminals’ abuse of firearms has been used to justify sharp curtailments of law-abiding persons’ civil right to be armed. Laws concerning the ownership of firearms for personal defense need to be adjusted to recognize that South v. Maryland implicitly re-affirmed Americans’ right to own firearms for personal defense. As a result, criminals’ abuse of firearms cannot lawfully be a pretext to deprive the law-abiding of those firearms.
There is irrefutable proof that the shotgun has long been a military weapon in Europe and the United States. 29 For example, the forerunner of the shotgun – the blunderbuss – was issued to British forces prior to the Revolutionary War. The British issued a Sea Service flintlock blunderbuss with a 16-inch brass barrel, circa 1760. 30 During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate governments issued - or permitted the use of privately-owned – shotguns and rifles, some of which definitely had barrels shorter than 18". Because the Confederacy had relatively fewfirearms-makers, weapons were scarce. As a result, "many southern volunteers equippedthemselves with their personal or family double-barrel shotgun". 31 Among Confederate forces short-barreled shotguns were common.
"The degree to which barrels were amputated depended upon the whim of the cavalryman, or was dictated by battle damage sustained by the gun. Thin gun barrels were often dented or bent. Since weapons were scarce, the damaged portion was simply cut-off to restore the gun to action. This resulted in the discovery that shortened guns were more controllable while mounted; therefore, they were better suited for fighting purposes." 32 (See photos).
Shotguns plainly had been military issue firearms for at least 30 years before the Supreme Court reviewed Judge Ragon’s decision to quash Miller’s indictment. Many veterans of World War I were alive. Some Justices may have known that the U.S. Army had issued shotguns to its soldiers during World War I, even though no such evidence was put before the Court to prove the matter. Two of the Court’s members had seen military service, Justice Hugo Black as a Captain in the Field Artillery in 1918 andJustice Felix Frankfurter as a Major in the Army’s Legal service. Justice William O.Douglas, who did not take part in the decision, had been a private in the U.S. Army in 1918.
The court summarily dismissed – with a paragraph of case citations – "the objection that the Act usurps police power reserved to the States". 41 The cases cited showed that Congress could impose taxes as it saw fit, if such taxes were meant to raise meaningful amounts of revenue, even if the States had the powers to regulatepossession of or commerce in the items in question.
The Court thus defined and answered, in the negative, a narrow question: whether a specific type of firearm, i.e., a shotgun having a barrel length of less than 18 inches, may lawfully be owned without being subject to any special formalities,permits, or fees.
♦ Sawed-off shotguns, sawed-off rifles and machineguns were weapons that had no legitimate use in the hands of private individuals.
The Court thus plainly did not accept the government’s claim that it could restrict the right to keep and bear arms in any way that it chose to do so.
◊ it should leave open the possibility of review, when more evidence might be available.
◊ had the Court wanted its decision to be broadly construed, it could have usedwords such as, "any kind of shotgun", or "any firearm of whatever characteristics".
◊ left open the possibility there was evidence the U.S. military had used shotgunshaving barrels shorter than 18 inches, or that civilians had used them in their commondefense.
◊ re-emphasized that no such evidence had been submitted.
The Court then explained that at the Constitution’s inception, the Militia had most of the tasks assigned to the Regular Army by 1939: enforcing Federal laws, suppressing "insurrections", and repelling invasions. At the outset, the States appointed militia officers and trained the militia to standards set by the U.S. Congress.
By dealing so briefly with the English Common Law definition of the right to keep and bear arms – and citing the definition of a militia offered by an English economist, rather than that of an English judge or legal scholar – the Court in effect dismissed the government’s narrowly restrictive view of the right to keep and bear arms, under which the government alone could determine both personal eligibility to own armsand the types of arms that could be owned. The Court said nothing about the personal backgrounds of Miller or Layton, presumably because it saw no need to determine their personal suitability to own and to transport a short-barreled shotgun. By ignoring Miller and Layton’s personal qualifications, the Court signalled it did not want access to and ownership of firearms to be based on arbitrary considerations. So far as the Court was concerned, the question was simply one of whether or not a short-barreled shotgun had been a military or militia firearm.
To emphasize that the key issue raised by U.S. v. Miller was whether or not short-barreled shotguns were, or had been, military firearms, the Court devoted one-third of the text of its judgment to lengthy quotes from early American enactments regarding militia firearms and membership qualifications.
♦ each militia member was required by law to own the requisite arms, whether firearms (rifles or muskets) or edged weapons, such as the pike.
The justices cited enactments of Massachusetts (1632, 1649, and 1784), New York (1786) and Virginia (1785), to make the point that the militia’s weapons were specified carefully, and that shotguns were not included.
The basic concept on which the Court relied is that the types of firearms that may lawfully be owned depends solely on whether or not such weapons have militia or military uses. There can be no other explanation for the Court’s including in its long quotations from colonial era militia statutes, the passages giving details of military firearms, ammunition and accessories. As the Court had heard no evidence that short-barreled shotguns had militia or military uses, it rejected the claim by Miller and Layton that they did not have to register such a weapon according to NFA ’34.
"But today Justice McReynolds drawled from the bench: ’We construe the amendment as having relation to military service and we are unable to say that a sawed-off shotgun has any relation to the militia."
This article suggests that Miller and Layton had been represented before the Court: "Attorneys for the two men contended...". At no point did Miller and Layton have more than one attorney, and, as noted above, they were not represented before the Supreme Court.
As the 20th Century draws to a close, it seems ever more clear that U.S. v. Miller – because it is a very narrow decision – is ever less useful to define the scope of the Second Amendment right to be armed.
♦ possession and sale of armor-piercing ammunition.
These types of firearms, accessories, and ammunition are precisely those most suitable for military and militia use. and have been so issued by the Federal government to U.S. armed forces. The Court held that the keeping and bearing ofsuch firearms was explicitly protected by the Second Amendment.
Those who think the Supreme Court made a narrow decision in 1939 – one which affected only short-barreled shotguns – should think the above bans are plainly unconstitutional, and so in need of Supreme Court review. The authors are of this opinion.
♦ if the law-abiding person has a civil right to be armed for self-defense, criminals’ abuse of firearms cannot be used to justify depriving the law-abiding of those firearms.
Richard is Adjunct Professor of Law, George Washington University, National Law Center.
Aaron is Executive Director, JPFO.
The authors gratefully acknowledge help from Robert Kraus (Philadelphia PA), who generously shared books from his personal library; Charles Foster (Milwaukee, WI), an expert on Civil War firearms; and Thomas Swearengen (SC) who shared his encyclopedic knowledge of military shotguns.
1. U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174; 59 S.Ct. 816 .
2. U.S. National Archives, Forth Worth (TX) Branch; Record Croup 21, U.S. District Courts, Western District of Arkansas; Fort Smith Division, Criminal;Case #3926. Indictment filed 21 September 1938. Cited as USNA, FWB, USDC, Western District of Arkansas, Ft. Smith Div., Criminal Case #3926).
3. loc. cit., Demurrer to Indictment, 3 January 1939.
4. loc cit., Memo. Opinion, 3 January 1939.
5. loc. cit., Assignments of Error, 30 lanuary 1939.
6. Criminal Appeals Act of 2 March 1907, 34 Stat. 1246 (U.S.C., Title 18, Sec. 682) and Section 238 of the Judicial Code as amended (U.S.C., Title 28, Sec. 345).The U.S. Code Citations refer to the Code as at 1939.
7. Statement of Jurisdiction, USNA, FWB, USDC, Western District of Arkansas, Ft. Smith Div., Criminal Case #3926.
8. Supreme Court of the United States, Transcript of Record; October Term, 1938; No. 696, The United States of America, Appellant vs. Jack Miller and Frank Layton; Filed February 20, 1939; p. 5. Cited as Supreme Court Transcript.
11. New York Times, 14 March 1939, p. 36.
12. Supreme Court Transcript, Brief for the United States; Filed March 29, 1939; pp. 1-5.
25. U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 1780, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session. pp. 1-2. quoted in ibid., pp. 7-8.
26. Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed; The Independent lnstitute, Oakland CA, 1994; Chapter 2, pp. 37-54.
27. 59 U.S. (18 How) 396. 15 L.Ed. 43.] (1856).
28. Bowers v. Devito, 6X6 F.2d 616 (1982).
29. Thomas F. Swearengen, The World’s Fighting Shotguns; Chesa Ltd., Hong Kong, 1978; pp. 1-5. Swearengen retired from the United States Marine Corps as a Chief Warrant Officer.
30. Warren Moore, Weapons of the American Revolution and Accoutrements; Funk and Wagnalls, 1967, p. 90..31. Swearengen, p. 5.
33. Frederick P. Todd, et al, American Military Equipage, 1851 - 1872; Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1980; Vol I, pp. 134-35; Vol. II, p. 1306.
♦ 830,014 pounds of buckshot. at a cost of $78,432.
35. Swearengen, pp. 8-9. See also Guns & Ammo, "Shooting America’s Military Shotguns"; January 1991, pp. 50-51. Cited as Guns & Ammo.
36. Benedict Crowell, America’s Munitions, 1917-1918; Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1919; pp. 185-86. Benedict Crowell was Assistant Secretary of War, Director of Munitions. See also Swearengen, pp. 9-10.
37. Guns & Ammo, pp. 53-54.
38. 307 U.S. at 175.
39. ibid., at 175-77, Footnote 1.
42. ibid., at 178. Black’s Law Dictionary (Abridged 5th Edition, 1984, p. 441) states that, "A court takes ’judicial notice’ of facts that do not require proof because they are universally regarded as true by common knowledge. Examples of such facts include historical events, main geographical features, and indisputable facts of science and nature."
44. ibid., at 180-81. Capitalization as in original.

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