> I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I suspect this argument wont fly. From what I can see the only arms that are prohibited are ones that don't have a legal use (ie sawnoff shotguns)
A couple things I could unpack there but to keep it simple…
The most recent take by SCOTUS was 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald that set up the language for guns that may be regulated as “dangerous and unusual”. The AND is very important. Dangerous is not to the target, they’re all dangerous to the target, but rather I read it as in hard to control or wider effecting or camouflaged or potentially harmful to the user. Unusual is easier to understand. A gun that might be dangerous and unusual is a 50BMG handgun or a machine gun or something generally not effective for defense of self/state or a cane gun. It’s hard to seriously rationalize that if gun control exists at all that an M240B LMG should have the same exact regulations as a Glock. We clearly have more use for the latter as a society, although there is vigorous debate that of varying reason.
The other is that sawed off shotguns are not illegal. The DOJ at one point did want to ban guns, and tried to ban all guns with barrels less than 18” knowing full well this would be all handguns. They failed but did come away with a consolation prize of barrel length limits for rifles and shotguns. 18” for shotguns and 16” for rifles basically for no reasons that make sense. You can saw a shotgun barrel down all you like up until you get to 18”, where 17.9” is an SBS, short barreled shotgun, and still not illegal but does require a $200 tax to be paid. Funny though, this only applies to “shotguns” which is a smooth bore gun with a stock. A “shotgun handgun” is not a shotgun, and also not a handgun, but rather a “firearm”. But only if it was made that way. You can have or saw down any shotgun barrel to any length so long as it doesn’t have and wasn’t made with a stock. This gun http://primusdatabase.com/images/d/d3/Sawed-Off_Shotgun.jpg is legal if the tape is covering a grip that hasn’t been modified, but illegal if it’s covering that someone sawed the stock off as well. You can buy a version of this gun with no stock and saw it down if you like. There is a world of stupid ATF NFA that you do not wish to know. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1db1617798849b0d0a7d7b...