Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1939

United States v. Miller

307 U.S. 174 | 59 S. Ct. 816 | 83 L. Ed. 1206 | 1939 U.S. LEXIS 1162 | 1 C.B. 373

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Takeaway

In short, this case upheld the National Firearms Act and tied Second Amendment protection, as the Court framed it, to weapons bearing a reasonable relationship to militia service or ordinary military equipment.

Background

Jack Miller and Frank Layton were indicted for transporting an unregistered short-barreled, double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun in interstate commerce from Oklahoma to Arkansas. The indictment alleged that the shotgun had a barrel shorter than eighteen inches and that the defendants lacked both the required registration and the stamp-affixed written order required by the National Firearms Act of 1934.

The defendants demurred, arguing that the Act was an unconstitutional attempt to exercise a general police power reserved to the States and that its interstate-transport provision infringed the Second Amendment. The federal district court accepted the Second Amendment argument, held section 11 of the Act unconstitutional, sustained the demurrer, and quashed the indictment. The United States appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the National Firearms Act was an unconstitutional exercise of a general police power reserved to the States rather than a valid federal revenue measure.

Holding

No. The Act was a valid exercise of Congress's taxing power.

Reasoning

The Court treated the objection as foreclosed by its prior decisions upholding federal tax statutes that regulate conduct while raising revenue. In particular, Sonzinsky v. United States had sustained the National Firearms Act's taxing structure, and the Court's decisions under the Harrison Narcotic Act likewise recognized that a revenue measure does not become invalid merely because it has regulatory effects.

Because the Act imposed taxes and used registration, documentation, and interstate-transport restrictions to enforce that tax scheme, Congress had not impermissibly assumed the States' general police power. The Court therefore described the federalism objection as plainly untenable.

Issue #2

Whether the Second Amendment guaranteed a right to transport an unregistered short-barreled shotgun in interstate commerce despite the National Firearms Act.

Holding

No. On the record before the Court, there was no basis to conclude that a short-barreled shotgun had a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.

Reasoning

The Court read the Second Amendment in light of its stated militia purpose. The Amendment's guarantee, the Court explained, was adopted to assure the continued existence and effectiveness of the militia forces that the Constitution contemplated the States would maintain and train.

At the founding, the militia consisted generally of able-bodied male citizens capable of acting together for the common defense. When called into service, these citizens were ordinarily expected to bring arms of the sort they supplied themselves and that were in common military use at the time.

The indictment concerned a shotgun with a barrel shorter than eighteen inches. The Court found no evidence that this weapon had any reasonable relationship to a well regulated militia's preservation or efficiency. Nor could the Court take judicial notice that such a weapon was ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

The Court therefore did not hold that all arms were outside Second Amendment protection. Rather, it held that the record did not establish the requisite militia-related character of the particular weapon at issue. The district court's contrary ruling invalidating section 11 as applied to this indictment could not stand.