Jack Miller And Carmenon Case Brief

Summary: On April 18, 1938 Jack Miller and Frank Layton were arrested by police when they attempted to take an unregistered sawed-off double barrel shotgun from Claremore, Oklahoma to Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Transporting a firearm that has a barrel under eighteen inches over state lines is not registered and has no stamped paperwork violates the National Firearms Act of 1934. The NFA was a, "revenue act, levying a $200 transfer tax on all covered firearms"(NYU Law, 61). This was a useful tax during this time because it helped control the gangsters from acquiring machine guns(NYU Law, 61). Miller and Layton's case was tried in an Arkansas district court by Judge Hiram Heartsill Ragon. On June 2, 1938 Miller and Layton pleaded guilty to one count of illegally transporting an untaxed short-barreled shotgun in interstate commerce, but Judge Ragon did not accepted their plea(NYU Law, 59).

The Second Amendment allows for a, "well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"(Find Law). He argued that, "the NFA is not a revenue measure, but an attempt to unsurprising police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional"(Cornell Law). Judge Ragon was known to support gun control so, "Ragon did not really think the NFA violated the Second Amendment, and probably colluded with the government to create the ideal test case"(NYU Law, 63) Ragon wanted to empower the government to be able to limit what firearms were available to