The Supreme Court, for the first time in nearly a decade, is hearing a significant Second Amendment case:
Faced with a defunct ban on transporting guns outside city limits, the increasingly conservative court majority could render a decision making clear what some justices believe: that the Second Amendment extends beyond the home, and that lower courts should view state and local limits on carrying guns in public with skepticism.
“This would be a strange case in which to go big,” says Joseph Blocher, a professor at Duke University School of Law and co-director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. “Yet the stakes going forward are potentially huge.”
I heard Prof. Blocher in NPR yesterday. He seems to believe that the SCOTUS will find some excuse to turn this case toward expanding limits on gun rights.
I’m not sure if it was Pauline Kael syndrome, or playing to the NPR audience’s echo chamber, or if he knows something I don’t. I wasn’t impressed.
Gun rights groups were surprised in January when the high court agreed to hear the case. Gun control groups were surprised in October when the justices refused to jettison it, even after the city and state erased restrictions that were likely unconstitutional.
Both actions went against the court’s recent modus operandi when it comes to guns: avoidance. Since its 2008 and 2010 rulings striking down gun restrictions in the District of Columbia and Chicago, the court has refused to hear dozens of cases challenging lesser limits on who can own what types of guns, where they can be taken, what requirements must be met and more.
Expect a ruling in June.
What the left does not understand: the 2nd Amendment does not grant us rights. We have these rights by dint of being Americans. The 2nd protects us from the gummint abridging those rights.
Living Document versus Original Intent – two views of the Constitution.
From the article:
“When the Supreme Court refused in 2017 to second-guess an appeals court ruling that upheld California’s limits on carrying guns in public, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas summed up the frustration. “I find it extremely improbable,” Thomas wrote, “that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen.”
Kinlaw, we have those rights by virtue of being human, created in the image of God, not by virtue of being American. No?
Should be a slam dunk…why am I worried?
^^ It is a core jurisprudential principle that the courts should not decide any matter they don’t have to, by virtue of lack of standing, mootness or any other reasons. This case is moot.
The case is moot today, sure. But tomorrow, the regulations will be re-enacted and people prosecuted and jailed until the Supreme Court decides to hear the next case, at which time the regulation will quickly be dropped so that case will be “moot” again. Until the regulation is re-enacted and people prosecuted and jailed . . . .
The mootness doctrine is a convenience for the court, not a license to infringe on liberty.
” the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
While waiting for how SCOTUS rules on the “bear” part of the argument it will be most interesting how the Democrats frame their positions.
The case today is moot, and for that matter, Dred Scott was a free man when the decision that bears his name was handed down. I therefore do not see that “people changed the law to avoid making the precedent nationwide” is an insuperable obstacle to this case being heard. Hopefully/prayerfully it will be decided well–for liberty.
What the Constitution actually says about the right to bear arms is this:
Article I. Section 8: The Congress has the power to call forth the MILITIA to execute the Laws of the Union, and to organize, arm, discipline, and govern the MILITIA (while the States appoint officers and provide training)
Article II. Section 2: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the MILITIA of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States
Amendment II: 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.
Were we to follow the letter of the Constitution, gun owners would be members of MILITIAs organized, armed, governed, disciplined, and trained by the President, Congress, and the States. We should do what’s in the Constitution.
If there is one thing that Judge Kavanaugh’s critics and most ardent supports agree on, it is that he is an “originalist,” someone who interprets the Constitution according to the public understanding of it at the time of ratification (and in the case of amendments, adoption.
^ Em, you’re a smarter man and do better as a critic of DJTs character.
Emery, no doubt it would be good if each town had the local militia, but it’s worth noting that when the Constitution was written, the militia consisted of all able bodied males between about the ages of 18 and 46 who did not have a serious criminal record. So arguing that it’s “just about the militia” ironically proves…
…..that it’s a right of the people. It’s one of the best exhibits, IMO, in the “Great Hall of Self-Defeating Arguments”.
“This case is moot.”
Yeah, that’s what the reprobates sold regarding SSM. Next thing ya know, a baker can’t even make a living outside the pozz.
Every leftist idea must not only be defeated, it must be desteoyed by fire.
You forgot muskets, Emery. Can only keep and bear muskets, ‘cuz that’s what existed in colonial times. And only in the home, ‘cuz that’s what the Supremes said a decade ago.
If the Second Amendment were interpreted as broadly as the First, every law-abiding sane adult would be required to carry a weapon at all times. And the crime rate would be nil.
Em, today’s Twitter reporting suggests this is going to go minimally 6-3, with RBG the 6th vote, and perhaps Breyer the 7th.
Its not moot, and its not defensible.
Wow. Even the liberals may be getting some religion on this one. That’s heartening. Outliers: the Obama picks. Just sayin’.
Regarding the technology, if we’re restricted to muskets, Kentucky rifles, and cannon loaded with grapeshot (like the two taken westward by the Mormons after my ancestors chased them out of Nauvoo), are we limited to the 18th century medical care that often made even minor bullet wounds lethal at the time?
(I guess we might have if Hilliary had been elected in 2016, but I digress)
Emery has demonstrated once again that he can cut and paste. And, once again, that comprehension is still elusive.
Bikebubba, the first amendment should be limited to hand inked printing presses. No protection for radio, television, or the internet by Emery’s historical restrictions!