Below is my column in The Hill on the announcement from Justice Samuel Alito that he is sticking around. Even a cursory review of the docket explains why Alito is not eager to depart despite the wishful thinking of folks at National Public Radio.
Here is the column:
Justice Samuel Alito is not done yet.
A month after National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg announced that Sam Alito was retiring (a story NPR later had to retract), the 76-year-old jurist told the Wall Street Journal in an interview, “Obviously, I’m here for another term.”
Looking at the docket for the coming term, it is easy to see why. Even after overturning Roe v. Wade and other historic opinions, Alito still has unfinished business. An example can be found in two cases involving bans on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 that are now awaiting argument in the October term.
Many of us have been frustrated by the Court’s failure to address these laws barring AR-15s and other weapons. Just last year, the Supreme Court declined review of such a Maryland law. Alito and Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch indicated that they wanted to hear the case, falling just one vote short of granting certiorari.
Notably, the required fourth vote could have come from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who called the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Snopes v. Brown “questionable” and added that the Court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”
Now, it will.
Democrats are moving in various states to ban the nation’s most popular rifle (the AR-15) and its most popular handgun (the semiautomatic 9mm). Some of us view these laws as presumptively unconstitutional.
In 2008, the court declared in its opinion in Heller that gun ownership is an individual right. The court emphasized how these weapons were in common use and not the type of dangerous or unusual weapon that would fall outside of the Second Amendment. Handguns, the opinion reads, “are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.”
In 2022, the Court held in the Bruen case that the government bears the burden of demonstrating that any restriction upon the right to keep and bear arms “is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The bans on Glock handguns and semiautomatic rifles are efforts to achieve indirectly what the Supreme Court barred directly. In Virginia, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) immediately moved against gun rights after her election. Ironically, her election not only spurred a massive surge in gun purchases, but she then supplied the lead line of briefs challenging the law. Spanberger admitted that the state law she signed would ban commonly used hunting guns.
In what is known as the court’s “clean-up conference,” the justices granted review in Illinois and Connecticut cases challenging bans on semiautomatic rifles.
In Viramontes v. Cook County, the Seventh Circuit relied on an earlier ruling that gun owners had failed to show “that the covered firearms materially differed from machine guns and military-grade weaponry, which the Supreme Court instructed can be banned under the Second Amendment.”
In Grant v. Higgins, the Second Circuit upheld a similar ban after agreeing with the state that the law imposes “a burden comparable to historical antecedents that regulated other unusually dangerous weapons unsuitable for and disproportionate to the objective of individual self-defense.”
Notably, in the Illinois case, Cook County argued that these are not just unusually dangerous weapons, but that the challengers cannot offer “even a single instance in which assault weapons were ever used in lawful self-defense.”
That is a highly dubious claim. Since 1990, there have been an estimated 32,091,000 Modern Sporting Rifles in circulation. These are semiautomatic models, which means they fire a single bullet and then automatically load another cartridge into the chamber. The AR-15 is the most popular model, and there are estimates that it has as many as 25 million owners.
The popularity of the AR-15 is due to the fact that it is modular, with some models allowing one to swap out barrels, bolts and high-capacity magazines, or add a variety of accessories. It is also not the most powerful gun; many guns have equal or greater calibers.
There is roughly the same number of Glock pistols in circulation. That means perhaps 40 million Americans currently possess weapons that Democrats are trying to ban as unusually dangerous and completely unprotected.
With the granting of these cases, Virginia’s ban on new sales of the AR-15 rifle and other guns will have to await the final decisions.
These gun bans are not the only cases involving politically popular, legally dubious legislation. The first case to be argued will be Suncor Energy v. Commissioners of Boulder County, a challenge to state laws imposing damages on fossil fuel companies for climate change.
With a docket like that, one can see why Alito is not going anywhere.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
This is one thing that actually gives me hope – Alito’s level of dedication simply does not exist in the dsa; when things get tough, they run away. Let’s make things very, very, very tough for them. Unfathomably tough. All they know is crumbling in the face of actual adversity, or running to mom and dad.
We are fond of the concept that the 50 States and Territories are individual laboratories of social experimentation in our federal republic. The Second Amendment cases under the Bill of Rights, decided by SCOTUS, decide what experiments States can run in their labs. When the blue States start lab tests on both the right to bear arms and defund policing at the same time, they are missing the optics through the Bill of Rights that they are doing gain of function research in a Wuhan Lab. Worse, their answer to continuing the lab work is to pack SCOTUS to get finality of answers that elevate their lab preferences over the restraints they see in Justice Alito and company. Anybody ready for more compulsory face masks and no children in class?
Oops. Omitted sign in.
I’m actually OK with states having their labs. Let them fail individually without bringing the rest of us with better sense down; heaven forbid they migrate when those experiments implode. Unless I’m misunderstanding, and if I am, then clarify, you make it sound like these jaunts in extreme, juvenile leftist ‘experiments’ are somehow a benefit. They are decidedly not. And it sure as sh** is not ‘new’ to anyone over the age of 45, and that is not an old age.
Many of us followed this precise line of thinking when AOC was hired. And she was.
“…OK with states having their labs.”
I don’t object to the concept, subject to your qualification. But if the experiments violate any of the Bill of Rights Amendments as applied to the States through the 14th, they are illegal and prohibited until such time as additional Amendments change that status.
I know yo meant to let “when she was installed”
AR-26 PENDING VERBAL GUN POINTED TOWARD SCOTUS JURISPRUDENCE
Losing well-seasoned justices, who have excellent command of prior decisions as well as in-chambers-in-depth arguments preceding them, would be a loss for all of us.
Alito seems to possess an ego which can rise above the insults and pressures, -unlike Jackson, who often substitutes surficial emotional response for comprehensive understanding of the presented issues, then proceeds to fashion/justify her opinion encapsulating that response.
Ah! How do I enjoy watching Democrats pass un-Constitutional laws, only to have them get slapped down by the SC and there by strengthening the 2ndA.
Like to thank NPR for demonstrating how irrelevant they have become by not even bothering to fact check a story as it was too good to be true.
@Upstate
Me too, me too (is that phrase even usable any more?). Very obviously why the modern left would like to pack or abolish the institution altogether. Only insane children draw these conclusions, even simply coy adults would see a stratagem rather than wet their pants. Tired of governing by temper tantrum, I can tell you that much.
Nothing like pure hate in your head eh man? What makes a sicko like you tick?
BREAKING:
Mitch McConnell has been discharged from rehab and will continue being dead at home.
He’s gotta be pretty stinky by now
Maybe he is “resting” in his Frigidaire !!
We had a Frigidaire that lasted 25 years!
This is a sad day. A very sad day. Here we are, We the People arguing whether or not to ignore the Bill Of Rights. It’s horrendous enough that We the People have this argument over the First Amendment (to the point of creating the Disinformation Governance Board, and de-platforming the sitting President of the United States of America). And the Second Amendment too?!? When everyone agreed that the United States of America is a nation of laws, We the People used to follow the lawful process of amending the Constitution when we thought it needed change. Now that loud voices preach that they’re above the law, loud voices skip the lawful process and simply preach and shout and name-call and bully and assassinate. And here we are, with Professor Turley saying that America can be a nation of laws only if one particular Supreme Court Justice doesn’t retire. 😢
This is a sad day. A very sad day
Nope. Today is a marvelous day: a day of opportunities, to create, achieve, to eliminate obstacles and reach for that golden ring, to lead by example, teach the ignorant, feed the hungry (physically and spiritually), and heal those in our midst.
Today on the Catholic Calendar is the Feast Day of St Lawrence. There was a time, not too long ago, when Americans busied themselves with their daily tasks and obligations, reached towards their goals, engaged hard work and cared for their family and loved ones. That day can be today for you. Widowed? Retired? Lonely? All the better to get out and interact with others who are in need. The world is your oyster or it is a world of nihilism.
St Augustine shows us the way as does Justice Sam Alito, a faithful Roman Catholic. So now you have your answer. Get busy.
And go buy some ammo for your AR-15! Be clever as snakes and innocent as doves, and always watch out for commies
😇
===
From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop
(Sermo 304,1-4: PL 38, 1395-1397)
He ministered the sacred blood of Christ
The Roman Church commends to us today the anniversary of the triumph of Saint Lawrence. For on this day he trod the furious pagan world underfoot and flung aside its allurements, and so gained victory over Satan’s attack on his faith.
As you have often heard, Lawrence was a deacon of the Church at Rome. There he ministered the sacred blood of Christ; there for the sake of Christ’s name he poured out his own blood. Saint John the apostle was evidently teaching us about the mystery of the Lord’s supper when he wrote: “Just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”. My brethren, Lawrence understood this and, understanding, he acted on it. Just as he had partaken of a gift of self at the table of the Lord, so he prepared to offer such a gift. In his life he loved Christ; in his death he followed in his footsteps.
Brethren, we too must imitate Christ if we truly love him. We shall not be able render better return on that love than by modeling our lives on his. “Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps.” In saying this, the apostle Peter seems to have understood that Christ suffered only for those who follow in his steps, in the sense that Christ’s passion is of no avail to those who do not. The holy martyrs followed Christ even to shedding their life’s blood, even to reproducing the very likeness of his passion. They followed him, but not they alone. It is not true that the bridge was broken after the martyrs crossed; nor is it true that after they had drunk from it, the fountain of eternal life dried up.
I tell you again and again, my brethren, that in the Lord’s garden are to be found not only the roses of his martyrs. In it there are also the lilies of the virgins, the ivy of wedded couples, and the violets of widows. On no account may any class of people despair, thinking that God has not called them. Christ suffered for all. What the Scriptures say of him is true: He desires all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.
Let us understand, then, how a Christian must follow Christ even though he does not shed his blood for him, and his faith is not called upon to undergo the great test of the martyr’s sufferings. The apostle Paul says of Christ our Lord: “Though he was in the form of God he did not consider equality with God a prize to be clung to.” How unrivaled his majesty! “But he emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men, and presenting himself in human form.” How deep his humility!
Christ humbled himself. Christian, that is what you must make your own. Christ became obedient. How is it that you are proud?When this humbling experience was completed and death itself lay conquered, Christ ascended into heaven. Let us follow him there, for we hear Paul saying: If you have been raised with Christ, you must lift your thoughts on high, where Christ now sits at the right hand of God.
COLLECT
O God, giver of that ardor of love for you
by which Saint Lawrence was outstandingly faithful in service
and glorious in martyrdom,
grant that we may love what he loved
and put into practice what he taught.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever, Amen.
http://www.liturgies.net/saints/laurence/or.htm
Obviously you have a reading comprehension problem.
BTW, there are several judges that would be comparable to Justice Alito that could replace him.
No, Esquire, the nation of laws was traded for a 3rd world. It was always going to be 80/20 split. 20 percent are lawless. Now 20 percent are lawful. Simply the truth as it is.
Packing the court, as both the DNC and DSA have promised to do upon achieving their goal of government control, would render the Constitution and the Bill of Rights dead letters. They want more jurists in the mold of KBJ who will rubber stamp any legislation passed by the Democrats. Like other authoritarians, I would first expect them to make permanent their control of government rendering the US effectively a single party country. The Republican may remain as a minority but as the Dems promise they will never win another election. The Constitution was designed by people who were skeptical of a centralized, all powerful government so they created 3 independent branches to counter the excesses of the other two. The keystone of the tripartite structure is SCOTUS. Take that away and everything fails. Trump with all of his faults is not the threat to our country the Dems try to make of him. He has followed court rulings whether they are adverse to his wishes or not. This is in contrast to his predecessor. The real threat is the party that openly promises to pack the court and take away our liberty, security and prosperity. It is up to us to defeat them.
It will not be legislation, it will be edicts that the elites in the DSA will not have to follow.
He had already hired his Clerk’s for next term. Why the drama of retirement?
Back in June NPR journalist (and “Founding Mother” of NPR) Nina Totenberg heard that the court was announcing retirements (which she misheard as retirement – singular), jumped to the conclusion it was Alito, and published it without doing any fact checking. NPR retracted the story later the same day, but you know some news outlets won’t let a juicy story (conservative SC seat opens up) die before it’s earned them sufficient money/notoriety. The real story of course is that one of the most senior journalists at NPR could make such a rookie mistake / act of journalistic negligence,, and that NPR doesn’t have a process in place to catch mistakes like this before its too late.
“The real story of course is that one of the most senior journalists at NPR could make such a rookie mistake / act of journalistic negligence,, and that NPR doesn’t have a process in place to catch mistakes like this before its too late.”
Surely that cannot surprise you. NPR has been a cesspit of marxists spewing propaganda (and very little else) for a long time.
Cook County argued that there is not “even a single instance in which assault weapons were ever used in lawful self-defense.”
Though irrelevant to the *right* to own a gun, that claim is patently false.
There are numerous such examples of an individual using an AR-15 in self-defense: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in 2017, and perhaps the most famous example —
The Sutherland Springs, TX church shooting. That mass murder was stopped by Stephen Willeford, a private citizen who shot the murderer with an *AR-15*.
And how could anyone forget how Kyle Rittenhouse defended himself from crazed leftists with an “AR-15 style weapon” in WI in 2020. Of course he was charged, but he plead self defense and was acquitted on all charges.
why are the REST of the Republicans SO DAM WEAK!
Grant v. Higgins: weapons “disproportionate to the objective of individual self-defense.”
Here we have the Court’s “reimagining” of 2A, where somewhere it finds the language:
“. . . the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” so long as the Arms are proportionate “to the objective of individual self-defense.”
Up next, a “reimagining” of 1A:
“Congress shall make no law [. . .] abridging the freedom of speech,” so long as that speech is proportionate to the defense of one’s opinions.
And who decides what is and is not proportionate (and “disproportionate”)? Bureaucrats who wish to seize guns and censor speech.
That is a typical fascist move: Leave the individual with the *possession* of a right — while the government strictly controls how an individual *uses* that right.
Typical fascist move? Sam you make me laugh, you should write comedy or be on the supreme court. Can’t wait for the next joke.
So machine guns, RPGs, tanks and nuclear bombs are to be allowed as personal possessions?
That’s what you’re arguing for by labelling the self-defense-proportionality-standard as fascist.
Whoops.
“machine guns, RPGs, tanks and nuclear bombs are to be allowed as personal possessions?”
Yes, that is precisely correct. The Second Amendment makes no qualification on the use of the arms that The People have an irrevocable right to “keep and bear”. For any use of those arms to be held illegal requires that it be reflected in Federal and State laws against physically aggressive actions and attacks that apply no matter what instrumentality was used in the attack. In fact, the Amendment was enacted in large part as a reaction to the Founders’ then recent experiences with oppressive governance from the British, and was intended, among other objectives, to prevent such oppression from becoming established by government here. The fact that fools like you hate everyone else nearly as much as you despise yourselves, and would deny everyone the right to defend individual Life and Liberty, has no legal or moral bearing on the matter.
You’re insane.
Do you want to allow smallish radicalized cults or cells arming themselves to the teeth with military weapons and then trying to launch a revolution?
It’s much more likely that a small bunch of paranoid whackos are going to try to start a revolution to overthrow the USG than the middle class taking up arms in a well-organized revolt.
p.s. I don’t hate America, I love her, so you fail at mind-reading.
The argument that you either have the gun control you advocate or you “… allow smallish radicalized cults or cells arming themselves to the teeth with military weapons and then trying to launch a revolution…” is at best a false choice. What actual experience teaches is that the cults and cells you describe will get the arms you want to control no matter what the law you want says. In other words, your gun control regime would only stop those who would never use the weapons the way you describe from owning them, and leave the cults and cells to do what they were going to do in the first place with whatever weapons they choose to use (which won’t be purchased at the local Bass Pro Shop, BTW). Not a good outcome.
As for your second statement, “It’s much more likely that a small bunch of paranoid whackos are going to try to start a revolution to overthrow the USG than the middle class taking up arms in a well-organized revolt.” I think I agree, but doesn’t that just make I Don Wannutono’s argument?
Gun control seems like blaming the hammer when you hit your thumb with it.
-g
Excellent point. false choice; It’s also called all-or-nothing, false binary choice or ‘black or white’ thinking. There is no middle for these thinking distortions and they try to use their own minimizations rationalizations and justifications to buttress their flawed thought.
You talk about “your gun control” from a position of ignorance. I want the populace to be armed, but also want to curtail the abomination of school shootings by young misfits. My solution would be to require young gun owners (under 25) to have an older adult sponsor — a person who knows and keeps tabs on the young person, their mental health, and whether they are veering into a criminal lifestyle. The sponsor would co-sign for the firearm, and be liable for its illegal use or unsafe storage. That gives the sponsor “skin in the game” — young thugs therefore will NOT be able to get any older adult to vouch for them.
This idea keeps gun ownership widely distributed among the population, and keeps government bureaucrats from from deciding who should own guns. It merely injects a dose of missing responsibility into gun ownership, and promotes a safe gun culture passed from older adults to younger ones. It allows the cops to disarm inner-city gangs, since they won’t be able to enlist sponsors given the risk to the sponsor.
It’s not going to prevent all shootings, but a good deal of them perpetrated by young loner males.
It’s not fair to the families who are going to lose members to mass shootings in the future to just accept the status quo (1 mass shooting every 2 weeks). What would you say to them after their loss?….”It was good for me that nothing was done to prevent your loss”. That’s cold and heartless, un-American.
We can have strong gun rights with adult-responsibility attached, and it will be better for everyone. Sponsorship is a way to get more fascistic gun-control proposals discredited.
Doing nothing to prevent mass shootings gives idiotic gun-control measures oxygen.
I apologize for my ignorance (I didn’t realize you knew me so well), but it seems like a better solution would be for responsible adults to interact and mentor the young, including “young misfits”, not sponsor their firearm purchases. The problem with that solution is that it requires a long term commitment and lacks the caché and immediacy of a new law.
On the other hand, the solution you propose does nothing to address the actual instruments of death, the malformed individuals who do the killing. Until we get a handle on ‘why’ they do it, the discussion of ‘how’ (the gun in our discussion) they did it is a distraction.
The old bumper sticker is depressingly right: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
-g
The goal is laudable, but your solution imo does not address the root problem. In my era, children were frequently introduced to firearms at relatively young ages, and adult supervision of youngsters in the use of firearms, until such times as they developed both the skills and the maturity to use those firearms unsupervised, was a given. It did not require a law, it was part of our culture. And there is the flaw in your proposal. A very large number of the current problems in our society originate in the dissolution of our culture, and I am very skeptical that those problems can be effectively addressed through additional laws and regulations. We need to either find a way to restore the positive aspects of the culture we had, or construct a new one that is as good or better. Doing either one of those things is a tremendous challenge, but I think it is our only hope. I also believe that issue parallels a plain reading of the Second Amendment, which has primacy.
Isn’t there always someone wanting to take away your freedom?
“The sponsor would co-sign for the firearm, and be liable for its illegal use or unsafe storage. “
Though seemingly a good idea, what adult is going to undertake such a liability?
Didn’t Rudy Giuliani implement stop and frisk? The Wyatt Earp effect might work but wasn’t it found to be racist? 50 percent of black males carry weapons? Stop a black guy and it’s a 50/50 chance of paydirt? Crime decreased otoh? The failure may be in the ability to apprehend criminals?
Biden said we can’t do all that cause he has jets and bombs and you can’t win against ’em. He was threatening US citizens BTW.
You can legally buy tanks, fighter jets, flamethrowers and rockets.
And back in the day we had private warships. The Constitution explicitly allows private pirate ships too!
Aren’t states defending themselves from the feds? Tell Jefferson Davis?
Absolutely correct assessment….
Well, I am pleased that Justice Alito will continues to sit through another term and maybe even more after that. After all, NPR and Nina Totenberg need to have something to print and then retract, just to remind us that they are still there.
As far as I can tell, there are two main positions at play.
On one side, many gun advocates could accept a ban on AK-47-type rifles. Their real objection is that they deeply distrust Democrats, whom they believe ultimately want to ban all guns and see an AK-47 ban as just the first step.
On the other side, Democrats continue the push to ban AK-47s because it serves as a reliable “red meat” issue for their anti-gun voting bloc, which will support this matter irrespective of anything else..
As a result, both sides remain perennially at odds with each other.
Actually, there is a common sense argument to hold back the “massacering aggressor’s kill rate”. That gives more time for self-defense to kick in, lowering the body count of mass murder sprees.
Yes, constraining the kill rate of purchasable firearms is pro-self-defense.
” many gun advocates could accept a ban on AK-47-type rifles”
That would depend on who you define as a “gun advocate”. It is also totally irrelevant as a criteria for applying the 2nd Amendment.
Actually, Republicans mostly use guns for self defense, sport, hunting. Democrats tend to pack themselves into densely populated cities, which is also where most violent crime occurs. It’s where gangs form. And where most black voters live. Blacks are responsible for almost half of all gun related homicides. And black gang members are responsible for most of those. Black people overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
So gun violence is a much bigger issue for constituents in Democrat jurisdictions (big cities) than it is for people in Republican districts.
That’s why the two parties are so far apart.
(Heck, the small rural county where I live in has not had a gun related homicide in my life of 60 years. There have been suicides. And about ten years ago a kid who was a foster child used a knife to murder his foster father. But no gun related homicides.)
re: “AK47”
BTW, the current “debate” topic is the legality of ownership of firearms classified as “AR-15”, not “AK-47”. Now, the entire basis of the arguments in those terms are ridiculous over-generalizations, because each one designates a specific group of firearms deployed by a government military. But it the generalized sense, AR-15 refers to a semi-automatic (typically) carbine originally developed by FN Herstal in Belgium ffor NATO, and deployed on the M-16 US military platform. It is 5.56x45mm caliber, These firearms can, under many conditions, also fire .223 Remington ammo). It was intended to be more portable and more precise than the existing 7.62×39 rifles in use by the Soviet bloc, and can feature many, similar “military-type” accessories. The AR-47 was originally a Soviet Russian infantry weapon firing that 7.62x39mm ammo (largely interchangeable with .308 Winchester). It too, is very configurable with military-type accessories, but was intended to lay down heavier, slightly less accurate fire for covering movement of relatively small units of troops and similar purposes. It gets very complicated in the non-military marketplace, as weapons that are very loosely based on (or inspired by) either platform are available in a variety of calibers, with significant variations in accuracy, accommodating large variations in ammo capacity and available accessories. In case you haven’t gotten the message by this point, the classifications themselves, as applied to civilian firearms, and the current debate, are largely BS.
Thank Goodness for Alito! America has been compromised at all levels of government. The enemy of our nation is within.
The Second Amendment is not limited to self-defense in abortive choice (not elective or Choice, Planned), but includes hunting, shooting, and other practices useful in training.
The “history and tradition” standard invoked by Alito opens the door to highly subjective and pre-determined outcomes.
Roberts used “birthplace created a subject to the King” law from the time of Shakespeare to justify a historically ignorant, indiscriminate interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Meanwhile he ignored:
• The standard way babies of immigrants became US Citizens throughout the 1800s was by Derivation, automatically on the same day a parent was Naturalized. That child proved their Citizenship by showing the parent’s Naturalization papers, not by showing a birth certificate. Nothing about this practice changed in 1868. This explains why as late as 1898 Wong Kim Ark was not considered a US Citizen by US Customs. 19th century history completely refutes the claim that the 14th Amendment was intending to change the timing and way immigrant babies became US Citizens.
• The source of the cited common law, England, phased out birthright citizenship in an orderly fashion starting in 1981 replacing it with Citizenship Inheritance
“History and tradition” simply means “I’ll write the opinion the way I want, choosing from history as I want”.
“highly subjective and pre-determined outcomes.” That’s exactly what it it intends, based on “history and tradition”. And that’s a problem? I know it’s early but…
You can cherry pick whatever you want from history — just look for what you want and you’ll find it there.
The “original intent” of a Constitutional Amendment is a more firm, objective standard. It has these 2 advantages:
• You can figure out what the Amendment meant at the time by studying behaviors that changed immediately after Ratification
• You can safely assume that meaning is very close to what the Ratifiers were voting “aye” for
The original intent deduced this way carried the legitimacy of Ratification. SCOTUS decisions based on “history and tradition” veer outside original intent. It signals to lower court Judges that they may also decide cases this way. That opens the door to “interpretive law-making” — things never passed by our elected representatives, but rather the policy preferences of activist plaintiffs.
Clarence agrees with you, pb.
It’s funny that leftwing Fascists ban AR-style weapons, then claim there are no instances of AR-style weapons being used in lawful self-defense. Everyone knows that ARs are used all the time in home defense, and sometimes in defense outside the home, in areas where the Fascists haven’t banned them. Tautological arguments like “ARs are illegal and ARs are never used lawfully for self-defense” aside, if these weapons were so dangerous and inherently evil, they would not be in the gun racks of police cruisers in cities like Chicago and states like Virginia.
Everyone knows that ARs are used all the time… Everyone? How did you come to that conclusion? Probably thru drug and alcohol abuse.
You would have to brandish an AR in front of a home invader to claim it as a self-defense incident. I haven’t read about ONE such incident ever. Have you?
Actually yes I have. In MO a man and wife brandished firearms including an AR in defense of their property and were arrested for doing so.
I do remember that incident.
Are we only allowed to defend ourselves in the vicinity of our homes? Not on the street, or at school, church, work or while out shopping, exercising etc.?
That’s a new one on me. You’ll have to show me the law that describes that limitation.
“You’ll have to show me the law that describes that limitation.”
There is no single law to cite. The restriction is implicit in the extremely limited and selective recognition of the 2nd Amendment in states like NY and NJ. Here in NJ, for example, prior to Bruen, there was virtually no such thing as legal handgun carry by an “ordinary” citizen. The only people allowed to carry, openly or concealed, were cops and uniformed guards (military personnel were allowed to carry on-base only). Even now, NJ expires carry permits every two years, requires a $200 license fee each time, generally requires a full re-qualification for each renewal, and does its damnedest to restrict carry to the maximum possible extent by establishing a plethora of “no-carry” zones so as to discourage as many people as possible from applying in the first place.
In addition, if someone who is in his or her own home in NJ does shoot an intruder, the onus is on the homeowner to demonstrate that their life was in danger and that they had no other effective option to protect themselves, otherwise that homeowner will be at significant risk to be indicted and tried for assault with a deadly weapon (if the intruder lived) or manslaughter. That risk is higher in the many NJ jurisdictions who have gun-hating prosecutors, but it exists everywhere in the state.
Folks, when a commenter resorts to using generalizations: “everyone knows”, you know that he has no idea what he’s writing about.
The Dumbocrats want to increase the number of Justices to 13 (so long as only the next Dumbocrat President gets to nominate the new ones) because there are 13 federal courts of appeal. If they do that I say the Repubs should increase the number of Justices to 50 (so long as only the next Repub President gets to nominate the new ones) because there are 50 states. And the next Dumbocrat President after that will want to increase the number of Justices to 100 because there are 100 Senators, and the next. . . . .
You sound like a crazy liberal, or are you writing jokes for Bill maher?
It is true that in the past the number of SC equalled the number of circuit courts. The reason was that SC justices also served as circuit judges, and travel times were long (no air travel and no automobile yet). That is no longer the case. SC justices no longer have that double role. Thus, the argument that the number of SC justices must align to the number of circuit courts is no longer valid.
The only reason Dems want 13 SC justices is to create a democrat majority of the court.
Theocrats are gross.
But, but….. we have to pack the courts.
The court will be “packed” by Trump when retirements occur during the remainder of his term.
You don’t understand packing the court. It is to increase the number of justices by a great number and then appoint ones with the most radical views of your party. Only one party, the Democrats, want to do that.
Replacing one justice with another is not packing the court.
Hence the quotation marks…
You don’t understand packing the court as it is applied in news nowadays. Its a deliberate attempt to insert politically baiesed judges with a liberal bent, initiated by liberals, not conservatives, to carry their political agenda by diluting the effect on conservative judges. Replacing is not packing. But you know that, you’re just being a dickhead.
Only democrats. Not true. Trump has stated it several times, here’s one: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trumps-supreme-court-picks-ruled-110547529.html
Oppps, on May 11, 2026.
“to increase the number of justices by a great number and then appoint ones with the most radical views of your party.”
NTM that a Republican POTUS nearly always takes considerable pains to find an eminently qualified, highly experienced judge to nominate to SCOTUS. That results in the typical Republican nominee being of later middle-age or older, which has definite statistical implications for how long that justice will serve. Does anyone seriously expect anything remotely resembling that kind of due care to be exercised by Socialist Democrats intent on packing? They will be doing their very best to get Marxist 20-somethings on the bench so that they can count on getting the decisions they want for the next 40 – 50 years, no matter who may hold power in the White House or Congress at any point during that time.
and later by Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, and on, and on, until KBJs retirement.