Clarence Thomas laugh
(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

The result [of the Bruen decision], quite simply, has been legal chaos. The history of gun regulation is not so neat and clean as to yield easy historical parallels to the questions at issue today; American legal doctrine has developed considerably since the colonial and Reconstruction eras. As a result, unless the government can draw a bright line between history and the present day, its gun control measures are in mortal legal peril.

The federal court rulings after Bruen have been dramatic. In United States v. Rahimi, the Fifth Circuit reversed the federal conviction of a man who possessed a weapon while subject to a domestic violence restraining order. In April, a federal district judge struck down the gun possession charges of a marijuana user. In June, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, held that federal law violated the Second Amendment rights of a nonviolent criminal to purchase a firearm.

And now Hunter Biden, who bought a gun as a nonviolent, unlawful drug user, is charged under the same federal statute at issue in each of the cases above. Arguably, Biden’s best defense to that charge is to join a host of other criminal defendants by challenging that count under Bruen’s text-and-history test. He just might win — and if he does, he will contribute to the dismantling of a key element of federal gun regulations.

My own view is that Thomas’s text-and-history test is deeply misguided. To take the Rahimi case as an example, American legal history is frankly dismal when it comes to protecting women from domestic violence. Should this longstanding historical failure have the power to determine modern legal doctrine? Similarly, prohibitions on drug use and possession largely date to the 20th century. Modern gun jurisprudence should not restore our nation’s laws to a deeply flawed, premodern phase.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court granted the federal government’s motion to hear the Rahimi case, and oral arguments are set for Nov. 7. The court has an opportunity to right the wrongs of the worst aspects of its holding in Bruen. But unless it does, there may be few greater beneficiaries of a conservative legal doctrine than Hunter Biden himself. His ordinary gun charge landed in a time of legal chaos over gun regulation, and unless the Supreme Court says otherwise, expect that chaos to win.

— David French in The Most Interesting Element of the Hunter Biden Indictment

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

52 COMMENTS

  1. hunter should win his 2a case. As should we all. Unless you are serving a jail sentence there should be no restrictions on your rights. 4473’s and background checks are bogus. Except in very limited cases the ,gov has no business in your 2a rights.

    hunter is a waste of skin. The world would be improved without him. But that does not change the fact that unless he’s in prison for a real crime he has the same 2a rights as all of us.

      • SAFEupstateFML,

        The statute of limitations is the issue for the other dozen or so potential charges.

        The Ruling Class absolutely LOVES the statute of limitations. They violate laws at will and know that, if someone starts beating the prosecution drums, they will convince the prosecutor to put the investigation on the back burner until the clock runs out–then the prosecution can just throw up their hands and avoid any culpability. Of course that means the Ruling Class evades culpability as well.

        • Would love to argue you on that but …………..it’s functionally the exact model we are ruled on.

        • And then when the statute of limitations helps their opponents avoid witch hunts, they just pass a law that creates a small window of opportunity! That’s what they did with the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit against Trump. You know the lawsuit that “cleared her name” because Trump “lied.” It’s funny how they never mention that the jury called E. Jean a liar. The jury said she lied about the rape. It’s funny how propaganda works. Jump to 9:04 in the video. They give the game away. Oh, and earlier in the video, they admit that the lawsuit was funded by a Democrat donor. Of course.

          Adult Survivors Act
          E. Jean “helped” to get that very temporary law passed! Yes, they passed a law so she could sue Trump. She filed her lawsuit on the day that law took effect.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPrBo2_fyAI

  2. “[Hunter Biden] just might win — and if he does, he will contribute to the dismantling of a key element of federal gun regulations.”

    Unless the prosecutor assigned to this case finds a way to torpedo the prosecution (and I would be stunned if that fails to happen), the Bruen decision means Junior’s attorneys have a virtually guaranteed path to clearing Junior of the firearm charges.

    If that comes to pass (Junior’s attorneys cite Bruen and the courts declare the relevant firearm laws unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable), the irony would be so thick that you would not be able to slice it with a plasma cutter.

    Of course I doubt that Junior’s case would ever go that far. Even if the prosecutor fails to torpedo his/her own case, I can see the prosecution going forward, Junior pleading guilty, and Father pardoning Junior in order to ensure that Junior’s prosecution is NOT the vehicle which overturns a large chunk of firearm law.

    • “I can see the prosecution going forward, Junior pleading guilty, and Father pardoning Junior…”

      The WH spokeswoman was asked point-blank if dad would pardon son, and she replied “No.”

      So, let’s see what happens…

  3. Is it possible that the drug legaliz@tion crowd can capitalize on the Hunter Biden case to improve their standing for the second amendment???

    I seriously doubt it because at its core the drug legaliz@tion crowd historically has always supported gun control. Because they themselves link the drug dealing business with violence.

    They have said if they could just eliminate guns, then there would be no violence. And they said if they could make drugs legal, then all the crime would go away.

    If Hunter Biden wins this case, which I believe he should. I don’t expect the drug legaliz@tion crowd to be running Pro 2A victory advertising. They’re not capable of doing that. They have always been anti-civil rights.

  4. Excellent Article showing how big a Moron Judge Thomas really is. This Moron should never have have been appointed to the Supreme Court, not to mention the fact that he is the most corrupt Justice ever to sit on the bench. He should be in prison.

    And I got a good laugh knowing that the Far Right Fanatic’s are gritting their teeth and foaming at the mouth over the fact that Hunter Biden just might beat the gun charges. It made my day.

    • “Hunter Biden just might beat the gun charges.”

      That goes to show how all of this is completely over your head. The people prosecuting Hunter for the gun charges are working for Joe Biden’s best interest. The same guy bringing the gun charge already tried to sneak in a deal to absolve Hunter of his other crimes. He had already let the statute of limitations run out on other potential charges. The prosecutor is on the same side as Hunter and Hunter’s attorneys, you imbecile. I don’t expect you to understand any of this.

      Hunter, 53, was poised to admit to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income taxes and enter a diversionary program on a felony weapons charge.

      However, near the end of the diversionary agreement was a paragraph reading, in part, “The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, for ANY federal crimes” committed by the first son for which the statute of limitations had not already expired.
      https://nypost.com/2023/07/27/how-doj-hunter-lawyers-tried-to-sweet-talk-judge-into-accepting-sweeping-plea-deal/

    • God! You are an absolute moron! The man writes the most lucid and understandable opinions on the Court today. Both Tribe and Dershowitz have stated that fact when Biden, as a Senator attacked Thomas. Do the world a favor and lose the ability to type, you troll.

    • “And I got a good laugh knowing that the Far Right Fanatic’s are gritting their teeth and foaming at the mouth over the fact that Hunter Biden just might beat the gun charges.”

      gritting their teeth and foaming at the mouth over the fact that Hunter Biden just might beat the gun charges, which no one is doing.

      Oh gasp! The horror…. that the far left wing Hunter Biden would have constitutional rights too.

      Its enough that you lie, you don’t need to make stuff up too.

    • You’re a weak excuse for a human, I sure hope your family is all gone so they don’t have to feel the shame of being related to you!

    • dacian the demented,

      I may have misjudged you. I was assuming, based on the absolute IDIOCY of your normal posts, the you were a total, drooling, unsentient, mouth-breathing moron.

      Are you ACTUALLY an incredibly devious, cynical, satirical troll??

      It is hard to believe that any actual human could be that stupid. Even with MajorLiar as an exemplar, I find it hard to believe that an entity able to manipulate a keyboard could be that stupid.

      Help me out, here – are you the most clever, cynical, sarcastic troll in history, or are you a complete moron, too stupid to even onanize yourself (which is why you attend MajorLiar’s afternoon circle jerks, where you can have the others do the “hard work” for you????

      If Robert Anson Heinlein had been correct, you would have gone extinct for lack of brain function. Please find a convenient excavation, climb in it, and self-extinguish. It would be a kindness to the rest of the inhabitants of the globe.

  5. “The result [of the Bruen decision], quite simply, has been legal chaos.”

    No. The legal chaos around the second amendment stems entirely from the Supreme Court not following the incredibly clear and simple second amendment, and letting the gun control freaks make it complicated. Strike down the GCA and NFA and see how much simpler the cases become.

  6. Would be funny and expected for the Dems at large to use a Hunter win to malign gun owners and 2A supporters.

    Something like “the crazy gun nuts want a dangerous mentally unstable degenerate like Hunter Biden to have guns!!!!”

    Would coincide nicely with the way they’re throwing Joe under the bus more and more and be another step on their path to becoming the full throated fascist party of hyper censoring Uber neo-cons they always were.

  7. Part of the younger Bidens charges are lying on the federal form. Government agents/officials can lie their butts off to you, but you get felony charges if you fib or outright lie to them or on their precious paperwork. Even the local cops can lie to get an arrest or find something to charge you with, but providing false info/lying to them is considered a crime.
    As I said on other posts, Hunter Biden either will skate again or if convicted, will either get the conviction tossed on appeal, or daddy Joe will pardon him. At 53 Hunter has faced no consequences of any realistic cost ever in life. Daddy made sure of that. Wealth privilege at it’s best.

  8. There is no “legal chaos”. What we have, are the enemies of the constitution maneuvering to destroy the Bill Of Rights, and the constitution. Thus it has been for the past 100 years or so – we can probably date it back to NYC outlawing guns in the city.

    The constitution means what it says, and the Left has been trying to get around it forever.

    It’s past time to slap down all those “living document” fools, and all the rest of our enemies.

    Every person in the US has the right to bear arms, unless stripped of that right, with good reason and due process.. Period. Seriously, full stop.

  9. The Bruen decision didn’t throw anything into chaos. Gun control did that. Bruen is the fix.

    Women that are victims of domestic violence have two very clear paths. Be more discerning with regard to the choice of man you pick and be proficient with guns. Many women have lost their lives due to problems with those two things. Bruen can’t make you choose your man more carefully but it can remove obstacles in your way to firearms.

    It’s important to understand that ‘the chaos’ here is here primarily because of all the gun control laws and regulations put into place by Democrats and RINO Republicans.

  10. Hilarious. The author tries to manufacture some sort of a HBDS (Hunter Biden Derangement Syndrome) in a pathetic attempt to convince those who value their Second Amendment rights that they should be thrilled to give up those rights just to see Hunter Biden convicted and jailed.

  11. “…American legal doctrine has developed considerably since the colonial and Reconstruction eras…”

    The “American legal doctrine” pushed by French and the rest of the elitist scum who treat us like their serfs has turned the Constitution into an ever changing excuse to continually take away our God given rights because the elites don’t think we serfs can handle being “too free.” They use their “legal doctrines” to justify THEIR weird interpretations of the Constitution to legitimize the Progressive orthodoxy they’re forcing on us.

    We don’t need a bunch of lawyerly phony temple priests divining the meaning of sheep entrails to tell us what the Constitution “really” means. It says what it says. There’s a process to amend it if necessary and French and his ilk don’t want to use it because enough of the Country don’t want to see the societal changes the Progressives want to shove down our throats enshrined in the Constitution. Instead, they rely on politicized judges using “American legal theory” to force on us the changes they can’t get legislated.

    As regards the 2nd Amendment, if there’s any chaos it’s not because of Bruen, it’s because the inconsistent, rickety patchwork anti gun ownership laws enabled by “American legal theory” caused it.

  12. How ironic that some of the Biden money that they stole through corruption and influence peddling will go toward helping us put an end to anti-gun laws that they support. Now that is justice!

  13. Two scenarios strike me as likely:

    One, Hunter is convicted. In this case, a corrupt dirtbag suffers some sort of (likely minor) punishment.

    Two, Hunter is not convicted (acquitted, cuts a deal, whole thing is dropped, whatever). In this case, the utility of several federal gun control statutes and enforcement agencies is called into question as well as the whole “equal treatment under the law” principle.

    I don’t see a real downside for the POTG here. Either we get to say, “See, we already have laws on the books necessary to punish people who violate gun laws,” or, “See, the gun laws don’t do anything and the application of those laws is arbitrary and capricious.” Either way, something we have been saying for years will have a high profile case in point.

  14. I disagree that he should get off. He lied on the form, that is the issue. To make this a 2A case, he should have told the truth and been denied. When he lied and signed it, it’s the same as when Michael Flynn was convicted of lying about something that wasn’t a crime. It’s the lie that matters, there is no 2A right to lie.

    • I agree. Where as the 4473 should be abolished and rendered illegal for being unconstitutional, it is still a legal document and it is correct to convict someone for their dishonesty with it. Plenty of people have been put behind bars for this and Hunter Biden should not be any different. If he isn’t convicted then the 4473 should be summarily ended. One or the other. but to let him off and keep that form is an act in conflict.

      • Outside chance it will be ended within a year, not one of the changes I was rooting for but take what we can get and keep taking.

    • VET,

      I’m sorry, direct me to the place in the Constitution where ANY of this is ANY freakin’ business of the federal government (states’ ability to ignore inherent human rights is a separate, and much more fraught,i discussion)????

      From whence do they derive the right to even HAVE the freakin’ form, in the first place???

      Oh, yeah . . . they don’t. I don’t blame FFLs for complying with their bulls**t (I don’t expect them to fight my battles for me), but . . . what, EXACTLY, is the constitutional power of the federal government to stick it’s snotty nose into this issue, in the first place?? Was there some portion of “shall not be infringed” that they found impossible to parse out???

      Government “agencies” exist to perpetuate themselves, and expand their jurisdiction (and insure the continued employment of their employees, who are too stupid and incompetent to find actual jobs). That we let them get away with this is a problem for us to address. I’m kinda not getting why, having identified who the (immediate) miscreants are, we are having so much difficulty with this issue.

      Yes, a major part of me wants to see the cokehead whoremonger scumbag get his just desserts, but . . . the whole thing is bulls**t, of the purest ray serene. BUT, if I have the obligation/liability, please tell me why Senile Joe’s whoremonger, cokehead son should get a pass????

      I anxiously await MajorLiar and dacian the demented weighing in to tell me why it is TOTES OK for Hunter the crackhead whoremonger to skate. ‘Cause ‘reasons’, of course.

      • The Liar has already checked in with his logic” — it’s “selective prosecution” by those rascally Repubs. Liar believes in “law and order” unless he doesn’t.

      • Lamp, I’m opposed to the form and the ATF. My point is, they’ve prosecuted people (conservatives) for lying to the FBI even when there was no crime. The form, legitimate or not, was submitted to the FBI and, if the prosecution can prove that he lied, that is felony so he should be convicted and punished. I simply want to see equal justice. My guess is the prosecution will make a half-hearted attempt to prove he lied and he will be acquitted by an all democrat jury.

        • Vet,

          Fair point (and they have – hell, TBH, they’ve EXECUTED conservatives for defying their “laws” and “rules”). On the other hand, if my argument is “if I have to do it, everyone else does, too!!”, how serious am I about my actual argument?

          I don’t think Hunter the cokehead whoremonger should skate . . . for a thousand things, none of them having anything to do with his “illegal” possession of a firearm. On a practical basis, while I totally vibe with the “what’s good for the goose” vibe . . . let’s focus on the REAL point. The entire CONCEPT is horse apples, and enforcing it against Hunter the crackhead whoremonger doesn’t make me feel any better about the inherent wrongness of the entire concept.

          On my good days, I aspire to some degree of intellectual consistency.

        • Lamp: Aren’t you getting kind of tired of taking the high road on these things and then taking the beatdown the left ultimately supplies in the form of new unconstitutional laws (BCSA, MD SB1, Oregon initiative 114, NM EO, etc., etc.,etc.)?

          Again, lying to the FIB (funny how they can lie to you) is a felony even if what you lied about isn’t a crime. Even if the 4473 is abolished and hopefully it will be, he lied to the FIB and that’s what he should pay for just as many others have.

  17. The questions on a 4473 violate our right to not self incriminate. They need to be abolished! I’m actually fine with background checks until we fix our justice and penal system to be reliable. If you’re free to walk our country, you should have all the same rights and protections as anyone else!

    • Phillip,

      Why in the world would you be OK with ‘background checks’, by the federal government, as a necessary precondition to exercising a recognized, and Constitutionally-protected, right???

      Get me past that logical hurdle, and I’ll be prepared to discuss the rest of the issue.

    • Pete,

      Why?? If your argument is that “if it’s a law we all have to comply with, we ALL have to comply with it, i understand your premise (but that begs the question).

      What is the constitutional rationale for the existence of the form, in the first place??

Comments are closed.