By Lee Williams
In his appearance before the United States Supreme Court Wednesday, attorney Paul Clement argued that New York made it all but impossible for ordinary law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights: specifically, their right to carry firearms outside of their home for the purpose of self-defense.
Clement, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush and represents the petitioners in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, told the justices that carrying a concealed firearm outside the home is constitutionally protected activity, for which citizens should not be required to prove need or show cause.
The Second Amendment Foundation filed an amicus brief in this case joined by a dozen state firearms associations. Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, believes Clement made his case. Gottlieb predicts a victory will be forthcoming.
“The oral arguments went very well for the gun-rights movement. I think the questions from the justices were telling. It appears from the questions that we may not get any of the Democrat-appointed justices to fully recognize the Second Amendment.” Gottlieb said. “However, the remaining justices tipped their hands. I predict at least a 5-4 or possibly a 6-3 victory, but the Chief Justice didn’t tip his hand too much during questioning.”
Gottlieb noted that the two attorneys representing the respondents — New York Solicitor General Barbara D. Underwood and Brian H. Fletcher, the U.S. Justice Department’s Principal Deputy Solicitor General — repeatedly suggested that if the justices did not support New York’s law, they should remand the case back to the lower court for a fact-finding trial.
“That is telling to me,” Gottlieb said. “I think at that point the anti-gun rights justices as well as the attorneys for New York recognized they are not going to win.”
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen will likely join the Supreme Court’s previous landmark gun-rights decisions: District of Columbia v. Heller, and McDonald v. City of Chicago.
“I think the justices recognize that lower courts thumbed their noses at Heller and McDonald, and that their decisions have been all over the place. I think the Supreme Court may be looking at cleaning up that mess,” Gottlieb said.
He believes issues not raised during the oral arguments are also telling.
“The anti-gun rights judges never addressed Second Amendment issues. They went out into the weeds on sociology questions rather than constitutional questions. They were more interested in trying to demonize guns on sociological levels, rather than acknowledging that people have constitutional rights,” Gottlieb said.
During the oral arguments, Clement deftly responded to every question from the justices, and he attacked New York’s requirement that applicants for a concealed-carry license show cause sufficient enough to convince a licensing officer that they should be granted a license to exercise their constitutional right. Eight other states have similar “show cause” laws, all of which could be impacted by the high court’s decision. The rest of the country uses a “shall issue” permitting system.
Underwood and Fletcher said issuing more licenses would result in more firearms on the street, and they argued that the justices should consider population density before making their decision — as if New York residents have different constitutional rights than residents of Wyoming.
“Simply having more firearms cannot be a problem,” Clement said during his rebuttal. “That underscores how completely untailored this law is, and population density is a double-edged sword. In a dense population, there are an awful lot of people who have Second Amendment rights.”
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I’m not gonna call it, especially with Roberts as chief justice. His principal concern is the Court, not our rights under the Constitution.
Praying for the best and preparing for the worst.
Jimmy Beam,
I am pretty confident that the five most conservative Justices–Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett–will strike down New York’s law.
Having said that, I got a vibe that Barrett was a bit reticent to “open the flood gates” with respect to the Second Amendment and she may require a weaker decision to get her vote.
And, as others have said, Roberts could go along with the more conservative five Justices simply to ensure that he chooses who writes the decision. On the other hand, Roberts could oppose to advance the notion that the Court is somewhat balanced rather than hard conservative.
Will this mean we can’t insult new yorkers anymore?
LOL no.
Not at all. Do you imagine that Schumer, Gillibrand, Hochul, and all their ilk give any more a fsck about the BoR now than they did before?
Yeah, Roberts said people don’t need to be armed in the woods….
Plainly not in touch with reality; I’ve been extremely glad to have been armed in the woods, and only a third of the time has it been because of four-footed animals.
fingers crossed.
This so called case is based on a Gun Control law concocted over a century ago and it is rooted in prejudice towards those believed to be misfits. The concocted law has survived because unlike the people who get results by throwing baseless fits over civil war statues or a garage rope mistaken for a noose the real race based, genocide based Gun Control and its diabolical baggage gets ignored…In the meantime those behind the BS “More guns on the street” get as much replay and airtime as they want…plus results due to no real pushback and so goes your rights.
Ummm…OK. Prepare for war. Celebrate peace.
When judges, of all types and levels, bring sociology into interpreting the law, they are an unelected legislature, nor jurists. Judges have no constitutional authority to weigh the effects on society a law may have. A law, at any level, has legitimacy only if there is constitutional authority from which the law is derived.
If a law derives its legitimacy from the constitution, judges have no justifiable authority to rule that the effect of the law is a consideration. In effect, if a judge thinks that society should be a factor, any decision should be ended with a statement that the law is, or is not constitutional, and that if society would be adversely affected, then the remedy is the legislature.
Judges should only determine what the law is, not what it should, or could, be.
At this point in our history, SCOTUS would rule that a ratified constitutional amendment abolishing the SC is unconstitutional, because there has to be a final judicial review, or society would have no certainty of the law.
That’s a nice theory, but it’s not how common law works.
Judges being judges; made up by law professors.
Scalia was neck deep in that crap.
Our system also isn’t 100% a common law system. It’s an inherited common law system. Where other systems and new ones were incorporated. That’s why the “living breathing” concept of law doesn’t fly in America.
Ditto – I really get tired of hearing how it was ok for the King of England to discriminate against Catholics in 1600’s & that justifies denying the right to bear arms to Americans after the 2nd, 13th
&14th Amendments. We fought 2 wars to end this crap.
Not to mention that the “Common Law” system was inherited from England, and some parts of the country would use old “Spanish Law” and others would use “Napoleonic Law” Or older French Law because that is where it started. Now, I can’t imagine using Hawaii’s royal form or Alaska’s Russian law, So, the SC will have to figure out a baseline to start with for the whole country. Add to that our possessions, some of which are Spanish law, but Samoa, Mariana, and the atolls, Micronesia, we will be arguing this for at least another century
“That’s a nice theory, but it’s not how common law works.”
Which didn’t go unaddressed in the comment.
As with most nations today, we live under “rule of men”, not the rule of law. The difference between now and the era of the framers, we no longer even pretend to live under the rule of law.
Not that I disagree, but the anti-gun justices were not arguing their own view of social utility, but instead recognizing that a state legislature made these types of inquiries at the time the law was enacted. The issue then becomes what deference should be given to legislative enactments, for example, that body’s determination of threats to public safety, a recognized “important governmental interest.” One could say, in response, to do so imparts no meaning to “shall not be infringed,” as reflected in one of the comments from the bench that the social utility issue was established at the time the amendment was enacted and is not subject to reconsideration by a different body at a later time.
“…the anti-gun justices were not arguing their own view of social utility…”
I should have been more careful with the comment; it was a general indictment of US jurisprudence.
“instead recognizing that a state legislature made these types of inquiries at the time the law was enacted”
the issue is not that the legislature made such inquiries, but how the law is applied in practice. clearly the practice has been in complete disregard of any such inquiries and in pursuit of favoritism and general disarmament.
quote————-In effect, if a judge thinks that society should be a factor, any decision should be ended with a statement that the law is, or is not constitutional, and that if society would be adversely affected, then the remedy is the legislature.————quote
Which is exactly what already happened back when they passed the Sullivan Law which until now was legalized by the lower courts.
I have seen nothing concerning strict scrutiny. It galls me that the Supreme Court even invented those bogus different scrutiny levels, but having done so, how could any enumerated right not require strict scrutiny? Yet a lot of gun cases have been written up for intermediate scrutiny.
Scalia said something along the lines that the 2A is of its most critical importance in the home, a statement that the “gun ban” circuits glommed onto as a convenient excuse to avoid applying heightened scrutiny outside the home, and ultimately going so far as the Ninth Circuit Young decision holding that the 2A right to bear does not apply outside the home. In essence, they said that since the right is less important outside the home, we can apply a lessened standard of scrutiny. They then applied, in essence, and despite the Heller majority’s rejection, a sliding scale analysis in determining what rights were (not) really worth insisting upon by balancing the right against the important governmental interest of public safety. Of course, public safety always outweighed the right…
“Of course, public safety always outweighed the right…”
Are you seeing a ruling where it’s shall-issue in downtown NYC (with a mandatory training requirement), or will they get to declare NYC is ‘protected’ from citizen carry?
What I was hearing in the back-and-forth is what limits could they get away with in banning citizen carry…
The main problem is most gun cases brought forth are lawsuits, and they end up being judged partially on civil lawsuit “Preponderance of the Evidence” standard that the judge throws in their judgement on “Public Safety” and gun rights loses. There will never be “Strict Scrutiny” applied to a lawsuit, no matter if it applies to any Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Unless there’s a criminal case brought.
What’s needed is a criminal case filed or convicted and the person is NOT a Prohibited person from owning guns, and the gun law is the ONLY charge brought, no other felonies.
Trying to find a case like that is hard, and remember when you get close to having a case like that, the government is going to go full out to find something, anything to “Dirty you up” into a felon for another crime. You most likely would end up going to jail, and have to wait on the appeal to get out. It is more likely your jail sentence would run out BEFORE the appeal was heard by SCOTUS.
A criminal case though require “Strict Scrutiny” when it comes to the law, and especially a Bill Of Rights Amendment. You’ll notice if someone is arrested/jailed for just a Freedom of Speech issue (Not a criminal act except they say it’s against the law.) the Federal courts blow those cases out very fast.
With “Arms’ it’s a bit more complicated because a weapon can be a public danger or nuisance very easily. So courts aren’t so fast to jump in and invalidate laws.
You’ll notice the 1968 NFA Amnesty was a result of a SCOTUS case of a criminal law, NOT a lawsuit of any type. The fact that the government created a very poor system and didn’t advertise it well was overlooked because there was an Amnesty, even if very few took advantage of it.
So actually a criminal arrest of a nonprohibited person JUST for carrying a gun without a license would be perfect. Of course they’d find some other felony to tack on, or everybody’s favorite, “Resisting Arrest”, with only a cop/cops as witnesses to this “resistance” to muddy up the case, as an “Armed Person” resisting a cop.
So don’t expect there to be a criminal case. Most gun people don’t like being involved in a “crime” of any sort, even if it’s just a gun possession or carry case and not a felon involved. They shy away.
We need a “Gun Rights ACLU”, that takes cases that people dislike, but folks send them their contributions quietly because that’s how good law is often made, from bad cases.
It will be a “win”, but narrower than we want.
New York will be “more or less shall issue” with LOTS of restrictions.
I hope its not 12 years to the next case.
We will still need interstate reciprocity.
What we need is nation wide constitutional carry.
And we will have it before the end of Trump’s second term.
Absent a Republican president, a majority in the House, and 60 Republican senators who will vote to override a filibuster, it will not happen.
“And we will have it before the end of Trump’s second term.”
Look at why Trump’s agenda was crippled last time. Why was that? Trump still will be lacking widespread support in Congress and Senate. Establishment Republicrats still want to be well thought of, and will again distance themselves from Trump, especially because they know he will be a lame duck president from the jump.
Republicans are not all gun friendly, many will not support carry for American residents or even citizens, they have not been friendly for this at all. Many do not want the unwashed masses legally carrying firearms. Even your Saint Reagan was not 2nd friendly.
There are a lot of RINO’s that won’t support constitutional carry.
We already have Constitutional carry.
New York will be “more or less shall issue” with LOTS of restrictions.”
Which will translate to NYC being only less “may issue”. The politicians will launch a new campaign to find more subtle ways to infringe, betting that SCOTUS will not take up another 2A matter for another 12yrs.
“We will still need interstate reciprocity.”
Agreed.
Will it require SCotUS intervention to force the issue?
We can hang up any hopes of a USSC “intervention”… They arent stupid and none of them want to wind up like the late lamented Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, mysteriously deceased of “undisclosed causes”…
God Help Us All….
Hope for the best: a 6-3 majority states that the proper Constitutional test is strict scrutiny then finds that no state has ever articulated even a rational basis for restricting a constitutional right to defend onesself, therefore all licensing schemes for handguns are infringements, null and void. Constitutional carry becomes the law of the land in every state.
Prepare for the worst: a bunch of mealy-mouthing about reasonable restrictions, licensing regimes are not only tolerated but supported thereby encouraging the New Yorks, New Jerseys, Marylands, and Hawaiis to find even more ways to empower criminals by disarming citizens.
We already have Constitutional Carry.
“We already have Constitutional Carry.”
It’s not enforced, therefore, it doesn’t exist in the real world…
“It’s not enforced, therefore, it doesn’t exist in the real world…”
True, but who expects simple legislation granting ‘reciprocity’ to be enforced any more reliably? Seems the point of people commenting that “We already Constitutional Carry.” is that if an enumerated right doesn’t prevent gun control laws, how will a a simple piece of legislation (which does not require a court to repeal) be more effective?
Actually a Federal reciprocity law would get a direct nexus to the SCOTUS for a case.
Of course the perfect case would be one where a non-prohibited person with a recognized Carry Permit/License from another state is charged with carrying unlawfully under that state’s statutes.
Any other crimes charged would be leverage to force the person off the appeal and a Federal appeals court string of “No, No, No” and SCOTUS wouldn’t take it, and states would use that as “Proof” it’s permissible to enforce their own laws.
Of course finding a person willing to go to jail/prison while it winds it’s slow way through the Federal circuit and hope SCOTUS will hear it is a BIG risk for them.
Now I know SCOTUS won’t hear it, saying it’s a “States’ Rights” issue right now. a Federal law would force them to rule. it could have disastrous result of them saying Congress/Senate can’t pass a reciprocity law at all, but I doubt it. It would force them to rule in some way.
If that state loses, and they say states have to honor other states’ carry systems, then the next land mine for gun control to step on.
Get them to arrest someone with a valid permit/license for having the ‘wrong” gun or accessory (What they call an “Assault Weapon” or a magazine that’s too big, etc.) and get SCOTUS to rule on “In Common Use” if forty plus other state’s it’s legal in.
The key to victory is small steps to gut gun control laws bit by bit. A Federal Reciprocity law would be like building a step of steps up a huge, un-climbable hill, and grind your way up those stairs slowly to the top.
Of course if Dementia Joe has a Democrat Senate, and appoints a bunch of Justices, this is all moot. They’ll find a way to gut “Heller” and “McDonald” and it’s “Game Over” in gun control chess, just a few moves away.
We might get nationwide shall-issue out of this. If only 8 states are still may-issue, they are clearly the outliers, not representative of the national norm.
The ruling won’t be everything we want, but it will be progress. Remains to be seen how much.
For a number of reasons, I think that this is the more probable outcome. I think that the majority will have an issue allowing local officials the discretion to determine what the 2A allows or doesn’t allow in their jurisdiction (as Underwood argued), and who gets to exercise the right and who does not; instead, I suspect that they will conclude that there should be a single standard binding everywhere. There should be a presumption, as Clement argued, that everyone had the right to carry and the government has the burden of establishing that these individuals should be denied the exercise of that right due to disqualification. “Good cause” then bites the dust.
But what do I know. After the Ninth held that there was no 2A right to the issuance of a CCW in Peruta (and the Supreme Court denied cert.), I thought that there was no way the Ninth could avoid concluding that there had to be a right to open carry in public, otherwise the 2A would lose all effect. Boy was I wrong! (Fortunately that case, Young v. Hawaii, is being held by SCOTUS pending this case.)
“I suspect that they will conclude that there should be a single standard binding everywhere. There should be a presumption, as Clement argued, that everyone had the right to carry and the government has the burden of establishing that these individuals should be denied the exercise of that right due to disqualification.“
I concur with your assessment, this is the outcome I would like to see.
And a permitting scheme that includes classroom education on rights and responsibilities of carrying firearms in the public space, along with a proficiency test on a live fire range to ensure competence.
who are you and what have you done with our troll?
Trusting a corrupted government’s criminal justice system with ANY ‘authority’ to establish, determine, or enforce which or any individual’s rights are to be rescinded for any reason precludes any pragmatic protected Constitutional guarantee of the unqualified and unrestricted ‘Shall Not BE INFRINGED’ Law of the Land.
You are also forgetting that your right to bear arms is a natural automatic immutable guaranteed right. Proficiency tests or requirements are manifestations of priviledged behavior or occupation safety requiremets, or private enterprise skill requirements, NOT applicable to guaranteed rights like privacy, free speech, etc. Of course, in the collective perspective of reasonable social objectivity in honest,; equitable pragmatic application. Constitutionally guaranteed rights should not clash to the extent of canceling each other out, especially under government rule. A private citizen has the ancillary right to deny access by an armed person into his business. Just like the U.S. Army has a right to not accept or dismiss from service any soldier who refuses to train with a firearm according to the protocol of military training. If you don’t comply in contractual agreement, you don’t get the job or access. it’s still Your choice.
It follows because the human ‘behavior’ factor is always subject to transitory analysis and redirection in the general order of social integrations. For instance, you can own and ride a horse, but you are not allowed to ride it into a hospital emergency room, even if it is docile and highly trained to avoid stepping on persons or shitting on the floor. And training or tameness is no matter for your right to own the horse. If you don’t comply, you will be denied access to the hospital until you remove the horse you tried to ride in.
You have an uninfringeable Constitutionally guaranteed natural born right to possess a firearm for many reasons or no reason.
If you commit a criminal act with it, then you are incarcerated and unable to possess ANY dangerous weapons, and that is the limit of government intervention.
Requiring certain training or any of the aforementioned ‘requirements’ is nothing but looking at a wolf in sheep’s clothing through Rosey sunglasses.
Because, in reality, it’s nothing less than a below-radar (gullibly oriented) illegal incremental registration ploy as a precursor to inevitable universal Gun confiscation.
“who are you and what have you done with our troll?“
You gotta quit reading all that silly garbage posted by ‘Fake Miner’.
As I said before, I’m in favor of mandatory firearms training during junior and senior years in high school. Parents can opt their kids out, but until the individual completes the classroom and range time portions of the training, they are not allowed to carry weapons in public spaces.
All part of that constitutional “well regulated” requirement…
Haha just kidding.
I believe in the almighty…Government.
That is why I am against Constitutional Carry, because it eliminates bureaucrats, sacred devotees to the Government, from the process.
That’s fake minor above.
That’s fake miner above.
The constitutional “well regulated” means to keep in good working order. It does not mean training requirements by the government to exercise a God-given right.
OH BTW, I am so stupid sometimes… OK OK… most of the time, that I do not know what “mandatory” actually means. (I don’t know what “well regulated” means either, but I pretend to).
“I’m in favor of mandatory firearms training …. Parents can opt their kids out”
DA’YYYY’MN am i dumb.
…”And a permitting scheme that includes classroom education on rights and responsibilities of carrying firearms in the public space, along with a proficiency test on a live fire range to ensure competence.”
NO! Mandatory “permitting” and licensing schemes are a violation of the Second Amendment “…The RIGHT of the PEOPLE to KEEP and BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT be infringed”. Lawyers and politicians can and do weasel-word around it, but the language is quite clear- and from other language in the BoR we know who “the people” are, from whence our rights are ultimately derived, and just what infringement on those rights is allowed.
“There should be a presumption, as Clement argued, that everyone had the right to carry and the government has the burden of establishing that these individuals should be denied the exercise of that right due to disqualification.”
Mark, here’s the problem with that :
There will be a *massive* increase in the number of things that makes someone a legally ‘prohibited person’.
A reckless driving conviction? You can’t be trusted to drive a dangerous car on a road, then you can’t be trusted carrying a gun.
Get into a heated argument at work? Someone who can’t control their temper shouldn’t be allowed to carry a gun.
That’s just 2, they will come up with hundreds more, and *delight* in doing so…
unleashing viruses, torturing beagles and lying under oath will be ok though.
I bet that little b!tch roberts will side with the commies
I hope he’s right but I wouldn’t count on John Roberts at ALL!
“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.” It’s only twenty-seven words long for a very good reason.
“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”
in a militia.
It doesn’t say that.
But that makes no difference — the people are the militia, so anyone bearing arms is doing so in a militia.
“It doesn’t say that”
right there in the text.
“the people are the militia”
only when they’re in one. the militia is supposed to be “well-regulated”, not sitting on the porch saying “I’m the militia and I’m OK”.
“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”
“in a militia.”
Read the sentence using the rules of American english. Separate the dependent clauses (the ones that makes no sense when standing alone), from the independent clause (the one that needs no support or interpretation in order to under stand).
Now, the dependent clauses read, “A well regulated Militia,…”. Now, tell us what that clause means, all by itself.
The next dependent clause is, “…being necessary to the security of a free State..” Now, tell us what that clause means, all by itself.
Wanna go for gold?
The next clause (the independent clause) reads, “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” Now, tell us what that clause means, all by itself.
The words about militia is merely an example of the purpose of the Second Amendment, a single example not declaring that there are no other examples that could have been applied (see amendments 9 and 10 declaring the Constitution is not permissive, but restrictive of government power.
“Now, tell us what that clause means, all by itself”
unfortunately they’re not all by themselves. they work together to communicate the concept. the first clause sets the context, and the second clause is what happens within that context.
you’re supposed to be in a well-regulated militia. standing around by yourself is not being in the militia.
I was struck by how ignorant some of the questions were—asking about rural vs city and hunting over self defense.
I was also surprised that justices Kagan and Sotomayor kept at the government’s lawyers to mention other rights that are dependent on a licensing officer.
“I was also surprised that justices Kagan and Sotomayor kept at the government’s lawyers to mention other rights that are dependent on a licensing officer.“
I really don’t think it’s all that surprising that a liberal would be skeptical of bureaucratic government control.
Skeptical….Haha…. just kidding!
We “Liberals” (not really, but whatever) worship at the feet of the sacred government. The bureaucratic government control is our deity.
Kagan and Sotomayor were not skeptical, rather they too look for government for guidance on what to say, and how to think.
“I was also surprised that justices Kagan and Sotomayor kept at the government’s lawyers to mention other rights that are dependent on a licensing officer.”
Pfttttpt.
I suspect that was a ruse so that they later could claim they looked at the issue ‘fairly’.
A Leftist is, above all else, Leftist Scum to the *bone*.
Oh, and consider this dark possibility :
What a wonderful way to introduce licensing for the expression of ‘free speech’. Their logic will be, speech is at least as dangerous as guns, so some controls on what people say or *publish* need to be introduced…
will my vulgarian license require more certification than my swearologist one?
no cussin’ ’til midnight, aww shucks.
@Huntmaster
“There are a lot of RINO’s that won’t support constitutional carry.”
Count on it.
I am normally an optimist. In this case, I am hoping that we get shall issue, with a caveat that in major cities, that the governments will get tons of restrictions. That is the best that I expect.
What I suspect we will see is shall issue, with the government having very broad powers to restrict due to what will come to be known as some type of high traffic zones, or as we now call them, gun free zones.
In other words, some gain, and some frozen in place, so that the SCOTUS can say that they are not partisan, while they followed the Constitution. I honestly don’t see them sticking their necks out, either way. While the framers of the Constitution intended for the Court to be relatively weak, and thus non political, and so made their appointments for life, after Marbury v Madison, it became obvious that the Court was not content to remain weak, but wanted a bigger stake of the action, and that there was really no way that they would ever remain apolitical. The only possible means of controlling the SCOTUS was to try and avoid them as much as possible.
The Democrats found that when they could not get their agenda passed via the normal channels, through the legislature and the executive branch, the just did an end around, and found the sympathetic 9th circuit court, to bail them out on tons of leftist drivel. And when necessary, and when the Supreme Court was liberal, they would take things to them, to get it more solidly stamped with official rulings.
This case has a lot of interest because so many people understand just how much is actually riding on it. I look forward not only to the outcome, but to actually reading the whole thing.
The media agrees with Gottlieb. The LA Times, the SF Chronicle, AP, CNN and NBC all say that the court appeared to be leaning towards broader gun rights (without necessarily getting into what that may mean). After all the articles I have been seeing on various sources in the news feed on my phone decrying any expansion of gun rights (unusual only in the sense that there was a slew of this stuff preceding the argument), I anticipate we will see another slew of articles bemoaning this loss and its implications as to the other “may issue” states. If they are right, we may see shall issue in June.
“Gottlieb Predicts a Supreme Court Victory for Gun Rights After Justices Tipped Their Hands”
Hmmm… I think this is a little too early to be putting predictions out. I also don’t think the “Justices Tipped Their Hands” even if some of the questions kinda led to the thought that “Yea! Another one on our side! Yea us!”
This is not the first time the Justices have went with questioning that indicated some kind of favoritism or support towards one side or the other and it ended up going the other direction from the predictions.
pro-second amendment: presented a good case overall and ended it well by driving home the central points the case is about. I thought a few parts could have been a little more “expanded” but they worked out anyway it seems. Seemed to stay on point and support those points.
New York and Fed: I think some of their stuff was well presented even if all of it is not right. I think some of their stuff was somewhat disingenuous in some ways and I think Justices saw that too, especially the parts about and around “population density” (and considering they seemed to shy away from mentioning that’s where the majority of violent crime against people happens and that even then it still happens everywhere not densely populated) and the parts about historical context.
I think their reasoning about people not needing to defend them selves thus not carry because there are other people around and the police can be called was a delusional view point for today’s world. Maybe 30 years ago or longer the threat of police may have stemmed some forms of the majority of crime but today’s criminals overall are no longer afraid of the police not even when thy do arrive and have become very aware that police arrive after the fact with such timing that the bad guy has enough time to do the harm before they arrive. Harm done is harm done, that harm does not magically go away when the police roll up on the scene – I think New York is trying to think the police have some sort of Harry Potter’ish type magic they can use to turn back time when they arrive and prevent the harm. people being around, well…that’s only partially true if the bad guy is still an amateur or afraid of their own shadow – violent attacks by criminals happen all the time and people watch and no one comes to help, for example, recently a woman was assaulted and raped for 45 minutes on a train in front of 23 passengers and all they did was pull out their phones and make video of it, not a one of them called the police or came to the victims aid. I think New York is delusional on this point, I think some of the justices thought this part of the presentation was unrealistic.
there were other things.
“This is not the first time the Justices have went with questioning that indicated some kind of favoritism or support towards one side or the other and it ended up going the other direction from the predictions.”
Yeah, the Roberts betrayal on the ACA…
correction and addition: it was originally reported all the passengers did videos but later is was reported it was just two people who pulled out their phones and did video and none of the other passengers did. One of those two is in doubt by various sources. The Delaware County District Attorney stated that security video shows that one passenger recorded part of it but may not have been aware that it was rape going on. The DA also described the inaction of bystanders (the passengers) as “troubling,” and said officers were called to the 69th Street terminal around 10 p.m. after the assault on the train.
“you’re supposed to be in a well-regulated militia. standing around by yourself is not being in the militia.”
The framers considered all “able-bodied men” to be militia. The congress is supposed to supply the militia of the states with proper gear to become a well regulated militia. As a means to prevent the central government from failing to supply the militia, thus neutering the power of the people to overthrow a tyrannical government, loosed from its bounds.
Because a militia is necessary (for an array of purposes), and because the central government may attempt to disarm the militia by refusing to supply the militia, the framers informed, via the Second Amendment, the central government that the right of the people, in organized and unorganized, to maintain necessary military firepower to repel federal usurpation of the powers of the people.
The framers clearly understood that the militia were both organized and unorganized, and, if wanting to restrict the bearing of arms by unorganized militia, they certainly would have so noted in the Second Amendment.
There is no evidence that, if attacked by the federal standing army, persons not organized into militia units would be barred from participating in repelling the federal standing army.
The then States would never permit a situation where “the people”, sovereigns over the central committee, would place themselves inferior in military power to the federal government the constitution (representing the consensus of “the people”) is designed to control.
The right to defense of self, and defense against tyranny is a fundamental right, not subject to government evisceration/invasion/infringement. Your argument fails on the subject of what is the right of “the people” in a locality that has no organized militia. The founders would laugh that notion out the door. The constitution, nor the Second Amendment, demands that a militia exist everywhere when not deemed necessary in a village, town or city.
The refusal to create/maintain an organized militia does not deprive “the people” of the right to keep and bear arms.
Your entire line of thinking poses a theory that the states are inferior in power to the central government, and that the powers granted the states by the central government, are the source of “rights” under our constitution.
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