Rachel Weiner over at the Washington Post treats the ever-shrinking readership to over 2,000 words of demagoguery and deceit when it comes to her analysis of the Bruen decision. That’s right, she tells readers how the Supreme Court didn’t really mean what it wrote in Bruen. “The Supreme Court said it has been misunderstood,” she wrote.
Here’s the Democratic Party activist with a byline’s highly sensationalistic opening to her gaslighting extravaganza. Again from the WaPo and behind a paywall unless you’re on your phone:
Semiautomatic weapons. Large-capacity magazines. Guns with scratched-off serial numbers. Ghost guns. Guns in bars and restaurants. Guns in the hands of people who have threatened to kill themselves or someone else. Which firearms are legal and who can have them all expanded in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision two years ago in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which strengthened Second Amendment rights in America and launched hundreds of lawsuits challenging gun restrictions nationwide.
It seems little Ms. Weiner (Is that pronounced “whiner?”) may have reading comprehension issues. More likely though, she reads just fine and is working to gaslight readers. Bruen clarified it. Repeatedly. She’s just ignoring the Bruen decision:
But when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is created equal. “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634–635. The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791; the Fourteenth in 1868. Historical evidence that long predates or postdates either time may not illuminate the scope of the right.
Ms. Weiner’s screed continues…
The Bruen test was created in response to conservative complaints that the Second Amendment was not taken seriously enough, with courts too often prioritizing public safety concerns over gun rights. In Bruen, the court said no such choice was allowed — all that matters is whether there is a historical analogue for the regulation being challenged.
The prospect of implementing that decision helped drive Judge Paul Watford, 55, to retire from his lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Oh noes! He retired rather than follow the rule of law. He retired, gets to enjoy a generous pension and then, of course, he’s gone to work for a high-priced law firm. His retirement was for entirely altruistic reasons, right?
“If the Supreme Court hands down a decision like Bruen that imposes a mode of analysis that you think is completely misguided, that leads to results you think are incorrect under the Constitution … if you’re not comfortable doing that, if you don’t want to be implicated in the process, you should find another job,” Watford said.
Later she writes this:
But experts say the decision was written so narrowly that it does not make clear how to address other clauses of the same federal law.
This is only unclear to those like Weiner who wish to conflate Rahimi’s narrow decision with Bruen as a whole.
In the absence of clear guidelines, according to a recent study, an ideological divide has emerged. Judges nominated by Republican presidents are twice as likely to support undoing firearms restrictions in significant decisions, a shift fueled in large part by Trump nominees.
“The Trump judges are close to casting 50 percent of their votes in favor of gun rights, when the average for other Republicans is 28 percent,” said the study from three university professors reviewing more than 1,000 gun-related decisions in the 18 months after Bruen.
Perish the thought that judicial nominees actually respect the Constitution and the rule of law, as opposed to activist judges who ignore the Constitution’s protections while creating other “rights” out of the ether.
The rest of the piece is just more of the same bait and switch effort at gaslighting people who don’t know any better. But that’s what the Washington Post does so well these days.
