USSC decisions

I hope she keeps Grandpa's hands off her own daughter and doesn't let him fondle her like she let daddy.

 

another disappointing day for those who complain about the MAGA court

 

Let’s hold off on the praise for a few more days…

 

How is this opinion more delayed than in the past?

 

you know . . . because Dems and progressives want it yesterday

 

lol

 

Spoiler

trump would hit

 

link should work for everyone

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-v-...xfbg3pgfiyo&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The Supreme Court’s Thoughtful Gun Ruling
In Rahimi, the Justices uphold a law stripping guns from an alleged domestic abuser, but a debate breaks out over originalism and the Second Amendment.

By The Editorial Board
Updated June 21, 2024 at 7:10 pm ET

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on Friday that an alleged violent domestic abuser can be disarmed via a civil restraining order—and that’s when a debate on originalism broke out among the Justices. The opinions in U.S. v. Rahimi will help lower courts better judge Second Amendment cases, while also educating the public about the conservative Justices’ serious constitutional thinking.

Zackey Rahimi was sentenced to 73 months in prison under a 1994 federal law that prohibits firearm possession by people subject to certain protective orders. He allegedly threatened to shoot his girlfriend, fired a gun after an altercation with her was witnessed by a bystander, and shot the house of a man to whom he’d sold drugs. He shouldn’t have access to a gun. The question is how to disarm him in a way that doesn’t violate the Constitution.

Justice Clarence Thomas’s landmark 2022 opinion in Bruen said gun regulations must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Mr. Rahimi argued that the Founders didn’t ban domestic abusers from having weapons.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, says it’s close enough: “An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.”

He surveys historical “surety” laws, under which a threatening person could be required to post a bond, as well as “going armed” statutes against menacing with firearms. The law applied to Mr. Rahimi, the Chief says, “fits comfortably within this tradition.” The restraining order deemed him a “credible threat.” It was time limited. The majority also rejects the government’s idea “that Rahimi may be disarmed simply because he is not ‘responsible.’”

Recent precedents “were not meant to suggest a law trapped in amber,” the Chief Justice continues. “The Second Amendment permits more than just those regulations identical to ones that could be found in 1791. Holding otherwise would be as mistaken as applying the protections of the right only to muskets and sabers.”

What thickens the plot is that this argument about the meaning and application of Bruen didn’t convince the author of Bruen. “Not a single historical regulation justifies the statute at issue,” Justice Thomas writes in dissent. “Surety laws were, in a nutshell, a fine on certain behavior,” and they “imposed a far less onerous burden.”

He says Mr. Rahimi’s alleged conduct qualifies for imprisonment, but the question for the Court is “whether the Government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order—even if he has never been accused or convicted of a crime.”

Perhaps this impassioned dissent is what prompted a remarkable series of conservative concurrences that amount to a seminar on how the Justices think about originalism.

Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasizes a list of questions not decided by Rahimi, including “whether the government may disarm a person without a judicial finding that he poses a ‘credible threat.’” Justice Amy Coney Barrett says Bruen must be deployed with a wider lens than lower courts have used: “Historical regulations reveal a principle, not a mold.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh criticizes the judicial inventions of balancing tests, “heightened scrutiny and the like,” which he calls a relatively modern innovation.

“To be clear, I am not suggesting that the Court overrule cases where the Court has applied those heightened-scrutiny tests,” Justice Kavanaugh says. “But I am challenging the notion that those tests are the ordinary approach to constitutional interpretation. And I am arguing against extending those tests to new areas, including the Second Amendment.”

We can’t do justice here to all of this debate. But the opinions by five conservative Justices are a refutation of the left’s criticism that originalism is merely a contrived theory used to justify policy outcomes. Rahimi and other cases this year have revealed the varieties of thoughtful originalist interpretation, with often surprising results.

Appeared in the June 22, 2024, print edition as 'Originalism and the Second Amendment'.


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@NewRoxFan & @SamFisher faint.

We can’t do justice here to all of this debate. But the opinions by five conservative Justices are a refutation of the left’s criticism that originalism is merely a contrived theory used to justify policy outcomes. Rahimi and other cases this year have revealed the varieties of thoughtful originalist interpretation, with often surprising results.​