Supremes get gutless…again
The Supreme Court, once again, sidestepped a controversial issue.
The Supreme Court on June 2 preserved Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons and Rhode Island’s ban on high-capacity magazines, declining for now to decide if they meet the high court’s controversial bar for gun restrictions.
To some extent I get it – public confidence in the Supreme Court is not exactly at its peak, and this is one of the more controversial issues to come before it. About the only one MORE contentious would probably be abortion, and they’ve already taken lumps on that.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that challenges to other bans on assault-style weapons are being considered in lower courts and, “in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon.”
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said they would have taken up now both Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons and Rhode Island’s ban on high-capacity magazines.
Kavanaugh likewise wrote that gun rights advocates have a strong case that because AF-15s are legal in most states, they can be considered to be in “common use” by law-abiding citizens so should be allowed under the court’s past interpretations of the Constitution.
To not violate the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court has said, a restriction must be grounded in historic tradition. Lower courts have been struggling to apply this standard.
(Aside: struggling my ass, some states just keep trying to circumvent it. There is a difference.)
Gun rights advocates challenging Maryland’s ban said it doesn’t pass that test because AR-15s are one of the nation’s most popular weapons, proof that there’s a history of allowing them.
Maryland argues the ban is constitutional because the nation has long regulated exceptionally dangerous weapons.
Exceptionally dangerous? Disregarding the ever-valid “there are no dangerous weapons, just dangerous people” I would be a lot more worried about taking a hit from an uncontroversial M1 than an AR-15, but that’s just me.
But even some of the lower court judges who agreed the ban doesn’t violate the Second Amendment said they need more guidance from the Supreme Court.
Chief Judge Albert Diaz of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the high court’s 2022 ruling “has proven to be a labyrinth for lower courts, including our own, with only the one-dimensional history-and-tradition test as a compass.” USA Today
Category: Crime, Supreme Court
Looks like the Supremes have punted once again. Their summer break shall not be infringed.
https://valawyersweekly.com/2025/06/02/supreme-court-rejects-2-gun-rights-cases-but-assault-weapons-ban-issue-may-be-back-soon/
$34 a month to read an article in Va Lawyers Weekly. No thanks, I can’t stand pay walls.
<no disrespect is/was intended in this post>
I wasn’t/am not paying it either. I was able to read some of it before the ‘you must pay’ box popped up.
Maybe a speed reading course is in my future.
If you use archive.ph you can read almost any article regardless of whether or not it was behind a paywall originally…it’s basically a website capture archive so that you can compare and contrast what’s on a website today to what was on it when you first archived a story.
If it is short you can just snap a screen shot of it.
If Chief Justice Roberts wants a constitutional crisis and/or to further undermine confidence in the legal system, he’s doing everything one would expect to accomplish that.
May God grant Justice Thomas many more years and a clear mind.
The “brave Latina” and her ilk? May God call them in for a face-to-face consultation soon!
That last confirmed justice is the dumbest justice in about 100 years or more.
Thomas has prove to be our greatest and most dependable ally. How much longer he lasts? is the question. Even one of the greatest legal minds of the last 40 years will get old. He has voted for freedom consistently all that time and we have no greater ally.
The danger (or safety) is in who is pulling the trigger.
“Shall not be infringed” sounds pretty straight forward and plain to me. The Bill of Rights was designed not to give We, The People rights but to let the grubermint know what they cannot do to We, The People. The Founders had not just finished a hunting trip…they had just finished throwing off the yoke of an oppressive grubermint.
Indeed “shall make no law”, or “shall not be infringed” are both phrases that the average 10 year old can parse out correctly every time…
But give some charlatans a little power and they will convince themselves and as many fools around them as they can that what those words actually mean are quite different.
Spot on, VOV…and your comment shows just how apropos today’s FGS Quote is that our Beloved AW1Ed posted…
I don’t know what an “AF 15” is so legality is suspect.
Kinda like the joke when a priest, a minister, and a rabbit walk into a blood bank – probably a typo.
Given the media familiarization with firearms they probably think it is some super gun.
Somewhat off-topic, but…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraines-soldiers-giving-robots-guns-100601989.html
Bears repeating…
And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.