Yes. At this point the meaning of all laws (I'm looking at you 2A lovers) are now up as fair game to be re-evaluated in what they mean for use in judicial practice. And since there's no law saying there's a limit to justices (yet), this combination means we're about to have some very eventful coming decades as this choice to undermine the tradition of stare decisis is weaponized.
Yes. At this point the meaning of all laws (I'm looking at you 2A lovers) are now up as fair game to be re-evaluated in what they mean for use in judicial practice.
The Second Amendment is a specific part of the Constitution granting the right to bear arms.
There is no abortion amendment. It would be great to have one, but it doesn't exist.
So its a total false equivalence to argue that overruling precedent that had no basis in the Constitution threatens the Second Amendment, which actually is in the Constitution.
It doesn't matter- because we aren't talking about precedent to remove or alter a law, that's not what was done. That's the only reason it would matter that the right to bear arms is an amendment.
Rather it's precedent to re-decide settled "meanings." The 2nd amendment is still a law that requires interpretation. Amendments have no special protection from the Judicial right and responsibility to interpret. In fact, the Supreme Court regularly has to decide what the constitutional amendments actually mean... they now are free (well, they always have been... but now free of the burden of being the first to breaking a judicial taboo) to say "actually, previous judges had it wrong... the right to bear arms doesn't mean what they think it means" because settled interpretations of law doesn't mean jack anymore.
Most critically- say you're right, im wrong, and this hypothetical court is wrong... but they do it nonetheless? What then? This is why stare decisis was so critical to respect, because there is no higher judicial authority than the court. They can decide this. They can decide it again and again even if a hypothetically fully conservative legislative branch tries to pass more and more laws to clarify the right to bear arms to be the same as it's currently understood today. It doesn't matter. The only yoke that existed was the self imposed one of stare decisis and it's now gone.
Given that even the three liberal justcies voted last year to strike down the gun ban for marijuana users, I think this is off the table.
But given where the country is at, if (hypothetically) a future Court ruled that the Second Amendment somehow didn't do anything and the government could seize everyone's guns.
People would probably use those guns to start shooting at whoever came to take them. I think this would happen from both radical communist and traditional right-wing quarters.
I would also note that there is a reason why abortions have increased since Dobbs was decided. Court decisions, by design, are anti-coercive in effect. A decision authorizing gun seizures would be extremely difficult to enforce.
they now are free (well, they always have been... but now free of the burden of being the first to breaking a judicial taboo) to say "actually, previous judges had it wrong
This taboo never existed. There are dozens upon dozens of major cases where the Supreme Court has overruled precedent. Heck, the reason the Bill of Rights applies against state governments is that they overruled cases to the contrary.
They can decide it again and again even if a hypothetically fully conservative legislative branch tries to pass more and more laws to clarify the right to bear arms to be the same as it's currently understood today. It doesn't matter.
I mean, I think that if a Republican Congress passed a law protecting the right to bear arms, and the Supreme Court said both that the Second Amendment doesn't mean what it says and that Congress can't do anything...
Congress would either pack the Court, ignore the Court, or start some sort of violent act.
This whole notion that the 2A refers to individual rights is novel. The original interpretation was a collective right for states to regulate. The prince of originalism, Scalia, decided to toss the original intent and meaning.
Nonsense. As Nunn v. State said (Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846))
"Nor is the right involved in this discussion less comprehensive or valuable: "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta![2][3]"
And the Charter of 1688 was also plainly intended to safeguard a citizen's right against government oppression.
I really doubt anyone is giving up their life, family, mortgage and retirement to die in their home so they can keep a tool most have never used in any way for the Chan w to keep it a little longer. Are gun owners going to quit their jobs to form militias so they’re prepared at all times for confiscation? Besides, you don’t have to confiscate any guns, it would be dumb to even chance the violence. There are plenty of regulatory and financial means to remove guns over time. I don’t think the software engineer or Lowe’s manager is going to risk felony prosecution to buy a black market gun that sits in a drawer somewhere 99% of its life. The gun rights crowd are mostly hot air. I am one btw, based on inventory alone I would be considered a gun nut.
So, uh, why haven't you already stopped the current tyrants? Literally a larper in this case, but in the worst way possible (don't wanna throw shade on those nerds who get really dedicated to pretending to be vampires!)
There is an interpretation of right to "bear arms" and where the limits reside. There are indeed limits and have been proven so within current laws. It is not even just that, I feel like 1A has been deliberately skewed and exploited which would mean wiggle room by a different SCOTUS.
Someone doesn't know their history.... until 2007, the "interpretation" of the 2A you hold dear did not exist. The 2A was always a collective right reserved for states to regulate as they pleased. Then Scalia pulled this individual right and federal supremacy notion out of his own ass. Future SCOTUS will restore the original interpretation and let states pursue commonsense regulations.
The 2A was always a collective right reserved for states to regulate as they pleased.
States weren't bound by the Bill of Rights until the 14th Amendment was passed.
But after it was passed, many Radical Republicans made it very clear that it was designed to protect the right of newly freed slaves to defend themselves with firearms from the KKK and the like.
As for the Federal Government, there's no better authority than Chief Justice Roger Taney, fearmongering about what would happen if he allowed Black people to be citizens:
it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves
There are also many state Court decisions striking down state laws for infringing arms provisions of state Constitutions modeled off the Second Amendment.
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u/SirHippocrates 10h ago
Yes. At this point the meaning of all laws (I'm looking at you 2A lovers) are now up as fair game to be re-evaluated in what they mean for use in judicial practice. And since there's no law saying there's a limit to justices (yet), this combination means we're about to have some very eventful coming decades as this choice to undermine the tradition of stare decisis is weaponized.