Watching court cases can be interesting. Watching the legal system can be interesting. Watching the system is crucial.
Back in 2022 there was the case of New York Pistol and Rifle Association v. The City of New York. This question in this case involved the right of the people of NYC to take their permitted firearms out of the city.
As the laws were at the start of the court case, a person had to get a permit to possess a firearm. They were then given permission to have that firearm on their premises, to transport it in a disabled manner to one of seven gun ranges in NYC, where they could shoot.
They were not allowed to take the gun out of the city to other ranges nor to competitions.
The plaintiffs, the good guys, argued that they owned property outside of NYC where they wanted to possess their firearms. The city and state argued that if they wanted a gun in those places, they should buy a second gun and store it in that other place, leaving it unattended when they were in the city.
The city and state of New York argued this case vigorously through the district and Second Circuit Court of Appeals. All the inferior courts found that this infringement was consistent with the Second Amendment and Heller.
When the Supreme Court granted cert, the city and state backpedaled so fast that it made Road Runner cartoons look slow in comparison. The city changed the regulation. The state passed a law saying that the city law was illegal, and the lawyers argued that the case was moot.
The Supreme Court agreed that the case was mooted, and the case was closed.
We thought this would be the end of Second Amendment cases in the Supreme Court that year, but the court choose to hear Bruen and we got one of the best opinions on the Second Amendment in years.
Watching The Case
I was watching this case. When it was mooted, I was concerned. When Bruen was decided, I was through the roof with happiness, tempered by my knowledge that there were going to be Bruen tantrum response laws.
What I didn’t realize at first was that this was a stepping stone.
We don’t get back our rights instantly. It is a war. A series of battles where we win, over and over again, only to face another battle.
Bruen is just about the right to carry outside our homes without being subjected to subjective licensing regimes.
Until you realize that it is that stepping stone.
When the Fourth Circuit heard oral arguments on Bianchi shortly after Bruen issued, I was sure we were going to see a rapid advancement of good Second Amendment Case law.
That case was heard and disappeared. The next case was Antonyuk v. Hochul. We had wins at the district level, and it looked like we were going to get wins at the appeals level. But we didn’t.
Watching cases was a disappointment. We were stuck in the same court of bad opinions as we were before Bruen. It didn’t seem like anything had really changed.
Watching the Legal System
From this I started to notice patterns. When Chicago’s infringements, oops, Illinois’s infringements were heard by the Seventh Circuit Court, a name popped up. Easterbrook. Why was his name familiar? Because he was the judge who authored the Seventh Circuit Court’s opinion in McDonald where he found that the Second Amendment didn’t apply to the people of Illinois, “Because the Supreme Court has never said that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment.”
This case also made it to the Supreme Court, where The Court proceeded to say, “The Second Amendment damn well does apply to the states, you moron.”
This is a web of legal decisions. Each layered on the last, making a stronger and stronger platform for The People to exercise their rights.
What I started to see is that there is a game being played by the infringing states. It wasn’t about winning; it was about not losing.
If a Second Amendment case makes it to this Supreme Court, The People will win. The three DEI hires on the Court are the wise Latino, Obama’s in-house lawyer, and “What’s a woman?” Jackson will not be able to convince any of the originalists to violate their morals or the law.
But what if we were to lose Thomas? If Hillary or Kamala were able to appoint another Jackson, the battle would be much more difficult.
The infringers aren’t interested in winning right now; they just don’t want to lose. They are waiting for the makeup of the Supreme Court to change to favor them instead of The People.
This is how come we saw Duncan GVRed to the Ninth Circuit Court, where they sent it back down to the District Court, where the District Court found that it was just as unconstitutional under Bruen as it was before Bruen.
Which means that Duncan still has not been decided. It is still up in the air with millions of dollars spent.
So, the infringers want to keep these cases out of the Supreme Court. One of the ways they do this is by arguing the ripeness of a case.
The gist of “ripeness” is that any controversy in law across this nation will have suits brought in different circuits. Until the circuit courts have had a chance to weigh in, the case is not ripe for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court needs to know the opinions of the inferior courts to make good judgments.
The counter to this is when there is a circuit split.
A circuit split happens when two or more circuits come to different opinions on the same controversy. If circuit A says that assault weapon bans are constitutional and circuit B says that they aren’t, that’s a split.
In the First Circuit, they have found that MA’s infringements are consistent with the Second Amendment. So having a shell casing in MA without having the proper license/permit/permission is a felony, but cross over to NH and it isn’t an issue.
Two states with two different sets of laws, both “constitutional” according to the First Circuit, and no other circuit disagrees.
We are much more likely to see the Supreme Court take a case if there is a circuit split.
Watching the System
New Jersey had that tantrum after Bruen and decided to make as much of New Jersey a “sensitive” place, gun-free zones. It was very egregious.
The district court enjoined the laws. The administrative panel of the Third Circuit stayed most of the restraining order. When the case was heard by the merits panel, two of the three found that New Jersey’s laws were consistent with the Second Amendment and let the laws stand.
But the system worked. Trump managed to get Judge Mascott appointed to the Third Circuit. The day the case was to be heard by the en banc Third Circuit court, Mascott was sworn in at the Supreme Court, and then was in court to sit with the en banc panel.
We will win that case. And with that win, there will be a circuit split.
The system, appointing originalists to fill as many judicial positions as possible, is going to give us a win. And that win will mean that there will be bigger, nationwide wins.
But there’s more!
The Trump and Bondi DOJ seems to be for The People one day, and then argues for infringements the next day. It is enough to give a grown man whiplash.
For example, the DOJ is arguing that the registration requirements of the NFA should still apply, even if the tax is zero.
We all know this is BS. Trump ordered his DOJ to become defenders of the Second Amendment; why would they argue for the NFA? That’s just stupid.
Except it isn’t.
Trump ordered the DOJ to defend the Second Amendment. If Newsom were to become president, he is just as likely to order his DOJ to go back to infringing.
What the pen can do, the pen can undo.
On the other hand, if the Supreme Court were to rule that without the tax requirement, there is no hook for Congress to regulate suppressors and SBR, that is much more concrete.
It is a system. You need to look at all the moving parts to see just how complicated it actually is. You can’t just take a single snapshot and claim that is representative of the system. You have to look from many different angles.