Explainer

Legal concept: Scales of justice and and the judge's gavel hammer as a symbol of law and order.

Class Action

In —Trump, President of The United States, et all., v. CASA, Inc., et al., 2025 606 U.S., the Supreme Court found, in a 6-3 decision, that universal injunctions are not constitutional. This is great news. It puts a stop to most of the lawfare going on against the Trump Administration.

Unfortunately, it leaves open another method of getting the equivalent, class action suits.

To have a class action suit, the class must first be certified. This is done via Rule 23 —Rules For Appellate Procedure (U.S.) (I’m hoping that is the correct citation). It is such a complex procedure that there are lawyers (and law offices) that do nothing but class action certification attempts.

For the Trump Administration, this complexity is a good thing. It means that it is more difficult to get these universal injunctions.

In reality, we are going to see suits filed as class actions. The anti-American groups will still go judge/court shopping, in an attempt to get a judge, favorable to their cause.

J.G.G. v. TRUMP, No. 1:25-cv-00766 (D.D.C.) is such an example. They are attempting to get a class certified. They didn’t push hard because the rogue inferior court judge granted them a universal injunction. I suspect they will now go back to the well with a demand for a class certification.

This will not stop rogue judges in inferior courts doing bad things, it will make it more costly at the first step, to the plaintiffs (bad guys)

But what happens when a Democrat issues an EO banning guns?

It doesn’t really change anything. There are people claiming it will, but that is not really the case.

In the past 5 decades, have you read of a single universal injunction granted to The People in a Second Amendment case? Yeah, that is correct. There is none.

The closest we’ve gotten is courts issuing injunctive relief to all members of a group, such as GOA or FPC.

Since we aren’t getting nor will we get universal injunctions, there is no need to be concerned that others won’t be able to get universal injunctions.

If that scary EO comes down in the future, FPC and GOA and the NRA and … will show up in Texas and file suit on behalf of a few individuals. Those individuals will be members of those groups. The groups will then become a party to the suit.

This means that when a Texas district judge issues an injunction, TRO or preliminary, it will protect a large section of the firearm community.

The state will appeal for a stay, pending appeal. The fifth will deny that stay. The case will continue through the merits panel. The state will lose. The state will request an en banc panel. They will lose or their motion for an en banc hearing will be denied.

The state will then either appeal to the Supreme Court, where cert is likely to be granted, remember, this is the scary EO that bans everything. The Supreme Court gets to issue another great opinion on the Second Amendment.

The state could choose to take the L in Texas. Which isn’t a big deal because the plaintiffs will have also filed suit in California, Maryland, Florida, and Illinois.

Florida will go the same way as Texas.

The standard rogue, inferior courts will find for the state and against The People.

This will create a circuit split, which pushes the Supreme Court to take the case.

This sort of thing is at least 8 years in the future.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court seems to be actively looking for the “right” Second Amendment case to take next.

Oh, take a look at Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic where The Court wrote:

On remand, the court of appeals reaffirmed its earlier decision. 95 F. 4th, at 153. And, once more, Judge Richardson wrote separately. Even after Talevski, he said, lower courts “continue[d] to lack the guidance” they need from this Court to determine when a federal spending-power statute creates a right that private parties can enforce under §1983. 95 F. 4th, at 170 (opinion concurring in judgment). Other circuit judges have expressed similar concerns. See, e.g., Saint Anthony Hospital v. Whitehorn, 132 F. 4th 962, 971 (CA7 2025) (en banc); id., at 982 (Hamilton, J., dissenting); New York State Citizens’ Coalition for Children v. Poole, 935 F. 3d 56, 60 (CA2 2019) (Livingston, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, 606 U.S. ____ (2025)

The short of that is that the Supreme Court is getting tired of rogue inferior court judges playing dump when it advances their agenda.

Close-up Of An Open Law Book And Wooden Mallet In Courtroom

My Dicta Good, Your Dicta Bad

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amend­ment is not unlimited. … courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever pur­pose.
Trump, President of The United States, et all., v. CASA, Inc., et al., 2025 606 U.S.

This bit of text is quoted in almost every case where the state is defending their blatant infringements.

They still use this citation, even post Bruen. After Bruen, they added a ⁣more nuanced approach.

What these two quotes have in common is that they are “dicta”.

Dicta is short for obiter dictum. It refers to statements made by a judge in a legal opinion which are not essential to the decision of the case.

What is essential is the holding.

Part of the problem is that the superior courts would rather not resolve the same issues over and over again. They want a one and done case.

The core holding in Heller was that the Second Amendment was an individual right. As such, any ban of a class of firearm, defacto or not, was unconstitutional.

That’s it. The entire discussion on dangerous and unusual, in common use for lawful purposes, and “this is how you perform Second Amendment jurisprudence” is dicta.

Because it is “just” dicta, the inferior courts can choose to ignore it. Or pick and choose which parts of dicta they wish to use.

The rogue inferior courts will use the “not unlimited” to search for the boundaries. Then they will find that the particular law is outside the boundaries of the Second Amendment.

The Bruen opinion introduced more dicta. These dicta were directed orders to the inferior courts. No more two-step shuffle. No more means balancing.

The inferior courts were told, clearly, that the process of picking a level of scrutiny, and then applying a balancing procedure was unacceptable.

They were told to first look at the plain text of the Constitution. The very same language the Court has been using for decades, if not centuries. These inferior courts have shown that they are perfectly capable of reading the plain text of every part of the Constitution, except the Second Amendment.

Once the conduct “touches fingers” with the Second Amendment, the burden shifts to the state to show that their regulation is a match for this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

In Rahimi, they said that a person can only be temporarily denied their Second Amendment protected rights. The inferior courts then proceeded to decide that a permanent loss of Second Amendment protected rights was Constitutional, when applied to anybody who could have been sentenced to more than a year in jail/prison.

Finally, Mexico’s allegations about the manufacturers’ “design and marketing decisions” add nothing of consequence. Brief for Respondent 23. As noted above, Mexico here focuses on the manufacturers’ production of “military style” assault weapons, among which it includes AR-15 rifles, AK-47 rifles, and .50 caliber sniper rifles. See supra, at 6; App. to Pet. for Cert. 121a. But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers. (The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country. See T. Gross, How the AR-15 Became the Bestselling Rifle in the U. S., NPR (Apr. 20, 2023.) The manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too. The same is true of firearms with Spanish-language names or graphics alluding to Mexican history. See supra, at 6. Those guns may be “coveted by the cartels,” as Mexico alleges; but they also may appeal, as the manufacturers rejoin, to “millions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans.” Tr. of Oral Arg 80; Reply Brief 20. That leaves only the allegation that the manufacturers have not attempted to make guns with non-defaceable serial numbers. See supra, at 6. But the failure to improve gun design in that way (which federal law does not require) cannot in the end show that the manufacturers have “join[ed] both mind and hand” with lawbreakers in the way needed to aid and abet. Direct Sales, 319 U. S., at 713.
Rules For Appellate Procedure (U.S.)

This is also dicta. This paragraph was written by Justice Kagan. Justice Sotomayor wrote something similar in Rahimi, I believe. Where she also admitted that the AR-15 was in common use for legal purposes.

After S&W v. Mexico was decided, many of the plaintiffs (good guys) filed notices with their respective courts, pointing them to the opinion. The gist of many of these notifications were, “The plain text is implicated. The burden shifts to the government to prove their ban is justified by this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Supreme Court stated that a firearm or class of firearms can only be banned if it is both dangerous and unusual. If a firearm or class of firearm is in common use, it is not unusual and cannot be banned. Justice Kagan said AR-15s are in common use.”

Well, the replies to those filings have started to come in. In a shocking turn of events, the infringers are now arguing that the Justice Kagan quote is “just dicta” and should be discarded. That it is just meaningless noise.

(But please remember that my dicta, “not unlimited”, cannot be discarded. It was put into a Supreme Court opinion.)

Legal Case Analysis

Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos 23-1141

Prohibition on bringing of qualified civil liability actions in Federal or State court

  1. In general

    A qualified civil liability action may not be brought in any Federal or State court.

  2. Dismissal of pending actions

    A qualified civil liability action that is pending on October 26, 2005, shall be immediately dismissed by the court in which the action was brought or is currently pending.

Trump, President of The United States, et all., v. CASA, Inc., et al., 2025 606 U.S.

There are five listed exceptions.

  1. The transferor was convicted under section 925(h) of U.S.C. 18. This is part of the gun control action of 1968, as amended.
  2. The seller is guilty of negligence or negligent entrustment.
  3. The manufacturer or seller knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product, AND the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.
  4. for breach of contract or warranty.
  5. Death, injury, or property damage resulting from a defect in design or manufacturer of the product, when used as intended.

Only section iii has any wiggle room. The question then becomes one of “proximate cause”.

For example, in the original Lilo and Stitch, there is a scene where the child crawls into a washing machine or a dryer. If your child were to watch the movie and then replicate crawling into the dryer or washing machine, and then they were injured or killed, you might be able to sue Disney for that scene because it was the “proximate cause” of the injury.

Claiming that an advertisement, in a firearms’ magazine, stating “Consider your man card reissued”, is the proximate cause of an asshole killing children and adults in a school shooting is a serious stretch.

This is precisely what the blood vultures did after Sandy Hook. They had the parents file a lawsuit against Bushmaster, with the novel legal argument that since Connecticut has laws about certain types of advertisements, and because the PLCAA had an exception for sale or marketing, that the suit would evade PLCAA protections.

This should have required the plaintiffs (bad guys) to prove that not only did Bushmaster produce advertisements that were in violation of CT law, but also that the asshole actually saw the advertisements and that those advertisements somehow incited the asshole to go murder children.

This should have been thrown out in the lowest court, where the case was filed. Instead, the case made it to the CT supreme court where they said, “This advertising claim might actually pierce the PLCAA protections. Please continue the case to establish a fact pattern.”

The Supreme Court did not stop this travesty. Remington went under, this lawsuit was part of the reason.

Since the insurance companies, which owned the Remington Name, settled for a considerable amount, more lawsuits attacking manufactures have been filed. One bad decision leads to more bad decisions.

Most of the motions for writ of certiorari are simply denied. The only thing the Court says is “Certiorari Denied”. The justices have started adding statements stating clearly that the denial of cert or denial of a stay does not mean the Court has made any judgment on the merits of the case.
The Government of Mexico brought this lawsuit against seven American gun manufacturers. As required by a federal statute, Mexico seeks to show (among other things) that the defendant companies participated in the unlawful sale or marketing of firearms. See 15 U.S.C. §7903(5)(A)(iii). More specifically, Mexico alleges that the companies aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug cartels. The question presented is whether Mexico’s complaint plausibly pleads that conduct. We conclude it does not.
Rules For Appellate Procedure (U.S.) Justice Kagan, delivering the opinion of the Court

Kagan gets it right, Mexico is alleging that S&W et al. were doing something illegal. For that to be true, there would have to be convictions for those illegal acts.

In the very next paragraph, she slaps down all those that say that the firearms industry is the only industry that can’t be sued. 15 U.S.C. §§7901–7903, bars certain lawsuits against manufacturers and sellers of firearms. — id.

But PLCAA’s general bar on those suits has an exception, usually called the predicate exception, relevant here. That exception applies to suits in which the defendant manufacturer or seller “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of firearms, and that “violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.” §7903(5)(A)(iii). If a plaintiff can show that provision is satisfied—that, say, a manufacturer committed a gun-sale violation proximately causing the harm at issue—then a suit can proceed, even though it arises from a third party’s later misuse of a gun. Or otherwise said, the predicate violation opens a path to making a gun manufacturer civilly liable for the way a third party has used the weapon it made.
J.G.G. v. TRUMP, No. 1:25-cv-00766 (D.D.C.)

Kagan skillfully avoids the advertising part of the law, here. Instead, she gives a concrete example of how the law was intended to be used. If the seller or manufacturer breaks the law by the transfer of the firearm, they can be held responsible for later harms caused by a third party.

The Mexican Government, seeking redress for this gun violence, brought suit in 2021 against seven American firearms manufacturers. The suit, brought in a U.S. District Court, asserts a variety of tort claims against the defendants, mostly sounding in negligence. The basic theory is that the defendants failed to exercise “reasonable care” to prevent trafficking of their guns into Mexico, and so are responsible for the harms arising there from the weapons’ misuse. Id., at 184a. That theory, as all agree, runs straight into PLCAA’s general prohibition. Mexico’s action, that is, seeks to hold firearms manufacturers liable for “the criminal or unlawful misuse” of guns by third parties—and so, according to PLCAA, “may not be brought.” §§7902(a), 7903(5)(A). The complaint thus tries to plead its way into PLCAA’s predicate exception. It asserts, as that exception requires, that the third-party misuse of guns in Mexico resulted from the manufacturers’ knowing violations of gun laws. See §7903(5)(A)(iii).
Missing citations for GW4C5JVQ

Yep, the PLCAA is implicated here, and should protect the defendants (good guys). Mexico is attempting to pierce the PLCAA’s protections by claiming the manufacturers were knowingly violating gun laws.

Mexico’s complaint survives PLCAA only if, in accord with usual pleading rules, it has plausibly alleged conduct falling within the statute’s predicate exception. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 678–679 (2009). Because Mexico relies exclusively on an aiding-and-abetting theory, that means plausibly alleging that the manufacturers have aided and abetted gun dealers’ firearms offenses (such as sales to straw purchasers), so as to proximately cause harm to Mexico. See supra, at 2–3. We need not address the proximate cause question, because we find that Mexico has not plausibly alleged aiding and abetting on the manufacturers’ part. “Plausibly” does not mean “probably,” but “it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Iqbal, 556 U. S., at 678. And Mexico has not met that bar. Its complaint does not plausibly allege the kind of “conscious … and culpable participation in another’s wrongdoing” needed to make out an aiding-and-abetting charge. Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U. S. 471, 493 (2023).
Missing citations for GW4C5JVQ

Wow, this is a big one. To pierce the PLCAA protections, the plaintiffs must prove that the manufacturer’s actions were the proximate cause of the injury. Before that can be done, they must first plausibly prove that the manufacturers added and abetted the illegal act which led to the injury. Mexico has not met the minimum requirements for plausible, much less probably.

Finally, Mexico’s allegations about the manufacturers’ “design and marketing decisions” add nothing of consequence. Brief for Respondent 23. As noted above, Mexico here focuses on the manufacturers’ production of “military style” assault weapons, among which it includes AR-15 rifles, AK-47 rifles, and .50 caliber sniper rifles. See supra, at 6; App. to Pet. for Cert. 121a. But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers. (The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country. See T. Gross, How the AR-15 Became the Bestselling Rifle in the U. S., NPR (Apr. 20, 2023.) The manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too. The same is true of firearms with Spanish-language names or graphics alluding to Mexican history. See supra, at 6. Those guns may be “coveted by the cartels,” as Mexico alleges; but they also may appeal, as the manufacturers rejoin, to “millions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans.” Tr. of Oral Arg 80; Reply Brief 20. That leaves only the allegation that the manufacturers have not attempted to make guns with non-defaceable serial numbers. See supra, at 6. But the failure to improve gun design in that way (which federal law does not require) cannot in the end show that the manufacturers have “join[ed] both mind and hand” with lawbreakers in the way needed to aid and abet. Direct Sales, 319 U. S., at 713.
Missing citations for GW4C5JVQ

To translate into language even a leftist can understand, “AR-15s are in common use”

And that conclusion, we note, well accords with PLCAA’s core purpose. Recall that Congress enacted the statute to halt a flurry of lawsuits attempting to make gun manufacturers pay for the downstream harms resulting from misuse of their products. See supra, at 1–2. In a “findings” and “purposes” section, Congress explained that PLCAA was meant to stop those suits—to prevent manufacturers (and sellers) from being held “liable for the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse firearm[s].” §7901(a)(5). Mexico’s suit closely resembles the ones Congress had in mind:…
Missing citations for GW4C5JVQ

Justice Jackson wrote a concurrence. Her concurrence is designed to limit the extent of the actual opinion.

In her flawed opinion, the only reason Mexico did not prevail is that they didn’t point to a specific violation of state or federal laws. If only they had done that, the court would have allowed them to put it to those evil gun manufacturers.

She also, intentionally, misstates the reasons for PLCAA. We have observed that lawfare is intended to destroy the defendants. The flood of civil lawsuits was designed to destroy the firearms industry. Even the military said as much.

According to Justice Jackson, Activists had deployed litigation in an effort to compel firearms manufacturers and associated entities to adopt safety measures and practices that exceeded what state or federal statutes required.Missing citations for GW4C5JVQ.

She has such a strong opinion of the good will and selfless motives of those filing lawsuits.

This Nation’s Historical Tradition of …

Trump v. Wilcox on application for stay was granted. It was a 6-3 opinion. The usual suspects were on the wrong side of history, again.

Justice Kagan wrote the dissent.

For 90 years, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), has stood as a precedent of this Court. And not just any precedent. Humphrey’s undergirds a significant feature of American governance: bipartisan administrative bodies carrying out expertise-based functions with a measure of independence from presidential control. …

Miggy made the mistake of letting me write for him. Then I begged him to let me write when he wanted to close GFZ. When I started, I knew I had things to say about some cases happening. I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I started reading and listening. The more I learned, the more I knew I needed to learn.

I have gotten to the point where I read at least part of every opinion the Supreme Court writes. Certain things keep showing up.

It is obvious to any honest person that the Second Amendment means that all gun-control is unconstitutional. The closest we have gotten to anything that is even remotely close to being allowed is that a violent person can be temporarily disarmed.

The Justices that believe in the Constitution express it as “The plain text and this Nation’s historical tradition of …”. This means that if the plain text of the Constitution is implicated, the burden shifts to the government to prove that there were similar regulations at the time the constitution was adopted and when the particular amendment was ratified.

The 14th Amendment must be interpreted as it was understood at the time it was ratified, in the late 1800s, not 1791. The Second Amendment must be interpreted as it was understood at the time it was ratified, in 1791.

The authority of the Executive branch was established on June 22, 1788.

Humphrey’s Executor v. United States was issued in 1935. It cannot be used to establish the meaning of Article II. It is NOT part of this Nation’s historical tradition of regulations regarding the President’s authority.

Since Roe v Wade, every Supreme Court nomination has been asked, “will you mess with Roe v. Wade?”. If the answer is “yes”, the Democrats would fight tooth and nail to keep that person off the Court.

This is always the way of the left. We see it in the court battles against the Trump administration. They will fight a battle, lose, claim victory, then fight the same battle again.

They repeat this until they win. After they win, they claim that this is the standard and cannot be chanted. To attempt to change it is evil, against the will of The Person, and wrong. This is what is happening with the court shopping they are doing. They don’t have to win every case against Trump, just one.

If they lose, they will attempt the same case in a different jurisdiction, until they get a win.

Roe v. Wade was a shit decision. The Dred Scott opinion was even worse. But according to the left, these cases should never have been challenged, much less overturned.

FDR decided that Government was the answer. Regardless of the question, the answer, according to him, was the government.

You don’t have a job? The government will create work, then hire you to do that work. People aren’t preparing for their retirement, the government will do that for you.

The problem he was facing was that much of what he wanted to do wasn’t really constitutional.

In addition, the next president could just undo the shitty things he had done. He needed a way to protect his policies.

The answer was the creation of Government Entities that were performing Article II duties, but which had limited presidential oversight.

Before FDR’s power grab, the president could fire anybody in the executive branch. He was that powerful. He got Congress to pass bills creating entities who’s governing body or head could only be fired for cause.

Congress created them all, though at different times, out of one basic vision. It thought that in certain spheres of government, a group of knowledgeable people from both parties—none of whom a President could remove without cause – would make decisions likely to advance the long-term public good.

Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson all believe that an opinion from 90 years ago says more about this Nation’s historical tradition of regulations than does Article II, adopted in 1788.

The People chose to put the authority into one person, the President, who they could change, every four years. The government is beholden to the People. The government doesn’t get to say that “a group of knowledgeable people” should be exempt.

Power corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Justice, gavel and law books on table in office for court trial, legislation or fair constitution by judicial system. Firm, closeup and legal hammer by information for corporate case in workplace.

Do You Have a Warrant?

We have heard, over and over again, how some scum was released back into society to do more evil.

In my opinion, the worst of these is when a criminal alien is released into society when the authorities know he has a detainer. Why would anybody allow someone who was picked up for a crime to be released to commit more crimes when they can have them removed from the country?

The answer is partially word games and partially legal games.

A detainer is a warrant, of sorts. It is a warrant issued by an administrative judge, not a part of the judiciary.

We have been taught that the police are not allowed to enter your home without a warrant. In some cases, they can’t enter your house, even if they have a warrant.

Sanctuary cities and states have been using this to allow criminals to roam our streets freely.

If the locals are doing their jobs correctly, they should do a search for warrants on anybody they arrest. This will pick up both judicial and administrative warrants. If warrants exist, that person should not be released until those warrants are cleared.

In sanctuary locations, the locals have not been informing ICE when they have a criminal alien in custody.

This means that ICE needs to look through the records of everyone who is taken into custody, searching for people with warrants. If they find a person with an outstanding warrant, they must pick them up before they are released.

If there are only administrative warrants, ICE is restricted on what they can do.

They cannot enter non-public locations to detain a criminal alien.

They can arrest the criminal alien if they are in a public location. Thus, they could pick them up while they are shopping or driving around. They can detain them at work, if they have permission of the owner to enter the non-public locations, or if the criminal alien encounters them in a public location.

In other words, a criminal alien can hide at work or home. If they leave the protection of those non-public locations, they can be detained.

On the other hand, if they have a judicial arrest warrant, they can go into non-public locations to affect the arrest.

That warrant allows them to enter the home or apartment of the criminal alien, if that alien is legally the homeowner or lessee. They cannot enter a third party’s dwelling with an arrest warrant.

A judicial arrest warrant allows them the legal authority to enter some non-public areas, such as jails, prisons, and courtrooms.

In addition, if they can get a search warrant for the criminal alien, that warrant will name the location where they can enter without permission to search for the criminal alien. If they find them, they can then arrest them with an arrest warrant.

ICE and the rest of the feds are now getting judicial warrants as well as the administrative warrants. This allows them to arrest criminal aliens, regardless of the “sanctuary” status.

More progress.

judge, dish, justice, law, us supreme court, sonia sotomayor, judge robe, robe, garment, woman, smile, laugh, judge, judge, judge, judge, judge

Universal Injunction and Justice Sotomayor

Justice Sotomayor used to be the least talented Justice on the Supreme Court. Ketanji Brown Jackson said, “Hold my beer!” and took that title.

During the oral arguments, Sotomayor asked:

So, when a new president orders that because there’s so much gun violence going on in the country and he comes in and he says, I have the right to take away the guns from everyone, then people — and he sends out the military to seize everyone’s guns — we and the courts have to sit back and wait until every named plaintiff gets — or every plaintiff whose gun is taken comes into court?
— Transcript 24A884, Justice Sotomayor

When a case is opened, the plaintiffs can make a motion for a temporary restraining order. This is another name for an injunction. A TRO should last no more than a couple of weeks, should maintain the status quo and should not grant final outcomes. Sorry for the poor English.

Thus, a TRO might stay an execution. This is the current status, so no change, maintaining the status quo. This is within the normal understanding of a TRO.

The TRO should not release the prisoner. That is a final outcome. That might be what the plaintiff is requesting, to be set free. That is what the final judgment would or would not grant.

In some cases, the plaintiff can be ordered to provide a bond before the TRO is issued. For example, the plaintiffs want the state to payout $2 billion as part of the TRO. They can be ordered to post a $2 billion bond before the defendants are required to pay out the $2 billion.

By the end of the TRO, the arguments for and against a preliminary injunction should be fully briefed. If there are any oral arguments to be made, those will have also been made.

The judge will then issue a preliminary injunction/stay as the TRO lapses, or will not issue the preliminary injunction/stay, which means the TRO lapses and nothing takes it place.

In general, TROs and Preliminary Injunctions are only granted to the parties of the case. The judge can issue a TRO blocking the execution of prisoner A, but unless prisoner B is also a party to the suit, the TRO does not apply to them.

If the case is a class action suit, once the class is granted, then orders of the court apply to the entire class. If the parties are an organization, the injunctions might apply to all members of the organization.

So what happens in Sotomayor’s hypothetical if there are no universal injunctions?

First, I don’t believe that we are going to have a situation where there are no universal injunctions. I believe that Sotomayor is correct, we need to preserve that capability for the judiciary.

What I believe would actually happen is that a true universal TRO would be issued. This would have a limited lift time.

Blocking the deportation of TdA for two weeks is a pain, but not unbearable. Blocking the deportation of TdA for the duration of a drawn out court case is unacceptable.

Blocking the confiscation of guns for two weeks for everybody is just as bearable.

This would give the inferior court time to certify the class, if such was needed, and to do a proper evaluation of the request for a preliminary injunction.

As the Supreme Court said in A.A.R.P v. Trump, the inferior courts MUST answer the merits question of the Winter factors. They cannot side step this.

In the case of TdA, the government will win on the merits. They have been granted the authority to remove criminal aliens from the United States by the Constitution and Congress. The most that might be justified is the process might require enough time for an attorney to become involved.

In the case of a gun confiscation, the plain text of the Second Amendment would be implicated. There is no way around that. There is no regulation in this Nation’s history of arms regulation that is analogous to an outright gun confiscation. The People are likely to win on the merits. Having a Constitutionally Protected right violated is unrepairable harm. The balance of equities lies with The People who have been harmed. Being denied your rights outweighs any state harm. The public has no interest in upholding an Unconstitutional Law or Regulation.

For the Circuit courts that would suddenly find that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms only applies to Nerf guns would cause a nearly instant circuit split, which would get appealed to the Supreme Court.

In addition, it would be physically difficult to confiscate all guns.

A.A.R.P v Trump, 605 U.S. ___(2025) No. 24A1007

I wasn’t expecting this opinion this quickly. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the 15th, they issued their opinion on the 16th. It is only 24 pages long.

This case has many concurrent issues running through it. It is important to focus on what the opinion actually does, how it does it, and what the legal issues the Court is attempting to resolve.

What the holding is, what it means

The Supreme Court has issued an injunction stopping the deportation of TdA terrorists while the Fifth Circuit Court issues a new opinion. This injunction stands until the Supreme Court issues their opinion in this case after being fully briefed and oral arguments given, OR if the Court denies certiorari, OR neither party appeals from the Fifth Circuit Court.

This Supreme Court Order vacates and remands the case back to the Fifth Circuit with specific instructions:

… (1) all the normal preliminary injunction factors, including likelihood of success on the merits, as to the named plaintiffs’ underlying habeas claims that the AEA does not authorize their removal pursuant to the President’s March 14, 2025, Proclamation, and (2) the issue of what notice is due, as to the putative class’s due process claims against summary removal. …

I hope you realize what a slap in the face the highlighted section is to the inferior courts. The inferior courts are well aware of the Winter factors. They are well aware of the order in which the factors should be evaluated.

This line is written to all inferior courts. It is a blunt warning that the inferior courts should apply the Winter factors, correctly, to any injunction (or stay) being granted.

The second part is the Supreme Court punting. They want somebody else to do the heavy lifting on “what notifications need to be given to afford a terrorist due process?”

The J.G.G. plaintiffs are claiming it is 30 days. The state has argued that 24 hours is more than enough. The Fifth is likely to come down with something closer to the state’s standing.

Another part of this, is that there is a question of “adequate notification.” The plaintiffs want the notifications to be in English and Spanish. The state provided the notifications in English only. Since these people are in the United States, it seems reasonable to ask that they figure out how to read an English document or get a translation.

And, as one pundit on X put it, the government should give notification to every criminal alien they currently have detained, and any new ones they pick up, a notification of deportation. This will start that clock running and whatever time is finally determined, the state will be that much closer to the time limit.

Finally, this injunction is not going to keep any of these criminal aliens in the United States.

If you are in our country illegally, you can be deported. That is a full stop. If you are a criminal alien, you can be deported.

Trump declared TdA to be Alien Enemies, then used the Alien Enemies Act to deport them.

He did not need to use the AEA!

All the focus on the AEA is a distraction. The Trump administration could load all those terrorists on to planes tomorrow morning as criminal aliens and ship them down to CECOT with no issues. As long as they don’t use the AEA for the source of authority.

What wasn’t addressed

The Solicitor General in oral arguments and in the briefings advanced the argument that universal injunctions are bad. That these rogue, inferior court judges do not have the authority to block the executive with nationwide injunctions.

This opinion does not address universal injunctions.

When Democrats are in office and a court issues a universal injunction, Sotomayer, Kegan, and Jackson Brown are in full agreement with the rest of the court that universal injunctions are wrong.

When Republicans are in office and a court issues a universal injunction, Sotomayer, Kegan, and Brown believe that universal injunctions are great.

Legal Games

This case should not be in front of the Supreme Court. It is here because of games played by the plaintiffs (bad guys).

The D.C. District court, having had their hands slapped, were on warning not to take cases outside their jurisdiction. This meant the case was filed in Texas, where the terrorists are housed, pending deportation.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs opened the case, then called the judge and demanded action. The transcript of that call was entered into the record by the judge. He was not happy.

The call was an ex parte communication. This is in violation of the Code of Conduct for Federal Judges, Canon 3(A)(4)) and Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65(b)(1).

Regardless, the judge in the case was working on the complex issues involved in this case.

After the judge filed his remonstration of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a TRO.

They demanded the judge respond within 42 minutes, or they were going to appeal the case. 133 minutes after filling the motion, they filed an appeal to the Fifth Circuit.

The Supreme Court majority, seven justices, felt that the plaintiffs were right in appealing. Thomas and Alito dissented.

The case was moving rapidly, the judge was responding to the motions being filed. The important aspect of the judge’s response was he had given the state 24 hours to respond.

The plaintiffs knew this before they filed. The judge had pre-emptively told the state they had 24 hours to respond.

The plaintiffs didn’t like this. They felt that the judge should issue the injunction as if he were a robed, rogue D.C. district court activist, litigating from the bench. This Texas judge wasn’t a slave to the leftist agenda. He was doing his job correctly.

Conclusion

If Thomas and Alito are on one side of the argument, and you are on the other side, you are wrong. Having been there myself, I know of what I speak.

Alito and Thomas are superb at what they do. Trust them.

Final Thoughts

The Supreme Court majority was making judgments about what the inferior courts should have done with 20/20 hindsight. There are things in the record now that were not there when the lower courts issued their orders and opinions. Thomas and Alito point this out and tell the majority to follow proper procedures.

United States, Et al. v. shilling, Commander, Et Al. 24A1030

There is a battle of procedure that takes place in our courts. That is getting to a final result.

If the Supreme Court were to rule in favor of Trump in December 2028, it would not matter that he won. We would have lost.

That would be four years of waiting for a final result.

We watched and are watching this play out in the Second Amendment community. Duncan v. Bonta has been around for almost a decade at this point. It has been through the district court twice, the Ninth Circuit court multiple times, and the Supreme Court at least once.

The case has won at the District and Supreme Court, yet the relief sought by the plaintiff is still out of reach. In March 2025, the Ninth Circuit decided to twist the words of the Supreme Court to find that magazines are not arms and are not protected by the Second Amendment.

The State of California doesn’t care how long this case takes or how much money it costs to litigate. The district court enjoined the law back in 2017-2018. The Ninth stayed the injunction. That stay has remained in effect even now as the case has been remanded to the district court, ordering the district court to rule for the state.

As long as the status of the case leans towards the infringers, they are happy to delay.

To show how real this is, a district judge in New York issued a TRO enjoining the SAFE act (Bruen tantrum law). The state had that appealed within hours, even though a TRO is not appealable. The Second Circuit Stayed the injunction.

It took over a year before the Second Circuit finally ruled against The People and The Constitution, sending it back to the District Court for more litigation before the case can start up the chain to the Supreme Court, again.

Because that stay is in place, most of New York state is a gun free zone.

The left is using the same methods to stop the Trump administration. They do not care if they win or if they lose, as long as it doesn’t happen now.

They go court shopping until they find a court willing to issue a universal injunction, stopping the Article II executive branch.

Once the injunction is in place, they start slow walking things.

The Circuit courts are just as rogue in these locations as the District Courts. They are using the interlocutory state to excuse not staying the injunctions. “Just let it play out in court.”

The leftest Justices on the Supreme Court echo those words, “just let it work its way here through the normal process. There is no reason to rush this.”

This go around, the Trump administration has been ready and has been moving hard and fast. Multiple cases have made it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has issued opinions favorable to the Trump administration each time.

How are they favorable? In most of the cases, the Justices have ruled to allow the Trump administration to continue as they had intended, while the case works its way through the courts.

This means that the left is on the wrong side of that snail. They are the ones attempting to get the cases through as fast as they can. And it isn’t working for them.

In the few cases where the Justices have not issued a stay, they have chastised the lower courts or scheduled oral hearings quickly.

The case at hand.

A group of people suffering from gender dysphoria have been given medical release from the military. They sued in federal district court, asking for an injunction, which was granted.

This means that the military does not have the power to determine which service members are medical disqualified from serving.

The Supreme Court issued a stay against that injunction for the duration. The stay will remain in effect until the Supreme Court denies cert OR issues a final opinion.

We are winning, the courts are moving at breakneck speed, and it keeps looking good.

The other thing which is happening, is that the lanuguage of the Court is changing, they are getting less and less polite and more and more pointed in their correcting of the inferior courts.

Aerial view of shipping containers and cargo ships in the sea port of Barcelona in Spain, Europe. Concept of sea and maritime trade and trade war due to tariffs. Commercial hub

Tariffs, Prices, and Costs. Oh My! – Updated

Update

Player Who
Seller Company in China selling the item
Vendor Company in Canada buying from Seller
Customer Company in the US buying from Vendor
Amazon Large retail website

The world is ending because the United States is imposing tariffs on other countries. This will cause the economy to crash.

Amazon was going to put up a “this product cost you $x in tariffs” to drive home just how evil tariffs are.

That is not what happens.

Let’s consider a tool I purchased recently. It cost me $45, it was made in China.

According to Amazon, since there is a 145% tariff on China, that means that $18.37 of that price is me paying a tariff.

This is garbage. Not true. There is no way to know what I am paying in tariffs because that is decided by the vendor.

To understand tariffs, we need to understand the difference between cost and price.

Let’s assume I’m buying lots of widgets from a vendor in Canada. According to the US government, there is a 145% tariff on those goods coming into the US.

Using the Amazon system, if we would see this particular item on Amazon for around $0.99 with $0.59 of that being “tariffs”.

This particular widget cost $0.58 cents. This is the amount the Chinese seller gets per unit. It costs $0.01 to get it shipped over to Canada.

This puts the total cost to the vendor at $0.59. This includes any tariffs imposed by Canada or export costs imposed by China.

The customer is buying these widgets from the vendor for $0.80/unit.

Using the Amazon model, this would mean that the tariffs would be $0.47/unit. If this were the case, the vendor would make negative $0.12 per unit. This is not viable. Something else must be happening.

There is something else happening. That is, that the vendor first sells the widget at cost to himself in the United States.

This means that he is paying a tariff on his cost of the item. Which is $0.58 with a tariff of $0.85. This makes the breakeven point on this product $1.44

The vendor and the customer have negotiated how much each will pay of the tariff. They agree to split the tariff 50/50.

This means that the breakeven point is now $1.02, meaning that the vendor loses $0.22/unit. The cost to the customer is now $0.80 + $0.43 = $1.23.

The customer will lose $0.24 per unit sold on Amazon instead of the $0.19 he was making before the tariffs.

The reality is that this widget is listed on Amazon. The price is $2.83/unit.

The Canadian vendor is not going to eat any of the tariff costs, that will be passed on to the customer.

The customer’s cost will go from $0.80 to $1.66.

Your price will go from $2.83 to what?

It will likely stay at $2.83. Why?

Because if they could sell the product at $3.83 they would already be selling it at $3.83. It is that simple.

Will it go up a little? Maybe. What if it went up enough to cover the entire cost of the tariffs? That would take it to $3.69/unit. That is still a much smaller percentage than what Amazon and the media would have you believe.

Which brings us to reality, once again. The price of this item will probably go to $3.33 per unit. A cost increase of $0.50/unit.

This is the complexity of tariffs, much of the pricing calculations are done well outside the view of the final user.

At every stage, the price of the good is set at the maximum that the market will tolerate. If that means that profits go down, profits will go down. If profits go down too much, then that seller will go out of business.

canadian attorney clowning around and banging the gavel on his head

“Facilitate” is not “Effectuate”

I’m saddened when I read the blog of somebody I respect, I’m looking at you Divemedic, gets it wrong because it is everywhere.

The inferior district court judge has claimed (lied) that the Supreme Court agreed with him and that the Government had to “Facilitate the return of Abrego-Garcia”. The Supreme Court did not say this.

The Supreme Court used polite court speak to slap this inferior court judge around the block. The judge then decided to take a victory lap because he refused to read the Supreme Court’s ruling correctly.

What does that “polite court speak” require? First, it requires that you respect all parties. Second, it requires you to treat all statements by the lawyers as being truthful. And it requires that you treat any willful error by the inferior courts as being honest mistakes.

The District Court judge ordered the United States Executive Branch (Article II) to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Abrego-Garcia. The judge was ordering the government to put Abrego-Garcia in his courtroom.

Under the standard legal dictionary meaning, facilitate means “get out of the way, do what you can do to help get this done.” “Effectuate” means “get it fucking done.”

The inferior court judge cannot order the Article II branch of the government to “effectuate” the return of Abrego-Garcia because the US Government does not have control of Abrego-Garcia.

Thus, the “effectuate” becomes an order to the government to start a war or otherwise do diplomatic things at the whim of the court.

Instead of saying, “You are a fucking arrogant worm. What the hell did you think you were doing when you ordered the Article II branch to do things? You are a co-equal branch, you don’t get to determine US policy, that is the job of the Article II branch.” Instead, the Supreme Court said, “We know you couldn’t have meant what you said, so you must clarify what you meant by ‘effectuate’.”

Sort of like when a little guy is starting to square up against a bigger dude and says something nasty.

Little dude, “Your mother wears army boots!”

Big dude, “I think I misunderstood you, you didn’t say my mom wears army boots, did you?”

This particular rogue judge decided to misunderstand. According to the documents that were available to me when I researched this article, the district court judge has not clarified what he meant by “effectuate”.

Instead, he has lied and changed “facilitate” to “effectuate” by claiming the Supreme Court said that the Article II branch must “facilitate the return of Abrego-Garcia”. Nowhere did the Supreme Court say that.

The Supreme Court told the government they had to talk to the judge and provide him with what information the government felt was acceptable to share.