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Ultra-right wing conservatives are furious with the latest SCOTUS ruling. The Supreme Court did the unthinkable and “upheld a federal law that disarms people under domestic violence restraining orders.” Everyone is stunned at the major departure from “history and tradition.” All eyes were on Amy Coney Barrett. She was expected to go rogue and buck the concept of relying on precedent simply because that’s the way it’s always been done. She’s on record arguing that there ought to be a better reason than that to base major decisions on. The big question was whether or not she could find another conservative to agree with her. The result was bigger than that. The decision came in eight to one, with hardcore conservative Clarence Thomas the only one against the idea.
SCOTUS ruling shocks everyone
Liberals are shocked because SCOTUS actually agreed with them, even ultra-conservatives appointed by President Donald Trump. Conservatives are equally stunned for exactly the same reason.
The ruling handed down in United States v. Rahimi is a major departure from history and tradition. The controversial restriction on firearm ownership “complies with the court’s recent expansion of Second Amendment rights.”
The same two-year-old decision which found a right to bear arms outside the home for the first time created a “test” for gun control measures. One that fits “within the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Justice Clarence Thomas wasn’t buying that argument for a second but he was overwhelmingly outvoted.
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The Supreme Court got it WRONG today in their decision on US vs. Rahimi.
This decision will undoubtedly harm people who have committed no crimes and as Justice Thomas said, "In the interest of ensuring the Government can regulate one subset of society, today’s decision… pic.twitter.com/fNjBVOdlAB
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 21, 2024
Chief Justice John Roberts penned the majority opinion. The staunch conservative explains that SCOTUS relies on “a tradition of disarming individuals found to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another.”
NRA leadership and unstable members of the Boogaloo Bois were convinced that the constitution gives them an unlimited right to own as many weapons as they can acquire but SCOTUS shredded that traditional concept once and for all.
They managed to rely on history, tradition and precedent to do it, which really confuses upset conservatives. “Since the founding, our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms,” Roberts wrote.
One subset of society
SCOTUS was not entirely unanimous in crafting a whole new road map for interpreting the Second Amendment. Justice Thomas wasn’t buying their arguments, noting in his dissent that “not a single historical regulation justifies that statute at issue.”
He understands why they did it. He just doesn’t agree that the end justifies the means. What they did is allow government to “regulate one subset of society.” People who are a threat to the community.
In the underlying case, Zackey Rahimi “had been placed under a restraining order after he dragged his girlfriend, with whom he has a child, into a parking lot and attempted to shoot a witness.” Later, he “participated in a series of five shootings.”
Today's Supreme Court decision in Rahimi was the right one.
The fight against gun violence, however, does not stop. My statement: pic.twitter.com/zun20TczWS
— Angela Alsobrooks (@AlsobrooksForMD) June 21, 2024
This is the first time SCOTUS has had a chance to apply their new “Bruen test.” They’ve been holding back a bunch of important cases because they wanted to decide this one first. One of those is “the Justice Department’s defense of the provision that Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was convicted under in his recent criminal trial.”
Neil Gorsuch forcefully defended the Bruen test in his affirming opinion, while “conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett wrote solo opinions making observations about the history-based inquiry.” All three of the liberals wrote opinions explaining how much they hated to agree with conservatives.
“In my view, the blame may lie with us, not with them,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. Sotomayor and Kagan think “the Second Amendment test used by courts prior to Bruen remains ‘the right one.‘” The problem is that so far, nobody has asked SCOTUS to “overrule their new precedent.“
