U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York have filed an amicus curiae brief to have the Supreme Court dismiss the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., v. City of New York.
The brief is an amazing example of chutzpah and comes very close to being a direct threat to the Court.
A little history is in order. It has been Progressives that have blatantly politicized the Court for most of a century. It was Progressives that claimed the Constitution is only what the Court says it is. It was Progressives that claim the Constitution is a living document. It has been primarily Progressives that have created political projects to bring actions before the court to overrule the legislature.
It is the height of brazen presumption for Democrat senators to chide Conservatives for bringing political cases to the Supreme Court, especially about the Second Amendment.
The first Supreme Court case testing a federal gun control law was Miller. Miller was a blatant political case brought by an extreme proponent of federal gun control, who was appointed by FDR to the bench in 1933, Democrat Congressman Heartsill Ragon.
A prominent Democrat, Ragon endorsed Roosevelt in 1932 and helped push the New Deal through the Ways and Means Committee. In return, Roosevelt made him a district judge. The NFA was part of Roosevelt’s New Deal program, enacted with broad support shortly after Ragon took the bench. But the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (sic) was stirring up popular opposition, much of it based on the Second Amendment. The government needed to silence the complaints, and Miller was the perfect vehicle. Ragon had presided in an O’Malley prosecution, so he knew Miller was a crooked, pliable snitch, who wouldn’t cause any trouble. And Gutensohn was a comer who knew the game and got his due. Ragon’s memorandum opinion presented no facts and no argument. With no defense muddying the waters, it was the government’s ideal test case.
The decision in Miller was poorly written. It upheld the Second Amendment as an individual right but was muddy enough that later decisions by appeals courts completely reversed its meaning, creating the myth of the Second Amendment as a “collective right” of government-controlled militias. For 75 years, Progressives dominated the Supreme Court, and the court refused to hear any Second Amendment appeals.
It has been Democrats, leftists, and Progressives who have created rights to abortion, homosexual sex, and “gay marriage” out of thin air. It has been Progressives that have used the “commerce clause” to claim the federal government has the power to regulate everything in the United States.
These Democrat, Progressive, senators attempt to chide the Supreme Court for taking a case to prevent actual, obvious, infringements on the Second Amendment.
The Senators note much of the public considers the Court to be highly political. What do Progressives expect, after three generations of politicizing the Court at every turn? Do they expect the public to forget Judge Bork, Clarence Thomas, and the recent attempt to derail Justice Kavanaugh? From the brief:
Today, fifty-five percentof Americans believe the Supreme Court is “mainly motivated by politics”(up five percent from last year);fifty-nine percent believe the Court is “too influenced by politics”;and a majority now believes the “Supreme Court should be restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics. ”Quinnipiac Poll, supranote 2.To have the public believe that the Court’s pattern of outcomes is the stuff of chance(or “the requirements of thelaw,”Obergefell, 135 S. Ct. at 2612 (Roberts, C.J.,
18dissenting))is to treat the“intelligent man on the street,” Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, Oral Arg. Tr. at 37:18-38:11 (Oct. 3, 2017),as a fool.
The senators do not stop there. The threat to the court is thinly veiled. From the brief:
The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.”Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.
The implication is obvious: Nice little Court you have there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it. Rule the way we want, and you may keep your Court.
This, at the same time the senators speechify about maintaining separation of powers of the three branches of government!
I have seldom seen such brazen doublespeak! The Orwellian ability to believe in contradictory things by party members, is much in evidence in these senators.
The ability of the Party Organs (otherwise known as the mainstream media) to control the information flow is dwindling. It remains to be seen if the power has decreased enough to prevent the Progressives from regaining control of the Presidency and the Senate in 2020. In 2016, the Media showed enough power to regain control of the House.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
ARE YOU KIDDING?? This IS a direct threat to SCOTUS!!
They made it clear that “fundamental restructuring” is either packing the Court with a plurality of anti-constitutional commiecrats, or the abolition of the Court itself. These domestic enemies of liberty have made it clear they despise the Constitution and desire to abolish it so there is no restraint on their future plans for tyranny!!
These people should actually be arrested for treason!
I want to know what the leftists judges are going to do about it? Are they going to bow down or tell these fools to STFU.
can’t abollish the Supreme Court, as that is a direct product of the Constitution. Every lower cour can (and likley should…) be taken down. But to touch SCOTUS as the institution it is would be the same as , say, going to war without a declaration bt Congress, or making a common herb into a controlled substance and outlawing it, or owning vast tracts of lands that re not customs houses, post offfices, naval ports, military forts, government courthouses….. oh wait, they’ve already DONE all those unconstituoinal things, and more.. silly me.
How do you plan to enforce your legal rights if there are no inferior courts in which to make your case?
Talking about gun bans and gun confiscation is easy. Implementation could prove a bit harder. The only reason the Left is pushing so hard is they want and believe it is time to takeover. Problem is, they have a huge blind spot in underestimating the level of resistance they will encounter. All we can do for now, is Vote, Vote, Vote and Vote for people that have good 18th century Constitutional Values, but be prepared.
The government needs to learn from Philadelphia.. That was one man…Imagine millions of people shooting at the police for trying to take your lawfully owned property… Out of 300 million gun owners.. I’m willing to bet a fraction of them will violently resist gun confiscation… The asymmetrical Warfare will be a bloodbath unlike anything ever witnessed…WHO WILL TAKE THEM?.. I am sure some idiots will turn theirs in, like sheep…But what about the other millions of people… Most of the police and Military will not participate and abandon their post.. They DONT have to participate because of the oath that… Read more »
Basic numbers, less than 30%, closer to 20% comply with the illegal laws of registration, even in New Zealand that’s the number. So my guess is that 30% will stand up to tyranny. So 100+ Million citizens with a hell of a lot of ammo is going to make a heck of an impression. Throw in some real command and control and it’ll be interesting.
There’s no support for your claim about New Zealand. They are quite law abiding, and the window for the buyback just recently opened. Even Australia has high compliance with its gun laws. The U.S. will eventually have Australia like gun regulations and, after a period of transition, most everyone will comply with them except the true criminals. Those people will have to be dealt with more firmly and, if need be, decisively.
Can’t speak to New Zealand or Australia and frankly, don’t care what they do but as for the US, I guess it depends on what you mean by eventually and true criminals. If you think 100 million gun owners are going to obey an unconstitutional law, I think you are wrong at least until the baby boomers are gone, then maybe. As to your calling legal gun owners “True criminals” if that is in fact what you meant and I that’s what it sounds like since the 2A community will NOT give up their firearms – if that’s how you… Read more »
New Zealand:
“Police are anticipating a number of people with banned firearms in their possession won’t surrender them,”
As of last week(7.8.2019), only around 700 weapons had been turned over. There are an estimated 1.5 million guns—with an unknown number subject to the new prohibition on semiautomatic firearms—in the country overall. from Reason.com.
The compliance with the Australian NFA law for self-loading semi auto firearms is only about 20%, with a thriving, violent, black market in firearms spring up after the enactment of the gun control laws.
Actually, it’s over 300 million firearms, owned by about 100 million citizens. But you are quite correct… if even a fraction of the firearms owners revolt, the confiscation will be thwarted.
minor details, there are over ONE hundred million gun OWNERS in the US, and well above 400 Mn guns in our hands. That does not count tactics like ‘”battlefield acquisition” which could easily raise the number in hand to half a billion. Compliance rate in New York for their stupid “safe” act hovers between three and five percent for registration…. compliance with Caifornia’s new standard cap mags, before the ban was stayed by the courts, had a decimal point to the left of any numbers. The recent “bump stock device” ban seems to have a vanishingly small compliance rate. Over… Read more »
@31, you write, “… the oath that they took.. it’s an unlawful order…” First an order and an oath are two different things. So, you need to elaborate. Second, how do you know that they all take the same oath or what those many oaths say? And finally, where do you get this stuff?
You can vote all you want but in the end…it’s who does the counting that is important.
@BrainMatters, The government could use food denial, electricity denial, and treated water denial as weapons. For example, the gov fakes a cyber attack. Elec goes down, water does not flow, stores get no resupply. The government uses the military to hand out one meal per day per person, but if you turn in a weapon, you get more rations. You watch your family starve; look at the gun cabinet; then you look back to your family. The libtard power elites use Fed Bureaucrats to do benign evil, in the disguise of doing good. The Republic is destroyed without firing a… Read more »
YES all of the food Rationing and other things exactly what you said Wild Bill, plus the news media telling people fake news of what is happening … What if a Red Flag law causes a death and the news media just blows it off, calling the person a mental case, WHO is reacting then, OH WAIT, no one, cause it has already happened !!!! What about FaceBook and all the other social media looking at your every comment and you loosing your job or not getting a job ??? OH that is happening now too…. What if I want… Read more »
Legislators now think it’s OK to threaten the supreme court? Tyranny? These “people” are playing with fire. Turn in or confiscate 300 million + firearms? Jail those who don’t comply? Who is going to be stupid enough to try that? The last time somebody tried that here in the States happened around 1775. Now as then, the socialism experiment cannot happen while the “subjects” are armed. Even the Japs thought better about invading the U.S.A. The guy that planned the Pearl Harbor attack was asked why he did not capitalize on his tactical victory and invade the U.S. His reply… Read more »
Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2019/08/senators-threaten-supreme-court-on-new-york-second-amendment-case/#ixzz5wtjYQQOX Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Follow us: @Ammoland on Twitter | Ammoland on Facebook Turn in my arms, my ammo, my high capacity magazines and gear? You are out of your friken mind pal. Aint going to happen until the LORD returns. My wife was born and raised in the ussr and once jokingly asked me if there was any way I’d disarm. With out batting a eye I told her when christ returns! I am teaching her to be an american and I’m certain I’ll be successful because i use logic and facts. Man is by… Read more »
Reminds us how important the upcoming elections are doesn’t it?
@wjd, I wonder. I am not too happy with Trump. Voted for him. Don’t particularly care for him but he was the best of a bad lot in my opinion. Seems like all my adult life we have had to vote that way. It would be nice if just one time we could get a person who doesn’t say, “I’m for the Second – but.” Someone that was actually electable. When Trump sold us all downstream on the bumpstock’s I said I wasn’t voting for him again, period. Then I read this.
Autsin Miller III; How true about Trump, he ran he won, not happy with some of his non-sense but if the re-pub-o-rats didn’t have anybody better to run against him, ask yourself this, Did you want Miss Hillary? I will vote again and it won’t be for any one of the 24 Demo-Rats running for that office!!!!!!!!
We had one.. first as an Independent, (maybe Libertarian, I can’t remember) and next time as a Republican. The powers in the Republican Party “decided” he was “not electable” and so he was not. Yes, I mean Ron Paul, who has and yet today continues, to speak clearly and intelligently on the Second Article of Ammendment and related issues, and believes the one sentence in the constitution is the full and complete and binding story on the matter of firearms in this nation. He also believes, and would have done something about it had he been elected, that nearly every… Read more »
@ Will
Along that line of thought,If President Trump. If he does anything stupid he will lose his base and thus reelection and the Leftist hounds will be on him or so Kurt Schlichter reasons out
“Trump needs to stand firm in the face of a bogus panic initiated by the acts of leftist monsters.* And he almost certainly will. He’s literally got everything to lose.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/08/12/trump-is-unlikely-to-commit-political-suicide-by-betraying-us-on-guns-n2551496
Yes I disagree with Trump on a lot of things, but if we don’t vote for him, that is a vote for the opposition and I don’t see any of them that are even close to my way of thinking …. I wish their was someone better, believe me, and if I am wrong please correct me, The trouble is why would any person want to go through the personal torque that the media and S-C-Demorats are putting Trump through ???? Or any of his top officials … Or even for that matter a SC Judge if Trump or any… Read more »
So the senators include the results of a poll in a brief. Of what relevance, to any part of a Constitutional issue, is a poll? Maybe there really should be a literacy test before one can run for public office.
“The Supreme Court follows election returns” Mr. Dooley.
I highly doubt that you know any of them so that you could ask them, Speculating Dog.
Good article Dean. You are right about the democrats, they love the Supreme Court, as long as their rulings suit the democrat ideals.
When these hoser “progressive” elitists say “heal”, they actually mean “heel” and expect the SCOTUS to obey. Again, the need for the 2nd Amendment is demonstrated.
The Supreme Court needs to come out and address the threats made by these politicians.. will I clear message ” Dont mess with the Supreme Court”..
Leave it to democrats to challenge the supreme court when it doesn’t go their way. The real problem with government is those who violate their oath of office are never held accountable.
They’re held accountable in every election. That’s how our system was designed.
Now that’s funny. The Congress has a fund to pay off people who have been sexually assaulted by our elected officials or who have other claims of impropriety and have paid out $17,000,000 since 1997. We aren’t allowed to know who they are, what they are paid, who they accused or what happened but they are held accountable. Right.
Good article with historical facts. We really need to start calling out the progressives. They are merely a schism of authoritarianism, the same as Marxism, communism, socialism, Neo Nazi’s and supremacists of all colors. They all want to enslave people to the sates with the state literally making life and death decisions. We must point this out each time we can when these authoritarians raise their heads in self rightous indignation
If these people regain power then we have lost the political war to stay free.
@OV, After chores, I went to give blood. Yep, It is most suspicious that the computers went down at all the high priority targets. We were probably cyber attacked by our communist enemies in New Jersey.
@OV, Yes, sir, look out all you local girls … and area sheep
Prior to firearms the world was more chaotic. With their introduction things escalated quickly then staved off. We don’t lose hundreds of thousands a day like during the peaks of large wars. Sure a few of the 7.53 billion humans get worked up enough to commit such violence. That is going to happen but it is a far cry of the sort of violence seen for nearly all of human history. Especially looking at the populations of the world during the crusades, or even WWI. Leave the guns alone, they are the reason we don’t have the wild west or… Read more »
Wars are actually a small part of the violence inflicted on citizens by government. 262 million were murdered in the 20th century 7200 per day every day – not counting war dead. These murders hang on Karl Marx’s progressive/communist ideology. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM The progressives own this and we need to hold their ideology up to the light and point it out
Your comment about the “Wild West” is in accordance with those that wish to rid us of our firearms. The “Wild West” was less violent than the “civilized” Eastern cities, which even today are more violent than the “Wild West” ever was, except in dime store novels.
You forgot the soda ban in NYC that Master Bloomberg implemented. Their is literally no aspect of our lives they do not want to control
AND the bans on plastic drinking straws, plastic Tee shirt grocery bags, in San Antonio they’ve banned ChiFilA from the airport, its ban ban ban….. and most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Thjey tried banning alcohol but that backfired.. now the former bootlegging operation masters have been running state politcs for three generations and counting. They’ve banned a silly herb because a company invented a synthetic fibre and wanted to axe the long standing product that would compete with their new one. Millions have been and are in jail because a big corporation wanted to bury the… Read more »
Dadgum it i wanted to say HATE CHICKEN,lol
Now, that is funny.
Hey Tio, I don’t remember a Dylan version of that song. The Farinas wrote and sang it though. it was called House Un-American Blues Activity Dream.
@option 31, I agree no detail of our lives is too small to escape libtard control. They will begin with, ” You don’t need ________ .” Next, it will be, “You don’t need _____, either”
The Democrats have been abusing the Judicial Branch long enough. It’s time to restore the US Constitution and boot the unconstitutional judges the Democrats have planted. You have to understand Article VI governs over ALL levels of government including the POTUS and SCOTUS. They can interpret it, but The People can challenge constitutionality. If any official is found to knowingly not be in good standing per Supreme Law, they can be defunded, disbarred, and discharged. This includes State legislation that violates the articles and rights within the US Constitution per Article VI: Supreme Law. The notion that State Constitutions trump… Read more »
Dumb ass liberals are not accountable.
Yes, the SC has become very political. They do not want to take gun rights cases anymore and they stumbled and fell on the Obamacare debacle over paying for the coverage or paying a tax. Chief Justice Roberts, a Bush appointee, seems to side with the liberals more than not. Remember when Granny Ginsburg said the Constitution is an outdated document. For conservatives that believe in the Constitution the court is definitely not supreme. Unless they start performing as a true Supreme Court we might be better off putting them all out to pasture. Think of the money that would… Read more »
With the filibuster gone thanks to Harry Reid, this is possible.
The Right would not have had the balls to end the filibuster, but it has ended up working in the Rights favor more than the Left’s.
If the Left wins the White House and is able to stack the SCOTUS with six more justices we are screwed. Even if the Right holds the Senate, the Dem nomination is always approved and liberal. A Rep nomination with a Dem Senate is very often liberal.
and if you remember obama said during a speech at the un (unnecessary) that we should be part of the world criminal court, kagan or the other leftist he appointed said we need to use other countries judicial rulings as case law in America. leftists cannot be trusted to do the right thing, they crave power.
Conservatives routinely refer to the Federalist Papers to determine the original intent of the Founders. Federalist #29 clearly articulates their original intentions regarding militia forces and arming same. It has nothing to do with giving people access to weapons.
Indeed, and you won’t find anything in the Bill Of Rights about giving people access to weapons. Why would we expect the government to give us something, that we have told the government they have authority over? I would recommend the Constitutional Debates of 1787 for a better reference on the 2nd Amendment.
@Racontuer, that dog must have skipped reading the Bill of Rights.