Differing Views on the Fourth Circuit Upholding the Maryland AWB
BY Herschel Smith
3 months, 1 week ago
First up, Mark Smith gives his take. Mark always seems optimistic about things, and I fear that he may be projecting his own knowledge and honesty onto the supreme court justices. In this particular analysis, he goes into great depth on the games played in the fourth circuit. As I’ve said before, I have as much use for the fourth circuit as I do my toe jam.
I predict that the supreme court will allow the fourth circuit to get away with the disrespect and malfeasance.
Next up, there is James Reeves. He points out that there are other cases of AWB that were fully finished in appellate court that the supreme court refused to take up.
Thus, James is in my camp. The supreme court is running from this issue, and they have been for years. They want the second amendment to be something other than amelioration of tyranny, something palatable to the inside-the-beltway types. Even Scalia wanted that and bowed to the demands of the libs on the court.
The only legitimate justice on the court right now is Clarence Thomas. There are two others that I can think of who would make great justices: James Ho, and Don Willett. Only addition of men like these can every possibly bring back the court to its roots.
On August 13, 2024 at 3:51 pm, Archer said:
Around 11:07 in the second video, James misses a point that the Fourth Circuit majority tries to make — or more correctly, James accurately quotes SCOTUS in Heller, but the decision’s text on screen misquotes it. Namely, that Heller does not protect firearms that are “dangerous or unusual” (4th Circuit’s words).
The problem: Heller says “dangerous AND unusual”, not “dangerous OR unusual”. This is a move pointed out by many, many other 2A advocates watching court cases, and it’s universally believed to be intentional, not a mistake.
Why? All guns are potentially dangerous; they wouldn’t be effective weapons if they weren’t. The real crux given by Heller is, are they dangerous AND UNUSUAL? If they are both, Heller says, then it’s possible they may be banned, but that was not the question before the court (Heller was about normal handguns) so they did not delve further into it.
Latching onto the “or” in “dangerous OR unusual” greatly broadens the scope of what presumably may be banned according to Heller, and since all guns are potentially dangerous, that leaves the possibility ALL guns may be banned as “dangerous or unusual”.
That change from “and” to “or” needs to be called out, loudly, every time. They’re deliberately and purposefully mis-quoting SCOTUS for their own ends, fundamentally no different than if they claimed the 2nd Amendment declares that the right of the people to keep and bear arms “shall … be infringed”, and thus all infringements stand.