Dean Weingarten has a good find at Ammoland.
Judge Eduardo Ramos, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, has issued an Opinion & Order that a ban on stun guns is constitutional. A New York State law prohibits the private possession of stun guns and tasers; a New York City law prohibits the possession and selling of stun guns. Judge Ramos has ruled these laws do not infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Let’s briefly revisit statements made by Justice Roberts concerning the authority of the court.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday warned about a rising number of threats to the judiciary’s independence, including calls for violence against judges and “dangerous” suggestions by elected officials to disregard court rulings they disagree with.
He didn’t just come out with this statement once, but felt obligated to reiterate his concerns in March of this year.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said in the statement.
Make no mistake. He’s saying the same thing regardless of how the caution is worded. This is remarkable since the NY court decision is clearly in contravention of the Caetano ruling. Let’s quote.
The Court has held that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 582, 128 S.Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (2008), and that this “Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States,” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 750, 130 S.Ct. 3020, 177 L.Ed.2d 894 (2010). In this case, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a Massachusetts law prohibiting the possession of stun guns after examining “whether a stun gun is the type of weapon contemplated by Congress in 1789 as being protected by the Second Amendment.” 470 Mass. 774, 777, 26 N.E.3d 688, 691 (2015).
The court offered three explanations to support its holding that the Second Amendment does not extend to stun guns. First, the court explained that stun guns are not protected because they “were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment.”
Id., at 781, 26 N.E.3d, at 693. This is inconsistent with Heller ‘s clear statement that the Second Amendment “extends … to … arms … that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” 554 U.S., at 582, 128 S.Ct. 2783.
The court next asked whether stun guns are “dangerous per se at common law and unusual,” 470 Mass., at 781, 26 N.E.3d, at 694, in an attempt to apply one “important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms,” Heller, 554 U.S., at 627, 128 S.Ct. 2783 ; see ibid. (referring to “the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’ “). In so doing, the court concluded that stun guns are “unusual” because they are “a thoroughly modern invention.” 470 Mass., at 781, 26 N.E.3d, at 693–694. By equating “unusual” with “in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment,” the court’s second explanation is the same as the first; it is inconsistent with Heller for the same reason.
Finally, the court used “a contemporary lens” and found “nothing in the record to suggest that [stun guns] are readily adaptable to use in the military.” 470 Mass., at 781, 26 N.E.3d, at 694. But Heller rejected the proposition “that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected.” 554 U.S., at 624–625, 128 S.Ct. 2783.
For these three reasons, the explanation the Massachusetts court offered for upholding the law contradicts this Court’s precedent. Consequently, the petition for a writ of certiorari and the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis are granted. The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Thus, the hearing was granted. This is their conclusion.
The lower court’s ill treatment of Heller cannot stand. The reasoning of the Massachusetts court poses a grave threat to the fundamental right of self-defense. The Su preme Judicial Court suggested that Caetano could have simply gotten a firearm to defend herself. 470 Mass., at 783, 26 N. E. 3d, at 695. But the right to bear other weap ons is “no answer” to a ban on the possession of protected arms. Heller, 554 U. S., at 629. Moreover, a weapon is an effective means of self-defense only if one is prepared to use it, and it is presumptuous to tell Caetano she should have been ready to shoot the father of her two young children if she wanted to protect herself. Courts should not be in the business of demanding that citizens use more force for self-defense than they are comfortable wielding.
Countless people may have reservations about using deadly force, whether for moral, religious, or emotional reasons—or simply out of fear of killing the wrong person. See Brief for Arming Women Against Rape & Endanger ment as Amicus Curiae 4–5. “Self-defense,” however, “is a basic right.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767. I am not pre pared to say that a State may force an individual to choose between exercising that right and following her con science, at least where both can be accommodated by a weapon already in widespread use across the Nation.
A State’s most basic responsibility is to keep its people safe. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was either unable or unwilling to do what was necessary to protect Jaime Caetano, so she was forced to protect herself. To make matters worse, the Commonwealth chose to deploy its prosecutorial resources to prosecute and convict her of a criminal offense for arming herself with a nonlethal weapon that may well have saved her life. The Supreme Judicial Court then affirmed her conviction on the flimsi est of grounds. This Court’s grudging per curiam now sends the case back to that same court. And the conse quences for Caetano may prove more tragic still, as her conviction likely bars her from ever bearing arms for self defense. See Pet. for Cert. 14.
If the fundamental right of self-defense does not protect Caetano, then the safety of all Americans is left to the mercy of state authorities who may be more concerned about disarming the people than about keeping them safe.
This was a Per Curiam judgment, with the citations above belonging to Alito, with Thomas concurring. Lyle Denniston writes that “The Second Amendment expands, but maybe not by much.” I disagree.
The criteria was clear. Stun guns are “in common use for lawful purposes.” Thus, they are protected by the second amendment as the supreme court found in Heller and McDonald. For a weapon to be disallowed, it must be dangerous and unusual (according to the decision). Alito found that stun guns were not unusual.
Neither are AR-15s for that matter. Yet the fourth circuit concluded that a ban on them didn’t violate second amendment rights. That case is currently before the supreme court, having been redistributed for conference nine times (Snope v Brown). The supreme court is apparently too cowardly to take this case up and declare once and for all that AR-15s are not dangerous and unusual.
[Here I understand that other things might be going on. Thomas and Alito might know that they don’t have the support of the other justices, and don’t want bad precedent to be established. Even the supposed “libertarian” justice Gorsuch was heard suggesting in oral arguments on the bump stock ban case that congress ought to make them illegal.]
How ironic is it that the court system is allowing an inferior court to completely ignore its ruling in Caetano (or at least, the inferior court judge doesn’t care what Caetano says, and that judge certainly knew about the precedent), and that the court is allowing the fourth circuit to contravene its rulings in Heller, McDonald and Bruen by declaring an AR-15 ban constitutional, while striking out at the executive for suggesting that the court system needs reform?
What’s not surprising is that the executive might need to ignore the courts. What’s ironic is that not even the courts pay attention to the courts. They can’t even get their own house in order. Openly flouting supreme court precedent by the inferior courts is about as disorderly and vulgar as one can imagine.
Roberts has no right to criticize the executive until he cleans house. It should have been embarrassing to have issued those statements.
1 week, 5 days ago
