Four cases, affecting three potential controls were sent back to the lower courts; AR bans, Standard Capacity Mag bans, and Conceal Carry considerations. All of these cases have countrywide implications.

The video is 8 minutes.

This case has wider implications than just in Illinois. The SCOTUS is showing itself to be emphatic, insisting that its rulings be applied.

On May 1, Justice Amy Coney Barrett directed the State of Illinois and the City of Naperville to respond to the emergency application for injunction pending appellate review filed by the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR).  As I explained in “An Opening Judicial Salvo in Defense of Illinois’ New Rifle Ban,” the U.S. district court (N.D. Ill.) denied a motion for preliminary injunction against the State’s ban on semiautomatic rifles and standard-capacity magazines, greatly departing from  Supreme Court precedent on the Second Amendment.

While that denial was being appealed to the 7th Circuit, Judge Stephen McGlynn (S.D. Ill.) found that plaintiffs in another challenge were likely to succeed on the merits that the law violates the Second Amendment, and he issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement.  See my post. The 7th Circuit immediately granted the State’s motion for a stay against the injunction in a one-sentence order without giving the plaintiffs an opportunity to respond.

So now the challengers have filed amicus briefs supporting NAGR in the Supreme Court, and we await a decision there.

While granting the emergency application in an interlocutory appeal of this type would be unusual, there are compelling reasons to do so here, as perhaps explained best in the amicus brief filed by Paul Clement and Erin Murphy on behalf of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).  As they note, there were only six states with bans last year when New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen was decided, and now there are ten.  “Instead of treating Bruen as an occasion to reconsider existing restrictions on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, they have enacted new ‘assault weapon’ and/or ‘large-capacity magazine’ bans, with more still on the way.”  Quoting phrases from Bruen, they argue:

Rifles, pistols, and shotguns plainly “constitute bearable arms”—i.e., “instruments that facilitate armed self-defense,” …—no matter what kind of grip, stock, ammunition feeding device, or other features they may have. The right to keep and bear them is thus “presumptively protect[ed]” by the Constitution.  In breezily concluding that the firearms Illinois has banned are not even “Arms” covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment, the district court in this case inexplicably ignored the test that Bruen articulated, and instead simply declared that “[t]he text of the Second Amendment is limited to only certain arms.”

The particulars of the Illinois case and some further history are at the link.

James Wesley Rawles, at Survival Blog:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen decision (issued June 23, 2022) was a pivotal ruling.  Following up on the District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and the McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) decisions, Bruen reaffirmed private gun rights, quite solidly. Up until those three decisions, the Supreme Court had conspicuously ignored taking up any Second Amendment cases, for more than 50 years. But now, the highest court has made it quite clear that the right to keep and bear arms is nigh-on absolute.

I’ve mentioned the Bruen decision before in SurvivalBlog. But today, I’d like like to examine it more closely.

The majority opinion for Bruen was written by one of my heroes, Justice Clarence Thomas. He had previously lamented that the Second Amendment had been treated as “a disfavored right.”  But in the 2022 decision, Justice Thomas set things write. He forthrightly wrote that the only gun regulations that can be deemed constitutional are ones that don’t infringe on conduct that is plainly covered by the text of the Second Amendment and that are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition.” This part of Bruen means that any gun law enacted at any level must have a demonstrable parallel in regulations that were in place at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights — meaning circa December, 1791. Thus, Bruen sets a very high bar for legislators to hurdle. If lawmakers cannot cite a similar law that existed after the War of Independence but before December, 1791, then any statute pertaining to arms of any description would be unconstitutional!

It’s an interesting rehearsal of some little known history, and with Bruen, history matters. In light of the decision, one has to ask by what authority does the F exist in ATF? Read the rest.

The void left by atheism is easily filled by father government. The promoters of this must know that.

“The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) was officially titled ‘DRL FY20 IRF Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals,’” Banks and the Republicans wrote.

And this news: Supreme Court declines religious challenge to COVID-19 vaccine mandates in New York

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up a challenge to a vaccine mandate for health workers in New York that does not include a religious exemption, the latest decision in which the high court has allowed state health requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic to stand.

That’s not good at all. Having long-term authoritarian implications, you can be confident the government(s) will use it against you again.

WSJ.

What an enormous abdication. The Supreme Court ducked its first Second Amendment case in a decade on Monday, and the only plausible explanation is that Chief Justice John Roberts wanted to avoid becoming a target of vengeful Senate Democrats.

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the Chief joined the four liberals and a (conflicted) Justice Brett Kavanaugh in declaring moot a challenge to New York City’s onerous gun regulation (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York). At issue is a New York City rule that prevents residents with gun licenses from transporting their guns from their city homes to shooting ranges and homes outside the city. Obtaining even a “premises” license requires a $431 fee and police investigation into an applicant’s mental health, criminal history and moral character. It can take six months.

A few points of order.  First, the SCOTUS didn’t have to drop the case.  They can accept anything they want.  Second, New York can go right back to legislating liberty away now, and an aggrieved party must go through the process all over again.  It games the system, and we and they all know it.

Third, the WSJ is assuming that Roberts is a coward.  This may be true, but it also may be true that he fears nothing from Senators and is simply a controller at heart.  Fourth, assuming that he really was afraid of the Senators and is awaiting a less divisive time to rule on the 2A, he’s ignorant.  America is becoming more polarized, not less.

On the mootness point, Justice Alito also pokes his colleagues with this hypothetical: “A State enacts a law providing that any woman wishing to obtain an abortion must submit certification from five doctors that the procedure is medically necessary. After a woman sues, claiming that any requirement of physician certification is unconstitutional, the State replaces its old law with a new one requiring certification by three physicians. Would the court be required to dismiss the woman’s suit?” You know the answer.

Justice Kavanaugh’s role here is curious because, while he joined the majority on mootness, he wrote a concurrence agreeing with the dissent on the Second Amendment merits. This looks to us as if he is trying to protect the Chief Justice from being the fifth vote, and the sole “conservative,” providing a liberal victory while making clear he’s still a solid vote himself for gun rights. The phrase for this is too clever by half.

Justice Kavanaugh may agree with the Chief that the Court needs to avoid political controversies, especially with Democrats threatening to pack the Court if they win the White House and Senate in November. But the Court’s timidity on gun rights amid Senate threats means that liberal and media intimidation will escalate. The Court hasn’t taken a Second Amendment case in a decade, even as cities and states erode its landmark Heller decision bit by bit. The Court is sending a signal that the Second Amendment is the exception in the Bill of Rights, a second-class freedom.

“By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced,” Justice Alito warns. He’s right but too polite.

The Chief Justice is carving out a reputation as a highly political Justice whose views on the law can be coerced with threats to the Court’s “independence.” The danger for the Court is that, in bending to these threats, the Chief is compromising the very independence he claims to want to protect.

The time for politeness has ended.  The progs declared war long ago, and what’s left of believers in liberty is drinking tea in the front room playing parlor games and making sure their suits don’t get soiled.