As we are all very much aware, opponents of the Second Amendment to the Constitution are gearing up to further degrade those rights. It is the belief of many, including me, that another stepping stone to abolition of our rights is underway.
Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection points out,
By hijacking the issue of school safety and repurposing it for anti-Trump and anti-2nd Amendment goals, the people behind these events have guaranteed that nothing productive will happen as to actually protecting students.
Yet there will be intense pressure to “do something” even if that something is unproductive and unconstitutional.
We all hope that the Supreme Court will protect our Second Amendment rights but, as Professor Jacobson points out in his piece yesterday, it seems that the hope is misplaced. Yesterday, the Supreme declined to hear a California case regarding an additional and unnecessary mandatory waiting period for those who already legally own firearms.
The Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari today, meaning the Supreme Court would not hear the case, leaving the 9th Circuit decision and the waiting period in place.
Justice Thomas’ dissent on the issue of whether the Supreme Court should hear the case was sharp and scholarly, which is no surprise. That the other conservative Justices did not join the dissent is curious, but may have been tactical. If there was not a majority to overturn the 9th Circuit, then it might be better not to take the case at all. Justice Thomas’ dissent, in my view, likely reflects the views of other Justices as well, though it was issued in his name only as a marker and warning as to what is happening at the Supreme Court level when it comes to protection of 2nd Amendment rights.
Part of Justice Thomas’ opinion:
The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” and the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to respect that right, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 749–750 (2010) (plurality opinion); id., at 805 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Because the right to keep and bear arms is enumerated in the Constitution, courts cannot subject laws that burden it to mere rational-basis review. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 628, n. 27 (2008).
But the decision below did just that….
If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt that this Court would intervene. But as evidenced by our continued inaction in this area, the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this Court.
Because I do not believe we should be in the business of choosing which constitutional rights are “really worth insisting upon,” Heller, supra, at 634, I would have granted certiorari in this case.
Another excerpt from Justice Thomas’ opinion:
Our continued refusal to hear Second Amendment cases only enables this kind of defiance. We have not heard argument in a Second Amendment case for nearly eight years. Peruta v. California, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (THOMAS, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 7). And we have not clarified the standard for assessing Second Amendment claims for almost 10. Meanwhile, in this Term alone, we have granted review in at least five cases involving the First Amendment and four cases involving the Fourth Amendment—even though our jurisprudence is much more developed for those rights.
If this case involved one of the Court’s more favored rights, I sincerely doubt we would have denied certiorari….
The Court would take these cases because abortion, speech, and the Fourth Amendment are three of its favored rights. The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan. And the lower courts seem to have gotten the message.
The complete dissenting opinion available here on Scribd:
Judge Thomas’ Dissent on 2nd Amendment in Silvester vs Becerra Cert. Petition
The Supreme Court has, in effect, issued a quiet notice that they might stand down in the event that further attacks are made on our Second Amendment rights. If Justice Thomas believes this is true, I think we should take very serious notice.
It is obvious that the courts are being used (particularly the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals) by liberal judges to erode our liberties as quickly as they can. It seems that the only way to fend off the attacks is for our President to even more quickly put through his conservative judicial appointments.
Here is the list of the latest appointments, announced earlier this month:
President Donald J. Trump Announces Eleventh Wave of Judicial Nominees
First on the list is Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii to serve as a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Bennett’s curriculum vitae, and that of the other nominees, is available at the link.
Stella's Place 
The progressives are playing with fire. Well go ahead try banning firearms. You’ll be amazed at what you get.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe, and maybe not. These things usually move in lil steps. Small enough that people gripe but really don’t do anything about. Before you know it, it’s done.
LikeLike
The new American paradigm: we can’t blame people, we have to blame ‘;things’. It isn’t the government’s fault after defunding, dissolving and rendering illegal the mental health system as we knew it – it’s the mentally ill having access to guns that’s wrong. It’s not the generation of kids without a solid moral grounding – it’s their access to guns. The violence flooding our streets isn’t the fault of minority youth thinking selling drugs and livining the thug life – it’s their access to guns.
It’s easier to get rid of things than it is peoples’ bad habits, things don’t get defensive while ill-mannered people appreciate your deflecting the blame.
LikeLiked by 7 people
I could not have said it better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t believe that.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals are to blame for the state of our mental health system.
Society in general is to blame for the bratty kids.
This is probably going to offend some people but we need to go back to the days when we dragged our kids to Church and that Church didn’t only talk about God’s Love, but preached the consequences of turning away from His Love. We also need to go back to the days of spare the rod spoil the child. That is not the same as saying beat your kids, but kids need a little fear in their lives and as my Granny used to say, “a burning backside for a few minutes is better than your soul burning for eternity.” We should teach our children that sex outside of marriage is not okay and girls in HS getting pregnant should feel a little shame. Kids also need to get their asses back outside playing games, mowing lawns, raking leaves and the damn I-pads, I-phones, play stations and televisions thrown in the dumpster.
I could go on, but the thing is nothing is going to change because we can’t hurt anyone’s feelings and we’re too busy figuring out what sex we are.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I wonder how many of those hi school students protesting gun ownership at the state capital and in DC have violent video games they play?
LikeLike
Exactly and doubtful any of them have ever been told no. They probably know all about diversity and their parents are their friends.
That is something else that drives me insane about parents thinking they’re friends with their teens. Your teen doesn’t need another friend they need a darn parent.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The problem of those prefrontal cortexes not being fully developed and our giving them the keys to society.
LikeLike
I thought I knew everything when I was 16, any adult who took my advice would have been even dumber than I was. lol
I honestly cannot believe anyone is taking them seriously, some are doing it for attention, some are doing it because everyone else is doing it and others are being pushed to do it by liberal teachers and parents.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s a Texas school superintendent teaching kids and parents there are consequences for their actions.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/02/21/texas-school-will-suspend-gun-control-protesters-here-for-education-not-political-protest
LikeLike
Consequences foir their actions? What a revanchist policy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I would imagine some of those kids as well as their parents are needing a blankie now.
LikeLike
Helps with the denial process, they can further bury their heads.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had this article sent to me about how 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters were raised without fathers. I guess that is something else the idiots won’t talk about, how boys need a father in their lives.
https://selfgovern.com/7486-2/
LikeLiked by 1 person
And not long ago there were prog feminists on TV going on about how fathers were inconsequential in the home lives of children.
LikeLike
I know women who had no choice but to raise their boys on their own, however they still had Grandpas and uncles to teach them how to be boys.
I loved my boys, but I’m not too proud to admit there were many areas of their life I did not relate to. That was where their Dad was needed.
LikeLike
x-actly…but prog policies being what prog policies are…
LikeLiked by 1 person
And they grew up in a home with two parents, and daily saw what a marriage means.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The FBI didn’t miss on the tips
The FBI allowed this school shooting to happen
(with many practice drills)
After All
What have we learned lately?
That the FBI stopped fighting crime to fight politics along time ago
On the side of the DemocRats
This school shooting was intentionally planned and plotted
To attack the 2nd Amendment
With all the left wing Hollywood elites jumping on board
But I can’t help but wonder how will those very same Hollywood elites keep themselves safe from the bad guys if their personal body guards cannot carry a gun
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m sure there will be a cutout for “professional” bodyguards such as an exemption via special licensing and standards – very very expensive, of course. Very expensive will let the elites maintain their bodyguards, whether they live in Hollywood or DC.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Special Connections and commented:
Stella has addressed this vital issue head-on with clear-minded Conservative American Heritage Perspective! Please read her great piece…
LikeLike
“Yet there will be intense pressure to “do something” even if that something is unproductive and unconstitutional.”
This was shown repeatedly today with numerous clips I heard from student rallies demanding gun control (as if Any law has ever stopped the lawless). At least some saner voices are trickling out, like the Jr ROTC student from Florida who suggested the heroic teacher/coach may not have died & may have prevented many of the deaths had he been armed instead of having to just resort to his body as a shield for his students…
LikeLike
The point I see coming up is yet another clash between the states’ rights and Federal overreach. Many states not only have 2nd Amendment rights in their own Consritutions but have enacted laws under those protections further protecting instate gun ownershiop rights. These laws were passed in reaction to recent Federal gungrab attempts, especially during the Obama regime.
Let’s see how it plays when Fed attempts to ban guns starts to crash into those states’ rights the progs are now pushing as valid again.
LikeLike
Feds will say that guns manufactured in another state or country are covered under interstate commerce. That’s my guess.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yup, and an alternative is that ANY PART of anything used in the manufacture of that gun from the base raw metal to, stretching the point, any electricity traveled interstate so therefore is subjecr to Federal control.
Now these states’ lawmakers who passed these laws knew that so now we have ‘why’ did they pass those laws? Did they do it just to placate their states’ gun owners knowing the Feds would invoke interstate commerce or did they do it to set up a head-on confrontation with what they saw as a too powerful Federal government?
LikeLike
I suspect the latter.
LikeLiked by 1 person