How dare ACB lean towards defending the Constitution Right of citizens to arm themselves!
Justice Barrett’s Vote Could Tilt the Supreme Court on Gun Rights
Justice Amy Coney Barrett is just starting to make her mark at the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, her vote flipped the court’s approach to restrictions on attendance at religious services during the coronavirus pandemic. While Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was alive, the court had allowed such limits, in California and Nevada, by 5-4 votes. After Barrett succeeded her, she joined the court’s four most conservative justices to strike down restrictions in New York.
Those same four justices are now on high alert for a promising case in which to expand Second Amendment rights, having written repeatedly and emphatically about the court’s failure to take gun rights seriously. Barrett seems poised to supply the fifth vote they need.
A Second Amendment case decided last week by the federal appeals court in Philadelphia is a promising candidate for Supreme Court review, not least because it presents an issue on which Barrett has already taken a stand.
It concerns Lisa M. Folajtar, who would like to buy a gun. But she is a felon, having pleaded guilty to tax evasion, which means under federal law she may not possess firearms.
She sued, arguing that the law violated her Second Amendment rights. A divided three-judge panel of appeals court rejected her challenge, saying that committing a serious crime has consequences. It can lead to losing the right to vote, to serve on a jury — or to have a gun.
So, she’s a non-violent criminal. I thought Liberals wanted to excuse them. Heck, Democrats want to give the right to vote back to every convicted felon who’s served their sentence, right?
That dissent was written by Barrett when she was a judge on the federal appeals court in Chicago. The law forbidding people with felony convictions from owning guns, she wrote, should not apply when the crimes in question were nonviolent.
“History does not support the proposition that felons lose their Second Amendment rights solely because of their status as felons,†she wrote. “But it does support the proposition that the state can take the right to bear arms away from a category of people that it deems dangerous.â€
That makes sense, right? Of course, Democrats want to take guns away from Everyone Else (never themselves, right?).
In June, however, the court turned down some 10 appeals in Second Amendment cases. Since it takes only four votes to grant review, there is good reason to think that the court’s conservative wing was unsure it could secure Chief Justice John Roberts’ vote.
How dare you people fight for your rights which Progressive (nice Fascist) government keeps taking away!
Dissenting from that ruling, Justice Samuel Alito noted that the Heller decision “recognized that history supported the constitutionality of some laws limiting the right to possess a firearm,†including ones “prohibiting possession by felons and other dangerous individuals.â€
That last phrase, which did not appear in the earlier decision, may be significant. In shifting the focus to dangerousness, it seemed to open the door to the position taken by Barrett.
There are lots of people who are busted on felonies that are not violent, that do not make the people dangerous. What the Times is worried about is that ACB will cause the Supreme Court to take up lots of gun cases, ruling to extend the Right of private citizens to own guns.
Maybe expand gun rights for felons to ALL states ?
I hate to explain this to you Hairy but a “felon” convicted of tax evasion, kiting a check, non payment of alimony or child support, or a hundred other non violent “felonies” should not lose his gun rights, speech rights, property rights, or any other rights not related to his crime. That’s just a bunch of leftist bullshit trying to eliminate as many gun owners as possible.
You leftists crack me up. You want to free hoards of ghetto moolinyams convicted of violent crimes knowing FULL WELL they can get a stolen gun on their way home from prison yet a regular guy who fuks up in a non violent way you want to nail to a cross. Get a life will ya? OOOOH, he lied to the FBI take his guns away. Go to hell.
https://redstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/saltz-tweet.png
The same leftist who want to murder us also want to disarm us. Ya see the problem here?
How terrible that a court decision might foil the NYT and their fellow travelers’ plot to disarm America. Because if we are armed, it might prevent what they intend to do to us.
I’m going to disagree with the Rt Rev President-elect Hoagie here. The 14th Amendment allows the government to take away one’s constitutional rights following due process of law. The law states that a convicted felon has lost his right to keep and bear arms, and I agree that it ought to apply to all felons, whether the crime was a violent one or not, just as I believe that convicted felons should forever lose the right to vote.
The state legislatures and Congress have decided that felons should be barred from owning firearms, and their decisions are perfectly consistent with the 14th Amendment. More, the loss of rights should be just one more deterrent part of the law.
I’d point out here that there are plenty, plenty! of convicted felons who committed violent crimes yet who were allowed to plead down to a non-violent crime.
I understand exactly what you’re saying, Dana but I do not think a life sentence for check fraud is an appropriate penalty. Is the idea to punish the crime or establish an underclass of half-citizens? By the way, the law as a deterrent only works when we’re willing to use it fully. Allowing violent criminals to “plead down” to non violent status helps no one and therein lies your problem. You want to permanently penalize all because some may get pled down. The problem is the plea, not the penalty.
Also I was not suggesting the law was inconsistent with the 14th amendment, I was suggesting it is inconsistent with Justice. With true Justice a person gets what he deserves. A non violent felon does not deserve to lose his rights for the rest of his life, which in fact becomes a life sentence for writing a bad check. Are you kidding me? That’s Justice?
What you’re stating is that because a guy stole a car when he was 19 he cannot defend his family against BLM rioters when he is 35. I just don’t agree that’s Justice.
This is part of Crime reform that I would like to see. I have written about this extensively but will summarize here for brevity. Basically, our current justice system is hopelessly corrupt and counter-productive. It needs bottom up reform.
1. Eliminate bail. The purpose of the bail hearing is to answer a single question: Is the person too dangerous to be allowed to roam free until trial. If yes, he stays in jail. If no, he is released. No bail needed. The current system favors the rich and bail bondsmen and can be used to impoverish innocent men in the process of defending themselves.
2. Eliminate prison as a punitive measure. The point of jail is to hold violent people until trial. If they are too violent to be free in society after trial, they get the death penalty. otherwise, they need to be in a supervised restitution program.
3. Criminals, even violent criminals, have just as much a God-given right to self preservation as everyone else. You cannot take away a God-given right, not even by “due process of law”. Because they live and work around other violent people, they have a higher need for access to guns than law abiding people. If they are too violent to be allowed to be armed, they are also too violent to be allowed to roam free in the rest of society.
4. No plea bargaining. Every criminal case needs to be proven in court. The plea bargain is a shenanigan that prosecutors use to exploit people in bad bargaining positions, with bad lawyers, without the resources to defend themselves and looking for the least painful outcome. Try every case based on the evidence in open court.
The Small Arms Survey estimates that Americans hold over 392 million small arms. The Dem commies are doing a horrible job keeping guns out of the hands of Americans. We have more guns than people!