#Trump pledges to 'roll back' Democratic President Joe #Biden’s #gun#regulations put in place by Democratic President Joe #Biden & to fire the #ATF chief during a lengthy rally speech to the #NRA on Sat, during which he accepted the influential group's #endorsement.
As many of you know already, I am especially interested in the use of #consumerProtection statutes to ground suits against irresponsible sales and marketing by member of the gun industry. In #WashingtonState, the state legislature and state AG #BobFerguson have been using this approach to deal with large capacity magazines. 1/2 #LawFedi#gunViolence#ConsumerProtection
The shootings in Missouri today are another clarion call: every state in the U.S. can and should enact statutes to ground civil suits against irresponsible #gun manufacturers and sellers. The gun industry is fighting these statutes in court. I explain and defend the desirability, lawfulness, and constitutionality of such statutes in this article, forthcoming in Yale Law Journal Forum. Neither #PLCAA nor the #SecondAmendment invalidate these laws. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dw3rMKXX1DlHKa9GXk1bojxSgYUxsP8r/view?usp=drivesdk#LawFedi#KansasCity
This is a really interesting decision at the state Supereme Court level. Hawai’i Justice Todd Eddins beautifully outlines what many of us have known for years - the second amendment has been distorted and horribly misinterpreted by SCOTUS and that originalism is a misguided lens for modern jurisprudence. #scotus#secondamendment
The Hawaii Constitution has a provision that is the same as the 🔹Second Amendment🔹 to the U.S. Constitution.
[Hawaiian] Justice Eddins said: Even though the provisions are the same, we will not interpret them the same way, because we think the 🔸U.S. Supreme Court clearly got it wrong in Heller when it said the Second Amendment creates an individual right to bear arms.🔸
Justice Eddins then pored over the immense body of scholarship and historical research that has shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, that
👉SCOTUS was catastrophically wrong in Heller.
He even quoted this great study that refutes a centerpiece of Justice Antonin Scalia’s analysis in Heller, which was the idea that the phrase “bear arms” typically meant individual use of a weapon in 18th-century parlance.
Scholars have analyzed thousands of documents from that era and proved that Scalia was just objectively wrong:
The phrase “bear arms” was unfailingly used in a collective context, describing a militia—which makes sense, since the Second Amendment begins by saying its purpose is to protect the militia, not an individual right to own guns.
Then Eddins’ opinion goes on to analyze the real history of guns in Hawaii. And he says: “The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”
This echoes the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s discussion of Dobbs and real history—but also originalism, and who history leaves out.
What’s really great about Eddins’ opinion is that it’s not just a rejoinder to Heller.
It also goes on to talk about how🔥 it’s just not practical or feasible or wise to use history as your only guide to constitutional interpretation. 🔥
He wrote: “History is prone to misuse. In the Second Amendment cases, the court distorts and cherry-picks historical evidence. It shrinks, alters, and discards historical facts that don’t fit"
The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its
👉 state constitution grants individuals 🔹absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. 🔹
Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment,
refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law.
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/hawaii-supreme-court-guns-case-rebuke-scalia.html?via=rss
I feel like we could just read chunks of this opinion into the record because it’s just such a delightful excavation of
both the bad history that undergirds "Bruen and Heller" before it,
as well as the larger project of conscripting judges into "historical analysis".
But I just want to read this quote from Justice Eddins: “Judges are not historians. Excavating 18th and 19th century experiences to figure out how old times control 21st century life is not a judge’s forte. History is messy.
It’s not straightforward or fair.
Bruen, McDonald, Heller, and other cases show how the court handpicks history to make its own rules.”
The Washington Post finally had the guts today to publish an incredible, painful, stomach-churning written and photographic portrait of the human toll in mass shootings.
These images need to be on the front page of every paper in America.
Read it if you are emotionally able to do so. Then call your US Representative and Senators.
MAGA Mike on what happened in Maine... "at the end of the day we have to protect the right of citizens to protect themselves and that's the Second Amendment".
WRONG.
The Second Amendment is not there for citizens to protect themselves. It is to provide "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state".
There's a huge difference between personal security and security of the state. Personal security is dramatically impeded by private gun ownership.
Soon, I’m going to comment, here and elsewhere, about the growing scourge of #GhostGuns and how the lawless approach of the #USsupremeCourt to the #SecondAmendment relates to it. In the meantime, gift access to good news coverage about ghost guns - what they are, whose using them, whose making money from them. https://wapo.st/44LAEe9#LawFedi#GunViolence
"You should be able to carry, that’s one of our fundamental rights as Americans,” Shettler said, adding that the upcoming ban on firearms at the state Capitol is “unprovoked and unreasonable"
This is absurd. Why should anyone be surprised or troubled by the fact that #convictedFelons are no longer able to possess #firearms? This isn't new. It's not some attack on #Trump, or any other #felons. It's long-established protocol everywhere in the #UnitedStates. These schmucks are acting like it's some unprecedented assault on #DonaldTrump. Like, get over it. Dude's a #felon. He lost his #SecondAmendment rights, just like any felon would.