Why bother with a thousand cuts when you can just pack the court and do it with one, as was accomplished today when the court effectively struck down the voting rights act?
Nitpick: the court isn’t “packed”; it’s has 9 members since 1869.
The VRA wasn’t struck down either. The court just ruled that race based gerrymandering isn’t legal if it results in partisan advantage in such a district.
> Nitpick: the court isn’t “packed”; it’s has 9 members since 1869.
I'm sorry but this is an unserious, bad faith nitpick. The court is absolutely packed by carefully manipulating the membership. The confirmation process for most of my lifetime has been an intensely partisan operation to ensure only the most hardened political operatives land on the court, with the intention of turning it into the 'super legislature' that it is. This argument does a disservice to the people who worked so hard to pack it.
> The VRA wasn’t struck down either
I mean, that's your opinion. but you're not on the SC and someone who is says that this decision's effect is to "eviscerate the law."
You're welcome to cite whatever modern piece that rewrites to whatever definitions you like. I actively encourage you to stick your head in the sand and scream at the top of your lungs.
The literal public education textbook I was required to learn from explained court packing decades ago as increasing the number of justices to imbalance an existing court, which is explicitly what FDR was trying to do. If the English language has changed that much in my short lifetime, I'm pretty sure I grew up on mars.
You don't need to be upset, the mature thing to do is to retract your claim about it having 'always' referred to increasing the court size. That's just facially incorrect, as I demonstrated. Furthermore, what does your 'well ackshually' in this situation do to address the obvious problem of a dysfunctional branch of government suffering from capture by partisans? Let's not pretend that you'd be okay with this if the court was packed with card-carrying democratic socialists.
Pedantry is serving nobody any good here. It distracts from the core debate which is far more serious than the evolution of a dictionary word. It meant one thing. Now it means more. Let's move on and stay on topic.
Who knew that the "well ackshually, technically, we're not banning guns, we're just requiring a serial number! (one that you cannot legally apply)" strategy wouldn't work.
"Neener neener neener" isn't a valid legal theory.
> "Neener neener neener" isn't a valid legal theory.
Works surprisingly (depressingly) well when there’s no pushback. We’re not controlling news media, we’re just issuing broadcast licenses. It’s not a movie and videogame censor, it’s just a state agency for mandatory age ratings. (In at least one Western country that was literally a rebrand.) Or closer to TFA’s locale, we’re not regulating commercial activity within a single state, we’re just controlling its impact on the interstate market. (Don’t worry, it’s all for a good cause, child labor is bad after all.)
You don’t actually need a VIN on a car, you just won’t be able to register and drive a VINless car on public roads.
Some states seem to have designated even private roads as “public” if there is uncontrolled access (seems ripe for a court challenge though). But offroading or gated roads would be fine even here.
Some YouTubers have fun importing cheap Chinese cars that aren’t street legal and destroying them with extreme offroading.
> You don’t actually need a VIN on a car, you just won’t be able to register and drive a VINless car on public roads.
Somehow I doubt that many 2nd amendment supporters would be okay with "You don't need a registration number on your gun, it'll just be illegal to carry/use it anywhere except private property"
Some would, some wouldn’t. There are some who only care about home defense or sport shooting on private land. Open carry and CCW folks would be quite upset, yes.
The biggest problem with this (for the first group) would be conveyance from buyer to seller or to/from a range or hunting grounds.
FWIW: this isn't a universally-applicable statement, plenty of states forbid DWI during any and all operation of motor vehicles, including on private property.
I think in almost all states DUI applies to private roads accessible to the public, such as parking lots and driveways. Mythbusters drove drunk on a closed course in California and that was legal.
Only a few states absolutely forbid operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (I know Washington is one). That said, you’d have to do something pretty absurd to attract the attention of law enforcement if you’re staying on your own land.
Do F1 cars have VINs? I’m pretty sure you don’t need a VIN on a car if it stays off public roads. Also driving is not a right enshrined by the constitution.
Tell me you have never actually read the statute without telling me.
Per the statute text, you may not manufacture a firearm for personal use in Colorado: the statute requires an FFL's license number (which you do not have) to be placed in the serial number string.
FFLs didn't exist in 1790 - therefore this fails Bruen among other standards.
"Neener neener" seems to be working out well for the gun rights advocates in the source article, who enjoy the absurd fiction that a lower receiver is a firearm and the entire assembly they attach on top of it is just "gun parts".
"Established law for decades" seems to me to be almost the opposite of "neener neener", which I take to be more along the lines of "cutesy legal tricks".
Basic English skills? Why would the prefatory clause limit the latter? Even the most left-leaning [current] SCOTUS justices didn't/don't attempt to make this argument.
'A well balanced breakfast being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed.'
Whose rights shall not be infringed here, the breakfast's or those of the people?
I think the interesting part is in the discussion of how this intro to the amendment came to be part of the amendment.
"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, ..."
Historically in context, this derives from the founder's own distrust of a standing army. Washington had a lot to offer here from his own experience integrating militias into an effective fighting force. Militias were supposed to be composed of ordinary citizens who met regularly, trained together, and built the skills necessary for them to be able to meet someone else's experienced standing army on the battlefield and be victorious or to defeat other adversaries locally.
Back then the militias had several responsibilities out on the frontier. Some of the state militias during the Revolution were found to be deficient in skills so that time was wasted in bringing them up to speed for the battles they would face against the British Army regulars and their Hessian mercenaries. Washington noted that many of them could not drill effectively, had no concept of firing order on the line, could not march point to point and immediately engage, etc. He had to employ professional soldiers to bring our men into line so that they could function together with other militias that they had never seen against a common enemy.
The founder's vision was to support state-level militias with training and resources so that they would be instantly effective on the battlefield should it become necessary to deploy them within the nation. They did not align with the idea that the nation needed to have a permanent standing army since that was one of the main tools employed against people globally in order to maintain control. Their idea was more supportive of state guard units (militias) who were called up to drill regularly so that their skills were fresh. Back then, men brought their own weapons as, like an onion on the belt, it was the style at the time and plates were often filled by hunting local game. Every family had weapons of widely different quality but each individual could likely employ his own personal weapon competently. Investing in standardized weapons was expensive so it was important that troops fielded something that they could use effectively until federal inventories had enough weapons to equip everyone consistently. After the Revolution, just as they did after the Civil War, soldiers had the option to buy their gov't-issued weapon from the Army (government) if they wanted to keep it. This helped preserve many of the higher quality firearms of the periods since the firearms that did not perform well in combat were frequently discarded on the battlefield in favor of anything known to be better. No one wanted to die because it took them one minute to reload when the opponent only needed 45 seconds.
Granting the right of firearm ownership to all citizens helped guarantee the success of the nation by insuring that communities would be populated by citizens who could, at a moment's notice, form up to confront an adversary and effectively employ the most effective offensive/defensive tools of their time - a sword, a rifle, a pistol, and field artillery. Citizens needed to have experience with these tools so that the nation could repel attackers.
An armed populace would be a formidable adversary for a nation bent on subjugating its citizens.
Some other poster listed a collection of quotes to support an individual right to own and possess firearms. Most of them dealt with citizens being ready to stand against a federal government that was becoming adversarial or too powerful.
Before all of this was ratified, there was a lively, long discussion between representatives from each of the colonies/states about whether and how this amendment should be phrased. That poster cherry-picked a lot of stuff that supported his own position. I think his reply could've been more useful had he included additional context. There were plenty of deep thinkers back then and getting everyone into the same book was not simple. Finding a way to get them all on the same page took a while because this is a complicated issue. Every amendment involved compromise in language and I think there were even 12 original amendments with only 10 retained as a compromise.
Compromise after careful discussion should always be the first path. If one side is acting in bad faith then other options should be employed. I think it is sadly funny today that those who most vehemently support the second amendment are not actively using the power vested in them by the text of the Constitution to impose limits on the criminal entities currently in place in the US Gov't.
They will work to keep their second amendment rights in place while turning a blind eye to the loss of all the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Nothing is more important to them than the appearance that they will be able to keep their weapons even though their own cowardice or prejudice will forever prevent them from stepping into the line of fire to use those weapons in the manner that the founders intended - to maintain the power of the people to choose how they are governed and to remove those people and regulations deemed ineffective or damaging to their nation.
Those are different circuit courts where this ruling doesn't directly apply. However anyone who wants to challenge those laws would be stupid to not bring this to the judge - even though it doesn't apply, the judge still needs to justify why they are ignoring it and on appeal the circuit court will mention this ruling (either why they agree, or why they think it is wrong) - assuming the appeal is accepted.
It will be fine to print a gun but there will be laws outlawing your ability to print an iphone case and printers will have to detect parts from any registered manufacturer. So we will get the worst of all worlds. printers only for guns and not for people to build useful things.
Unjustified cynicism aside, the same technical reasons that a ban on printing gun parts is infeasible apply to printing iphone cases. There's no feasible way to detect what a printer is printing.
Don't underestimate the state's ability to spy on what you (and your devices) are doing or their willingness to erode your freedom even with massive false positive/negative rates.
I very much wouldn't put it past this government from banning unauthorised part printing in some draconian DMCA-esque law bought and paid for by John Deere and Apple, but is there any current proposals for such a law?
You joke but phone mounts for firearms are a thing. People use them to record gun PoV videos and to make range estimation (such as dope charts) more accessible.
my bet it is that it only affects the states in the 10th circuit, but could be assumed to be the law of the land, until a case is brought in which case there is only an issue if a different appeals circuit rules differently
Correct, it's only /binding/ on courts in the same District but they are often persuasive when cited in other districts if the decision is well reasoned and less controversial. This one will likely be contested, the circuits have very different ideas about gun rights.
I'll believe that the moment I see it. Seems to me like most of the 2nd amendment crowd is more likely to cheer on the destruction of freedoms than defend them. There are a whole lot of freedoms being violated in the US right now including violations of people's first amendment rights. You can even go on youtube and find countless examples, but somehow all the bullets seem to be mostly going into suicides, school children, and gang members.
I'm not even saying that shootouts are a good way to handle the situation, or that people should be trying to put things right by shooting other people but the idea that the 2nd amendment is protecting us from violations of our freedoms or the abuses of government is clearly pure fantasy.
It's as much a fantasy as any other "nuclear option", including the literal nuclear option.
Violent revolutions are a part of our history, and they still happen around the world today. Unless things go very, very poorly in the next few decades, we probably won't see another one in the USA in our lifetimes. We can all admit that that fact makes the 2nd amendment's usefulness feel fantastical.
But on deeper reflection I would hope that we can acknowledge that violent revolution is not an impossibility, it's merely an improbability. And anybody who tries to tell you that hundreds of millions of small arms are inconsequential in a fight is uninformed, to put it lightly.
The fact that the current level of rights abuses (which I would agree is much too high and climbing!) has not lead to a violent revolution is a feature, not a bug.
10th circuit, no other circuit ruling on the case, a state bringing the case
I could see this standing, there's no point in the state appealing, as Colorado couldn't reach another appeals circuit, and appealing to the Supreme Court limits SCOTUS to an appellate court and no original jurisdiction so the court has no reason to rule on this
I think you misunderstand how the courts work. No other court would rule on this case because it wouldn't be heard in another circuit and the Supreme Court is the ONLY court anyone can appeal to after a circuit court, the only other options are convening a larger group for an en banc hearing but that doesn't apply here afaik.
I was trying to save Colorado taxpayers and people that disagree some time and energy. To focus on what they can control which isn’t this.
Additionally I was alluding to the process of using a other circuit by bringing a case in another state that has similar laws as Colorado, thats the only way for a potential circuit split, forcing SCOTUS review.
The bigger question is constructive prohibition, i.e. can the government kill civil rights with a thousand cuts.
This opinion is mostly standing/housekeeping.
Here's a clean interpretation of the ruling https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/2...
And the actual ruling [pdf]: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/0101...
Why bother with a thousand cuts when you can just pack the court and do it with one, as was accomplished today when the court effectively struck down the voting rights act?
Nitpick: the court isn’t “packed”; it’s has 9 members since 1869.
The VRA wasn’t struck down either. The court just ruled that race based gerrymandering isn’t legal if it results in partisan advantage in such a district.
That's a funny way of saying they ruled that race-base gerrymandering is legal in effectively all circumstances.
The supreme court's ruling is basically: "Racial gerrymandering is insulated from legal recourse as long as it's packaged as partisan mapmaking"
> Nitpick: the court isn’t “packed”; it’s has 9 members since 1869.
I'm sorry but this is an unserious, bad faith nitpick. The court is absolutely packed by carefully manipulating the membership. The confirmation process for most of my lifetime has been an intensely partisan operation to ensure only the most hardened political operatives land on the court, with the intention of turning it into the 'super legislature' that it is. This argument does a disservice to the people who worked so hard to pack it.
> The VRA wasn’t struck down either
I mean, that's your opinion. but you're not on the SC and someone who is says that this decision's effect is to "eviscerate the law."
packing SCOTUS has always referred to attempts to add justices, which is what was attempted by FDR
Incorrect.[1]
[1] https://www.rutgers.edu/news/what-court-packing
Thanks for giving the citation based on reality and keeping it calm and rational in contrast.
You're welcome to cite whatever modern piece that rewrites to whatever definitions you like. I actively encourage you to stick your head in the sand and scream at the top of your lungs.
The literal public education textbook I was required to learn from explained court packing decades ago as increasing the number of justices to imbalance an existing court, which is explicitly what FDR was trying to do. If the English language has changed that much in my short lifetime, I'm pretty sure I grew up on mars.
You don't need to be upset, the mature thing to do is to retract your claim about it having 'always' referred to increasing the court size. That's just facially incorrect, as I demonstrated. Furthermore, what does your 'well ackshually' in this situation do to address the obvious problem of a dysfunctional branch of government suffering from capture by partisans? Let's not pretend that you'd be okay with this if the court was packed with card-carrying democratic socialists.
Pedantry is serving nobody any good here. It distracts from the core debate which is far more serious than the evolution of a dictionary word. It meant one thing. Now it means more. Let's move on and stay on topic.
Who knew that the "well ackshually, technically, we're not banning guns, we're just requiring a serial number! (one that you cannot legally apply)" strategy wouldn't work.
"Neener neener neener" isn't a valid legal theory.
> "Neener neener neener" isn't a valid legal theory.
Works surprisingly (depressingly) well when there’s no pushback. We’re not controlling news media, we’re just issuing broadcast licenses. It’s not a movie and videogame censor, it’s just a state agency for mandatory age ratings. (In at least one Western country that was literally a rebrand.) Or closer to TFA’s locale, we’re not regulating commercial activity within a single state, we’re just controlling its impact on the interstate market. (Don’t worry, it’s all for a good cause, child labor is bad after all.)
Those two things are in fact different. Does requiring a VIN on a car mean that cars are banned?
You don’t actually need a VIN on a car, you just won’t be able to register and drive a VINless car on public roads.
Some states seem to have designated even private roads as “public” if there is uncontrolled access (seems ripe for a court challenge though). But offroading or gated roads would be fine even here.
Some YouTubers have fun importing cheap Chinese cars that aren’t street legal and destroying them with extreme offroading.
> You don’t actually need a VIN on a car, you just won’t be able to register and drive a VINless car on public roads.
Somehow I doubt that many 2nd amendment supporters would be okay with "You don't need a registration number on your gun, it'll just be illegal to carry/use it anywhere except private property"
Some would, some wouldn’t. There are some who only care about home defense or sport shooting on private land. Open carry and CCW folks would be quite upset, yes.
The biggest problem with this (for the first group) would be conveyance from buyer to seller or to/from a range or hunting grounds.
Car/traffic laws don't apply on personal property (Though noise ordinances still would), but that won't stop cops from trying to ticket you anyways.
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/dep350/receive...
Ontario, Canada has stunt driving laws that extend past the road to parking lots, farmer's fields, and more.
This is most definitely completely false. All EPA laws apply to all vehicles originally sold as road legal forever.
FWIW: this isn't a universally-applicable statement, plenty of states forbid DWI during any and all operation of motor vehicles, including on private property.
I think in almost all states DUI applies to private roads accessible to the public, such as parking lots and driveways. Mythbusters drove drunk on a closed course in California and that was legal.
Only a few states absolutely forbid operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (I know Washington is one). That said, you’d have to do something pretty absurd to attract the attention of law enforcement if you’re staying on your own land.
If they didn't want you to drink, John Deere wouldn't have put a cupholder on it. C'mon, that's entrapment!
Do F1 cars have VINs? I’m pretty sure you don’t need a VIN on a car if it stays off public roads. Also driving is not a right enshrined by the constitution.
Well, One is a right, the other is a privilege.
Tell me you have never actually read the statute without telling me.
Per the statute text, you may not manufacture a firearm for personal use in Colorado: the statute requires an FFL's license number (which you do not have) to be placed in the serial number string.
FFLs didn't exist in 1790 - therefore this fails Bruen among other standards.
"Neener neener" seems to be working out well for the gun rights advocates in the source article, who enjoy the absurd fiction that a lower receiver is a firearm and the entire assembly they attach on top of it is just "gun parts".
"Absurd fiction" aka "established law for decades." This concept of "serialized part" is a construct stemming from Democrat-established legislation.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is difficult to understand?
I think you know that you're deploying the "neener neener" strategy on me and I'm not interested in engaging with it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/rule_of_lenity
If one wants to make something illegal, the onus is on the lawmaker to write precise legislation. This is centuries-old legal doctrine.
"Established law for decades" seems to me to be almost the opposite of "neener neener", which I take to be more along the lines of "cutesy legal tricks".
Which part of "well-regulated militia" is difficult to understand? ;)
Basic English skills? Why would the prefatory clause limit the latter? Even the most left-leaning [current] SCOTUS justices didn't/don't attempt to make this argument.
'A well balanced breakfast being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed.'
Whose rights shall not be infringed here, the breakfast's or those of the people?
The fact that you and another poster on this thread jumped in with almost exactly the same bullshit example is interesting.
I think the interesting part is in the discussion of how this intro to the amendment came to be part of the amendment.
"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, ..."
Historically in context, this derives from the founder's own distrust of a standing army. Washington had a lot to offer here from his own experience integrating militias into an effective fighting force. Militias were supposed to be composed of ordinary citizens who met regularly, trained together, and built the skills necessary for them to be able to meet someone else's experienced standing army on the battlefield and be victorious or to defeat other adversaries locally.
Back then the militias had several responsibilities out on the frontier. Some of the state militias during the Revolution were found to be deficient in skills so that time was wasted in bringing them up to speed for the battles they would face against the British Army regulars and their Hessian mercenaries. Washington noted that many of them could not drill effectively, had no concept of firing order on the line, could not march point to point and immediately engage, etc. He had to employ professional soldiers to bring our men into line so that they could function together with other militias that they had never seen against a common enemy.
The founder's vision was to support state-level militias with training and resources so that they would be instantly effective on the battlefield should it become necessary to deploy them within the nation. They did not align with the idea that the nation needed to have a permanent standing army since that was one of the main tools employed against people globally in order to maintain control. Their idea was more supportive of state guard units (militias) who were called up to drill regularly so that their skills were fresh. Back then, men brought their own weapons as, like an onion on the belt, it was the style at the time and plates were often filled by hunting local game. Every family had weapons of widely different quality but each individual could likely employ his own personal weapon competently. Investing in standardized weapons was expensive so it was important that troops fielded something that they could use effectively until federal inventories had enough weapons to equip everyone consistently. After the Revolution, just as they did after the Civil War, soldiers had the option to buy their gov't-issued weapon from the Army (government) if they wanted to keep it. This helped preserve many of the higher quality firearms of the periods since the firearms that did not perform well in combat were frequently discarded on the battlefield in favor of anything known to be better. No one wanted to die because it took them one minute to reload when the opponent only needed 45 seconds.
Granting the right of firearm ownership to all citizens helped guarantee the success of the nation by insuring that communities would be populated by citizens who could, at a moment's notice, form up to confront an adversary and effectively employ the most effective offensive/defensive tools of their time - a sword, a rifle, a pistol, and field artillery. Citizens needed to have experience with these tools so that the nation could repel attackers.
An armed populace would be a formidable adversary for a nation bent on subjugating its citizens.
Some other poster listed a collection of quotes to support an individual right to own and possess firearms. Most of them dealt with citizens being ready to stand against a federal government that was becoming adversarial or too powerful.
Before all of this was ratified, there was a lively, long discussion between representatives from each of the colonies/states about whether and how this amendment should be phrased. That poster cherry-picked a lot of stuff that supported his own position. I think his reply could've been more useful had he included additional context. There were plenty of deep thinkers back then and getting everyone into the same book was not simple. Finding a way to get them all on the same page took a while because this is a complicated issue. Every amendment involved compromise in language and I think there were even 12 original amendments with only 10 retained as a compromise.
Compromise after careful discussion should always be the first path. If one side is acting in bad faith then other options should be employed. I think it is sadly funny today that those who most vehemently support the second amendment are not actively using the power vested in them by the text of the Constitution to impose limits on the criminal entities currently in place in the US Gov't.
They will work to keep their second amendment rights in place while turning a blind eye to the loss of all the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Nothing is more important to them than the appearance that they will be able to keep their weapons even though their own cowardice or prejudice will forever prevent them from stepping into the line of fire to use those weapons in the manner that the founders intended - to maintain the power of the people to choose how they are governed and to remove those people and regulations deemed ineffective or damaging to their nation.
"A well-balanced breakfast, being necessary to the health of a free State, the right of the people to keep and use Toasters, shall not be infringed."
Who has the right to keep and use toasters? The people, or the well-balanced breakfast?
The fact that you and another poster on this thread jumped in with almost exactly the same bullshit example is interesting.
> Which part of "well-regulated militia" is difficult to understand?
The word "regulated", which has no semantic overlap with the modern meaning of the same word.
>who enjoy the absurd fiction that a lower receiver is a firearm and the entire assembly they attach on top of it is just "gun parts"
It's the ATF and congressional Democrats (who are very much not "gun rights advocates") who created that "absurd fiction".
The actual opinion: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/0101...
Full case record: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68598045/national-assoc...
Ok, so those bills in NY and WA about making it illegal to sell printers that don't detect firearm parts are dead in the water, right?
Those are different circuit courts where this ruling doesn't directly apply. However anyone who wants to challenge those laws would be stupid to not bring this to the judge - even though it doesn't apply, the judge still needs to justify why they are ignoring it and on appeal the circuit court will mention this ruling (either why they agree, or why they think it is wrong) - assuming the appeal is accepted.
It will be fine to print a gun but there will be laws outlawing your ability to print an iphone case and printers will have to detect parts from any registered manufacturer. So we will get the worst of all worlds. printers only for guns and not for people to build useful things.
Unjustified cynicism aside, the same technical reasons that a ban on printing gun parts is infeasible apply to printing iphone cases. There's no feasible way to detect what a printer is printing.
Don't underestimate the state's ability to spy on what you (and your devices) are doing or their willingness to erode your freedom even with massive false positive/negative rates.
Fine, there's currently no feasible way to do that
I very much wouldn't put it past this government from banning unauthorised part printing in some draconian DMCA-esque law bought and paid for by John Deere and Apple, but is there any current proposals for such a law?
You just need a gun design that has a part that can double as an iphone case...
You joke but phone mounts for firearms are a thing. People use them to record gun PoV videos and to make range estimation (such as dope charts) more accessible.
my bet it is that it only affects the states in the 10th circuit, but could be assumed to be the law of the land, until a case is brought in which case there is only an issue if a different appeals circuit rules differently
Correct, it's only /binding/ on courts in the same District but they are often persuasive when cited in other districts if the decision is well reasoned and less controversial. This one will likely be contested, the circuits have very different ideas about gun rights.
If even the district court rules this way it's hard to see a World where the supreme court doesn't also rule that way.
Unless there's been court packing by then of course.
This is incredibly good news to anyone that believe in freedom of speech and expression.
that's the first amendment. this article is about the second amendment.
The second protects the first
I'll believe that the moment I see it. Seems to me like most of the 2nd amendment crowd is more likely to cheer on the destruction of freedoms than defend them. There are a whole lot of freedoms being violated in the US right now including violations of people's first amendment rights. You can even go on youtube and find countless examples, but somehow all the bullets seem to be mostly going into suicides, school children, and gang members.
I'm not even saying that shootouts are a good way to handle the situation, or that people should be trying to put things right by shooting other people but the idea that the 2nd amendment is protecting us from violations of our freedoms or the abuses of government is clearly pure fantasy.
It's as much a fantasy as any other "nuclear option", including the literal nuclear option.
Violent revolutions are a part of our history, and they still happen around the world today. Unless things go very, very poorly in the next few decades, we probably won't see another one in the USA in our lifetimes. We can all admit that that fact makes the 2nd amendment's usefulness feel fantastical.
But on deeper reflection I would hope that we can acknowledge that violent revolution is not an impossibility, it's merely an improbability. And anybody who tries to tell you that hundreds of millions of small arms are inconsequential in a fight is uninformed, to put it lightly.
The fact that the current level of rights abuses (which I would agree is much too high and climbing!) has not lead to a violent revolution is a feature, not a bug.
I didnt see a single firearm when the FCC censored Jimmy Kimmel via licensing revoking.
It's possible GP got it wrong, but there is a "code is speech" angle on this. Shapes can't be illegal.
10th circuit, no other circuit ruling on the case, a state bringing the case
I could see this standing, there's no point in the state appealing, as Colorado couldn't reach another appeals circuit, and appealing to the Supreme Court limits SCOTUS to an appellate court and no original jurisdiction so the court has no reason to rule on this
I think you misunderstand how the courts work. No other court would rule on this case because it wouldn't be heard in another circuit and the Supreme Court is the ONLY court anyone can appeal to after a circuit court, the only other options are convening a larger group for an en banc hearing but that doesn't apply here afaik.
I was trying to save Colorado taxpayers and people that disagree some time and energy. To focus on what they can control which isn’t this.
Additionally I was alluding to the process of using a other circuit by bringing a case in another state that has similar laws as Colorado, thats the only way for a potential circuit split, forcing SCOTUS review.