Donald Trump’s conservative judicial nominations are the gift that keeps on giving.
Joe Biden continues to learn that lesson in real time.
And Amy Coney Barrett issued one ruling that left Joe Biden red with rage.
In the case of United States v. Zackery Rahimi the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Biden administration’s argument that the government could disarm any American citizen it considered dangerous.
In the landmark 2008 D.C. v. Heller decision the Supreme Court established the Second Amendment as an individual right for law abiding citizens.
In this case, the government tried to charge Rahimi with firearms possessions due to a domestic violence restraining order claiming only “law abiding and responsible” citizens had Second Amendment rights.
A unanimous verdict rejected this un-American argument saying the statute allowing the government to disarm anyone living under a domestic violence restraining order was unconstitutional.
“The question presented in this case is not whether prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order is a laudable policy goal. The question is whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), a specific statute that does so, is constitutional under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the majority wrote.
“Considering the issue afresh, we conclude that Bruen requires us to re-evaluate our Second Amendment jurisprudence and that under Bruen, § 922(g)(8) fails to pass constitutional muster. We therefore reverse the district court’s ruling to the contrary and vacate Rahimi’s conviction,” the majority added.
The court leaned into last summer’s Breun decision, which held that any gun control needed to line up with America’s history and tradition of protecting Second Amendment rights.
But what also stuck out in the decision was the court citing a dissent from Amy Coney Barrett in the Barr v. Kanter case when Barrett sat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
In that case, Barrett fleshed out her “history and tradition” standard for the Second Amendment – which finally took hold in Bruen – to reject the idea that the government can ban all felons from owning firearms.
Barrett claimed that the government banning people from owning guns led to arbitrary lines that met no objective legal standard.
Barrett wrote:
In my view, the latter is the better way to approach the problem. It is one thing to say that certain weapons or activities fall outside the scope of the right. See District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 627 (2008) (explaining that “the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’” (citation omitted)); Ezell v. City of Chicago, 846 F.3d 888, 892 (7th Cir. 2017) (Ezell II) (“[I]f … the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the right as originally understood, then ‘the regulated activity is categorically unprotected, and the law is not subject to further Second Amendment review.’” (citation omitted)); Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, 702 (7th Cir. 2011) (Ezell I) (drawing an analogy between categories of speech, like obscenity, that fall outside the First Amendment and activities that fall outside the Second Amendment). It is another thing to say that certain people fall outside the Amendment’s scope. Arms and activities would always be in or out. But a person could be in one day and out the next: the moment he was convicted of a violent crime or suffered the onset of mental illness, his rights would be stripped as a self-executing consequence of his new status. No state action would be required.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals cited this passage in explaining that the Biden administration’s argument it could take away guns from anyone it deemed dangerous meant there was no limiting principle on gun control and that one day the administration could argue that opposing Joe Biden made you dangerous and thus ineligible to own firearms.
Joe Biden already declared Trump supporters enemies of the republic and domestic terrorists looking to overthrow democracy.
Those comments laid the groundwork to one day establish conservatives as “dangerous” people who should lose their Second Amendment rights.
But Amy Coney Barrett and other conservative judicial nominees slammed the breaks on that scheme.
Deplorable Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
