President Joe Biden campaigned as one of the most anti-Second Amendment candidates in history. He bragged about his role in passing the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, all while ignoring the fact that it did absolutely nothing. He talked about how he was going to step up gun control efforts when he took office.
And he’s tried.
Thankfully, the Senate has stymied his efforts, but now Biden is turning his attentions toward the Supreme Court and the Second Amendment case they’re considering right now. Unsurprisingly, he’s siding with the state of New York.
The Biden administration on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to uphold a New York handgun restriction in an upcoming and potentially landmark Second Amendment court clash.
The Department of Justice, in a brief filed on behalf of the administration, argued that the justices should defer to the longstanding legislative practice of placing limits on firearms to protect public safety.
“Congress has disarmed felons and others who may be dangerous or irresponsible. It has forbidden the carrying of arms in sensitive places, such as courthouses and school zones. … All those regulations pass constitutional muster,” the government’s brief states. “New York’s proper-cause requirement is likewise constitutional.”
Well…if that’s the best argument the White House could come up with, I like our chances with the Court.
What the administration is missing is that disarming felons and restricting guns in “sensitive places” are objective measures. A school is a school is a school. A felon is a felon. There’s no ambiguity involved. They either are or they aren’t.
But “proper-cause” is subjective. What Joe Biden considered a proper cause and what I consider one are very different animals. There are no objective criteria as to what makes a “proper cause,” and that’s a huge problem.
Never mind that a case can and has been made that not all felons should be forbidden from owning guns–non-violent felons, primarily, but still–or that several states allow guns on school campuses without an issue. Let’s also not forget that the Second Amendment’s text certainly makes it clear that our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Felons, however, have had their right stripped via due process of law, as the Constitution stipulates, so there’s that.
Basically, the Biden administration’s argument is that they’ve gotten away with it for so long, they might as well keep on doing it just a bit more, and that’s not likely to convince this particular court. And that seems to be the best arguments they have, from what I’ve seen so far.
It should also be mentioned that using such a subjective criteria as New York’s opens up the possibility of fraud and bribery. We’ve seen several cases where permits were obtained through illicit means only made possible by such subjective laws. Remove the subjectivity by saying anyone who isn’t a felon can get a permit and you remove the incentive to seek bribes for doing something they can’t actually not do in the first place.
Somehow, I don’t think Biden and his crew have really thought that through. Then again, I don’t think they care.
