The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, meaning that it’s been part of the Constitution for a very, very long time. Even if governments at all levels in this nation ignored it for decades, that doesn’t change its presence.
And thanks to the Bruen decision, an originalist interpretation is now required during all judicial reviews of gun control cases.
That is going to lead to what some think are weird rulings.
No, that’s not me projecting something onto gun control advocates. A piece at Gothamist is titled, “Expect more ‘weird’ court rulings on New York gun laws and other states’ restrictions.
From the text of the piece itself:
MH: I’m wondering if courts are missing the mark on this when you start thinking about what states and cities and counties are up against in real time right now.
JB: I think this is one of the central problems with the Bruen test that the Supreme Court gave us, that it is willfully disdainful of modern empirical evidence. You know, we’ve seen from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that we’re seeing the highest number of recorded gun deaths in decades, and we’re facing a world of gun violence, which is just radically different from anything that was imaginable in 1791. And so, comparing those two things, I think is going to continue to give weird answers.
First, the “modern empirical evidence” Duke Law School Professor Joseph Blocher (JB in this piece) mentions is problematic in and of itself. As we’ve seen, the scholarship used on so-called gun research is so spotty, biased, and idiotic that it wouldn’t be accepted in any other academic discipline.
The cherry-picking alone is worthy of academic censure.
Further, the CDC data may show more gun deaths, but what it doesn’t show is that gun control would reduce them. We have a lot of opioid deaths, too, and drugs are far more tightly controlled than guns ever could be.
That said, why would Bruen’s direction to adhere to the original understanding of the Second Amendment lead to “weird” rulings?
The answer, of course, is that it won’t. It won’t do any such thing. Blocher simply doesn’t like what those rulings are going to be.
While I get that many cities are plagued with violent crime right now and officials there are desperate to do something, gun control isn’t the answer. Not in the least.
For example, we also have empirical evidence that more guns in the hands of private, law-abiding citizens actually reduce crime. We’ve seen ample evidence that gun control, on the other hand, does nothing but make it more difficult for the good guys to defend themselves.
Private, armed citizens become self-rescuing when the bad guys come. The more this happens, the more criminals decide violent crime isn’t a viable career path. They may not walk the straight and narrow, but they’re not going to be as interested in hurting innocent folks.
Frankly, that’s about as good as you’re going to get with some people.
But there’s nothing weird about adhering to the Second Amendment.
What’s weird is that we’ve accepted restrictions on our gun rights that most would never accept on any other right. The idea of taking away someone’s right to worship as they choose because those close to them are concerned about it isn’t something we permit under the law. This concept of requiring a license to exercise a right wouldn’t work if applied to something like speaking freely on the internet.
There’s no other right we’re so eager to restrict as the Second Amendment. That, my friends, is what’s truly “weird” in all this.
