Category Archives: SCOTUS

authoritarian swine, Constitution, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

BRUEN Overturned??

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No, SCOTUS did not overturn its own BRUEN decsion; a federal district judge in New York effectively did it.

The case is Goldstein et al v. Hochul, challenging New York’s post-Bruen state law banning firearms in “sensitive places,” specifically in this case places of worship. Plaintiffs requested a temporary injunction to prevent the state and other parties enforcing that law pending the outcome of the case.

Judge Vernon S. Broderick denied the injunction. His… reasoning (for some values of that word) was…

Well, let him tell it.

The implications of firearm ownership in both the founding and reconstruction eras was thus dramatically different from those in 2023, and thus, answering the question of whether statutes and regulations from those respective time periods are “relevantly similar under the Second Amendment”, Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132, is an enormously difficult task that is likely to lead to inconsistent decisions that are untethered to reality, and is considered by many to be an impractical and intellectually flawed approach.

You can follow that link and see who appointed this… person, but you can take one guess and probably nail it.

Vern, it isn’t your place to second guess the Supreme Court, ignore its rulings, and go your own way.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Vern, you’re a judge in the Southern District of New York. That makes your court“inferior” to the “supreme” Court, and you have to follow its decisions. Like it or not.

What’s next? While I wouldn’t expect it in pro-abortion New York, thus depriving Broderick of the opportunity to declare the DOBBS overturning of Roe V. Wade to be “impractical and intellectually flawed” and “untethered to reality,” will some other judge follow his lead here?

If a federal district judge can blow off the Supreme Court, can we blow off his decisions when we don’t like them?

 

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, Rights, SCOTUS

WA “Assault Weapon” Ban: A Dangerous Take On The Derivation Of Constitutional Authority

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Yesterday, June 6, 2023, federal judge Robert J. Bryan issued a ruling denying a preliminary injunction against Washington’s “assault weapon” ban. In my not so humble opinion, this proves that it is high time for the elderly –88 years old — Bryan to retire.

Reading his decision, a couple of points jumped out at me. I’ll begin with one that would almost be funny if the topic, victim disarmament, weren’t so serious.

Semiautomatic assault weapons represent a significant technological change – they allow a shooter to fire as fast as they can pull the trigger, unlike previous guns.

Possibly the mentally challenged judge meant that such arms can be fired repeatedly “as fast as they can pull the trigger.” But specificity in law matters; we’ll take him at his specific written word, and note that any firearm, since the medieval hand cannons fired by setting a light to the touch hole, can be fired simply by pulling the trigger.

Allowing that maybe in his dotage he did mean rapid repeat fire…

Paging Jerry Miculek!. Eight rounds on target. In one second. With a revolver, not a semiautomatic firearm.

Moving on to the very next sentence:

While semiautomatic weapons like the AR-15 were invented in the 1950s, the growth in ownership of semiautomatic assault weapons proliferated in the late 2000s.

Invented in the 1950s? The first successful semiautomatic rifle design came in 1885. Bryan only missed it by seventy years. And the first semiautomatic pistol was 1891.

Bryan, please note those were in the 19th century. We’re currently in the 21st century, and the basic idea of semiautomatic firearms is hardly innovative anymore.

That part was merely morbidly amusing (if you have my sort of twisted sense of humor). Bryan’s explanation of why Washington’s ban does not run afoul of the Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling (which requires to be constitutional, a gun control law must be based in a general historical tradition) is scary. “General” meaning that isolated local laws don’t count; and “historical” meaning somewhere in the chronological neighborhood of the passage of the Second Amendment or earlier.

For an example of an applicable law, he cites local laws against carrying — not a ban on ownership — of Bowie knives not even invented until decades after the proper historical time frame. Bryan is clearly losing it.

Nay, completely lost it. Because he also cites…. Well, in his own words:

[C]omplete bans on the possession of certain weapons (as opposed to laws forbidding the carrying of those weapons) did not occur as much in our early Nation’s history because the federal and state governments did not have the “maturity, powers, tools, or resources” to implement and enforce a complete ban.

Yes, he cited nonexistent laws which he supposes would have been passed and enforced, if only the poor government had the sheer raw power to get away with it. In his mind, it seems that constitutional authority derives from tyrannical, police state force not the ratified agreed-to words of the actual document.

And I guess he figures that Washington has accumulated sufficient power now, so it’s all good.

We’ll see. If constitutional authority now comes down to who has the most guns and accurate targeting, and not the legal language of the Constitution and courts, Bryan may be putting himself out of work, retirement or no. After all, mightn’t some people decide that if might makes right, is on the side of the heaviest artillery; why not skip wasting money on court challenges and go straight to Bryan’s preferred test-by- fire-power?

This ruling was so bizarre that I wondered if his… thinking was reflected in other cases he’s heard. The very first case I found in a quick search was Tingley v. Equal Rights Washington, in which a therapist was challenging the state’s ban on “conversion therapy. Bryan ruled against Tingley.

Regardless of your personal take on “convesrion therapy” (“curing” people of homosexuality), Bryan’s rationale in this should also raise questions about his mental competence.

The prohibited conduct at issue here, performing conversion therapy, is analogous to doctor giving a prescription for marijuana because it involves engaging in a specific act designed to provide treatment. In contrast, the speech at issue in NIFLA, notice requirements that regulated the information a provider must give to its patients, is more analogous to a doctor recommending that a patient use marijuana because both consider information that a provider may discuss with a patient.

TL;DR: You can have opinions on “conversion therapy” or medical marijuana, and discuss the options with a patient. But you can no more conduct/prescribe “conversion therapy” than you could prescribe medical marijuana. Prescribing marijuana is unlawful, so “conversion therapy is unlawful. Or so Bryan thinks.

Except that in Washington, it is lawful to prescribe medical marijuana, and had been for decades when Bryan made that error-riddled ruling.

You’d think that a professionally, and mentally, competent judge could come up with a better comparison. Or at least one that wasn’t exactly the fricking opposite of what he was claiming. Considering the two cases together…

“Might makes right.” That’s one heck of a constitutional test. And I can hardly wait to see what the Ninth Circuit makes of the proposition. Do they uphold the state’s ban, or do they do a quick head count to see who has more guns and might — the state or the people — and decide accordingly?

 

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, Courts, genocide, gun control, gun grabbers, Law, resistance, SCOTUS, So Much Stupid!

Ban All The Guns?

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So demands the irrational Here4TheKids.

Guns ARE the problem. Here4TheKids is a national movement with a state focus.

We demand that Colorado Governor Jared Solis sign an executive order to ban guns and buy them back.

An executive order pushes Democrats to finally TAKE REAL ACTION to put an end to this nightmare.

They plan to hold a sit-in — which somehow isn’t a “protest” — in Denver on June 5, 2023. If Solis is psychotic enough to do as they wish, their “nightmare” has just begun.

Their site doesn’t list any contact email; just a couple of form to “volunteer” or register for the sit-in. I guess they don’t want to answer any inconvenient questions. Like…

1. You may not like it, but doesn’t the Second Amendment exist?

2. Didn’t HELLER establish the the right to keep and bear arms preexisted the Second Amendment; that it only protects a right that exists anyway?

3. Didn’t MCDONALD establish that the Second Amendment is incorporated to the states, meaning Colorado and Solis have tto obey it, too?

4. Didn’t BRUEN establish that restrictions on the Second with no general, historical tradition are unconstitutional; and that it protects arms beyond those in existence at the time of ratification?

5. Does this mean that Here4TheKids is advocating for the overthrow — by fiat executive order, no less — of the Second Amendment and the Constitution that established the authority of the Supreme Court? Basically, the overthrow of our Constitutional representative republic. The overthrow of the government?

6. Doesn’t that get into treason territory?

So… another set of victim-disarming lefties who want to do away with the Constitution and courts. As I recently noted:

Baker had better hope that the Courts don’t get disavowed. The little remaining confidence in the courts is the only thing standing between himself, and his doorkickers, and six to twelve million heavily armed, non-compliant SOBs.

A final question for the lunatics at Here4TheKids: Do you really want to declare Hunting Season… on yourselves? Because once we can no longer rely on the Constitution, Courts, or basic sanity on the part of idiots like you, I’m afraid there are some who would be happy to take matters into their own hands, and rid themselves of infringers.

And their cheerleaders. Like you.

We’ll try to talk those excitable folks down, but if you actually manage to field confiscating door-kickers, it won’t be easy.

And we’ll have less incentive to try to control them.

 

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, Courts, SCOTUS

“All that nonsense about the Second Amendment”

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Lefty Russ Baker says it’s time to get rid of America’s guns. And that pesky Second Amendment isn’t a problem. If he’s trying to climb out of his recent obscurity, he didn’t think it through. His solution?

Just ignore it.

Why Nearly All of America’s 400 Million Guns Have Got To Go
Everyone already knows all the reasons “nothing will be done.” Congress, as currently constituted, will not pass meaningful legislation. We need a better Congress. Courts are more interested in protecting the dubiously cited Second Amendment than in protecting kids. We need better judges and better law.
[…]
So I would say that the rest of us need to stop mollifying them. Forget all that nonsense about the Second Amendment.

Just forget it. After all…

Obviously it won’t be easy, and a small number of Second Amendment hard-liners will resist violently

Only a few will resist. Of course, that’s “only a few” of more than one hundred million people. Based on surveys I’ve seen for the past few years, more like 120 million. Russ’ stormtroopers will be in trouble if even 5% of 120 million “resist violently.” Six millions HANSOBs would make quick work of them, despite Baker’s irrational belief otherwise.

None will actually defend us against our military or other militaries. Guns in the hands of untrained, unvetted, potentially irresponsible users do much more harm than good. Period.

Tell it to the Taliban. Or the four terrorists who tied up 90,000 police and troops for days.

Untrained? He might note the large number of gun-owning military veterans. Or the competetion in the field of firearms training classes. Or the millions of concealed carry licensees, which is several states requires training.

The boy is delusional.

But note his disdain for the courts upholding that stupid 2A. Where have we seen that before?

Occasionally-firing-Cortex, demanding that the Xiden administration just ignore court decisions that she’s dislikes.

The current “Campaign to Delegitimize the U.S. Supreme Court” with dubious ethics complaints, and again, calls to ignore rulings.

I do see that Baker does like one — former — Justice’s “opinion” on the 2A.

Even conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said the argument that it referred to individual gun ownership (and not the clearly stated “well-regulated militia” being necessary to “the security of a free State”) was a misrepresentation of the Constitution, law, and history.

I love how these anti-rights types trot out that Parade magazine opinion from an elderly retiree. If Burger truly thought that the 2A was being misinterpreted…

why didn’t he use his position as Chief Justice to espouse it, instead of waiting until retirement to write an opinion column not subject to Associate Justice ridicule and judicial dissent?

I’ll see Baker’s 30-something year-old magazine opinion, and raise him four real SCOTUS decisions: HELLER, MCDONALD, CAETANO, and BRUEN. That’s on top of MILLER, CRUIKSHANK, PRESSER, and even DRED SCOTT, all prior to Burger’s little adventure in post-retirement attention-seeking.

Baker had better hope that the Courts don’t get disavowed. The little remaining confidence in the courts is the only thing standing between himself, and his doorkickers, and six to twelve million heavily armed, non-compliant SOBs.

 

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Constitution, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

Hanson v. DC: “Large Capacity” Magazine Ban

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I’ve only been up for a couple of hours (as I begin typing), and the news is already full of stupidity that I’ll need to address. I’ll lead off with a case challenging Washington, DC’s “large capacity” magazine ban, Hanson v. DC. The judge, one Rudolph Contreras, denied a preliminary injunction against the ban. His… reasoning is… remarkable. Or something; I’m trying to be somewhat polite.

A weapon may have some useful purposes in both civilian and military contexts, but if it is most useful in military service, it is not protected by the Second Amendment.
[…]
[Large capacity magazines] are not covered by the [2A] because they are most useful in military service.

Oddly, Contreras cites HELLER in making that point. I can’t find that argument in HELLER, which was largely about whether non- military weapons could be regulated, and how, but there is this.

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M–16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large.

Rather the opposite of Contreras’ weasel-wording, eh? Indeed, HELLER even cites the earlier MILLER, which establishes that militarily-useful arms are protected by the Second Amendment.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

Having chucked decades of SCOTUS precedent already, Contreras proceeds to demonstrate an amazing lack of judicial awareness of current events and Supreme Court decisions. Now that he’s established in his own deluded mind that standard capacity magazines are not 2A-protected, he addresses whether this particular restriction of such magazines is permissable.

WARNING: If you’re drinking, swallow before proceeding, for the protection of your screen.

Under this “two-step approach,” a court must “ask first whether a particular provision impinges upon a right protected by the Second Amendment; if it does, then . . . go on to determine whether the provision passes muster under the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny.

Umm… BRUEN, moron. (All right; “somewhat polite” is off the table after all.) Associate Justice Thomas spent a fair amount of ink taking lower courts to task for continuing to use the two-step approach.

The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broad y consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny.</b
[…]
To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest.
[…]
The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

HELLER rejected two-step government interest scrutiny.

MCDONALD rejected two-step government interest scrutiny.

BRUEN rejected two-step government interest scrutiny, and bitch-slapped lower courts for continuing to use it in direct defiance of the Supreme Court.

At this point, I wouldn’t blame Clarence Thomas if he is looking for a 2X4 and Contreras’ home address.

 

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Bump-Fire, Constitution, gun control, Law, Politics, Rights, SCOTUS, Sellouts and traitors

Trump Vows To Do More

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Trump spoke at the NRA’s annual meeting.

Reminding gun owners what he did for the protection of the Second Amendment and pledging to do much more, former President Donald Trump closed the National Rifle Association’s main event Friday with a stemwinder that brought the crowd to its feet.

What he did for 2A protection? Lessee…

He did roll back a bizarre interpretation of 3D printer files as munitions (something that report falsely characterizes as “banning 3D-printed guns”). And he reversed the VA’s blatantly unconstitutional and illegal reporting of people to NICS. I’ll give him those.

On the other hand, he also signed Fix NICS, prompting states to arbitrarily convert more people into prohibited persons and felons.

And there was that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appointee who thinks, “the Second Amendment has no application to state laws.” What could possibly go wrong?

Even more damaging, he magically turned inert pieces plastic into machineguns, by executive fiat. That did more damage to 2A-protected rights than any Dim president had managed in decades. Estimates vary, but turned tens to hundreds of thousands of people into unindicted felons. And more than a few indicted and convicted.

Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kinda cool. Well, Trump did used to be a Dimocrat.

He established the precedent that federal bureaucrats are free to redefine words at will, without enabling legislation, to call any damned thing they want “machineguns.” And the ATF immediately ran with it; they live for this… excrement.

The Rare Breed Triggers FRT-15 trigger group, which requires the trigger be pulled for each round fired, suddenly became a “machinegun,” by using the exact same “logic” of “operation of operation of the trigger” really meaning “volitional movement of the finger. Oops; more newly-minted felons.

On a roll with redefining words, they came for pictures. Yep, thanks to Trump’s precedent, the ATF decided that line drawings of unassembled pieces of lightning links really are machineguns. A couple of folks are on trial for that even now, including a guy who let people run ads for the Auto Keycard, but never even sold them himself.

The Trump precedential damage continued with braced pistols becoming short-barrel rifles, after they specifically were not. But at least they gave you the options of begging permission to pay for the privilege of keeping them, or self-incriminating and hoping they’d make an exception for you. More felons.

And he’s “pledging to do much more?” While didn’t act on them before, Trump has supported no-due process red flag orders, raising the age to buy any firearm to 21, and an “assault weapon” ban. Is that the “more” he’s promising? If the Dims were paying attention, they’d nominate Trump themselves over Xiden.

On the bright side, Trump’s Supreme Court picks might… might eventually repair the damage he did to the Second Amendment. But his actions will still cost us millions of dollars in legal expenses, endless man hours, and hard work — not to mention the harm done to plaintiffs and improperly charged defendants — to get the Court to reverse him. (And note that the brilliant BRUEN decision was not written by a Trump appointee.)

If it were just his SCOTUS picks, economic work, and the incredible Abraham Accords, I’d be happy to see Trump elected again. But the man has zero impulse control on Second Amendment issues; he can demonstrably be panicked into rash action by any high profile incident.

And we have to live with his impulses.

 

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, Rights, SCOTUS

“The Majority Of The People Think”

Cognitively challenged Uncle Gropey Biden purports to know what all Americans think. He doesn’t know what he thinks, even with a teleprompter. (This is the senile, serial plagiarist, serial fabulist who just mistook two pistols and a pistol caliber carbine for two select-fire AK-47 assault rifles.)

Joe Biden: “The Majority of the American People Think Having Assault Weapons is Bizarre. It’s a Crazy Idea!

Even if true — and have you ever seen a poll that accurately and specifically described what the pollster means by “assault weapon” — so the eff what?

America is not an absolute, direct democracy, where anything goes so long as an alleged majority want it. We are — or are supposed to be — a constitutional republic.

It says so right here.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

That means eligible voters elect representatives, who in turn legislate within the constraints of the Constitution.

What can Congress do? That is specifically listed in Article I, Section 8. Read that list and just try to find “ban the possession of any firearm by the citizens.”

Where arms are mentioned in the Constitution, the Second Amendment…

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

And since the oathbreakers are still dreaming up imaginary “governmental needs” to rationalize it: Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

While you’re looking at that, Xiden (someone help him with the big words), notice that “States” and “people” are listed specifically and separately. When the Constitution means States, it says States. When it means the individual people, it says people. So blow that The Second Amendment means the States can have militias stuff out your… nether regions.

For those still having trouble with the concept, look at SCOTUS decisions in HELLER, MCDONALD, and BRUEN.

For those stupid enough to raise the old But they’re weapons of war; we must ban them, go for it.

Weapons are war are the only class of weapons that SCOTUS ruled are absolutely protected by the Second Amendment.

These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. ‘A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.’ And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.

No doubt Xiden will be threatening US citizen with tanks, fighter jets, and bombs again any time now.

 

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, gun grabbers, Rights, SCOTUS

Tyrants Gonna Tyrannize

Another shooting with the usual conflicting jumble of ever-changing details, another screech to scrap the Constitution. From a former political cop who clearly never took his oath seriously.

CNN Guest Calls For Mass Gun Confiscation After Nashville School Shooting
“We had an assault weapons ban here for a number of years, it worked, and you know, when you look at what happened in New Zealand and how quickly that government responded to an incident, it’s just unconscionable that we can’t do something similar.”

Let’s break that down:

“We had an assault weapons ban…”

No, we had a ban on imports and sales of new firearms Not a single existing firearm was banned.

“it worked”

No, it didn’t.

premature to make definitive assessments of the ban’s impact on gun crime,” largely because the law’s grandfathering of millions of pre-ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines “ensured that the effects of the law would occur only gradually” and were “still unfolding” when the ban expired in 2004.

“when you look at what happened in New Zealand and how quickly that government responded to an incident, it’s just unconscionable that we can’t do something similar.”

It would unconscionable to try violating the Second Amendment on that scale, especially in light of BRUEN.

And New Zealand’s adventure in tyranny? It didn’t work either.

If you compare the past 12 months to a decade earlier, there was a 53 percent increase in gun crime, and a 327 percent inrease in injuries caused by guns.

Funny; I don’t see Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis volunteering to lead the stack.

“The sheer immorality of victim disarmament aside, one would hope every law enforcement officer out there would stop to consider all the possible ramifications of kicking in several million doors because the occupants are well armed.”
— Moi, back in the ’90s

 

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Constitution, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

SCOTUS Needs To Get Its Priorities In Order

No doubt regular TZP readers heard about the recent Supreme Court lack of a decision in ANTONYUK v. STEVEN NIGRELLI. For those who haven’t: Plaintiffs filed suit challenging New York’s recent, post-Bruen, weapons carry law, notably declaring a wide assortment of sensitive places where the state claims it can ban firearms.

The district court issed an injunction against enforcement of the ban pending full trial on the matter. The state appealed to the Second Circuit, which — for no particular reason — stayed the injunction.

Plaintiffs appealed to SCOTUS asking the Court to lift the stay. SCOTUS declined to do so.

When I heard about the SCOTUS lack of action, it was reported merely as an unexplained denial; that’s fairly normal, so I didn’t think too much about it.

Until Monday, when I finally saw an article that mentioned that Justice Alito, with Thomas concurring, had actually issued a statement in conjunction with the denial. The meat of the matter is this:

The District Court found, in a thorough opinion, that the applicants were likely to succeed on a number of their claims, and it issued a preliminary injunction as to twelve provisions of the challenged law. With one exception, the Second Circuit issued a stay of the in- junction in full, and in doing so did not provide any explanation for its ruling.
[…]
I understand the Court’s denial today to reflect respect for the Second Circuit’s procedures in managing its own docket, rather than expressing any view on the merits of the case.

If those few lines are TL;DR you, it amounts to, Rather than prioritizing the protection of constitutionally-protected First and Second Amendment rights of the people, SCOTUS thinks the Second Circuit’s procedures are far more important.

Even when the Second doesn’t seem to be following its own usual procedure.

Bureaucratic process — or the lack thereof — over human/civil rights.

I’ve have some confidence in some Justices, but even post-Bruen, this illustrates why I have near-zero confidence in the overall Supreme Court.

 

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Bump-Fire, Courts, Law, SCOTUS

Toldja So: Cargill v. Garland At Fifth Circuit

I’m human. When I’m right, I like to brag as much as anyone else. And sometimes that means going full-blown “I told you so.”

The Fifthth Circuit ruling in Cargill v. Garland is one of those times. The Fifth overturned the lower court which had found that the ATF’s bump stock (bump stock type device) ban-through-redefining-them-as-machineguns was lawful.

How right was I? This right.

Deference

I noted that Chevron deference 1) only applies when a statute is vague, and 2) should not apply to criminal penalties, only civil. The Fifth agrees with me.

A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of “machinegun” set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act.
[…]
Because we hold that the statute is unambiguous, Chevron deference does not apply even if the Chevron framework does.

Usurping Power of Congress

Congress makes laws, and the President signs them into effect. Hopped up, unelected bureaucrats do not. Again, the Fifth Circuit says I’m correct.

Of the sixteen members of our court, thirteen of us agree that an act of Congress is required to prohibit bump stocks, and that we therefore must reverse.

Redefining Trigger To Mean Finger

I pointed out that applying the definition of “function of the trigger to — volitional! — movement of the finger was a semantic nightmare that only made sense to politically driven tyrants who don’t give a damn about actual law. The Fifth Circuit… Yep.

The statutory definition of machinegun utilizes a grammatical construction that ties the definition to the movement of the trigger itself, and not the movement of a trigger finger.

The Court did not get into my point that the bump stock rule-making process violated the Administrative Procedures Act, but given that they found the rule itself is outright wrong, the additional flawed process implementing it was moot.

Since we have a Circuit split on bump stocks, maybe SCOTUS will finally grant cert and hear a case on the ban. I would love to read what Justice Thomas might have to say abou itt; his BRUEN decision was brilliant.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion; when I saw that, I knew it was going to good. He goes into history in surprising detail. This opinion could be used as an American history textbook for a complete school year.

Thomas could create another year of lessons on this one: legislative process and history.

 

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