The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second administration have revealed at least one unmistakable truth.
In short, the federal judiciary poses a serious threat to the freedom of the American people.
On Monday, according to The Washington Times, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would not take up a case involving a challenge to a sweeping and patently unconstitutional California gun-control law.
Incredibly, California law bans gun shows on state property, including fairgrounds.
The plaintiffs in B&L Productions v. Gavin Newsom had asked SCOTUS to provide relief by blocking the law — already upheld by the notoriously liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — and then hearing arguments. But the plaintiffs could not convince even four justices to agree to take the case.
In one context, that fact alone seems surprising. After all, Justice Clarence Thomas’ brilliant majority opinion in the 2022 gun-rights case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen made clear that American citizens need not beg government officials for special exemptions in order to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms.
Alas, Monday’s decision represents merely the latest illustration of the federal judiciary’s growing hostility to Americans’ freedom.
In June, for instance, SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that a group of Republican state attorneys general and private citizens lacked standing to sue now-former President Joe Biden’s administration for its tyrannical online censorship activities during the COVID scare of 2020-21.
“For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote.
Should freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution always be permissible on public grounds?
Now, once again, SCOTUS has refused to address a serious threat to the Second Amendment.
In some ways, of course, that refusal should not surprise us at all. For instance, nominally conservative Chief Justice John Roberts regularly votes against freedom. Likewise, Justice Amy Coney Barrett amounts to little more than a pro-life woke liberal. The establishment can generally rely on support from both.
Meanwhile, the same hostility to freedom and the Constitution infects much of the federal judiciary.
That poses a serious problem in light of the Second Amendment’s clear meaning.
The phrase “shall not be infringed” leaves little room for interpretation. If “infringe” meant “destroy,” then one could make an argument for gun-control laws short of confiscation. But “infringe” means “limit.” Thus, the government cannot even limit the free citizen’s exercise of the right to bear arms.
Furthermore, too many Americans mistakenly regard the Bill of Rights as a grant from the government to the people. But it is not. Instead, it functions — or should function — as a hard limit on government power.
Of course, people of good will can agree that we do not want guns in certain places. Kindergarten classrooms leap to mind. The problem, however, is that laws have no effect on people with evil intent who would carry guns into such places. So the solution has nothing to do with more laws. Instead of unconstitutional infringements, perhaps we should consider protecting our children the way we protect our money.
In short, if the government lacks the power to infringe upon our rights, then it certainly lacks the power to infringe upon those rights on state-owned property. Given the Constitution’s purpose, there must be a stratospheric threshold for the exercise of government power that limits Americans’ freedom.
Shame on SCOTUS for failing to compel California to meet that threshold.
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