There’s no question that there are a number of justices who are itching to take another gun case soon, and to almost certainly push for a vast expansion of the Second Amendment in a way that has never been countenanced in American history or law before.
Jonathan Lowy
May 17, 2020
Supreme Court eyes more gun cases as conservatives signal eagerness to expand 2nd Amendment protections
[“Never been countenanced in American history or law before”? Well, not in our reality.
Lowy either hasn’t read, or is holding back information from (lying), The Origin of the Second Amendment: A Documentary History of the Bill of Rights in Commentaries on Liberty, Free Government and an Armed Populace, 1787-1792. This book was quoted six times in the Heller decision. So, it’s either willful ignorance or a deliberate lie.
Also recommended reading for Mr. Lowy is The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms. But I expect Lowy would rather not be confronted with the truth.
Update: As Toastrider suggests it is noteworthy that Lowy is chief counsel for the Brady Victim Disarmament Coalition. They are well known for their lies. It’s part of their culture.—Joe]
Other good sources are “That every man be armed” by Stephen Halbrook, and “Stopping power” by Neil Schulman.
Prior to the National Firearms Act of 1934, there was essentially no restrictions on the Second Amendment, at least from a federal standpoint. But of course everything the left disagrees with is “unprecedented.”
Indeed. The only thing truly unprecedented is how many people refuse to understand this simple sentence; The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Truly amazing.
One of the things that is used to push that any 2A protection is “new” or “unprecedented” is that for many many years nobody argued about what the amendment meant. There were times when they attempted to exclude people from being covered by the 2nd, but it wasn’t the 2nd that was in question.
At some point, the 9th circuit (I believe) made a ruling that the 2nd was a “collective right” and applied to the “militia”. With the stroke of a pen, the 2nd was no longer something that belonged to “the people” but instead to “the militia” i.e. the state.
So for many many years, until Heiler, the courts would reject 2A cases on the basis that the person had no standing. Heiler was vastly more important in declaring that the 2nd was an individual right than anything else. All the rest of the 2A cases coming before the court now flow from people now having standing.
That ruling was “unprecedented” because it wasn’t needed until the 9th made an “unprecedented” ruling and declared the 2nd to be a collective right.
Joe, you might consider adding into this post the factoid that Lowy is chief counsel for the Brady Victim Disarmament Coalition.
It’s Romish language. I used to think this form of deceptive language was particular to the Marxist leftist Progressive movements, but once I started reading statements and encyclicals from the Vatican I began to realize where it had been coming from. Neither Noam Chomski nor Saul Alinski nor the best Democratic speech writers could excel, in mastery of deception, that which has been coming out of the papacy for centuries.
IF you take the underlying premise of Lowy’s statement to be a fact; that certain courts are itching to break down arms restrictions, then the quote can be fixed by substituting one word;
Taking his use of the word “expansion” (of the second amendment) to mean “restoration”, then Lowy’s comment actually could be true in all senses.
But Romish deception almost always contains a feint within a feint, or a feint within a feint within a feint. It’s a highly developed art form. And so the underlying question is whether there is in fact some movement within the justice system that is ready willing and eager to restore the second amendment to its original and proper meaning. Given what I observe from government in general, and the long term trends in particular, I find that assertion almost ridiculous.
Once the second amendment was officially compromised and corrupted at the national level, say, by 1934, it is true and proper to say that no legislature or court in American history (since that time) has countenanced a major restoration.
So you see there is usually some truth, somewhere, in Romish lies. We might call it the mockery of truth. It’s a brilliant and effective strategy, as thus we are invited either to reject the truth along with the lies, or to accept the lies along with the truth. It is the way of the dragon.
It’s the way of the Republican Party too. We’ll often throw our support behind someone who can can get it even partly right, while “mostly right” is the best we’ve learned to hope for, see? But a lie that’s wrapped in truth is a lie we’ll swallow eagerly. But then we always feel “betrayed” when the part that’s wrong gets its way, when the fact of the matter is, we literally asked for it, cheered for it and put our resources behind it in support of it!
Posit;
If someone knows enough to get it mostly right, to the point where he can sell himself to those who uphold the bedrock principles, then surely he knows those principles and therefore surely knows when he’s being wrong. And that is how we know we’re being bamboozled. It always comes down to that one, cutting question;
“What did he know, when did he know it, and when and why did he decide to quit knowing it?”
The flip side of course is;
If someone can so pointedly and consistently oppose the truth at every stage, even using it strategically to feed us lies, then surely he knows the truth, and in fact is quite familiar with it (as his enemy).
Can’t be itching too hard the way they keep bumping it down the conference road this session.