Quote of the Day
We suggest an unlikely source of continuing power, after Bruen, for states to disarm individuals they deem dangerous: qualified immunity. Qualified immunity shields state officers from monetary liability for many constitutional violations. In short, unless a previous case “clearly established,” with high factual particularity, that the officer’s conduct was unconstitutional, the officer does not pay. Thus, a state law enforcement officer may, after Bruen, confiscate an individual’s firearm if the officer deems that person too dangerous to possess it. The officer’s justifications may conflict with the federal courts’ understanding of Bruen or the Second Amendment—perhaps flagrantly. But unless a previous, authoritative legal decision examining near-identical facts says so, the officer risks no liability. And because each individual act of disarmament will be unique, such prior decisions will be vanishingly rare. The result is a surprisingly free hand for states to determine who should and should not be armed, even in contravention of the Supreme Court’s dictates.
Guha Krishnamurthi
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Peter Salib
University of Houston Law Center
Qualified Immunity as Gun Control
July 5, 2023
This looks to me like a conspiracy to violate rights and perhaps other crimes by Krishnamurthi and Salib. Can’t they be satisfied with the current violations of the constitution?
If violating the constitution, and openly admitting they know it is unconstitutional, becomes pervasive I could see the response become correspondingly unlawful.
We suggest an unlikely source of continuing power….
Nice that they say the quiet part out loud. It’s not about safety, it’s about power.
Qualified immunity was never intended as a free pass for police to do whatever they want, without liability — as has happened far too often. It was meant to protect officers’ personal assets, so they don’t face bankruptcy for actions taken “in the moment” — with no time to ascertain the legality — in the line of duty.
But it assumes the officers have to act immediately — and reasonably — and without knowing whether their conduct is unconstitutional in that circumstance. If they’re proposing actions they already know are unconstitutional and hiding behind qualified immunity as a shield from liability, the courts will strip qualified immunity for that case. It has happened before.
If it becomes a systemic pattern (IOW, if departments continuously abuse qualified immunity protections), one of two things will happen:
– The courts will severely limit the scope of qualified immunity and open up the officers’ past actions and conversations to discovery, so plaintiffs can find out if they knew or reasonably should have known the conduct was unconstitutional;
OR
– The courts will strike down qualified immunity entirely, as it is an unconstitutional concept dreamed up by activist courts, with no basis in the history, text, or tradition of Constitutional law at the time of the Founding.
(On that last, wouldn’t it be poetic justice if SCOTUS’ precedent in Bruen were used to strike down policies enacted for the purpose of getting around Bruen?)
Good idea! I suggest that the pro-gun majority of law enforcement officers could go to arrest these two guys for conspiracy to violate rights and, when they resist arrest (hey, who’s watching?), ventilate them.
Qualified immunity! Is there anything it can’t do?
This is what passes for the legal profession? (That certainly explains Obama!)
It seems no more than the usual conceit from the communist insurgency of America. No matter what it is. Their always right. No matter what authority is telling them they’re wrong.
Their right, their moral, and whatever needs to be done up to and including the murder of millions is just OK. If that’s what it takes to get to utopia.
I didn’t think Marx and Engles had so much to do with the Margue de Sade? But I digress.
Since they don’t seem to understand America very well. Let’s see if I can clear it up a little for them.
Nobody has immunity till AFTER were disarmed.
And if you don’t like the idea people getting shot, why are you even thinking about confiscation?
Does it ever occur to you that were going to pay as much attention to the law as you do? After all, we are criminals to you.
AinGuha Krishnamurthi and Peter Salib.
Ain’t diversity wonderful?
It is amazing to watch guys like Vox Day being proved right so much.
I remember a couple of years ago when a prosecutor was caught violating the Brady rule (no relation to the victim disarmament Brady, I believe). That requires them to disclose to the defense exculpatory material that might come into their possession.
The excuse given by the offending prosecutors, when confronted in court, was that they had never been told in precise terms that they were required to hand over that particular material in that particular case. I forgot the precise words, but that’s what it amounted to. At the time, I figured it amounted to excusing murder on the grounds that they had never been told that murdering that particular person was something they weren’t supposed to do.
I think they got away with it, rather than having their law licenses yanked and spend a good long time in jail as would have been the correct outcome.
Mencken got it right when he described lawyers as “men professionally trained in finding plausible excuses for dishonest and dishonorable acts”.
I know Kamal Harris did essentially that in California and got away with it. The voters didn’t seem to care….
They do care, when told about it, but once you realize that the Deep State, the courts, the media, the 3-letter agencies, the vote-counters, etc., are all run by the puppet-masters, and few members of the public find out, then the rules don’t have to care about what the voters think.
You have to love the utter contempt so many immigrants to this country have.
Move here. Take jobs. Live a great life. Demand we change everything about our culture to suit them.
No.
Don’t like our rights? Fine. Leave, and leave us alone with our own culture and values.
I don’t know whether it’s a small fraction or a large one. Certainly I know of counterexamples: Oleg Volk, myself.
Totally true. You are not, however, one of those seeking power, and stand-out exceptions because you are unusual. A vast majority of the immigrants I’m aware of who have sought power via elected office or influential positions, are raging leftists who hate our constitution. My local “representative” for example is one of them. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are rare. A few of them make a good show of flashing conservative credentials, but they are totally statist party machine “made men,” like the current establishment darling Vivek Ramaswamy who will sell out the American people in a heartbeat.
To be an American, you have to have the blood/heritage (“ourselves and our posterity”) or the small-gov’t independent spirit of the founding stock. It all it takes is a piece of paper with “USA citizen” stamped on it, then citizenship means nothing, and the nation (as separate from the political unit known as a country) is doomed.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of outsiders who come here for the opportunities we offer — opportunities that don’t exist in their home countries — and then crap all over our culture.
As if the culture isn’t what allows and drives those opportunities.
If their home nation’s culture is so much better, they’re welcome to go back. No? Then sit down and STFU.
I’m not saying they can’t maintain their native culture in their own homes — a microcosm of their homeland, if you will, and I know many immigrants who do that — but forcing the rest of us to assimilate with them instead of the other way around, is just wrong.
Like Californian’s who fucked up Oregon and Washington? And Seattleites that are doing their best to do the same in Northern Idaho?
There’s a symmetry to garbage tier authoritarian academics using the equally garbage tier doctrine of qualified immunity to effect the garbage tier goal of gun confiscation.
Could we just send them to North Korea ?