In 1991, conservative former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said the idea that there was an individual right to bear arms was “a fraud”:
“This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. Now just look at those words. There are only three lines in that amendment. “A well regulated militia”—of the militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be well-regulated, why shouldn’t 16 and 17 and 18 or any other age persons be regulated in the use or arms the way an automobile is regulated?”
More:
“How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment,” Michael Waldman, Politico
“Not So Long Ago, the Second Amendment Didn’t Guarantee the Right to Own a Gun,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
US Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh was eating at Morton’s steakhouse in DC on July 6th when womens’ rights activists found out, and protested in front of the pricey eatery. Mr. Kavanaugh had to sneak out the back without dessert. Sad, but there’s always Grubhub.
Morton’s angrily responded that “Politics … should not trample the freedom … of the right to … eat dinner.” Protesters reponded by flooding Morton’s with fake reservations by phone and on Open Table.
There were other reactions. “Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions,” Chasten Buttigieg tweeted, alluding to Kavanaugh’s vote to overturnRoe v. Wade, the decision that guaranteed abortion access on the basis of Americans’ right to privacy. And after Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked if “These justices … have no right to privacy?”, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted “Pretty sure they overturned that right 2 weeks ago Doocy.”
More:
“Brett Kavanaugh is the latest target of protests at D.C. restaurants,” Emily Heil and Tim Carman, Washington Post
“‘Let him eat cake’: AOC reacts to Kavanaugh being forced out of restaurant by abortion rights protesters,” Axios
“Sorry, but the Constitution contains no right to eat dinner,” Washington Post
“Group offers up to $250 for SCOTUS justices sightings after Kavanaugh protest,” Axios
“Protests of Public Officials in Restaurants Aren’t Going Away,” Jessica Sidman, Washingtonian
The Supreme Court of the United States thinks you should be able to carry a concealed handgun in public just because you think it’s cool and want to feel like a big shot. For over a century, New York had required gun owners to have a reason to carry a concealed weapon. Police issued concealed carry permits to business owners who carry bags of cash to a bank’s night deposit facility, those who had a demonstrable proper cause to be concerned for their personal safety, and so on. Now any dumb schmuck who hasn’t been caught committing a crime — yet — will be enabled to do so, with deadly consequences, thanks to six SCOTUS conservative ideologues. That doesn’t sound like a “well-regulated militia” to us.
What can you expect?
More gunshot deaths, murders and suicides.
More civilians killed by police, who will be more likely to assume that anyone they come into contact with is armed with a concealed deadly weapon.
More:
“Supreme Court strikes down New York’s concealed carry gun law,” Oriana Gonzalez, Axios
“U.S. Supreme Court expands gun rights, strikes down New York law,” Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley, Reuters
“Supreme Court strikes N.Y. law, finds right to carry guns outside home,” Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post
“SCOTUS Strikes Down New York Gun Control Law, Expanding Gun Rights In Wake Of Mass Shootings,” Kate Riga, Talking Points Memo
Fact is, the leak is by no means unprecendented. Even the Roe decision, which this court seems bent on negating, was leaked. Warren Burger, then Chief Justice, demanded to know who had leaked the information and threatened to give all the Court’s clerks lie-detector tests:
“Clerks, justices, and other people with access to information have leaked about Bush v. Gore, the Affordable Healthcare Act, and—now—the overturning of Roe, just as in the 19th century, the court leaked information about its ruling in the Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company case. …. Despite all the Court’s august solemnity, full-time reporters covering it are able to break news about it and its inner workings—including, at times, in highly-detailed behind-the-scenes books—because people up to and including the justices leak.”
— “The Supreme Court Leaks All the Time,” Matthew Gault, Vice [links added]
Related:
“Newsmax Host Suggests Ketanji Brown Jackson, Who Isn’t On Supreme Court Yet, Leaked Draft,”
Elise Foley, HuffPost
The annual Right to Meddle in Women’s Lives demonstration was held in Washington DC last Friday, sponsored by the Zygote Liberation Front and the Committee to Restrict Women’s Health Care, or something like that. Theme of this year’s pep rally was “Equality Begins in the Womb,” a bid to promote fetal personhood and negate the human rights of the, um, womb-owners. This biology-denying sect is said to have infiltrated the federal judicial branch recently.
More:
“Anti-Abortion Marchers Gather With an Eye on the Supreme Court,” Kate Zernike and Madeleine Ngo, New York Times
“As March for Life returns to D.C., antiabortion activists wonder: Is this the last march under Roe?” Casey Parks, Washington Post
Related:
“Catholic pro-choice activists project messages onto DC basilica in protest,” by Jack Jenkins, RNS, via National Catholic Reporter
“White nationalists are flocking to the US anti-abortion movement,” Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“‘You never forget it’: These are the stories of life before Roe v. Wade transformed America,” Shefali Luthra, The 19th
The Supreme Court will begin hearing cases again on October 4th, the first Monday in October, while 2021 NCAA fall sports seasons are well under way. A spring SCOTUS opinion by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh suggests the court and the “amateur sports” monopoly may have a showdown before June.
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”
More:
How US college sport became an $8bn inequity racket. And why it may fall,” Bryan Armen Graham, The Guardian
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