US Supreme Court declines hearing 10 gun rights cases.

File photo of the United States Supreme Court. Reuters.

In a major blow for gun rights, the United States Supreme Court has refused to hear 10 gun rights cases. Reuters. Two justices, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, said they would have heard a New Jersey case about the state's may issue concealed carry law. Similar cases were dismissed from Maryland and Massachusetts. The court also refused to hear assault weapon ban cases from Illinois and Massachusetts. The refusal to hear gun rights cases come after ruling the courts first gun rights case in years moot last April. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority but despite two new pro-gun justices they have not ruled on any major cases. 

My Comment:

Very disturbing news from the Supreme Court. Not ruling against the City of New York in the previous case was already a huge blow. Not only did they encourage local governments to change their laws before the court can rule on them, they also didn't help defend the 2nd amendment. New York's law was clearly unconstitutional, and the court basically admitted it, but still refused to rule. 

These cases that the court refused are also pretty clearly unconstitutional. Carrying firearms is de-facto banned in New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts and the court has already ruled that you have a right to carry firearms. The court should have taken this case and ruled that "may issue/de-facto ban" states are way out of line. 

The court also should have ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the Illinois and Massachusetts assault weapons ban cases. The court has already said that weapons that are in common use are protected by the 2nd amendment and the most common rifles sold in America these days are AR-15 derivatives, not counting the AK clones and the various other weapons that could be classified as assault weapons. The 2nd Amendment is clear on the issue and the court should have overturned it. 

I do have to say that it's extremely frustrating that the Supreme Court hasn't backed gun rights. I would have thought that the court's priority after Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would be gun rights but it appears that LGBT rights have taken the center stage. Regardless of the merits of the case it's pretty much beyond belief that the conservative court would take up that case before a gun rights one. 

One has to wonder why the court is acting the way it is. Part of it may be due to fear from the Democrats, who have threatened to stack the court if they took up gun rights cases. Chief Justice Roberts has long been more interested in keeping the Democrats happy than actually ruling in difficult or divisive cases. Some people think that after his Obamacare ruling that he has even been compromised by the Democrats despite supposedly being conservative, but I just think he's cowardly. 

I also wonder if the court isn't that united on gun rights. My guess is that the actual conservative justices would not risk such an important case if there was any doubt that they would lose. With Roberts being a loose cannon who can't be trusted my guess is that they didn't want to risk him siding with the liberal justices. 

With this being the case, it's pretty clear that in order to get the gun rights cases we need to overturn these stupid laws we will need at least one more conservative justice and that doesn't seem likely in the short term. If President Trump gets a 2nd term, which I think he will, we will probably be able to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who seems to only be alive out of spite for President Trump. But even then, given how cowardly the court has become, will we really get what we want?

All this comes after the argument for gun control is at it's weakest ever. The twin crises of Coronavirus and the George Floyd riots have caused gun sales to skyrocket and even liberals are buying guns these days. People have realized that when bad times hit, you can't always depend on the government to bail you out, you need to have a backup plan. 

Indeed, I think the argument for gun control is pretty much dead. A mass shooting or two could change things but for now at least people want to hold onto their guns. Which is why this is so frustrating. The winds are obviously changing on this issue but to the Supreme Court it's not even an issue.