National No Mystery to Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh's Gun Views

[pharmseller]

Another movie quote. You're 0-2




P

 

[Joe Link]

You have really been on top of the news lately, @Joe Link. Thanks for keeping us all up to date and getting these important conversations started!!

I've been trying to make it a priority, thanks for noticing!

 

[No_Regerts]

Another movie quote. You're 0-2




P

It was slap shot. Just not responding fast cause I'm at work, kicking transients out of safeway parking lots.

 

[pharmseller]

It was slap shot. Just not responding fast cause I'm at work, kicking transients out of safeway parking lots.

P

 

[Slobray]

Here's what I think @No_Regerts was referencing:

As one who was born here, grew up in this community in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and has lived and worked in this area almost all of his life, I am acutely aware of the gun, drug, and gang violence that has plagued all of us. As a citizen, I certainly share the goal of Police Chief Cathy Lanier to reduce and hopefully eliminate the senseless violence that has persisted for too long and harmed so many. And I greatly respect the motivation behind the D.C. gun laws at issue in this case. So my view on how to analyze the constitutional question here under the relevant Supreme Court precedents is not to say that I think certain gun registration laws or laws regulating semi-automatic guns are necessarily a bad idea as a matter of policy. If our job were to decree what we think is the best policy, I would carefully consider the issues through that different lens and might well look favorably upon certain regulations of this kind. But our task is to apply the Constitution and the precedents of the Supreme Court, regardless of whether the result is one we agree with as a matter of first principles or policy.* See Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 420–21 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring) [striking law against flag-burning] ("The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result."). A lower-court judge has a special obligation, moreover, to strictly and faithfully follow the lead of the "one supreme Court" established by our Constitution, regardless of whether the judge agrees or disagrees with the precedent.*

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/inter...C748525791F004D84F9/$file/10-7036-1333156.pdf

In my uneducated opinion, he's basically saying "My job is to enforce what SCOTUS ruled, not to use my personal beliefs, but if it were up to me, this regulation would stand."

Yes, he's better than many that could have been nominated, but I agree that he is not what we're hoping for.


Ray
* Emphasis mine

 

[CHLChris]

I suppose in a perfect world we want a true believer jurist who desires what we desire. Because then, when they go off the reservation and become an activist judge who is referring primarily to their own judgments and opinions, then their decision will still be to our liking.

However, I still pine for jurists that do not think so highly of their own personal opinions that they eschew the US Constitution and exchange it for their own thoughts. It sounds as though Kavanaugh is someone who may actually make judicial decisions that hew to the historical meaning of the actual US Constitution!! For jurists like this are folks whose minds I do not have to read. Their personal opinions on any matter are completely irrelevant to their decisions in actual cases.

 

[Slobray]

I too would like our Supreme Court Justices to go by what the Constitution states............, because "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is pretty easy to understand.

Kavanaugh didn't go by what the Constitution says in his dissent in Heller 2. He used the "text, history, and tradition" test to arrive at his decision:

In my view, Heller and McDonald leave little doubt that courts are to assess gun bans and regulations based on text, history, and tradition, not by a balancing test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny. To be sure, the Court never said something as succinct as "Courts should not apply strict or intermediate scrutiny but should instead look to text, history, and tradition to define the scope of the right and assess gun bans and regulations." But that is the clear message I take away from the Court's holdings and reasoning in the two cases.

He seemed OK with gun bans as long as there's a "historical understanding", "historical justification" and they "are traditional, "longstanding" regulations in the United States."



Ray

 

[CHLChris]

Yes, but his "dissent" opinion was a dissent of the jurists who had ruled against Heller. His opinion was on OUR side.

 

[Slobray]

I totally understand that his dissent was in our favor. I'm mainly questioning his motivation in doing so, as I'm worried (possibly too much so) that he's not the staunch constitutional 2A guy that he's being made out to be.

My concern is that only reason he dissented in Heller 2 is because of the original SCOTUS ruling in Heller. His whole dissent to DC's AWB was based almost mainly on Heller and to a lesser extent, McDonald, instead of the constitution. He made sure to state numerous times that his job was to follow SCOTUS precedent, whether or not he agreed with it:

As a lower court, however, it is not our role to re-litigate Heller or to bend it in any particular direction. Our sole job is to faithfully apply Heller and the approach it set forth for analyzing gun bans and regulations.

Our role as a lower court is simply to apply the test announced by Heller to the challenged provisions of D.C.'s new gun laws.

But our task is to apply the Constitution and the precedents of the Supreme Court, regardless of whether the result is one we agree with as a matter of first principles or policy.

A lower-court judge has a special obligation, moreover, to strictly and faithfully follow the lead of the "one supreme Court" established by our Constitution, regardless of whether the judge agrees or disagrees with the precedent.

My point is that we've all had to do things that we disagree with and/or disliked, because we were obligated by a certain set of circumstances (job, laws, moral, etc) and then when we became the person who could affect change, we changed that/those dame things that we disagreed with and/or disliked.

I worry that when/if he's confirmed, he will no longer feel constrained by being at a lower court and be emboldened to "look favorably upon certain regulations", such as "gun registration laws or laws regulating semi-automatic guns" as they're not "necessarily a bad idea as a matter of policy."

I may be overthinking this, but I don't have much faith in a majority of SCOTUS "justices" any more, especially after Roberts and Kennedy betrayal in the Obamacare decision.


Ray

 

[Stomper]

I was in law school when Nixon resigned.

Meh.... I was in law school while in utero....






Yeah, yeah.... I know.

 

[Diamondback]

Meh.... I was in law school while in utero....

You were in-utero? I thought you hatched from an egg, like a gator...

 

[Stomper]

You were in-utero? I thought you hatched from an egg, like a gator...

Crocodile.... they're grumpier.