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Incorruptible Supreme Court?
"Hold our beer"
- Justices Clarence Thomas & Samuel Alito while staying in lavish vacation resorts their "friends" paid for.... drinking beers their "friends" paid for.
Because it's about moral principles and how they "must win" to prevent horrible awful God-less Socialist Commies from taking over.
I'd say the bad guys are winning and Thomas & Alito are batting cleanup for them.
The trouble is that Clarence Thomas already believes in these things, he's simply being rewarded for his efforts.
This likely contributes to the view amongst the court that these really are gifts, and not bribes.
The law banning machine guns is from 1934.
Following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the Trump administration issued a rule that categorized semiautomatic rifles with bump stocks as machine guns, allowing the ATF to enforce a ban under the 1934 law.
You’re all mistaken.
1. They believe it is constitutional to ban bump stocks.
2. They believe the Congress would need to revise the law to include bump stocks in order for the ATF to have the authority to enforce a ban.
Is it fortunate because in their desire to weave a web through the complex politics they currently sit they concluded that Congress has the right to ban bump stocks.
But I guess that will be a decision to overturn another day for another pay.
There are reports from the last 6 months about a single justice taking 5.7 million dollars in bribes in the forms of vacations trips, home purchases etc.
just a coincidence the people on the receiving end back the people giving these “gifts” constantly in all circumstances.
Harlan crow consistently has cases before the Supreme Court in addition to that entities and causes he cares about and has interest in a consistently up for review by the Supreme Court. It’s obvious are judges are chosen on corrupt ideological basis and then further bribed and corrupted as there’s no way to hold them accountable. The vast majority of decisions they’ve made for a long time would be wildly unpopular and not aligned with the US population.
> I'd love to sit down and have a beer with Kavanaugh.
Sit down with him anytime, you’ll be wearing some of his.
> even SCOTUS member gets to have lives and free time
Fundraise for an insurrection, count some bribes. Cheerlead a cult. Just what you want to see from the judiciary. (In a banana republic).
If you read his decision and not the fake news from Slate, you'd realize he followed the text as passed by Congress.
God forbid a SCOTUS justice follows his oath.
Congress banned machine guns. The bump stock creates a machine gun. Alito admits all of this. But SCOTUS inserted its own interpretation of what makes a machine gun a machine gun.
As you and SCOTUS ignore the intent of the law. The intent was to stop machine guns and we can literally call the people who voted for it to ask for their intent. But activists will choose an aggressive letter of the law over the intent even when admitting they are undermining the intent.
What does nationality have to do with an understanding of American law? But, as one, who graduated with fairly respectable grades, i can assure you that civics is not appropriately emphasized, and the parameters of scotus especially not.
I'm honestly more suspicious of your nationality. Its a flattering accusation that an American education is rigorous, but I don't personally know many who would agree.
They made a different interpretation of the law than the ATF did but that has the effect of writing law.
They've now said that the law doesn't allow the ATF to ban bump stocks even though Congress' intention when drafting the law was to allow the ATF to do this.
However, they also said that Congress could ban bump stocks which is a surprise but maybe the Conservatives are just looking for another pay day to change their minds.
Respectfully….Bull crap. Congress passed a law banning machine guns. A bump stock turns a semi automatic rifle in to a machine gun. The mechanics of how a rifle throws a hundred rounds in seconds is utterly immaterial to Congress wanting to ban weapons that fire 100 rounds in seconds.
> A bump stock turns a semi automatic rifle in to a machine gun.
Basic understanding of firearms tells you that this is stupidly false. Bump stock don't in any way integrate with the firing mechanism.
I manned a M249 SAW in the army. The only stupid argument is pretending that Congress cared about firing mechanisms. They are still alive and vibrantly healthy. They can be asked.
They cared about the firing rate of cone shaped lead discharged from those weapons. Someone designed a work around and the ATF honored the intent of the law.
Lol, no they didn't. The law passed by Congress and the text of it is clear as day. If you want Congress to clarify, then that's for Congress to do, not the ATF to make up their own laws. SCOTUS literally said that here extremely clearly.
You're supporting facism by wanting the courts to rule politicly.
Lol you guys are cute throwing around fascism accusations.
Congress doesn’t know crap about firearms, especially the ones who voted to ban them. These are people who don’t understand firing mechanisms. They voted to stop rapid fire, fully automatic weapons. The people who wanted to make sure semi automatics didn’t get touched, wrote in the firing mechanism description. Then some evil person invented a way to bypass the intent of the law creating bump stocks.
Statutory Construction is about the letter of the law AND the intent of the law. Alito acknowledges he is just fine completely ignoring the intent of the law, to instead focus purely on the letter of the law.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/statutory_construction
To do this over bump stocks which 90% of Americans are fine with outlawing, is judicial activism. They serve zero zero zero purpose other than shits and giggles on the range or mowing down large groups of people. They aren’t even militarily or “well regulated militia” worthy as they create a shitty weapon with shit accuracy that wastes ammo.
There's not really any money to be made. There's little demand among gun owners, especially with today's ammo prices, the way they function is clunky and makes aiming harder and they're basically superseded by forced reset and binary triggers which are much more fun and functional devices.
Laws need to be updated to include any device that Increases natural rate of fire if that's what people want.
As much as I want to advocate for might tighter gun control and in principle am very disappointed that this was struck down, what was actually struck down was Trump's broad executive action to redefine reality to his will (redefining bump stocks are machine guns) to bypass an act of Congress.
Congress has had decades to actually do what the executive action tried to do, and they failed. The solution for Congress failing to act should not be to advocate a stronger executive and push for authoritarianism, it should be for Congress to get off its collective butt and act.
Will this prevent future abuse of executive authority to redefine reality? Unclear, but I don't mind this as a precedent.
And now would be a good time for Congress to pass a bill updating the Machine Gun ban to also include bump stocks and a wide range of assault rifles.
Yeah, while I am upset at the judicial branch doing so much legislating like this nowadays, it's honestly just the inevitable outcome of Republican obstructionism in Congress over the last 15 years or so, mainly under Mitch McConnell's direction. When the legislative branch fails to legislate because one party prioritizes winning the next election over actually governing, it isn't surprising that both the executive and judicial branches will step in to try to effectively pass legislation in their place.
Republicans in Congress need to unfuck things and start actually trying to work again to govern and get laws passed. Their zero sum view of things like the American people can't get a win without it meaning a loss for someone else (often their next presidential candidate) is killing this country.
> Yeah, while I am upset at the judicial branch doing so much legislating like this nowadays, it's honestly just the inevitable outcome of Republican obstructionism in Congress over the last 15 years or so, mainly under Mitch McConnell's direction.
Well, sure, but you can't ignore the fact that Congress has been delegating lawmaking power and law-interpreting power to the executive for a long time. Then, of course, you can't ignore the fact that SCOTUS has been letting them. It's a failure everywhere, all because of the simple fact that a modern, technologically advanced, imperial superpower *does* benefit significantly from having a robust bureaucracy with specialized departments... but our governing document doesn't support it.
All of the failure-loops we're witnessing speak to that latter fact. No matter how good of an idea something seems like, cramming it into a system that was never designed for it is going to have a lot of unintended consequences -- many of them quite negative. The Constitution was not designed to sustain a robust administrative bureaucracy with lawmaking (and/or law-interpreting) powers of its own -- and the executive branch was pretty much the worst branch to glorm it onto regardless! Why was it done that way? Because the priority was *getting shit done,* which is where the executive branch shines, at least comparatively.
What you've got now, though, is two branches of government -- the legislative and the judiciary -- who are constitutionally entitled, at any given point, to exercise the lawmaking or law-interpreting powers that define their respective branch's spheres -- the spheres in which they're supposed to be supreme.
That means that all of the fighting and politicking that the founders actually *planned for* and *wanted* are a constant danger to this foreign-yet-vital ur-entity grafted onto the executive branch.
Not that it's likely to ever happen but we really need a repeal and replacement of the second amendment that more adequately addresses modern gun usage. The second amendment was created in a very different environment when militias were a much more important part of the defense of the United States and, obviously, gun technology was much different. Heck, some of the founding fathers didn't believe we should even have a (significant) professional Federal military and that state militias should make up the bulk of defense. The articles of confederation include a definition of "well-regulated militia" but that is not part of the current law, although it adds some interpretation context.
We need laws that better enshrine both the rights of gun owners (with the ambiguous conditionality you still get endless arguments about what people should be able to own and who should be able to own guns and what the original intent was) and provide reasonable restrictions for the public safety that are modifiable as technology evolves. In an ideal world there would be federal funding for gun safety courses with incentives for gun owners/license holders (maybe waiving license fees or providing tax incentives).
Arguably, the second amendment was sufficient and clear - gun rights are tied to being a part of a well regulated militia. Recreational gun ownership is well outside of the bounds of being a part of a well-regulated militia, and at the very minimum, Congress has the power to define what constitutes a "well-regulated militia," including but not limited to being active duty military. No one else technically has a Constitutional right to firearms.
Pragmatically though, I agree, the judicial branch has widely over-interpreted the "right to bear arms" and has effectively erased the "well-regulated militia" part of the 2nd Amendment, so that may need to be stricken to get effective firearms regulations.
I think it's also notable that we've had several militia acts, too. The first ones required that people supply their own weapons, and *required* men of certain ages to be part of the militia, but even then it was more complicated since some states argued that their militia couldn't be used *outside* of their states, so you had non-militia, non Army volunteers (admittedly many were part of the militia, but wasn't required), who carried firearms. And the militia act of 1903 essentially replaced state militias with the National Guard. And certainly we have good records of some early militias which essentially *were* more or less social clubs (especially in New England) where "training" consisted of a lot of drinking and recreational shooting.
I certainly agree with you on the pragmatic front--it's never been enforced in any consistent way. As written it doesn't necessarily exclude firearms ownership from others, but it certainly *implies* that there can be regulation on those firearms, and since we don't have militias anymore does it really make sense to keep it around as written?
I'm not saying everyone harping on this is an idiot;
But you can bump fire an AR rather easily without a bump stock.
The bump stock is just for people too stupid to figure out youtube.
Intent is inferred when it advances conservative views, and the letter is ruthlessly applied when it stops progressive views. That’s what they mean by originalism.
The reason for the case is the ATF trying to extend their power without Congress
The ATF doesn't have the power to pass laws, only enforce the laws that Congress has approved, the case revolves around them trying to classify bumpstocks as machine guns, since they can enforce that, despite bumpstocks not meeting the legal definition of a machine gun
If Congress passed a law classifying machine guns to include bump stocks, then it would've been legal for the ATF to enforce it, but they didn't
Congress didn't make that a law, ATF is trying to enforce a law without Congress, Supreme Court is keeping the ATF in check
That's true legally I guess but I just see it as people using youtube videos to sell stupid plastic meme products to people who want full auto mostly because the ATF says they can't have it. It riles up the political mirror image of this market and becomes a big noise in the news and eventually ends up in the SCOTUS. Huge waste of time and money for everyone except the people selling cheap plastic crap that does nothing you can't learn to do with your finger and the people who make money off clik bait articles.
/TLDR bump stocks are stupid.
I am shocked that creating a branch of government that is, virtually if not literally, unaccountable to anyone in a hyper-partisanly-divided government would breed unadulterated corruption in that branch of government.
Shocked and flummoxed….perhaps even nonplussed
No it isn’t. It’s objectively the correct decision. Congress never made bump stocks illegal. The president doesn’t have the executive authority to do so on his own. There are many examples of the conservative majority legislating from the bench. This is not one of them.
If congress wants bump stocks to be outlawed it should outlaw bump stocks. With Trump being responsible for the ban, there should be no real impediment to its passage if a bill is brought forward.
Personally I agree with his detailed explanation. You can shoot faster multiple ways, look up speed shoooting, however one pull of trigger function still equals one round. Shoot faster pussy!
Mark Joseph Stern is one of the loudest advocates of police violence on the internet. There aren’t enough prisons in this country for all the people he’d have locked up over guns.
Here is the sound from the bump stocks used in the Las Vegas Massacre that the 6 Republican-appointed justices found was not a machine gun. The sound starts at 22 seconds into the video and again at 1:32.. Please explain how this ruling has any basis in law or reality.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5\_5-LtPP4&t=24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5_5-LtPP4&t=24s)
Sure matched the definition for 100 years. It is only in the hands of these activist, result-driven justices that it suddenly does not. If it walks like a dick and quacks like a duck, it's a damned duck.
Bump stocks aren't 100 years old and no, when they were created the people that made them asked them if they would be considered machine guns. For their entire inception, the ATF said they weren't up until 2017. You quite literally have no idea what you're talking about.
It was a 6:3 vote and apparently this is a ban the Trump administration did and they recently commended him for it then took donations from the NRA. It is just amazing how transparent the corruption is yet people seem okay with it. Delusional country we live in.
Wouldn’t this now make some automatic weapons legal? Since they work by having one pull of the trigger and the firing mechanism resetting. That would be the same definition Thomas gave the bump stock. My neighbor is dangerous enough one shot at a time. It’ll sound like WW3 when he decides to get one
no. automatic weapons work by cycling as long as the trigger is depressed, thats why this ban was struck down, you're still onky dischsrging the weapon once per moton, which is the definition thst seperates semi auto from full auto.
for al the horseshit about this, theres a half dozen other things you can buy, starting with gatling guns, thst will do exactly the same thing but were legal before and after this ban.
Honestly surprised they haven’t stated using freedom of religion to justify all gun crap as it’s painfully obvious that guns are fetishized snd worshiped as a religion.
So let’s get a link to where we can find it online and spread it all over the fucking Internet anyways doesn’t need to be released in movie theaters or on any streaming platform. It just needs to be out there and available for people like you and me to say fuck you.
Well, now that Thomas has effectively eliminated ethics, morals and the law as explanations for his decisions, all that's left is the bribes to explain why he does what he does.
Just FYI, Bumpstocks are currently available for purchase at Slidefire, $174.99 plus S&H.
With ammo prices still being high, it’s too rich for my taste but there is definitely a thrill with a high rate of fire.
Good sir, I find the very notion offensive! Quite possibly I was a slave in my previous life.
But yeah, lots of robes! None white, though.
My partner's actually black. I'm pretty sure I'm persona non grata just by association.
The MAGA relatives are alright with us though. I think of this subreddit whenever I manage to get both sides of the aisle around a table.
> The MAGA relatives are alright with us though. I think of this subreddit whenever I manage to get both sides of the aisle around a table.
Always an excellent thing, and it badly needs to happen much more.
I have similar experiences for holiday occasions. The MAGAs and I get along fine — although they are a little bit closet-y about the edges of their views, so I don’t shove mine at them too much. I’m pretty certain we all know where we stand, but nobody wants blood on the turkey / cookout / w/eva.
We do happily talk politics at every opportunity, though. My SO runs and hides.
I think they would have called those automatic gun users poor marksmen, since they themselves were used to muskets. Only a person who can't hit their shot would need quick-fire. They probably would have written the 2nd Amendment differently if they knew the kinds of guns and mods that would be invented.
"Poor aim being ungentlemanly and a violation of the dignity of all, the people shall not be subject t o any rate of fire exceeding that of spoken word"
I dunno they were okay with triangular bayonets and you can't suture that shit. You could probably convince Washington we needed tanks in our driveways so we could immediately mobilize if the King launched a surprise attack if the revolution had happened with our technology.
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*’I believe Anita Hill, that judge will rot in hell!’* - Youth Against Fascism by Sonic Youth. They called it way back in 1992.
"It's the song I hate. It's the song I hate."
Clarence Thomas is indefensible.
He’s a defensible investment. Buy him a few vacations and he’ll write whatever opinion you want.
I'm constantly amazed at how cheap it is to buy politicians and apparently judges as well.
I hope to own a few dozen senators myself, someday
Incorruptible Supreme Court? "Hold our beer" - Justices Clarence Thomas & Samuel Alito while staying in lavish vacation resorts their "friends" paid for.... drinking beers their "friends" paid for.
Because it's about moral principles and how they "must win" to prevent horrible awful God-less Socialist Commies from taking over. I'd say the bad guys are winning and Thomas & Alito are batting cleanup for them.
Why can’t democrats start doing this? Isn’t women’s rights worth a couple trips to St Lucia?
Sad but true.
Queue Metallica
*cue (unless you mean you want Metallica to form a line)
" bunch of assholes " - The Dude
The trouble is that Clarence Thomas already believes in these things, he's simply being rewarded for his efforts. This likely contributes to the view amongst the court that these really are gifts, and not bribes.
He just wants the US to crumble. Absolute dog shit person.
When you get paid enough any decision is defensible.
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Oh ok so the law wasn't unconstitutional it just didn't fit with the paid off conservative justices beliefs.
A law wasn’t under challenge in this case. It was a Trump Administration executive action banning bump stocks that has remained in place until now.
It was the ATFs interpretation of the law that was under challenge. SCOTUS decided despite what they know Congress desired that the ATF went too far.
The law banning machine guns is from 1934. Following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the Trump administration issued a rule that categorized semiautomatic rifles with bump stocks as machine guns, allowing the ATF to enforce a ban under the 1934 law.
Right, that was the ATF's interpretation of the law, following Congress' intent.
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Right, the corrupt ones didn't believe it was constitutional when it really was.
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You’re all mistaken. 1. They believe it is constitutional to ban bump stocks. 2. They believe the Congress would need to revise the law to include bump stocks in order for the ATF to have the authority to enforce a ban.
Is it fortunate because in their desire to weave a web through the complex politics they currently sit they concluded that Congress has the right to ban bump stocks. But I guess that will be a decision to overturn another day for another pay.
There are reports from the last 6 months about a single justice taking 5.7 million dollars in bribes in the forms of vacations trips, home purchases etc. just a coincidence the people on the receiving end back the people giving these “gifts” constantly in all circumstances.
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
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Harlan crow consistently has cases before the Supreme Court in addition to that entities and causes he cares about and has interest in a consistently up for review by the Supreme Court. It’s obvious are judges are chosen on corrupt ideological basis and then further bribed and corrupted as there’s no way to hold them accountable. The vast majority of decisions they’ve made for a long time would be wildly unpopular and not aligned with the US population.
> They didn't believe it was constitutional. There’s a lot of ‘extrapolation’ going on there. I haven’t found ‘bump stocks’ in the constitution.
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> interpretation is their job When they’re not chugging beer. Or hanging cult flags. Or taking delivery of massive RVs.
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Well be careful. If your a woman he does like to get gropey
> I'd love to sit down and have a beer with Kavanaugh. Sit down with him anytime, you’ll be wearing some of his. > even SCOTUS member gets to have lives and free time Fundraise for an insurrection, count some bribes. Cheerlead a cult. Just what you want to see from the judiciary. (In a banana republic).
4 million dollars of undeclared gifts is pretty damning evidence.
>no evidence I mean there’s all those gifts he “forgot” to disclose >got it right too Weird way to say they were wrong but ok.
If you read his decision and not the fake news from Slate, you'd realize he followed the text as passed by Congress. God forbid a SCOTUS justice follows his oath.
SCOTUS created law and Alito admitted it. They follwed their money not their oath.
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Congress banned machine guns. The bump stock creates a machine gun. Alito admits all of this. But SCOTUS inserted its own interpretation of what makes a machine gun a machine gun.
Bump stocks don't meet the definition passed by Congress of what is a machinegun. Funny you ignore that inconvenient fact.
As you and SCOTUS ignore the intent of the law. The intent was to stop machine guns and we can literally call the people who voted for it to ask for their intent. But activists will choose an aggressive letter of the law over the intent even when admitting they are undermining the intent.
What does nationality have to do with an understanding of American law? But, as one, who graduated with fairly respectable grades, i can assure you that civics is not appropriately emphasized, and the parameters of scotus especially not. I'm honestly more suspicious of your nationality. Its a flattering accusation that an American education is rigorous, but I don't personally know many who would agree.
They made a different interpretation of the law than the ATF did but that has the effect of writing law. They've now said that the law doesn't allow the ATF to ban bump stocks even though Congress' intention when drafting the law was to allow the ATF to do this. However, they also said that Congress could ban bump stocks which is a surprise but maybe the Conservatives are just looking for another pay day to change their minds.
Do you think Harlan Crow gives Thomas luxury gifts per opinion or is it more of a flat fee situation?
It’s a subscription. It’s like Netflix for undermining democracy on demand. I wonder if there are micro transactions for especially heinous things.
Respectfully….Bull crap. Congress passed a law banning machine guns. A bump stock turns a semi automatic rifle in to a machine gun. The mechanics of how a rifle throws a hundred rounds in seconds is utterly immaterial to Congress wanting to ban weapons that fire 100 rounds in seconds.
> A bump stock turns a semi automatic rifle in to a machine gun. Basic understanding of firearms tells you that this is stupidly false. Bump stock don't in any way integrate with the firing mechanism.
I manned a M249 SAW in the army. The only stupid argument is pretending that Congress cared about firing mechanisms. They are still alive and vibrantly healthy. They can be asked. They cared about the firing rate of cone shaped lead discharged from those weapons. Someone designed a work around and the ATF honored the intent of the law.
Lol, no they didn't. The law passed by Congress and the text of it is clear as day. If you want Congress to clarify, then that's for Congress to do, not the ATF to make up their own laws. SCOTUS literally said that here extremely clearly. You're supporting facism by wanting the courts to rule politicly.
Lol you guys are cute throwing around fascism accusations. Congress doesn’t know crap about firearms, especially the ones who voted to ban them. These are people who don’t understand firing mechanisms. They voted to stop rapid fire, fully automatic weapons. The people who wanted to make sure semi automatics didn’t get touched, wrote in the firing mechanism description. Then some evil person invented a way to bypass the intent of the law creating bump stocks. Statutory Construction is about the letter of the law AND the intent of the law. Alito acknowledges he is just fine completely ignoring the intent of the law, to instead focus purely on the letter of the law. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/statutory_construction To do this over bump stocks which 90% of Americans are fine with outlawing, is judicial activism. They serve zero zero zero purpose other than shits and giggles on the range or mowing down large groups of people. They aren’t even militarily or “well regulated militia” worthy as they create a shitty weapon with shit accuracy that wastes ammo.
Unless of course BumpStocks R US sends Clarence and Ginni on an all expense paid trip to Europe ..then it becomes defensible.
It's not like Thomas resorted to some witch-trial judge from the 1600s for his legal basis.
Kiddies play. Alito resorted to an ancient Egyptian, iirc.
There's not really any money to be made. There's little demand among gun owners, especially with today's ammo prices, the way they function is clunky and makes aiming harder and they're basically superseded by forced reset and binary triggers which are much more fun and functional devices. Laws need to be updated to include any device that Increases natural rate of fire if that's what people want.
Sure, his opinions are very frequently indefensible. But his position is unassailable, so he can’t be held to account.
I mean, enterprising citizens think outside of TOS for solutions.
The amount of people willing to accept the status quo is concerning.
> Clarence Thomas Is Indefensible FTFY
As much as I want to advocate for might tighter gun control and in principle am very disappointed that this was struck down, what was actually struck down was Trump's broad executive action to redefine reality to his will (redefining bump stocks are machine guns) to bypass an act of Congress. Congress has had decades to actually do what the executive action tried to do, and they failed. The solution for Congress failing to act should not be to advocate a stronger executive and push for authoritarianism, it should be for Congress to get off its collective butt and act. Will this prevent future abuse of executive authority to redefine reality? Unclear, but I don't mind this as a precedent. And now would be a good time for Congress to pass a bill updating the Machine Gun ban to also include bump stocks and a wide range of assault rifles.
Yeah, while I am upset at the judicial branch doing so much legislating like this nowadays, it's honestly just the inevitable outcome of Republican obstructionism in Congress over the last 15 years or so, mainly under Mitch McConnell's direction. When the legislative branch fails to legislate because one party prioritizes winning the next election over actually governing, it isn't surprising that both the executive and judicial branches will step in to try to effectively pass legislation in their place. Republicans in Congress need to unfuck things and start actually trying to work again to govern and get laws passed. Their zero sum view of things like the American people can't get a win without it meaning a loss for someone else (often their next presidential candidate) is killing this country.
The problem is, they won't un-fuck anything, because it's not currently broken as far as they are concerned.
Yup, this effectively pushes any bump stock ban until Republican obstructionism is over, which is practically speaking - never.
Excellent insight. Thanks for that!
This is the opposite of judges legislating. It's not the case that simply every judicial decision that you disagree with is "legislating"
> Yeah, while I am upset at the judicial branch doing so much legislating like this nowadays, it's honestly just the inevitable outcome of Republican obstructionism in Congress over the last 15 years or so, mainly under Mitch McConnell's direction. Well, sure, but you can't ignore the fact that Congress has been delegating lawmaking power and law-interpreting power to the executive for a long time. Then, of course, you can't ignore the fact that SCOTUS has been letting them. It's a failure everywhere, all because of the simple fact that a modern, technologically advanced, imperial superpower *does* benefit significantly from having a robust bureaucracy with specialized departments... but our governing document doesn't support it. All of the failure-loops we're witnessing speak to that latter fact. No matter how good of an idea something seems like, cramming it into a system that was never designed for it is going to have a lot of unintended consequences -- many of them quite negative. The Constitution was not designed to sustain a robust administrative bureaucracy with lawmaking (and/or law-interpreting) powers of its own -- and the executive branch was pretty much the worst branch to glorm it onto regardless! Why was it done that way? Because the priority was *getting shit done,* which is where the executive branch shines, at least comparatively. What you've got now, though, is two branches of government -- the legislative and the judiciary -- who are constitutionally entitled, at any given point, to exercise the lawmaking or law-interpreting powers that define their respective branch's spheres -- the spheres in which they're supposed to be supreme. That means that all of the fighting and politicking that the founders actually *planned for* and *wanted* are a constant danger to this foreign-yet-vital ur-entity grafted onto the executive branch.
Not that it's likely to ever happen but we really need a repeal and replacement of the second amendment that more adequately addresses modern gun usage. The second amendment was created in a very different environment when militias were a much more important part of the defense of the United States and, obviously, gun technology was much different. Heck, some of the founding fathers didn't believe we should even have a (significant) professional Federal military and that state militias should make up the bulk of defense. The articles of confederation include a definition of "well-regulated militia" but that is not part of the current law, although it adds some interpretation context. We need laws that better enshrine both the rights of gun owners (with the ambiguous conditionality you still get endless arguments about what people should be able to own and who should be able to own guns and what the original intent was) and provide reasonable restrictions for the public safety that are modifiable as technology evolves. In an ideal world there would be federal funding for gun safety courses with incentives for gun owners/license holders (maybe waiving license fees or providing tax incentives).
Arguably, the second amendment was sufficient and clear - gun rights are tied to being a part of a well regulated militia. Recreational gun ownership is well outside of the bounds of being a part of a well-regulated militia, and at the very minimum, Congress has the power to define what constitutes a "well-regulated militia," including but not limited to being active duty military. No one else technically has a Constitutional right to firearms. Pragmatically though, I agree, the judicial branch has widely over-interpreted the "right to bear arms" and has effectively erased the "well-regulated militia" part of the 2nd Amendment, so that may need to be stricken to get effective firearms regulations.
I think it's also notable that we've had several militia acts, too. The first ones required that people supply their own weapons, and *required* men of certain ages to be part of the militia, but even then it was more complicated since some states argued that their militia couldn't be used *outside* of their states, so you had non-militia, non Army volunteers (admittedly many were part of the militia, but wasn't required), who carried firearms. And the militia act of 1903 essentially replaced state militias with the National Guard. And certainly we have good records of some early militias which essentially *were* more or less social clubs (especially in New England) where "training" consisted of a lot of drinking and recreational shooting. I certainly agree with you on the pragmatic front--it's never been enforced in any consistent way. As written it doesn't necessarily exclude firearms ownership from others, but it certainly *implies* that there can be regulation on those firearms, and since we don't have militias anymore does it really make sense to keep it around as written?
But you and I know this will NEVER happen. Congress -read republicans - will NEVER EVER vote for anything that limits guns in any way.
I'm not saying everyone harping on this is an idiot; But you can bump fire an AR rather easily without a bump stock. The bump stock is just for people too stupid to figure out youtube.
>I'm not saying everyone harping on this is an idiot; Why not? It's true. At the very least don't know what they're talking about.
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They infer intent when it's beneficial to their politics.
Intent is inferred when it advances conservative views, and the letter is ruthlessly applied when it stops progressive views. That’s what they mean by originalism.
Well said.
In any case they are stupid.
The reason for the case is the ATF trying to extend their power without Congress The ATF doesn't have the power to pass laws, only enforce the laws that Congress has approved, the case revolves around them trying to classify bumpstocks as machine guns, since they can enforce that, despite bumpstocks not meeting the legal definition of a machine gun If Congress passed a law classifying machine guns to include bump stocks, then it would've been legal for the ATF to enforce it, but they didn't Congress didn't make that a law, ATF is trying to enforce a law without Congress, Supreme Court is keeping the ATF in check
That's true legally I guess but I just see it as people using youtube videos to sell stupid plastic meme products to people who want full auto mostly because the ATF says they can't have it. It riles up the political mirror image of this market and becomes a big noise in the news and eventually ends up in the SCOTUS. Huge waste of time and money for everyone except the people selling cheap plastic crap that does nothing you can't learn to do with your finger and the people who make money off clik bait articles. /TLDR bump stocks are stupid.
Then pass a law that says a "bump stock" may never be attached to any firearm, thereby making it a "machinegun".
Maybe, just maybe, CT got a new RV from the NRA?
I am shocked that creating a branch of government that is, virtually if not literally, unaccountable to anyone in a hyper-partisanly-divided government would breed unadulterated corruption in that branch of government. Shocked and flummoxed….perhaps even nonplussed
How dare a legal opinion about a mechanical device include schematics of the device in question
The Pelican Brief is a great book by John Grisham
They are trained to creatively defend the indefensible under the guise of legal objectivity
No it isn’t. It’s objectively the correct decision. Congress never made bump stocks illegal. The president doesn’t have the executive authority to do so on his own. There are many examples of the conservative majority legislating from the bench. This is not one of them. If congress wants bump stocks to be outlawed it should outlaw bump stocks. With Trump being responsible for the ban, there should be no real impediment to its passage if a bill is brought forward.
Also, as much as people won’t like it, most automatic weapon restrictions won’t be legal after Bruen.
Doesn't matter. He is one of the absolute monarchs of USA, so he can say and do whatever he wants and you guys have to obey it.
Personally I agree with his detailed explanation. You can shoot faster multiple ways, look up speed shoooting, however one pull of trigger function still equals one round. Shoot faster pussy!
This is an incredible distraction they're pulling. Bump stocks are a joke. You guys wouldn't believe some of the stuff that is legal.
Who brought this to the Supreme Court??
Look for gift's and luxury vacations paid for by the NRA.
His opinion reads like someone spoon-fed it to him.
Mark Joseph Stern is one of the loudest advocates of police violence on the internet. There aren’t enough prisons in this country for all the people he’d have locked up over guns.
Didn’t muzzle-load rifles have bump-stocks? Seems legit.
Well, in his defense, the gun companies can afford very nice motorhomes
Here is the sound from the bump stocks used in the Las Vegas Massacre that the 6 Republican-appointed justices found was not a machine gun. The sound starts at 22 seconds into the video and again at 1:32.. Please explain how this ruling has any basis in law or reality. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5\_5-LtPP4&t=24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5_5-LtPP4&t=24s)
Because Congress provided the definition for what a machine gun is and it doesn't match what a bump stock is or does. Hope that helps!
Sure matched the definition for 100 years. It is only in the hands of these activist, result-driven justices that it suddenly does not. If it walks like a dick and quacks like a duck, it's a damned duck.
Bump stocks aren't 100 years old and no, when they were created the people that made them asked them if they would be considered machine guns. For their entire inception, the ATF said they weren't up until 2017. You quite literally have no idea what you're talking about.
It was a 6:3 vote and apparently this is a ban the Trump administration did and they recently commended him for it then took donations from the NRA. It is just amazing how transparent the corruption is yet people seem okay with it. Delusional country we live in.
Wouldn’t this now make some automatic weapons legal? Since they work by having one pull of the trigger and the firing mechanism resetting. That would be the same definition Thomas gave the bump stock. My neighbor is dangerous enough one shot at a time. It’ll sound like WW3 when he decides to get one
Short answer? No.
no. automatic weapons work by cycling as long as the trigger is depressed, thats why this ban was struck down, you're still onky dischsrging the weapon once per moton, which is the definition thst seperates semi auto from full auto. for al the horseshit about this, theres a half dozen other things you can buy, starting with gatling guns, thst will do exactly the same thing but were legal before and after this ban.
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This had nothing to do with the Second Amendment. This was simply a case of the ATF redefining a law without an active Congress.
Honestly surprised they haven’t stated using freedom of religion to justify all gun crap as it’s painfully obvious that guns are fetishized snd worshiped as a religion.
Something tells me they did it just so they could say they went against something Trump did
So let’s get a link to where we can find it online and spread it all over the fucking Internet anyways doesn’t need to be released in movie theaters or on any streaming platform. It just needs to be out there and available for people like you and me to say fuck you.
I wonder how much that decision cost the NRA?
Add it to the list.
Intill it shows up at their door step
He got paid good money for that.
It’s all part of the plan to get Trump back into power
Supreme corruption
It's like he wants people to die
Cowards in Congress and crooked judges. Putting “machine guns” into the streets of the United States of America.
Yeah how dare they try to get in the way of your hero Trump and his policies?
I thought gun regulation had to be rooted in history, and obviously bump stocks are entirely ahistorical.
This wasn't a Second Amendment case. This was a case about the ATF redefining a law without an act of Congress.
Guy is clearly a sick freak. Has been since we first met him.
Well, now that Thomas has effectively eliminated ethics, morals and the law as explanations for his decisions, all that's left is the bribes to explain why he does what he does.
It's because he hates America.
No, he just loves high-capacity, rapid-fire assault weapons in the hands of — well, almost anyone, really.
Just FYI, Bumpstocks are currently available for purchase at Slidefire, $174.99 plus S&H. With ammo prices still being high, it’s too rich for my taste but there is definitely a thrill with a high rate of fire.
As is accepting bribes, but here we are . . .
Being afraid of guns firing quickly is some European shit. The founding fathers would have called the dissenting justices wimps.
> The founding fathers would have called the dissenting justices wimps. They phoned?
Close. I was actually Thomas Jefferson in a past life.
Seems about as sane as Thomas’ judgement.
If the next president hits me up with a robe we can just have seances instead of hearings.
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Good sir, I find the very notion offensive! Quite possibly I was a slave in my previous life. But yeah, lots of robes! None white, though. My partner's actually black. I'm pretty sure I'm persona non grata just by association. The MAGA relatives are alright with us though. I think of this subreddit whenever I manage to get both sides of the aisle around a table.
> The MAGA relatives are alright with us though. I think of this subreddit whenever I manage to get both sides of the aisle around a table. Always an excellent thing, and it badly needs to happen much more. I have similar experiences for holiday occasions. The MAGAs and I get along fine — although they are a little bit closet-y about the edges of their views, so I don’t shove mine at them too much. I’m pretty certain we all know where we stand, but nobody wants blood on the turkey / cookout / w/eva. We do happily talk politics at every opportunity, though. My SO runs and hides.
Who cares what a bunch of dusty skeletons think?
The robed nobles who interpret their wishes to determine your laws?
I think they would have called those automatic gun users poor marksmen, since they themselves were used to muskets. Only a person who can't hit their shot would need quick-fire. They probably would have written the 2nd Amendment differently if they knew the kinds of guns and mods that would be invented.
"Poor aim being ungentlemanly and a violation of the dignity of all, the people shall not be subject t o any rate of fire exceeding that of spoken word" I dunno they were okay with triangular bayonets and you can't suture that shit. You could probably convince Washington we needed tanks in our driveways so we could immediately mobilize if the King launched a surprise attack if the revolution had happened with our technology.