SCOTUS or The Supreme Court of the United States has been in the news a
LOT lately. They’ve made some brave and admirable decisions. They’ve also made some terrible rulings. Some recent rulings are so bad I have to wonder if at least two of our current justices are serving under severe threats to themselves or loved ones. I’ve always suspected Justice Scalia death was at the hands of one or more bad actors.
No matter what decisions SCOTUS may make or which way they turn on any one issue is not at all a topic I’m bringing up today. While many contend they and they alone are the last word on law in this nation, I heartily disagree. WE the People are the last word. Period. Not by “vote” per se but by constitutional means of establishing and refining the law of the land.
So what IS this “Sad Truth” about SCOTUS?
This story goes back, way, waaaay back to 1939 and the Supreme Court case United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 . I learned about this in the fiction book “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross. While the work itself is fiction the author worked the story around a lot of actual history (not to mention loads of excellent firearm information.)Ross’ research was top notch. Thus I’m relying on the story as he told it.
How this case even came to the Supreme Court is amazing in and of itself. Two men, suspected of being moonshiners, were “busted” by two AFT agents. The only trouble was, the agents couldn’t find anything illegal on the men except, one of them had a shotgun that was about a half-inch too short according to the 1934 NFA or National Firearms Act. Since the men were from out of state, they were charged – the first citizens to be so charged under this law. The local judge threw the case out, citing, of all things, the Constitution of the United States. The feds appealed. Then a “funny” thing happened…
Nobody showed up for the defense. According to the story as related by Mr. Ross, the defendants could not be located. The lawyers could not/ did not want to work for free, as even if the defendants could be located, it was certain they had no money to pay for their defense. So the feds contentions were presented to SCOTUS unchallenged.
Now by 1939, FDR had a firm hand on the makeup on the Supreme Court so one could very well surmise the court would rule in favor of the government anyway but such is pure supposition. Speculation aside – what actually happened?
SCOTUS Ruled for The Government
Defenders of the court maintain they had no choice. I cannot argue that as I have no basis in legal proceedings to judge by. Thus I am only left with what common sense I have as a self-governing citizen. What that tells me is the entire act should have been ruled unconstitutional from the get-go, just like the original judge ruled previously. Instead they only overturned part of his ruling and only such details as the feds put forth thus demonstrating the Sad Truth About SCOTUS – our Supreme Court is populated with humans just as fallible as the rest of us AND prone to their own bias.
While there is zero chance I’d ever be admitted to any bar association, muchless be tapped to sit on the Supreme Court – side note here – there is NO stipulation that a Supreme Court Justice must even be a lawyer – I’ll never be deterred from looking at any law passed in this nation and calling BS. I’ll go even further down that road:
As far as our Second Amendment is concerned, I take the words “shall not
be infringed” as the litmus test for any gun law so much so I fully believe any “gun law” is likely to be unconstitutional straight out of the box. One thing I am aware of, in legalese definitions are everything, thus my view depends entirely on how the term “gun law” is defined. For example – here in Virginia but the House of Delegates and the Senate just passed a “gun law” banning “assault weapons”. It will have to wait in line for its day in court as there are four similar laws vying for a SOCTUS ruling at last count. I need not wait for the robed oracles to decree to render my own layman’s opinion – they are all unconstitutional. Period. How can I say that? Simply this:
All of these laws declare certain firearms illegal due to how they are constructed. Let’s cut to the chase and visit the granddaddy of all US bans – the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986. Notice the irony of the title of this legislation. Before then machine guns were still legal “to manufacture for ‘civilian‘ use” (misnomer if one considers the term ‘civilian’ refers to someone who is NOT serving in the military.)
This from the DOJ’s website:
On the positive side, FOPA finally banned the manufacture of machine guns for civilian use and made it unlawful for anyone, not just licensees, to sell firearms to prohibited persons.
Among the several issues I have with this page is I fail to see what is “positive” about the above contention. Beyond that, even if one disagrees with my assertation, doesn’t the above paragraph then insinuate the preceding bullet points are not positives? (On that I would agree!)
Sure, one can pick out a few pluses but what real need is there to pass a law stating acts that should be legal anyway are, well, legal? There there’s the whole “felons owning firearms” bit. Under section IV on the page linked above the DOJ imparts how the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) made it illegal for felons to possess or acquire firearms. In other words, while it is ingrained in our modern brains that felons cannot own firearms, this has only been true in this nation since 1968. Again, there is no such constructional constraint.
Now there are provisions in the 1986 legislation for mandatory sentencing for actual criminal acts. While I’m not about to enter the debate on mandatory sentencing at this point, I have absolutely no problem with the concept of adding or increasing penalties for criminal acts performed or aided with a firearm. However we do need to be careful in this day and age of increased attention on “gun violence”.
Remember the Waukesha Wisconsin Christmas Parade attack? Are those five who died any less dead than if they were killed by firearms? Where were the calls for increased penalties for death by automobile? What about murder by other means? Are those victims less dead? Are their lives less valued because they were not killed with a firearm? I do get the point of the advocates to discourage the use of firearms in crimes, but shouldn’t we be rather discouraging the crimes themselves?
Getting back to SCOTUS – beginning with the 1939 ruling on the 1934 National Firearms Act and since – they have consistently failed to hand down the most obvious ruling – our rights as citizens SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. Period. End of story. Instead they duck and dodge those issues which should be crystal clear in order to pacify the statists. This is where WE the People need to step up and step in.
The courts, SCOTUS, included love to invoke the concept of “public policy” – the idea that the will of the “people” should prevail. The problem here lies with the idea that the “will of the people” is expressed in legislation passed by federal, state, and local authorities (and more recently government agencies that have zero constitutional authority whatsoever). The problem there is our so-called “representatives” more often represent those controlling their political party rather than the constituents who voted them into office.
Quick quiz: who among you voted for a representative who supported a law banning incandescent light bulbs? Did anybody bother to ask you? My point exactly.
So first, we need to ensure those we choose to represent us are actually paying attention to what we really want. In my case, I want liberty so anything smacking of more government had better be based on some very strong logic.
Second, we need to hold our courts accountable per the law of our land by clearly opposing rulings that stray from our basis in law. Once again, our representatives need to have their feet held to the fire. We need to insist they change those laws the courts refuse to recognize as overstepping constitutional limits.
Finally, we need to carefully, clarify any questionable language in our founding documents. In other words, in some cases, we may need to amend our constitution(s).
For example, it seems the “commerce clause” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution) is often interpreted as expanding congressional overview to such things that “may” cross state lines. Nonsense. What does make sense is to refine this clause and define exactly what we really do want the federal government to have a hand in regulating as well as some strict limitations on such authority.
Again, we need to be careful with this las so we don’t make things worse than what they already are.
If all this seems daunting and rather impossible, allow me to suggest a
reason why. We’ve grown used to the “set it and forget it” mindset when it comes to self-government. We want to live our lives and not be bothered. Well, there are governmental systems for that too. Feel free to choose between a kingdom, a dictatorship, or some sort of social-communist system. They all leave government to “the professionals”. That’s not how our constitutional republic works. Our system is one of supposedly limited government held in trust by reliable citizens chosen to server – ostensibly for limited times before being released to return to their primary occupations. The very temporary nature of our ideal citizen-representatives was meant to be an additional safeguard against what has become a permanent corrupt ruling class.
Nothing will happen overnight. It cannot. Nothing will happen at all unless WE the People begin to step up and take hold of the duties and responsibilities inherent in our birthright as self-governing citizens of a constitutional republic.
