By Duncan Smith
For years, constitutionalists and legal experts have lamented the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear what many consider are key gun rights cases involving laws passed by cities and states that appear to be blatant violations of the plain language of the Second Amendment’s ‘infringement’ clause.
And once again, the high court punted on the issue Monday, refusing to hear any of a bevy of cases involving city and state laws, one of which is so egregious that an American citizen with a demonstrated need to be able to defend himself is being denied his right to do so using a firearm.
Not that he should have to ask someone in authority if he can exercise his right in the first place.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not hear appeals of a slew of cases involving gun laws, dealing a blow to Second Amendment activists who seek to expand the rights of gun owners.
In an order released Monday morning, the court denied petitions for appeals of 10 cases.
The denials [come] just weeks after the justices declined to issue a substantive opinion in its first Second Amendment case in nearly a decade.
For his part, Justice Clarence Thomas blasted his colleagues for failing even to take a case involving the appeal of a New Jersey business owner, Thomas Rogers, “who was challenging his state’s requirement that a person show ‘justifiable need’ before being issued a handgun permit,” CNBC reported.
Rogers has to service ATM machines in “high-crime areas,” and wanted to be able to carry a firearm for protection.
Thomas note that the Second Amendment protected ”the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” but ‘in several jurisdictions throughout the country, law-abiding citizens have been barred from exercising the fundamental right to bear arms because they cannot show that they have a ‘justifiable need’ or ‘good reason’ for doing so.’
‘One would think that such an onerous burden on a fundamental right would warrant this Court’s review,’ Thomas wrote.
‘This Court would almost certainly review the constitutionality of a law requiring citizens to establish a justifiable need before exercising their free speech rights,’ he wrote.
‘And it seems highly unlikely that the Court would allow a State to enforce a law requiring a woman to provide a justifiable need before seeking an abortion. But today, faced with a petition challenging just such a restriction on citizens’ Second Amendment rights, the Court simply looks the other way,’ Thomas wrote.
“Rather than prolonging our decade-long failure to protect the Second Amendment, I would grant this petition,” Thomas added.
In fact, the justices should have taken up at least some of these cases, per their own rules. Fox News reports:
Such a split between the circuits is generally one of the most compelling reasons for the Supreme Court to take up a case, and is actually laid out in the tribunal’s official rulebook.
Rule 10, which discusses what the court takes into consideration when deciding to hear a case, says the court is likely to step in when “a United States court of appeals has entered a decision in conflict with the decision of another United States court of appeals on the same important matter.”
Where are the constitutionalists that President Trump put on the high court? Or previous Republican presidents?
When “laws” are clearly unconstitutional and arguably immoral, they should be ignored and a push is to be made to change the laws. … by use of the 2nd amendment if necessary!