Well that’s a kick in the head! Actually, the expert in question is Linda Greenhouse, the Supreme Court reporter for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and once a regular participant in those Sunday Morning network “round tables” when a talk show wanted to pretend it had a balanced and non-partisan array. Greenhouse is a strongly left-biased Democrat legal analyst, often a dishonest one, and her latest column for the Times proves again that it is propaganda and woke advocacy, not legal enlightenment, that she serves.
Once again, I wish “A Friend,” formerly our resident Times apologist, was still allowed here so I could read his tortured defense of the paper for printing this sinister crap.
Do read “Will the Supreme Court Toss Out a Gun Law Meant to Protect Women?” I wouldn’t bother to quote it if the Times didn’t make you pay for the privilege of rolling your eyes, but I will, a bit. The headline says it all, though, and by “all” I mean anti-rights, anti-due process totalitarian cant. You know, Democratic Party/progressive/ “Do Something!” stuff.
If the Constitution contains an enumerated right in its Bill of Rights, the fact that a law directly violating that right may, in the eyes of some, have some beneficial effects is irrelevant unless there is a massive, existential justification for an exception. Otherwise, the law is unconstitutional. Current progressives and Democrats don’t believe that, or rather, object to the principle. The believe that if speech “hurts” someone by making them feel bad, expresses taboo opinions or makes a sanctified group member feel “unsafe,” laws blocking or punishing that speech shouldn’t be seen as a First Amendment violation, though, in fact, they are. If the right to a fair trial has to be ignored to make sure that a cop whose knee inadvertently triggered nationwide riots and DEI craziness ends up in prison for life, well, reasons the Left, you gotta break some eggs to make a metaphorical omelette, the eggs being the Bill of Rights.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, following SCOTUS’s long-delayed and essential 2022 ruling in Bruen that the Second Amendment means what it says and is about the human right to bear arms and not militias, declared a federal law unconstitutional that prohibited a person subject to a court-issued restraining order for domestic violence from owning a gun. It was and is obviously the right decision except to anti-gun zealots who believe in pre-crime laws, red flag laws, and anything along the slippery slope to outright Second Amendment repeal. The Supreme Court is obviously going to uphold the Fifth Circuit, because its ruling was correct. The only question is whether any of the three far-left ladies on the Court will have the integrity to follow the law. I have some hope for Justice Kagan.
But to read Greenhouse, one would think, and by “one” I mean a typical American who doesn’t read SCOTUS opinions, couldn’t name five of the first ten Amendments and doesn’t comprehend what the Supreme Court’s job is, that the fact that an invalid law has good intentions should be sufficient reason to let it stand. (I doubt the law at issue even had good intentions.)
What the law allows in domestic abuse restraining orders is for judges to issue them solely on the testimony of the complainant, and that act will ban an individual from exercising his right to bear arms. Evidentiary standards are minimal; judges are inclined to grant requests for restraining orders because if there is violence against a complainant after the judge finds no cause—moral luck lurks! —the judge is going to be crucified. The other party doesn’t have a right to be present at the hearing, so the result of the law struck down would be that individuals could lose a core enumerated right without due process of law, based solely on the word of an adverse party.
It’s alarming that the Federal law in United States v. Rahimi was ever passed in the first place, though it was a classic “Do Something!” measure. The case of a Texas man sentenced to prison for possessing a gun after his Second Amendment rights had been removed unilaterally initially came up before Bruen was decided; once that ruling made the law Rahimi violated unconstitutional, the Fifth Circuit rightly held that his imprisonment was unconstitutional as well. Do you find any of this difficult to grasp?
Greenhouse does. She writes,
Anticipating the Supreme Court showdown, I tried to put myself in the place of a Second Amendment enthusiast but found it hard to imagine a less appealing context for making a pro-Second Amendment argument. Obviously, the federal public defender who won Mr. Rahimi’s case would defend the Fifth Circuit’s judgment; that’s his job. But was there anyone else who would urge the justices to rule that a law enacted with strong bipartisan support almost 30 years ago with the goal of protecting women from lethal violence by their intimate partners could no longer be enforced?
That comes awfully close to signature significance for a lawyer who believes that the ends should justify the means, even if the means is ignoring basic rights. The case is a perfect context for making a Second Amendment argument because the law clearly violates the Second Amendment. I don’t remember Greenhouse being this bad: apparently her party’s totalitarian drift has swept her away.
So what if an unconstitutional law had “strong bipartisan support”? That’s what the Court is for, to put on the brakes and protect the Constitution when one of the other branches of the government tries to stomp on it. So what if a bad law has hung around and wrongly removed citizens’ rights for 30 years, or a hundred years? It’s high time that law went the way of the Diplodochus.
Finally, lots of liberty-restricting laws in totalitarian or less-than fully free countries have laudable goals. The point of the Bill of Rights is that there are some things the government just cannot do, no matter what justification it can cite. Is it possible Greenhouse, whom the Times presents as an authority her readers should heed, doesn’t know this?
Greenhouse concludes, after a peculiar argument that because pro gun rights politicians didn’t enter amicus curiae briefs in support of the law’s demise, that somehow means that the Second Amendment wasn’t violated, with this:
Does even this trigger-happy Supreme Court want to be seen as stripping from women in mortal danger from their intimate partners whatever safety this 29-year-old law has provided? Maybe a justice or two in the six-member Bruen majority would rather be seen in the Rahimi context as standing up for due process than for domestic abusers.
What an embarrassing argument for one of the Times’ many Pulitzer Prize winners who won because the PP committee is an ally of Woke World! Any Justice who bases his or her decision on what the judge will be “seen as” shouldn’t be on the Court. It’s not a job for those concerned with public images, popularity, or the barbs of the New York Times. “Trigger-happy”—now there’s a Times analyst for you. Greenhouse says that Bruen means that the majority likes guns! No, you shameless hack, it means that the majority likes the Constitution. Upholding a ruling striking down a law that let a judge take away an individual’s right to bear arms based on statements by a hostile party without any chance for the target’s defense or rebuttal is not “standing up for domestic abusers.” What a despicable rhetorical bait-and -switch, but a common one for progressives now: For example, objecting to male students accused of rape in college proceedings being expelled on a preponderance of the evidence standard (thanks to Obama’s “Dear Co league” letter) without the right to representation is attacked by Greenhouse’s feminist friends as “standing up for campus rapists.”
Then, to debase this awful op-ed further, Greenhouse defaults to junk science. The link goes to an anti-gun group website with the statement, “Access to a gun makes it five times more likely that the abusive partner will kill his female victim.” How could a study ever prove that? Maybe violent people are more likely to have access to guns. Maybe access to a baseball bat, or a drinking problem, or drug use, similarly affect the odds. Claims like this are nearly always the end-product of research studies created to serve a particular political goal. It also doesn’t matter what the odds are. Access to a gun makes it infinitely more likely that an individual will shoot somebody; that conclusion requires no research at all. And to ideologues and abusers of legal advocacy like Greenhouse, that’s sufficient reason to ignore the Bill of Rights.
Here is a report about the issues in the case.
Ethics Alarms 
Why does she not just suggest locking up the alleged abuser on the word of the female partner? With no guns at the ready the abuser will hack her to death with a machete or pulverize her head with a bat. It seems to me that that would be the only way to guarantee the female’s safety. See common sense legislation.
Whoa, wait how would she feel about taking the right to self defense with a firearm away from a female? What happens if a male complains about abuse from a female partner?
You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand you cannot give one group of citizens/residents more rights than another.
We need to stop getting trapped in semantic games. I am now using male and female to denote men and women. I am also not going to use the phrase gun violence when the means to do so is irrelevant. Violence can only be perpetrated by sentient beings thus it is human violence not gun violence or in the words of a radio host “it’s not the guns it’s your sons”. – and sometimes daughters
I wonder why the law in question. does not go far enough.
Why not also do the following those subject to domestic violence restraining orders?
– suspension of licenses to practice law or medicine
– temporary prohibition from engaging in any form of intimate contact or relationship
– requirement to wear a distinctive badge on the left sleeve while out in public.
It is tempting to give up civil rights in exchange for safety.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/03/31/Public-housing-residents-want-gun-sweeps/3117765090000/
Chicago has gone much further left in the 29 years since that article was written. The “public housing” aspect adds a wrinkle to 4A protections, as these apartments are owned by some government agency and that agency is paying part of the tenants’ rent through subsidies.
I have heard of people in government subsidized apartments being evicted solely for having a tenant affiliated with a criminal gang; no actual crime has to be charged for the eviction to take place.
I don’t know how, but something similar to eviction without due process might be finagled to lower the probable cause threshold for search warrants. If the lower threshold is part of the lease agreement, would it be legal? Some tenants say they wouldn’t object if their apartment was searched without probable cause if the same threshold was applied to their criminal neighbors.
Reminds me of a Ben Franklin quote; something like “those who trade liberty for security deserve neither.”
Mm I dont know about this
Bruen approved the constitutionality of regulations requiring criminal background checks to ensure that the applicant is a “law-abiding, responsible citizen”
So there is definitely legal ground to stand on regarding a law that would potentially ban a domestic violence abuser from owning a gun.
True.
The issue in the instant case is one of due process.
It’s both. See my comment on Bob’s.
No! That’s not relevant here. If someone is a domestic abuser, that’s a felony, and Bruen approves of banning felons from having guns. THIS law isn’t about domestic abusers or lawbreakers, but someone who someone else claims is a lawbreaker. Like the red flag laws, it’s pre-crime. being accused of abuse doesn’t make one an abuser (eg. not a law abiding citizen) until there is a trial.
Well no.
This is about Rahimi’s civil protective order entered against him because he dragged his then-girlfriend back to his car when she tried to leave after an argument. He then pushed her inside the car, she hit her head, and then when Rahimi realized that someone had witnessed the incident, he fired a gun at the bystander.
It has nothing to do with “pre crime” but about regulations disarming dangerous individuals, specifically a person who received a civil protective order after evidence was presented to the court.
No, because he was never convicted of the crimes described before the protective order, which in effect removed his rights. A conviction would have automatically and legally, even under Bruen, made it illegal to have a gun. Those alleged facts are completely irrelevant, because they weren’t considered in an adversary setting and in a trial.
The “evidence” was not evidence meeting the standard required for removing a right. No matter what a judge is told, it is not sufficient to render a citizen unable to exercise his Second Amendment right.
I don’t find your argument convincing that someone’s rights should only be limited after they’re convicted of a crime.
Or that evidence presented in court can never be enough to determine that a person is dangerous enough to limit their rights.
That’s a weak legal argument.
We remove people’s rights all the time without criminal convictions.
You must be against people sitting in jail while they’re awaiting trial then?
I don’t find your argument convincing that someone’s rights should only be limited after they’re convicted of a crime.Or that evidence presented in court can never be enough to determine that a person is dangerous enough to limit their rights.That’s a weak legal argument.
It’s not a weak legal argument, it’s the law. The Second Amendment says the government can’t infringe on the right to be armed. Rulings require that for an exception, there has to be a compelling reason. Making men vulnerable to having rights removed based on what are frequently strategic claims of abuse is not a compelling reason. The need to imprison criminals before trial when the alleged crime is serious enough to make bail unreasonable is not a valid analogy. The arrest requires probably cause. The charges and prosecution require sufficient evidence a a reasonable belief that enough evidence exists for a prosecution. And there has been sufficient evidence of a crime. In the case of a restraining order, if there was sufficient evidence for an arrest and charge, there would be an arrest and charge.
We do not remove enumerated rights “all the time”: what in the world are you talking about?
One example of rights infringement based on “pre-crime” reasoning is the the mandatory registration of sex offenders after they have served their sentences. Much written about that here, though not for a while. But even in that case, there has been a crime committed and proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
EXACTLY!!!!
Outstanding reply!
Not all the time, but very sparingly.
So, who said he did those things?
How would anyone know if those things are true?
A TRO based on a complaint does not convict the accused, so to take away rights from the accused a domestic violence abuser prior to determining guilt is exactly what this ruling is designed to prevent.
If there was a felony conviction there may be some merit in what you are saying but that is not the issue in this matter.
Jack, your responses did not show up on my feed before I posted the above. You can delete this post as being unnecessary and repetitive.
Nah, I always appreciate support.
It seems that the left-wing establishment’s go-to legal argument is that, if they think something is good policy, it must be legal.
Does the Heroes Act authorize the Secretary of Education to grant blanket loan forgiveness, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, because of a pandemic, during which all payments and interest have already been frozen? Well, the borrowers have gotten used to not paying, and we feel sorry for them, so yes.
Does every mud puddle count as “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act, and therefore fall under EPA jurisdiction? Well, pollution is bad, so yes.
It seems a pretty feeble outcome to three years of law school.
I’d say left-wing establishment’s go-to legal argument is that, if they think something is good policy, it doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not.
The left’s pattern is very clear to me, especially the progressive left.
When the progressive left likes a policy, they simply tell everyone that it has “overwhelming public support” and they’re policy is on the “right side of history” and imply at every turn that the Constitution should be ignored and publicly tar anyone that opposes their policy as vile and immoral.
They use PURE PROPAGANDA because they have no honest legal standing.
When it comes to progressive Democrats showing off their utter stupidity about the 2nd Amendment their patterns are very clear, their emotional feelings always, and I do mean always, override common sense, critical thinking, logic, and Liberty. If the Constitution legally overrides their feelings then they demonize the Constitution as what’s wrong, not their feelings. These stupid people will destroy everyone’s rights, including their own, to satisfy their feelings. You can’t fix their kind of stupid!