Rob Romano Profile picture
Updates on 2A cases, groups, news, bills, etc. Powered by @gunpolicy. Litigation & Intelligence Coordinator @FPCAction. Views expressed are mine alone

Nov 30, 2021, 13 tweets

Judge VanDyke, dissenting: "The majority of our court distrusts gun owners and thinks the Second Amendment is a vestigial organ of their living constitution."

"We don’t protect the free speech of the taciturn less than the loquacious. We don’t protect the free exercise of religion in proportion to how often people go to church. We wouldn’t even allow soldiers to be quartered only in those parts of your house you don’t use much."

"It’s now beyond obvious that you can’t expect our court to faithfully apply any Second Amendment test that allows us to exercise much discretion. Many fundamental rights are protected by more bright-line tests. It’s past time we bring that to the Second Amendment."

"The truth is that what our court calls 'intermediate scrutiny' when reviewing Second Amendment cases doesn’t even rise to the level of real rational basis review. That’s a bold claim, I know."

"The majority acknowledges that, applying our super-pliable test, 'we have not struck down any state or federal law under the Second Amendment.' But it insists 'we have carefully examined each challenge on its own merit.'"

"Respectfully, Judge Hurwitz’s claim that our judges’ personal views about the Second Amendment and guns have not affected our jurisprudence is simply not plausible."

"The majority defends our undefeated, 50–0 record against the Second Amendment by pointing out that the states in our circuit simply have 'more restrained' gun-control laws than the states in other circuits."

"The majority’s uneven treatment of rarity is not the only example where its anti-Second Amendment bias shows through in how it reads the record. The majority questions whether law-abiding citizens even want higher capacity magazines for self-defense..."

"The majority’s odd speculation that maybe the self-defense market doesn’t want higher capacity magazines is as uninformed as wondering why cruise-control comes standard on their cars since nobody in their urban neighborhood wants it."

"The mere fact that some attribute (like a larger capacity magazine) might make a weapon more 'dangerous' when misused cannot be a basis to avoid the Second Amendment—if so, the Second Amendment protects only nerf guns."

"As this case and others like it demonstrate, we cannot rely on insular federal judges to weigh which weapons are appropriate for self-defense—they honestly don’t have a clue, and their intuitions about firearms are not good."

"Our court is fond of saying that Second Amendment rights are not absolute. I don’t disagree with that truism—I just disagree with our court’s reliance on it to uphold every single firearm regulation, ever."

"...now, in the nine Western states covered by our court, the right to 'keep and bear arms' means, at most, you might get to possess one janky handgun and 2.2 rounds of ammunition, and only in your home under lock and key. That’s it."

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