CT Blue

Just before he died at the hands of someone who should never have had a gun, John Lennon gave an interview to Playboy, in which he asserted that “everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it”.

I won’t go into details on Lennon’s thinking or reasoning, but it looks like right wing judges are following his lead. Here’s an interesting analysis of a recent concurring opinion by a federal circuit court judge holding that a man could not be held criminally liable for possessing guns after he had voluntarily agreed to a court order forbidding him to own guns.

The judge, Judge James Ho, cited numerous cases in support of his concurrence. The only problem is that the cases don’t support his position that the right to bear arms is an unqualified one, they point out the absurdity of the position.

It’s always difficult for conservative judges to find support for their “deeply historical” analysis of the Second Amendment since it doesn’t exist. Even the majority opinion explicitly notes that, “In Emerson, we held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms—the first circuit expressly to do so.” Since Emerson was decided in 2001, this is just letting pride get in the way of Originalist gaslighting. Come on, Fifth Circuit! You can’t go around admitting that the individual right to gun possession is barely old enough to drink.

So kudos to Judge Ho for trying to build a historical case! Unfortunately, neither of these cited opinions have much to do with the Second Amendment.

And they both… prove the opposite of what he’s arguing.

The discussion at the link is an extended one, so I won’t quote more. Suffice to say that the thrust of the cases Ho cites is that the rights enumerated in the constitution are not unlimited, even freedom of speech and religion. In each, the judge from the saner period of our history uses the second amendment as an example of the absurdity of treating any of the rights as unqualified because obviously the right to bear arms is not unlimited.

But to too many of our current judges, everything is the opposite of what it is, whenever it’s convenient. And remember, Ho wasn’t the only judge basically deciding that the right to bear arms is unqualified. He was merely agreeing with the majority of judges on the Fifth Circuit case that a man who agreed to a court order not to bear arms could still bear arms.

Just to expand a bit on what the sane judges in the cases Ho cited were saying, it is self evident that none of the rights enumerated in the Bill or Rights are unqualified. If I say that my religion requires me to sacrifice the lives of random strangers (or even willing victims) I will end up in jail. Or I should, but with the present Supreme Court, you never know. After all, they are quite willing to allow gun owners the right to the weaponry needed to take the lives of random strangers. As another example, which is still valid assuming it’s a Democrat doing the speaking, I have every right to libel someone, but I am going to end up paying damages if I do.