THE ROBERTS’ COURT HAS GONE ROGUE: FAILURE TO GRANT REVIEW IN ANTONYUK VS. JAMES DEFIES LAW AND LOGIC, UNDERMINING BOTH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE COURT’S CREDIBILITY
Let us be patently clear:
Exercise of the fundamental, unalienable, natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms has suffered its most consequential defeat, and we lay it all at the feet of the third Branch of Government, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Highest Court in the Land. And, more particularly, we place principal blame for this on Chief Justice John Roberts.
In the U.S. Supreme Court “Order List” of Monday, April 7, 2025, the Court seemingly casually, peremptorily, perfunctorily, and, to our mind, heedlessly, denied a Petition for Writ of Certiorari of the most important Second Amendment case to come before it since New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (NYSRPA) vs. Bruen, a case decided on June 23, 2022.
That case is Antonyuk vs. James.
Some there are among the proponents of our sacred right to armed self-defense, who, while expressly acknowledging their disappointment with the Supreme Court for failing to grant Petitioners’ Writ of Certiorari in Antonyuk vs. James, suggest it isn’t the end of the world because there will always be other Second Amendment cases.
In fact, there are several presently awaiting consideration on this term’s Court docket.
But is such a casual attitude appropriate and sensible where, as here, the very core of the Second Amendment is involved, and more to the point, where, as here, the case directly implicates a prior Supreme Court ruling?
Sure, there are dozens of Second Amendment cases slowly, inexorably proceeding through the federal or state courts. However, most of these cases won’t be reviewed by the High Court.
Is the filing of a request seeking review of a case involving issues that strike at the heart of the Second Amendment to be viewed like any other Second Amendment case?
In that regard is a challenge to federal or state governmental action that attacks the essence of the Second Amendment no more important than a challenge to a governmental action that does not happen to strike at the core of the Second Amendment? Is that sensical?
Does not every governmental action aimed at regulating the exercise of the right to armed self-defense affect its essence? If so, should not the High Court review all such cases, and any other case directly impacting the Bill of Rights, especially when a case involves a government action negatively impacting the most important right—the right of the people to keep and bear arms? Why would the Court not take up such a case?
Yet, getting the Supreme Court to consider a case for review, any case (pertaining to the granting or denying of a petition) is no easy task.
And, if the Court denies a petition for writ of certiorari, what then? The entire case collapses, reverting back to the decision of the appellate court that issued the adverse ruling. That is the usual outcome since the Court grants review in only a few dozen cases among the thousands filed during any Court term. See article in “The Legal Dictionary.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is very selective about which cases it will hear, accepting cases only when at least four of the justices believe the case raises a significant federal question that is in the public’s interest. . . .
While there is some confusion as to what effect a refusal to issue a Writ of Certiorari has, it basically means the Supreme Court has decided to do nothing. Denial of certiorari does not mean the court approves of the decision made by the lower court, it is simply the practical result of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court receives more than 5,000 Petitions for Writ of Certiorari each year, of which it only agrees to hear about two percent. A denial of certiorari often only means that the minimum of four justices did not feel the case should be heard.”
So, then, the failure of the Supreme Court to grant review in Antonyuk means the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stands. And that means the New York Hochul Government remains free to enforce the amendments to the State’s Handgun Law, the horrendous, plainly unconstitutional, and unconscionable Government response to the Bruen rulings—encapsulated in and referenced by the phrase, “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA).
Are Americans honestly to believe the High Court denied the Antonyuk Petition for no other reason than because it lacked the time and resources to review the case even though the Court believed the case merited serious scrutiny? Or, worse, did the Court reject the Antonyuk Petition because the Court felt the case lacked merit?
Or did the Court reject the Petition because the Court concluded that it fell short due to a procedural matter in the case, unrelated to the merits of it? We don’t know. We can only speculate as to the reason or reasons for the failure of the Court to grant the Petition because the Court failed to provide a reason. And that in itself is unusual.
Past practice points to dissenting comments by the Justices who often express their anger when a matter of high importance—such as government constraints on the exercise of a fundamental right—is at stake. Justices Thomas and Alito have, on more than a few occasions, expressed their dissatisfaction, vehemently, and with exquisite attention to detail when the Court fails to take up a Second Amendment case involving government infringement of the right to armed self-defense and, as in the Antonyuk case, where State Government action brazenly contravenes the Court’s own rulings. Yet, Justices Thomas and Alito remain silent here. Why is that?
Can the Court hide behind the argument that it would have liked to have granted review, but could not do so because of its extraordinary case load? See the article in History.com.” Some may assert that the denial of the Antonyuk petition is due to that and nothing more. But, then, doesn’t an extraordinarily important case demand the Court’s attention in spite of that extraordinary case load?
The Supreme Court can only accept between 100 and 150 cases a year out of the 7,000 cases that it’s asked to review.
[And] Law clerks do much of the heavy lifting of reviewing petitions to the Supreme Court. Each justice hires three to four law clerks . . .who read through a portion of those 7,000 petitions and write memos . . . making recommendations on whether the Supreme Court should hear them.” See the article on site “History,” titled, “Steps the Supreme Court Takes to Reach a Decision.”
Okay, we get that. Given the sheer volume of petitions that come before the Court, their Law Clerks must be careful in the handling of petitions to the Court—culling the wheat from the chaff so that the Justices consider the merits of the most important cases at conference when granting or denying review.
But these facts do not suffice to explain the Court’s denial of certiorari in Antonyuk vs. James. Rather, these facts highlight why this case does demand recognition due to its singular importance to the Nation.
Deference to the sanctity of the Bill of Rights and the High Court’s responsibility to ensure that the Federal Government and the States adhere to the strictures of the God-given rights codified in it should be the Court’s highest priority.
Indeed, since a Law Clerk obviously felt the Antonyuk case important enough to draft a memo about it, summarizing the details of the Petition concerning it, requiring the Court to pour over it, and, given that the High Court was well apprised of the case, going back to July 2022, the Court was, then, well aware of the New York Government’s defiance of Bruen and its clear contempt for the Court. Would these facts not constitute reason enough to grant review of Antonyuk? Apparently, not, as the Court did not grant review.
Is the denial of review a matter of obtuseness, or does it bespeak obeisance to the New York State Government?
The actions of the U.S. Supreme Court defy rational explanation here. And, unlike some advocates of the Second Amendment, we will not simply chalk this up to a lack of time and resources on the Court’s part to grant review of a case it would have liked to take up but could not do so for pragmatic reasons or apropos of law-related procedural ones.
The High Court always has discretion to hear a case. That discretion is plenary—absolute! See the article in “legalpedia.”
A Second Amendment case—any Second Amendment case —is not to be taken lightly by the Supreme Court.
All of these cases are important.
For, Government action that infringes the right of the people to keep and bear arms directly and dramatically and emphatically impacts the Sanctity and Inviolability of the Nation’s Constitution, the Preservation of our Free Republic, i.e., “the Security of a Free State,” and the continued and supreme and sole Sovereignty of the American people over Government.
When a Second Amendment issue arises in a matter before a lower state or federal court, that issue takes precedence over almost any other matter of the Court.
It is of monumental importance—second only to an Emergency Petition by the U.S. President. The latter of which the High Court would (or should) take up at once. This brings up the issue of the use of Supreme Court Rule 20, “Procedure on a Petition for an Extraordinary Writ.”
Might not the Petitioners in Antonyuk have filed a Petition for Extraordinary Writ? Could not Petitioners reasonably argue exceptional circumstances necessitating immediate U.S. Supreme Court intervention, reviewing the case on the merits or, at least, requesting the High Court to vacate the orders of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and issue a stay of enforcement of the New York Government’s “Concealed Carry Improvement Act,” pending ultimate resolution of whatever non-final issues exist that need to be dealt with by the lower U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York?
We will deal with this and other Supreme Court and lower court procedural and substantive issues in the next article.
Suffice it for now for us to point out that the New York Government has intentionally, and brashly, and undeniably defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen rulings.
And keep in mind that the Bruen case arose over the unconstitutionality of the basic premise of New York Handgun Licensing. New York’s Handgun Law denied American citizens who reside or work in New York from obtaining a concealed handgun carry license absent a showing of “extraordinary need.
The New York Government had cunningly crafted and implemented a device, Proper Cause, for the sole purpose of decreasing the number of concealed handgun carry licenses issued to applicants.
To obtain one, an Applicant had to show “extraordinary need” for such a license.
Few could prove to the satisfaction of handgun licensing officials (the Government gatekeepers) that extraordinary need existed.
These State licensing officials exercised have, for decades, exercised near absolute discretion in issuance of a license for concealed handgun carry.
An applicant denied a license could, of course, appeal an adverse decision to the New York State Courts, and the Courts would claim that this right of appeal to the Courts for relief from a negative decision of a licensing official provided sufficient safeguard against overzealous and abusive State actors.
This right to appeal an adverse decision of a State official to a Court of competent jurisdiction is of little value. The plaintiff has a difficult burden to overcome. He must prove arbitrary and capricious action on the part of the State Government official, amounting to abuse of discretion. That requires an applicant to delve into the mind of the official—not an easy task for the plaintiff. It is rare that an aggrieved plaintiff applicant will obtain the relief sought: An order by the Court directed to the licensing official, compelling the official to issue the license. In the vast majority of cases, the Court rules in favor of the Government. Then, too, it is a lengthy, expensive process to file a Court action (Article 78). Few applicants have the requisite funds and can spare the time to attempt to obtain the relief sought. The Government knows this, which raises the question why should the average, responsible, rational American citizen, residing or working in New York, be required to demonstrate “extraordinary need” to exercise the natural law right to armed self-defense, codified in the Second Amendment, in the first instance.
The State’s mechanism for wholesale denial of a NY State concealed handgun carry license “Proper Cause” is on its face an affront to an American’s God-given right and duty to provide for his personal defense against a dangerous threat.
And as that right preexists government, government cannot lawfully constrain that right. Moreover, exercise of that right logically implies one’s right to own, possess, and utilize a firearm to secure life, safety, and well-being because a firearm is the best means yet devised to protect life and well-being against a dangerous threat.
New York places an unnecessary, illegal, and unconstitutional burden on a person, interfering with that person’s sacred right to armed self-defense. New York doesn’t care about that, and the New York Courts ruled that the use of “Proper Cause” is legal and Constitutional. Moreover, the Courts left to each jurisdiction in New York to determine how one might demonstrate extraordinary need sufficiently to support the issuance of a concealed handgun carry license.
There is no uniformity in this. And, even in a jurisdiction, such as New York City, that developed an elaborate scheme to ascertain “extraordinary need,” the application of it varied from one license officer to another in the NYPD License Division, leaving the matter, in the first and last instance, completely to the discretion of the NYPD licensing officer to determine if this or that applicant met the legal standard—one ultimately effectively and hopelessly arbitrary and ad hoc.
In other jurisdictions, the licensing officer would simply determine if the applicant was a VIP—for example, a judge, or politician, or wealthy, powerful businessman.
This is plainly unconstitutional. But how would a person prove that a jurisdiction utilized such a standard grounded on elitism? He could not. And, no New York jurisdiction would have codified such an absurd standard for ascertaining “Proper Cause” in code, or rule, or regulation, anyway—since such a standard is obviously facially illegally discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Applicants residing or working in such a jurisdiction would know this, and many New York residents would not bother to apply for a concealed handgun carry license.
That is precisely what the Government sought. Few people making application for a concealed handgun carry license means less use of Government resources to deal with the matter, and fewer people yet actually obtaining a coveted New York concealed handgun carry license.
“Proper Cause” reduces the exercise of the fundamental right to keep and bear arms then to a naked privilege—a condition precedent that must be met before one can exercise the right that only a lucky few successfully meet.
The logic behind this is nonsensical but, nonetheless, that logic (prior to the Bruen decision) was cast in stone, as black letter law in New York. And that was the law in New York for almost a hundred years, until, that is, someone in New York had had enough, and challenged the idiocy. It took time and money, and it slowly wended its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
No doubt Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito insisted that the matter be taken up. Justice Roberts and others agreed, if only reluctantly.
The Bruen case became the Third Landmark case.
The majority struck down the “Proper Cause” edifice along with the notion that a person must demonstrate extraordinary need, or, for that matter, any need, to carry a concealed handgun for personal protection.
The rabidly Anti-Second Amendment Hochul having realized that “Proper Cause” would be struck down, once Oral Argument concluded in Bruen, in November 2021, had begun in earnest in the months following to devise a workaround through which the Government could effectively salvage the highly restrictive handgun licensing regime conceived and installed back in 1911. The workaround effectively negated the efficacy of the Bruen rulings.
Although the New York Government had to issue more concealed handgun carry licenses, it would take its good time in doing so and, of the new licenses issued, they would have little practical value, as the Government drastically restricted the places where a person could lawfully carry and thereby utilize a handgun for self-defense. Thus, all UNRESTRICTED concealed handgun carry licenses would henceforth all be reduced to HIGHLY RESTRICTED licenses.
A challenge to the constitutionality of this new set of amendments to the Handgun Law came immediately, within a week after New York Governor Hochul signed the amendments into law. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York that heard the case—a case thereafter referred to by the New York Courts as a Antonyuk I, as a short descriptor for convenience, determined that the Petitioners’ Complaint and tandem Motion for a Preliminary Injunction to enjoin the Hochul Government from enforcing the CCIA, that was due to take effect on September 1, 2022, had merit.
But the District Court dismissed the case on a procedural technicality. It ruled that one of the parties did not have standing to bring action against the Government.
Governor Hochul hailed the decision as a victory—a victory short-lived because the District Court dismissed the case WITHOUT PREJUDICE.
This meant the sole remaining Party Plaintiff could refile, and the District Court had made plain in its opinion, albeit tacitly, that the sole PROPER PARTY PLAINTIFF, Ivan Antonyuk, should refile his case. He did so and he added other individual New York Handgun Licensees to the new case—one that would henceforth go by the short descriptor, Antonyuk II.
The U.S. District Court thereupon granted Ivan Antonyuk and the five other individual Party Plaintiffs the Preliminary Injunction they sought, thereby enjoining the Hochul Government from enforcing the CCIA.
The Hochul Government was furious. The State Attorney General, Letitia James, appealed the adverse judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The Government requested the Federal Appellate Court to vacate the lower Court’s injunction. The Appellate Court, sympathetic toward the Government’s antagonistic position on guns and civilian citizen possession of them, happily obliged. Well over two years later, Kathy Hochul and the other Anti-Second Amendment fanatics have effectively neutralized challenges to the amended State Handgun Law.
Antonyuk Petitioners’ Petition isn’t its first. They filed their initial one several months before. The second petition is essentially a mirror image of the first. The arguments and the issues remain the same.
But, in the first petition the Antonyuk Petitioners had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to remand the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit so that the Federal Appellate Court would have an opportunity to reconsider its original adverse decision once the High Court had ruled on another Second Amendment case that Petitioners felt might have bearing on the case at bar. A decision was forthcoming.
That case is United States vs. Rahimi. The U.S. Supreme Court obliged.
It granted the Petition, vacated the Second Circuit’s Order, and remanded the case to the lower Federal Appellate Court to reconsider its prior decision the High Court decided Rahimi.
And, once the Rahimi decision came down, the Second Circuit did reconsider the applicability of that case to Antonyuk, but determined that Rahimi did not alter the Court’s earlier rulings, which it reinstated. The Second Circuit thereupon remanded the case to the trial Court, i.e., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, where the case originated, to handle those issues that the Second Circuit had not yet decided the merits on.
Likely, the Antonyuk Petitioners anticipated the Second Circuit would confirm its earlier rulings but thought it worthwhile, perhaps, to have the Second Circuit make plain its open hostility to the Second Amendment, thereby assuring the High Court would grant the Writ of Certiorari.
The Antonyuk Petitioners had no desire to play the game the Second Circuit desired of them—essentially to keep the case going indefinitely on this or that issue left to be decided until the Petitioners tired of the case or ran out of money to continue to prosecute it.
From the Government’s perspective, though this matters not.
For, as long as it could enforce the CCIA, that would be enough. Therefore, the Government would consider the matter a de facto win if the case happened to continue indefinitely.
Moreover, Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party Majority in Albany apparently felt that, given the political climate—with an ill-informed contingent of the public rabidly in favor of massive curtailment of the armed citizenry the New York State Hochul Government likely expected, and would have certainly hoped, the U.S. Supreme Court would deny review of the Antonyuk case.
After all, the major issues in Antonyuk are well-defined and have long since been fully briefed by both the Government and Antonyuk Petitioners. And the U.S. Supreme Court was well-versed in the arguments of both Parties.
The importance of the case to the sanctity of the Second Amendment is plain. And the harm undergone by Petitioners and by the many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of New York residents who sought to exercise their right to armed self-defense and who were daily harmed by a recalcitrant, arrogant, unrepentant, contemptible New York State Government, ever disdainful of the fundamental right codified in the Second Amendment was and is also plain. The insolence of the New York State Government and that of several other jurisdictions projected onto the High Court cannot be rationally denied.
When the Bruen decision came down, Governor Hochul’s response to the decision and to those Justices who rendered it, was immediate and much more than disrespectful. Her remarks were, in tone, brash, curt, derogatory and derisive. She plainly baited the Court, and made clear, in no uncertain terms, that New York Law preempted the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. If there were any doubt about this, the amendments to the Handgun Law made abundantly clear that New York would not abide by the Bruen rulings and that Hochul would use her authority as Governor of New York, to continue to constrain civilian citizen exercise of the right to armed self-defense in the State and further, that she would encourage Government officials to delay action on applications, to encourage the State to pass more laws constraining exercise of the right to armed self-defense, to implement policies, making the application process more expensive, and more convoluted.
After the Bruen decision, Hochul has made good on her intentions to defy the Roberts Court. The State has enacted more and more oppressive Handgun laws—daring the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in the Government.
Moreover, any Second Amendment case—especially this one—is noteworthy and of acute interest to the public as the outcome of it has decided and decisive impact on the Second Amendment going forward.
Given more and more egregious constraints on firearms ownership and ownership in New York, how could the U.S. Supreme Court not grant the Antonyuk Petition for Writ of Certiorari? Plainly, it cannot. But it did! The High Court deny the Petition out-of-hand?
The Court’s denial of certiorari here is deeply perplexing and disconcerting. What would motivate the Court to surrender its authority and permit a State Government to act contemptuously toward it?
To be sure, had the High Court granted the Antonyuk Petitioners’ Petition for Writ of Certiorari, the petitioners would still have had to wait several more months before the Court rendered its decision—one that, presumably, would be the correct decision—the only one it could rationally render to remain consistent with Bruen and thereby avoid a charge of hypocrisy, destroying the Court’s credibility and undermining the sanctity of our Natural Law Rights.
If the Court acted rationally, it would have to grant Antonyuk Petitioners Writ of Certiorari, for the express purpose of striking down—and in no uncertain language—the New York Government’s amendments to the State’s Handgun Law (the CCIA). Doing so, the Court would thereby reaffirm Bruen, and, by extension, reaffirm the plain meaning of the natural law fundamental, unalienable, eternal “right of the people to keep and bear arms" a right that “shall not be infringed”—a right that must never be infringed, under any circumstance and for any claimed reason, lest the Republic be lost!
The Antonyuk Petitioners therefore rightly expected the Court to grant review of their case and to strike down the New York State Government’s amendments to its Handgun Law, that had triggered the initial challenge back in July 2022. And, in their decision in Antonyuk, the Court should have then made clear that any future attempt to derail the Court’s rulings in Antonyuk and in Bruen, and in the first two seminal Second Amendment cases, Heller and McDonald, the Court would hold the New York Government in contempt of Court, and impose sanctions on the State, and make clear that the Court will require the Government to show cause why the Court should not impose remedial action sua sponte (on its own motion).
Were the High Court to come to its senses, the American public could thereupon reasonably discern a light at the end of the tunnel, with a Fourth Landmark Second Amendment case, Antonyuk vs. James in the offing.
Yet, if the Roberts Court took up the case only to render an absurd decision, one wholly inconsistent with the import and purport of that important Natural Law Right of armed self-defense, that would, ostensibly, place the Country—not merely the aggrieved citizens residing or working in New York, who filed the petition—in a worse position than before the filing of the Writ. Ostensibly, the entire Country would find itself in a dire situation.
Because of the mere possibility of this latter worst-case scenario occurring in Antonyuk vs. James, Associate Justices Alito and Thomas would wish to refrain from voting for review and would encourage others on the Court to follow their lead and deny Petitioners’ Writ of Certiorari, lest the case be taken up and lead to a horrible outcome.
That, at least, is the inference one would reasonably draw for the Court’s denying Antonyuk Petition for Writ of Certiorari, and this inference is predicated on the general truism that an awful High Court decision on a Second Amendment matter would be worse to countenance than had the Court refrained from taking up the case for review.
Denying the Petition would, of course, keep the awful New York State Handgun Law amendments intact, but, presumably, the damage done to the right to armed self-defense would be confined to the jurisdiction wherefrom it originated—New York.
A horrible decision would not, then, have expansive application across the Country. That, at any rate, is perhaps the idea seemingly reasonably held by some, if only tacitly (although not expressly to the extent that we can surmise) providing one explanation behind the Court’s denial of the Petition.
Yet, although, on a superficial consideration, that reasoning may seem plausible, it does not, to our mind, bear up under scrutiny.
Of course, if the case were taken up and if a Court majority on the High Court were to affirm the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, finding the New York Hochul Government’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act to be Constitutional, the liberal wing of the High Court certainly, and (we cannot rule out) a few others among the presumptive or quasi-conservative wing of the Court, possibly, would be pleased, perhaps even ecstatic, to use the Antonyuk case to rein in civilian citizen exercise of the elemental, natural law right to armed self-defense.
And since a negative decision in Antonyuk would also weaken the import of the three previous landmark Second Amendment cases—District of Columbia vs. Heller, McDonald vs. City of Chicago, and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (NYSRPA) vs. Bruen—as they all cohere and as each case builds upon the prior case, amplifying and clarifying the rulings and reasoning of the one immediately preceding it—this would entice the two remaining TRUE Conservative-wing Justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, to vote against review of the Antonyuk case. They would coax the other quasi (or pseudo) Conservative-wing justices to refrain from voting to take up the case since, presumably, they don’t share the sensibilities of the Liberal-wing Justices (or do not share those sensibilities to the extent that the Liberal-wing of the Court does).
Since the Liberal-wing of the Court presently consists, thankfully, at the moment at least, of only three Justices, that wing of the Court would be one vote shy of the four votes required to grant review.
Likely the Chief Justice and one or more of the Trump nominees felt the best course of action was to deny Antonyuk a hearing. But is this sound reasoning?
Democrats in Congress and Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions around the Country already tend to ignore the prior three seminal Second Amendment cases.
Would not these Anti-Second Amendment elements simply look on the High Court’s reticence in granting review of Antonyuk as acquiescence to, perhaps obeisance to, or even outright capitulation to the unconstitutional maneuverings of a renegade New York State Government?
Would not these elements take the High Court’s actions as something more than tacit acknowledgment that the Court would no longer demand even the appearance of adherence to its major Second Amendment rulings? And, if that is true, then there is nothing to more to be gained from the High Court denying certiorari in Antonyuk than were the Court to grant certiorari only to rule against Petitioners.
To date, most Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions operate as they wish, contrary to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. And they are becoming more obstreperous, as the High Court becomes increasingly blasé, plainly, excruciatingly painfully indifferent to the State and Federal Courts blatantly ignoring the High Court’s landmark Second Amendment rulings.
Passive acceptance of State action that is plainly contemptuous of U.S. Supreme Court rulings is no better than active affirmance of disdainful conduct. In fact, in the latter situation, the effect may be marginally better. At least the public would no longer live under the illusion that the U.S. Supreme Court gives a damn about it and about the sanctity of the Nation’s Bill of Rights, as the Federal Government and Anti-Second Amendment States continue to whittle away at the import and efficacy of the Second Amendment.
Therefore, from a logical standpoint, denial of Petitioners Petition is no better than and marginally worse than the granting of the Petition and then rendering an adverse decision.
Hence, we feel a few Second Amendment cases exist, of which Antonyuk is one such, that do not fall within the general principle that refraining from review of a case, that would likely lead to a bad decision, is preferable to taking up a case that would likely generate a bad result.
Hence, we feel a few Second Amendment cases exist, of which Antonyuk is definitely one, that do not fall within the general principle that refraining from review of a case, that would likely lead to a bad decision, is preferable to taking up a case that would likely generate a bad result.
To our mind, Antonyuk is a prime example of the inapplicability of the general principle. And this is not a matter of first impression on our part.
We clearly and categorically made clear, three months ago, back on February 12, 2025 (after the Antonyuk Petitioners had filed their second Petition) that the High Court’s act of denying certiorari here is no better than had the Court taken the case up on review and affirmed the decision of the Second Circuit, against Petitioners, finding the Hochul Government’s amendments to the Handgun Law to be legal and Constitutional.
In our February 12, 2025 article, titled, “SCOTUS, STOP THE MERRY-GO-ROUND ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT ANTONYUK CASE IMPACTING BRUEN, GRANT THE WRIT OF CERTIORARI, AND EXPEDITE REVIEW ON THE MERITS” (reposted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News one day later, on February 13, 2025, under the title, “SCOTUS Must Step In: The Antonyuk Case & the Fight for 2nd Amendment Rights”), we stated,
IT IS TIME TO STOP THIS RIDICULOUS MERRY-GO-ROUND. THE U.S. SUPREME COURT MUST NOT ALLOW LOWER COURTS TO PLAY THEIR GAME OF DELAY AND APPEASEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS THAT CONTINUE TO DEFY U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS THEY DON’T LIKE AND THAT ARE CONTRARY TO THEIR AIMS AND AGENDA. THEY WANT THIS THIRD BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT TO BE A RUBBER-STAMP FOR THEM, NOT AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH THAT THWARTS THEIR WILL. THAT MUST NOT BE!
ONE OF THE TOP OBJECTIVES OF THESE RUTHLESS AND DESTRUCTIVE FORCES IS THE ELIMINATION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT. THEY ATTACK ALL ATTEMPTS BY CITIZENS TO STRENGTHEN IT.
TREACHEROUS FORCES OPPOSE AN ARMED CITIZENRY WHICH EXISTS TO SECURE BOTH LIFE AND LIBERTY. THESE FORCES SEE THE ARMED CITIZENRY AS A COUNTER-FORCE THAT WOULD PREVENT A STRONG CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EXERTING CONTROL OVER THE PEOPLE. THEY CANNOT ABIDE THIS.
BUT, WITH BIDEN OUT OF OFFICE AND TRUMP IN OFFICE, THEY SEE THEIR WELL-ENGINEERED PLANS TO TRANSFORM OUR COUNTRY INTO A DESPOTIC STATE QUICKLY UNRAVELING. THEY ARE ENRAGED AND DISTRAUGHT BY RECENT EVENTS.
THE ARMED CITIZENRY IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE DETERRENT TO THE REALIZATION OF THEIR OBJECTIVES—INSTITUTION OF TYRANNY OF GOVERNMENT. THE FORCES THAT SEEK TO DESTROY THIS COUNTRY KNOW THAT THE ARMED CITIZENRY WAS AND REMAINS THE BEST DETERRENT TO TYRANNY.
THIS IS WHY THESE FORCES THAT CRUSH ARE OBSESSED WITH DESTROYING THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND THE ARMED AMERICAN CITIZENRY.
IF THESE FORCES ARE SUCCESSFUL IN THEIR TREACHEROUS ENDEAVORS, THEY CAN EASILY SUBJUGATE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, CONTROLLING THEIR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS.
LET US NOT BE DISTRACTED FROM THE SALIENT CRISIS AT HAND. IT IS FRONT AND CENTER AND IT IS DIRE.
We now await the U.S. Supreme Court decision whether to grant or deny the Writ once they return from recess.
The U.S. Supreme Court must take up this case. If it fails to do so, that means the New York Hochul Government has won. And further weakening of a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms in New York will continue to be eroded until nothing is left of the right.
As important as the pending Snope case is (which the U.S. Supreme Court continues to delay voting to grant review or not), the ANTONYUK case is, without doubt, THE MOST IMPORTANT SECOND AMENDMENT CASE TO COME BEFORE THE COURT SINCE BRUEN BECAUSE IT DIRECTLY IMPACTS BRUEN IN A WAY THAT NO OTHER PENDING CASE DOES. THE NEW YORK STATE CCIA IS BOTH A DIRECT RESPONSE TO BRUEN AND OPERATES IN OPEN AND BLATANT DEFIANCE OF IT.
If the U.S. Supreme Court does not take up any other Second Amendment case, this term, it must take up Antonyuk.
If the Court does review this case, IT MUST STRIKE DOWN the guts of New York’s amendments to its Handgun Law. If it rules in favor of the New York Government, then the Court slits its own throat by undermining its own decision in Bruen, and it opens the Country up to Tyranny. BRUEN WOULD BE FUNCTIONALLY DEAD AS WOULD THE SECOND AMENDMENT, FREEDOM, AND LIBERTY.
Nor can the Court take a pass on this case. For the result is the same.
The New York Government has treated THE BRUEN RULINGS as garbage and has treated the Court, the THIRD BRANCH OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, as a Branch without credible authority.
If New York can arrogantly, defiantly violate the Bruen rulings, which were, after all, directed, first and foremost at New York, then any other jurisdiction will feel confident it may do the same, perceiving it has tacit “license” to do so. The Bruen rulings will cease to have meaning and significance.
Anti-Second Amendment states would then see the Court in the same vein as the world has perceived the demented, dementia-riddled Joe Biden, and his Administration—as effete, ineffectual, frightened, and imbecilic little creatures, to be taken advantage of or simply ignored.
Anti-Second Amendment states and local jurisdictions would be constantly emboldened to continue violating the citizen’s fundamental right to armed self-defense, and they would act aggressively—flagrantly violating the law and the Constitution.
In time, the right to armed self-defense in the public domain and even in the home would be second-guessed. That would result in a deleterious domino effect. Heller and McDonald, will in turn be weakened. For, each case depends on and clarifies points of each of the others. They are all connected.
We hope and pray that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have as much sway over Chief Justice Roberts as had the late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia.
They must impress on Chief Justice Roberts, and on the other ostensibly Conservative-wing Justices, the imperative need to take up Antonyuk this term and to strike down New York’s ridiculous and dangerous Handgun Law. And they must hold that the date of ratification of the Bill of Rights, in 1791, is the date on which the methodological test of “Historical Tradition” in Second Amendment cases must rest. Antonyuk will thereupon become THE FOURTH LANDMARK SECOND AMENDMENT CASE.
This never came to pass.
Plainly, whatever John Roberts feelings are concerning the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, it bears asserting and emphasizing HE DID sign onto the majority opinion (both reasoning and rulings) in Bruen and in the two seminal Second Amendment cases that preceded it.
So, if the Chief Justice did not wish to strengthen the three seminal decisions, he would, then, seek to deny the Antonyuk Petitioners’ petition.
For, he cannot both affirm the ludicrous decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and at one and the same time plausibly claim logical and legal consistency having voted with the majority in the previous three major Second Amendment cases.
Similarly, the Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett (President Trump’s nominees during his first term in Office) had all signed onto the majority Bruen decision, even as two of them added their own concurring opinion.
And, notwithstanding that none of the three nominees of President Trump’s sat on the U.S. Supreme Court when the first two landmark decisions came down, they could not claim consistency with their remarks and voting record in Bruen, (and with Heller and McDonald, for the three cases are inextricably bound) were they to rule against the Antonyuk Petitioners had the case garnered four votes necessary for a review.
But all this insistently still begs the question why Antonyuk had not been granted certiorari. The reason may have to do with psychology.
Unlike politicians, many of whom, constantly contradict themselves and are troubled not by their lack of consistency in their positions that they vociferously defend one day only to turn around the next and claim duplicitously that they never changed their position at all or otherwise that they never held onto a position that they actually did hold onto—tortuously attempting to weasel around the obvious contradiction when confronted with it.
U.S. Supreme Court Justices scrupulously avoid inconsistency in their opinions. If they are prone to reverse themselves, they acknowledge the change in position, striking down cases if they believe, on reassessment, that they had wrongly decided them.
Is Chief Justice John Roberts, for one, prepared to assert that the majority opinions in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen were wrong, even though he signed onto them? But, these are major Landmark cases involving the most significant Fundamental Right without which a Free Republic can survive. And these cases are all fairly recent. So, Justice Roberts is not prepared to assert error even if he were a reluctant signatory on the three Landmark Second Amendment cases. But, he doesn’t want to add a Fourth Landmark case to the list, perceiving denial of certiorari in the Antonyuk case as the best course of action to maintain at least a modicum of consistency. One or more Trump nominees may feel the same way toward the Second Amendment.
So, then, in an attempt to avoid a charge of inconsistency, ergo, hypocrisy, Chief Justice Roberts and one or more or all three of Trump’s High Court nominees may have felt that denying the Antonyuk Petitioners Petition for Writ of Certiorari would be preferable to a claim of abject hypocrisy—a way then (a partial way, perhaps, as he sees it) to save face.
One thing is clear: Roberts doesn’t want to sign onto, let alone pen, another landmark Second Amendment decision.
Antonyuk would be the Fourth Landmark case. Snope vs. Brown would be the Fifth.
And, after several delays in either granting or denying Petitioners’ Petition in Snope, the High Court is evidently wrestling with that case, knowing that continued civilian citizen ownership and possession of semiautomatic weapons, a class of weapons in common use is a hot-button issue and bellwether case that— depending on the outcome of a Supreme Court decision on it (as with Antonyuk)—would either strengthen the previous seminal case decisions or severely weaken them and thereby weaken exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense.
The issue of the constitutionality of civilian citizen ownership and possession of semiautomatic weapons had first come up on a Petition for review a decade ago in the Friedman case.
The Court quickly and summarily rejected granting certiorari. That failure to review the case prompted a vociferous, comprehensive, plainly scathing dissenting comment by Justice Thomas. The late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia joined him. Now the Snope case is before the Court. The case has come up in conference several times, and the Court continues to procrastinate a vote on it, which suggests that Justices Thomas and Alito are demanding review of it, as the case meets all the requirements:
CONFLICT IN THE CIRCUITS
DIRECT AND DECISIVE IMPACT ON A FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE RIGHT
IMPACT ON THE COURT’S PRIOR LANDMARK SECOND AMENDMENT CASES AND,
TREMENDOUS AND ACUTE PUBLIC INTEREST.
But, having quickly denied Antonyuk, it is likely the Court will ultimately deny the Snope Petition as well. See our article on the Snope case, posted in the Arbalest Quarrel, on January 12, 2025, one month before we posted our first major article on Antonyuk.
The Roberts Court plainly does not want the Court to issue any further landmark Second Amendment cases. Yet, the Chief Justice may feel obliged to take up another Second Amendment case or two this term. But, none will have the gravitas of the Antonyuk and Snope cases.
Snope is of penultimate importance, second only to Antonyuk in importance. Thematically they raise issues directly impacting and are bound to the three seminal cases.
If Antonyuk were taken up by the High Court, the Court would be hard-pressed not to take up Snope, thereafter. But eschewing the one, the Court can eschew the other, with the understanding that both should have been granted review, as they, too, are intertwined with Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.
Failing to grant review in Antonyuk, denying review of Snope would be straightforward. So, then, why has the Court continually delayed a vote to grant or deny certiorari on Snope and yet denied granting of Antonyuk out-of-hand?
The Roberts Court has effectively boxed in and quarantined Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. That is the Court’s intent. And Justices Alito and Thomas are having none of it. But, in the absence of sufficient support from the Trump nominees—obviously not forthcoming—and with Scalia (conveniently for Roberts and the Progressive Wing of the High Court) out of the picture—the hands of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito are tied.
This leads to other suppositions.
Some believe that Chief Justice Roberts is compromised. Possibly. Recent bizarre Court decisions against Trump, on the immigration front and public comments by the Chief Justice only adds to the uncomfortable thought that Roberts is compromised. That is to suggest powerful interests behind the scenes compelled Roberts to issue public comments, the content of which is singularly odd and harmful to the credibility and integrity of a truly independent Court, and to take an active part in the crafting of odd, perplexing decisions, inconsistent with the Doctrine of Separation of Powers and contrary to both U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudential concerns and sound application of legal principles, and damaging to the well-being of the Nation.
In response to the lawsuit—and apropos of discussion among Congressional Republicans pertaining to possible impeachment launched against crooked judges in the District Courts—Roberts recently said, in part, “In our constitution, the judiciary is a coequal branch of government, separate from the others, with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law and strike down acts of Congress or acts of the president,” . . . and that innovation doesn’t work if the judiciary is not independent.”
The sentiment while true is not at all reassuring, given, one, the justified impetus for President Trump’s lawsuit against the Chief Justice, and, given, two, the impetus for Congressional House Republican discussion of possible impeachment of rogue judges on the lower federal courts who, apparently take their cue from or remain unconcerned over possible repercussions from Roberts, as Justice Roberts has done little to rein these rogue Judges in.
The Third Branch of Government is deliberately, maliciously, and unconstitutionally impeding President Donald Trump, deliberately waylaying the President and hijacking the Second Branch of the Federal Government.
The Roberts Court is preventing President Trump from exercising his Article II authority, undermining his ability to faithfully execute the laws of Congress and the Constitution of the United States the U.S. Constitution to the best of his ability, in accordance with and consistent with his Oath of Office, set forth in the Constitution, and his promises to the American Electorate that voted him into Office.
From what we perceive, the Chief Justice seems to be taking his marching orders from unelected and secretive interests who are now using the U.S. Supreme Court in a scurrilous attempt to further the Neoliberal Globalist Socialist agenda, previously undertaken by the Progressive and Marxist Democrats in Congress, who had previously done the heavy lifting for the shadowy, powerful world empire builders who controlled them.
But these reprehensible Congressional Representatives and U.S. Senators can no longer effectively serve their masters, even as they wish to do so.
They are hamstrung, unable, though they try, to hijack the Second Branch of Government, first because they do not control either House of Congress, and second because Trump has learned well from his first term how better to insulate his Administration from leaks and outright acts of sabotage.
Justice Roberts talks sanctimoniously and duplicitously about the independence of the Third Branch of Government. Yet, all the while he uses the Third Branch of Government to intrude aggressively, disconcertingly, and arguably unlawfully, on the very independence and domain of the Second Branch of Government, the Office of the Chief Executive of the Nation.
To assist him in this injudicious, unethical, likely unlawful attack on the Second Branch of Federal Government, Chief Justice Roberts subtly taps into the Activist Marxist Cultist State Judges (voted into office by uninformed voters systematically brainwashed by a powerful seditious Press, working with powerful, wealthy Soros NGOs) as they work in tandem with the scores of Federal Judges (nominated by past Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and subsequently confirmed by a Democrat Party Senate Majority, whom Senate Republicans were powerless to prevent).
Through his actions, Justice John Roberts appears clearly intent on preventing President Trump High Court President Trump from faithfully executing the laws of Congress and from defending the U.S. Constitution to the best of his ability, in accordance with his Oath of Office.
The question is not whether the Roberts Court is independent—which it is, as that is how the Framers of the U.S. Constitution had assiduously constructed the Federal Government—but whether the Supreme Court (THIS Third Branch of the Federal Government) is consciously and deceitfully misusing that independence as a shield while it intrudes, with abandon, on the terrain of the second branch of government, and doing this for the purpose of disrupting the effective operation of the second branch.
If so, and this is the inference we draw, then the actions of the Chief Justice and that of the lower Federal Courts, that Roberts defends, which visibly thwart President Trump from lawfully exercising his authority in accordance with his obligations under the Constitution, are clearly, blatantly unconscionable.
President Trump and Republicans in Congress have every right, as well as the obligation, to stop the deliberate encroachment of the Judiciary on the domain of the U.S. President.
We see the effects of this on many fronts, including the profound failure of the Supreme Court to constrain government actors that illegally, unconstitutionally, frustrate Americans’ exercise of their fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense, codified in the Second Amendment, and to clamp down on state government actors that contemptuously defy U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
The decision to deny certiorari in Antonyuk could simply mean that Roberts was never pleased with the Heller decision that he signed onto and seeks to atone for by quietly, inexorably weakening Heller and the two succeeding Landmark cases he signed onto.
And, with the architect of the Heller decision, dead, the defenders of the Bill of Rights who remain, Associate Justices Thomas and Alito cannot, alone, stop him and the three Liberal-wing Justices.
It may well be that one or more of President Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominees may not be pleased with the Bruen decision either, despite having signed onto the decision in that THIRD LANDMARK SECOND AMENDMENT CASE.
If there were reluctance, or misgivings before or after the fact, that helps explain—perhaps that may best explain—why the Antonyuk case has become effectively a dead letter now.
But, then, what explains the existence of Bruen at all? With so much misgivings among the majority of Justices, why did Bruen happen to come about as the THIRD LANDMARK SECOND AMENDMENT CASE?
The most reasonable explanation is that Bruen arose through the singular, momentous efforts of two Justices, i.e., Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. These two Justices may have insisted that the Court take up Bruen, ever since the failure of the Roberts Court to grant review of a prior Second Amendment case also coming out of New York, referred to colloquially as the “Gun Transport” Case.
Having agreed to take up Bruen, if only reluctantly, it may be that Chief Justice Roberts, and the three Trump nominees—the quasi-Conservative-wing Associate Justices—agreed to this with the implicit understanding that the Roberts Court would not thereafter accept review of a FOURTH LANDMARK Second Amendment case, which Antonyuk certainly would have been. And the Snope case would then be the Fifth.
Surely, if Justice Roberts held the same concern for the sanctity of the fundamental right to civilian citizen armed self-defense, then he, together with Justices Thomas and Alito, would certainly be able to cobble together two more quasi-Conservative-wing Justices to join them, assuring a favorable majority ruling in that case.
It is patently clear to us that Justice Roberts does not hold the Second Amendment in high regard, even if other factors exist that inform his present actions. And the Trump nominees also seem to have little regard for the sanctity of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
In the next couple of articles, we will delve into the claim—which is abjectly false—that the Roberts Court could not grant review in Antonyuk, had it wanted to, because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had not rendered a final decision on all the issues in that case.
As we noted, supra, that bald assertion isn’t true, even as some Second Amendment organizations including, prominently, NRA, as well as some Second Amendment weblogs, postulate that the case isn’t in condition for review by the High Court.
For, if that were true, Antonyuk Petitioners would have refrained from filing their second Petition for Writ of Certiorari. That they did not refrain from filing their second Petition, it is plain to us, as they argued in their Brief, that the major issues are ripe for review on the merits by the Supreme Court.
If the Court felt otherwise, they should have made plain their reasons why they denied certiorari and should have acted as they had in the Antonyuk Petitioners’ first Petition.
The Court would then have granted certiorari, vacated the Second Circuit’s previous order, and remanded the case to the Second Circuit with specific directions on how to proceed to place the Antonyuk case in condition for review. And, in that order, the Court would have further made clear that, while the Hochul Government could certainly file its response to the third Petition, presenting its arguments in support of the constitutionality of the CCIA, the U.S. Supreme Court would grant certiorari of Antonyuk Petitioners’ third Petition.
That latest U.S. Supreme Court order would be consistent with its prior rulings in Antonyuk which made plain the Court’s interest in Antonyuk, and for a plethora of reasons, not least of which involves its direct impact on Bruen.
Yet, the Court did nothing. The immediate and perfunctory denial of Certiorari leaves Petitioners, and tens of millions of Americans who cherish their fundamental right to armed self-defense, in an uncomfortable, disquieting, bewildering situation—a veritable state of limbo.
There is much going on here. But for the two stalwart defenders of our Free Constitutional Republic, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the Court would have long ago lost its bearings.
Plainly the Court’s actions (and non-actions) demonstrate it is rattled, unsure of how to respond to major cases before it in a Country divided between those who wish to preserve our Country intact as the Framers crafted it, and those who wish to destroy the whole of it.
And, with the Court prepared to revisit Birthright Citizenship after well over one hundred years, those ruthless interests here and abroad that seek to bring our Country to ruin, may see that objective coming inexorably to fruition, notwithstanding another major setback after the majority of the American Electorate demonstrated their ability to repulse incessant propaganda fomented by the Nation’s many enemies both inside the Country and outside it, orchestrating for the Nation’s dissolution, having voted Donald Trump as U.S. President, and having given Republicans control over both Houses of Congress.
But the would-be destroyers of our Nation seem to have infinite patience.
And these would-be destroyers of our Nation have an abundance of patience—due, perhaps, from the belief, that time ultimately is on their side. They feel they can wait out Trump and they see that, in through the very strength of our Constitution—and apart from the Bill of Rights—there is weakness, as the vast numbers of the public are easily manipulated, and the much of the Constitution can be successfully sidestepped or simply ignored.
They have well-nigh infinite resources in money and organization ability, and they have legions of supporters, and substantial control over the Nation’s institutions. They are now exerting that influence on the High Court.
They are now exerting or extending influence over the High Court.
There seems to be, then, substantial limits on what Congressional Republicans and the U.S. President can achieve, notwithstanding control of two House of Congress and the incomparable fortitude of President Trump. The public should prevail on Republicans in Congress and President Trump to undertake investigations of the Court and of those rogue elements in Congress and society imperiling the Nation, the Constitution, and the American people. Serious course-correction is necessary to prevent the loss of our Republic and loss of our ability to exercise our natural law, God-given Rights—especially our sacred unalienable right to keep and bear arms.
As for the Third Branch of Government—the U.S. Supreme Court—it seems there is little that two Justices Thomas and Alito can alone accomplish on behalf of the High Court, absent the ballast that Antonin Scalia provided. This is unfortunate for us American Patriots.
The three Justices were able to preserve an independent, non-political Third Branch of Government—the U.S. Supreme Court—beholding to and desirous of securing, preserving our Nation’s Constitution, a Free Republic, and securing a Sovereign well-armed American Citizenry. Without them, the Heller case would never have transpired.
These three Justices, together, have stood firm against the tidal forces around the world moving with alacrity against us—the only truly FREE and SOVEREIGN people on Earth—as those forces aim with a single-minded focus to bring about our total, irrevocable and irretrievable demise. We, American Patriots, must support Justices Thomas and Alito in their efforts to protect and strengthen our sacred right to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment. Justice Thomas has correctly and repeatedly cautioned against treating the right to armed self-defense as a “second-class right.”
All too many ill-informed Americans have deluded themselves into believing this sacred right should go the way of the dinosaurs. Would they wish to see a Free Republic and a Free and Sovereign people also going the way of the dinosaurs?
That so many Americans extol the horrors of Marxism, seeing this abomination as a virtue, and as they have little or no understanding of the importance of our Bill of Rights, one might feel the urge to admit utter defeat, lamenting “all is lost.”
However, if we stand strong against the evil that continues aggressively to assault us, we will not be defeated. Americans prevailed once against the long odds, almost two and half centuries ago. We can continue to do so as we once did through Faith in the Almighty Creator, Faith in Ourselves, and a Firm Hold on Our Arms and Ammunition.
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