THE SNOPE CASE CAN BLOW ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT FOES OUT OF THE WATER BUT ONLY IF THE CONSERVATIVE WING OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS THE WILL TO DO SO

[THIS ARTICLE WAS SUBSTANTIALLY EDITED AND PROOFED ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2025]

IT IS HIGH-TIME THE HIGH COURT HOLDS THAT AMERICANS NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS EXTENDS TO ALL SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS

AS THIS ESSAY GOES TO PUBLICATION ON THE ARBALEST QUARREL, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS VOTED [FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2025], ON THE CASES IT WILL REVIEW THIS TERM, BUT THE COURT HAS NOT AS YET RELEASED ITS REPORT ON THOSE CASES. THE COURT SAYS IT WILL DO SO ON MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2025, AT 9:30 AM. See “Today at the Court - Friday, Jan 10, 2025”

In this essay we discuss why we feel the U.S. Supreme Court should review Snope vs. Brown and we also explain why it is—perhaps seen as paradoxical—that we have doubt the Court did vote to grant the writ.

The Court has made its decision, which the public will come to know on Monday, January 13.

We do fervently hope the Court did garner the four votes necessary to review the case. But, our expectation is that it did not, and would not be inclined to do so unless the Conservative wing of the Court has a clear majority.

By reference to the conservative wing, we mean the true, consistent Conservative wing, consisting presently of just two Associate Justices, Clarence Thomas (author of the Bruen decision) and Samuel Alito (author of the McDonald decision), both of whom supported the Heller decision, penned by the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia.

If four Justices have voted to grant review of Snope, sufficient to support the granting of the writ of certiorari, this means that at least five members of the Court—a majority—do exist, sufficient to provide a favorable ruling for the Petitioners.

Now, if Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh are in agreement with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the Court will have the five votes necessary to warrant review of the case, and Snope vs. Brown will, in the ensuing months, become the fourth landmark Second Amendment case.

This case will, then, strengthen the Second Amendment, making the fundamental, natural law “right of the people to keep and bear arms” impregnable to defeat from the foes of the Second Amendment.

Now, if Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh are in agreement with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, they will have the five votes necessary to warrant review of the case, and Snope vs. Brown will become the fourth landmark Second Amendment case, strengthening the Second Amendment, making the natural law “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” impregnable to defeat.

Chief Justice, John Roberts, would go along as well even if he would prefer not to grant Petitioners’ writ for certiorari.

The reason why is this: Roberts would not be caught dead siding with the three liberal wing dissenting Justices in a major Second Amendment case. Moreover, having previously voted with the Conservative wing on Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, he could not rationally explain away his inconsistency here were he to dissent with the liberal wing in Snope.

There are presently three Second Amendment cases before the Court on a writ of certiorari this term.

The Court will not likely grant review of more than one Second Amendment case if they grant review on any. And of the three writs to be voted on, the question in Snope focuses attention squarely on a State’s claim that it can ban civilian ownership and possession of semiautomatic weapons and that doing so does not conflict with the import of the language of the Second Amendment. This is the most contentious Second Amendment claim and it is the salient legal issue on a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court.

This issue is as contentious as the question concerning the legality/constitutionality of abortion. The legacy Press has made it a contentious issue, a cause célèbre: “GET RID OF THESE EVIL TERRIBLE ASSAULT WEAPONS,’”—so the Press and Democrats, and the foes of an armed citizenry say.

And many uninformed, gullible Americans, not realizing the dire import and impact of what that portends for the future of a FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, buys into the simplistic rhetoric and sloganeering, and march compliantly to the drumbeat.

But, unlike the issue of abortion and, contrary to the contention of some that the deliberate killing of an unborn child amounts to a fundamental right, which it isn’t and never was, and, which, on reflection is an abomination, much, much less than a “right,” ithere is no question that the right of the people to keep and bear arms IS a fundamental right.

No one can reasonably doubt the framers of the Constitution felt that armed self-defense is in fact a right, a fundamental and unalienable right and one crucial enough to the safe-keeping of one’s own life and well-being and that of his Country, to inscribe that right in stone. And the framers of the U.S. Constitution did so, even if some people today believe the framers should never have done so, as having done so drives these people apoplectic with rage.

Those people must now contend with the fact that, in the United States, the fundamentality of the nature of armed self-defense as a natural law right is self-evident, true, and not up for debate.

They don’t try to contend with that. Instead, they argue that it no longer matters.

These nay-sayers draw attention to other countries. They assert no other country accepts this, and we shouldn’t either, and that, for these Anti-Second Amendment proponents and zealots, this is the end of the matter. But did it ever occur to such nay-sayers that, perhaps, the belief systems of these other countries, from a moral as well as from a functional, pragmatic standpoint, are faulty—that freedom and liberty, True FREEDOM and LIBERTY, is not likely attainable, and definitely not sustainable, where the people remain unarmed?

But, be that as it may, from a LEGAL STANDPOINT, the United States is an independent, sovereign Nation, subject to its own Constitution and not beholden to or under the legal jurisdiction or command of any other nation or conglomerate of nations, or of any other political entity. In our Nation, unlike any other, “THE COMMON MAN” is, always was, and shall ever remain the SOLE SOVEREIGN OVER GOVERNMENT.

GOVERNMENT IS NOT, WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE, AND WILL NEVER BE A SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY OVER THE COMMON MAN—NOT IN OUR COUNTRY.

THIS IS NOT BLUSTER BUT ONLY AS LONG AS THE AMERICAN CITIZEN REMAINS WELL-ARMED. AND THE FATHERS OF OUR COUNTRY, THE FRAMERS OF OUR CONSTITUTION, THE FOUNDERS OF A TRULY FREE REPUBLIC KNEW THIS. THAT IS WHAT THEY INTENDED. THAT IS WHAT. IN THEIR HEARTS THEY WANTED. THAT IS WHAT THEY ALL AGREED TO, EACH OF THEM, TO A MAN. THAT IS WHAT THEY FOUGHT TO ACHIEVE AND DID ACHIEVE. THAT IS WHAT THEY ALL INSISTED UPON. AND THE EXISTENCE AND PRESERVATION OF THE ARMED CITIZENRY IS THE ONLY REASON THIS NATION HAS SURVIVED AND THRIVED AS A TRULY FREE REPUBLIC, THE MOST POWERFUL, PROSPEROUS, AND SUCCESSFUL NATION THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN.

Whatever Chief Justice John Roberts thinks about preservation of the Armed Citizenry, he likely doesn’t see the issue important enough to embroil the Court in a matter that he wishes to place the Court once again in the crosshairs. Hence, it is unlikely that the Court will take up a case, namely Snope vs. Brown, that will cause consternation among some of the Justices even if Snope is a case the Court should take up as it brings up a matter long overdue—a matter central to the continued existence of a Free Constitutional Republic. The Maryland ban on civilian ownership and possession of semiautomatic weapons cannot be allowed to stand. It creates a dangerous precedent to our Free Republic.

Unfortunately, even if one or more of the Associate Justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett, do tend to agree with Justices Thomas and Alito, that Maryland has irresponsibly, reprehensibly, unconscionably, and plainly unconstitutionally trampled on a sacred right, the Court may balk from taking up a deeply contentious matter at this time, as important as the Second Amendment is to the security of a Free State, especially in view of how close this Country had come to fall irrevocably, irretrievably into a state of abject tyranny under the Biden-Harris Administration.

A second case before the Court on a writ of certiorari, Gray vs. Jennings also raises a question concerning a State’s draconian ban on semiautomatic weapons but this one, coming out of Delaware, does not deal with the issue of semiautomatic weapons squarely, but only tangentially, in the context of a “preliminary injunction.”

And, as with Snope, as discussed infra, the parties, in Gray, describe the salient issue differently.

The Petitioners in Gray as the Petitioners in Snope, have drafted the issue concisely and emphatically,

“Whether the infringement of Second Amendment rights constitutes per se irreparable injury.”

Petitioners argue that, where a State (in the case at bar, Delaware) summarily places——

. . . bans on common firearms and magazines (which the State dubs “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines”) without even inquiring into whether those bans are likely unconstitutional, . . . [t]hat refusal to treat the harm inflicted by the loss of the Second Amendment rights as per se irreparable squarely conflicts with the decisions of the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, which have held that the irreparability analysis “does not change where the constitutional violation at issue is a Second Amendment violation [and not a First Amendment violation]. . . .

And by treating violations of the First Amendment as inherently irreparable but not violations of the Second, the decision below demotes the right to keep and bear arms to “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 70 (2022) (quoting McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 780 (2010) (plurality)). No monetary damages can adequately compensate a plaintiff for the loss of his inalienable constitu tional rights. The Framers charged this Court and the Nation’s other “independent tribunals of justice” with “resist[ing] every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights,” 1 ANNALS OF CONG. 439 (1789) (statement of Rep. James Madison). . . .

Petitioners argument boils down to the assertion that, where constitutional rights are at stake, irreparable harm must be presumed—thus requiring the court of competent jurisdiction to grant a preliminary injunction, staying execution of a challenged State law enactment infringing those rights, until the merits of the case are heard and adjudicated by the court.

The Respondent, Attorney General of Delaware, in the Gray case argues that a finding of per se irreparable harm here is improper, and that Petitioners lack standing to bring a claim for injunctive relief, because, as a matter of law, they cannot demonstrate imminent, irreparable harm.

The questions presented by the Delaware Attorney General, on behalf of the State, allude to the manner in which Delaware would like the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case if the High Court takes up the case at all:

1. Whether the court of appeals correctly rejected Petitioners’ attempt to sidestep the ordinary preliminary injunction inquiry with a rule of per se irreparable harm for Second Amendment claims.

2. Whether Petitioners lack Article III standing to challenge either law

The Arbalest Quarrel cannot find the U.S. Supreme Court’s own recitation of the issue were it to agree to grant Petitioners’ writ of certiorari. This suggests to us that the Court has decided to deny the writ.

Gray vs. Jennings alludes to Antonyuk vs. James, which also dealt with a petition for preliminary injunction.

The Second Circuit had reversed the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York that had, in treat part, granted Petitioners’ preliminary injunction.

This meant that New York’s Hochul Government was free to enforce the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”)—the State Government’s unlawful and arrogant response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in the 2022 Bruen case.

The New York State Senate’s passage of the CCIA and Hochul’s signing it into law the same day—all of which took place only one week after publication of the Bruen decision (strongly suggesting the Hochul Government and the Legislature in Albany had anticipated a negative decision in Bruen after oral argument in November 2021 had taken place, seven months before the decision came down)—led, as justifiably expected, to an immediate challenge, commencing with the Antonyuk case in early July 2022.

A flurry of filings followed, along with a plethora of additional cases brought in other U.S. District Courts around the State. Most of those cases, including the lead Antonyuk case, remain mostly unresolved, well over two years after the filing of the original complaint and petition for injunctive relief.

With the New York Government and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second Circuit, taking their sweet time to respond to the challenges (since the Second Circuit had allowed the Hochul Government to continue enforcement of the CCIA, apart from some minor tinkering around the edges), and Antonyuk bogged down with no appreciable Appellate Court relief in sight, after Antonyuk Petitioners filed a writ of certiorari to the High Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case to the Second Circuit, with Justice Alito strongly cautioning the Hochul Government not to dawdle. But dawdle the Hochul Government did.

Once the Second Circuit had entered a final judgment in the case, finding the Government’s CCIA constitutional, and with Petitioners’ second writ before the U.S. Supreme Court, the High Court granted the case for review. This was expected since the CCIA is wholly and pretentiously inconsistent with the Bruen rulings. The Hochul Government hardly conceals its contempt for the High Court and for the Court’s rulings.

The Petitioner’s second writ of certiorari should, in our estimate, have asked plainly and categorically for a decision on the merits. But, a bit inexplicably, the Petitioners asked the Court to remand the case to the Second Circuit in light of another pending case before the Court that Petitioners discerned might have bearing on the “Good Moral Character” requirement, a major component of New York’s amendments to its pretensious, and rigid handgun licensing schema.

And the U.S. Supreme Court gave Petitioners no more than the innocuous relief it had asked for: The Court remanded the case to the Second Circuit.

The case Petitioners’ Brief in support of their writ of certioriorari referred to and which the High Court had subsequently decided is United States v. Rahimi.

Rahimi, although a Second Amendment case, strikes us as essentially irrelevant to the matters before the Court—certainly unncessary to a consideration of teh merits of Antonyuk—since the Antonyuk case involves a direct, undeniable challenge to the constitutionality of the State’s amendments to its rigid handgun licensing regime, a direct and undeniable affront to Bruen.

After all, what more would the High Court wish get its hands on and deal with than a recalcitrant Government and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that snubs the U.S. Supreme Court—telling the Court essentially: “We don’t like the Bruen decision (nor for that matter, the Heller decision upon which Bruen is based) so we will not follow it and we trust you will do nothing about that.”

Just imagine how Justice Antonin Scalia would have responded to this. Likely, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, too, would wish to have taken up Antonyuk immediately: no more dawdling on this.

The three Associate Justices would have demanded that New York’s insufferable affront to the Court, along with the acts of a willful, wayward Federal Appellate Court would compel the Chief Justice to strike down New York’s CCIA, reaffirming the primacy of its holdings and reasoning in Bruen and Heller, making plain to both the Federal Government and to all state governments and to both state courts and to lower federal Courts, that the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest Court in the Land, that it would not suffer unnecessary delays or defiant responses from obdurate governments and lower courts.

That being so, we cannot understand the Antonyuk Petitioners’ seemingly sheepish request for a remand in its Brief in suppport of its writ of certiorari.

Perusing Petitioners’ Brief, the Petitioners have provided, for the U.S. Supreme Court, everything the Court needs to overturn the New York Hochul Government’s defiant response to Bruen. The

Petitioners have effectively written the Court’s Opinion.

But, because the U.S. Supreme Court remanded Antonyuk to the Second Circuit, the New York Circuit Court of Appeals took the opportunity to simply reaffirm its earlier decision and thereupon remanded the Antonyuk case to the District Court, thereby assuring a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the merits won’t be seen for yet another year or more—if ever it happened to wend its way back to the High Court.

This means more unnecessary delays, and a massive failure of justice for the citizens residing in New York and, by extension a failure of justice for citizens residing in other states, around the Country.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, has now used the occasion of the High Court remand, as one would expect it would do, essentially reiterating its past stance, and remanding the case to the lower District Court, thereby ensuring that the Hochul Government can continue to enforce its unconscionable and unconstitutional handgun regime, and delay final resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively indefinitely.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals asserted, in principal part,

On June 21, 2024, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. , 144 S. Ct. 1889, 219 L. Ed. 2d 351 (2024), upholding the facial constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which criminalizes the possession of firearms by certain individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order. In the wake of Rahimi, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Antonyuk, summarily vacated our judgment in that case, and remanded the case to this Court for further consideration in light of Rahimi (as it did with all other Second Amendment cases then pending before it). Having reconsidered the prior decision in light of Rahimi, and the parties' supplemental briefing regarding the effect of that decision on our reasoning in this case, we now issue a revised opinion in Antonyuk. We reach the same conclusions that we reached in our prior consolidated opinion. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court's injunction in part, VACATE it in part, and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this amended opinion.

The bottom line here is that New York’s handgun licensing schema still exists in essentially the same form as it has existed for over a hundred years. “Good Moral Character” has become the stand-in for the “Proper Cause” standard that was struck down as patently unconstitutional. Illegal government action, infringing the most important right of the American people now continues, unabated, and worse, the lower courts are reckoning with a weak U.S. Supreme Court, and using the opportunity to affirm unconstitutional actions by the state governments they preside over, rubber-stamping unlawful actions. None of this bodes well for New York handgun owners.

For, even though the State has issued more handgun licenses than it had hithertoo issued, the State has watered down the usefulness of those licenses through enactment of a new Statute that created a plethora of “sensitive places” where a licensee cannot lawfully carry a handgun for self-defense. Thus, for those New Yorkers who had previously acquired a handgun license under the original “Proper Cause” requirement, those licensees find themselves with something less than they had before the High Court struck down “Proper Cause”—a handgun license that has become as “restricted” concealed handgun carry license whereas before they had possessed an unadulterated “unrestricted” concealed handgun carry license.

The Hochul Government has deliberately, arrogantly, and more than a trifle diabolically, and definitely unconstitutionally, managed to sidestep the Bruen decision.

Again, why Petitioners in Antonyuk had diluted their own writ of certiorari, by requesting a remand to the Second Circuit instead of requesting a review on the merits of a case ongoing for well over two years since the Bruen decision came down and since the New York Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law the horrendous CCIA, is mystifying to us.

For in its brief, Petitioners had laid out a convincing case for High Court review and for a decision on the merits in their favor.

The Hochul Government’s “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA’) serves as a case study in deliberate, contemptuous defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen rulings. The Court would likely have reviewed the case and struck down the CCIA had Petitioners plainly requested the Court to review the case. And, Antonyuk would have gone down in our jurisprudence as the fourth landmark Second Amendment case. That didn’t occur and likely never will, as the New York Courts will keep Antonyuk in perpetual motion spiralling up and down the Federal Court system, never making its way back up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is remarkable because Petitioners had done the difficult work for the Court, effectively having written the High Court’s opinion, if Petitioners had simply asked for review of the case instead of suggesting a remand to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on the basis of Rahimi which, to our mind is hardly relevant.

We cite the Antonyuk Petitioners’ Brief in support of their writ of certiorari at length, below. It is excellent.

Moments after this Court issued N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), striking down New York's discretionary firearms licensing regime, New York politicians decried that decision as "reprehensible," vowing to resist the "insanity" of "gun culture" that "possessed . . . the Supreme Court." Rather than following this Court's decision, New York sought to nullify it through a "Concealed Carry Improvement Act" that makes it more difficult to exercise the right to bear arms in public than before Bruen was decided.

Relying almost entirely on a few outlier laws from the late 19th century, rather than common practice at the time the Second Amendment was ratified, the Second Circuit affirmed most of New York's " Bruen response bill," sanctioning the requirement that carry license applicants demonstrate their "good moral character" to licensing officials despite Bruen's rejection of discretionary "suitability" determinations. The Second Circuit also endorsed New York's firearm bans in all manner of nonsensitive public places, rendering carry licenses of almost no value.” . . .

"The Second Amendment's plain text . . . presumptively guarantees . . . a right to 'bear' arms in public for self-defense."  N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 33 (2022). But just days after that statement was made, New York defiantly enacted its " Bruen response bill," purporting to comport with this Court's decision, but instead seeking to nullify it. Intent on maintaining its de facto prohibition on public carry, New York decided that, if it must issue licenses to ordinary citizens after Bruen, it first would do whatever it could to discourage applicants by imposing novel and onerous licensing requirements, and then render any remaining licenses a practical nullity by prohibiting carry virtually everywhere in the State by declaring a multitude of brand new "sensitive locations."

Although the district court issued a "thorough opinion" that carefully applied the framework established in Bruen, found Petitioners "likely to succeed on a number of their claims," and enjoined large portions of the New York law, the Second Circuit ("the panel") quickly stayed that order without providing "any explanation for its ruling."  The Second Circuit has now issued an opinion largely vacating the district court's injunction, affirming only as to two of the least defensible provisions of the New York law.

To justify New York's widespread carry ban across much of the State, the panel below concocted a historical tradition composed almost entirely (and at times exclusively) of mid-to-late 19th-century statutes that reveal nothing about what the Second Amendment meant to those who ratified it. And to justify New York's requirement that a person prove so-called "good moral character" to licensing officials before being "entrusted" to exercise an enumerated right, the panel sanctioned the very sort of "open-ended discretion" to determine "suitability" that Bruen explicitly prohibited.

If New York's challenged law was its "Bruen response bill," then the panel's decision represents the Second Circuit's" Bruen response opinion." Brazenly, the panel repeatedly justified wholesale rejection of Bruen's methodology, claiming that Bruen was an "exceptional" case, and that in "less exceptional" cases—like this one, apparently—courts are free to contrive their own approach. Audaciously, the panel repeatedly chastised the district court for having hewed too closely to Bruen. And in one instance, the panel faulted the district court for having "failed to properly appreciate" a historical analogue that appears never to have existed.

The panel's repudiation of Bruen was no accident. In support of its rejection of this Court's holdings, the panel referenced a law review article written as a playbook for "lower courts" to "mitigate" Bruen by "engag[ing] in the time-honored practice of 'narrowing Supreme Court precedent from below.'"

This Court's intervention is necessary for several reasons. First, to correct the panel's flagrant methodological errors which conflict with this Court's precedents. Second, to repudiate the panel's unabashed refusal to abide by the Bruen framework. And third, to provide lower courts that actually desire to follow this Court's directive with critical guidance on how to analyze Second Amendment cases.

The lower courts need a definite pronouncement that the proper time period for ascertaining the scope of the Second Amendment is at the Founding—not the last two decades of the 19th century, as the panel apparently believed. And this case would allow this Court the opportunity to clarify that government may not selectively disarm law-abiding members of "the people" whenever licensing officials feel they are of poor character, potentially dangerous, or otherwise unworthy of enjoying the natural right to self-defense with which they were endowed by their Creator. These necessary course corrections not only would rectify the errors in the panel's decision, but also would provide critical guidance to the lower courts who are struggling with (and split on) the questions presented here. . . .

When this Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), its recognition of a pre-existing, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was met with swift and widespread resistance in the lower courts. Nearly uniformly, the lower courts refused to believe that Heller's rejection of "a freestanding 'interest-balancing' approach" would deny to them the "power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon." Id. at 634. Many years of constitutional infidelity followed, during which courts invented atextual tests applying their own conceptions about which laws ran afoul of the Second Amendment.

Expressing concern over this Court's hesitancy to review those decisions, Justices Thomas and Scalia observed that "[t]he Court's refusal to review a decision that flouts . . . our Second Amendment precedents stands in marked contrast to the Court's willingness to summarily reverse courts that disregard our other constitutional decisions." Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 577 U.S. 1039, 1043 (2015) (Thomas, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari).

[Note: we discuss the Friedman case infra, quoting Associate Justice Thomas’ dissent, and we are pleased the Petitioners have cited it in their Brief in support of their writ; for Friedman is not only relevant to but critically important to both Heller and Snope].

Absent substantive vindication of the Second Amendment in the years that followed, Justice Thomas reiterated this concern, observing that "the lower courts seem to have gotten the message" that "[t]he right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court's constitutional orphan." Silvester v. Becerra , 583 U.S. 1139, 1149 (2018) (Thomas, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari).

With N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), this Court corrected this "message" and decisively ended the Second Amendment's relegation to constitutional steerage. Declaring the Second Amendment a "second-class right" no longer, Bruen reaffirmed the traditional American right to carry arms in public, rejecting a New York law that treated the right as a mere privilege conditioned upon an applicant's demonstrating "proper cause" to licensing authorities. Id. at 70. This Court repudiated the Courts of Appeals' atextual, ahistorical, "judge-empowering 'interest-balancing,'" and explicitly reaffirmed Heller's standard of review "centered on constitutional text and history." Id. at 22. Reiterating Heller's first principles, Bruen instructed the lower courts to ascertain the scope of the right to keep and bear arms as originally understood by the people who adopted it. Id. This standard rightly places the burden on the government to prove affirmatively that its interposition between "the people" and their right to "keep and bear arms" comports with early American practice. Id. at 24. . . .

Even before Bruen's ink was dry, New York Governor Kathleen Hochul decried the decision, calling it "disturbing," "shocking," "reckless," and "reprehensible." 3 Alarmed at the prospect of an armed populace empowered to defend against New York's criminal element, the Governor made her plan clear: "This decision [is] not what New Yorkers want. And we should have the right of determination . . . [we] have a moral responsibility to do what we can . . . because of . . . the insanity, of the gun culture that has now possessed . . . the Supreme Court." 

Governor Hochul's "Concealed Carry Improvement Act" ("CCIA") passed almost immediately. This "swift and bold action" to combat this Court's "senseless[]" decision was New York's answer to "the resulting increase in licenses and in the number of individuals who will likely purchase and carry weapons" in Bruen's wake. Accordingly, the CCIA maintains business as usual in the Empire State where, one way or another, the ordinary citizen is not to be permitted to carry a firearm in public for self-defense. Although Bruen abrogated "may-issue" licensing, the CCIA — by design and intent — makes the licensing process so onerous, and the list of newly "sensitive" places so expansive, that in New York it is as if Bruen was never decided.

The CCIA effectuates its Bruen nullification scheme first by overhauling New York's licensing regime. In place of the discretionary "proper cause" standard that Bruen invalidated, the CCIA requires an applicant to demonstrate "good moral character," defined as "having the essential character, temperament and judgement necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself or others." App.436. To implement this ahistorical morality test, the CCIA demands character references, information about cohabitants and adult children, a personal "interview" with a licensing official, more than two full days of firearms training, a list of social media accounts, and "such other information" as might be demanded. App.438-39.

For those who persevere through this process, the CCIA then restricts where in public a licensee may carry a firearm, declaring not just "the island of Manhattan" but virtually the entire landmass of New York a "sensitive place," making public carry so risky that even the hyper-law-abiding CCIA licensee would not dare to carry. In fact, when asked where New Yorkers could carry under the CCIA, Governor Hochul responded "[p]robably some streets."  These so-called "sensitive locations" comprise 20 categories, and more subcategories, including the most ordinary locations normal people visit as they go about their daily lives. See App.432-34. Finally, filling the gaps in this disarmament scheme, the CCIA effectively commandeers all private properties in New York, declaring them "restricted locations" where firearms by default are prohibited unless the owner posts "clear and conspicuous signage" or "giv[es] express consent." App.431.

C.  Procedural History

Petitioners filed suit in the Northern District of New York on September 20, 2022, challenging various of the CCIA's provisions under the First, Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Following briefing and oral argument on a motion for preliminary injunction, the district court issued a lengthy opinion partially granting preliminary relief on November 7, 2022, enjoining enforcement of many of the CCIA's licensing requirements and sensitive locations. App.216-428.

Respondents appealed the district court's preliminary injunction to the Second Circuit, seeking an emergency interim stay of the injunction and a stay pending appeal. The Second Circuit reflexively granted New York a "temporary stay" before Petitioners could respond, and later a stay pending appeal without analysis.

On December 21, 2022, Petitioners sought emergency relief from this Court to vacate the Second Circuit's unexplained stay. Although this Court declined to intervene at that preliminary stage, Antonyuk v. Nigrelli, 143 S. Ct. 481 (2023), Justices Alito and Thomas issued a statement explaining that "[t]he New York law at issue in this application presents novel and serious questions under both the First and the Second Amendments," and noting that the district court's "thorough opinion" found "that the applicants were likely to succeed . . . as to twelve provisions of the challenged law." Id. (Alito, J., joined by Thomas, J., statement respecting the denial of the application to vacate stay).

After briefing, and oral argument on March 20, 2023, the panel issued its opinion in a consolidated appeal on December 8, 2023. App.1-215. Distinguishing Bruen as an "exceptional" case (App.35, 112), the Second Circuit vacated much of the district court's injunction, finding virtually all of the CCIA to be facially constitutional under the Second Amendment.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

I. THIS CASE PRESENTS AN EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION WHOSE ANSWER WILL AFFECT HUNDREDS OF SECOND AMENDMENT CASES.

A. Bruen Left Unresolved the Appropriate Temporal Focal Point for Second Amendment Analysis.

Although Bruen "acknowledge[d] . . . an ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding" when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, or when the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, the Court ultimately left the question unresolved, determining that it "need not address this issue today because . . . the public understanding of the right to keep and bear arms in both 1791 and 1868 was ... the same with respect to public carry." Bruen at 37-38. But while unnecessary to answer in Bruen, this question is central to this and many other Second Amendment cases. Indeed, Justice Barrett's concurrence seemed to anticipate that the Court soon would be called on to resolve this important question, and suggested that "1791 is the benchmark" because "Reconstruction-era history" alone would be "simply too late" and "too little." Id. at 82 (Barrett, J., concurring). Cautioning lower courts, Justice Barrett warned that the Court's "decision should not be understood to endorse freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late 19th century. . . ." Id.

Although it has been nearly two years since Bruen was decided, the lower courts have failed to coalesce around a definitive answer to the question of 1791 versus 1868. There is a multi-way circuit split on the question, and the district courts are in disarray. See Section III, infra. If anything, the lower courts' approaches have only continued to diverge and multiply, since this issue arises in most Second Amendment challenges.

This case presents an excellent vehicle for this Court to resolve the debate between 1791 and 1868. Below, the panel relied—almost without exception—on historical laws enacted well after the Second Amendment's ratification, with the earliest being nearly half a century after the Founding. Strikingly, of the three earlier analogues the panel did reference, every one was considered and rejected in Bruen. And the only time the panel did examine a series of Founding-era statutes, it affirmed that part of the district court's injunction.

In other words, the Second Circuit's singular focus on mid-to-late 19th-century history was outcome-determinative in this case. And, "apart from [this] handful of late-19th-century jurisdictions" ( Bruen at 38), the panel would have been forced to admit that no historical tradition exists and affirm the district court's injunction. Thus, in addition to correcting the errors in the opinion below, resolution of this important structural questionwould provide critical guidance to innumerable lower courts analyzing similar challenges.

B. This Court's Second Amendment Decisions Confirm 1791 as the Proper Focal Point.

Although Bruen found it unnecessary to definitively answer the 1791 vs. 1868 "scholarly debate," that does not mean the lower courts were left without guidance. Far from it. Not only Bruen, but also Heller and McDonald, provided significant confirmation that the Second Amendment should be construed as originally understood in 1791. To the extent that earlier or later sources are utilized, it is only to confirm the understanding that existed at the Founding. Indeed, Bruen stated that this was the Court's "general[] assum[ption]." Id. at 37.

In Heller, although not addressing a state law, the Court explained that "[c]onstitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them. . . . " Heller at 634-35. Noting that, "[i]n the aftermath of the Civil War, there was an outpouring of discussion of the Second Amendment," the Court explained that "those discussions took place 75 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, [and thus] do not provide as much insight into its original meaning as earlier sources." Id. at 614. Thus, after primarily examining sources from the Founding era ( id. at 582-603), the Court secondarily considered sources "through the end of the 19th century" ( id. at 605), which served only to confirm what the Court already had established ( id. at 605-25). Thus in Heller, as in Bruen, the tradition of both time periods was "the same. . . ." Bruen at 38.

McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), provides further confirmation. There, the Court reiterated its rejection of "'the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the States only a watered-down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights,'" refusing "to apply different standards 'depending on whether the claim was asserted in a state or federal court.'" Id. at 765. And, as had Heller before it, McDonald examined "[e]vidence from the period immediately following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment," but only because it "confirms that the right to keep and bear arms was considered fundamental." Id. at 776; see also at 780. 

Unsurprisingly, Bruen did not upset the apple cart, instead providing significant further confirmation that 1791 is the focal point to determine the Second Amendment's meaning. First, the Court described the "Second Amendment" as being "'intended to endure for ages to come,'" noting that "its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it. . . " Id. at 28. Second, the Court reaffirmed that constitutional rights have the same meaning "against the States . . . as against the Federal Government." Id. at 37. Third, the Court noted that "we have generally assumed that the scope of the protection applicable to the Federal Government and States is pegged to . . . 1791." Id. (emphasis added). Fourth, the Court again made clear that 19th-century history provides—at best—murky insight and "'do[es] not provide as much insight into [] original meaning as earlier sources.'" Id. at 36.  And fifth, the Court explained that, to the extent 19th-century evidence is to be consulted at all, it can only be to provide "'mere confirmation of what the Court thought had already been established.'" Id. at 37.

Heller, McDonald, and Bruen thus provide unwavering confirmation that the Second Amendment is to be understood based on the original "public understanding of the right" when it was adopted in 1791.

C. This Court's Other Precedents Confirm 1791 Is the Proper Focal Point.

In addition to Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, other decisions indicate that 1791 is the appropriate focus for determining the original meaning of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, Bruen referenced several such decisions ( Bruen at 37, collecting cases), which make several analytical precepts clear. . . .

There is no question that this uniform 1791-centric approach should apply to Second Amendment cases, as the Second Amendment is not "subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees." McDonald at 780. The above principles apply to the Second Amendment with equal force, regardless of the entirely academic "ongoing scholarly debate" as to 1791 or 1868. Bruen at 37. Indeed, such academic debate has long been laid to rest. See id. at 82 (Barrett, J., concurring). Yet the panel found otherwise, charting its own path, and claiming "1868 and 1791 are both focal points" of analysis. App.39 (emphasis added). This Court should grant certiorari to correct that obviously erroneous holding and to make clear that 1791 is the singular focal point for Second Amendment analysis.

II. THE DECISION BELOW DEFIES THIS COURT'S PRECEDENTS.

A. The Second Circuit Boldly Stated Its Intent to Evade Bruen's Framework.

Repeatedly, the panel advanced the remarkable theory that it was not bound to apply the Court's methodology in Bruen. Labeling Bruen a case of "exceptional nature," the panel surmised that courts are not required to follow Bruen's lead "in cases challenging less exceptional regulations." App.35. The panel repeated this claim no fewer than four times, each time justifying circumvention of a portion of Bruen's framework on the theory that Bruen came out the way it did only because it was "exceptional." See App.28, 35 ("a lack of [historical] precedent was . . . dispositive in Bruen. But that was due to [its] exceptional nature. . . ."); App.37 ( Bruen rejected analogues affecting "'minuscule [and] territorial populations'" only because of "the exceptional context. . . . In less exceptional contexts," the lack of historical analogues "does not command the [same] inference. . . ."); App.112 ("True, Bruen did utilize the number of states . . . and their relative populations as indicia of the orthodoxy and representativeness . . . but New York's requirement was exceptional. . . .").

But although Bruen was a landmark decision, there was nothing "exceptional" about the framework of historical analysis the Court articulated. Rather, even Justice Breyer in dissent agreed that the Court was establishing rules to be used in future cases. Id. at 111. As the Court explained, Bruen's methodology is the "[o]nly" way to analyze Second Amendment challenges. Id. at 17.

Not so, according to the panel. Justifying its refusal to strike down the apparently "less exceptional" provisions of New York law in this case, the panel disagreed with Bruen that "[t]he government must . . . justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." Id. at 24. Rather, the panel claimed, "the absence of a distinctly similar historical regulation ... can only prove so much." App.33.

In support of this Bruen-defying conclusion, the panel cited (App.34 n.10) to a recent law review article that calls Bruen "unsatisfying," claims that Bruen "places outsized importance . . . on historical silence," and suggests "possible judicial . . . responses to the decision" in order to "read[] Bruen narrowly" and "engage in the time-honored practice of 'narrowing Supreme Court precedent from below.'" Jacob D. Charles, The Dead Hand of a Silent Past: Bruen, Gun Rights, and the Shackles of History, 73 DUKE L.J. 67, 67-149 (2023). Maligning this nation's historical tradition as "the dead hands of the past," the article recommends that, "though the Supreme Court may desire to sit as a superlegislature over nationwide gun policy, lower courts ... need not easily cede the people's ultimate authority." Id. at 71, 155.

Even the panel's reference to this law review article is disturbing, as it boldly recommends "pathways for . . . lower courts to implement [ Bruen]" with "significant refinement" and to decide cases "without voiding all reasonable attempts to regulate guns," advocating for judicial opinions designed to make this Court "rethink whether the test Bruen mandated should be continued." Id. at 80, 146, 154. But the panel did not stop there. After referencing this detailed plan to defy this Court, the panel implemented the playbook in its opinion.  Cf. Charles at 148, with App.35; Charles at 148-49, with App.33; Charles at 149, with App.22.

B. Freed from Bruen, the Second Circuit Manufactured Its Own Framework.

Having rid itself of Bruen, the panel engaged in precisely the sort of "freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late 19th century" that this Court implicitly -- and Justice Barrett explicitly -- indicated is not permitted. Bruen at 83 (Barrett, J., concurring).

First, the panel upheld many of the CCIA's novel restrictions despite admitting to having located no Founding-era analogue at all.  See, e.g., App.70 n.31 (conceding that "[l]icensing schemes" requiring good moral character "were a post-Civil War phenomenon"); App.111 (referencing the "absence of 18th- [or even] 19th-century regulations prohibiting firearms in medical establishments"); App.145 (recognizing "statutes banning firearms in analogous places [to parks] such as 'commons' or 'greens' were ... absent from the historical record"). These concessions are in open war with Bruen's teaching that "the lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation addressing that problem is relevant evidence that the challenged regulation is inconsistent with the Second Amendment." Id. at 26.

Second, the panel fabricated its own "historical record" piecemeal, based entirely on a smattering of late-in-time analogues, mostly from the 1860s and later. See, e.g., App.67-70 (upholding "good moral character" by relying entirely on "firearm licensing schemes from the years immediately following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment"); App.143-44, 146-51, 154-57 (finding a tradition banning firearms in "parks and zoos" in various state, territorial, and city laws enacted between 1861 and 1897); App.106-19 (upholding firearm ban in healthcare settings based on three state laws enacted nearly half a century after the Founding); App.167 (upholding firearm ban in bars and restaurants based entirely on laws from 1867 through 1890); App.187-88 (approving firearm ban in "theaters" using five laws dating from 1869 through 1890).

Seeking to justify its polestar reliance on post-Reconstruction laws, the panel demurred that "evidence from Reconstruction regarding the scope of the right to bear arms incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment is at least as relevant as evidence from the Founding Era," and this "period of relevance extends past 1868 itself." App.68 n.27 (emphasis added). See also App.71 n.32 (claiming that even "[t]wentieth-century evidence is ... not weightless"). On the contrary, this Court has made clear that "19th-century evidence [i]s 'treated as mere confirmation of what the Court thought had already been established.'" Bruen at 37.

Third, the panel claimed to have discovered three Founding-era sources to uphold various portions of the CCIA: (1) the 1328 Statute of Northampton; (2) a 1786 Virginia statute; and (3) a 1792 North Carolina statute. App.147-48. The panel relied on these three laws repeatedly throughout its opinion. App.149-51, 153, 157, 187, 189-90. But, as this Court has already explained, the Statute of Northampton "has little bearing on the Second Amendment adopted in 1791." Bruen at 41. And laws like the 1786 Virginia statute "merely codified the existing common-law offense of bearing arms to terrorize the people," and thus "provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of weapons." Bruen at 47; see also at 122 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (identifying the "1792 . . . North Carolina . . . law" and noting "[t]he Court discounts these laws primarily because they were modeled on the Statute of Northampton. . . .") In other words, Bruen considered and rejected the only three pre-Reconstruction-era laws on which the panel relied.

Fourth, the panel frequently chided the district court for its faithful adherence to Bruen's methodology, insisting that it was error to assume that Bruen meant what it said. See, e.g., App.75 (criticizing that "[t]he district court . . . seemed to draw strong and specific inferences from historical silence. . . ."); App.145, 160 (disparaging as "analogical error" the district court's observation that "statutes banning firearms in analogous places [to parks] such as 'commons' or 'greens' were . . . absent from the historical record"); App.167-68, 175 (rejecting the district court's distinction between 19th-century laws which, at most, prohibited firearm possession by intoxicated persons and New York's law banning firearm possession by anyone in the presence of alcohol, finding them "analogous enough"). The panel even faulted the district court for having "failed to appreciate" the seemingly non-existent 1792 North Carolina statute, claiming this "tainted the rest of the district court's analysis." App.190, 157-58. See n.15, supra.

Fifth, the panel minimized—or simply ignored and—Petitioners' showings of relevant   Founding-era traditions contrary to New York's prohibitions. See, e.g., App.159 ("unconvinced by [Petitioners'] argument that the former use of Boston Common and similar spaces as gathering grounds for the militia undermines a tradition of regulating firearms in urban public parks."); App.166-76 (ignoring Petitioners' evidence that firearms and alcohol were ubiquitously mixed during colonial times); App. 176-91 (ignoring Petitioners' contrary Founding-era historical tradition demonstrating that firearms were regularly carried in assemblies and taverns akin to "theaters"). Yet Bruen made clear that "we do not consider . . . 'instructive' . . . 'legislative improvisations[]' which conflict with the Nation's earlier approach" or "when it contradicts earlier evidence." Bruen at 66-67.

Thus, despite marshaling not even one non-repudiated Founding-era law to support the statute below, the panel upheld infringement after infringement based on a smattering of Reconstruction-era statutes it claimed demonstrated the sort of enduring historical tradition Bruen requires. The earliest of these sources arose nearly half a century after the Second Amendment's ratification, with the vast majority occurring well after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment—stretching even into the 1890s. Each time the district court determined there to be no Founding-era tradition and enjoined the statute on that basis, the panel scolded and reversed. And when Petitioners pointed to contrary Founding-era traditions, the panel ignored them.

Declaring this Court's emphasis on original meaning "implausible," the Second Circuit instead offered the Bruen-rejecting acumen that public understanding of constitutional rights can evolve "over the preceding era"—and beyond. App.39-40. But Heller rejected this sort of revisionist living constitutionalism when it announced that "[c]onstitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them. . . ." Id. at 634-35. Bruen was similarly unequivocal: the meaning of constitutional rights is "pegged to the public understanding . . .  when the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791." Id. at 37. In contrast, the panel's decision was pegged to nothing, allowing a few post-Reconstruction statutes to pry the Second Amendment's meaning from the cold "dead hands" of the Founders. . . .

IV. REQUIRING NEW YORKERS TO "PERSUADE" THE GOVERNMENT THEY CAN BE "ENTRUSTED" WITH ENUMERATED RIGHTS CONFLICTS WITH BRUEN AND CREATES A CIRCUIT SPLIT.

A. The Second Circuit's Decision Upholding New York's "Good Moral Character" Requirement Conflicts with Bruen .

In Bruen, this Court rejected New York's requirement that, to be authorized to bear arms in public, citizens first must demonstrate "proper cause" — defined as "a special need for self-protection." Id. at 12. Here, the panel sanctioned New York's stand-in requirement that citizens convince licensing officials of their "good moral character" prior to licensure. As the district court explained, New York simply "replaced" proper cause with good moral character, "while retaining (and even expanding) the open-ended discretion afforded to its licensing officers." Antonyuk v. Hochul, 635 F. Supp. 3d 111, 133 (N.D.N.Y. 2022) (partially granting temporary restraining order).

Rejecting the "proper cause" requirement in Bruen, this Court explained the problem with such a standard: it grants licensing officials "discretion to deny concealed carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies" ostensibly "objective criteria," without any historical evidence that such practices would have been permitted in the Founding era. Bruen at 14, 11; see also at 70-71, 79 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (rejecting the grant of "unchanneled" and "open-ended discretion to licensing officials"). Importantly, this Court contrasted 43 so-called "shall issue" states, "where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses . . . based on . . . 'narrow, objective, and definite standards,'" with six so-called "may issue" regimes where "authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses. . . ." Id. at 13, 38 n.9, 14 (emphasis added). As the Court explained, under "may issue" regimes, applicants may be denied if they fail to "demonstrate[] cause or suitability for the relevant license," based on a licensing official's "'appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion.'" Id. at 14-15 (emphasis added), 38 n.9. While Bruen specifically addressed New York's "discretion" to determine "proper cause," its broader analysis of "discretion" — and its specific reference to a "perceived lack of need or suitability" ( id. at 13, emphasis added) — points to other impermissible forms of discretion.

New York's "good moral character" standard is just such a prohibited "suitability" determination and, as the district court noted, is merely a surrogate for the "proper cause" standard that was struck down in Bruen. App.217. As this Court explained, a New York "license applicant . . . must convince a 'licensing officer' . . . that . . .  he is of good moral character. . . ." Bruen at 12 (emphasis added); see also at 11 (emphasis added) (license issued "only if that person proved 'good moral character'"). The district court understood the same. See App.321 (emphasis added) ("unless he or she can persuade a licensing officer that he or she is of 'good moral character'"). Indeed, under the CCIA, New York officials decide whether a person "ha[s] the essential character, temperament and judgement necessary to be entrusted with a weapon. . . ." App.436 (emphasis added).

It is quite difficult to understand Bruen's criticism of "suitability" not to include "good moral character." And it is even more difficult to believe that this Court would approve the discretionary power to deny carry licenses to "all Americans" unless they first "convince a 'licensing officer'" of their general morality. Indeed, some courts already have found that "good moral character" means "suitability." See Srour v. New York City, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 190340, at 39-40 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) ("the very notion[] of 'good moral character' [is] inherently exceedingly broad and discretionary. . . . Such unfettered discretion is hard, if not impossible, to reconcile with Bruen."); see also People v. Mosqueda, 97 Cal. App. 5th 399, 411 (2023).

But reaching the conclusion Srour found "impossible" seemed easy for the panel. Although seeming to admit that "suitability" and "good moral character" are the same thing, the panel pointed to the licensing regimes of Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island, which facially contain suitability requirements, but which this Court nevertheless believed operate as "shall-issue" in practice, conferring no discretion on licensing officials. App.83; Bruen at 13 n.1. Indeed, this Court also noted that Delaware law allows open carry without a permit. Id. None of this commentary demonstrates the resounding affirmation of a "good moral character" test that the panel claimed Bruen contains.

Nevertheless, the message the panel took from Bruen is that not all licensing discretion is bad, amorphously distinguishing between "discretion in the strong sense" versus "a certain bounded area of discretion" or a "modicum of discretion," and asserting that " Bruen does not forbid discretion" but rather only "impermissibly discretionary" licensing regimes. App.67, 55-56. But Bruen drew no such nebulous distinctions, instead contrasting "discretion" with "narrow, objective, and definite standards" ( Bruen at 38 n.9) — which New York's shapeless concept of "good moral character" certainly is not. The panel's attempt to find broad support for "good moral character" in Bruen's passing discussion of "shall issue" regimes is tenuous at best.

Dissenting in Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019), then-Judge Barrett explained that any "power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns ... extends only to people who are dangerous." Id. at 451 (Barrett, J., dissenting) (finding no "evidence that founding-era legislatures imposed virtue-based restrictions on the right"); see also id. at 462 (rejecting the notion that "the legislature can disarm [persons] because of their poor character, without regard to whether they are dangerous"). Bruen was consistent on this point, noting that "shall issue" regimes "ensure" applicants " are, in fact, 'law-abiding, responsible citizens.'" Bruen at 38 n.9 (emphasis added).

The panel took a starkly divergent view, claiming that "good moral character" represents " a proxy for dangerousness," whereby licensing officials predict whether applicants are " deemed likely to pose [] a danger" based on " reasoned determination." App.55, 63, 59 (emphases added). The panel readily admitted that "'good moral character'" is a "spongy concept susceptible to abuse,"  which licensing officials may use "as a smokescreen to deny licenses" on such bases as "lifestyle or political preferences." App.64-65. Nonetheless, the panel concluded that this hugely discretionary standard comports with Bruen because "the core" and "[t]he gravamen of the 'character' inquiry is" dangerousness. App.63.

On the contrary, constitutional rights are not "spongy concept[s]." Bruen explicitly rejected the notion that licensing officials can exercise "discretion" — open-ended, "spongy," or otherwise — in determining whether Americans are worthy of Second Amendment rights.

The panel's opinion also conflicts with the decisions of the Third and Fifth Circuits. Flatly rejecting the notion that the Second Amendment only protects "law-abiding and responsible citizens" (App.60), the Third Circuit recently noted "th[at] phrase . . . is as expansive as it is vague. . . . We are confident that the Supreme Court's references . . . do not mean that every American who gets a traffic ticket is no longer among 'the people'...." Range v. AG United States, 69 F.4th 96, 102 (3d Cir. 2023); see also at 102-03 (rejecting "devolv[ing] authority to legislators to decide whom to exclude from 'the people'" by exercising "'unreviewable power to manipulate the Second Amendment by choosing a label'").

Likewise, the Fifth Circuit recently opined that "the legislature cannot have unchecked power to designate a group of persons as 'dangerous' and thereby disarm them," which would "render the Second Amendment a dead letter." United States v. Daniels, 77 F.4th 337, 353 (5th Cir. 2023).  This decision is entirely incompatible with the panel's conclusion that a historical tradition exists which permits any designated "local official" (not even an elected "legislature") to make an "individualized assessment" (far different than a "group . . . designat[ion]") whether individual applicants can be "entrusted" with Second Amendment rights. App.67, 74, 63.

This case presents an excellent vehicle to resolve the sharp circuit split on this important issue. No other constitutional provision is subject to a government precog's  guess as to whether a member of "the people" can be "entrusted" to exercise enumerated rights responsibly. And the Second Amendment is not "a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees." McDonald at 780. This Court should grant the petition and set the record straight.

One final issue deserves mention. Currently pending before this Court is United States v. Rahimi, No. 22-915. During oral argument, several Justices expressed concerns at how the amorphous concepts of "dangerousness," "responsibility," "virtuous[ness]," and "law-abiding" status might be applied in the context of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)'s ban on firearm possession by those under domestic violence restraining orders. See United States v. Rahimi, Oral Argument (Nov. 7, 2023). Those questions have some overlap with the second question presented here, namely, whether a carry license can be denied based on a government official's discretionary determination that an applicant lacks "good moral character." Petitioners believe this Court's review of this case is warranted on both questions presented, but a decision on whether to grant review of the "good moral character" issue could be held pending a merits decision in Rahimi.

Petitioners squishy conclusion gives the Court an excuse NOT TO TAKE UP THE CASE. And, to our mind, it is not really clear what bearing Rahimi has on Antonyuk (as tacitly, and almost certainly acknowledged by the Second Circuit that discussed the case, at least in passing, because it had to do this, for after all, the Rahimi case was the ostensible basis for the High Court’s remand of Antonyuk to the Second Circuit).

The Remand would cost New York’s handgun owners another wait, another indefinite span of years, before the U.S. Supreme Court would again look at the case, if ever.

And all this predictably and disturbingly proceeds from a State Government that defiantly and caustically, flaunts a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The New York Government—always abhorring civilian armed self-defense, instituted its Handgun licensing regime more than 110 years ago. Unconscionable in its inception, the Government has only become more emboldened over time. Its hostility toward and its contempt toward the gun owner is apparent as it crafts more and more draconian laws and regulations, effectively legislating exercise of the Second Amendment away.

THE SNOPE CASE

This discussion now brings us to the import of the Snope case. The Snope case—more than any other Second Amendment case in the last few years, including Antonyuk—flows naturally from Heller. But, as much as we would like the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review, we believe the Court—which has, this past Friday, already voted on what cases it will review—likely has skipped out on Snope.

Apart from the reasons we have given for this conclusion, supra, there is another matter to consider, and it is one that rests more on what we believe to be the conservative complement’s misgivings about taking the case up than on the liberal wing’s position on the case—thus inclining us to believe that the failure to grant the writ of certiorari is a foregone conclusion. We hope and pray we are wrong. We will determine the fate of Snope and the negative repercussions emanating from that failure to review Snope on January 13, 2025.

One thing concerning whether a case on a writ before the U.S. Supreme Court is granted or denied involves what the Justices likely believe the outcome of a case will be. Since the cases are fully briefed beforehand, it seems to us that each of the Justices know full well ahead of time how he or she will vote, and they have a good handle on how their brethren will vote.

On Second Amendment matters——

The conservative wing will not take up Snope nor any other Second Amendment case unless it can be assured of a decision supportive of the Second Amendment, especially if a decision will have a clear impact on the three previous seminal cases, Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, and this is certainly understandable and, in fact, an imperative consideration as to whether a writ is granted.

The liberal wing would lover to take the Snope case up on review if they knew they could obtain five votes to affirm the Maryland ban on semiautomatic firearms. If that occurred, then the rulings in the three landmark Second Amendment cases would be severely, likely fatally eroded, and that eventuality would inevitably lead to the overturning of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. The horrific effects would have a cascading effect on all State and lower Federal cases.

Justices Thomas and Alito will never allow that to happen.

There is, then, just too much at stake to risk diluting three previous landmark cases that strengthen the natural law right to armed self-defense. And even with those cases, Anti-Second Amendment Governments have routinely ignored unambiguous rulings of the Court. Imagine if a ruling came down that on its face eroded those landmark cases. That is why we are unhappy that the High Court did not review Antonyuk on the merits. There was no reason that we can see why Petitioners in that case requested a remand on the basis of Rahimi. The liberal wing of the Court, and likely the Chief Justice as well, were happy to oblige.

One does not need to be a prognosticator to know how the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was going decide that case and further handle it when the High Court remanded the case to the lower Court.

But a bad decision in Snope, were the High Court to take it up, would be infinitely worse than what we have seen with the handling of the Antonyuk case.

For, worse than a failure to review any of the Second Amendment cases, and especially the Snope case, is a vote to review a case that is an assured loss—severely eroding the Second Amendment and the seminal cases that have strengthened it.

The Country cannot risk even an improbable negative decision in the Snope case. Too much is at stake.

A defeat in Snope, severely weakens Heller, and will inevitably lead to further erosion and to its inevitable demise. And that means de facto repeal of the Second Amendment.

The seriousness of Snope—its far reaching effect and impact—is the salient reason we believe John Roberts and some other Justices would be hesitant  to take this case up on review.

There are far too many malevolent malignant forces in this Country who are constantly scheming to eradicate the Second Amendment.

If one thinks this morose fact is something too awful to contemplate, one should keep in mind that retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens has called for a redrafting of the Second Amendment to make clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is no more than a mere collective right only (an argument he made in his dissenting opinion in Heller, but, while sitting on the Court, he wouldn’t dare suggest a rewriting of the language of the Second Amendment).

Compunctions of custom no longer restrained him once he retired from the High Court. In his book, titled, “Six Amendments,” and subtitled, “How And Why We Should Change the Constitution,” that was published on February 18, 2014, Stevens lays out how he would rewrite the Second Amendment.

A few years later, on March 27, 2018, in an Op-Ed published in The New York Times, the retired Associate Justice, went even further—calling for outright de jure repeal of the Second Amendment.

The unlikelihood of such a thing happening is beside the point. That an American citizen would suggest such a thing—especially a jurist who had once sat on the U.S. Supreme Court—is heresy.

Attacks on the Second Amendment and on the U.S. Constitution, generally, are no longer fringe ideas. Newspapers and magazines are routinely discussing these things. And academicians abound who posit this apostasy, and they have an audience.

While such bizarre, discordant views can be readily dismissed at the moment at least, but the slow whittling away of Heller and eventual overturning Heller and, by logical implication, the two other seminal Second Amendment cases is not inconceivable.

America came perilously close to seeing this horrible happenstance coming to fruition if the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, had worn the robe of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. He has already inflicted substantial damage to the Nation’s jurisprudence. Now just imagine the damage he would have inflicted on the Nation and on our sacred Bill of Rights had the U.S. Senate confirmed him to sit on the High Court?

Fortunately, Senate Majority Leader at the time, Mitch McConnel had prevented that from happening. The Senate had utilized its “advise and consent” authority and determined that it would not consent to a person who had no desire to strengthen the Nation’s Bill of Rights, but, rather, would inflict irreparable injury to it.

We explained our concerns and the serious damage he would inflict on the Second Amendment, grounded on actions he had taken as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit.

Ammoland Shooting Sports News published our concerns in an article posted on March 18, 2016. This article was based on a letter we had written, back in 2016, to both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel and to the then Senate Judiciary Committe Chairman, Chuck Grassley, explaining our serious reservations concerning then Judge Merrick Garland, nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to sit as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It is highly likely that the U.S. Senate would have confirmed Garland to sit as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court if a Hearing had taken place. It would be the height of irony and not in a good way for Garland to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice on the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

In an article, published on March 16, 2016, CNN cited a prior Clerk to Justice Thomas, who had this to say of such a happenstance:

This seat could be transformational to the court because Justice Scalia’s fidelity to the Constitution was a real anchor for the court. If he were replaced by an Obama nominee that would give the court a solid five votes for enacting an extremely liberal agenda that the American people will not be comfortable with,” Carrie Severino, of Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group opposed to any candidate getting a hearing until after the election. It would shift the court –that is somewhat balanced –to a liberal stronghold. She is a former clerk of Justice Clarence Thomas.”

Congress and the American public can never take our Freedom and Liberty for granted. We must always be on alert, for ruthless forces exist, both at home and abroad, who wish to destroy us. This is not a new phenomenon. There are many guardrails in place to protect our Freedom and Liberty, but there is but one sure defense to effectively repulse the insinuation of Tyranny on our Nation-State. That defense is the last FAIL-SAFE mechanism available to a FREE PEOPLE: “THE WELL-ARMED AMERICAN CITIZENRY.”

Of the three present Second Amendment cases up for a vote this term—which the U.S. Supreme Court has, on Friday, January 10, 2025, voted to grant or deny review on—the most important one is the Snope Case. The central issue in Snope—in fact the only issue before the Court in Snope vs. Brown is one that deals squarely with the right of the people to keep and bear semiautomatic weapons.

Do semiautomatic weapons in the hands of the civilian citizen fall within the core of the Second Amendment, consistent with the reasoning of Court majority and the rulings of the Court, or don’t they?

Ammoland Shooting Sports News gave its readers a heads-up on this case and others in its article posted on October 29, 2024, and followed that article up with another posted on January 7, 2025.  See also Alan Gottlieb’s article on the Snope case, posted on January 9, 2025.

The CCRKBA and the Second Amendment Foundation are among the Petitioners in the Snope case. In his Article on the Snope case, Alan cites to the Managing Director of the CCRKBA, Andrew Gottlieb, who points out,

“We’re definitely hopeful the high court agrees to take this case again and schedules oral arguments soon. . . .

An affirmative ruling by the Court which settles the question whether modern semiautomatic rifles are protected by the Second Amendment will have a far-reaching impact across the country. A decision that removes any doubt about the right of the people to keep and bear modern rifles is long overdue.

“Frankly . . . considering the emphasis anti-gunners place on the reference to the militia within the Second Amendment, it would clearly protect such firearms. The gun ban lobby obviously didn’t think their argument through very far. ”

As of the posting of this Article, the High Court has not yet voted on whether to review the Snope case or any of the others. If the Court does so, it likely will take up only one Second Amendment case. It should be the Snope case, but we have our reservations.

We fully agree with the points made in Alan’s article. He lays out succinctly why Snope is crucially important to strengthening our Natural Law Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Yet, it is that importance and the far reaching scope of the case that makes us less hopeful that the High Court will take the case for review. It is in the very need for review of and positive outcome of the Snope case that our wariness derives.  

The Snope case is the most important Second Amendment case to come before the High Court since Heller. This is not to lessen the impact of McDonald and Bruen, but Snope goes straight to the heart of the Second Amendment and to matters discussed in Heller.

If the High Court decides to take up just one of the three cases, it must be the Snope case.

The reason is this: Snope is the natural continuation of the First seminal 2A case of the 21st Century, District of Columbia vs. Heller.

Snope builds upon the specific reason for the Second Amendment’s inclusion in the Bill of Rights—why the Antifederalists insisted upon it. And the Snope case rebuts a claim continually espoused by the Anti-Second Amendment proponents, zealots, and outright fanatics. That claim can be phrased accurately as this:

Semiautomatic weapons are “assault weapons,” properly considered “weapons of war,” as they are “in the style of” military weapons. The Second Amendment doesn’t protect the right of any civilian citizen to keep and bear such weapons because they are offensive weapons, having no utility for self-defense.

IS THERE ANY JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS CLAIM? NO, THERE IS NONE—NOT IN LAW, NOR LOGIC, NOR MORALITY!

The claim isn’t merely false, it’s patently ridiculous. Yet, the foes of the Second Amendment take it as presumptively true.

In a nutshell, the claim appears, in various portions of the State’s Brief in Opposition to Petitioners Brief in Support of the granting of the Writ for Certiorari,as assumption, and argument, and inference,

The foes of the individual right of the American people to keep and bear arms contend wrongly that Heller supports this claim. It does not. They shred Heller, reconstructing it by reshaping parts of it to comport with their belief system.

That belief system isn’t simply antithetical to the existence of and preservation of the armed citizenry, it undercuts the principles of Freedom and Liberty that make a truly Free Constitutional Republic possible.

The armed citizenry is the mainstay of a Free Constitutional Republic, and of a Nation where the Common Man is the Sole Sovereign over Government.

The Destructors of our Nation, present both within the Country and outside it, know that a Free Republic will withstand all attempts, militarily or through quiet subterfuge, to defeat it so long as the armed citizenry exists.

The myriad attempts of these Destructors to chisel away at the Second Amendment bespeak a raw fear and rage exhibited toward America’s armed citizenry.

These attempts range from, ONE, overt unconstitutional enactments of Congress, State Goverments, and localities, and through illegal administrative regulations crafted by federal agencies like the ATF, to, TWO, cunning covert psychological tools involving deflection and misdirection directed to reshaping the American psyche.

Associate Justices, like Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the late Antonin Scalia, were well aware of this. District of Columbia vs. Heller was their response to the danger presented to our Free Republic. They intended to bring to a screeching halt the myriad efforts crafted by ruthless forces bent on destroying Freedom and Liberty.

Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Anthony didn’t want to take Heller up on review. But, such was the indomitable will of Scalia, strengthened through strong support from Thomas and Alito, that Roberts and Kennedy acquiesced.

The latter two Justices knew that Heller would be the premier Bill of Rights case to save the Republic, thereupon sparing the Country from what otherwise would lead eventually, inexorably, inevitably to its decline and eradication. Perhaps, this explains why Roberts and Kennedy agreed, if reluctantly, to cast their votes to review Heller.

We have no doubt it took prodigious effort on the part of Justice Scalia, with the avid assistance of Justices Thomas and Alito, to prevail on the Chief Justice to allow Heller to be taken up and to gain assurances from the two, Roberts and Kennedy, that they would not subvert the effort to strengthen the Second Amendment, once the writ of certiorari was granted.

Once the Heller Holdings came down, the Destroyers of our Country knew it would be well-nigh impossible to defeat the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms apart from overturning the case, and that too would be impossible.

The best that the foes of our Republic and of the sovereignty of the Common Man could hope for, to circumvent the will and strength of Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, was to attempt to subvert the rulings of Heller and of the two other landmark cases, McDonald and Bruen.

But Heller would remain the premier Second Amendment case. It would remain the crucial key to be exploited by those intent on eradicating the armed citizenry. Those courts predisposed to harm Heller, employed legalese to distort and contort the holdings and the legal dicta supporting the Heller holdings.

Renegade American Governments at all levels would also ignore the rulings. And sympathetic Courts would engage in legal, logical, and syntactical gyrations to give their imprimatur to their legally dubious and logically fallacious, unconstitutional rulings.

And a friendly Press would urge public support through manipulation of the American psyche.

Malevolent courts hated Heller.

They figured that if they could treat Heller like a puzzle—a jigsaw puzzle—they could simply spill the tiles on the floor, recut them, and reassemble them to form a new scene—one more to their liking.

The wily Antonin Scalia knew that Heller would be—must be—only the first of several cases to come, to return the Second Amendment to its rightful prominence and purpose in our Free Constitutional Republic, as a bulwark against the encroachment of Tyranny.

WITH THE SECOND AMENDMENT AS THE MAINSTAY OF TRUE FREEDOM AND LIBERTY, AND WITH THE HELLER CASE AS THE LINCHPIN TO STRENGTHENING IT, THIS MEANS THAT——

Government—all Government, be it Federal, State, regional, or local—cannot be permitted to insinuate TYRANNY on the American people. And the American people must never acquiesce to dilution of THE MOST POWERFUL VEHICLE OF LIBERTY the world has ever seen or will ever see. TYRANNY MUST NEVER GAIN A FOOTHOLD IN OUR COUNTRY.

The singular import of Heller, conveyed in Scalia’s recitation of the history of the Second Amendment underscores the salient holding: THE RIGHT of the people to keep and bear arms is an INDIVIDUAL RIGHT NOT a collective right tied to a person’s connection to a militia or to any other military body.

This Nation alone, of every other Nation or political entity in the world, recognizes and posits: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The assertion logically entails that the United States belongs to the people—the Common Man—and not to, NEVER TO, a few elite oligarchs or to a solitary monarch. EXERCISE OF THE NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE PREVENTS THIS.

The natural law right to armed self-defense does not, then, exist as mere wish-fulfillment.

THE RIGHT MUST BE EXERCISED, NOT MERELY ACCEDED TO. IF A MAN KEEPS AND BEAR ARMS, HE KEEPS THREATS, VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE AT BAY.

The power and sovereignty of the Common Man reigns supreme in this Land and the language of the Second Amendment is the written embodiment of the eternal promise that this Land shall always remain so, FREE, but only so long as the people bear arms from the threat of beast, man, and the man-beast of Government.

Some people argue that the Second Amendment is vague. It is not!

There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in the Second Amendment to suggest that the right mentioned requires clarification, refinement, reappraisal, or reassessment. And it does not mean something less than the absolute commandment recited.

That commandment serves as a strong imperative, cautioning Government, ALL Government:

DO NOT TREAD ON THIS RIGHT! IF YOU DO, THAT SHALL BE TO YOUR DETRIMENT AND TO YOUR EVERLASTING SHAME!

THIS NATURAL LAW RIGHT IS PLAIN AND ABSOLUTE.

The words of the Second Amendment, in the Bill of Rights, serve merely as a stand-in for the reality from which the right derived: The Divine Creator.

The Antifederalists insisted on codifying the fundamental right along with the others, as a constant reminder to the obtuse among us and to those in Government who would deny the existence of this and other natural law rights if not written in stone.

Fortunately, the Antifederalists, among the Nation’s framers, demonstrated profound prescience, grounded on their cognizance of the nature of presumptuous, ruthless men predisposed to wield power and authority over other men. Such malevolent, rude, malignant men who dare exert dominion over other men have always existed and always will.

Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, like the Antifederalists, have known this as well, even if the other Justices did not and do not wish to contemplate that sad truth.

This natural law right exists in man intrinsically, bestowed upon him, by the Creator. Therefore this right cannot be lawfully bestowed upon, denied, or rescinded on man by other men, or by the Government and its agents.

The right is fundamental, unalienable, unmodifiable, and eternal.

Among the holdings in Heller, the Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said clearly, concisely, and categorically:

“In sum, we hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment.”

Note: this holding applies universally, across the United States, and it would have ramifications for the constitutionality of other firearms that fall within the purview of natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Chief Justice John Roberts and retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy demanded restraint in the drafting of the majority opinion if the true Patriots—Scalia, Thomas, and Alito—were to obtain the votes of Roberts and Kennedy, who likely were hesitant to sign onto Heller.

The latter two Justices were well aware that Heller would be the most important Second Amendment decision to come out of the U.S. Supreme Court up to that time and that it would continue to have a profound impact on all Second Amendment cases that would arise thereafter.

But John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy had hoped that the constraining language would prevent wholesale disruption of Government attempts to rein in application of “THE WELL-ARMED CITIZEN.”

Even so, Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kennedy could not prevent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, from laying substantial groundwork for subsequent landmark Second Amendment decisions. He did this through carefully worded prose. Scalia was a “SLY FOX,” and a MASTER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Despite what Anti-Second Amendment proponents and zealots wrongly presume but constantly assert, nothing in Heller suggests the right of the people to keep and bear arms is limited to the right to own and possess handguns only. Moreover, there is nothing in that holding to suggest any limitation on the types of handguns Americans can keep and bear, be those handguns single or double action revolvers, or semiautomatics. And there is nothing in the holding to suggest a limitation on the caliber or type of ammunition handguns may be chambered for.

More to the point, Heller poses no limitation on other kinds of weapons the citizen can keep and bear, apart from an ostensible sop Scalia, Thomas, and Alito gave to Roberts and Kennedy.

The Respondent, the Attorney General for the State of Maryland, in Snope, either doesn’t see this or has deliberately chosen not to in subservience to the State Government—a Government that manifests CONTEMPT AND ABHORRENCE TOWARD THE ARMED CITIZEN.

To seemingly placate Roberts and Kennedy, Scalia opines,

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ 307 U.S., at 179, 59 S. Ct. 816, 83 L. Ed. 1206. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’” [citations omitted].

This paragraph serves as an apparent sop to Roberts and Kennedy.

But, even with that, Scalia demonstrates his subtle trickery against the foes of our Nation’s Bill of Rights.

The phrase “common use” must be scrutinized, as it comes up frequently, nowadays, as Scalia knew it would.

Were the government to decide to take weapons from the public that it presently keeps and bears, might not THE GOVERNMENT thereafter say,

“Well, such weapons that were once in common use are not in common use any longer, so we can now take those weapons from the public, and the public cannot be heard to complain and, more, has no legal recourse if it sought to challenge THAT TAKING.

DO NOT CONSIDER THIS A TRIVIAL OR MEANINGLESS POINT, FOR IT ISN’T!

This brings up our concern for the notorious “National Firearms Act of 1934” (NFA).

Once enacted, its enforcement began to tightly regulate machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, and such components as suppressors—weapons and items that likely were at one time in “common use” but had after enactment of the NFA become difficult to obtain a license for—and such weapons and components then, effectively, could be said to be no longer in common use. But, that happened only because Government had artificially stepped in to make such weapons “uncommon.”

Might not Government interference with civilian citizens keeping and bearing semiautomatic weapons tend to do the same thing?

Did Scalia have anything to say about that? Yes, he did! He had much to say about this.

Two paragraphs down from referencing “dangerous and unusual weapons,” in seeming deference to Miller, Scalia opines,

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right” [emphasis our own]

The above paragraph certainly weakens, and more likely negates the notion that the Miller test of “dangerous and unusual weapons” precludes Second Amendment protection for civilian citizen ownership and possession of those weapons.

The expression “dangerous and unusual” is legally suspect and logically vague. Let’s parse this.

Many items can be construed as “dangerous” if one wishes, just by saying so.

Such items as firearms, yes, but also knives, cars and trucks, and chainsaws can be construed as dangerous. But it is the person, the sentient agent, not the inanimate object, in whom the concept of ‘danger’ rests. For, it is solely within the nature of the person—in the nature then of that agent who wields the object—through which the danger does or does not manifest.

The expression ‘unusual’ is also legally suspect and logically vague. The concept, as applied to an object, has meaning only in the sense that and manner in which the sentient agent chooses to think of it. And, what a person happens to think of an object often is a function of time or place, custom and tradition, and circumstance. And who is to be the ultimate arbiter of what is deemed to be unusual?

Is it the Individual? A Few Men? A Plurality? A Majority? An Entire Population? The Leader of the Nation? A Legislative Body? A Judicial Body? An Administrator?

Scalia was well aware of the nebulousness of terminology. And we may rightly infer that he likely found the intentional misuse of language to undermine the natural law rights of the American citizen to be especially repugnant. He knew, then, exactly what he was doing as he carefully, adroitly phrased the holdings and reasoning of the Heller majority opinion to appease Roberts and Kennedy.

Thomas and Alito understood well what Scalia was doing and were pleased at the result of the opinion as drafted notwithstanding changes made to the draft, to appease the concerns of Roberts and Kennedy.

The three Justices—Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito—were plainly appalled by attempts of Courts to continuously reframe legal opinions to comport to their own personal ideologies.

Roberts and Kennedy were likely aware of Scalia’s linguistic interpolations and nuanced exposition, designed to give the impression of watering down the breadth of Heller to placate those two.

Scalia had hoped that recitation of prior U.S. Supreme Court case law, like Miller, would serve to give the illusion of constraining the broad contours of Heller as he penned what would become a landmark  opinion. One can readily surmise how Scalia would have boldly drafted Heller had John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy allowed him a free hand to write the opinion as he had wished and as his brethren Thomas and Alito would also certainly have wished.

But as drafted, what was presented to Roberts and Kennedy was enough to get the two on board. That gave the true conservative wing—Scalia, Thomas, and Alito—the majority needed so that the right of the people to keep and bear arms would have a fighting chance to survive future attacks by the Anti-Second Amendment zealots. Those zealots would maintain an indefatigable resolve to eradicate the Second Amendment, and with that accomplished, dissolve the Republic forthwith.

Moreover, Scalia discusses “ARMED SELF-DEFENSE” as if to suggest this might mean nothing more than armed self-defense against predatory man or predatory beast, only. But, plainly, Scalia means much more than this.

His salient concern, was, as was the concern of Justices Thomas and Alito, the same as that of the Founders of the Republic—the man-beast of Government, Tyranny.

In that regard, Heller makes patently clear that MILITARY PERSONNEL WEAPONS ARE WHAT THE SECOND AMENDMENT SPEAKS OF—PRECISELY THOSE KINDS OF WEAPONS THAT FALL WITHIN THE PROTECTED PURVIEW OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

True, the question in Snope, doesn’t address that.

But, then, Petitioners don’t need to address this. The Petitioners in their August 21, 2024, petition for writ of certiorari pose the question for review by the High Court as:

Whether the Constitution permits the State of Maryland to ban semiautomatic rifles that are in common use for lawful purposes, including the most popular rifle in America.

THAT RECITATION OF THE ISSUE IS ENOUGH. NO MORE NEED BE SAID FOR THE IMPORT OF THE ASSERTION TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

In its Response filed on November 12, 2024, the Respondent Attorney General for the State of Maryland framed the question on review differently and not at all concisely, urging the Court to deny review and, if the Court were to review the case, then the Attorney General urged the Court to render a decision favoring the State, rebuffing Petitioners.

The Attorney General for Maryland posed the question for review by the Court as this:

Should this Court decline to grant certiorari to consider the constitutionality of Maryland’s assault weapons ban where

(1) that ban is consistent with this Court’s recognition in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), that jurisdictions may ban ‘weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like’;

(2) the Fourth Circuit faithfully applied New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), to conclude that Maryland’s law is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of ‘regulating those weapons that were invented for offensive purposes and were ultimately proven to pose exceptional dangers to innocent civilians,’ Pet. App. 69a; and (3) there is no need to resolve a conflict among the lower courts?”

It need be said that Respondent’s recitation of the question to be taken up by the Court IS NOT the question the Court has agreed to take up if it votes to review the case, but that of Petitioners.

THE COURT HAS ACCEPTED THE QUESTION AS FRAMED EXACTLY BY PETITIONERS.

This is no small matter, as the question as proposed by Petitioners and as accepted by the High Court, goes to the crux of the matter, hearkening back to the message hidden in the contours of Heller.

The Attorney General for Maryland assumes that military weapons or military ‘style’ weapons are not the sorts of firearms protected by the Second Amendment. Since this is the foundation for the banning of semiautomatic weapons in Maryland, the State’s Brief stands or falls on this false presumption, and this false belief is the faulty foundation upon which the entire argument rests and falls. The Attorney General makes plain at the outset that military weapons aren’t protected by the Second Amendment. That is a marked and naked assumption:

This Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), left intact its pronouncement in Heller that “M-16 rifles and the like” are weapons that “may be banned.” Nonetheless, this Court vacated an earlier appellate decision in this case and remanded for consideration in light of Bruen. The en banc Fourth Circuit, in turn, reaffirmed the principles set forth in Heller and held that the assault weapons covered by Maryland’s law fell outside of the Second Amendment’s protection because, like the M-16, they are militaristic weapons that are ill-suited for self-defense.”

The AG for Maryland then goes on a polemic about “assault weapons.” His Brief in Opposition comes across more as a policy tract for organizations like “Everytown for Gun Safety” and the “Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence” than as a cogent legal Brief addressed to the U.S. Supreme Court. No one on the Court can reasonably be impressed by it. Sure, the liberal wing would affirm the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals not for what Respondent has to say, but, rather, in spite of Respondent’s remarks. The liberal wing of the Court is after all in bed with Anti-Secondment foes. The liberal wing is ideologically predisposed to eradicate “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

The argument presented is simply wrong and begs the very question at issue. Does the citizen solider have an unalienable right to keep and bear military personnel weapons?

Heller neither expressly stated nor implied that M-16 selective fire weapons or those weapons the State considers to be like military weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment because such weapons “are ill-suited for self-defense.”

If such weapons are not suited for self-defense, then, really, how? Are such weapons ill-suited as a defense against Tyranny, or is it, rather, that they are aptly suited as a defense against tyranny?

Isn’t the citizenry’s keeping and bearing arms suitable for defense against tyranny the raison d’être of the Second Amendment?

And what is the best weaponry available to counteract Tyranny if not military weapons in the hands of a couple hundred million citizens, well-trained in their use, primed for rebellion against a Tyrannical Government? For what does a Tyrannical Government fear more than the “WELL-ARMED CITIZENRY”—WELL-ARMED AND WELL-VERSED IN THE USE OF MILITARY WEAPONS TO REPEL TYRANNY?

The High Court can deal effectively with these questions, thrusting the very abhorrence the Tyrant has against the Armed Citizen right back at him, but only if the Court garners at least four votes to take up the Snope case. We will see.

There is reason enough for the Court to take up Snope vs. Brown now, especially in light of so many  decades of propaganda spouted by Anti-Second proponents and zealots in Anti-Second Amendment organizations, in the Democrat Party, and in the Legacy Press, in blind obedience to Government hell-bent in creating Tyranny.

Is it not HIGH TIME NOW FOR THE HIGH COURT TO CEMENT THE SECOND AMENDMENT DOWN SO THERE IS NO MISTAKE AS TO ITS PURPOSE AND ITS INTENT?

A Federal Government, knowing its place, beholding to and properly subservient to the Sovereign Authority in the Land—the AMERICAN PEOPLE—has no reason to fear the people. It only does so, if it seeks to usurp that authority. And that is what we Americans were and are always faced with.

Is it not unsurprising that the Progressive-Marxist Democrats who go on about how they are the true Defenders of “Democracy” (albeit without ever bothering to explain what they mean by the word) and at one and the same time harangue Americans who insist on keeping and bearing arms? Whither that thing “Democracy” (if what is meant by it is not, “FREEDOM AND LIBERTY”) and a citizen army to defend that Democracy?

Recall, what Justice Kavanaugh said, when he cast the deciding vote, at the behest of the Chief Justice in the 2020 case, N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. City of New York.

Kavanaugh stated—in an odd and unconvincing concurring opinion, joining the majority liberal wing and Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, contra the dissenting opinion of Associate Justices Alito and Thomas—

I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.” [So why couldn’t the Court address that concern in the case at bar?]

Whether Kavanaugh meant what he said, the Bruen case, in any event, followed in 2022.

Snope vs. Brown should be the next major case taken up by the Court.

State Governments that detest the rulings in Heller and McDonald have long enacted laws and regulations severely constraining or denying outright civilian citizen possession and ownership of semiautomatic weapons, likening them to weapons falling under the purview of the unlawful and unconstitutional National Firearms Act (NFA).

This came to the fore several years ago. Few people remember, but we would like to jog the memory of those American who may have forgotten.

Go back ten years. In 2015, the case Friedman vs. Highland Park came up to the Court on a writ of certiorari. The salient issue in that earlier case is the same as in the present case, Snope vs. Brown.

Friedman dealt with the constitutionality of commonly owned semiautomatic weapons. The Court rejected review of the case, realizing of course that insufficient Justices would vote to strike down the Government’s outright ban on semiautomatic weapons. Justice Thomas was livid, and he wrote a vigorous dissent.

The late Justice Scalia, who obviously was also appalled by the reticence of Chief Justice Roberts and Kennedy to vote to take up the Friedman case and provide for a third Landmark decision, in 2015, had joined him. Justice Scalia would be found dead fourteen months later, in a hotel room in Texas, and under most mysterious circumstances, with precious few details ever forthcoming about the Justice’s death.

CBS News, for one, would assert this much about the matter, in its article, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia found dead in Texas - CBS News

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead Saturday, CBS News has confirmed. A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service said he appeared to die of natural causes.

According to the San Antonio News-Express, which was first to report his death, Scalia was found dead in his room at a West Texas resort.

Scalia, 79, was one of the staunchest conservative members of the court. He was nominated in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan and is the longest-serving member on the court.

He championed the philosophy of "orginalism," meaning he interprets the Constitution according to what he believes the original authors intended over 200 years ago. . . .

In a statement on behalf of the Supreme Court and retired Justices, Chief Justice John Roberts called Scalia, "an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues."

"His passing is a great loss to the Court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family," he added.

It is singularly odd that an extraordinary Jurist and dominant personality on the Court, without whom the Heller case would probably never have materialized, would be lost to the Country forever, scarcely one year after Friedman—followed by many more Second Amendment cases coming down the pike plainly due to the Heller rulings.

What did Thomas have to say about Friedman, that Scalia heartily agreed with? Given its similarity to Snope, we provide Thomas’ dissent in full to our readers. Thomas’ comments can be readily applied as rulings in Snope if the Court did vote to hear it. The public will learn the fate of this case, on Monday, January 13.

Likely the Roberts Court has Thomas’ dissent fresh in mind. What Thomas opined is either the reason the Court voted, this past Friday, to grant the writ of certiorari, or it was for fear of Thomas’ dissent in Friedman, that the Court denied the writ—a second time:

“[O]ur central holding in” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), was “that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010) (plurality opinion). And in McDonald, we recognized that the Second Amendment applies fully against the States as well as the Federal Government. Id., at 750, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3026, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 903; id., at 805, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3058, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 938 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

Despite these holdings, several Courts of Appeals—including the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the decision below — have upheld categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes. See 784 F. 3d 406, 410-412 (2015). Because noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents warrants this Court’s attention as much as any of our precedents, I would grant certiorari in this case.”
I

The city of Highland Park, Illinois, bans manufacturing, selling, giving, lending, acquiring, or possessing many of the most commonly owned semiautomatic firearms, which the City branded “Assault Weapons.” See Highland Park, Ill., City Code §§136.001(C), 136.005 (2015), App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a, 71a. For instance, the ordinance criminalizes modern sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semiautomatic rifles), which many Americans own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting. The City also prohibited “Large Capacity Magazines,” a term the City used to refer to nearly all ammunition feeding devices that “accept more than ten rounds.” §136.001(G), id., at 70a.

The City gave anyone who legally possessed “an Assault Weapon or Large Capacity Magazine” 60 days to move these items outside City limits, disable them, or surrender them for destruction. §136.020, id., at 73a. Anyone who violates the ordinance can be imprisoned for up to six months, fined up to $1,000, or both. §136.999, id., at 74a.

Petitioners — a Highland Park resident who sought to keep now-prohibited firearms and magazines to defend his home, and an advocacy organization — brought a suit to enjoin the ordinance on the ground that it violates the Second Amendment. The District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment to the City.

A divided panel of the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The panel majority acknowledged that the prohibited weapons “can be beneficial for self-defense because they are lighter than many rifles and less dangerous per shot than larger-caliber pistols or revolvers,” and thus “[h]ouseholders too frightened or infirm to aim carefully may be able to wield them more effectively.” 784 F. 3d, at 411.

The majority nonetheless found no constitutional problem with the ordinance. It recognized that Heller “holds that a law banning the possession of handguns in the home . . . violates” the Second Amendment. 784 F. 3d, at 407. But beyond Heller’s rejection of banning handguns in the home, the majority believed, Heller and McDonald “leave matters open” on the scope of the Second Amendment. 784 F. 3d, at 412. The majority thus adopted a new test for gauging the constitutionality of bans on firearms: “[W]e [will] ask whether a regulation bans weapons that were common at the time of ratification or those that have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, . . . and whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense.” Id., at 410 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Judge Manion dissented, reasoning that “[b]oth the ordinance and this court’s opinion upholding it are directly at odds with the central holdings of Heller and McDonald.” Id., at 412.
II

The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” We explained in Heller and McDonald that the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Heller, supra, at 592, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2797, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 657; see also McDonald, supra, at 767-769, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3036-3037, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 914-916. We excluded from protection only “those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 625, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2815, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 677. And we stressed that “[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.” Id., at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 682 (emphasis deleted).

Instead of adhering to our reasoning in Heller, the Seventh Circuit limited Heller to its facts, and read Heller to forbid only total bans on handguns used for self-defense in the home. See 784 F. 3d, at 407, 412. All other questions about the Second Amendment, the Seventh Circuit concluded, should be defined by “the political process and scholarly debate.” Id., at 412. But Heller repudiates that approach. We explained in Heller that “since th[e] case represent[ed] this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field.” 554 U. S., at 635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683.We cautioned courts against leaving the rest of the field to the legislative process: “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.” Id., at 634-635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683.

Based on its crabbed reading of Heller, the Seventh Circuit felt free to adopt a test for assessing firearm bans that eviscerates many of the protections recognized in Heller and McDonald. The court asked in the first instance whether the banned firearms “were common at the time of ratification” in 1791. 784 F. 3d, at 410. But we said in Heller that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” 554 U. S., at 582, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2792, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 651.

The Seventh Circuit alternatively asked whether the banned firearms relate “to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” 784 F. 3d, at 410 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court concluded that state and local ordinances never run afoul of that objective, since “states, which are in charge of militias, should be allowed to decide when civilians can possess military-grade firearms.” Ibid. But that ignores Heller’s fundamental premise: The right to keep and bear arms is an independent, individual right. Its scope is defined not by what the militia needs, but by what private citizens commonly possess. 554 U. S., at 592, 627-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2797, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 657, 678-680. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit endorsed the view of the militia that Heller rejected. We explained that “Congress retains plenary authority to organize the militia,” not States. Id., at 600, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2802, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 662 (emphasis added). Because the Second Amendment confers rights upon individual citizens—not state governments—it was doubly wrong for the Seventh Circuit to delegate to States and localities the power to decide which firearms people may possess.

Lastly, the Seventh Circuit considered “whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense,” and reasoned that the City’s ban was permissible because “[i]f criminals can find substitutes for banned assault weapons, then so can law-abiding homeowners.” 784 F. 3d, at 410, 411. Although the court recognized that “Heller held that the availability of long guns does not save a ban on handgun ownership,” it thought that “Heller did not foreclose the possibility that allowing the use of most long guns plus pistols and revolvers . . . gives householders adequate means of defense.” Id., at 411.

That analysis misreads Heller. The question under Heller is not whether citizens have adequate alternatives available for self-defense. Rather, Heller asks whether the law bans types of firearms commonly used for a lawful purpose—regardless of whether alternatives exist. 554 U. S., at 627-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 678-680. And Heller draws a distinction between such firearms and weapons specially adapted to unlawful uses and not in common use, such as sawed-off shotguns. Id., at 624-625, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2815-2816, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 676-677. The City’s ban is thus highly suspect because it broadly prohibits common semiautomatic firearms used for lawful purposes. Roughly 5 million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. See 784 F. 3d, at 415, n. 3. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. See ibid. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons. See McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767-768, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3036-3037, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 914-915; Heller, supra, at 628-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 679-680.

The Seventh Circuit ultimately upheld a ban on many common semiautomatic firearms based on speculation about the law’s potential policy benefits. See 784 F. 3d, at 411-412. The court conceded that handguns — not “assault weapons” — “are responsible for the vast majority of gun violence in the United States.” Id., at 409. Still, the court concluded, the ordinance “may increase the public’s sense of safety,” which alone is “a substantial benefit.” Id., at 412. Heller, however, forbids subjecting the Second Amendment’s “core protection . . . to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.” Heller, supra, at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683. This case illustrates why. If a broad ban on firearms can be upheld based on  conjecture that the public might feel safer (while being no safer at all), then the Second Amendment guarantees nothing.
III

The Court’s refusal to review a decision that flouts two of our Second Amendment precedents stands in marked contrast to the Court’s willingness to summarily reverse courts that disregard our other constitutional decisions. E.g., Maryland v. Kulbicki, ante, at 1 (per curiam) (summarily reversing because the court below applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), “in name only”); Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U. S. 306 , 135 S. Ct. 1368, 191 L. Ed. 2d 459 (2015) (per curiam) (summarily reversing a judgment inconsistent with this Court’s recent Fourth Amendment precedents); Martinez v. Illinois, 572 U. S. 833, 843 , 134 S. Ct. 2070, 2077, 188 L. Ed. 2d 1112, 1120 (2014) (per curiam) (summarily reversing judgment that rested on an “understandable” double jeopardy holding that nonetheless “r[an] directly counter to our precedents”).

There is no basis for a different result when our Second Amendment precedents are at stake. I would grant certiorari to prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right.

Note, there is no suggestion here that civilian possession of military weaponry is to be considered unlawful. The idea is subtle and tacit and rebuts the notion that semiautomatic weapons must be banned because of a presumptive association with military weaponry. Again, Heller doesn’t shy from acknowledging the historical significance of having an armed citizenry precisely to deal with military matters—whether emanating externally by foreign actors or through internal Government treachery directed against Americans, portrayed as “Domestic Terrorists” by the present head of the DOJ Merrick Garland, and the present head of the FBI, Christopher Ray, both of whom will soon be sent packing and good riddance to both.

Now, Thomas does reference “weapons specially adapted to unlawful uses and not in common use, such as sawed-off shotguns” as falling outside the purview of Second Amendment protection. [emphasis our own]

But, by using phraseology like “sawed-off shotguns” rather than the standard phraseology, “short-barreled shotgun” (SBS) and “short-barreled rifle” (SBR) Thomas appears to be poking fun at political neologisms and colloquialisms bandied about for rhetorical flourish as if they are proper terms of art (they are not). Such terminology is imprecise at best, not recognized by or utilized by the military or by the trade industry.

Think of Anti-Second Amendment terminology like “assault weapons” and “weapons of war.” Such phrases are fictions devised to confound the ill-informed, for the purpose of achieving a political goal.

That terminology has no consistent definition among politicians and the Press and are otherwise so amorphous as to be nonsensical. As defined in the laws of various States, there is no common agreement among these States, and the language is subject to change, leading to rampant confusion for everyone.

CONSIDER——

Now I might have no legitimate, lawful use for a “sawed-off shotgun.” But I can conceive of the utility of a “short-barreled shotgun” in my house, or in a truck when out and about driving in the wild or if I were to find myself in an urban cesspool like Chicago, Seattle, Oakland, LA, SF, or NYC, to name a few such areas around the Country.

And, if I can purchase a “Mossberg Shockwave” or a “Remington Tac-14” quite readily from a licensed gun dealer with little effort, why must I fill out the appropriate ATF Form and pay a fee for an SBS to lawfully to do the same, when the additional hoops I have to jump through are not required for the former two firearms.

And this fact is all the more remarkable since it is easier to learn to master a shotgun with a stock, i.e. an SBS, than it is to master the aforementioned Mossberg or Remington sans stock—outfitted with a birds head pistol grip.

Let us hope the High Court has voted to take up the Snope case. We shall soon know.

If so, then, once that is accomplished, let us prevail on Congress to repeal the NFA.

With Americans well-armed with military personnel weapons, this Free Constitutional Republic will be able to successfully withstand the worst tyrannies thrown at us.

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