Monthly Archives: February 2022

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced a plan to end gun violence. The fatal shooting of a police officer has gripped not only his city's residents but people over the United States.

This shooting is the result of the most consequential misinterpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution by the U.S. Supreme Court in American history.

A well-regulated militia means just that. Its well organized and practices gun use that is consistent with armed forces training.

But in the most controversial misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the 2008 decision for the District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms.

Mayor Adams is fighting not only gun violence. Hes fighting this enormous misinterpretation of the Second Amendment.

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2nd Amendment has been misinterpreted -- Mike Bunch | Letters to the Editor | madison.com - Madison.com

President Joe Biden said Thursday that his gun violence prevention strategy is necessary to combat rising violent crime in cities across the country and that preventing the sale of certain firearms "doesn't violate anybody's Second Amendment rights."

"Making sure that people who are not allowed to have a gun, don't get the gun in the first place," the president said of his push to institute stricter background checks for firearm sales. "This doesn't violate anybody's Second Amendment right. There's no violation of the Second Amendment right to talk like there's no amendment that's absolute."

"Remember, when the amendment was passed, they didn't say anybody can own a gun, any kind of gun, or any kind of weapon," he said. "You couldn't buy a cannon when this amendment was passed, and so nobody with the money should be able to buy certain assault weapons, but that's another issue."

Biden, speaking alongside Attorney General Merrick Garland, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, additionally outlined new measures the Justice Department was taking on Thursday to clamp down on the illegal sale of "ghost guns" and other "assault" weapons. Those actions include:

The president also called on Congress to approve $500 million in new funding "for proven strategies we know will reduce gun crime," including $300 million to expand the COPS Hiring Program and $200 million for evidence-based community violence interventions.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

You can watch Biden's remarks in full below.

More here:
Biden on gun control plan: 'There's no amendment that's absolute' - Washington Examiner

During oral argument at the Supreme Court in December over Mississippis abortion ban, Justice Sonia Sotomayor laid bare a fundamental truth: Theres so much thats not in the Constitution.

Her point is a deep one, and salient to the abortion debate: The text of the Constitution does not explicitly affirm the right to abortion; no one disagrees with that. But the Constitution protects far more than what it literally describes. Unwritten ideas necessarily guide even the strictest readings of the text, despite what some originalist jurists like to believe.

Adrian Vermeule: Beyond originalism

This can be seen in just about every major constitutional debate, as I explore in my new book, The (Un)Written Constitution. Take, for example, the recent decision by the Courts six conservatives to strike down the Biden administrations COVID-vaccine mandate. The ruling was based on the idea that Congress cannot delegate major questions to administrative agencies, in this case the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The major-questions doctrine may be justified by a certain understanding of the separation of powers, as Justice Neil Gorsuch argued in his concurring opinion, but it is not found in constitutional text. Even the Courts power to strike down laws as unconstitutional is not specified by constitutional text. Indeed, the overhwelming majority of constitutional disputes that come before the Courtincluding abortion and free speech and the right to bear armsdepend on ideas and understandings that cant be found in the Constitution.

The arguments put forward in the Mississippi abortion case (Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization) are a perfect study in how unwritten ideas drive our readings of the text. The dispute over abortion revolves around the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which stipulates that no state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. While Mississippi insists that a womans right to abortion has no basis in the Constitution, Elizabeth Prelogar, the solicitor general for the United States, maintains that the right is contained in the word liberty. How do we determine whether liberty includes the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy?

It requires, in short, going beyond the text. This is inescapable because the text alone doesnt specify the meaning of enumerated rights such as the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion, let alone the meaning of abstract rights such as liberty and the privileges or immunities of citizens. Whats more, going beyond the text is practically demanded by the Ninth Amendment, which explicitly acknowledges that there are specific, inviolable rights not named in the Constitution: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. But how do we determine the scope of abstract rights or which unenumerated rights, if any, should be constitutionally protected?

An exchange between Justice Clarence Thomas and Solicitor General Prelogar highlights this difficulty. Justice Thomas wanted to know just what right Prelogar was rooting abortion in. Was it liberty? Autonomy? Privacy? And just where did she find this right in the Constitution? The problem, Thomas asserted, was that the right she was defending was too abstract. When we talk about the Second Amendment or the Fourth Amendment, he said, we know what were talking about because its written. Its there.

But the liberty that Prelogar was referring to is written; it is there in the text. And the fact that liberty is more abstract than the rights found in the Second or Fourth Amendments doesnt obviate the Courts obligation to define its proper scope, just as the Court does with any other constitutional right.

Consider the First Amendments prohibition against abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. What does that freedom entail, exactly? Does it prohibit Congress from preemptively blocking speech that it deems unprotected? What about punishing such speech after the fact? Does it allow an opposition party or private citizen to criticize the sitting government? This last question was the subject of a heated debate in the 1790s, less than a decade after the First Amendment was ratified. While there was ready agreement that the text protected the freedom of speech and of the press, there was profound disagreement on the scope of these freedoms.

At the time, most sitting Supreme Court justices held that the First Amendment allowed the government to punish speech that brought public officials or the government into disrepute. Presiding over the trial of a critic of President John Adams, Justice Samuel Chase argued that any political minority must surrender up their judgment once a government was selected, and that private opinion must give way to public judgment, or there must be the end of government. In contrast, James Madison argued that interpretations like Chases prohibited the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right. The disagreement between figures like Chase and Madison lay primarily in their disparate understanding of the logic of popular government, not in their literal reading of constitutional text. Their debate required using unwritten ideas to outline the substance and scope of the freedom of speech, or of the press, just as we have to outline the scope of liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Originalists insist that we can accomplish this only by reading the text as it was understood by those who framed and ratified it. They turn to history and linguistic conventions from the period under investigation to retrieve the original public meaning of the Constitutions words. What would they have meant to an ordinary reader at the time of the texts ratification? As Justice Amy Coney Barrett has argued, the original public meaning of the Constitutions text, and it alone, is law. Yet this argument depends on unwritten ideas about the nature of the Constitutionon a disputed theory of what the Constitution isnot on the text.

Harry Litman: Originalism, divided

Even if we follow the original public meaning, how do we know whether we should be governed by the expectations of those who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment or by the general principles they brought into being? The text doesnt tell us. Does the Fourteenth Amendment apply only to rights that were clearly protected when the amendment was ratified, or does it apply more generally? Does it apply to marriage only as it was understood in 1868? What about interracial marriage? Same-sex marriage? A right to make decisions about procreation? A womans right to terminate her pregnancy? Even among originalists, debate persists on all of these issues.

Some originalists claim that we are bound by the concrete expectations of those who framed and ratified the Constitution. Justice Samuel Alito took something like this position during oral argument in Dobbs, when he asked whether abortion was a right, liberty, or immunity in 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. If the people who ratified the amendment in 1868 did not expect liberty to include a womans right to terminate her pregnancy, this logic goes, then that right is not protected.

If we follow the expected application of the amendment, it would almost certainly not protect interracial marriagewhich wasnt federally legalized until a century after the amendments ratificationlet alone same-sex marriage. Similar questions come up with regard to gender. Should women be entitled to the privileges or immunities of citizenship, including the right to make choices about their occupation, despite the fact that many of those who framed and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment did not necessarily expect it to apply to women in this way? (A few years after the amendment was ratified, the Supreme Court suggested that the answer was no. It upheld an Illinois law that denied the suffragist Myra Bradwell the right to practice law precisely because she was a woman: The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.)

If we follow the general principles that the text brought into beingas opposed to their original applicationthey may entail obligations that those who framed and ratified the amendment did not understand or even consider. Steven Calabresi, a leading originalist and former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, argues that this isnt our problem. We should not be concerned, he says, with how those who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment applied it in particular cases; nor should we be concerned with how they expected it to apply. We should be concerned instead with the principle or concept that they brought into being.

Scalia himself was skeptical of this approach. He contended that the word liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment protects only what is enumerated in the Bill of Rights, as well as rights that have historically been protected by American law. In Dobbs, the Mississippi solicitor general followed Scalias reasoning, arguing that because the right to abortion is not specified in constitutional text, nor supported by history, it is not constitutionally protected. In doing so, he drew on Scalias dissenting opinion in the 1992 case that reaffirmed the central logic of Roe v. Wade, where the justice asserted that abortion was not protected by the Constitution because of two simple facts: (1) the Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstanding traditions of American society have permitted it to be legally proscribed.

What looks like an indisputable claim firmly grounded in constitutional text is, in fact, a particular reading of the text driven by Scalias desire to confine its more open-ended termssuch as liberty in the Fourteenth Amendmentto specifically enumerated rights. Otherwise, Scalia feared, such terms would become a boundless source of additional, unnamed, unhinted-at rights, definable and enforceable by us, through reasoned judgment.

In his attempt to limit the Constitutions more abstract clauses, Scalia was following the New Deal jurist Hugo Black, who referred to himself as a constitutional literalist. Black famously argued that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, applying themand no othersto the states. Accordingly, the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment refers to rights articulated in the first eight amendments. Black pointed to his historical research to justify this argument, but even more important to his thinking was the belief that reading the text in this manner provided a salutary limit on judicial discretion. Like Scalia, Black worried that open-ended and abstract constitutional clauses invited judges to read their political preferences into the Constitution.

Yet the Fourteenth Amendment does not say that the liberty protected by due process refers only to what is articulated in the Bill of Rights. Those who framed the Fourteenth Amendment could have easily said as much, but they didnt. Some scholars have reasonably argued that this is the best reading of the amendment, but those arguments inescapably depend on unwritten ideas about how to interpret liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment.

How we determine the scope of libertywhether we root it in particular historical understandings, limit it to rights enumerated elsewhere, or take it as a more general principleis not dictated by constitutional text. This is just as true when we turn to supposedly concrete rights such as freedom of speech. It is true of numerous cases currently before the Court: Does religious liberty require states that fund nonsectarian private education to also fund religious education? Does the right to bear arms include a right to concealed carry? These cases all turn on the justices unwritten ideas.

My point is not to argue for or against any particular method of constitutional interpretation; it is, rather, to insist that a large majority of the issues faced by the Court cannot be resolved simply by appealing to constitutional text. There is no avoiding this. All approaches to constitutional interpretation rely on unwritten understandings. Going outside of the text is essential to reading the Constitution. This does not mean that anything goes; it means that we have the burden of giving our reasons for the constitutional judgments we must make.

Excerpt from:
What the Constitution Doesn't Say - The Atlantic

Theres a big push to fight gun violence. But if the idea is to stop the violence by going after guns, I think the fight is already lost.

Extraordinary rise in gun violence in King County in 2021

CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues reported this week that anybody with a 3D printer and easily-available software can make their own gun in as little as 45 minutes.

You can also print a gun part called a receiver, and use it to assemble a gun with no serial number. That makes it untraceable, and therefore very popular with bad guys. Its whats called a ghost gun.

FiveThirtyEight reported that, in 2019, police in Philadelphia recovered 95 ghost guns. By 2020, it was 250. Last year, the numbers were on track to double again, and thats just one city.

It is legal to make your own guns the good guys do it all the time. Some of them are highly-skilled gunsmiths. But pretty soon, you wont have to be highly-skilled.

The ATF is clearly worried, and theyre looking for ways to regulate ghost guns. But how?

Once everybody can make their own weapons and that day is coming even if the government did want to grab your guns, it would be physically impossible. And in a world where anybody can make a new one in under an hour, it wouldnt be worth the trouble anyway.

The whole Second Amendment debate is over. The Second Amendment won!

But Dave, you might say, we could regulate gunpowder! Yeah, good luck with that.

Bad guys will always get loaded weapons. Which means all thats left is universal anger management training.

And we thought getting everybody vaccinated was tough.

Listen to Seattles Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen OBrien weekday mornings from 5 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to thepodcast here.

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Ross: Have we already lost the fight against gun violence? - MyNorthwest.com

Today, February 1st, theOregon Legislature begins the 2022legislative session.With the start of session, anti-gun legislators have again begun pushing policies that do nothing to prevent crime and only target law-abiding gun owners. NRA Members and Second Amendment supporters are encouraged to stay alert and contact their legislators in opposition to Senate Bill 1577.

Senate Bill 1577 would ban 3-D printed guns, however the billis so poorly written that it confuses undetectable firearms with 3D printed guns. This bill is the ultimate solution in search of a problem. Undetectable firearms have been banned under federal law for 30 years.This is nothing more than political theater. However, because of poor bill drafting, this bill could have serious unintended consequences for hobbyists who engage in the lawful home manufacture of firearms.

As in 2021, thelegislaturecan expect to see both pro and anti-gun agendas this year.Gun owners and sportsmen throughout the state must stay actively involved to defend freedom.

Your NRA will continue to fight to promote and protect your right to keep and bear arms and hunting heritage.Our members remain the most powerful political force in American history, and together, we will secure the Second Amendment for present and future generations.

Please continue to checkwww.NRAILA.organd your email inbox for NRA-ILA alerts on the latest action items. NRA-ILA will keep you updated on Second Amendment and hunting-related legislation.

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Oregon: Anti-Gun Legislation Introduced as the 2022 Legislative Session Convenes - NRA ILA

Vicki VanAmeyden views her role as an artist as a responsibility to express her view of what is right and good in our world. Art is also, she says, a sanity keeper for her. Often incorporating text in her art, VanAmeyden uses non-traditional materials to make strong statements and shake the viewer to attention. With a masters in fine arts from Western Michigan University, VanAmeyden, now retired, has taught art at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and Kellogg Community College.

This is the second time Ive felt compelled [in a way] that is maybe a little more political, VanAmeyden says. I did it after 9/11, too, created a body of work. Just around everything that was happening then. And then around 2015, I felt compelled to do it again with the rise of Trump I felt like I had a platform and, for whatever reason, that I have a responsibility as an artist with that platform.

A conversation with Vicki VanAmeyden

VanAmeyden often incorporates text along with nontraditional materials in her artwork to make her statement. One powerful work, called American Hero, makes a statement about the misuse of the Second Amendment by using nails, resting books, including the Bible and two volumes about the Second Amendment atop the nails, then topped with bullets from an assault weaponas if a hero sandwich to illustrate the American diet.

That piece was kicking around in my head for quite a while, VanAmeyden says. The books connected for me with the American system and beliefs surrounding guns. Its almost an inalienable right in this country to own a gun. I think its gotten out of balance. Those nails, theyre old nails, and they reminded me of coffin nails. The bullets on top are for an AR-15 it was quite a process, learning about guns and bullets and knowing the AR-15 is the most popular gun in the United States, which I dont think people use for hunting.

VanAmeydens work often stops viewers in their tracks, forcing sometimes uncomfortable contemplation, provoking emotion and thought. She has been acknowledged with awards at both the regional and national levels and includes a Lila Acheson Wallace Award for Illustration. Additional grants and awards include the KCC Outstanding Adjunct Award for Excellence in Teaching; WMU Teaching Effectiveness Award; Teacher Ambassador Appointment to Takasaki, Japan; West Michigan Merit Scholarship; WMU Faculty Development Grant; and Creative Industries Development Grant. VanAmeydens work can currently be viewed at the Ninth Wave Studio in Kalamazoo.

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Art Beat: Art that resists - WMUK