Biden Administration Asks the U.S. Supreme Court to Judicially Nullify the Right to Bear Arms

On September 21, the Biden Administration filed an amicus brief in the pending U.S. Supreme Court case of New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, supporting New York’s draconian and unconstitutional restrictions on the right to bear firearms in public for self-defense.

This NRA-supported challenge to New York’s “may-issue” licensing scheme for public handgun carry is the first Second Amendment challenge to a firearm law to reach the high court since 2010.

New York’s law presumptively denies the right to bear arms for self-defense unless a license applicant can demonstrate a special need for self-protection that distinguishes the person from the general population.

In practice, this means the rich and well-connected can get unrestricted carry licenses but ordinary people cannot, even if they actually face a greater risk of being violently victimized while going about their daily lives in public. The law effectively nullifies for most New Yorkers what the Supreme Court has already characterized as “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.”

New York’s “may-issue” scheme in fact gives authorities so much discretion that it has fostered a culture of corruption, particularly within the Licensing Division of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). There have been repeated scandals involving the NYPD Licensing Division’s application process, with “facilitators” offering gifts and bribes to licensing personnel to approve or expedite their clients’ applications. In some cases, this has resulted in the issuance of carry licenses to applicants with otherwise disqualifying criminal histories and in criminal convictions for NYPD officers. In other locales, licenses are issued by elected sheriffs, with preference given to political donors and supporters.

The entire point of the New York scheme is not simply or primarily to screen out applicants who fail to meet objective standards of responsible and law-abiding behavior. It is to give authorities complete control over who gets to exercise the right and who does not. This, of course, is wholly incompatible with the idea of a fundamental right, which exists, as the Supreme Court said in the Second Amendment context, “to take certain policy choices off the table.” If the starting point for a carry licensing scheme is presumptive denial, then there is no right at all, only a privilege administered to the favored few.

And this is absolutely fine for the Biden Administration, at least when it comes to the Second Amendment.

After all, as we’ve reported, Biden’s own son Hunter has the manifest privilege of violating with impunity various federal gun control laws the government brief insists are so necessary to protect public safety. This is in addition to his apparent immunity to other laws against things like drug possession and distribution, prostitution, and the list continues.

The government’s brief, filed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Justice, also gives complete vindication to the NRA’s opposition to now Attorney General Merrick Garland’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, when he was a federal appellate judge. Anti-gun pundits had mocked that opposition at the time, falsely claiming there was no legal basis for it, even though Garland had voted to rehear a case that had ruled an outright ban on handgun possession violated the Second Amendment. Yet, as we had explained, the only plausible reason to support such a “do-over” was that the court had come to the wrong conclusion. Why repeat something already done correctly?

Now, as AG, Garland is advocating that the U.S. Supreme Court effectively remove the right to “bear arms” from the U.S. Constitution. The administration’s brief additionally argues for what it calls a “reasonable regulation” standard for other types of gun control and for its implementation via “intermediate scrutiny.” Activist and anti-gun courts have used this standard to uphold not just may-issue licensing schemes but sweeping bans on some of America’s most popular types of firearms and magazines.

Fortunately, the United States Senate blocked Garland’s Supreme Court appointment in 2016. Thus, while his noxious view of the Second Amendment will still be put forth before the court, he at least won’t have the opportunity to cast a vote against the right to bear arms himself, as he undoubtedly would have.

While no outcome at the Supreme Court is ever guaranteed, Second Amendment advocates should if anything be in an even stronger position this time around than during the court’s prior visitations of the Second Amendment in 2008 and 2010.

And Merrick Garland --Barack Obama’s handpicked choice to replace the legendary Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the landmark Second Amendment opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller – will have to watch from the sidelines as just another lawyer.

NRA-ILA | Biden Administration Asks the U.S. Supreme Court to Judicially Nullify the Right to Bear Arms

 

When the president no longer has armed guards and all the capitol police and military give up their arms. I'll think about it.
Nope, not even then. This government does not lead by example they lead by dictate.
Because there is no way to prove they are unarmed, and government officials lie at every turn.
The primary reason for the second amendment is for the people to be able to stand up against that tyrannical government.

 

of course Biden & Company are making goody goody going thru SCOTUS >>> they have nothing to lose and everything to gain ...

but the end game is to just sign a EO and start backing it up with arrests and taking the violence & chaos it creates >>> their scam timetable is running out - they won't be able to cheat thru the 2022 Midterms and the whole game collapses when they lose Congress and even more state governorships ...

 

gonna have to wait and see on the voting...

 

We are going to be seeing who will have a good Christmas or not. After all, santa will be checking his list.

 

I don't think people these days will stand up to a tyrannical government (we have one now) but I do want the god given right to protect myself and family from the POS that want to do me harm

 

I'm just surprised to see elitist fuds that make up NRA actually support may issue.

 

I'm surprised SCOTUS hasn't admonished POTUS and DOJ for attempting to interfere in legal proceedings, even Chief Justice Traitor cannot let this stand! M. Garlend is a commi first class with oak leaf cluster, and he needs to be struck down HARD!

POTUS cannot inject it's self in a SCOTUS proceedings under any circumstances, part of the whole checks and balances and separation of powers between Justice, Executive, and Legislative branches!

 

Troof, it's already happened here, with Round 2 teed up and ready to go, which will make everything illegal here after!

 

I will not comply!

 

If one must be concerned for the actions of their local goober - ment, then one should know, they do not have far to travel to kinetically express their displeasure's.

Do you have the five or six that you can completely trust without any question?

 

Personally, I think it all is coming to a head. Daily, I am hearing more and more people that will be fired because they refuse to take the vaccine. How insane is that? I find myself wondering what will King Biden do next because he stated, "We are running out of patience" so I would not doubt any craziness at this point which I think is...good. Good? Yeah good, because the harder and crazy it is the more people will push back and get fed up and if, IF we can get a HONEST election it will knock them out of office.

So, my opinion, the worse it gets, the better it is... Hell, I hope he signs an EO that outlaws my guns! LOL! the more insanity the better!

 

step x in world domination. only governments and there sheep have weapons. Happened her in europe already Call to all patriots in the unarmed countries "do never defend that country".

 

Nothing to see here, move along