B.L.U.F. An analysis of court battles pre-Bruen

Heller introduced two major changes to the gun rights litigation landscape, first it defined the scope of the Second Amendment to be individuals, not the militia and second it told the inferior courts that second amendment cases had to be analyzed using text, history and tradition.

What did this mean to us? It was the first time in decades that some of the worse laws in the land could be challenged.

Consider bringing a case saying the 1989 AWCA of CA was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment in the early 2000’s. At that time the Ninth Circuit court had issued their opinion that the Second Amendment only applied to militias. Furthermore, the states were allowed to regulated militias.

Because of this, the only entities that the Ninth Circuit court said had standing was the State in regards to the State’s militia.

In order to win your lawsuit you would have to win at the district level, unlikely, appeal to the circuit court and be granted a hearing and win, or you could lose at the circuit court level or be denied a hearing at the circuit court level and appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court at that time wasn’t looking to hear a second amendment case.

In addition, the rules on appealing to the supreme court if the circuit court did not grant certiorari. Normally we speak of certiorari in regards to the Supreme Court but according to Cornell Law School web page it also happens at the appellate court level.

It is unclear from a brief bit of research when, if ever, a case denied a hearing at the circuit court level is allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court. It might just be that the Supreme Court just doesn’t hear those cases, in general.

In this instance the courts are stacked against us. The state legislature has created a law that they hope the state can defend in court, the population of the area might lean anti-gun, the district court and lower state courts all lean anti-gun, the appeals court (or state appeals court) lean anti-gun and the state supreme court likely leans anti-gun.

The ability to get past this bulwark of infringement is nearly impossible.

While this particular situation is based on the Ninth Circuit court and California, the same situation existed in the other anti-gun states. Those states that were huge infringers were also the states that existed within circuit courts that supported the concept that the second amendment only applied to the militia.

On the other hand, there were states and circuits that understood that the second amendment applied to The People. …,The Right of The People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

But these courts didn’t have states attempting the huge infringements. At most they were minor infringements and the circuit courts struck them down and the states didn’t push to the Supreme Court.

It required good people living in anti-gun territories to stand up over and over again trying to get just one case through the infringement allowing circuits to the Supreme Court. This is expensive. Often when the plaintiffs (good guys) lost they were punished by having to pay attorney fees to the state.

Yet people did this over and over again. These were unsung heroes of the battle for the Second Amendment.

One of those heroes was Mr. Dick Heller. In 2003 he filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The district court dismissed the case for lack of standing. Heller et all appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. They determined that only Heller had standing.

The United States Government then filed for certiorari and it was granted. Finally in March of 2008, 5 years after the case was first filed, the Supreme Court heard Oral Arguments. They decided in June of 2008 and the Heller decision came into existence.

Why was this such a big deal? It was a big deal because it meant that for the first time in decades the people could actually fight for their rights under the Second Amendment in court. The arguments presented by the state, prior to Heller were all about denying standing to the plaintiffs.

There was no need for the Government to defend their law(s). The plaintiffs were always arguing at a disadvantage to just get their cases heard. The arguments were all about standing, not about the infringement of any right. In most cases, the Due Process Clause and the Takings Clause were about getting standing.

Post Heller in 2008 we quickly saw the McDonald case which told the states that the Second Amendment applies to them as well. It wasn’t just the Federal Government that couldn’t infringe, it was the states as well.

This started the next stage of court battles.

While Heller said that the courts had to use text, history, and tradition of firearms regulation the inferior courts did not stick with just that.

Judges are human and quickly succumbed to the emotional blackmail of the state.

We might joke about If it saves just one child/life the blunt truth is that the claim of saving the life of a child is very very powerful.

While my wife really really didn’t get the problem with giving our younger children balloons to play with she looked at the Homer buckets with their warnings about it might kill small children and all of the plastic bags with the same types of warnings and shook her head in disbelief that this sort of warning was required. The reason it was required was that it took the death of only one child to turn the hearts of a jury against some corporation and suddenly a parent that killed their child was getting a huge payout from a corporation.

The courts were asked by the state to look at the good of the people vs the burden imposed on the individual. To see that the good of the many over weighed the good of the one.

Again, a powerful argument. The courts then looked at the issue and the earlier cases seemed to decide on a case by case basis.

The arguments then devolved into:

• Was the the “core” right of self-defense implicated?
• How much was the individual burdened by the law
• Did the state have a compelling interest to pass the law
• If there was a compelling interest and if there was a burden on the individual, was it better that the individual suffer or society as a whole

This was premised on the concept of the end justifies the means. Since there is common understanding that the end justifying the end isn’t really a good argument this was shortened to means-end.

Once there was case law at the circuit court level we find that second amendment cases quickly became pretty standardized.

The plaintiffs(good guys) would point out that their right to keep and bear arms was being infringed. The state would then grant that there was an infringement and immediately move to creating a situation where means-end could be applied.

That process normally consisted of the state explaining that the plaintiffs had other means of self-defense so that the infringement in question did not remove the core purpose of the second amendment. Because the Supreme Court in Heller used core lawful purpose of self-defense the state then argued that self-defense was the only core lawful purpose of self-defense.

These are the places where Justice Scalia used the term. Because he used this term the state and lower courts determined that there were levels of infringements, which they called burden. “What is the burden on the core right of self-defense under the Second Amendment?” is the question the courts were asked to answer.

This leads to the primary use of the courts, to answer questions of fact. If everybody agrees on the facts there is no conflict. The court might then be asked if the law violates the rights of the individual.

When analyzing Rupp v. Bonta it quickly became apparent that under the means-end of post Heller that the state wasn’t interested in denying that their laws were infringements.

What this points out is that as late as 2017 the state was arguing that even due process was at the whim of the government. If the burden imposed on the individual of the state no allowing/following due process was not too much and it was for the common good, then the state could suspend your right of due process. The state argued similarly regarding the Takings Clause.

Having easily disposed of the Due Process and Takings Clauses the state moved on to the second amendment aspect.

Here the argument was that while the law might be an infringement, we don’t agree that it is, but that it might be and we, the state, will stipulate to that, it isn’t a burden on the core right of self-defense.

Once it is determined that it is not an infringement of the core right of self-defense the court is allowed to continue with means-end by choosing the level of scrutiny.

The state and courts couldn’t get away with Rational Basis so they tried to get the courts to apply Intermediate Scrutiny. Under intermediate scrutiny they just had to prove that the state had an important interest and that the law was substantially related to that interest.

This is easy. The state just has to say “This law is for public safety.” The plaintiffs then have to argue that it isn’t for safety. This is an extremely difficult case to make. It is entirely possible to look at a ban and say but it will save a child! and that is both important and substantially related to that interest.

The thing the state did not want to happen is to have the courts decide to apply text, history, and tradition.

This is what Judge Benitez did. He looked at the case before him, a magazine ban, and applying the Supreme Courts opinion in Heller said that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had misinterpreted the opinion. That he, at an inferior court, was doing it right.

The Ninth Circuit court than slapped him down. Just like they had done previous 2A cases.

In this case though, Virginia Duncan and her team didn’t stop with the Ninth Circuit court and applied for certiorari. The Supreme Court heard the request in conference and did not grant certiorari. They also did not deny it. The case sat in limbo until Bruen.