Justice Clarence Thomas asked a question during opening arguments in Voisine v United States.  This is the first question he has asked in court in over 10 years.

Voisine v United States is a case currently before the Supreme Court which ponders if a misdemeanor conviction of  “reckless” domestic violence is a prohibitive qualification under the Lautenberg Amendment.  Vosisine slapped his girlfriend while drunk, lost his right to own a gun, and then got arrested for being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.  The argument for his side is, since he was drunk he lacked the mens rea to commit actual domestic violence and so his conviction should not have made him a prohibited person and he should not have lost his gun rights.

The bigger question is, will this case gut the Lautenberg Amendment?

Justice Thomas broke his silence to ask a very simple but deeply meaningful question: “Can you give me an area where a misdemeanor violation suspends a constitutional right?”

In the words of the great detective: “ruh-roh!”

The anti-gun left is already crapping its pants over this.  The Brady Campaign released a statement “No one convicted of domestic violence should have access to a gun – ever.”

Now we can all agree that Stephen Voisine is a piece of shit.  He slapped around a couple of girlfriends and shot a bad eagle.  But the classic argument for the First Amendment is “popular speech doesn’t need protecting, it’s unpopular speech that the 1A exists to protect.”  Soon we are going to find out if the Second Amendment also is there to protect “unpopular” people too.

Also… it seems that in the wake of Scalia’s passin, Justice Thomas is not the meat puppet that liberals accused him of being and he is a lot smarter than the lawyers at the Justice Department gave him credit for.