Bruen slapped down the inferior courts that were using interest balancing to deny The People their rights. As Judge VanDyke pointed out, from the time of the Heller opinion, the Ninth Circus court has not found a single regulation to be unconstitutional.
Interest balancing takes place at the time a regulation is passed or ratified. When The People ratified the Second Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights, The People performed interest balancing and the result was the Bill of Rights.
The People, having looked at the Constitution, as passed, decided it wasn’t fully to their liking. They then used the methods of laid out within the Constitution to amend the Constitution.
When the NFA was passed, the state explicitly acknowledges the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They knew that it was unconstitutional to limit The People’s right to keep any arm they wished. To bear any arm they wished.
Instead, they looked to “balance” the authority of the state to tax with the right of The People to keep and bear arms. Since the state had the authority by the constitution, they hoped to finagle the NFA past the courts.
The original district court heard the Miller case and found for the defendant. The NFA was unconstitutional, on its face.
Miller had bad facts. Miller was a bad man who did bad things. The law-abiding citizen would want him imprisoned. The criminals he associated with would want him dead.
At this time, it is strongly believed that Miller was murdered by his criminal associates.
The congressional hearings emphasized that all involved with the NFA knew it was an infringement.
Regardless, the Supreme Court issued their opinion in Miller and we were stuck. This case allowed for more civilian disarmament regulations.
From that point forward, the infringing assholes searched for methods to weasel around the Second Amendment.
This took the form of attempting to transfer the rights protected by the Second Amendment from The People to the state. This worked. They used interest balancing to allow the courts to override the decisions of The People.
Remember, all interest balancing regarding the Second Amendment was completed in 1791 when it was ratified.
The state does not want simple. The more complex the “rules” are, the easier it is for them to create an infringement.
Years ago, I owned an Internet Service Provider. My partner at the beginning wanted to make the rules of conduct. He started listing all the things that people were not allowed to do.
I threw it all away. “Be Good. If you do bad things, we will charge you for cleanup at $75/hour and at our discretion drop you as a customer. If you send SPAM, you will be charged $2000 + $75/hour for cleanup. Final decisions are ours.”
We didn’t have a single person object to the rules. We used the SPAM rule once. Guy got charged $5000. We didn’t get the money, but the credit agencies went after him like mad.
Our Constitution was written the same way. The government is given authority to do some things. If they are not granted that authority by The People, they are not allowed to do that thing.
The first 10 Amendments are also simple. Don’t abridge The People’s right to speak or assemble. Don’t infringe on The People’s right to keep and bear arms.
The state wants to make it complicated.
Bruen said that the inferior court’s two-step method was wrong. That there should be only one step.
The state is attempting to make it a two-step method, again.
Judge Wood in her malice and aforethought wrote an opinion that said something like “Haha! Look at the idiots on the Supreme Court. They said no more two-step processes, and then created a two-step process”
The Supreme Court did not create a two-step process in Heller, nor did they create one in Bruen.
They created a question and a single step.
While I know that many idiot liberals can’t answer simple questions anymore, “What is a woman?”
You can see this in any testimony from a liberal in congress. Listening to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona refuse to answer Representative Bob Good is a perfect example:
The Keep It Simple, Stupid (K.I.S.S.) principle is what should be applied to the question part of Bruen
Does the individual’s conduct implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment?
This is a question, it is not a step. It does not require an expert. It does not require any significant analysis.
I have made the joke observation in the past, “If Brady, Giffords or Everytown is interested in the case, it implicates the Second Amendment.”
That is too simple of a test for our courts. On the other hand, I would love it if the mere fact that an anti-gun group spoke up was enough to clarify that the Second Amendment was implicated.
There are three questions that need to be answered in the affirmative to implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment.
- Is it an arm?
- Is the individual a member of The People?
- Does the individual wish to keep or bear arms?
That is it. If you answer yes to all three, the question is answered. Any honest Judge can answer these three questions.
Once the plain text of the Second Amendment is implicated, the burden shifts to the state, which must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation
—New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. V. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111 (U.S. 2022)
When answering the question, it is not “is this individual virtuous?” It is, “is this person part of The People?”. It is not about law-abiding, nor is it about how dangerous an arm is. It is not about how common the arm is, nor is it when the arm was invented.
To be very, very, blunt, if somebody wished to carry a nuclear weapon, that is conduct that the Second Amendment’s plain text covers.
The burden then shifts to the government to demonstrate that their infringement is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
It is unlikely that the courts would overturn a ban on The People keeping and bearing nuclear weapons. They would argue that nuclear weapons are particularly dangerous and that they are not in common use.
So when you hear some moron arguing about the meaning of the plain text, just call them out as stupid, ignorant, and dishonestly malicious.
“Miller had bad facts. Miller was a bad man who did bad things. The law-abiding citizen would want him imprisoned.”
.
I suppose if there is a silver lining about the Biden Administration going hard-core after peaceable citizens and honest FFLs over paperwork/clerical errors, this might be it. When the BATFE persecutes good people who are trying to make an honest living — especially for mistakes the BATFE itself is lousy about, but faces zero consequences for — the average law-abiding citizen does NOT want the good people imprisoned, fined, or put out of business.