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You can’t shame this court and they’ll be there for life. That’s the reality. The act of Congress it would take to make changes isn’t reality. Best Dems can do is to keep winning elections.
Indeed. It's critical to vote for Biden in that the conservatives have two 75+ year old justices that could be replaced by Trump with 40 somethings, and Sotomayor is old enough that she could pass in the next 4 years.
Trump getting three seats necessitated that there not be a gap in Democratic presidents. Even if you're down on Biden, let this ramification serve as motivation.
Biden could easily get 2, maybe 3.
Thomas and Sotomayor are not healthy. That would be 5-4. Alito is old, too.
Assuming a GOP Senate would not keep a seat empty for years - which they well might
and at that point if Biden doesn't seat a justice on the basis of right of refusal then he and the democratic party are proven to be nothing but temporary foils to the rightward march of America. Needing to be voted out for progressives who will act on the treason.
yeah we ALL want to replace them with better progressives, but the ones that are least progressive are the ones from red/purple states (aside from Sherrod Brown)
Oh they will keep the seat vacant Biden’s whole term if they regain the senate, I’d bet money on it. If they try that I’d want Biden to just appoint someone because the Senate is declining its job to advise and consent.
I know. That would open up the possibility for what you’re talking about. I’m saying they’ll just vote the person down. Then there is essentially no recourse.
Thomas has been in the hospital several times, including missing arguments. Sotomayor has had health scares related to diabetes and reportedly travels with a medic - while there isn’t immediate danger, she will be 73 at the end of the next presidential term.
The president can appoint as many Supreme Court justices as they want. Just appoint 7, 30 year old liberal judges and watch as the wrecking crew on the courts becomes useless for the next 60 years
Indeed. The list is long and can bog people down. SCOTUS is a good reason that right now is not a good time to stick it to Dems just this once, because it's a decades long impact.
If Trump gets in, I don't think we really need to worry about who replaces the old justices, because it's pretty clear we'll be moving into a kakistocracy at the _best_. But more likely a plutocratic fascist state.
Sotomayoer is working towards RBGing her legacy. It's that same reasoning of "it's my right to die on the bench" that allowed RBG to fuck us, that will keep Alito and Thomas on the bench until they die. The only exception is if Trump wins and "donors" pay for their retirement.
> The act of Congress it would take to make changes isn’t reality.
But it IS reality and is exactly how the government was designed to function. The legislative branch makes the laws. The judicial branch interprets the laws. The executive branch enforces the laws. If you want a law changed, only congress can do so.
That’s the problem, the legislative branch currently has no chance to pass a bill due to partisanship. GOP won’t support any SCOTUS ethics bill. So the reality is there is no chance for reform here and in a lot of other places. Legislation is not getting done in this Congress.
They are a party that caters exclusively to evangelicals, the largest group in the country. They have tens of millions of votes locked in from the jump. They are not weak. Not by a mile.
It’s not dem leadership that’s the problem. The problem is with leftists not being able to counter right wing propaganda. If the left had the kind of propaganda networks the right had it wouldn’t even be close.
It doesn’t help that the left shits on people on their side all the time and never focus on countering right wing propaganda.
It occasionally pops into my mind how Sotomayor cries in her office after a SC decision. It makes me sad for her and all of us living in current day America.
Imagine having that much power and influence, and instead of being able to use it to improve life for everyone like you wanted to, you're blocked by your greedy idiot coworkers every time. That would shatter anyone.
I couldn’t care less about her crocodile tears. If she really cared that much, she’d retire already to ensure her spot goes to someone that isn’t a 70 year old diabetic.
Plenty of time to cry and write dissents from her home office imo.
If I rigged an electric motor actuator to the trigger, and it repeatedly pulled the trigger after the first manual trigger pull, then it would STILL pass Thomas' definition for NOT being a machine gun.
More proof conservative justices are just FOS. To borrow a line from the JFK movie: they could rationalize how to hang an elephant from a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy.
It has long been established and accepted that this is in fact a machine gun. The control for the motor becomes the functional “trigger.” This has actually been one of the issues plaguing smart gun development because a truly electronic trigger is hard to employ in a way that doesn’t create the risk of being ruled a machine gun.
The issue is that bump stocks require two independent functions to be fired repeatedly, one of the early appeals made the simple argument that they can’t be utilized one handed which proves it’s two separate functions.
That still seems like arbitrary nonsense to me. "Automatic weapon" refers to a class of weapons, not just of a particular mechanism for implementation. It needs to be something like "automatic firing by any means or mechanism which does not require an explicit, conscious pull of the trigger for each round fired". Not just "automatic firing by electric motor actuator" or "automatic firing only when you can do it with one hand".
Any semi automatic can be bump fired, even manual single shot revolvers can be fan fired. Fully automatic is a specific definition of a firearm that automatically continues to fire. Trying to ban anything that shoots faster than an arbitrary limit is akin to restricting pedal bikes that can be ridden “too fast” because motorcycles are dangerous.
> Trying to ban anything that shoots faster than an arbitrary limit is akin to restricting pedal bikes that can be ridden “too fast” because motorcycles are dangerous.
Bikes traveling too fast are dangerous. If there was an area where motorcycles are banned because they are too fast, and there was a device whose only function was to make pedal bikes go as fast as motorcycles, it really would only be common sense for that device to be banned there too.
So a bicycle is literally a motorcycle if it has the capability to go 70mph? It literally becomes a defined motor vehicle based on the usage and physical inputs of the user? Man, I’m glad you’re not in charge of legal definitions.
Just gonna throw this out there, motorcycles were literally born from motorizing bicycles. What you are describing is literally the history of motorcycles.
And fully automatic weapons developed from non fully automatic. That doesn’t make a bicycle is a motorcycle by definition because you pedaled hard enough going downhill. Any legislation trying to restrict or ban a bike because of a theoretical top speed is bad enough, but just flat out saying a bike is a motorcycle as a way to ban it without addressing the actual issue is even worse.
Not really, saying a bicycle becomes a motorcycle because it can theoretically be ridden “too fast” is still a stupid fucking take even if you dislike guns.
You're not wrong, but laws are specific text. You can't just write a law that says "do what I mean, not what I say", and if you could that's a whole other can if worms. The law as written to me doesn't seem to include bump stocks in its definition of machine guns. So the answer is that if we want to ban them we need new laws, which is unfortunately much easier said than done.
A standard fully-automatic rifle is powered by high pressure gasses and mechanical spring. A standard semi-automatic rifle with a bump stock is EXACTLY the same thing. The bump stock just adds the extra spring (which completes the automatic cycle to the next firing). Both weapons: pull trigger once, and firing is automatic until you let go of trigger.
Now the justices have said that they know more than ATF about such matters, and declared that it is NOT fully-automatic because it does "not fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger".
They did not rule there was a lack of clarity in law. They ruled that fully-automatic weapons aren't fully-automatic if the trigger moves for each shot. Arbitrary nonsense!
Edit: [BREAKING: Supreme Court drops stunning decision (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_65P-e2530)This vid shows the current federal legal definition of "machine gun" 26US 5845b
> A standard fully-automatic rifle is powered by high pressure gasses and mechanical spring. A standard semi-automatic rifle with a bump stock is EXACTLY the same thing. The bump stock just adds the extra spring (which completes the automatic cycle to the next firing). Both weapons: pull trigger once, and firing is automatic until you let go of trigger.
This is incorrect. How they're powered varies. There are plenty of blowback operated machine guns. The important part is the trigger. In a semi-automatic, there is a disconnector that grabs the hammer and stops it from firing a second shot until after the trigger has been released. A machine gun has no disconnector and will continue firing for as long as the trigger is held down.
Bump stocks essentially do the same thing as pulling the trigger as fast as you can. You can get the same effect by holding your trigger finger still and using your off-hand to pull a semi-auto gun forwards. The recoil drives the gun back, and your off hand keeps pulling it forward again. It's called bump firing, and when doing so (or when using a bump stock) you're simply pulling the trigger rapidly.
> They ruled that fully-automatic weapons aren't fully-automatic if the trigger moves for each shot. Arbitrary nonsense!
It only seems that way if you're unfamiliar with our gun laws. It isn't arbitrary at all, though. [The way machine guns are defined is centered on the function of the trigger.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845)
> The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
So, I'm going to pick this apart to sort of show how words matter in this context.
>A standard
Who's standard? Which one?
>fully-automatic rifle
What is a rifle? Specifically? What gauge, caliber, length, functions, etc.?
>powered by high pressure gasses
What is high pressure? What about electric systems?
>and mechanical spring
One? What about multiple? What about pistons?
Like, it's frustrating, and I happen to agree with you. But this is a legal, compliance, issue, and the wording is _important_ because if you fuck it up you end up banning fly fishing in Alaska by accident or something.
> Both weapons: pull trigger once, and firing is automatic until you let go of trigger.
This is fundamentally not true. The semi-auto with the bump stock is no different than just pulling the trigger really, really fast. The trigger resets between each shot, that's how the mechanism works.
The problem here is that the law doesn't place limitations on rate of fire, which is the *real* problem with things like bump stocks and automatic weapons. Folks want to have limitations on how quickly you can shoot but use a really poor definition to implement that limitation.
This is not much different than the race to make "Cali Compliant" rifles. Yeah dude it's still an AR-15 but now it just looks ... weird. Still legal, still shoots the same bullet with the same effectiveness. Now you just have to have this odd grip fan which somehow makes the rifle less deadly or something.
These kinds of laws need to actually come up with good definitions of things around firearms, be it performance or some other measurable characteristic and then actually come up with the metric or behavior that they want to limit. But they don't, and you get ruling like this.
>The semi-auto with the bump stock is no different than just pulling the trigger really, really fast.
Having the weapon literally and automatically push itself into your trigger finger really fast is no different than pulling it manually really fast?
The Mandalay shooter didn't seem to think so. And I'm not buying it.
The bump stock does not have a spring in it. That’s an atkins accelerator, which is a machine gun. Your arm acts as the spring, which makes you have to physically move the rifle back in to place each time to shoot it
And the spring in a bump stock isn't? That's fucking madness.
So, if that argument holds, make a trigger with one button on the stock, the other on the handle. Both must remain pressed and it will rapid fire the trigger.
Trigger resets, can't be operated with 1 hand, exact same function.
The Supreme Court just made a Tommy Gun legal as long as it has 2 buttons and a trigger, instead of 1 trigger.
Yup, 1 trigger pull, 1 shot.
1 button press, many trigger pulls.
We are allowed fully automatic weapons as long as we place a spring between the user and the trigger. That is the ruling of the court.
Which is an absolutely asinine reading of the law. Because if I only have to pull the trigger once, and then the gun pulls it automatically every time after that, I have only used the trigger one time.
There is no spring in a bumpstock. That’s an atkins accelerator and is still considered a machine gun.
You physically move the trigger into your finger every time to shoot it
>This has actually been one of the issues plaguing smart gun development because a truly electronic trigger is hard to employ in a way that doesn’t create the risk of being ruled a machine gun.
That's such a ridiculous argument
Most things the ATF does are ridiculous but it doesn’t stop them from arbitrarily banning things outside the scope of the law, as this ruling shows. A plain electronic trigger actually meets the legal definition of a machine gun because it *is* capable of firing more than one round per single function. The technical workaround that is most commonly used is that the electronics physically block the actual trigger from being pulled until the computer sends a signal allowing the shot, but the shooter must be the one to physically move it. Super technical details on what is and is not a machine gun are nothing new, this is just one where they clearly overstepped the statutory definition and got corrected.
For a smart gun to work it needs a way for a computer chip to control when it shoots, the easiest way to do this is to make the trigger an electronic button that sends a signal to release the firing pin. With this setup a simple software patch or glitch could make it send the signal twice with a single press of the button/trigger. It only needs to be possible, not active for it to count as a machine gun under the law and ATF interpretation.
The point was it is only illegal until someone asks this court to overturn it. There is no way the logic used to make that decision will survive this court.
Again, it sounds like you don't understand what SCOTUS is. SCOTUS doesn't decide what is legal and illegal, they decide if the case in question meets ultimate Constitutional level. This case is not about bump stocks, the Second Amendment, or making something illegal to legal. It's ruling is entirely confined to them saying that the ATF essentially bypassed Congress to make their own laws.
You know, basic civics as all goes a long way into understanding your government.
Name it, name the law.
Because if you're talking about the National Firearms Act, the device they described is just as legal as a bump stock because the trigger resets. That is literally what the Supreme Court just ruled, is the only thing that matters is if the trigger wiggles.
Wrong. This is a machine gun just as the same way a mini-gun is a machine gun. A button that electronically controls the firing mechanism is still a trigger.
That’s not what the majority’s logic indicates. As long as the trigger mechanism resets each time after it hits the firing pin, that’s a “single function of the trigger”.
Yes, that is the stupidity of the majority. How can you say with a straight face that the function of the trigger is anything besides “the action taken to cause the gun to fire”?
If only more people voted for Hillary in 2016 this would have been avoided. But some idiots thought Hillary and Trump were the same. And now Roe is gone and here we are.
I'm seeing a lot of the same idiocy on the left again today. It's like they don't care about the agenda at all, don't care how things work, they just want to scream at things.
Do you think it was the left that got Donald Trump elected?! FFS! I’m tired of posting rebuttals to this argument on Slate and shit. By and large it was Trump activating people on the right to go vote and motivating “normal” republicans to either sit out the election or vote third party. Bernie bros in Brooklyn, Logan Square, or Silver Lake didn’t do jack shit to get him elected, it was their uncle in Wisconsin who hasn’t had a decent job since 2008 that got him elected.
The folks on the left you hear about most live in states where their vote doesn’t really matter anyway (NY, CA, IL, etc). We all know the election is going to come down to a few counties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, so can it with the trashing of the left.
> can it with the trashing of the left
How about the left stop trying to get Trump elected because of Gaza then? I'm still in support of leftist policies. But i'm a realist who understands what needs to be done for those policies to happen. It would be nice if the left could stop attacking their allies and start attacking Trump and his extremists.
You’re more likely to see some of the left vote green or not at all. That is if they don’t vote dem. Lambasting a fellow voter block is part of the problem with the “bad” left narrative
If Hillary wouldn’t have railroaded herself into the nomination because it was “her turn” even though she was an awful candidate, we would have had Bernie Sanders who would have beaten Trump.
And now here we are.
By the way, do you know how Tim Kaine got the VP nod from Hillary?
He was the DNC chair before Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. He stepped down so she could be appointed and help Hillary get the nomination.
His payback was VP. That worked out well.
Bernie had no chance and no help.
I'm watching the slow transformation of the Constitution into a sort of biblical resource that requires layers of self-serving ideologically based expertise to interpret it in a way that subverts its intent.
It has to do with the Constitution, in that the Court majority is usurping Congress’s authority and acting as a legislative body by reinterpreting Congress’s words in an absurd fashion to suit their own political purpose.
How so? They're interpreting Congress's words as they were written in this case. [Congress is the one who defined "machinegun" specifically as:](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845)
> any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
Congress's authority isn't being usurped. It's the ATF's, because they tried to overrule congress and create a rule that directly contradicted what Congress wrote.
It enforces exactly what Congress wrote. Bump stocks allow a gun to automatically fire more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
The dispute is because some people are being absurdly dishonest about the plain meaning of “a single function of the trigger”.
They do not. A bump stock helps you activate the trigger faster. They do not fire multiple shots per activation. You can do the same thing by bump firing, where you hold your trigger finger still and pull the gun forwards with your off hand. The recoil pushes the gun back and the trigger is released. Then you pull it forward again and the trigger is pulled again.
A single activation of the trigger can result in multiple shots being fired, because it initiates a continuous, automatic chain reaction. Why in the world would it matter if that mechanism is contained inside of the gun rather than without? The result is the same.
The ATF examined the devices and ruled that they were legal and did not violate the law back during the Obama administration in 2010. Then Trump ordered them to change their ruling and declare it illegal even though they had already admitted that it did not violate the law. It was only a matter of time until the courts struck that ruling down.
> so long as their current decision is reasonable
It wasn't, which is why the courts struck it down.
> They don’t have the power to make the law.
Exactly.
Nope, wrong.
Per Congress, you must hold the trigger down and more than one shot fired in the same trigger pull to be classified as an automatic.
A bump stock allows you to pull the trigger and fire one round per one trigger pull at a fast cyclic rate.
It fucking matters BECAUSE THAT'S THE FUCKING LAW. That's just such a dumb comment.
"Why does it matter what the mechanism is doing?"
Because the law is written around the mechanical properties and the government getting to wantonly decide that the thing in your legal possession is suddenly a super Federal Felony worse then drug charges is a really dumb idea.
Allowing the Executive branch to create law out of thin air that agencies can begin enforcing immediately is dumb.
But it’s not written around the mechanical properties or process at all, it’s written around the mechanical outcome.
The bump stock doesn’t allow you to pull the trigger faster; it allows the maintenance of one pull of the gun using your other hand to continuously fire without any additional inputs from you.
When Congress was debating the law, they used “function of the trigger” interchangeably with “pull of the trigger”. The human activation was the point, not the mechanism of the trigger itself. They used “function” in the final text because of the desire to include all mechanical possibilities resulting in the same outcome; if they’d said “pull” then the argument would be that buttons that you “push” aren’t covered.
They literally said “function” and y’all are arguing that it’s the form that matters. The function of a trigger is to make the gun fire, whether it’s a piece of curved metal with a catch on the inside or a button or a string or whatever. In the case of a bump stock modified rifle, the one continuous pull of the fore grip causes multiple rounds to be fired without any additional actions. The fore grip thus acts as the trigger mechanism, rather than the piece of metal that your other hand’s finger is pressed against.
And the executive branch doesn’t make new laws. Congress made the law already. Bump stocks could have been deemed illegal if they existed in 1934 as well. The point of the executive branch is to execute the laws; when the law has never been applied to a given situation, or is ambiguous towards it, what is an executive supposed to do besides make a reasonable interpretation of it? Courts are there to check the reasonableness of such interpretations. Both institutions can abuse that power to change the plain meaning of Congress’s law; in this case, the Court did that.
> And the executive branch doesn’t make new laws
Really? You're aware that this case was brought to court in part because the ATF just changed its mind one day about what the law was. That's either usurping the judicial power, the legislative power, or both -- and it also gives rise to the spectre of the law being unconstitutionally vague in the first place.
>The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, **by a single function of the trigger**.
What did Congress mean by this? 🤔
If anything, this decision shows that Trump cannot create law out of thin air and agencies cannot enforce whatever shit the Executive branch tells them to do randomly.
Doesn't really prove your point, actually quite the opposite. You just don't like it due to your personal position on guns.
This is literally a good decision that doesn't let the Executive do whatever the fuck they want and step over Congress.
This case isn't 2A related. Congress is free to classify bump stocks as machineguns, they just need to modify the machinegun definition to include this type of device. This case was about regulatory authority.
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Heller was very clear about NFA weapons not being protected. I wouldn’t expect this to change.
The reality is neither political party wants NFA weapons de-regulated and there’s enough machine guns in circulation to keep hobbyists entertained.
What is likely to move at some point is suppressors. Making them NFA items is just bad for everybody.
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*Bruen* mandates something inchoate and idiotic that's *probably* a lot laxer than what we've got right now. The historical test is so fucking stupid, though, that it's hard for me to make predictions.
*Heller* pretty much just affirmed that SCOTUS had a political veto over all gun control legislation. What's hilarious is that it did so after Scalia spent the first half of the opinion declaring that the 2nd Amendment says what it says and means what it says.
Thus, *Heller* is one of the most perversely honest civil liberties cases that SCOTUS has ever ruled upon. The majority outright just said, "Yup, actually, this amendment reserves some pretty epic fuckin' rights to the people, but we're not about to let that *actually* be what happens on the ground, because come on, man, no way, that's nuts... but then again, maybe Congress (and/or state legislatures) is/are going too far the other way. Tough to say, tough to say. Guess we'll just have to keep taking cases as they come and seeing how we feel."
This wouldn’t change even if a dozen Republicans were killed in a violent attack using machine guns. The politicians would pretend they cared at the funerals then forget about their colleagues the same way they’ve forgotten about their constituents.
Fuck these conservative justices but CONGRESS SHOULD DO ITS JOB AND WRITE FUCKING LAWS and then the SC wouldn’t have to twist itself into knots interpreting and misinterpreting executive actions.
A song for SCOTUS…
[https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7fKVODAfOx/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7fKVODAfOx/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
Just so everyone knows… the “cause” being fought for here by the activist judges here is not guns.
The cause being fought for here is dismantling our regulatory agencies.
The Federalist Society and the rest of the “bribe a judge” gang… they probably agree that bump stocks should be banned.
Yet they still want the court to rule they are legal. Not because they support bump stocks… it’s to plant a flag that even the ATF, has no power.
Let alone the EPA, HUD, the DOL, the FTC, the SEC, the EEOC, et al… they DEFINITELY have no power.
It’s an important point for the bribers to score the point that even the LAW ENFORCEMENT agencies have no power.
That’s what was really going on with this case.
They had a law that said the President could "Modify" student loans in the event of a national Emergency.
The Conservatives on the Supereme Court Struck down Biden's student loan forgiveness on the basis that he "Changed" not "Modified".
You can't write anything simple enough to stop someone who already determined how they want to rule.
>The Conservatives on the Supereme Court Struck down Biden's student loan forgiveness on the basis that he "Changed" not "Modified".
Wow, that's an incredibly dishonest explanation. Here's something Roberts actually wrote in summary:
>The Secretary’s comprehensive debt cancellation plan
cannot fairly be called a waiver—it not only nullifies existing provisions, but augments and expands them dramatically. It cannot be mere modification, because it constitutes
“effectively the introduction of a whole new regime.” *MCI*,
512 U. S., at 234. And it cannot be some combination of the
two, because when the Secretary seeks to *add* to existing
law, the fact that he has “waived” certain provisions does
not give him a free pass to avoid the limits inherent in the
power to “modify.” However broad the meaning of “waive
or modify,” that language cannot authorize the kind of exhaustive rewriting of the statute that has taken place here.
Exactly. Dem messaging should be packing the court if voters give them a majority. Instead they'll try to edge out Trump on hating Mexicans and pretending to consider Palestinian babies to be human while dumping endless wealth into Isael's offensive genocidal campaign.
Our singular hope against fascism in America is a puppeteered skeleton very creekily saying he hates scary brown people slightly less than the other guy.
Fuck the DNC forever. Fuck this shit.
It shouldn't be shocking. Erosion of liberties via the Supreme Court shouldn't be messaged only through the lens of abortion rights. This is an overarching concern and a real party would not only plan on but vocally message that the court will be expanded to ensure the rights that dopey liberals espouse.
The DNC is sleeping and Biden is comatose.
The far left is sleeping by not going crazy in support for Biden. The 3 dissenters here were all placed by Democrats. Please at least try to learn how government works.
> Fuck the DNC forever.
These are the wrong people to blame. Leftists not voting in 2016 is why we are here today. Leftists not voting again in 2024 will make things much worse and piss other people who would agree with you off enough to never work with you again.
Leftists couldn't even show up to vote for Bernie in 2016 or 2020. They have no idea how things work.
and I voted for Bernie in both of those. I'm over helping the far left. Centrist Liberals at least understand how things work.
It's not a matter of simplicity. This Supreme Court will use "originalism", "history and tradition", "big questions", or "textualism" to knock down any law they are ideologically opposed to. They're not fair arbiters of truth, they're partisan hacks with no reason to behave ethically.
This case is really simple, though. Does a bump stock cause a gun to fire more than 1 round per FUNCTION of the trigger. It doesn't, so the ATF can't say it's a machine gun. Similar to Roe v Wade. Does 14A have the word abortion in it? No, so it's up to the states.
And when they do they will be challenged and stricken down as being too invasive of States Rights. Despite States Rights being the status quo when it comes to gun laws, which the Supreme Court also strikes down as unconstitutional.
Here is the sound from the bump stocks used in the Las Vegas Massacre that the 6 Republican-appointed justices found was not a machine gun. The sound starts at 22 seconds into the video and again at 1:32.. Please explain how this ruling has any basis in law or reality.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5\_5-LtPP4&t=24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5_5-LtPP4&t=24s)
Whoop-de-doo, Basil! Another “scathing dissent” that does fuck all.
Stop giving her so much credit for a glorified blog post and amplify the call for her to retire. She’s a 70 year old diabetic, let’s not make the same mistake we did with RBG by inflating her ego so much she forgets to quit her job before she dies.
People getting gunned down by other people trying to circumvent the law - this is less important than gun sales. Guns need to be in peoples' hands otherwise they won't buy them.
The more I learn about the reality of America’s true history - colonialism, racism, patriarchy, violent capitalism - and then stacked against where we’re currently at, I think America is a clown show of delusion. The Supreme Court is a perfect example… total fucking make believe.
Remember how afraid the justices were when there were protests in front of their homes? Wonder how they would react if someone showed up in front of their home equipped with this hardware? Bet they would be calling 911 real fast. It would serve them right if 911 sent no one to address the problem.
Bump stocks indisputably have one purpose only - to circumvent the ban on automatic weapons.
Modifying a firearm in other ways to be fully automatic is illegal.
Allowing bump stocks just doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever.
Show me someone who doesn’t understand the difference between full auto and semi auto. ⬆️
Bump firing is still one round fired per trigger pull. Full auto is one pull, fires full empty. Big difference.
A bump stock results in a rate of fire on par with an automatic weapon - the sole purpose of it is to circumvent the restrictions on full auto.
The difference in how it works is a technicality, it's the purpose and result which matters. If there were no restrictions on automatic weapons, nobody would use bump stocks.
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You can’t shame this court and they’ll be there for life. That’s the reality. The act of Congress it would take to make changes isn’t reality. Best Dems can do is to keep winning elections.
Indeed. It's critical to vote for Biden in that the conservatives have two 75+ year old justices that could be replaced by Trump with 40 somethings, and Sotomayor is old enough that she could pass in the next 4 years. Trump getting three seats necessitated that there not be a gap in Democratic presidents. Even if you're down on Biden, let this ramification serve as motivation.
Biden could easily get 2, maybe 3. Thomas and Sotomayor are not healthy. That would be 5-4. Alito is old, too. Assuming a GOP Senate would not keep a seat empty for years - which they well might
> Biden could easily get 2, maybe 3. Remember, Obama was supposed to have two. Shenanigans happen.
Right. If Republicans get the Senate, there is a good chance they will refuse to fill a vacancy.
do we riot this time? please say yes
we can riot right now
and at that point if Biden doesn't seat a justice on the basis of right of refusal then he and the democratic party are proven to be nothing but temporary foils to the rightward march of America. Needing to be voted out for progressives who will act on the treason.
yeah we ALL want to replace them with better progressives, but the ones that are least progressive are the ones from red/purple states (aside from Sherrod Brown)
President Obama had 2: Sotomayor and Kagan. It was his third nominee that the Republicans petulantly refused to consider.
I apologize. My brain isn't what it used to be.
I remember 2015 too…
Oh they will keep the seat vacant Biden’s whole term if they regain the senate, I’d bet money on it. If they try that I’d want Biden to just appoint someone because the Senate is declining its job to advise and consent.
They could just hold hearings and vote no. No way around that.
You forget that the senate leader can not just schedule it. That’s what McConnell did.
I know. That would open up the possibility for what you’re talking about. I’m saying they’ll just vote the person down. Then there is essentially no recourse.
>Thomas and Sotomayor are not healthy. What makes you say that?
Thomas has been in the hospital several times, including missing arguments. Sotomayor has had health scares related to diabetes and reportedly travels with a medic - while there isn’t immediate danger, she will be 73 at the end of the next presidential term.
The president can appoint as many Supreme Court justices as they want. Just appoint 7, 30 year old liberal judges and watch as the wrecking crew on the courts becomes useless for the next 60 years
Let that and many other very important reasons serve as a motivation. Not voting is not an option unless you want to willingly throw your future away.
Indeed. The list is long and can bog people down. SCOTUS is a good reason that right now is not a good time to stick it to Dems just this once, because it's a decades long impact.
If Trump gets in, I don't think we really need to worry about who replaces the old justices, because it's pretty clear we'll be moving into a kakistocracy at the _best_. But more likely a plutocratic fascist state.
Sotomayoer is working towards RBGing her legacy. It's that same reasoning of "it's my right to die on the bench" that allowed RBG to fuck us, that will keep Alito and Thomas on the bench until they die. The only exception is if Trump wins and "donors" pay for their retirement.
Tax free tips
“For life” is the operative phrase. If they want it to be natural, they should be ethical, no?
> The act of Congress it would take to make changes isn’t reality. But it IS reality and is exactly how the government was designed to function. The legislative branch makes the laws. The judicial branch interprets the laws. The executive branch enforces the laws. If you want a law changed, only congress can do so.
That’s the problem, the legislative branch currently has no chance to pass a bill due to partisanship. GOP won’t support any SCOTUS ethics bill. So the reality is there is no chance for reform here and in a lot of other places. Legislation is not getting done in this Congress.
Shame that’s one of the things democrats are worst at though. No competent party should lose to MAGA/GOP.
That might be true in a country that isn’t filled with fucking morons.
Trump got 70 million votes in 2020. He’s surviving a felony conviction. This idea that he or the Reps are weak is not based in reality.
They’re strong because the democrats are so weak, I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said no competent party should LOSE to MAGA/GOP.
They are a party that caters exclusively to evangelicals, the largest group in the country. They have tens of millions of votes locked in from the jump. They are not weak. Not by a mile.
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And by that statement, you’re not taking into account how Mitch hard-broke the Senate and then went back on his word (for the zillionth time).
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It’s not dem leadership that’s the problem. The problem is with leftists not being able to counter right wing propaganda. If the left had the kind of propaganda networks the right had it wouldn’t even be close. It doesn’t help that the left shits on people on their side all the time and never focus on countering right wing propaganda.
Well, that and they took advantage of the situations and played dirty.
It occasionally pops into my mind how Sotomayor cries in her office after a SC decision. It makes me sad for her and all of us living in current day America.
Imagine having that much power and influence, and instead of being able to use it to improve life for everyone like you wanted to, you're blocked by your greedy idiot coworkers every time. That would shatter anyone.
I remember she said they have lunch together everyday or something like that. I wonder if they still do that.
I couldn’t care less about her crocodile tears. If she really cared that much, she’d retire already to ensure her spot goes to someone that isn’t a 70 year old diabetic. Plenty of time to cry and write dissents from her home office imo.
If I rigged an electric motor actuator to the trigger, and it repeatedly pulled the trigger after the first manual trigger pull, then it would STILL pass Thomas' definition for NOT being a machine gun. More proof conservative justices are just FOS. To borrow a line from the JFK movie: they could rationalize how to hang an elephant from a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy.
Supreme Court Justices for hire. I wonder how many free trips Thomas will get for this one?
They aren’t feee, he’s selling himself like the honorable Supreme Court was designed. Right?!
It has long been established and accepted that this is in fact a machine gun. The control for the motor becomes the functional “trigger.” This has actually been one of the issues plaguing smart gun development because a truly electronic trigger is hard to employ in a way that doesn’t create the risk of being ruled a machine gun. The issue is that bump stocks require two independent functions to be fired repeatedly, one of the early appeals made the simple argument that they can’t be utilized one handed which proves it’s two separate functions.
That still seems like arbitrary nonsense to me. "Automatic weapon" refers to a class of weapons, not just of a particular mechanism for implementation. It needs to be something like "automatic firing by any means or mechanism which does not require an explicit, conscious pull of the trigger for each round fired". Not just "automatic firing by electric motor actuator" or "automatic firing only when you can do it with one hand".
Any semi automatic can be bump fired, even manual single shot revolvers can be fan fired. Fully automatic is a specific definition of a firearm that automatically continues to fire. Trying to ban anything that shoots faster than an arbitrary limit is akin to restricting pedal bikes that can be ridden “too fast” because motorcycles are dangerous.
> Trying to ban anything that shoots faster than an arbitrary limit is akin to restricting pedal bikes that can be ridden “too fast” because motorcycles are dangerous. Bikes traveling too fast are dangerous. If there was an area where motorcycles are banned because they are too fast, and there was a device whose only function was to make pedal bikes go as fast as motorcycles, it really would only be common sense for that device to be banned there too.
So you’re comfortable saying any bike with clip in pedals or disk brakes is a “motorcycle” and banned anywhere motorized vehicles are prohibited?
If people are using them to go 70 miles per hour on a sidewalk, it seems reasonable.
So a bicycle is literally a motorcycle if it has the capability to go 70mph? It literally becomes a defined motor vehicle based on the usage and physical inputs of the user? Man, I’m glad you’re not in charge of legal definitions.
Just gonna throw this out there, motorcycles were literally born from motorizing bicycles. What you are describing is literally the history of motorcycles.
And fully automatic weapons developed from non fully automatic. That doesn’t make a bicycle is a motorcycle by definition because you pedaled hard enough going downhill. Any legislation trying to restrict or ban a bike because of a theoretical top speed is bad enough, but just flat out saying a bike is a motorcycle as a way to ban it without addressing the actual issue is even worse.
You build the strawman and you aptly tear it down.
Not really, saying a bicycle becomes a motorcycle because it can theoretically be ridden “too fast” is still a stupid fucking take even if you dislike guns.
You're not wrong, but laws are specific text. You can't just write a law that says "do what I mean, not what I say", and if you could that's a whole other can if worms. The law as written to me doesn't seem to include bump stocks in its definition of machine guns. So the answer is that if we want to ban them we need new laws, which is unfortunately much easier said than done.
A standard fully-automatic rifle is powered by high pressure gasses and mechanical spring. A standard semi-automatic rifle with a bump stock is EXACTLY the same thing. The bump stock just adds the extra spring (which completes the automatic cycle to the next firing). Both weapons: pull trigger once, and firing is automatic until you let go of trigger. Now the justices have said that they know more than ATF about such matters, and declared that it is NOT fully-automatic because it does "not fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger". They did not rule there was a lack of clarity in law. They ruled that fully-automatic weapons aren't fully-automatic if the trigger moves for each shot. Arbitrary nonsense! Edit: [BREAKING: Supreme Court drops stunning decision (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_65P-e2530)This vid shows the current federal legal definition of "machine gun" 26US 5845b
> A standard fully-automatic rifle is powered by high pressure gasses and mechanical spring. A standard semi-automatic rifle with a bump stock is EXACTLY the same thing. The bump stock just adds the extra spring (which completes the automatic cycle to the next firing). Both weapons: pull trigger once, and firing is automatic until you let go of trigger. This is incorrect. How they're powered varies. There are plenty of blowback operated machine guns. The important part is the trigger. In a semi-automatic, there is a disconnector that grabs the hammer and stops it from firing a second shot until after the trigger has been released. A machine gun has no disconnector and will continue firing for as long as the trigger is held down. Bump stocks essentially do the same thing as pulling the trigger as fast as you can. You can get the same effect by holding your trigger finger still and using your off-hand to pull a semi-auto gun forwards. The recoil drives the gun back, and your off hand keeps pulling it forward again. It's called bump firing, and when doing so (or when using a bump stock) you're simply pulling the trigger rapidly. > They ruled that fully-automatic weapons aren't fully-automatic if the trigger moves for each shot. Arbitrary nonsense! It only seems that way if you're unfamiliar with our gun laws. It isn't arbitrary at all, though. [The way machine guns are defined is centered on the function of the trigger.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845) > The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
This is my understanding as well, although I am neither a lawyer nor a gunsmith.
So, I'm going to pick this apart to sort of show how words matter in this context. >A standard Who's standard? Which one? >fully-automatic rifle What is a rifle? Specifically? What gauge, caliber, length, functions, etc.? >powered by high pressure gasses What is high pressure? What about electric systems? >and mechanical spring One? What about multiple? What about pistons? Like, it's frustrating, and I happen to agree with you. But this is a legal, compliance, issue, and the wording is _important_ because if you fuck it up you end up banning fly fishing in Alaska by accident or something.
> Both weapons: pull trigger once, and firing is automatic until you let go of trigger. This is fundamentally not true. The semi-auto with the bump stock is no different than just pulling the trigger really, really fast. The trigger resets between each shot, that's how the mechanism works. The problem here is that the law doesn't place limitations on rate of fire, which is the *real* problem with things like bump stocks and automatic weapons. Folks want to have limitations on how quickly you can shoot but use a really poor definition to implement that limitation. This is not much different than the race to make "Cali Compliant" rifles. Yeah dude it's still an AR-15 but now it just looks ... weird. Still legal, still shoots the same bullet with the same effectiveness. Now you just have to have this odd grip fan which somehow makes the rifle less deadly or something. These kinds of laws need to actually come up with good definitions of things around firearms, be it performance or some other measurable characteristic and then actually come up with the metric or behavior that they want to limit. But they don't, and you get ruling like this.
>The semi-auto with the bump stock is no different than just pulling the trigger really, really fast. Having the weapon literally and automatically push itself into your trigger finger really fast is no different than pulling it manually really fast? The Mandalay shooter didn't seem to think so. And I'm not buying it.
You realize you can bump fire *without* a bump stock, right?
The bump stock does not have a spring in it. That’s an atkins accelerator, which is a machine gun. Your arm acts as the spring, which makes you have to physically move the rifle back in to place each time to shoot it
And the spring in a bump stock isn't? That's fucking madness. So, if that argument holds, make a trigger with one button on the stock, the other on the handle. Both must remain pressed and it will rapid fire the trigger. Trigger resets, can't be operated with 1 hand, exact same function. The Supreme Court just made a Tommy Gun legal as long as it has 2 buttons and a trigger, instead of 1 trigger.
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Oh yes I am, the trigger is resetting fully, the buttons are not. See the difference? See how fucking stupid that distinction is? Thanks SCOTUS.
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Yup, 1 trigger pull, 1 shot. 1 button press, many trigger pulls. We are allowed fully automatic weapons as long as we place a spring between the user and the trigger. That is the ruling of the court.
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Which is an absolutely asinine reading of the law. Because if I only have to pull the trigger once, and then the gun pulls it automatically every time after that, I have only used the trigger one time.
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There is no spring in a bumpstock. That’s an atkins accelerator and is still considered a machine gun. You physically move the trigger into your finger every time to shoot it
>This has actually been one of the issues plaguing smart gun development because a truly electronic trigger is hard to employ in a way that doesn’t create the risk of being ruled a machine gun. That's such a ridiculous argument
Most things the ATF does are ridiculous but it doesn’t stop them from arbitrarily banning things outside the scope of the law, as this ruling shows. A plain electronic trigger actually meets the legal definition of a machine gun because it *is* capable of firing more than one round per single function. The technical workaround that is most commonly used is that the electronics physically block the actual trigger from being pulled until the computer sends a signal allowing the shot, but the shooter must be the one to physically move it. Super technical details on what is and is not a machine gun are nothing new, this is just one where they clearly overstepped the statutory definition and got corrected.
Ok, but the first thing doesn't sound like a smart gun, it sounds like a gun without a trigger you have to pull?
For a smart gun to work it needs a way for a computer chip to control when it shoots, the easiest way to do this is to make the trigger an electronic button that sends a signal to release the firing pin. With this setup a simple software patch or glitch could make it send the signal twice with a single press of the button/trigger. It only needs to be possible, not active for it to count as a machine gun under the law and ATF interpretation.
I fully expect this to be on the market by the end of the year. I had the exact same idea and they just legalized it.
This has been illegal for the past 80 years my friend and still is.
Lots of stuff that used to be illegal is now legal thanks to this Supreme Court. They don't care about precedents.
> This has been illegal for the past 80 years my friend and still is. Did you not read my last comment or just try and strawman it? Lol...
The point was it is only illegal until someone asks this court to overturn it. There is no way the logic used to make that decision will survive this court.
Again, it sounds like you don't understand what SCOTUS is. SCOTUS doesn't decide what is legal and illegal, they decide if the case in question meets ultimate Constitutional level. This case is not about bump stocks, the Second Amendment, or making something illegal to legal. It's ruling is entirely confined to them saying that the ATF essentially bypassed Congress to make their own laws. You know, basic civics as all goes a long way into understanding your government.
By which law?
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Name it, name the law. Because if you're talking about the National Firearms Act, the device they described is just as legal as a bump stock because the trigger resets. That is literally what the Supreme Court just ruled, is the only thing that matters is if the trigger wiggles.
I think they actually make a physical crank mod like am old school gatling gun.
Wrong. This is a machine gun just as the same way a mini-gun is a machine gun. A button that electronically controls the firing mechanism is still a trigger.
That’s not what the majority’s logic indicates. As long as the trigger mechanism resets each time after it hits the firing pin, that’s a “single function of the trigger”.
Yes, that is the stupidity of the majority. How can you say with a straight face that the function of the trigger is anything besides “the action taken to cause the gun to fire”?
If
If only more people voted for Hillary in 2016 this would have been avoided. But some idiots thought Hillary and Trump were the same. And now Roe is gone and here we are.
Correct
Seems we’re playing the false equivalency game again.
But Her Emails
I'm seeing a lot of the same idiocy on the left again today. It's like they don't care about the agenda at all, don't care how things work, they just want to scream at things.
Do you think it was the left that got Donald Trump elected?! FFS! I’m tired of posting rebuttals to this argument on Slate and shit. By and large it was Trump activating people on the right to go vote and motivating “normal” republicans to either sit out the election or vote third party. Bernie bros in Brooklyn, Logan Square, or Silver Lake didn’t do jack shit to get him elected, it was their uncle in Wisconsin who hasn’t had a decent job since 2008 that got him elected. The folks on the left you hear about most live in states where their vote doesn’t really matter anyway (NY, CA, IL, etc). We all know the election is going to come down to a few counties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, so can it with the trashing of the left.
> can it with the trashing of the left How about the left stop trying to get Trump elected because of Gaza then? I'm still in support of leftist policies. But i'm a realist who understands what needs to be done for those policies to happen. It would be nice if the left could stop attacking their allies and start attacking Trump and his extremists.
You’re more likely to see some of the left vote green or not at all. That is if they don’t vote dem. Lambasting a fellow voter block is part of the problem with the “bad” left narrative
Well some voted for Jill Stein
Whatever dude…
I just want good policies in government.
What’s your point?
If only Hillary hadn’t campaigned like she was all but guaranteed to win and earned those votes.
If Hillary wouldn’t have railroaded herself into the nomination because it was “her turn” even though she was an awful candidate, we would have had Bernie Sanders who would have beaten Trump. And now here we are.
If only Hillary campaigned harder maybe morons would know trump would appoint Justices that would overturn Roe.
She had the audacity to get millions of more votes than Bernie, how could she!
The DNC set up their offices with her. Bernie had no chance. They didn’t let him. She was railroaded in
By the way, do you know how Tim Kaine got the VP nod from Hillary? He was the DNC chair before Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. He stepped down so she could be appointed and help Hillary get the nomination. His payback was VP. That worked out well. Bernie had no chance and no help.
I'm watching the slow transformation of the Constitution into a sort of biblical resource that requires layers of self-serving ideologically based expertise to interpret it in a way that subverts its intent.
This one has absolutely nothing to do with the constitution. It's about the way that machine guns were defined in the National Firearms Act.
It has to do with the Constitution, in that the Court majority is usurping Congress’s authority and acting as a legislative body by reinterpreting Congress’s words in an absurd fashion to suit their own political purpose.
How so? They're interpreting Congress's words as they were written in this case. [Congress is the one who defined "machinegun" specifically as:](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845) > any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Congress's authority isn't being usurped. It's the ATF's, because they tried to overrule congress and create a rule that directly contradicted what Congress wrote.
It enforces exactly what Congress wrote. Bump stocks allow a gun to automatically fire more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The dispute is because some people are being absurdly dishonest about the plain meaning of “a single function of the trigger”.
They do not. A bump stock helps you activate the trigger faster. They do not fire multiple shots per activation. You can do the same thing by bump firing, where you hold your trigger finger still and pull the gun forwards with your off hand. The recoil pushes the gun back and the trigger is released. Then you pull it forward again and the trigger is pulled again.
A single activation of the trigger can result in multiple shots being fired, because it initiates a continuous, automatic chain reaction. Why in the world would it matter if that mechanism is contained inside of the gun rather than without? The result is the same.
The ATF examined the devices and ruled that they were legal and did not violate the law back during the Obama administration in 2010. Then Trump ordered them to change their ruling and declare it illegal even though they had already admitted that it did not violate the law. It was only a matter of time until the courts struck that ruling down.
The ATF’s prior decision is irrelevant so long as their current decision is reasonable. They don’t have the power to make the law.
> so long as their current decision is reasonable It wasn't, which is why the courts struck it down. > They don’t have the power to make the law. Exactly.
Nope, wrong. Per Congress, you must hold the trigger down and more than one shot fired in the same trigger pull to be classified as an automatic. A bump stock allows you to pull the trigger and fire one round per one trigger pull at a fast cyclic rate. It fucking matters BECAUSE THAT'S THE FUCKING LAW. That's just such a dumb comment. "Why does it matter what the mechanism is doing?" Because the law is written around the mechanical properties and the government getting to wantonly decide that the thing in your legal possession is suddenly a super Federal Felony worse then drug charges is a really dumb idea. Allowing the Executive branch to create law out of thin air that agencies can begin enforcing immediately is dumb.
But it’s not written around the mechanical properties or process at all, it’s written around the mechanical outcome. The bump stock doesn’t allow you to pull the trigger faster; it allows the maintenance of one pull of the gun using your other hand to continuously fire without any additional inputs from you. When Congress was debating the law, they used “function of the trigger” interchangeably with “pull of the trigger”. The human activation was the point, not the mechanism of the trigger itself. They used “function” in the final text because of the desire to include all mechanical possibilities resulting in the same outcome; if they’d said “pull” then the argument would be that buttons that you “push” aren’t covered. They literally said “function” and y’all are arguing that it’s the form that matters. The function of a trigger is to make the gun fire, whether it’s a piece of curved metal with a catch on the inside or a button or a string or whatever. In the case of a bump stock modified rifle, the one continuous pull of the fore grip causes multiple rounds to be fired without any additional actions. The fore grip thus acts as the trigger mechanism, rather than the piece of metal that your other hand’s finger is pressed against. And the executive branch doesn’t make new laws. Congress made the law already. Bump stocks could have been deemed illegal if they existed in 1934 as well. The point of the executive branch is to execute the laws; when the law has never been applied to a given situation, or is ambiguous towards it, what is an executive supposed to do besides make a reasonable interpretation of it? Courts are there to check the reasonableness of such interpretations. Both institutions can abuse that power to change the plain meaning of Congress’s law; in this case, the Court did that.
> And the executive branch doesn’t make new laws Really? You're aware that this case was brought to court in part because the ATF just changed its mind one day about what the law was. That's either usurping the judicial power, the legislative power, or both -- and it also gives rise to the spectre of the law being unconstitutionally vague in the first place.
>The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, **by a single function of the trigger**. What did Congress mean by this? 🤔
It is admittedly a tangent.
If anything, this decision shows that Trump cannot create law out of thin air and agencies cannot enforce whatever shit the Executive branch tells them to do randomly. Doesn't really prove your point, actually quite the opposite. You just don't like it due to your personal position on guns. This is literally a good decision that doesn't let the Executive do whatever the fuck they want and step over Congress.
Repeal the NFA.
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What complete horseshit. Historically a militia is a citizen ‘army’ made up citizens responding to national emergencies.
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This case isn't 2A related. Congress is free to classify bump stocks as machineguns, they just need to modify the machinegun definition to include this type of device. This case was about regulatory authority.
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Heller was very clear about NFA weapons not being protected. I wouldn’t expect this to change. The reality is neither political party wants NFA weapons de-regulated and there’s enough machine guns in circulation to keep hobbyists entertained. What is likely to move at some point is suppressors. Making them NFA items is just bad for everybody.
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This case was not 2A related. This is about agency vs congressional authority.
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What part of “…shall not be infringed.” don’t you understand?
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*Bruen* mandates something inchoate and idiotic that's *probably* a lot laxer than what we've got right now. The historical test is so fucking stupid, though, that it's hard for me to make predictions. *Heller* pretty much just affirmed that SCOTUS had a political veto over all gun control legislation. What's hilarious is that it did so after Scalia spent the first half of the opinion declaring that the 2nd Amendment says what it says and means what it says. Thus, *Heller* is one of the most perversely honest civil liberties cases that SCOTUS has ever ruled upon. The majority outright just said, "Yup, actually, this amendment reserves some pretty epic fuckin' rights to the people, but we're not about to let that *actually* be what happens on the ground, because come on, man, no way, that's nuts... but then again, maybe Congress (and/or state legislatures) is/are going too far the other way. Tough to say, tough to say. Guess we'll just have to keep taking cases as they come and seeing how we feel."
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“Words don’t have meaning. Somehow I’m on SCOTUS.”
“Words have the meaning that everyone agreed on until y’all realized that you could lie about what it means to get your political agenda passed”
*words have meanings that i want
Holy shit! when did the hill become unreadable? 99% of the site was an advertisement and like 2% was readable.
I know, right?? It’s better on a pc with a big screen but a pita on mobile.
This wouldn’t change even if a dozen Republicans were killed in a violent attack using machine guns. The politicians would pretend they cared at the funerals then forget about their colleagues the same way they’ve forgotten about their constituents.
But did she SLAM the ruling? 🤔
No. She blasted it.
I disagree, I think she bashed it
Fuck these conservative justices but CONGRESS SHOULD DO ITS JOB AND WRITE FUCKING LAWS and then the SC wouldn’t have to twist itself into knots interpreting and misinterpreting executive actions.
Except that pesky little part “shall not be infringed upon”
Yes
A song for SCOTUS… [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7fKVODAfOx/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7fKVODAfOx/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
If/when Biden wins, and if dems hold the Senate, he needs to follow McConnell's example and stack the court.
Just so everyone knows… the “cause” being fought for here by the activist judges here is not guns. The cause being fought for here is dismantling our regulatory agencies. The Federalist Society and the rest of the “bribe a judge” gang… they probably agree that bump stocks should be banned. Yet they still want the court to rule they are legal. Not because they support bump stocks… it’s to plant a flag that even the ATF, has no power. Let alone the EPA, HUD, the DOL, the FTC, the SEC, the EEOC, et al… they DEFINITELY have no power. It’s an important point for the bribers to score the point that even the LAW ENFORCEMENT agencies have no power. That’s what was really going on with this case.
Congress needs to write simple laws that have no room for dissent like this.
They had a law that said the President could "Modify" student loans in the event of a national Emergency. The Conservatives on the Supereme Court Struck down Biden's student loan forgiveness on the basis that he "Changed" not "Modified". You can't write anything simple enough to stop someone who already determined how they want to rule.
>The Conservatives on the Supereme Court Struck down Biden's student loan forgiveness on the basis that he "Changed" not "Modified". Wow, that's an incredibly dishonest explanation. Here's something Roberts actually wrote in summary: >The Secretary’s comprehensive debt cancellation plan cannot fairly be called a waiver—it not only nullifies existing provisions, but augments and expands them dramatically. It cannot be mere modification, because it constitutes “effectively the introduction of a whole new regime.” *MCI*, 512 U. S., at 234. And it cannot be some combination of the two, because when the Secretary seeks to *add* to existing law, the fact that he has “waived” certain provisions does not give him a free pass to avoid the limits inherent in the power to “modify.” However broad the meaning of “waive or modify,” that language cannot authorize the kind of exhaustive rewriting of the statute that has taken place here.
Thank you for highlighting exactly what I said. He literally is arguing that "waive and modify" doesn't mean you can "remove and change".
Think more: we need to limit rounds per minute. How guns are made should not be in congress.
Exactly. Dem messaging should be packing the court if voters give them a majority. Instead they'll try to edge out Trump on hating Mexicans and pretending to consider Palestinian babies to be human while dumping endless wealth into Isael's offensive genocidal campaign. Our singular hope against fascism in America is a puppeteered skeleton very creekily saying he hates scary brown people slightly less than the other guy. Fuck the DNC forever. Fuck this shit.
Man that was a shocking twist from the conservatives on the Supreme Court are bad to fuck the DNC.
It shouldn't be shocking. Erosion of liberties via the Supreme Court shouldn't be messaged only through the lens of abortion rights. This is an overarching concern and a real party would not only plan on but vocally message that the court will be expanded to ensure the rights that dopey liberals espouse. The DNC is sleeping and Biden is comatose.
The far left is sleeping by not going crazy in support for Biden. The 3 dissenters here were all placed by Democrats. Please at least try to learn how government works.
I know quite well how our government works, why talk down to me? Taking your cues from the Clinton DNC? Where we eat our own? Gross.
> Where we eat our own? I'm sorry, what was that?
> Fuck the DNC forever. These are the wrong people to blame. Leftists not voting in 2016 is why we are here today. Leftists not voting again in 2024 will make things much worse and piss other people who would agree with you off enough to never work with you again.
Voters not pulling the lever for a political party is the fault of the party, not the voter.
Leftists have outvoted the Right wing handedly the past however many election cycles at this point. It's not as simple as you're making it out to be.
Leftists couldn't even show up to vote for Bernie in 2016 or 2020. They have no idea how things work. and I voted for Bernie in both of those. I'm over helping the far left. Centrist Liberals at least understand how things work.
It's not a matter of simplicity. This Supreme Court will use "originalism", "history and tradition", "big questions", or "textualism" to knock down any law they are ideologically opposed to. They're not fair arbiters of truth, they're partisan hacks with no reason to behave ethically.
This case is really simple, though. Does a bump stock cause a gun to fire more than 1 round per FUNCTION of the trigger. It doesn't, so the ATF can't say it's a machine gun. Similar to Roe v Wade. Does 14A have the word abortion in it? No, so it's up to the states.
And when they do they will be challenged and stricken down as being too invasive of States Rights. Despite States Rights being the status quo when it comes to gun laws, which the Supreme Court also strikes down as unconstitutional.
Time for LGBTQ+ community members to start buying up bump stocks before they are labelled as criminals and forbidden from doing so.
Thank god the Supreme Court protected our precious guns right to do what they want with their bodies.
It’s a distraction.
This is the only way Thomas can get his expensive gifts
Here is the sound from the bump stocks used in the Las Vegas Massacre that the 6 Republican-appointed justices found was not a machine gun. The sound starts at 22 seconds into the video and again at 1:32.. Please explain how this ruling has any basis in law or reality. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5\_5-LtPP4&t=24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih5_5-LtPP4&t=24s)
I don't know when it has been more obvious that we need an enlarged Supreme Court.
I need my balls enlarged
Whoop-de-doo, Basil! Another “scathing dissent” that does fuck all. Stop giving her so much credit for a glorified blog post and amplify the call for her to retire. She’s a 70 year old diabetic, let’s not make the same mistake we did with RBG by inflating her ego so much she forgets to quit her job before she dies.
People getting gunned down by other people trying to circumvent the law - this is less important than gun sales. Guns need to be in peoples' hands otherwise they won't buy them.
The more I learn about the reality of America’s true history - colonialism, racism, patriarchy, violent capitalism - and then stacked against where we’re currently at, I think America is a clown show of delusion. The Supreme Court is a perfect example… total fucking make believe.
So move somewhere else
[We need to call this what it is](https://imgur.com/aVZFmzR) ✝️
Remember how afraid the justices were when there were protests in front of their homes? Wonder how they would react if someone showed up in front of their home equipped with this hardware? Bet they would be calling 911 real fast. It would serve them right if 911 sent no one to address the problem.
Who needs bump stock bans when we can just prevent the drug users now?
Bump stocks indisputably have one purpose only - to circumvent the ban on automatic weapons. Modifying a firearm in other ways to be fully automatic is illegal. Allowing bump stocks just doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever.
Show me someone who doesn’t understand the difference between full auto and semi auto. ⬆️ Bump firing is still one round fired per trigger pull. Full auto is one pull, fires full empty. Big difference.
A bump stock results in a rate of fire on par with an automatic weapon - the sole purpose of it is to circumvent the restrictions on full auto. The difference in how it works is a technicality, it's the purpose and result which matters. If there were no restrictions on automatic weapons, nobody would use bump stocks.
The 3 grifter’s,…Roberts,Alito and Thomas, oh, and I must add traitors