Saturday, December 21, 2024
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Supreme Court Strikes Several Blows for Liberty



Included in the historic and dizzying litany of U.S. Supreme Court decisions the last ten days are rulings on 2nd Amendment rights and free exercise of religion.

These decisions, when analyzed in conjunction with landmark pro-democracy decisions defending the rights ‘of the people’ through their elected representatives to choose to protect pre-born human life and requiring that the U.S. Congress determine major environmental policyโ€”not unelected bureaucrats unaccountable to the peopleโ€”the Supreme Court has returned “We the People” to a constitutional republic and a ‘government by consent of the governed.’ 

Letโ€™s begin with the 2nd Amendment case.

The Supreme Court held that New Yorkโ€™s handgun licensing regime was unconstitutional.  Why?  Because NY was forcing its citizens who wished to apply for and receive a permit to carry a handgun to prove that they had โ€œproper causeโ€ to carry the handgun and that the applicant had demonstrated a โ€œspecial need for self-defense.โ€  

The Supreme Court flatly said โ€œno.โ€  What was the Courtโ€™s reasoning?

The Court refused to leave in the hands of NY state bureaucrats the discretion to determine to grant or disallow a citizen’s 2nd Amendment right ‘to keep and bear arms’ based on what the bureaucrat deems to qualify as a โ€œspecial needโ€ for self-defense.  

The Court held that โ€œthe Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individualโ€™s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.โ€  The Court underscored this point adding that โ€œindividual self-defense is the central component of the Second Amendment right.โ€

Why is this important? At a time when the Lunatic Left are defunding and disrespecting the police, and police coverage and response times are negatively impacted; when bail to keep dangerous criminals off the streets is being reduced and ended in many jurisdictions; and prisons are being emptied of lethal threats to society; this Supreme Court decision reaffirms the principle that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.

The cry for โ€œgun controlโ€ after these mass shootings (and these shootings are primarily a heart problem not a gun problem) is an easy solution for politicians with a desire to โ€œdo something,โ€ but it is deeply misplaced.  What we need is criminal control.

Law-abiding gun owners everywhere already obey our gun laws but criminalsโ€”by their natureโ€”are never going to comply.  The result is that the good guys are disarmed while the bad guys are, free and unopposed, able to inflict their violence and death on the innocent.  This is societal insanity.

The second important Supreme Court decision I address today is one involving free exercise of religion and the โ€œpraying football coach.โ€

What are the facts? Coach Joseph Kennedy was fired from his job as a high school football coach in the Bremerton School District after he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet, personal prayer of thanks.  The high school is a public high schoolโ€”making him a government employeeโ€”in Washington state. 

The Bremerton School District argued that as an employee at work Coach Kennedyโ€™s prayer was โ€œstate speechโ€ and thereby violated the Constitutionโ€™s promise of no government โ€œestablishment of religion.โ€   However, the Supreme Court held that in firing Coach Kennedy it had unconstitutionally punished him โ€œfor engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observanceโ€ after each game.  

The Court held that Coach Kennedyโ€™s ritual after football games is private conduct.   The Court noted that Coach Kennedy never attempted to pressure or coerce his players or spectators to join him.  He had also never offered his prayers while acting within the scope of his duties as a coach or conditioned playing time based upon participation in his prayer.  He merely engaged, for approximately 3o seconds after each game, in his own brief and personal religious observance.

The Court reasoned that finding this private conduct unconstitutional would be to discriminate against religion.  Thatโ€™s right, of course, because as any fair reading of American history makes clear, what the Framers of our Constitution were concerned about was the establishment of a state religion of the kind they fled when the Pilgrims came to America in the first place.  That is why the Framers would not recognize the hostility to religion that is so common in America today.

For citizen patriots loyal to our Constitution, these last 10 days have marked a thrilling return to constitutional principles, to the rubric that the responsibility of a Supreme Court Justice is to interpret the law, not make it.