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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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Yeah, the guy is legitimately terrible, and this is essentially the best possible case for those in favor of gun control.

I'm not sure how broad the implications are. The court only ruled that the statute was fine in some applications, not necessarily in general, and they didn't really address due process questions, as they weren't asked to. (Or, as Thomas pointed out, the commerce clause, but I wouldn't expect Roberts and Kavanaugh to be willing to start radically curtailing the extent of the commerce clause to what it actually means). It's entirely possible that we see more cases on the exact same provision.

It's entirely possible that we see more cases on the exact same provision.

Much of the frustration here is that we've had years of better cases on the exact same provision, and Gorsuch didn't even write a dissent from denial of cert. There's some firearms people who are really hoping that SCOTUS just wanted to have a Bad Guys Can't Own Guns case first, but it's very hard to see that as anything but copium, and I don't think even the copium will survive either if Range (where the lower court found that a complete ban on possession for a 95 conviction for food stamp fraud was found unconstitutional) gets GVR'd with a dissent this week or the next.

I think maybe this opinion leaves a "Second Amendment +" case, where someone brings a 'normal' right case that also includes gun ownership, and gets more deference than they would under the traditional guns-are-always-a-compelling-interest bullshit, a la Caniglia, but Roberts' decision is just way too permissive in its writing, and I don't see it allowing any meaningful circuit split to develop for them to review with the text it just handed the coastal circuits, and the court will always have an excuse without a circuit split.

Mai is settled law, today; Roberts just saved himself from having to write the opinion.

((EDIT : And today's social media censorship case dodging any substantiative questions by complaining that the plaintiffs didn't bring a time machine to prove standing, and the leak of a similar punt for the EMTALA case, point the same direction, point similar directions.))

I don't think even the copium will survive either if Range (where the lower court found that a complete ban on possession for a 95 conviction for food stamp fraud was found unconstitutional) gets GVR'd with a dissent this week or the next.

Called it, at least on the GVR. We'll see how the copium goes.

It's entirely possible that we see more cases on the exact same provision.

The court has a way of handling those: cert denied. If the Fifth Circuit actually gets defiant, they'll reverse the decisions without argument.