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I think it depends a bit on what you call a 'solution'. I don't think (and don't think it would even be 'fair') were Heller or Bruen to result in completely unrestricted firearm ownership. Obergefell lead to Bostock, but it wasn't written in stone the day Obergefell was announced. Hell, there are a lot of restrictions that I think are legitimately within the range of political discussion.
On the other hand, I think these cases absolutely, by central holding and by dicta, prohibit arbitrary restrictions on bare possession or carry of firearms in public places, respectively -- there's a reason so much lower court massive resistance depends on and actively cites the dissents. Yes, there might be some quibbling about how much Bruen breaks out 'sensitive places', but we're not just (or even mostly!) seeing examples close to "sensitive places such as schools and government buildings", but rather ones close to New York City's argument of all “places where people typically congregate and where law-enforcement and other public-safety professionals are presumptively available” that Bruen explicitly rejected. Several areas have done so to hilariously aggressive extents, or required ridiculous fees (sometimes while violating state law!), or with longer-than-year delays, or required a permit per gun (sometimes with total limits), or a thousand similar things. There have even been many restrictions that violate other constitutional principles.
Which... I don't expect people to play nice. I'd have more respect if these jurisdictions weren't making these rules, or heavily anti-gun judges were treating Bruen even by its own strict text, but we have seen several decades of people doing (if slightly more measured) futzing around at the edges for matters like free speech zones or abortion restrictions or gerrymandering cases.
But we've also seen a few dozen cases of people doing those matters and getting slapped down near-instantly, and in many cases the more extreme the gamesmanship or the more overt the intent to defy SCOTUS (or just appeals courts!) the more courts have been willing to step in early and given other expansive rulings. There are some exceptions -- the Texas SB8 law was very much made so that it would require a massive break from normal processes to make an early ruling, even compared to typical interventions -- but for the most part they are exceptions.
By contrast, that doesn't seem to have happened almost anywhere, here or in a number of Red Tribe matters. Several laws on matters of age restrictions or permit delays or gun violence restraining orders have been constructed such that they can not possibly be heard to even appeals level, nevermind SCOTUS, which should drive Robert's supposed anti-gamesmanship instincts up the wall, and there are several well-established exceptions (some, like those that apply for GVROs, which are favored)... and they haven't. In some cases, even as SCOTUS was the last resort before final closure of a case. We don't see much progress by the shadow docket, by the limited available interlocutory appeals, or what have you, nor were any nearby case to Bruen summarily reversed.
Some of that's principles. I'm glad, for example, that Thomas has not suddenly developed a strong lust for national preliminary injunctions.
But a lot of it's pretty clearly not. I don't think this points to SCOTUS being hesitant about a clear standard giving convicted felons concealed carry permits, in no small part because this issue is present in extremely constrained cases. My guess is that Roberts, at minimum, is highly aware of what could charitably be called the "dignity of the court", and more realistically be called the New York Times cocktail circuit, and he and at least a couple others are intensely aware that even the most minimal and sanely-uncontroversial decisions they sign on would become A Cause Celebre.
Thomas's "text, history, and tradition test" (and Kavanaugh before his appointment, and VanDyke and Butamay had pushed it as well pre-Bruen) can be seen within that framework. Not that they're surprised (maybe disappointed) that anti-gun states have been willing to lunge to and swallow the most racist and sexist and otherwise bigoted laws, or even that lower courts will condone them doing so, but when the case goes up, there'll at least be a Scylla to the Charybdis.
But I'm not as optimistic as you are on that. I've been wrong before, as Bruen itself evidences; maybe as we get away from the COVID years and as lower courts have some percolating information, they'll come down like a sack of hammers. Yet instead we're seeing fewer cases with cert granted, not more. Nor has this particular sea monster lead to awful publicity and meaningful impact in the past, as evidenced by how long after the yearbook drop that Governor We-Still-Don't-Know-If-It's-Blackface-or-KKK-Hoods lasted without any serious challenges from the left because of it.
Excellent pushback as always! There is indeed active belligerent resistance. The reason I am still hopeful is that prohibitions like the felon-in-possession were treated as sacrosanct for decades and had virtually no judges willing to even entertain the notion. I know the bar is low but the fact that the edifice is being chipped away even for bad optics cases like someone subject to a DVRO is groundbreaking stuff. I would have never predicted that to be on the table a few years ago.
What you're missing is the DVRO case is not the edifice being chipped away. It's an invitation for higher courts to reverse or limit Bruen. The idea being that you start from the position that any decision that allows nasty defendants like this one to win must be wrong; therefore, some limit must be found to Bruen which makes it wrong.
Maybe! I don't know what the future holds or why SCOTUS decided to take this case so quickly after Bruen. If the goal of the pro-gun Justices was to strike down the DVRO ruling, it highlights the absence of a coherent position on this issue. I'm against categorical prohibitions (like banning all felons from possessing a gun, no matter how old or non-violent their charge is) but open to individualized prohibitions (like disarming someone experiencing psychosis) and this would actually be in accord with some early history of gun prohibition in this country. I'm not sure the pro-gun Justices are willing to bite the bullet on this one, so I won't be surprised with future 2A rulings that are the equivalent of "guns are a right, but not like that!"
It's very suggestive that they took Rahimi, which went pro-gun, rather than any of the various cases where the lower courts have been foot-dragging. IMO, it signals they're going to backpedal.
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