Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts did not mention the court's decision in Bruen or its continued denial of the Biden administration and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which undermine the rule of law. He denounced it as a threat.
In his 2024 year-end report on the federal judiciary, Roberts wrote, “In the words of my predecessor (William Rehnquist), the independent commonwealth established in Article III (of the U.S. Constitution) and maintained for the past 235 years… The judiciary still exists,” he declared. It is one of the “crown jewels of our system of government.” ”
Separation of powers and judicial review
The two primary bulwarks of the American republic are the separation of powers and the power of judicial review vested in the federal judiciary. To the extent that they are recognized and supported, governments will be limited to their appropriate role in protecting the rights of their citizens. The more the federal government is forgotten or undermined, the more it will be used as a tool by tyrants seeking to expand their power over the people.
Roberts warns that these principles are being undermined by a variety of anonymous institutions and individuals. The New American is happy to name a few of them.
“It is not surprising that judicial decisions can provoke strong and passionate reactions…These expressions of public sentiment…do not threaten the independence of the judiciary,” Roberts wrote. However, there is now a deliberate opposition to these judicial decisions by the Republic's adversaries. Mr Roberts said:
Unfortunately, not all actors do “informed criticism” or anything close to it.
In my view, there are four areas of tort that threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends: (1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) intimidation. I feel that. To defy a lawfully rendered judgment.
He writes that (4) is the most dangerous. “The final threat to judicial independence is defiance of judgments rendered by competent courts,” he added.
For the past few decades, the public has avoided the conflicts that plagued the 1950s and 1960s by following court decisions, popular or not.
But over the past few years, there has been growing concern that elected officials across the political spectrum will openly ignore federal court rulings.
These dangerous proposals, however sporadic, must be firmly rejected.
ATF
ATF, which is working to implement the Biden administration's desire to restrict Americans' ability to own firearms, is ignoring court rulings against ATF. The New American said:
The Biden administration is determined to curtail and ultimately eliminate the God-given right to self-defense guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
In January 2023, under cover of the killing of 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, the administration told the ATF that a firearm with a tether (like the one used by the Boulder shooter) was a handgun. He ordered that it be declared that it must be considered as such. -As a barreled rifle, it is registered and regulated under the 1934 Act.
The agency draws on its history, the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Second Amendment, the 250,000 Americans who protested the bill during the “public comment” period, and the Senate Republicans who declared the agency effective. I ignored the letter from the group. It would turn millions of (otherwise) law-abiding Americans into criminals overnight and become the largest executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation program in American history. ”
But ATF remained tone-deaf and continued anyway. “With a single pen,[the agency]redefines a stabilized 'pistol' as a short-barreled 'rifle,' subject to onerous licensing and taxation requirements in the National Firearms Act of 1934,” the NRA said. he claimed.
ATF reconsiders by banning so-called bump stocks, saying that firearms fitted with bump stocks become machine guns that must be taxed and registered under the National Firearms Act of 1934, and their owners can use them to ensure their safety. declared that he was subject to deprivation of his Fourth Amendment rights. property. Again, ATF was rejected in court.
State governments opposed to gun control
After violating Bruen's law, New York state legislators were forced by a court to issue concealed carry permits based on “will issue” rather than “may issue.” But they drafted a bill that would make New York state a de facto gun-free zone for everyone, including those who successfully obtain permits through the “shall issue” permit system. New York Governor Cathy Hochul praised the state's new law, calling it a “dangerous” decision against Bruen.
Lawmakers in the Land of Lincoln took action against Bruen by banning “assault weapons,” and the Seventh Circuit reversed a lower court's ruling that this violated Bruen. The court ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to the AR-15, the country's most popular and widely owned semi-automatic gun. The court did not even consider Bruen's request that lower courts must base their decisions on historical parallels to the nation's founding era in order to make such decisions.
Judge William Kayatta
Judge William Kayatta, who was appointed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals by President Barack Obama in 2013, ruled that Maryland's ban on AR-15s is constitutional. “The law's justification is public safety concerns comparable to those that justified historic restrictions on gunpowder storage and weapons such as sawed-off shotguns, Bowie knives, and M-16s,” the ruling said. .”
Mr Kayatta ignored the High Court's decision in Bruen, saying that “unprecedented public concerns” required a “more nuanced approach” than that called for by Bruen to reach a conclusion. He said that
As Justice Roberts pointed out, “Antagonism directed at judges because of their jobs is damaging to our country and is completely unacceptable.”
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