Just when it looked like the storm that erupted after Parkland created the possibility of a shift towards more regulation of guns, the announcement was made today that Anthony Kennedy is retiring, which gives Draft-dodger Trump an opportunity to fill another SCOTUS seat. And since Trump has said again and again how much he wants everyone to be armed, or at least everyone who marches around with one of those ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags wrapped around their AR, he’ll probably nominate another pro-gun judge again.
Not that Kennedy was such a staunch advocate for gun control. In fact, he was the 5th and necessary vote in the 2008 Heller decision which gave every God-fearing and law-abiding patriot the right to keep a loaded and unlocked handgun in their home. Note that when the city of Highland Park designated itself as being AR-rein, meaning that a town resident who owned an AR had to move somewhere else or sell the gun, Kennedy joined 6 other justices in refusing to hear an appeal of that case. So, the fact that Scalia was able to cobble together 4 other votes to dump the 1939 Miller precedent and detach handgun ownership from military service, doesn’t mean that a majority of the Court, even with a conservative replacement for Kennedy, would necessarily open the legal floodgates and let every cockamamie attempt to lessen gun regulations become a law.
On the other hand, Trump is such a jerk and a dope that for all we know, he’ll nominate Michael Cohen for the Court. After all, I don’t think there’s anything in the Constitution which says that someone can’t be nominated who has been indicted, or convicted, or disbarred. And when you stop and think about it, what better way could Trump demonstrate to his loyal, God-fearing base that he shares their complete hostility towards anything having to do with the practices and traditions of civil government or a government based on law?
Think I’m kidding? I’m really not. And the reason I’m not kidding is that when you get right down to it, Gun-nut Nation’s increasing obsession with armed, self-defense, eliminating gun-free zones and teaching teachers how to use a gun resonates best with people who have decided that between gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, choice, and a few other loony, left-wing ideas like how vaccinations cause mental retardation, the best government is one that doesn’t exist at all.
And by the way, there are a lot of people out there who more or less share that point of view, or at least they take it seriously enough to believe that the only thing which stands between them and a complete breakdown of the social order is getting and keeping their hands on a gun.
Now I’m not saying that these folks represent a majority of Americans, nor do I believe that a New York Times reporter had his head anywhere other than up his you-know-what when he decided that the daily criticism of Trump was just making it easier for America’s Whiner in Chief to attend to the tasks at hand. In fact, without realizing it, Kennedy may have given the #resisttrump movement exactly the shot they need to show up in November and turn the Congress blue. After all, replacing Scalia with a like-minded jurist to keep the 5-4 conservative SCOTUS majority was a strong factor in bringing out the 2016 Republican vote. Why shouldn’t 2018 be a repeat in reverse?
Since the tragedy at Parkland, the gun violence prevention (GVP) movement has certainly been out in front of the other side. Whether this energy could be sustained until November was a question in my mind, but the issue of replacing Kennedy could be exactly what the GVP needs. Because there is no issue which symbolizes the philosophical tilt of the Supreme Court more than the issue of gun ‘rights.’ Which puts our gun-control friends smack dab back in the center of the mid-term campaign. Which couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
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