One wonders what exactly is going on in the Supreme Court? Upon rare occasion they’ll hand down a unanimous decision on an issue where the law is so clear baby chimpanzees would have agreed and the media, and not a few dimwitted Republicans cry: “see? There really aren’t conservatives and liberals on the Court. They all agreed!
They’re wrong. Praising justices for accurately interpreting the constitution and holding to constitutionally based law and precedent isn’t praiseworthy. It’s the minimum we should expect from justices on the highest court in the land, the only court created by the Constitution.
Unfortunately, we seem to have three types of justices: those whose decisions are rooted in the Constitution and constitution-based law, those whose decisions are beholden almost entirely to leftist ideology, not on what is—reality—but on what they think ought to be and those who drift between the two, perhaps as part of judicial/political horse trading. I’ll vote your way on X case if you’ll vote my way on Y case.
It's hard to imagine a more perverse warping of the Court’s constitutional role than justices bartering like Congress, but to what other conclusion can informed Americans come? Consider the case of Mexico’s recent lawsuit against American gun manufacturers, claiming they are responsible for the murderous reign of Mexican Cartels:
Graphic: AR-15, Author
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion in the Supreme Court’s decision striking down Mexico’s lawsuit and described AR-15s and AK-47s as “both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers.”
As any sane, legitimate court should have ruled, the Protection of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act—PLCAA—prohibits such suits, which has not kept them from being filed and in some cases upheld by lower courts. Enacted by a truly bipartisan Congress in 2005—those were the days--the PLCAA addressed what was then a novel anti-liberty/gun approach: the death by a thousand lawsuits of gun makers for the misuse of their lawful products by criminals. It merely codified a long-established legal principle: manufacturers can’t be held liable for damages resulting from the misuse of their lawful products by people about whom they had no knowledge and no ability to control.
Joe Biden and other Democrats have long lied about the PLCAA, claiming it uniquely gives gun makers absolute immunity from liability. Gun makers, like car makers, can still be sued for harms resulting from defective products and various types of common negligence. And of course, the PLCAA’s limited immunity is not at all unique. For example, Covid vaccine that wasn’t vaccine makers were given total immunity.
Kagan wrote:
Mexico’s allegations about the manufacturers’ “design and marketing decisions” add nothing of consequence. As noted above, Mexico here focuses on the manufacturers’ production of “military style” assault weapons, among which it includes AR–15 rifles, AK–47 rifles, and .50 caliber sniper rifles. But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers. … The manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too.
As she approached the conclusion of the opinion, she noted, “So this suit remains subject to PLCAA’s general bar: An action cannot be brought against a manufacturer if, like Mexico’s, it is founded on a third party’s criminal use of the company’s product.”
That’s unremarkable adherence to long-standing legal principles. What is remarkable is Kagan, among those justices who often adhere to leftist principles over the law, including anti-liberty/gun ideology, would make such admissions. At The Daily Signal, Tyler O’Neil writes:
I consider it far more likely that Kagan, the craftiest of the three, orchestrated this trifecta of rulings as a strategy. The next time conservatives fault Sotomayor, Jackson, or her for an ideologically skewed ruling, Kagan can point to these opinions as evidence of their “fairmindedness.”
And so will the Democrat’s media propaganda arm.
Either that, or the liberal justices traded their votes in these cases in order to derail one or more of the remaining hot-button case decisions coming down the pike.
Cases like state-level gun bans recently denied cert by Justice Kavanaugh’s refusal to join three others to hear those cases. Kavanaugh essentially wrote it’s fine to deny Americans their unalienable rights for a year or two until the Court might get around to vindicating them. Might that have been part of internal horse trading?
If so, it was a particularly bad bargain for an unalienable, express right. What sort of constitutional scholar and learned judge does one have to be not to understand American sovereignty and the very clear and specific text of the PLCAA? Anything less than unanimity would have been an outrage and grounds for impeaching dissenting justices.
Such is justice, and the second-class status of the Second Amendment, Anno Domini 2025.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.