The Supreme Court has ruled in the case of Trump vs CASA, And it’s not good news for gun owners. Or any other group.
Let me explain, and I promise this won’t be partisan at all.
Injunctions are the inconvenient “floor” of law and orders, imposed when those are likely to be in violation of the Constitution to protect the status quo and prevent harm from coming to the litigants petitioning for relief against the Government. Justice Sotomayor points out the obvious in her dissent- the Government holds the power and will not suffer harm, whereas Government actions can and do directly and meaningfully affect petitioners in real time. Injunctions are the warnings to pull up blaring at the pilots.
In a 2A context, an injunction could be issued to suspend an order to confiscate weapons- but now, that quick injunctive relief from government overreach is gone. No immediate nationwide injunction. Want relief? Find a lawyer, file a lawsuit, hope it can survive the appellate process to get to a point where at least you get relief. Identify and join a class-action suit, hopefully one narrowly tailored enough to survive scrutiny and that actually considers the “right” merits and doesn’t dilute its own credibility with marginal petitions. Or hope for swift and effective legislative action….but notice that all of these are time-consuming, expensive and unreliable and none of them have a good chance of granting preemptive relief while the Government is actively doing what it wants. A class-action process that could take years and might still lose on its own merits for both an injunction and a final decision is a poor substitute for a responsive judicial system that can freeze bad decisions in legal amber while the case itself is tried on the merits. There’s other weaknesses to a class-action suit- you have to formally identify yourself as a member of the class, which means that you lose anonymity.
Now, Im going to make it a little political. Trump won’t be President forever, and unless MAGA and the GOP are on some truly un-American kick, they won’t be in power forever either. When the pendulum swings back, it’s pretty unlikely to stop at Bill Clinton’s centrism or Obama’s pragmatic compromises. American society is going to want a measure of payback for the excesses of the Trump administration and MAGA, and that is going to include interest groups and causes aligned with those faded movements. Gun rights, like it or not, are generally more aligned in the public’s consciousness with Republicans than Democrats because our communities and voices have e been warped and hijacked to support Republicans and drive away Democrats and liberals and a lot of other allies. If it gains votes and seats and dollars to tear down our rights, does anyone doubt that a surging and empowered Democratic coalition and Administration/legislature would take the obvious shot? After all, the GOP did when they whipped us in 2022 and 2024…punishing the loser with the full power of the Government is normal now, and we gun owners stand an excellent chance of ending up on the losing side. And with the precedent of a President being able to redefine constitutionally-enumerated rights at will, well…that’s a loaded gun in the playpen at best.
This means that a future Democratic president and administration stand to gain a lot more politically from picking up Trump’s expanded powers and using them that they would from putting them back to their intended constraints. Using them to publicly, visibly advance their agenda, just as publicly as Trump has used his GOP-endorsed powers. And without the restraining measures of preemptive injunctions, we’re losing a whole lot of the workable, relevant judicial protection that is intended to render this sort of oppositional government and targeted punishment impracticable. Short version, the GOP and their pet Court got this one very, very wrong, and we as Americans are going to suffer for it. (And yes, I do feel quite strongly that the Supreme Court is compromised by the “activities” of certain Justices who appear to be the beneficiaries of what most people would call “bribes”.)
I’ve linked the case at the beginning of this post, and attached Sotomayor’s dissent here. We don’t always like her politics, but she calls it like she sees it- this is the greatest threat to gun rights in at least my generation. My $0.02, we as a gun community and a political movement need to start pumping our legislators of both parties hard to install legal prohibitions on “reinterpreting” rights…and we might want to reconsider injunctions too.
Maybe I’m off-base here, and maybe this ain’t what the 2A forum is for, but I feel that this is going to end up becoming a pivotal moment in the history of how the 2A gets ruined.
Let me explain, and I promise this won’t be partisan at all.
Injunctions are the inconvenient “floor” of law and orders, imposed when those are likely to be in violation of the Constitution to protect the status quo and prevent harm from coming to the litigants petitioning for relief against the Government. Justice Sotomayor points out the obvious in her dissent- the Government holds the power and will not suffer harm, whereas Government actions can and do directly and meaningfully affect petitioners in real time. Injunctions are the warnings to pull up blaring at the pilots.
In a 2A context, an injunction could be issued to suspend an order to confiscate weapons- but now, that quick injunctive relief from government overreach is gone. No immediate nationwide injunction. Want relief? Find a lawyer, file a lawsuit, hope it can survive the appellate process to get to a point where at least you get relief. Identify and join a class-action suit, hopefully one narrowly tailored enough to survive scrutiny and that actually considers the “right” merits and doesn’t dilute its own credibility with marginal petitions. Or hope for swift and effective legislative action….but notice that all of these are time-consuming, expensive and unreliable and none of them have a good chance of granting preemptive relief while the Government is actively doing what it wants. A class-action process that could take years and might still lose on its own merits for both an injunction and a final decision is a poor substitute for a responsive judicial system that can freeze bad decisions in legal amber while the case itself is tried on the merits. There’s other weaknesses to a class-action suit- you have to formally identify yourself as a member of the class, which means that you lose anonymity.
Now, Im going to make it a little political. Trump won’t be President forever, and unless MAGA and the GOP are on some truly un-American kick, they won’t be in power forever either. When the pendulum swings back, it’s pretty unlikely to stop at Bill Clinton’s centrism or Obama’s pragmatic compromises. American society is going to want a measure of payback for the excesses of the Trump administration and MAGA, and that is going to include interest groups and causes aligned with those faded movements. Gun rights, like it or not, are generally more aligned in the public’s consciousness with Republicans than Democrats because our communities and voices have e been warped and hijacked to support Republicans and drive away Democrats and liberals and a lot of other allies. If it gains votes and seats and dollars to tear down our rights, does anyone doubt that a surging and empowered Democratic coalition and Administration/legislature would take the obvious shot? After all, the GOP did when they whipped us in 2022 and 2024…punishing the loser with the full power of the Government is normal now, and we gun owners stand an excellent chance of ending up on the losing side. And with the precedent of a President being able to redefine constitutionally-enumerated rights at will, well…that’s a loaded gun in the playpen at best.
This means that a future Democratic president and administration stand to gain a lot more politically from picking up Trump’s expanded powers and using them that they would from putting them back to their intended constraints. Using them to publicly, visibly advance their agenda, just as publicly as Trump has used his GOP-endorsed powers. And without the restraining measures of preemptive injunctions, we’re losing a whole lot of the workable, relevant judicial protection that is intended to render this sort of oppositional government and targeted punishment impracticable. Short version, the GOP and their pet Court got this one very, very wrong, and we as Americans are going to suffer for it. (And yes, I do feel quite strongly that the Supreme Court is compromised by the “activities” of certain Justices who appear to be the beneficiaries of what most people would call “bribes”.)
I’ve linked the case at the beginning of this post, and attached Sotomayor’s dissent here. We don’t always like her politics, but she calls it like she sees it- this is the greatest threat to gun rights in at least my generation. My $0.02, we as a gun community and a political movement need to start pumping our legislators of both parties hard to install legal prohibitions on “reinterpreting” rights…and we might want to reconsider injunctions too.
Maybe I’m off-base here, and maybe this ain’t what the 2A forum is for, but I feel that this is going to end up becoming a pivotal moment in the history of how the 2A gets ruined.
