Why does SCOTUS refuse to take up any "Assault Weapons Ban" cases?

[LogicMan]

I haven't yet read Stevens's dissent in the Heller decision, but given the utter ignorance he displays about guns and the Second Amendment in his book that he wrote on five amendments he recommends, I would not be shocked if he shows some real intellectual dishonesty in his dissent. Basically, he talks about "assault weapons" without bothering to even address the meaning of the term, he just talks about them as if they are a solid thing, and not some arbitrary definition like hate speech for example. Then he talks about how 30,000 die every year from guns, without bothering to explain how two-thirds of those are suicides and it is very questionable to say guns play any significant role given how other countries with no guns have higher suicide rates, such as Japan and South Korea. Or that of the one-third that are homicides, how many of those are due to inner-city gang violence, which is a complex issue on its own. Given that level of cluelessness, I can't say I would have much faith in his ability as a jurist to make any kind of honest assessment about the Second Amendment.

Recall that the judges make their decisions on an interaction of past precedent, current changes in social views and their own views.

Well a lot of them do, but they are not supposed to. It was a popular social view in the 1930s that we had to get rid of the "deficient" and "lesser" people, due to the (pseudo)science of eugenics. Forced sterilization was ultimately upheld by a SCOTUS ruling. Maybe someday it will become a popular social view that "hate speech" can be banned. No judge should make a decision based on what is a popular social view.

 

[Frank Ettin]

On most politically and ideologically loaded social issue decisions, there are split decisions and dissents. If you don't agree with the decision, it is easy to call it intellectually dishonest.....

And it's easy to fall prey to some sort of "magical thinking." Often folks who really don't understand things will resort to some type of "magical thinking" to explain what to them is unexplainable. So folks who don't understand how the solar system works attribute a solar eclipse to a dragon swallowing the sun, or some such thing. Similarly to some folks court decisions they don't like, or election results they don't like, or legislative actions they don't like must be because things are corrupt, or things are rigged, people are dishonest, or there's some mysterious conspiracy behind it all.

And sometimes one's definition of "intellectual dishonesty" is heavily influenced by whose ox is gored. There are plenty of folks who loved Roe v. Wade and hated Heller, and perhaps as many who hated Roe v. Wade and loved Heller.

....Justices who genuinely believe that the text of the Constitution doesn't constrain them may be worse than someone just looking for a work around to get the decision he wants....

Post Heller/McDonald Second Amendment court decisions certainly have been a mixed bag. Some judges have, we pro-RKBA types think, gotten it (and some of those judges have not historically been considered friends of the Second Amendment). There have been some excellent, when viewed from a pro-RKBA perspective court decisions applying Heller and McDonald the way we, in this camp, think those cases should be applied. For a few examples --

• In Tyler v Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department (Sixth Circuit, No. 13-1876) a panel of the Sixth Circuit ruled, essentially, that in order for a mental health confinement to be a disqualifying condition there needed to be a way for a prohibited person to later demonstrate fitness to possess a gun. Unfortunately an en banc hearing was granted vacating the panel's opinion.
  
  
• In a case called Mance v. Lynch (No. 15-10311) a District Court basically tossed out a provision of the GCA which prohibited a person from buying a handgun from an FFL in a State other than his State of residence. But it lost in the Fifth Circuit.
  
  
• The original Peruta decision by the 9th Circuit panel tracked very nicely with what I think it a proper reading of Heller, but that got superseded by a weasley, anti-RKBA en banc decision.
  
  
• There have been a few others with the gold star going to the 7th Circuit decision written by Posner in Moore. That decision effectively forced Illinois to enact a "shall issue" law.

But a lot of other judges, while they claim to be following Heller and McDonald have been applying what I think are spurious readings of those cases. Heller and McDonald were dramatic rebukes to what was, until those cases, dogma. Heller and McDonald were major paradigm shifts, and major paradigm shifts tend to be threatening. In hindsight, a predictable response would be a stubborn intransigence and a strong push back.

I think we're seeing massive resistance in some courts to Heller and McDonald -- denial and an unwillingness to go down the path that Heller and McDonald set us on. As a result, we're seeing some ridiculous decisions.

Heller and McDonald were "game changers." There have been other SCOTUS decisions which also fairly radically changed accepted paradigms . Brown v. Board of Education comes to mind; Miller v. California, Engel v. Vitale, Miranda and Roe v. Wade might also fall into that category. There are probably others.

It would be interesting to identify some of these "game changing decisions" and look at the litigation following them. Is there evidence of a reluctance to embrace a new view of the subject? Do post "game changer" decisions generally manifest symptoms of denial, disbelief, intransigence? Is there a law student out there looking for a law review project?

Since Heller/McDonald courts and legislatures have to varying degrees been uncomfortable with and resistant to the implications of the Second Amendment as a broad protection of an individual right to keep and bears arms. Many people, including gun owners as evidenced by posts on the board, are seriously troubled by the possibility of an unlimited right to keep and bear arms. But that's not new, and the history of First Amendment jurisprudence is replete with example of courts and legislatures having to face, sometimes unsuccessfully, the implication that freedom of speech protects pornography and despised social and political viewpoints.

 

[Frank Ettin]

I haven't yet read Stevens's dissent in the Heller decision,...

But you're nonetheless going to share with us your guesses about what he said in that dissent?

...in his book that he wrote on five amendments he recommends,...

Exactly what book is that? Does it have a title?

...Basically, he talks about "assault weapons" without bothering to even address the meaning of the term, he just talks about them as if they are a solid thing, and not some arbitrary definition like hate speech for example. Then he talks about how 30,000 die every year from guns, without bothering to explain how two-thirds of those are suicides and it is very questionable to say guns play any significant role given how other countries with no guns have higher suicide rates, such as Japan and South Korea. Or that of the one-third that are homicides, how many of those are due to inner-city gang violence, which is a complex issue on its own.....

Where in that book did he say those things?

 

[Frank Ettin]

Conspiracy theories and incomprehensible blather starting to show up. Time to call it a day.