As promised SNW commentator and legal wiz LKB convened an all-star expert panel last night. The topic was yesterday’s oral arguments in the Supreme Court in the matter of Garland v. VanDerStock. That’s the case challenging the ATF’s unilateral redefinition of what constitutes a firearm under the narrowly-worded language of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
Joining LKB were Independent Institute fellow Steven Halbrook, California Rifle & Pistol Association President Chuck Michel and NRA-ILA Director of Constitutional Studies Joseph Greenlee. These are three legal minds who have been working in the pro-2A space for decades and whose views on the matter at hand before the Court actually mean something.
This video will not only give you 33 well worthwhile minutes of analysis of the VanDerStok arguments, but the participants also look into their crystal balls to anticipate what other significant Second Amendment cases are headed the Supreme Court’s way in the near future. Enjoy.
Got less use for a YouTube account than I do for this video.
No thanks. Publish elsewhere.
You know you don’t need a YouTube account to watch the video, right?
It says to sign in to YouTube to prove I’m not a bot.
Turn your VPN off and it will play without the sign in requirement.
No VPN (retired network and systems engineer ), but login requirement was removed.
I recall when ‘Bruen’ was granted cert. that LKB was quite pessimistic on the outcome, based on the fact the Court slightly changing the question to be asked.
And we got so much more with the ‘one step too many’ ruling authored by Thomas.
I guess we’ll see when we see who authors the decision next June…
So, assuming for a moment that the reading of the room is “against” the plaintiffs and for the government…
Do they re-try it as an afront to 2A? IE this case is asking “did the ATF overstep their statutory authority”, not “are citizens free from government infringement [ie, shall not be infringed] to produce personally manufactured firearms”.
That’s a question I raised for the panel.
If the plaintiffs had raised a Bruen challenge to the reg in addition to the facial statutory challenge, under a juridical doctrine known as the Rule of Avoidance (in short, don’t decide constitutional issues when there are other ways to reach the result sought), then the lower courts properly held “we can find for you on the APA issue, so we do not (and should not) decide the Bruen issue.” In such case, a SCOTUS reversal would send the case back down, and then the plaintiffs could say, “OK, now you have to address the Bruen issue.” And I suspect Thomas would write a dissent saying “while the Bruen issue is not before the court, here’s why on remand it’s important for the lower courts to address it.”
OTOH, if the plaintiffs’ pleadings did NOT assert a Bruen challenge and only made a facial APA challenge to the regs, then its possible that a SCOTUS reversal could mean this case is done (but such would not preclude someone else from making a Bruen challenge.
I’ll check with Cody W. (Counsel for FPC) and Josh Blackman (counsel for Defense Distributed) to see if they included a Bruen challenge in their papers.