In the Dobbs decision, Justice Thomas exhibited some remarkable reasoning regarding history and the law when he suggested that, without evidence of abortion being legal in the days of the Founders, it could not be a Constitutional right today; Erick Erickson tried to take it further and fell on his face.
But now we’re getting the first ripples of this Dobbs reasoning from the inferior judges, as this article summary makes clear:
Federal judge in Texas rules that disarming those under protective orders violates their Second Amendment rights
The idea that someone already considered to be violent and irrational should continue to be armed is painfully silly.
But the real point here for me is an almost reverence for a supposed position of the Founding Fathers, a reverence that is directly and fatally repelled by a simple reading of the Constitution. Remember the part where it specifies that the Constitution may be amended by 2/3 of each House of Congress, followed by approval by the States?
In that very statement lies the information that should result in the dissolution of his order.
It is the acknowledgment of doubt, of the possibility of error, the recognition that, as society changes, so should the law of the land, in small particulars and great generalities.
This is the kind of ruling that is a regression, after the progress, the changes in which the 2nd Amendment, itself not an unlimited right in a country of limited rights, which brought us through the 1950s, a regression of dubious worth that could easily result in the deaths of estranged spouses and responding police officers. It ascribes a holiness to the alleged beliefs of the Founding Fathers that is uncalled for, and, in fact, a barrier to the necessary critiques and adjustments to our laws that are necessary to improve our country.
And it’s sad, really. Whether Judge Counts thinks this is a necessary ruling in the wake of Thomas’ ruling, or it was his own idea, there’s a good chance people will die because of it.
