There were people in comments to my 6-3 article that wanted to point out that Roberts is a wishy-washy conservative and will cave to the Democrat side. He can’t. Let me explain why:
Whatever the opinion is, the senior member of the court that is a part of that opinion is the one who decides who gets to write that opinion. So if Roberts wants to side with the 3 judge minority, then Thomas gets to assign the writing of the majority opinion to whichever justice he pleases.
The only way that Roberts gets to do any damage control whatsoever is by limiting the scope of the opinion. Otherwise, the majority opinion will contain the strongest progun opinion that will still maintain the opinion of the majority. So he HAS to vote with the progun majority, or there is a risk that 922(o) will be struck down.
4 Comments
Therefore · October 28, 2020 at 11:53 pm
I read https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-kavanaugh-court/ this morning. Says pretty much the same thing.
Divemedic · October 29, 2020 at 12:06 am
Interesting. They are saying that Kavanaugh is the centrist in the new SCOTUS. His opinions on 2A are far to the right of where Heller was. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Jonathan H · October 29, 2020 at 2:24 am
I'd love to see 922(o) overturned, even though I'd lose money from it. But I would be surprised if the Court took a case on it at this point; I think it is still a step too far for them. I'd expect more action on local magazine and gun limits first, or wider carry.
Divemedic · October 29, 2020 at 10:36 am
That's my point. Roberts has to vote with the majority, if he wants to save some long standing laws like 922(o). If he doesn't, there are some issues there- how can it be Constitutional to tell gun owners that they must pay a tax in order to own machine guns, but then refuse to accept payment of that tax?
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