Soon after the Bruen decision, federal judges and courts of appeals around the country began to use Thomas' logic to throw out gun regulations that had existed for decades. Before the Thomas decision, if a state wanted to limit gun purchases to those over 21 years of age or forbid the ownership of firearms by people who had been convicted of domestic abuse or those who had a restraining order against them because they had threatened a domestic partner, then the state could pass those laws.īut not after Justice Thomas had his say, backed up by members of the same Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority that threw out Roe v Wade with its decision to allegedly return regulation of abortion to the states in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization. With one decision, Clarence Thomas threw out about 200 years of jurisprudence and laws that had been passed regulating guns in this country for reasons of, for example, public safety. The Bruen decision, handed down last year, overturned the law, saying essentially that because at the time of the writing of the Second Amendment there were no laws requiring the licensing of firearms, no law could require such a license now. Bruen, New York state held that a citizen must show a need to carry a firearm in order to obtain a firearms license. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that automobiles were not invented until the late 1800s and did not come into regular use in this country until the early 20th Century, otherwise the Supreme Court would be busy doing away with requirements for driver's licenses, auto registrations, and environmental regulations on exhaust emissions and gas mileage.Īt least that would be true if the reasoning used by Justice Clarence Thomas in his decision in a landmark Second Amendment case was applied to cars, that any regulations of guns in this country must be "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." In the case, N ew York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc.
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