The Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to New York's law giving the state discretion to determine whether someone deserves the right to concealed carry outside his home.  The justices' questions and statements on oral argument show that the Court has arrogated way too much power to itself.  It also shows that, no matter how academically smart the justices may be, their ideological blinders render them stupid.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen challenges a 1913 state law following the "may issue" model: to carry a gun outside your home, you must convince a bureaucrat that you have "proper cause" to need that gun.

To understand that viewpoint, I'll point you to what Robert Doyle, Marin County's sheriff back in 2014, said when the 9th Circuit held that sheriffs could not determine if people were truly in fear for their lives:

Doyle said he's a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment, but believes concealed-weapons permits should be reserved for those who have some sort of verifiable threat in their lives.

To "may issue" people, the right to bear arms isn't inherent in the people; it's inherent in the government granting them that "privilege."

While 41 states have a "shall issue" standard for licenses absent a clear reason not to (e.g., felony convictions), eight Democrat-run states, including New York, have "may issue" laws.

The New York plaintiffs sought concealed carry licenses but were issued licenses only for hunting and target shooting, not for personal self-defense.  The district court tossed the case, the 2nd Circuit affirmed that decision, and the Supreme Court, for the first time in a decade, agreed to hear the matter.

During oral argument, the leftist judges' words revealed a Court that is way too big for its britches.  Keep in mind that the Constitution gives them the power to decide cases (i.e., disputes) under the Constitution.  Nothing in Art. III gives the Court legislative power.

Nevertheless, according to The Washington Post, "Justice Stephen G. Breyer pressed the attorney for the two gun owners about how the court could craft guidelines that would not lead to 'gun-related chaos.'"  Once you're crafting guidelines, you're legislating.  That's not the Court's job.

All the leftist judges plus Amy Coney Barrett were obsessively concerned with the minute details of where guns would or would not be safe.  Bars?  Stadiums?  Subways?

In each, said the justices, it's possible for gun violence to occur.  In fact, in all those places, illegal gun violence has occurred.  The issue, as always, isn't the gun; it's who's handling it.  As a reminder, people plotting mass gun mayhem deliberately go to places that bar guns.

Moreover, as the petitioners' attorney pointed out:

[P]lenty of other states and large cities, including Houston, Phoenix, San Diego and Chicago, have not had "demonstrably worse problems" than the states such as New York with strict gun regulations.

Justice Kavanaugh seconded that point, but Justice Kagan thought she had a clever riposte, saying, "Most people think Chicago is the world's worst city with respect to gun violence, Mr. Clement."  Her ideological ignorance was showing.

Chicago's gun violence comes about because law-abiding citizens are disarmed, while its criminal element is completely feral, with no morals or decency.  In fact, nothing brings criminals to heel faster than good guys with guns.

After the Supreme Court issued its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, affirming individuals' right to have guns in the home, gun-grabbers predicted that gun crime in Washington, D.C. would explode.  John Lott explained then that it didn't:

But Armageddon never arrived. Quite the contrary, murders in Washington plummeted by an astounding 25 percent in 2009, dropping from 186 murders in 2008 to 140. That translates to a murder rate that is now down to 23.5 per 100,000 people, Washington's lowest since 1967. While other cities have also fared well over the last year, D.C.'s drop was several times greater than that for other similar sized cities. According to preliminary estimates by the FBI, nationwide murders fell by a relatively more modest 10 percent last year and by about 8 percent in other similarly sized cities of half a million to one million people (D.C.'s population count is at about 590,000).

(Of course, in D.C., as is true in all Democrat-run cities, violent crime increased following the Democrats' war on the police.)

Both Kagan and Sotomayor made points that should come back to haunt them regarding Texas's abortion law (keeping in mind that gun rights are explicit in the Constitution, while the right to an abortion is an imaginary constitutional right):

The court's liberal justices seemed willing to allow the state law to remain in place. Justice Elena Kagan called it "completely intuitive" that different states would have different gun laws, and that it is harder to get a license to carry a gun for self-defense in New York City than in a more rural area of the state. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that in her view, looking at the history and tradition of the Second Amendment, "states get a lot of deference" on restrictions.

Space constraints require me to stop now, but both streiff at RedState and Wolf Howling at Bookworm Room have good analyses about the case.

Image: Royalty free stock photo.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.