‘The Federal Supreme Court Is not Infallible’

 

We got a good reminder of that with DC’s Supreme Court ruling, Bondi v Vanderstok, decided 26 March 2025.  The issue in controversy was whether the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) could lawfully ban kits used to assemble untraceable ghost guns.  The ruling stumbles right out of the gate, basing its decision on the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA).  According to the Court’s reasoning, the ATF’s ban was not in violation of the GCA (we’ll spare you the protracted legalese of the ruling itself), so they held it to be a proper act of executive rule-making.

But there is a significant problem with this decision:  The Supreme Court used an illegal law, the GCA, as the yardstick against which to measure the propriety of the ATF’s rule.  The proper measuring rod that the justices should have used is the federal constitution’s 2^nd Amendment, not a congressional act that violates it.

The 2^nd Amendment is quite clear, ‘ . . . the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’  The GCA of 1968, by the standard of the 2^nd Amendment, is unlawful.  Therefore, any regulations that spring from it – like the ghost gun ban in question – are also null and void.

This brings to mind a quote by the well-known 19^th-century Yankee libertarian, Lysander Spooner:  ‘An unconstitutional judicial decision is no more binding than an unconstitutional legislative act’ (Michael Boldin, ‘Lysander Spooner’s Case Against Judicial Supremacy,’ tenthamendmentcenter.com).

What a State or local government does with regard to gun regulation is up to them, in accordance with their respective constitutions, laws, and traditions (the 14^th Amendment does not apply the federal Bill of Rights, including the 2^nd Amendment, to the States, as we have pointed out before).  Whether they want to allow ghost guns is a question for each State and locality to decide for herself.

The problem we often run into, though, is that in those States where a proper understanding of the 2^nd Amendment is prevalent (i.e., it is a prohibition upon the federal government’s restricting of firearm ownership in any way), instead of effective action to nullify unlawful federal restrictions, there is merely a lot despicable grandstanding by State and local officials.  Wyoming is a case-in-point:

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The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/04/garlington-the-federal-supreme-court-is-not-infallible/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!