June 27th, 2022 / Leave Feedback / nezuppal
At the beginning of June, following the worst elementary mass shooting since Sandy Hook, I wrote an article entitled “America’s Gun Culture Will Not End”. I was right, of course, but even I could not have predicted what would come next.
On Thursday 23rd June the Supreme Court, almost unbelievably, declared for the first time in the United State’s history that “the US Constitution protected an individual’s rights to carry a handgun in public for self-defence.” The decision was unbelievable and inexplicable. An analogy would be when the idea of arming teachers was floated in the USA – how ridiculous was that? In fairness, there are slightly stricter controls on background checks, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted an expansion in gun rights just weeks after children were murdered in school by a terrorist who had legally bought a gun.
Nevertheless, it has fundamentally changed gun laws in America. It is now no longer up to each state to decide their own gun laws – a policy which did not work anyway. Now gun laws are up to the Federal Government, a government which has chosen to expand gun rights just weeks after the worst mass shooting in decades.
What are you doing America?
More worryingly, however, are the three separate branches of government and how they will inter-link in the future. (I have an article on Roe vs. Wade coming up – prepare yourselves for that one). The Supreme Court’s decision was wrong; yes, it does include some minor extra background checks. But fundamentally it was the wrong decision.
But there are three separate branches of government. The President, Congress and The Supreme Court. And each holds checks and balances against one another to prevent one becoming too powerful. For example, if a President tried to stand for more than two terms The Supreme Court would deme this unconstitutional as it has been amended to follow George Washington’s precedent of only serving a maximum of eight years. (An interesting side note, this was always an unwritten convention until FDR managed to win four elections, before dying in office, upon which the Constitution was finally updated.)
What is more concerning about the change in gun laws, because America is never realistically going to sort out its gun laws, although I did not expect an expansion in gun rights. You have the NRA to thank for that. The major issue is that the branches of government no longer remain independent of one another – and this is the tipping point.
As mentioned above, each branch has checks and balances over the other branches. One key power the President possesses is his ability to appoint people to the Supreme Court. This must be approved by a Senate committee and Congress. However, when there is no bi-partisanship and one-party controls everything then it is easy to flood the Supreme Court – as is the case now. There are currently 6 Republican-appointed judges and 3 Democratic-appointed judges.
“Aren’t the judges supposed to be impartial and uphold the rule of law?”, I hear you wonder. Yes. Yes, they are. But they do not. If you were to look at the voting record of Clarence Thomas, the worst judge in my opinion who has previously been accused by attorney Anita Hill of sexual harassment, and compare it to that of Stephen Breyer it should be pretty obvious which party appointed which judge.
Whilst I, and indeed many Americans, disagree with these changes the gravest error, in my opinion, was Biden getting involved. On Saturday Biden signed a bi-partisan gun safety bill into law, it was the first major gun reform in three decades. He claimed that “God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives.” He also commented after the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion laws, saying “”Is the Supreme Court broken? The Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions.”
Even the NYC Mayor, Eric Adams, has said that he will allow businesses to continue to restrict guns as he does not want New York to turn into the “Wild Wild West”. The fact that even a Mayor has come out publicly to denounce the Supreme Court’s decision and openly encourage citizens to ignore – and by association the rule of law – is shocking in itself!
Perhaps it has, but the President is literally pitting his branch of government against the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was designed to be impartial, above reproach and to uphold the American Constitution. Currently it is failing to do so, with worsening laws on abortion and gun laws. But for the President to comment on their decisions clearly demonstrates their lack of impartiality and perhaps is even a sign of how broken the American system is.
“Democracy has failed” or has America?
Ignorantly Ignorant 