The SC is concerned about its own security

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have recently expressed concern about their security. Of course, we should all share that concern. But have these justices given the same attention to how their and the other Republican-appointed justices' expansion of the Second Amendment over the last 15 years has affected the security of the rest of us?

Roberts says in his 2022 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, "A judicial system cannot and should not live in fear." True enough. But has it occurred to him that the rest of us also should not have to live in fear - of continuing firearm violence?

Before 2008, the Supreme Court never said there was a constitutional right to own a firearm. That did not mean people could not own one. Many did. It meant Congress and the state legislatures were free to enact legislation to promote firearm safety and limit firearm violence.

Think of cars. There is no constitutional right to own a car. That does not stop people from owning one if they can afford it. But it means licenses can be required, seatbelts can be mandatory, speed limits can be imposed, drunk driving can be prohibited and drivers can be obligated to obey the rules of the road.

In 2008, the then five Republican-appointed justices for the first time ruled the Second Amendment creates a constitutional right to own a firearm for self-defense - in the home. That prevented Congress from enacting certain gun-safety measures to protect our security. Predictably, it started a wave of litigation by "gun rights" organizations to strike down more firearm safety laws.

Roberts' 2022 Report thanks Congress for enacting the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security Act last year. But in June of the same year, in the court's Bruen ruling, the now six Republican-appointed justices struck down New York's law to safeguard our security by limiting the concealed carry of a firearm. They granted individuals the "right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home" - not just inside one's home. That further expanded the Second Amendment, and correspondingly further limited the space available to our federal and state governments to protect us from firearm violence.

The Deputy Police Commissioner of New York City said of the court's ruling that "the mayor, the police commissioner, and every police officer has a grave concern that putting more guns on the streets of New York is not going to come to a good end." Deaths and injuries from firearms (including suicide) are already far too high.

There is nothing in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the Republican-appointed justices have ruled makes the Second Amendment applicable to the states, or the Second Amendment itself, that mandates these justices' decision to create a constitutional right to carry a firearm specifically for self-defense, let alone a concealed firearm. In fact, those amendments say nothing about that.

The Second Amendment actually gives the states the right to protect their own state security by having militias in which their citizens bear arms: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the Bruen decision, himself previously explained:

"Traditionally," states have "prohibit[ed] the carrying of weapons in a concealed manner" and those laws "neither prohibit nor broadly frustrate any individual from generally exercising his right to bear arms," but he ignored that in Bruen.