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Old 12-04-2012, 2:15 PM
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Originally Posted by kcbrown View Post
That is a grave concern of mine as well. In light of that very real possibility, why wouldn't the anti-gun courts ignore, to the extent that they can get away with it (meaning, right up to, but not to, the point where the Supreme Court issues arrest orders against them), any Supreme Court decisions that support RKBA in public?
Because the people who make the decisions are good people who strongly believe that they must abide the rulings of the S. Ct. You seem unwilling to accept the difference between a lower court reading a S. Ct. opinion narrowly and a lower court issuing a ruling that is directly contrary to S. Ct. precedent. Read OleCuss's post. It's a good post. Courts have a longstanding tradition of reluctance to declare the work of the Legislative branch to be unconstitutional. I think that the lower courts' refusal to apply the RKBA is based upon something more than that reluctance. Nevertheless, the lower courts are reading Heller/McDonald in a way that the S. Ct. invited. Both cases are replete with language claiming the opinions are limited.

Quote:
the lower courts can still ignore it in the hopes that it will reverse itself once its composition changes.
I suggest that the Court is unlikely to reverse itself. Before a liberal majority would reverse Heller/McDonald they would have to be very sure that there would never again be a conservative majority, because a conservative majority could reverse Roe v. Wade. That being said, the scope of the RKBA is largely unresolved. A liberal majority could neuter the RKBA without ever reversing Heller/McDonald.