Judging Freedom - Federal Judge Calls Clarence Thomas’ Bluff on Gun Rights

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, November 3rd, 2022. It's about five minutes of four in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Yesterday, a federal district court judge in Mississippi harshly, severely, and personally criticized United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for his authorship of an opinion called Bruin v. New York Rifle Association. That's the decision with which Judging Freedom viewers are quite familiar that came down in in June reaffirming the natural and constitutional right to keep and bear arms outside the home. The linchpin of that decision is that because arms were traditionally free to be kept and carried when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, they must be free today because the

language of the Second Amendment, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, should be understood today the same way it was understood when it was ratified in 1791. And if there have been any traditional or historical infringements on the right to keep and bear arms that were recognized in 1791, then the states can recognize them today. Stated differently, you have the right to carry a rifle and a handgun outside your home with minimal, minimal interference. In 1791, you could carry weapons at a church, at a voting place, at a hospital, such as there might have been at the time, and anywhere in the streets or at public gatherings. So the states that have attempted to say, for example, in New York, they've said Times Square is too congested with people to allow good people to have guns. Only bad people have guns there. Times Square is seven blocks. The state of New York has expanded it to 35 blocks. They've also

said you can't carry a gun at a school. You can't carry a gun at a church. You can't carry a gun at a voting place. You can't carry a gun at a political demonstration. All these things will be thrown out once a federal judge scrutinizes it. Now to Mississippi, where someone was charged with the crime of being a felon and carrying a gun. This guy went to jail for a nonviolent crime, but because it was a felony, under federal law and under Mississippi law, he can never carry a gun, even though his crime had nothing to do with the guns. He was challenging the constitutionality of that statute, saying that in 1791, when the Second Amendment was adopted, there was no such restriction on felons carrying guns. You did the crime, you committed the crime, you did the time, You were then as free as you were before you committed the crime.

All of that is background of this federal judge ripping into Justice Clarence Thomas. When you're a federal judge, you can get away with this. When I was a state judge, if I had personally attacked a Supreme Court justice, a New Jersey Supreme Court justice, my bosses in the state system, for writing a decision with which I disagreed, I almost can't think of the punishment that they would impose on me, but it would be miserable and most unlike what I would have wanted. No one can harm a hair on the head of this federal district court judge for criticizing Justice Thomas. Here's his criticism. I'm a judge. I'm a lawyer. I'm a legal scholar. I'm not a historian. I don't know what the country believed and recognized and accepted

in 1791. What the hell do you want me to do? Hire some historians to figure it out? Well, your honor, you have two litigants before you. You have the lawyers for the defendant. You have the lawyers for the DOJ. Ask them to do the research for you. What was the law in Mississippi in 1791? There wasn at least as far as Mississippi goes, where you sit, your honor, is unconstitutional. How about that instead of personally attacking Justice Thomas? We'll see where this goes. I think he's making a mountain out of a molehill because he disagrees with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment because he disagrees with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment because he disagrees with the Second Amendment, even though he took an oath to uphold it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.