Legal AF by MeidasTouch - SCOTUS Makes Unexpected Ruling With Instant Impact
Episode Date: June 2, 2025While on its face the Supreme Court just apparently dealt a set back to assault weapon gun owners in America by allowing for now a Maryland ban on AR15 assault rifles and a Rhode Island ban on high ca...pacity magazines to remain in effect, there are warning signs in both orders that the MAGA right— led by Thomas and Kavanaugh — is prepared in the next term to find that people have a 2nd Amendment Right to bear AR15s. Michael Popok takes a close look at the 2 orders to suss out what they mean. Go to https://beekeepersnaturals.com/legalaf or enter code LEGALAF to get 20% off your order. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Sometimes the United States Supreme Court can't count to five.
They can only count to four.
And if they can only count to four. They can only count to four.
They can't make bad law concerning gun rights.
We got two cases on today's list for the Supreme Court in which the Supreme Court has allowed
a ban on AR-15 and other long assault rifles in states like Maryland and across the country as consistent
with the second amendment, but with a huge asterisk there.
And similarly, they are allowing a ban in Rhode Island
and therefore in other states on high capacity magazines,
which feed the bullets into the weapon
at a high rate of speed.
Both of those things for now do not appear
the way those cases have been developed
to violate not only the second amendment
on the language of the second amendment,
but as reinterpreted by this United States Supreme Court
through a decision by Justice Alito back in 2022,
we call the Bruin decision,
which says in order to have these bans survive,
constitutional analysis,
there has to be a historical analog,
a historical tradition of banning these types of weapons,
going back to the old timey times.
And we have in the dissents and in the statements
by Kavanaugh, by Thomas,
in the Maryland case, we know what they're going to do
in the next year or two in these cases.
So don't be surprised if I come back with a hot take
and I tell you a year from now
that they are not gonna allow an AR-15 ban
and they're gonna find that it's inconsistent
with the Second Amendment, but for now, procedurally,
they're not finding that.
Confused? You won't be at the end of my hot take.
I'm Michael Popak.
You're on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF.
Let's get into these cases.
The Supreme Court is trying to wrap things up here
at the end of the month.
This has been a long term for everybody.
It started in the first Monday of October
and goes until they issue their last decision
at the end of this month.
Of course, the other asterisk there is that they're doing emergency
applications like every day they're popping them like tic-tacs.
And we're going to have hearings, potentially oral arguments, potentially,
and certainly rulings throughout the summer.
But this is the, what they've decided to do on two controversial cases, which the gun lobby and gun enthusiasts and people like Donald Trump,
who love guns without restriction, are lamenting.
Maryland's assault weapon ban went up to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
It bans AR-15s.
It was passed originally in the wake of the Sandy Hook
disaster, elementary school massacre of children
and teachers, small children and teachers.
You'd think there'd be a public sentiment to support this.
And so Maryland instituted an assault weapon ban
primarily focused on the AR-15.
The problem with the AR-15 in America
is that it's proliferated. It is like the number one
long arm that people have in their homes. But according to both the Maryland courts, Maryland
federal courts and Rhode Island federal courts and others, they are very similar to military grade
weaponry like the M16. And if they are military grade weaponry or something like it,
then they shouldn't be allowed,
a citizen should not be allowed to bear them.
They're not bearable.
I mean, they're unbearable for sure,
but that's one of the tests.
Is this something that is bearable?
People can bear these arms.
Just because we've allowed them to proliferate
doesn't mean they're consistent with the second amendment and those two federal courts have said
nah those are military grade and those are outside the protections of the
second amendment even as reinterpreted by the supreme
court in 2022 in that brewing decision because we
looked at the historical antecedents of the historical precedent here
and we think people in the late 1700s, early 1800s
would have banned these things as well.
Of course, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch,
and in his own way, Kavanaugh, rejected that.
That's why I said they can't count the five.
These two rulings, at least for now, indicate that Roberts,
Chief Justice Roberts and Amy Coney Bar Barrett have slid over to,
as we have said, they are the center, center right,
center right right of this court.
And they helped make the law because if they join
with the three on the moderate wing,
the Democratic appointed justices,
they'll form a block, a voting block of five,
and things will go their way.
That's what we just had effectively five to four now on the five to four
Let's talk about the decision. This means for now what came up from Maryland
What came up from Rhode Island is currently the law the land?
Peep states can have other books bands on large capacity magazines and bans on AR-15. But
Kavanaugh pointed out, here's the big asterisk, that there are cases percolating in other courts
below that will reach the United States Supreme Court. He said maybe this coming term opening in
October or the following term. And he thinks at that point that a case will be ripe to present to the
court the sole issue of whether something like an AR-15 is protected by
the Second Amendment as a right to bear a personal right of an individual in
their home not a military right or is it something that's outside the
protections of the Second Amendment it wasn't squarely addressed in these particular cases. Let me read to you from the decision by Kavanaugh
or his statement before I get to the dissent by Thomas.
This is all about the AR-15.
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Here's what Kavanaugh had to say.
He starts with, in District of Columbia versus Heller,
this court ruled that the Second Amendment
must be interpreted in light of constitutional text,
history and tradition.
That was then carried on in Bruin in 2022.
This case, Kavanaugh writes,
primarily concerns Maryland's ban on the AR-15,
a semi-automatic rifle.
Americans today possess an estimated 20 to 30 million AR-15s.
That's a staggering number, folks.
And AR-15s are legal in 41 of the 50 states,
meaning that the states such as Maryland
that prohibit AR-15s are something of an outlier.
Given that millions of Americans own AR-15s
and that a significant majority of states allow them,
the petitioners have a strong argument that AR-15s are in common use by law-abiding citizens
and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment under Heller.
In short, Kavanaugh says he expects in the next term or two, he says,
additional petitions, appeals below, will likely
be before this court shortly. And in my view, this court should and presumably will address
the AR-15 issue soon. Thomas goes further. He's the author of the tremendous expansion of Second
Amendment rights in 2022. And he just says basically everybody has the right to bear arms.
It's a personal right.
And he thinks that the other five people on the court
have misinterpreted his ruling in Bruin.
And because they're so popular, they should remain available to Americans,
despite the tremendous human toll that AR-15s take.
It is always something like an AR-15 generally that is used at a mass shooting, at a school
shooting. In Las Vegas, it was another form of a bump stock attached to a long rifle,
creating an automatic weapon, if you will.
These are the killing machines of people that want to take out mass casualties and kill children.
But the Republicans don't care about it.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
that this case is based on, or the appeal that came up from,
it was 10 to five.
Yes, they supported the ban, but five Republicans,
many of them Trumpers, voted against it. That's why this appointment of federal judges by Donald
Trump that we're now watching on full display is so important because you can see the rulings that
they're making. What happens next? This will end it for this term. States, there's
about nine or ten of them, maybe a few more that will enact it, that will try for an assault weapons
ban and cite to these cases. But they do so at their own risk and their own peril because
Kavanaugh has signaled that as soon as a better case to decide the AR-15 issue and whether it's
consistent with the second amendment
comes up, he's going to vote against it. Question is, is Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett going to
slide over and join them? They only need one more vote. And then I think folks, we're going to see
AR-15s being declared by this Supreme Court a year or two from now as being consistent with
second amendment rights. And that is ultimately very scary. In the meantime, large capacity weapons and
large capacity magazines can also be banned subject to future rulings of this court.
Having expanded and opened the Pandora's box in 2022, I don't think, let me manage expectations,
this case should be, these two cases should be seen as putting the genie back in the bottle,
putting Pandora back in the box.
It's not.
It's just delaying the inevitable,
which we'll cover here at the intersection
of law and politics on the Minus Touch Network.
I'm Michael Popak.
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