Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court TRIES TO FOOL PUBLIC over Trump..CAUGHT!!!

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

Don’t be fooled by the SCOTUS oral argument on the Biden Administration’s ban on unregistered homemade “ghost guns” without background checks. The right wing of the court remains in the gun lobby’s back pocket, as they occasionally throw a bone to sensible gun control to mislead the public into believing they are not MAGA far-right extremists. Michael Popok breaks down the oral argument and what we can expect in their ruling. Lumen: Head to https://Lumen.me/legalaf and use code: LEGALAF to get 15% off your lumen today! Join the LegalAF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/legalaf 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 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson 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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to be registered or without having to have background checks for these firearms that are made at home, including with 3D printers, don't be fooled by the oral argument that the alt-right has suddenly come to their senses and they're not in the back pocket of the NRA. They are. It's just that occasionally a case goes so far that even these right-wingers can't bring themselves, at least in broad daylight, to act like, well, we can't be in favor of gun kits that are made at home that hobbyists can make, that the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms and explosives agency doesn't know anything about and doesn't regulate. That can't be what Congress wants.

So occasionally, as sort of a makeup or a walk back, the Supreme Court, especially when it comes to Second Amendment rights, will do something that on the surface looks to be surprising, but it's nothing of the sort. On the surface, when they decided last term that a person accused of assault, assaulting and domestic violence, committing domestic violence against their girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse shouldn't also be allowed to have a weapon and that there should be a restriction on their right to have a weapon if they have been and are subject of a restraining order.

When we saw that, we said, oh, that's interesting. They seem to be sort of curtailing Second Amendment rights when it comes to a really heinous case of a guy beating up his girlfriend and shooting off his guns in the air like he was some sort of mad cartoon character and going on a crime spree. Even for the Supreme Court, they're like, well, for that one, we better find that there's no right to have to bear arms. Don't be fooled. That's just a make-up or a make-good so that we think that they're not in the back pocket of the NRA and the U.S. Rifle Association when they are. So now we have another example with the ghost guns that came before the Supreme Court just this week, first oral argument of the new term.

And there was a very interesting combination of things going on. Amy Coney Barrett, once again, even though she's conservative, she's right-winger, she's not as right-wing as Alito Thomas and even Gorsuch and Kavanaugh when it comes to things like guns at least. And she once again took on Sam Alito, just like she took on Clarence Thomas the last time when they were talking about gun rights and gun control. The last term when Sam and Thomas got to write the opinion, when he said, well, we can't regulate gun usage unless we can find a historical antecedent sometime in the

1790s or 1800s. Amy Coney Barrett last term, when she was sort of coming into her own and opposing an occasion and siding with the moderates and liberals on the United States Supreme Court, she took them on and said, I mean, she lost, but she took them on and said, this historical thing's not going to work. You're going to reach a technology that they never could have thought of in old timey times You know like 3d printing of ghost guns and then what are you gonna do? So that can't be your methodology for your decision-making and now she took them out again

Because this time during the oral argument where we sort of see how the minds of these justices work Right as they as they struggle at least in a performative art sense, they struggle at least publicly with their positions for all to see. So first Alito starts asking questions of the Solicitor General that are, I don't know how to put this any other way, ridiculous. He said, well, do you agree with me that these kits, these gun kits that you can buy or the plans or the 3D printing, they come in parts. They're not all assembled.

Yes. And they can be used for something else. And the Solicitor General was like, no, they're gun parts. I mean, what are you going to do, take the receiver and use it as a hammer? He says, well, for instance, I have a piece of paper. He actually did this. He actually reduced gun violence in America and in sensible gun control down to a grocery list.

In fact, most of the justices spent a lot. They were either hungry before lunch or they're just ridiculous and using silly, callous examples to try to prove whatever point they're trying to make while people die in the streets because of their rulings. Alito said, I got a piece of paper and I have a pen. Do I have a grocery list? Well, you don't yet. So Amy Coney Barrett even thought that was ridiculous and she jumped in. I thought she had a sponsorship by one of our sponsors. She started making a hello fresh comparison to embarrass Alito. She threw a softball to the Solicitor General

arguing for the Biden administration and said well isn't it more like Hello Fresh where you get a meal kit and you get all the ingredients and you put it together but it's only obviously you're gonna put it together to make the the chili reno or whatever and I'm like are these guys like a fucking hungry? Are these guys like hungry or something? Why are we keep talking about food? We're talking about death and destruction. But she did that to embarrass Alito. Just like she tried to embarrass Clarence Thomas. She is starting to become the intellectual weight, if you will, and is rapidly becoming, as in the center right, is rapidly becoming the decisive block, right? The pivotal, the pivotal

vote, the swing vote, if you will. We're watching it. I said to watch it last year, we're seeing it again this term. And then John Roberts, who had sought, because this case came up through an original emergency injunction or stay. And there were five votes to allow the ban to go into effect. And it's been in effect all the way through,

unlike a woman's right to choose, which they have no problem saying, nope, we're not gonna allow abortions to happen in Texas. Sorry, I don't care how many women die or how many unwanted babies are born. We're gonna let that case go through the process and we'll see it a year from now. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach.

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When it comes to guns, they were like, maybe we should block it and they allow or not block it. And so in this case, they were like, well, maybe we should block it. And they allowed or not block it. And so this case, they allowed the ban on ghost weapons without registration of background checks to take effect. There were five votes. It was the three moderates, Amy Coney, Kataji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan joined by Amy Coney Barrett and Roberts. That was the five votes.

They counted to five. The ones that said, no, no, we should block the ban. Ghost guns seemed fine to us without registration or background checks. That was Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Remember, I'll tell you straight, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are in the back pocket, bought and paid for by the NRA and the US Pistol Association. The NRA paid a million dollars each for Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to support their confirmation process. And what do you think they got in return? You know, their decision-making like, I think ghost guns are fine. Even Gorsuch this time around in the oral

argument didn't think it was so fine. Even Gorsuch thought, well, I'm having, basically I'm having second thoughts about whether to rely it or allow it. And so he started to struggle to publicly support his original position. But Kavanaugh doubled down on it. Kavanaugh once again, who shouldn't even be on the United States Supreme Court, we've done other reporting and other hot ticks, how the Trump administration and White House buried and put an end to any reasonable FBI investigation of the 4,500 tips against Kavanaugh claiming sexual assault and sexual abuse. The FBI never interviewed anybody. Even the person, Dr. Ford Blasey, who testified tearfully in front of the Senate that she was sexually assaulted and abused by Kavanaugh.

Even she wasn't interviewed by the FBI because the Trump White House put an end to it, even though publicly Trump was like, we should have a full vetting with the FBI doing the investigation. He was taking the exact opposite behind the scenes. Kavanaugh shouldn't be on that. He lied when he was confirmed that he wouldn't overturn Roe versus Wade, a woman's right to choose, and now he's standing in judgment on things like Second Amendment rights. Gorsuch still in the back pocket of the gun lobby. He thought it was okay. Well, the parts could be assembled in different ways and hobbyists might be prosecuted when

they thought it was lawful. What does that have to do with anything? Once the law has changed, everybody's presumed to know the law. So if you got a ghost gun after that and you get prosecuted, he's right. You're going to have a hard time having a defense to that. But that's not an excuse to block the ban. I can count. It looks like the original five are locked in.

Roberts was also questioning out loud Chief Justice Roberts who voted in favor of the ban last time. He said out loud, I don't really understand how we can regulate a gun, but we can't regulate the kit that makes the gun. Sometimes Roberts just says the obvious out loud. So it's going to be, look, they got the votes, Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, Sota Mayor Keagan and Katanji Brown Jackson.

They don't need Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas. It'll go five to four. Maybe Gorsuch comes over, makes it six to three to make Roberts happy. But I think that's what's going to happen. But again, as I started this hot take, don't be fooled. This is just a ruse. This is a smokescreen where on cases where they obviously can't rule in favor of the gun lobby, they're gonna do a makeup.

They're gonna walk back their extreme positions, expressed by the case that was written by Clarence Thomas a couple years ago, the Bruin decision from New York, which expanded considerably individual personal right to bear arms. And they've been trying and struggling to kind of contain that ever since. That GD is out of the bottle until we have a better Supreme Court that will put proper gun regulation where it belongs on the books and support it. Even our founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution thought there needed to be a well-regulated militia who was going to bear those arms. It didn't say a rabble of militia running around shooting off guns.

Even they were like, we better have, they better be well-regulated. All right, follow it all. You got a couple of places now to follow it all. You got Midas Touch, the Brothers channel where we love and we reside on Legal AF the podcast, and you got a new in collaboration channel at the intersection of law and politics called Legal AF MTN. Presubscribe and help us develop that channel. I'm curating it and I'm executive producing it at the intersection of law and politics to grab all of this content that's overflow that we can't all talk about with the Midas Touch Network, come over to Legal AF, MTN. So until my next hot take and my next Legal AF, MTN contribution, I'm Michael Popock,

and I am reporting. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.