The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

  • cogman@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Originalism is nothing more than a mechanism for the Supreme Court to undo past precedent they don’t like. Welcome to the new lochner era.

    Hopefully we end this one like we ended the last, with a wave of socialism and a tough president willing to pack the court.

    • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      Sorry Loving v Virginia, it didn’t used to be widely understood that the equal protection clause would forbid inter racial marriage bans. After all, both white and black people are forbidden from marrying other races by those laws. There, equal. That’s how it was historically understood, heck it was illegal in 16 states still at the time and widely disapproved of.

      But this presumes origialism is some coherent philosophy in the first place, instead of an excuse for partisan hackery cherry picking by Heritage Foundation stooges to get the conclusion they want.

      Count me in favor of packing the court, not like there’s any integrity to jeopardize. More to lose by doing nothing while they continue to rampage.

      • cogman@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The next two civil rights I’m guessing we lose are gay marriage (Obergefell) and contraceptive access (Griswold). Obergefell because it was already close and hating anyone that’s not cis is in vogue now on the right. Griswold because it was determined on exactly the same lines as Loving and Roe (In fact, Griswold is what underlay roe) and there’s enough religious nuts out there that feel like contraceptives are sinful.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        The Senate already changed the number of justices to 8 for a year. I don’t see why it would be wrong to add extras after they admitted the count doesn’t matter.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        This is such a great argument for why we must pack the court to fix this injustice.

        Do nothing, and we will surely suffer the partisan revisionism. Pack the courts, and there’s at least a chance to right the ship.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      In practice, “Originalism” refers to a quality of the judgements. Each ruling is its own original interpretation of the Constitution very clearly independent of any others.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Hopefully we end this one like we ended the last, with a wave of socialism and a tough president willing to pack the court.

      Given the current crop of politicians moving through the state and federal seats, I’m not holding my breath.

      • cogman@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, it’s not going to be anytime soon. And I really don’t know what will change things.