{"id":3209,"date":"2022-01-23T07:38:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T15:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=3209"},"modified":"2022-01-23T07:54:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T15:54:13","slug":"youre-welcome-9th-circuit-judge-writes-alternative-opinion-for-ruling-on-covid-gun-shop-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2022\/01\/23\/youre-welcome-9th-circuit-judge-writes-alternative-opinion-for-ruling-on-covid-gun-shop-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You’re Welcome’: 9th Circuit Judge Writes Alternative Opinion for Ruling on COVID Gun Shop Closures"},"content":{"rendered":"
[Avalon Zoppo<\/a>]<\/pre>\n
In an unusual concurrence to a ruling deeming pandemic gun store closures unconstitutional, Trump-appointee Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit penned an alternative opinion in an attempt to prove his criticisms of the circuit\u2019s approach to Second Amendment challenges.<\/p>\n
Three Republican-appointed members of the court, Judges VanDyke, Andrew J. Kleinfeld and Ryan D. Nelson, held that two California counties\u2019 mandates that required gun stores and firing ranges, along with other businesses, to close during the early days of the pandemic violated the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n
VanDyke wrote a concurrence to his own opinion, predicting the case will be heard en banc and claiming \u201cno firearm-related ban or regulation ever ultimately fails\u201d in the Ninth Circuit. He criticized the circuit\u2019s approach to Second Amendment challenges as \u201cexceptionally malleable.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then attached a 13-page \u201calternative draft opinion\u201d in favor of the California counties\u2014 the opposite conclusion of his own opinion\u2014 which he said would let the court\u2019s majority \u201cget a jumpstart\u201d on calling the case en banc.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur circuit can uphold any and every gun regulation because our current Second Amendment framework is exceptionally malleable and essentially equates to rational basis review,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe complex weave of multi-prong analyses embedded into this framework provide numerous off-ramps for judges to uphold any gun-regulation in question without hardly breaking a sweat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSince our court\u2019s Second Amendment intermediate scrutiny standard can reach any result one desires, I figure there is no reason why I shouldn\u2019t write an alternative draft opinion that will apply our test in a way more to the liking of the majority of our court. That way I can demonstrate just how easy it is to reach any desired conclusion under our current framework, and the majority of our court can get a jumpstart on calling this case en banc. Sort of a win-win for everyone,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
He ended the alternate opinion with \u201cYou\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Ventura County and Los Angeles County issued restrictions on non-essential businesses, including a 48-day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops and firing ranges. The Second Amendment Foundation, California Gun Rights Foundation and a number of other gun rights advocates challenged the restrictions as violating the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall of the Central District of California dismissed the lawsuit, concluding the orders reasonably fit the counties\u2019 goal of slowing the spread of COVID-19 and the temporary closure of non-essential businesses.<\/p>\n
In reversing the lower court decision, VanDyke wrote that the orders entirely prevented people \u201cfrom realizing their right to keep and bear arms, both by prohibiting access to acquiring any firearm and ammunition, and barring practice at firing ranges with any firearms already owned.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese blanket prohibitions on access and practice clearly burden conduct protected by the Second Amendment and fail under both strict and intermediate scrutiny,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
While Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who follows the Ninth Circuit, viewed VanDyke\u2019s words as \u201clighthearted,\u201d he said others may not have the same opinion and consider it an example of VanDyke lacking collegiality, in light of other heated dissents VanDyke has authored since joining the court in 2020.<\/p>\n
Dissenting to a ruling on California\u2019s ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines in November, VanDyke accused his colleagues in the majority of distrusting gun owners and believing \u201cthe Second Amendment is a vestigial organ of their living constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another last March, VanDyke accused the court\u2019s majority of pulling an inappropriate power grab to sidestep precedent in a case challenging a Trump administration immigration rule, saying the majority used \u201csome good old-fashioned judge-jitsu.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s already to some extent shown himself to be something of a bad boy with some of his other opinions. It will be read in that context \u2026 that will color their reaction to this one,\u201d Hellman said. \u201cTaken on its own, I thought this was a lighthearted attempt to make a point about what he sees as the hostility of the Ninth Circuit majority to Second Amendment rights and also to what he sees as these doctrinal approaches that are so flexible that they allow judges to reach any result they want. It\u2019s using rhetorical techniques in a way that you don\u2019t often see in the judicial opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Judge Lawrence VanDyke predicted the case alleging Second Amendment violations will be heard by the full court and wrote an “alternative draft opinion.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[41],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun.jpg",2048,1360,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-600x398.jpg",600,398,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-768x510.jpg",640,425,true],"large":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-1200x797.jpg",640,425,true],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-1536x1020.jpg",1536,1020,true],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun.jpg",2048,1360,false],"darknews-slider-full":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-1280x720.jpg",1280,720,true],"darknews-featured":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-1024x680.jpg",1024,680,true],"darknews-medium":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-720x530.jpg",720,530,true],"darknews-medium-square":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cris-Gun-350x350.jpg",350,350,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"Government<\/a>","tag_info":"Government","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3209"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3211,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3209\/revisions\/3211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}