“The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear two cases challenging separate state bans on so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines on Monday,” Fox News and other outlets reported. “The court declined to hear cases arising out of Maryland and Rhode Island relating to state regulations on AR-15-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, respectively. The cases had been submitted to the Supreme Court after lower courts upheld the bans in the face of challenges.”

Gun owners who have been following the cases have been let down and outraged by repeated relistings in conference, and seeing SCOTUS then reject addressing fundamentals at the heart of Founding intent for the Second Amendment goes beyond maddening. It’s inexcusable, especially since a proper opinion, that of course such arms are protected, is obvious to anyone who is not ignorant or delusional. What’s also obvious is the strongest voices against that conclusion are well aware such prohibitions are every bit as subversive as they are.

What’s not known is why.

How could a Supreme Court majority agree in the Bruen decision that text, history, and tradition during the time the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ratified were the standards to be applied, and then refuse to consider clearly unconstitutional bans?

The answer is pretty clear for Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson: They’re Democrat apparatchiks über alles. (Their joining in a unanimous decision to throw out Mexico’s lawsuit against the gun industry just means no one could figure out a credible way to make the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act mean the opposite of what it says, even though gun banners do that all the time with “shall not be infringed.)

As for the so-called “conservatives” on the court, it’s fair to speculate if the three who rejected granting cert are compromised or corrupt, noting the former can’t happen without the latter. Chief Justice John Roberts has pretty much been a tool during his tenure on the bench. Amy Coney Barrett continues to make court watchers wonder if Trump privately regrets nominating her but doesn’t want to publicly second guess himself.

And Brett Kavanaugh, with his cowardly “we’ll eventually get around to hearing a case in a term or two” nonsense, is willing to leave his countrymen at risk of having their lives destroyed now for daring to claim their rights in spite of “Blue State” tyranny.  Besides, his weasel-wording for infringements in Bruen (“Properly interpreted, the Second Amendment allows a ‘variety’ of gun regulations”) means expect more of the same from him when SCOTUS does finally get around to hearing the “right” case.

This all points back to a criticism of the judicial confirmation process that very few others seem to want to talk about but is nonetheless essential in identifying the “right” judges: Think of one job you’ve ever applied for where you would have gotten it if you decided to play coy with the hiring managers.

While it may be “inappropriate” for a judge to weigh in on a specific case before confirmation — for legitimate reasons, including not having studied and evaluated all the particulars, evidence and precedents against the “supreme Law of the Land,” — there’s no reason why general principles of understanding should be off-limits. Such hearings are supposed to be, among other things, high-level employment interviews, not pre-coronation ceremonies.

If Senate Judiciary can ask what a woman is, they can certainly ask what the Framers meant when they wrote the Second Amendment, and why.

“Then that means the Democrats won’t vote to confirm,” some may object.  They wouldn’t anyway, at least without the usual horse trading, and that door swings both ways when it’s their nominee addressing the Committee.

What’s disappointing is seeing how many “gun rights groups” are using the word “disappointed” in their reactions to SCOTUS kicking the can down the road. That’s because they were the ones telling their members that Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh were solid picks, and that was based more on wishful thinking than on any credible evidence of convictions.

What’s also disappointing is seeing how the legal emphasis on the Second Amendment continues to focus overwhelmingly on self-defense with barely a nod to common defense, and on the wholly invented “in common use at the time” precedent that boils down to a popularity contest. The result has been where we are now: Prohibitionists banning military arms once deemed vital to a free citizenry, with government reserving those and future arms developments for the “standing army” the Framers feared.

Consider a telling observation from the linked article in the lede:

“The 4th Circuit argued in its ruling that granting AR-15s constitutional protection based on their common use would mean that any dangerous weapon ‘could gain constitutional protection merely because it becomes popular before the government can sufficiently regulate it.’”

A question often raised in gun circles is how states and inferior courts keep coming up with and upholding gun bans that violate the standards set by Bruen. By refusing to take on gun and magazine bans, the Supreme Court has effectively given them the green light to continue doing so, and told gun owners that if they try to fight it in the system, not only will it be on them to bear the expense along with risks, and punishments, at the end of the trail all the high court has to do to let an infringement stand is… nothing.

At what point will the incentive to fight any gun case in court become overwhelmed by cynicism? Why go through the motions if establishment appeals courts are going to rule against the right of the people to keep and bear arms and the Supreme Court lets that stand?

Ditto for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s new pledge, “It is the policy of this Department of Justice to use its full might to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.” Without a Supreme Court decision on AR-15s and the like, where are they supposed to go when a blue state bans them?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,” President John F. Kennedy (an NRA Life Member assassinated by an ACLU member!) declared in his remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress. If “legal” doors are closed to gun owners, do the prohibitionists really believe there won’t be a critical mass of Americans prepared to defy, and if intolerable pushing persists, to resist?

A truism about governments and power is they never voluntarily give any up unless there’s a credible “or else” attached to the demand. The Supreme Court was – and still is – in a position to  pull everybody back  from the brink of that by doing the right thing, because here’s a reality: “Blue State” Democrats can pass whatever damn ban they want and there will be a core of gun owners – too big for them to overwhelm – with a simple response:

We will not comply.

Some prominent voices on “our side” will no doubt criticize such plain speaking (as they have in the past). That’s expected. But don’t reject the tools they offer, because it truly is “any chair in a bar fight,” and if their lobbying and lawsuits can yield results, support them. By the same token, there are successful strategies rooted deeply in American tradition not offered by “gun rights” groups dependent on working within the tax system that also merit consideration when and if what President Kennedy feared comes to pass. Some might even call Civil Disobedience as a response to tyranny a duty.

Those who counsel “Politics is the art of the possible” and “The perfect is the enemy of the good” refuse to push envelopes to determine just what is possible and evidently consider it good to be politically cuckolded. Heed their voices exclusively if you will, but keep one thing in mind: The reason we haven’t seen mass gun confiscations in this country is because the government knows it can’t.

Battered and ignored though it may be, the Second Amendment is still working.

The Supreme Court can help it work better.  Or they can keep d…ing around and further erode respect for the one thing that keeps it all in balance: Rule of law consistent with Founding intent articulated in the Preamble, “to secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.