Liberals claim they want to get tough on gun crime, while stopping people from using firearms while committing felonies. Yet, four U.S. Supreme Court liberals, along with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, just did the opposite.
The five justices sided against the conservative majority and struck down a law imposing additional penalties on criminals who use firearms while committing violent crimes.
Astoundingly, the court struck down firearms convictions on two men convicted of participating in a series of gas station robberies. The pair were armed but did not fire any shots while robbing gas stations in 2014. A 1986 federal law imposed additional penalties for using a firearm while committing a violent crime. Even when shots are not fired, using a firearm to intimidate someone is a threat of violence – especially during a robbery.
In this case, defendants Andre Glover and Maurice Davis were caught committing and convicted for several robbery counts. They also were convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery and brandishing a shotgun during a violent crime.
Davis received a 41-year prison sentence, while Glover received a 50-year sentence. The SCOTUS ruling, though, will reduce those sentences by whatever was added for possessing the firearms. The remaining sentences stay intact.
The five justices found the law too vague and did not provide sufficient notice of which conduct might land someone in prison. Common sense dictates brandishing a firearm while committing a robbery – which is defined by criminal violence – would land you in prison if caught. Gorsuch, though, said “In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all.”
Gorsuch said Congress could pass a law that more specifically addresses the use of firearms during certain felony acts. “This court is not in the business of writing new statutes to right every social wrong it may perceive,” Gorsuch said in the majority opinion.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the court’s decision would “make it harder to prosecute violent gun crimes in the future.” He said stiff prison sentences have reduced the amount of violent crimes involving firearms.
Gorsuch is a conservative Justice more aligned with late Justice Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch invoked Scalia’s 2015 argument against overly broad federal sentencing laws.
Gorsuch wants more specific laws written to address additional sentencing guidelines that would more specifically address brandishing firearms during specific violent crimes. The new ruling essentially gives robbers a free pass to use firearms to intimidate victims. Apparently, unless a shot is fired, the firearms might as well be a squirt gun in the minds of liberal justices, and Gorsuch.
Liberals say they want to get tough on crime and stopping senseless gun violence. Yet, their approaches typically do the opposite. Rather than disarming criminals, the liberals prefer disarming law-abiding citizens. They do that with stringent requirements, that now include background checks for ammo purchases in California. Yes. If you want to buy a box of ammo in California, you soon will have to pay $1 for a joke of a background check.
Liberals even want to rewrite – or downright abolish – the Second Amendment, because it gets in the way of their efforts to exert martial control. One of the dimmest bulbs in the Dem Caucus is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The self-proclaimed “boss” wants to ban semi-autos and “high-capacity” magazines that are “designed to kill people.”
Apparently, in her mind, that means just about any firearm made that holds more than one round and that dispenses a single bullet each time the trigger is pulled. Sadly, most liberals are just as crazy when it comes to regulating firearms.
Ultimately, anti-gun liberals mostly would disarm the otherwise law-abiding public. Violent criminals do not purchase their firearms legally and submit to background checks. Most would not pass them, anyway. Stopping criminals from possessing firearms is not what liberals are trying to do.
Given the latest SCOTUS ruling, liberals absolutely are putting firearms in the hands of criminals – by removing penalties for using them while committing certain violent crimes.
Ignorance is not supposed to be an excuse for breaking the law. Yet, the liberal-dominated SCOTUS ruling does exactly that. SICK.
