US Supreme Court reviews gun law for domestic violence offenders (Lautenberg Amendment)

Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court heard arguments as it struggles to determine whether domestic violence offenders could be barred from possessing a firearm even if they have only committed minor offenses.

The high court's nine justices took up the case of James Castleman, who argues that his domestic assault conviction in Tennessee for intentionally or knowingly causing "bodily injury" to the mother of his child did not prohibit him under federal law from owning a gun.

Investigators later learned that he was illegally trafficking guns, and Castleman was charged with violating a ban on gun possession for people convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. ...

"If I punch somebody in the nose, is that violence?" asked Justice Antonin Scalia.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked: "How about pinching or biting, hair pulling, shoving, grabbing, hitting, slapping... Would they in all situations be violence?"

This provision is part of Hillary's VAWA "revenge against divorced husbands" law that penalized divorced men and felonized them ex post facto in many cases.

A husband who owns firearms becomes an instant federal felon if he is placed under a restraining order by a divorce court (which is almost a routine action). Ownership ipso facto is a felony.

This was the root of the federal Emerson case .... which Slick and Beast seized on to establish case law for VAWA (at the expense of an innocent man who'd been acquitted of state assault and firearms charges in the incident in question).

...they think, per this decision, that the power to regulate gun possession by felons comes from the Commerce Clause.

I love it! =^)

The first thing that I looked at on Scarborough v. United States was the year that the case was decided. All bets are off since it was decided in 1977, in the post-FDR era of unchecked judicial activism.

More specifically, regardless what liberal and conservative activist justices want everybody to think about the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers, consider that Thomas Jefferson, using terms like "does not extend" and "exclusively," had officially clarified that Congress has no business sticking its big nose into intrastate commerce.

“For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively (emphases added) with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.” –Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.

But who cares what Jefferson said about the Commerce Clause? After all, only Supreme Court justices can properly interpret the Constitution, right? So consider what the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall had indicated about the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers.

”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. (emphases added)” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

Oops! The idea that only Supreme Court justices can properly interpret the Constitution evidently doesn't hold water. Note that before FDR had “nuked” the Court with activist justices, the Supreme Court had officially clarified that ordinary folks like you and me can properly interpret it too.

"3. The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction and no excuse for interpolation or addition." --United States v. Sprague, 1931.

The Supreme Court owes citizens an explanation concerning its constitutionally indefensible interpretation of the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers imo, particularly with respect to its misguided decision in Wickard v. Filburn, not that it actually has a reasonable explanation for its interpretation.

Are we having fun yet?

'The idea that only Supreme Court justices can properly interpret the Constitution evidently doesn't hold water. Note that before FDR had “nuked” the Court with activist justices, the Supreme Court had officially clarified that ordinary folks like you and me can properly interpret it too.
"3. The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction and no excuse for interpolation or addition." --United States v. Sprague, 1931.

No offense but you need a better example regarding FDR & SCOTUS as he wasn't POTUS in 1931. His time in office was 1933 to 1945. Also, his plan to pack and expand SCOTUS with leftist justices to fifteen from nine, wasn't announced until 1937, February 5, 1937 to be exact. But this blatant power grab by FDR was too much even for democrats in Congress and it went nowhere, thank God.

No offense but you need a better example regarding FDR & SCOTUS as he wasn't POTUS in 1931.

Thank you for your concern about the order of events, but I believe that I have stated the order of events correctly.

I wasn't around at the time, but the PC idea of Supreme Court infallibility with respect to interpreting the Constitution probably became prevalent after FDR's activist majority justices wrongly widened the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers from the bench with their decision in Wickard v. Filburn in 1942. This was more than ten years after United States v. Sprague was decided, Constitution-respecting justices noting the relatively simple language of the Constitution in the Sprague opinion.

I’ve heard that it cost a lot of cops their jobs.

This POS law was Hillary's VAWA, "Violence Against Women [but not men?] Act".

The basic idea was, hey look, you can get a divorce and get your departing ex thrown in federal prison with a sentence that won't wash off! Be nasty! Oh, and get his gun rights away from him for me, if you would, ..... and establish some precedent for denying rights broadly using misdemeanor charges as McGuffins for rights-stripping of Problem Individuals.

These guys are always thinking three moves ahead.

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