It’s not just the 9th Circuit and 2nd amendment that are prone to this. Court action is by and large whimsical - any outcome the majority wants, can be had. All that is left to figure out is “what level of the court system gets this last word.”
SCOTUS, for decades, ignored Circuit Court rulings that DIRECTLY and EXPRESSLY misstated SCOTUS precedent. SCOTUS lets the Circuits do the dirty work, and by the magic of Heller, once a prohibition to the public becomes long standing, it becomes constitutional.
What makes the courts serious is they, in cahoots with the other overlords, can throw your ass in jail or kill you.
Morally and intellectually, they deserve way more ridicule than they get.
can throw your ass in jail or kill you.
***They don’t do their jobs otherwise. All of these bureaucracies have one thing on their mind: How to increase the amount of power they have.