I said read the rest but I can’t keep away from that Slate piece on the guns despite restraining order ruling. I have to yell at it some more.

Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion in Bruen held that all restrictions on the right to “armed self-defense” are presumptively unconstitutional. The only gun safety laws that pass legal muster, Thomas declared, are those with “historical analogues” from 1791 (when the Second Amendment was ratified) or 1868 (when it was applied to the states). This sea change in the law created a flood of litigation in the lower courts as litigants tried to prove that modern gun restrictions were not deeply rooted in American history. Courts have been receptive, relying on Bruen to strike down a slew of laws targeting the criminal use of firearms.

But it isn’t 1791 any more, nor is it 1868. We don’t want to live in 1791 or 1868. We don’t want to live as if it were 1791 or 1868. Clarence Thomas wouldn’t be on the Supreme Court if it were 1791 or 1868. His odds of being a judge of any kind would not be great. His odds of going to law school wouldn’t be great. Neither would any women’s.

In his opinion for the court, [Judge Cory] Wilson declared that there is no deeply rooted tradition of disarming individuals under a restraining order for domestic abuse. The modern law “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society,” he wrote, but courts have no power to weigh “those policy goals’ merits.” They may only look to U.S. history. And the record compiled in this case failed to prove that domestic abusers were routinely disarmed in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. “Our ancestors,” Wilson wrote—meaning the white men who wrote the laws—“would never have accepted” such a practice.

Of course they wouldn’t, which is why we shouldn’t consult them.

Wilson acknowledged that people deemed “dangerous” were denied the right to bear arms, including slaves and Native Americans. But, he asserted, these people were disarmed “by class or group, not after individualized findings of ‘credible threats’ to identified potential victims.”

Ah. I see. Saying “no guns for you” is ok if you say it to slaves and Native Americans but not if you say it to white guys who like to batter women. Lucky us to have such astute judges.

Wilson also speculated about a parade of horribles if the government could remove “irresponsible” or “non-law abiding people” from “the scope of the Second Amendment.”

“Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms?” Wilson asked. “Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle?”

Ah, powerful point, and the idea that women should be safe from violent men is just as whimsical and politically correct as recycling. Let the punching begin!

Of course, domestic abusers are categorically different from speeders and dissidents. There is a reason why the government disarms them today: They are at exponentially heightened risk of using their gun to commit murder. As I wrote in November, an abuser’s access to guns makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed. More than half of intimate partner homicides are committed with guns. An American woman is shot and killed by an intimate partner every 14 hours. Domestic abusers are also disproportionately likely to commit mass shootings: Nearly 60 percent of mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 were related to intimate partner violence, while 68 percent of mass shooters had a history of domestic violence.

Yebbut schools were much smaller in 1868. Can’t disagree with that, can you! Case closed.

Domestic violence was not deemed a criminal offense for most of American history. When women were denied equal citizenship, the men who wrote and enforced the laws viewed wife-beating as a mere “familial affair” beyond the province of the courts. Legislators and judges alike saw domestic abuse as a natural part of family life, to be dealt with privately and punished only in the most extreme and murderous situations. It’s no surprise, then, that the historical record shows no history of laws keeping guns out of the hands of abusers. The very notion that men should not be allowed to abuse their wives and girlfriends is a modern belief that only developed in the 20^th century.

Right, so it’s just trendy, like tofu or not wiping out whole species for the hell of it, so [bronx cheer].