A mentally unstable person with a machine gun, or its equivalent an AR-15, kills ten others. Horror or horror. Folk going about their daily lives visiting a supermarket are gunned down. We weep, we cry, we pray, and we forget in a day or two. Then a mentally unstable person with a machine gun, or its equivalent an AR-15, kills ten others. Horror or horror. Folk going about their daily lives visiting a supermarket are gunned down. We weep, we cry, we pray, and we forget in a day or two. It’s gun ground hog day in America courtesy of the Supreme Court which equates AR-15’s with muskets.
Article III, Section 1, of the Constitution provides: “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish . . . .”
The number of judges on the Supreme Court was not established as being 9 until 1869. Prior to that it had been down to 6 and up to 10. Taking the population of the United State in 1870 we can see it was 38,500,000 – or one supreme court judge for about every 4,300,000 people. The present population is 330,000,000. Right now there is one judge for every 37 million people.
That would be close to having back in 1870 one judge for all the people. Now if we adjust the figures to what we had back in 1870 – that is one judge for every four million three hundred thousand people – we would have 77 Supreme Court Justices.
Now there is no way uniform justice can be accomplished with so few judges deciding for so many people. There seems no reason why we have to stick with such an outdated system. We must adjust to the times.
Especially now must we change things since the court with nine justices which governs by a simple majority of five which leaves it up to five judges telling 330 million people how they can enjoy their rights makes little sense. Worse, the judges are picked by what their political leanings are which allows one political philosophy to dominate all Americans.
Remember this Supreme Court in the past declared Blacks were chattels, overruled laws outlawing child labor, crushed unions, had no problem with racial segregation or hidden political contributions. Why was that? It was simply that it represented on political viewpoint.
I suggest it is time to enlarge the Supreme Court. I would propose that there be 25 judges – 10 by Democrats and 10 by Republicans. The remaining 5 would be nominated by a Justices Selection Committee (JSC) made up of an intelligent combination of folk from all walks of life with no axes to grind.
Each case would initially be heard by 2 from each party and one from the JSC. Most cases would be non controversial affecting isolated issues. Cases of national significance would be heard by 10 justices and those highly significant would be heard by the whole court.
America will tear itself apart if one political philosophy takes control with no moderating factors. We see that in the absurd Heller decision on guns. Time for a change. By its past record there is not reason to think that nine is a good number on the Supreme Court.
Hello matt, I hope all is well with you. It’s been awhile. I was wandering if you were going to repost your March 23rd article that was 404?? Take Care
The text is real simple. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” I am amused that some think a law degree is necessary to understand it and that a select few are needed to interpret the meaning for us lesser beings.
Let me rephrase it for you to make it simpler. “Government shall not infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.”
Thank you.
By the way, the Heller decision was one of the best in a century, for many of us, coupled with McDonald.
Now, if we can ‘reform’ the NFA and GCA, we’ll be doing even better. The GCA is the only law that strips one of a Bill of Rights right for life (respecting ‘federally prohibited persons’), an abomination.
I often wonder which “well regulated Militia…” the bullies belong to when they show up—enforce and armed to the teeth–on the doorstep of some official with whom they disagree. (Scalia seemed to think that the founders were only kidding when they penned those restricting words.)
1. An AR-15 is not the equivalent of a machine gun.
2. What a ridiculous argument to pack the court. By your logic we should scale up all of the government according to population. How about a couple of dozen presidents, 100,000 congressmen, 1,000 senators? Make sense?
I cannot get to the end of your posting of last week, namely John Martorano and Howie Carr And the Big Con. ERROR 404 crops up instead and tells me it cannot find the entire article. Would you mind posting this again? Thank you
My site is all messed up. I can not get on it. The hosting company does not seem to know what the problem is.
How about religious quotas?
The current court comprised of six Catholics, one former Catholic and two Jews.
‘It’s a striking development given that the high court, for most of its history, was almost entirely populated by white male Protestants. Catholic academics and political analysts offer several explanations for the turnaround – related to Catholics’ educational traditions, their interest in the law, and – in the case of Catholic conservatives – an outlook that has appealed to recent Republican presidents filling judicial vacancies.’
https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-ruth-bader-ginsburg-archive-courts-donald-trump-987e5fb6de8a1a29d1cbb00bf1f1948c