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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjsdc.bsky.social

For Slate's summer series By the People, I wrote about how D.C. v. Heller is both a paragon of popular constitutionalism and its own dark mirror. Progressives can learn real lessons from how it was won—if they ignore its bogus originalism and look at what really went down. slate.com/news-and-pol...

slate.comConservatives Perfected the Ideal Legal Tactic. It’s Time for Liberals to Use It.While Heller was built on phony history, it reflected a genuine, hard-fought shift in public understanding.

51 reposts165 likes

Mr_Richard
@mrrichard.bsky.social

You can't do legal judo on people that aren't attached to a common ground, flying unattached from precedent on wings of bigotry and loyalty to a fascist state.

Christopher Cole
@ccole2025.bsky.social

Great article; thanks. But for all of its problems (bogus history, etc.), Heller at least aimed to permit the States some, perhaps substantial, latitude in regulating weapons. The real distortion happened when, a generation later, a culture warrior convinced the Court to give us Bruen. Disaster.

30% Wealth Tax on Billionaires!
@steverino76.bsky.social

The 2Am did not; the RKBA is in the 9th/10th, right next to the right to abort an unwanted fetus. There is an unenumerated right to revolution, NH Const. part I, art. 10, and a right without a remedy is an absurdity. To have a revolution, you kind-of need guns.

Joe Paulson
@joepaulson2.bsky.social

One book tied it to the same sex marriage cases as an example of popular constitutionalism. I'm okay with the result, more or less -- we as a nation do agree there is a right to own a gun. The details leave a lot to be desired.

30% Wealth Tax on Billionaires!
@steverino76.bsky.social

For originalists, SSM is a natural result of property rights. As marriage is a contract for mutual supporr, and you have a right to dispose of your property as you see fit, the legal question was whether the State had the right to impair the contract for that reason. No: If Loving, then Obergefell.