by Lance Thompson

The Supreme Court today overturned the murder conviction of a Texas rancher who shot and killed an illegal alien trespasser. The majority opinion rests upon personal gun rights recently discovered in the Second Amendment.

Crockett v Santa Anna is the well-known murder case in which Texas rancher Sam Crockett, who had lost cattle and horses to illegal immigrants from the People’s Republic of Mexico, shot and killed Jose Santa Anna when the illegal immigrant broke into Crockett’s house a few minutes past midnight on October 4^th, 2018. The case received extensive media coverage, and was the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film, White Rancher, Black Heart, directed by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Sean Penn.

Writing for the majority in Crockett v. Santa Anna, Chief Justice Joe Arpaio, one-time sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, said, "This case should never have come before the Court. Recent rulings have established that the Second Amendment guarantees Americans the right to keep, bear, and use firearms to protect themselves, their families, their property, and the sovereignty of the United States." 

Reaction was swift from liberal critics and gun control advocates. Speaker of the House Chelsea Clinton responded so swiftly, in fact, that she issued her statement yesterday. "This is another egregious example of judicial activism, legislating from the bench, and inventing Constitutional rights out of whole cloth."

Conservatives and gun rights activists responded with equal fervor. Bruce Willis, who currently occupies the John Wayne Chair of Weapons Technology and Culture at the University of Idaho, pointed out, "For many years, advancement of the liberal agenda relied upon judicial activism, expanding on rights guaranteed in the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and some rights which had no Constitutional basis at all. Now that there is a strong conservative majority on the Court, that same judicial activism has been applied to the Second Amendment and gun rights have expanded exponentially."

The conservative shift on the Court began in July, 2018, at a mass abortion rights rally in New York’s Central Park. A freak electrical storm generated a powerful lightning strike which destroyed the speakers’ platform where liberal Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter were sitting. The resulting three vacancies gave President David Petraeus a unique opportunity to alter the political balance of the court. With a narrow majority in the Senate, Republicans quickly confirmed three new conservative justices.

In the last two years, following the liberal example of judicial activism set by previous appellate courts, the newly conservative Court has vastly expanded the scope of the Second Amendment. In the first such case, the Supreme Court ruled that Herbert Taylor, an ice cream shop owner, had the right to order out of his store at gunpoint the unruly, abusive and threatening "posse" of hip hop star Rapp Dogg.  Petraeus-appointed Justice Laura Ingraham wrote for the majority, "Obviously, the Founding Fathers would not guarantee the right to keep and bear arms without inferring the right to use arms, particularly for self defense. What other possible purpose would there be? Therefore, the right to responsibly use a gun is clearly implied and understood."

This case was followed by Tucson Wildlife Club vs. Medellin Cartel, in which several gila monster hunters in Arizona were fired upon by armed Mexican drug smugglers making a cross-border delivery. The hunters returned fire, wounding several smugglers, and were convicted on firearms charges in a trial that was carried live on the Spanish language La Raza TV, which dominates the ratings in Los Angeles. The conviction was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court when Justice Ted Nugent wrote for the majority, "The Second Amendment says that a well-regulated militia is necessary to a free state. A militia is an armed citizen force used to repel invaders, which is just what these hunters were doing. Their acts fall well within the penumbras and emanations of the Second Amendment."

Thus, there was ample precedent when Crockett vs. Santa Anna came before the Court this year, but critics remain unconvinced.. Scott McClellan, vice president in charge of parking lots and picnics for Texans for Gun Abolition, a statewide organization whose membership has increased to over a dozen members this year, said in an unprepared statement, "We believe the Second Amendment was flawed by a typographic error, and the pertinent passage was supposed to read, ‘the right of the People to keep and bear farms shall not be infringed..’" Thus far, there has been little support for this position.

Other critics, such as Today Show weather girl Nancy Pelosi, have pointed out that these expansive rulings make it virtually a Constitutional right to take another life. But Attorney General Karl Rove responded, "You mean, like in Roe vs. Wade?"

Certainly, today’s ruling emphasizes the dangers of judicial activism, long a sore point with conservatives, at least until they achieved a working majority on the Court. As Chief Justice Arpaio told reporters, "Those who rely on our courts to make law rather than to interpret it are playing with fire, and should not be surprised when, sometime in the unforeseeable future, they get burned."