BHS - 8A – SCOTUS Upholds Domestic Violence Gun Ban | ‘Do They Have a Case’ with Wayne Resnick

Supreme Court upholds law barring domestic abusers from owning guns in major Second Amendment ruling. How will this affect California? ‘Do They Have a Case’ with Wayne Resnick.

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to bill Handle on demandfrom KFI AM six forty kfi AM six
forty bill Handle. It is aMonday morning, June twenty four. Some
of the stories we're looking at.A horrific story out of Saudi Arabia.
Every year the Hojj happens, andthat's Muslims from all over the world congregate

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on Mecca. In Mecca, theholiest city in Islam, and they circle
the Kabba, that building, thatsquare building of which the black stone is
in the corner, and this isthe stone that Mohammed kissed, and so
it has a lot of significance.It's the holiest place in Islam, as

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I said, and hundreds of thousandsof people circle it you can see the
video, and they go counterclockwise,and they actually throw stones at the Kabah,
which stones signify they're throwing stones atthe devil. I mean three hundred
thousand pece throwing stones. That's nojoke. And why are so many people
dead? Because it's one hundred andtwenty degrees out there, and they're there

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for hours and hours circling the Kabah, and Saudi Arabia tries to do as
good a job as it can.I mean it, there's no question that
they don't do a good job andtrying to deal with it. But man,
you know, when you're dealing withthree hundred thousand people slowly circling a
building and one hundred degree weather,one hundred and twenty degree weather, what
do you do? All right?I want to expand on what happened on

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Friday when the Supreme Court came downeight to one upholding the federal law that
forbids domestic abusers from possessing guns.By the way, temporarily, okay,
until the until the domestic abuse situationis straightened out. Its restraining orders and

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restraining orders are for the most parttemporary. There are very few permanent restraining
orders out there there when it comesto owning a weapon. In light of
the Second Amendment, I don't knowif there would be a permanent a permanent
restraining order other than you're a felonthat law, although those cases are going
up. Felons should have the rightto carry arms because it's such a strong

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fundamental First Amendment right or Second Amendmentright equivalent to the First Amendment. The
Second Amendment to folks are is themost important is the most important amendment that
exists, second Amendment. By theway, I ask anybody who is a
second amendment advocate what the third Amendmentis or what the fourth Amendment is.

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I have asked gun advocate after gunadvocate, what's the third Amendment? I
don't know. Okay. So thiswas the first major test of the majority
new conservative majority's new approach to gunlaws. And this basically was based out
of a twenty twenty two opinion.And this was a crazy opinion that Clarence

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Thomas wrote which made absolutely no senseto at least me, declaring that weapons
regulations can only pass muster, theycan only be enforced that if they are
analogous to those weapons regulations familiar toAmericans in seventeen seventy six. In other

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words, if you want to passa regulation restricting guns, restricting the use,
of restricting the ownership, it hadto have happened in seventeen seventy six,
and if it wasn't there, thenit can't be there today. That

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was the argument made in Bruin,and that was twenty twenty two, and
Clarence Thomas wrote that one up.And now you have this case, and
this is to me a pretty clearcut case. A guy named Zachi Rahimi
and December twenty nineteen assaulted his girlfriendin Texas in a parking lot, shot

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at a bystander who was a witness. The girlfriend flyes, files for a
restraining order, gets it. Thecourt rules that Rahimi had committed family violence
was likely to do it again,and the judge issues a restraining order,
no guns for you. He immediatelyappeals, it goes to the Supreme Court
because of course you think he hadthe money to pay for lawyers about the

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Supreme Court. Oh, I don'tknow, maybe not, and so you
think a few gun advocate organizations did, Oh maybe. Anyway, the judge's
finding, it just went on Raheemicontinued to fire weapons. He continued shooting
in the air at a fast fooddrive through. Police searched his residents after

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he was and they found a wholepanoply of weapons. So this was a
federal law going back to nineteen ninetyfour that people under restraining orders can be
stopped. And he files this lawsuitin light of the Bruin case, which
says that analogously, he should notbe restricted because back in seventeen seventy six,

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now look at the logic here backin seventeen seventy six, they didn't
have restraining orders. In seventeen seventysix, restraining orders didn't exist. Therefore,
any prohibition on him wearing using aweapon, which is guaranteed by the
Second Amendment, therefore has to fail. And why does it have to fail

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because there was nothing like it?By the way, big magazines, right,
high capacity magazines. Why are youallowed let me extrapolate now, okay,
because these cases are going to goup. I guarantee you. Why
would there be any restriction on ahigh capacity magazine. You can't have any

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restriction why because high capacity magazines didn'texist in the time of the Founding Fathers.
Therefore, you can't have a lawpassed that restricts high capacity magazines or
machine guns or fully automatic assault weapons. Which I don't understand how that doesn't
fall under the Bruin the Bruined decision. Of course it does, because they

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didn't have machine guns or semi automaticor fully automatic weapons back in the day
we're talking about the Founding Fathers.This is concept that Clarence Thomas brought up,
by the way, in the majoritydecision in Bruin, which is twenty
twenty two. I mean, itis completely insane on its face. So

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what did the court do now inthis case that it just ruled, and
that is the Raheemi case. Whatdid the court do? Well? It
went eight to one against what theClarence Thomas decision was two years ago,
eight to one. And who dissented, of course Clarence Thomas, because Clarence

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Thomas dissents about everything other than upholdingfreedom of religion and Second Amendment rights.
And I guess if Clarence Thomas werehad to make the decision. And now
I'm guessing, and this is mebeing just being ridiculous and hyperbolic and running
a talk show. I am convincedthat if someone uses a weapon to kill

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a family but praise during that murder, under the Second Amendment and the freedom
of religion, prosecute him. Now. I know that's kind of insane,
okay, But I have to tellyou it doesn't go real far to get
there. The US Supreme Court uphelda federal law that guns can be taken

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away temporarily from someone who has hada restraining order placed upon usually him,
and of course that went up SecondAmendment. Folks said, oh, no,
no, no violation of Second Amendmentrights based on what is what happened
two years ago the Brewin decision inwhich the Court said that any kind of

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restriction on arms has to be predicatedon historical content or hysterical context, which
effectively mean if it wasn't around,if this issue wasn't around with the founding
fathers, then it there's no restriction. You can't do it. And Clarence
Thomas in this case said no,no restrictions because restraining orders weren't around in

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the late seventeen hundreds. Therefore,to stop someone from weapon because a restraining
order there's no historical context, Imean, it's gone kind of nuts.
Well, this time the court wentno, no, there is a limitation,
and a restraining order is a limitation. Now, what has happened with
this? This one gets really interestingbecause I'm going to actually compare a court,

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modern day, incredibly conservative court towhat happened with the Roe v.
Wade court. And here's what happenedin Roe v. Wade. There is
nothing in the Constitution that uses theword abortion clearly or the right to privacy.

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The right to privacy is made up. Where did it come from?
Well, Justice Backman, who wrotethe Roe v. Wade decision, said
that it emanates from the Constitution.There is a number of rights. I

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don't even know what the hell thatmeans. P number means it comes out
of the ether, that out ofthe Constitution, there is this ethereal I
guess gas that comes out and that'swhere the right to privacy exists. Now
more, I think, more specifically, is the philosophy using the Constitution as

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a template, a living document thatit's up to the courts to interpret it.
How far does it go? Wheredo we do with this or are
you an originalist which only is theterms of the paper itself. You look
at the four corners and if itisn't in the Constitution, then it doesn't
exist. Scalia wrote forever against Roev. Wade and always always decried it,

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saying, there is the right toprivacy in the Constitution. By the
way, fundamental Catholic who didn't believein abortion. But I thought, you,
listen, you have every right tohave an abortion. I'm not going
to stop you. I don't wantto pass any laws to stop you.
But it's not constitutionally protected that youcan't say, okay, So now there
you had a court that looked atthe Constitution as a living, breathing document

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that can be expanded. Originalists sayit can't be expanded. It has to
be restricted to the document itself andthe meaning of the document. So you
would think this court would be originalist, which I guess they were in Bruin
for some crazy reason. But thisone they went the other way. Justice

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John Roberts, Chief Justice, wroteabout effectively saying that the Constitution is living
and breathing. In this regard,we don't look at just historical context.
We look at, for example,the solution of historical context. We have
to look at it more broadly.We can't be specific. Does it make

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sense? What do the founders think? If there were restraining orders? With
the founders and I'm putting this inmyself, if there were restraining orders in
those days with the founders have saidthat limitation exists. Clarence Thomas says,
no, it's absolute, restraining ordersdidn't exist. Therefore, restraining orders don't

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exist now, or at least asput up against the Second Amendment. The
Second Amendment absolutely prevails. There areno restrictions to guns. I don't think.
I don't know if he would evendecide that felons should be able to
have guns. My guess is,yeah, he would decide that felons have
the right to have guns unless youcan prove that that felon is so dangerous.

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I'm not to go even further thanthat. Okay, I'm now going
to extrapolate and make a hit againstClaras Thomas. I think he's so conservative
is that if you can't prove thatgun is going to be used in a
crime, then the felon should beable to have that gun. Yeah.
Okay, that's a little bit far. But I tend to I know,

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I know, and O'Neil you lookat me and I go, yeah,
I tend to go crazy when itcomes to it's not a living document,
then how could you have amendments?Well, no, the amendments are part
of the constitution. Those are written, Those are those are written. You
know, you can always amend theconstitution because you can always amend a law,
and the Constitution is the law.It's a question. Uh wait,

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so it has because you have anohibition. Well had, yeah, but
you have. Here's the difference aliving document is you take a very broad
liberal approach, not necessarily a politicallyliberal approach, but a liberal approach as
to interpreting written law. Now,to put down more written law, you

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can do. Congress can do thatin a heart it's an amendment, but
you need two thirds of the statesand you need two thirds of Congress.
You're never gonna get that. Usedto be, but now it's impossible.
So the point is what John Robertsdid was sort of use the philosophy of
the Road Court in saying we're goingto expand the concept instead of restrict the

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concept in this case of a restrainingorder stopping someone from owning or possessing a
weapon weapon only for a very shortperiod of time until the restraining order has
been lifted. Even then, Idon't know if if a permanent restraining order
would do it. That case hasn'tgone up yet. Very these cases are

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so narrow. They are so narrow, all right. I can keep on
going on and on with that,but it's time for Wayne Resnick and do
they have a case. You're actuallythe worst example for your own advice about
not becoming a lawyer, not beinga talk show host, since you pioneered
an area of law with surrogacy andare in the talk radio or the radio

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Hall of Fame. I know that'skind of a couple of things. I
want to point out a lot ofit, and I mean a lot of
it, and that's not me,you know, you know, putting my
finger in my cheek going off shucks. So much of it is right place,
right time, where you have almostno control of what actually happens.
I happen to fall into a fieldof law that didn't exist. I was

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given a case to do and itnever never appeared or never existed before,
and in the world of radio,just something was needed at that moment,
at in that place where my skilllevel was there. And so it is
not a gee, you should dothis too kind of thing. Yeah you
should do this. One of myearliest successes is because the field of law

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was so new, it hadn't beendone. I had a sixty minute segment
that was done on me in nineteenI think it was eighty three. So,
hey, Bill, when I'm asked, how do you build the law
practice and get a segment on sixtyminutes, that's how you do it.
Again, pure unadult rated luck.It's not gonna happen to you. Now,
let's move on yes. Oh.This is an interesting case from the

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world of music. If you seean album and on the cover it says
the Beatles, who are the featuredartists on that album? Well, this
doesn't involve the Beatles, but involvesthe same question. There is a fairly
popular band in Puerto Rico called ElGrand Combo. And here's what happened.

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This guy who was in the bandcreated like an LLC to take care of
all the band's stuff and then decidedthat every time this band put out an
album that the featured artist. Andthat phrase is important because that's where the
royalties go. That the featured artistis the band as a distinct legal entity.

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In other words, not any personlike a corporation is the featured artist.
Because on the cover it says ElGrand Combo. Well, a long
comes guy named Carlos A ponte Cruz, who was the lead singer with this
band for many years and who realizedhe was not getting any royalties, and

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he said, hey, you oweme a bunch of royalties because I was
a lead singer on all these albums. I'm a featured artist on all these
albums. Give me the royalties.And the exchange that manages royalty said,
oh boy, you're probably right,and they froze the royalties for this group

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till they could figure it out.So the guy who owns the company sues
the lead singer and says, you'renot entitled to any royalties because you are
not a featured artist, because thefeatured artist is this band name El Grand
Combo, which is a legal entityand not any kind of natural person.

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And the lower court judge says,yeah, that seems about right. You
don't get any royalties, buddy.But it goes up to the first circuit
court of appeals. What do youthink happens up there? Oh, I
think he gets it because if hewas a member of the band at the
time and the band is the featuredartist, unless there is an agreement in

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writing the owner of the band saysthat we can call you a featured artist,
or you're not a featured artist,or I get all the royalties short
of that. I just don't seehow he wouldn't get a royalty at the
same level that everybody else got aroyalty. He in the band, so
I don't even see where that went. By the way, the drums,

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the drums are made out of hubcaps, right, they're not actually drum heads
in the band. That, bythe way, is a Puerto Rican joke.
We know, No, I'm explaining. I'm explaining this to our radio
audience who may not may not quiteunderstand how offensive that actually is. Well,

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thank goodness you helped them out.Yes, yes, the first circuit
says, this is easy. Firstof all, never before has anybody suggested
that the featured artists on albums arenot people natural human people. It's never

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been nobody's ever even thought of that, and it makes no sense. And
the guy who wants the company said, oh yeah, but they talk about
featured artists and non featured artists.So if a featured artist cannot it can
never be a company. Then howdo you ever know who's a non featured
artist? And the first circuit,agreeing with you, said, here's how

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you know. A featured artist entitledto the royalties is anyone who is a
member of the band at the time, and a non featured artist would be
anybody else who appears on the recordwho is not a member of the band,
like Billy Preston on a Beatles album, would be a non featured artist
and doesn't get the royalties. ButJohn Paul George and Ringo do and hey,

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this guy Dues, let me askyou a question, and this is
and I don't know which way thecourt would go on this. So now
we're jumping to a legal conclusion.Since Billy Preston was on a lot of
these Beatle albums, several of them. What if the album said the Beatles
and featured artist Billy Preston. Ifyou just say someone is a feature artists

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just to describe, we just aregoing it's I'm parsing a little bit,
but just saying feature artists, thatmeans someone as a featured artist. Well,
here's what would have to happen.Then they went out of their way
to use the exact phrase in theroyalty statutes, and then they would have
to have the guts to turn aroundand say, but we didn't mean those

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two words the same way that it'smeant in the statute. So we still
don't want them to get the royalties. Yeah, and here's the question,
I'm asking you, which way doyou think that would go. That's not
the case here, but that immediatelyit put me in that direction a man.
I think a court would say youcannot get away with using the exact

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legal phrase that finds the person asgetting royalties and then turn around and say,
you didn't mean it that way,Okay, but I see your point.
Yeah. No, it's using itloosely and using it legally correct,
which happens all the time because courtsget very specific and they tend to parse.
So in most states, if you'reon probation or parole, you can

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have a search condition that says eitheryour your probation officers or any law enforcement
officer can search your house or yourcar or your pockets at any time for
any reason without a warrant. Soa lot of people that is what they're
subject to. And one gentleman wason probation and subject to sech a condition

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and his PO I guess, gotword that he maybe there were some drugs
in the house. So shows upalso with a police officer to do a
probation search. The guy's not there, but his girlfriend is there. She
opens the door. Hey, where'sthe guy. Oh this is funny too.

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Oh he's had a drug treatment meeting, So they call the drug treatment
meeting. He's not there, bythe way, but wherever he is doesn't
matter because they immediately smell marijuana inthe house, and nobody's denying that they
smelled marijuana in the house. Andso because this there's a search condition,

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they go down the hall and itdidn't take it took about thirty seconds to
find a bunch not like somebody's burntroach, a bunch of marijuana and a
little bit of meth in the bedroom, in the main bedroom. So this
lady now, who is the girlfriendof the guy on probation, gets charged
federally with possession with intent to distributethese drugs. And she says to the

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judge, you need to suppress thispot and this myth that they found because
there was no warrant. And Idon't think there was any probable cause or
any exception to needing a warrant onme. I'm not a probation I don't
have a search condition. You needa warrant for me, so you should
suppress it. And the judge says, no, thank you, we will

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not be suppressing anything. So upthey go to the eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals and how do they resolve thisissue because the government is saying if somebody
in the house has a warrantless searchcondition, it doesn't matter if other people
are also in there, too badfor them. Yeah, so they got

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caught, She got caught up inthe net, if you will, of
this search warrant. And I thinkthat the court went to a favor of
the government in this case, andthat is they were within their rights,
the police to do a search,and that has been affirmed over and over
again. So that's not a problem. And guess what, during a normal

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course of events, a criminal activitywas discovered. In this case, there
was a ton of a ton ofmarijuana I'm assuming I'm assuming it was by
the pound or the kilo there.Yeah, so it several po okay with
that, and it is just herbad luck that there was. It was
a legitimate search, and normally theywould have to have probable cause to search

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the place for her. But theywere not looking for drugs for her.
They were looking drugs for him.And it just so happens that she happened
to own the drugs. Too bad, as you would say, too bad,
so sad. Yes, Now here'sthe interesting thing. Because normally,
normally a search without a warrant isunconstitutional. There are exceptions, and one

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of them is this probation condition exception. And the interesting thing, because I'd
never really thought about this before,You're right, your Fourth Amendment right.
Is it about you and your statusas a person or is it about the
thing or location where you are whenthey search? Because what the court talked

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about, they didn't talk about thatbecause she chose to live in a house
with this guy who's on probation andknows that he's on probation, that she
somehow has given up her individual FourthAmendment rights. What they said is because
she chose to live with a guyand she knows he has this condition,
her expectation of privacy in that houseis diminished, and that's why she gets

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no relief from this warrantless search.How important was it that she knew or
didn't know that he was on probation? What if she had no idea?
Reading this opinion, I get theimpression it would have made a big difference,
because they every time that they getto the point, they make a
big deal about the fact that sheknew he was on probation, She knew

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he was subject to the condition,and therefore knew that that house was not
as private and not as protected fromprying law enforcement as somebody as a regular
house. Yeah, and if Iwere the judge, I would not go
that far as to make a bigdeal that she knew he was on probation.

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An, it's a too bad yougot caught up with it. Hey,
what can I tell you? Thankyou? You're stopping the wrong person.
Okay, Wayne, we'll talk againnext week. Always appreciated. All
right, take care. Neil justsmiles. I just love him here doing
that. Yep. All right,Wow, show's over, So we're back

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again tomorrow. Once again, westart at five o'clock wake up call.
Heather Brooker is filling in for Amytomorrow and the rest of us come aboard.
Right up until right about now.This is KFI AM six forty Live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You'vebeen listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch My Show Monday through Friday,six am to nine am, and anytime

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on demand on the iHeartRadio app.