Supreme Court Audition Watch: Lawrence VanDyke Is a Guns YouTuber Now
When the competition for a promotion is this stiff, you have to start trying some stuff.
On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals turned away a constitutional challenge to California’s ban on large-capacity magazines, finding that the law “falls neatly within the Nation’s traditions of protecting innocent persons by prohibiting especially dangerous uses of weapons.” Judge Lawrence VanDyke, a Trump appointee who loves the Second Amendment as much as he loves the sound of his own voice, responded as any conservative lawyer auditioning for a Supreme Court vacancy would: by filming a “dissent video” in his chambers, in which he attempts to explain why the majority is wrong by fiddling with his personal collection of handguns for 19 minutes.
Here is our guy introducing the subject at hand, sitting in front of what appears to be an AK-47 mounted on the wall, haltingly reading off cue cards and looking like the villain in a Netflix movie that ends with a grim-faced Anthony Mackie fleeing an explosion on a motorcycle.
The thrust of VanDyke’s jurisprudential hostage video is to dispute the majority’s determination that magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are “accessories,” not “arms,” within the meaning of the Second Amendment. “I think anyone with a basic familiarity with firearms could show you that this attempted distinction is simply inconsistent with reality,” he said. VanDyke goes on to argue that since a magazine of some capacity is necessary to operate a gun, and since basically every essential component of a gun can be replaced by a component that makes the gun more effective and/or dangerous, the majority’s definition of “accessory” threatens to swallow the Second Amendment’s protections altogether.
The judges in the majority have fewer objections to VanDyke’s legal argument than they do with his decision to make it in a YouTube video in which he, at one point, dumps out a tote bag full of pistol grips on the coffee table like a bit player in Sons of Anarchy season 3. In a concurring opinion, Senior Judge Marsha Berzon calls the video “wildly improper” and accuses VanDyke of having “appointed himself as an expert witness” and thus going beyond the factual record. “Although I am surprised that it is necessary to do so, I write to reemphasize that as judges, we must decide cases as they are presented to us by the parties, leaving advocacy to the attorneys and testimony to the witnesses, expert and otherwise,” she says.
Berzon is of course correct to clock this as a try-hard, grandstanding stunt, but that is exactly why Lawrence VanDyke decided to pull it. In recent weeks, he’s had to watch helplessly as the top contenders for the next Supreme Court vacancy have absolutely left him in the dust. Fifth Circuit judge James Ho is pooh-poohing the notion that threatening violence against liberal judges is bad. Fifth Circuit judge Andy Oldham has an especially demented opinion headed for the bright lights of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Florida district court judge Aileen Cannon is still so far in the lead that Trump is publicly suggesting that criticizing her might not be legal anymore. With competition this stiff, I don’t know if forcing a clerk to play amateur videographer while he rattles off trigger pull weight numbers will be enough to set VanDyke apart from the field, but I have to respect his willingness to debase himself in order to find out.
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"...leaving advocacy to the attorneys and testimony to the witnesses, expert and otherwise,” she says."
Say what? Law school degree implies skills at advocacy? Doesn't even imply competence in legal theory. And judges are now deciding rights? Who gave them the authority? Judicial review is not an implied power, which John Marshall knew when he assumed what he was trying to prove. But John Roberts doesn't know this, instead thinking judicial review is an implied power.
Jury nullification is constitutional.
Judicial review is judicial nullification, which is not constitutional.
In any case, the 9th circuit fell on its sword again.
Huuuuuge ego And a young fellow with not that long of a legal career, Hohum yawn.