Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1)

by John Price

  “So, my fellow Americans, we are gathered here today at Old North Bridge at Concord. What started here with guns, can now end here, as we honor the successful conclusion of the Redemption Period under the Lawrence McAlister Hate Speech and Hate Weapons Elimination Act. From this day forward, any American caught owning or possessing a firearm, with very limited exceptions, will be charged with a felony, will be convicted and will serve the maximum statutory time at a federal prison. The same penalty will apply to any person who violates the law prohibiting hate speech. There have been rumors that I will allow an amnesty period for those who did not comply with the 180 day Redemption Period. I want to clear that up. That is false. I will not excuse those who, after today’s midnight deadline, violate the McAlister Act. That will not happen. So, for those still hesitating, you’ve only got until twelve midnight tonight, as I did extend the regular office closing hours for today at the Redemption Centers. Thanks, again, Director Humless. Any plans ahead for you or your agency?”

  ATF Director Humless, visibly preening himself as nicely as any peacock, assumed the podium. This was the day he had sought for years as America’s leading anti-gun lobbyist. His time had come to take credit, and also to send a message. “Mr. President, together with you, your staff and all the fine officials in your Administration, the ATF has managed to handle the redemption of millions of what some call firearms, but I call hate weapons, as does the McAlister Act. The final accounting isn’t done, naturally, but when it is, America should be overjoyed with the results. Our nation will be safer, and America will be gun violence free, which has been my dream for the last several years at the Bradford Center Against Gun Violence by Gun Abolition.

  “Phase two now begins. Our agency has been authorized by Congress to hire over fifty-four thousand new ATF agents, which greatly helps the employment situation in this country, of course. That’s approximately one new ATF agent for every 5,000 Americans. This fact should make most Americans feel very secure, knowing that our agents will be out there in the various states. They will be hunting down….maybe a better word would be locating….sorry….the few remaining gun owners, those whose continued ownership of hate weapons threatens all of us. This will fulfill the dreams of many former Presidents, particularly Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama.”

  Two men were watching with great interest the televised coverage of the President’s news conference at Old North Bridge. The first was the President’s Chief of Staff, watching the news conference from his West Wing corner office, who groaned, again. Can this guy ever get his ‘government speak’ correct, he wondered? Humless may have been effective in the ‘gun round up’ for ‘meltin and smeltin’, as the President’s top aide liked to describe the disposal process. But, is Humless up to the task of phase two. Enforcement? Getting scared gun owners to turn in their guns for money was one thing, but actually going after the hold outs, the tea party folks, the militia groups, the angry hunters, he knew that was another issue entirely. The easy part, the ‘I’ll give you money, you give me your gun, and, oh yeah, you don’t go to prison’ part, that was finally over. Now, it was time for enforcement of the criminal provisions of McAlister, which promised to be a bit more difficult.

  The other man greatly interested in the Old North Bridge Presidential media event was watching from his home in Billings, Montana. As he watched the President discuss the anti-gun law at the site of the first shots fired in the American Revolution, in front of the Minuteman statue, he made a life-changing decision. His President, he concluded, was desecrating what the founding fathers did at Concord, as they fired the shots heard around the world. How dare he celebrate his anti-gun victory on this holy site? He then decided, though reluctantly, and after much prayer, that he would honor what they did, and he would do it in a way that the world would understand that freedom and freedom’s friends were not yet dead and gone in America. It was time to assemble the posse. They had work to do.

  FIFTY THREE

  Washington, DC – Supreme Court of the United States

  “The Honorable Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!”

  The Marshal of the United States Supreme Court thus called to order the nation’s highest tribunal. His words came from an earlier time, when Americans still called on God to save their nation, and when the nation allowed His name to be used in a public setting. Constructed in 1935, the Supreme Court building displays several carvings or castings that depict the role of Moses and the Ten Commandments in the western world’s jurisprudence. On the Eastern exterior pediment Moses is predominately carved in the middle of several figures, holding two stone tablets. In the Supreme Court Chambers Moses holds a stone tablet bearing Hebrew letters. Doors to the Supreme Court Chamber show two tablets with Roman numerals I-V on one and VI-X on the other. Ironically, the Court that presides from this building has more recently ruled that allowing the depiction of the Ten Commandments in a public building, such as a local court house, violates the Constitution of the United States.

  After the Clerk called the Docket of the Court, the Chief Justice called the first case, which was on the Docket as an emergency petition for a writ from the Court.

  “This matter comes before the Court on an expedited, I might say, highly expedited basis, with five Justices agreeing to take it up as on emergency basis. It’s been since Bush vs. Gore that we acted so expeditiously. In light of the pending enforcement of the McAlister Act there may be some justification for the way we are addressing this case, this issue, but I would not want to establish such a fast track consideration for every suit challenging the Constitutionality of an act of the Congress. Having said that, Mr. Attorney General, it’s your law to defend. Defend it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice. Associate Justices of this honorable Court. The people of the United States of America urge the Court to affirm the Constitutionality of the McAlister Hate Speech and Hate Weapons Elimination Act. The various free speech advocates, so called, and the gun owner and manufacturer groups that have challenged the new law don’t dispute that the Congress can adopt such a law, that’s what Congresses do, they adopt laws. Frankly, some better drafted than others.

  “No, instead, the Appellants have only one argument. They urge the Court to strike down the McAlister Act because, they argue, it violates the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution of the United States. Their argument is that the American people can’t rid themselves of the rampant hate speech and the millions of hate weapons that kill tens of thousands of us every year. And why not? Because of the handful of words used in these two vague, poorly-drafted, last-minute Amendments. They argue….”

  Justice Scanlon had been visibly holding himself back to give the Attorney General his customary few opening words before the Justices jumped in with their probing questions. He could restrain himself no more.

  “Mr. Attorney General, with all due respect, this Court settled the issue of gun rights in 2008 in DC v. Heller. We held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for self-defense. So, how can you seriously argue that we….”

  “Justice Scanlon, also with all due respect, that was five years ago. The nation has changed. Americans have evolved in their thinking about….”

  “Are you saying that the Constitution, without going through the amendment process, can be changed, I think was your word, just because today’s public opinion polls may show some transitory shifting opinion, which might shift back just as quickly tomorrow or next year? Is that this government’s view of settled law?”

  “No, Justice Scanlon, this government’s view of the law is that when Congress enacts a new law the judiciary gives to that new law its highest level of deference, and will only interfere in those limited insta
nces where the new law clearly violates an express provision of the Constitution.”

  “Whoa, Mr. Attorney General, you don’t see a conflict between ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’ and the McAlister law that imprisons those who seek to keep and bear arms? That’s not a clear violation of an express provision? And hate speech review panels? What are those?”

  “Justice Scanlon, the government is only arguing that under the principle of granting the highest deference to Acts of Congress, that this Court has almost always followed, that you should uphold the McAlister Act. Any other holding….”

  Justice Alinon, who had also been itching to engage in the legal sparring, jumped in, “Mr. Attorney General, you have fully ignored Justice Scanlon’s reminder to you that this Court has already ruled in Heller that the Second Amendment protects individual ownership of firearms. Two years later in McDonald v. Chicago, we held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. So, sir, what possibly makes you think that the government has any chance of this same Court upholding the McAlister Act. It’s unconstitutional on its face. In addition to which, the government can’t review speech to decide if it’s hate speech or not. The Act is an egregious example of over-reaching by the Congress, apparently goaded on by the Administration for which you work.”

  The Attorney General refused to lose his temper. Court observers later agreed that the AG was uncharacteristically calm as he sparred with the Court’s most vocal and persuasive conservative members. He soon revealed the basis for his confident manner.

  “Justice Scanlon, not to pick a nit, necessarily, but you just said this Court is, to use your phrase, ‘the same Court’ as the Court that decided Heller and McDonald. It’s not. The five Justices who decided those two cases are now four Justices. I know you don’t like to discuss Court politics in oral arg….”

  “Nor will we now, sir.” The Chief Justice, exercising his prerogatives, cut off the discussion. “We are here today to argue the law, not who has what votes. Is that clear, Mr. Attorney General. May we proceed now to discuss the law?”

  “My apologies, Mr. Chief Justice, I’ll move on. The Appellants in their briefs urge the Court to strike down McAlister under the principle of stare decisis, that is, that the matter has been decided and must be ruled upon in the same way, barring certain circumstances. I think that is what both Justices Scanlon and Alinon are asserting, that under Heller and McDonald, the matter has been decided, and the Court has to follow the precedent of those two cases.”

  “Precisely, Mr. Attorney General, precisely,” Justice Scanlon re-engaged, “and why isn’t that the principle we must follow in deciding this case? Stare decisis demands that we follow our precedent and strike down the McAlister Act, just as we struck down the DC and Chicago gun ordinances. No difference. All three violate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The Act is so obviously violative of the First Amendment that a first year law student could write an opinion striking it down.”

  “Justice Scanlon, in every oral argument the core issue eventually emerges, as it now has. The principle of stare decisis, I say with the highest level of respect for this tribunal, has been abandoned by this Court, and no longer has the meaning and importance that it once enjoyed. When this Court….”

  “What? Would you mind repeating yourself, sir? I must have not have heard you correctly. We….this Court….we have abandoned stare decisis?”

  “Justice Alinon, this Court in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick upheld the sodomy laws of 25 states in America.” Knowing where this argument was going, Justice Scanlon was seen holding his head briefly in his hands, before leaning fully back in his leather high-back chair. His facial expression was not one of joy. “Yet, just 17 years later, in 2003, this Court, the same institution that decided Hardwick, ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that all sodomy laws were unconstitutional. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, even said about following precedent in the Lawrence case that ‘Stare decisis is not an inexorable command’. Honorable Justices, when the nation changes, the laws must change and our understanding of what the Constitution says must also change. The Constitution must change, even if it’s not actually formally amended through the cumbersome process of Congress and the states adopting the Amendment by super-majorities. The nation shouldn’t have to put up with laws allowing prejudice against certain Americans, any more than it should put up with laws, or Amendments, that allow Americans to attack each other with hate speech and to slaughter each other with hate weapons.”

  Justice Scanlon remained silent for the balance of the oral argument. In 2003, he led the minority of the Court in the Lawrence case in the hotly-fought split decision, even accurately predicting in open comments from the bench that the Lawrence case would open the floodgates to gay marriage, which before Lawrence was rarely even discussed. His mind briefly returned to his dissenting opinion in Lawrence where he criticized the majority for using stare decisis as the primary justification for not overturning Roe v. Wade, which would have ended abortion on demand, but abandoning stare decisis in Lawrence, when it suited the majority’s desire to advance what he called the “homosexual agenda”.

  Justice Scanlon recalled how Justice Kennedy tried to justify overruling precedent in Hardwick, writing that the nation, since Hardwick, had experienced an “emerging awareness”. He knew that this was a slippery slope indeed, as the Court could abandon virtually any precedent under such an open-ended standard. Kennedy’s citation of the European Court of Human Rights’ view on the gay rights issue was the last straw for Scanlon, and had also been roundly criticized by many, as Kennedy based the Court’s majority opinion on other nations’ case law. Kennedy had even criticized a former Chief Justice of the Court for stating, accurately, that historically homosexual behavior had not been legally or socially acceptable. Justice Scanlon had observed in his hotly-worded dissenting opinion that this Court has not only re-written existing law, it also re-writes history to suit the majority’s purposes.

  Justice Scanlon knew he could not now argue that the Court had to follow precedent, because the Court in Lawrence had demonstrated that it had to do no such thing. The Attorney General was correct that Justice Kennedy wrote in Lawrence that stare decisis was “not an inexorable command”. Well then, he pondered, what is it? We follow precedent when we feel like it, but we abandon precedent when it fits our “emerging awareness” of whatever cultural agenda is regarded to be acceptable for the day? Are we really now a “rights de jour” nation? We only have the rights that are felt by five Justices to be acceptable for that day only? If so, any Constitutional right would just be five votes away from drastic modification, or even extinction. Just five votes. Goodbye, Rule of Law, he thought, sadly.

  The attorneys for the Appellants made their arguments, under withering questioning by the more liberal members of the Court. Veteran Court observers wrote in their articles and blogs that night that the government was expected to win the case, conjecturing that the Court would, in a 5-4 split uphold the McAlister Act. Newly seated Justice Newton, was known to be opposed to private ownership of firearms. It had been conjectured that she had written a strategy memo for the President before she ascended to the high Court, advising him on the text of the McAlister Bill to be considered by Congress. Nevertheless, she refused to recuse herself from the Court’s consideration of the Constitutionality of the new law. Justice Newton appeared to confirm those views in her single question to the gun owners’ lead Counsel.

  “Tell me Counsel, one reason, just one, I’m only looking for one reason, to justify the Court striking down an Act of Congress that has the potential of saving tens of thousands of precious lives and of stopping all the hate speech that spawns violence. Just one little reason, please, Counsel?”

  The other indicator as to how the vote to be taken the next day in the Court’s stately Conference Room would turn out, was a rare statement by Justice Thomson at the conclusion of oral argument. �
��Mr. Attorney General, we all know, I think, how this case will come down. What none of us knows, yet, is the impact of this decision, not only on our First and Second Amendment rights, but on all those other Constitutional rights that we used to think we had as Americans. I shudder to think what is happening to my country.”

  On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court posted an official notice in the McAlister Law Constitutional challenge case. The quasi-opinion was a model of brevity:

  FOR PUBLICATION

  BY THE SUPREME COURT

  OF THE UNITED STATES

  IN THE MATTER OF AN EMERGENCY WRIT REGARDING AN ACT OF CONGRESS (U.S.- 113-S.1)

  THIS COURT, having fully examined the briefs submitted by Counsel, the oral argument offered in open Court and having thoroughly reviewed the legal issues involved, concludes that there is no valid legal justification to extend the consideration of this case further. A lengthier opinion will be released as expeditiously as possible, authored by Justice Newton, writing for the majority. To assuage public concern in the interim, and so as not to further impede the enforcement of a law validly adopted by the Congress of these United States, this Court orders that this appeal is resolved in favor of the Appellee U.S. Government, and that, accordingly, the Lawrence McAlister Hate Speech and Hate Weapons Elimination Act is affirmed, as in compliance with the Constitution of the United States, and all of the Amendments thereto. So ordered. Copy to all Counsel.

  The McAlister Act was now confirmed as the law of the land.