During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) criticized the Roberts court for ignoring the principle of stare decisis shortly before criticizing rulings on the 2nd Amendment that ignored that “the Second Amendment uses the military term ‘arms’ and talks about militias, but never mind that, when the gun lobby wants something.”
Whitehouse, during a lengthy criticism of the Roberts court, stated, “Over and over, judicial principles, even so-called conservative ones, are overrun on the court’s road to the happy result. Stare decisis, that’s a big laugh. These were law-changing decisions, many of upending a century or more of law and precedent. Textualism, the Second Amendment uses the military term ‘arms’ and talks about militias, but never mind that, when the gun lobby wants something.”
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