{"id":410,"date":"2026-07-15T11:05:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=410"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:05:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:05:01","slug":"brett-kavanaugh-may-have-accidentally-opened-the-door-to-new-gun-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=410","title":{"rendered":"Brett Kavanaugh May Have Accidentally Opened the Door to New Gun Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sign up for Executive Dysfunction, a newsletter that highlights one under-the-radar story each week about how Trump is changing the law\u2014or how the law is pushing back. You\u2019ll also receive updates on the latest from Slate\u2019s Jurisprudence team.<\/p>\n

Read more ICE Backs Down\u2014For Now<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Of the six separate opinions the Supreme Court generated last month in , the birthright citizenship case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s solo contribution was the quirkiest, and perhaps the most revealing. Aside from its grim implications for the court and potentially for birthright citizenship itself, Kavanaugh\u2019s opinion did another big thing that has not really been discussed. Whether intentionally or not, he may have shown how the court can approve greater restrictions on firearms.<\/p>\n

The outcome of Barbara<\/em> turned on the word \u201cjurisdiction\u201d in the 14th<\/sup> Amendment, ratified in 1868, which provides that \u201cAll persons born \u2026 in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief Justice John Roberts\u2019 majority opinion was succinct and direct. Holding that \u201cjurisdiction\u201d plainly means \u201cthe power of the United States to govern those within its territory,\u201d Roberts upheld the citizenship of nearly all children born in the U.S.<\/p>\n

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Justice Clarence\u2019s Thomas\u2019 principal dissent meandered through 91 pages of selective history before agreeing with President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order that only the child of a legally \u201cdomiciled\u201d parent qualifies for birthright citizenship. This is despite the fact that \u201cdomicile\u201d does not appear in the 14th<\/sup> Amendment or the subsequent statutes.<\/p>\n

In his opinion, \u201cconcurring in the judgment and dissenting in part,\u201d Kavanaugh first agreed with the majority that the executive order\u2019s limitations on birthright citizenship are invalid. But he premised his conclusion only on statutory grounds; specifically, the Nationality Act of 1940. He went on to agree with Thomas\u2019 dissent that the Constitution itself does not grant birthright citizenship to \u201cchildren born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh\u2019s reasoning was intricate at best.<\/p>\n

He conceded that the 1898 Supreme Court opinion in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark<\/em> granted citizenship to all children born in the U.S, with four narrow exceptions, comprising a \u201cclosed set\u201d for constitutional purposes: the children of foreign diplomats or enemy invaders, those born on foreign ships in U.S. harbors, and certain Native Americans (all of whom were later granted citizenship by Congress).<\/p>\n

Because the 1940 statute was enacted in light of Wong Kim Ark<\/em>, said Kavanaugh, it codified the same closed set of exceptions, which Trump\u2019s executive order could not change.<\/p>\n

Now comes the revealing.<\/p>\n

According to Kavanaugh, even Wong Kim Ark<\/em>\u2019s closed set of constitutional exceptions can be expanded to apply \u201cto new circumstances\u201d based on subsequent developments \u201clargely unknown or unanticipated\u201d by the Framers of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment.<\/p>\n

One such circumstance, per Kavanaugh, is the advent of \u201csignificant illegal immigration,\u201d which he believes the Framers of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment could not have anticipated and would not have approved. Another is the phenomenon of children born to temporary visitors, given \u201cchanges in immigration laws and travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more A Judge Officially Confirmed What Everyone Knows About Todd Blanche and Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

The implication of Kavanaugh\u2019s approach to changed circumstances is undeniable. It stands in distinct contrast to the Supreme Court\u2019s recent rulings on gun control, which have discounted changed circumstances as sufficient to justify restrictions on the right to bear arms.<\/p>\n

If developments in lawbreaking (unauthorized immigration) and technology (air travel) are sufficient to create new exceptions to the 14th<\/sup> Amendment, why can\u2019t the same hold true for the Second Amendment?<\/p>\n

Recent times have certainly seen developments in the scale of possible lawbreaking, with recurring mass shootings in schools, at shopping centers, and houses of worship that would have been unimaginable in 1868.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the invention of semiautomatic firearms, capable of firing faster than Civil War\u2013era weapons by an order of magnitude or more, has had a far greater impact on shooting victims (about 15,000 homicides and 85,000 nonfatal shootings annually) than air travel has had on what Thomas dubs \u201cbirth tourism\u201d (estimates range from 9,000 to 20,000 births per year).<\/p>\n

The majority opinion in , written by Thomas and joined by Kavanaugh, nodded slightly toward the relevance to gun control regulation of \u201cunprecedented\u201d societal concerns or dramatic technological changes, while specifically rejecting conventional \u201cmeans-ends tests\u201d or \u201cinterest balancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, firearms restrictions can only be upheld if \u201chistorical inquiry\u201d identifies a \u201cproper analogue\u201d or \u201crelevantly similar\u201d regulation close in time to ratification, which turned out to be a challenging test indeed for gun laws. The court\u2019s conservative supermajority has found few analogues that justify exceptions to the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh, however, may have broken analytical, if not political, ranks with his Republican colleagues. His separate opinion in Barbara<\/em> applied an exceptionally loose test for exclusions to birthright citizenship. He found Trump\u2019s \u201cexceptions for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country\u201d to be supported by the new circumstances of immigration and travel, based on an extremely tenuous analogy to the closed set declared in Wong Kim Ark<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Kavanaugh\u2019s newfound flexibility on constitutional exceptions will apply exclusively to the denial of citizenship to innocent children.<\/p>\n

We will soon have a chance to find out.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court recently accepted two cases involving bans on AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles. Will Kavanaugh vote to uphold the restrictions, perhaps bringing other justices along, based on recognition of new circumstances \u201cunknown or unanticipated\u201d by the Framers of the Second Amendment? Or will he revert to form, privileging gun ownership more than he values citizenship?<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Lindsey Graham Finally Had Exactly What He Wanted<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It remains to be seen whether Kavanaugh\u2019s newfound flexibility on constitutional exceptions will apply exclusively to the denial of citizenship to kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[56,204,120,64,18,11,73,15],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jurisprudence","tag-brett-kavanaugh","tag-gun-control","tag-guns","tag-immigration","tag-judiciary","tag-jurisprudence","tag-opinionpalooza-2026","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nBrett Kavanaugh May Have Accidentally Opened the Door to New Gun Restrictions - Home Move Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=410\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brett Kavanaugh May Have Accidentally Opened the Door to New Gun Restrictions - 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