It’s what I call the Democratic wobble.
We’ve been trending left for fifty years. Maybe it’s time to go the other way for awhile. And hand some power back to the states, where it belongs.
We’ve been trending left for fifty years. Maybe it’s time to go the other way for awhile. And hand some power back to the states, where it belongs.
Depends on the topic. Gun rights, for example, have gone decidedly to the right. Few people now remember that Ronald Reagan signed some significant gun control legislation without losing support of his voters.
In the '60s, high school students carried rifles on the NYC subway while going to target practice. Try doing that today.
So, I'd say there has been a lot of pressure to move the window on gun regulation to more restrictive over the last fifty years. I don't think it's done any good at all relative to reducing crime committed with guns. Law abiding gun owners have always had low incidence of gun infractions compared to, say, the police.
The real problem is not enforcing the gun laws we have had for years. Chicago is a prime example: very restrictive laws, but very few convictions for gun offenses, which are frequent. Why is that?
As of today, there is almost half a billion of guns in civilian possession in the US, and the # of open carry and concealed carry jurisdictions has grown massively.
I would say that the lowest point for gun rights US-wide was around the Columbine school shootings, and that the trend changed quite decisively since them. Legislation like that has no chance of passing today.
Even before the recent ruling, there were 8 states that were may-issue; the rest were shall-issue or no permit required.
Justice Thomas has discussed this in his SCOTUS opinions. It’s quite revealing and well worth reading.
SCOTUS rulings are a lot more readable than you might think. They are often quite colorful. You quickly learn to skip by the boilerplate to find the dissenting opinions, which are near the end.
But, yes, states are just as artificial as US as a whole. Municipalities feel like they're the lowest level organization that is actually somewhat organic and interconnected.
And yes, the Civil Rights Act, the 14th Amendment, formally Roe vs Wade, Brown v. BoE, etc.
I will go a step further and say that ONLY the Federal government can secure your individual rights. If your rights can be erased by crossing a state line, then you don't have an individual right.
As for the federal government securing my individual rights in general - considering the existing federal drug laws, and the very real possibility of a federal abortion ban coming in a few years, I'd say you're cherry-picking here.