I’m not all that concerned about this, actually. Pryor’s support of same sex marriage and transgender nonsense was a much greater threat to the Second Amendment than the apparent views of Gorsuch here. I may actually agree with Gorsuch on this.
The case illustrates one reason concealed carry cannot be as protected as open carry, and why SCOTUS decisions indicate a preference for open carry. If you are going to have a police state, the police will put their safety first. Only open carry provides the accountability and education necessary to carry on the militia ethic, especially when families fail to adequately plan for firearm legacy in their estate planning.
Unfortunately, the Rodriguez opinion allows the police to conflate the two concepts and treat all armed persons as if they were automatically dangerous. According to the panel opinion joined by Judge Gorsuch, the mere presence of a loaded concealed firearm “alone is enough to justify [the officer’s] action in removing the handgun from Defendant’s waistband for the protection of himself and others.”To be sure, Rodriguez did not raise a Second Amendment claim before the court, and the court cited various Fourth Amendment cases to justify its bad decision. But judges cannot completely hide behind precedent. Judge Gorsuch was free to express his disagreements with those precedents, even if he felt obliged to concur in the result. But that is not what he did.
Source: Articles: Judge Neil Gorsuch: Some Cause for Concern
