Thanks Joyce for tirelessly laying out these cases so we can clearly understand where is is going. Your attention to the detail of who is voting one way or the other and why is critical to understanding the direction these things are taking.
Be advised that I "clearly understand" what is going on in our government. Therefore I assume you were speaking for "you" when you employed the collective "we" in your first sentence. Thus the next time you use the collective "we" in asserting you're position, keep in mind that you only speak for your groveling self
Maybe the fact that Joyce has so many followers is indicative of the value of her content, not because "you" require her interpretation and commentary in order to be informed.
I’m a lawyer so that’s why I appreciate her combing through the cases for the fine legal point so that I don’t have to, I do not consider that to be spoon feeding me like a child. And I read a tremendous amount about this every day so if someone can make the task easier I appreciate it. I think your reply was a bit condescending. You seem to presume some things that are not true.
There are also other good legal analysts writing on Substack and who I read in addition to Joyce: Steve Vladeck (forgotten the name) and Chris something in Law Dork. I’m sure there are others.
There are many. Katie Phang who just won big in court, Robert Hubbell, Jay Kuo and many others. I read them all, but I appreciate Joyce's style and detail. Thanks for the suggestions.
Sometimes I wonder whether comments like those from USNewsLink above are merely generated by a bot with the intent of introducing meanness, sexism, and grievance into an otherwise positive expression of gratitude and respect.
While it might be possible for superior beings like usnewslink or other illuminati endowed with uncommon faculties of discernment , I don't trust annonomus older adults .
The price we pay these corrupt Roberts Supreme Court decisions are paid in blood. The justices get $30 million for their security paid for with tax payer dollars while they endanger the lives of the pople paying for their safety. Disgusting!
Check this map for how many people were shot across America on the exact day the Roberts Supreme Court struck down public carry restrictions?
The modern arguments against immigration and birthright citizenship only make sense if you forget what immigration used to look like. The U.S. historically had far more immigrants, far fewer restrictions, far lower naturalization rates, and far more people living here permanently as non‑citizens — and yet the country built its economy, its labor markets, and its civic institutions on that reality. Today’s debates treat immigration as an emergency. Historically, it was the norm. Immigration fueled industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth. The same pattern holds today. Then: Irish were called “unassimilable,” Germans were accused of refusing to learn English and Italians and Jews were said to be criminal or anarchist. Now: Similar cultural anxieties, different targets. Historical reality: Every wave was once considered “impossible to assimilate.” Every wave eventually assimilated. Modern immigration debates treat immigration as a crisis. Historically, immigration was the foundation of American growth and if anything, it means even more today because of especially critical socioeconomic issues. Modern arguments against birthright citizenship recycle the same allegiance‑based theories the 14th Amendment was written to abolish.
We used to use a PRUCOL standard to determine whether we had jurisdiction in "benefits" cases.
When I worked for Social Security I heard dozens of these cases every year. Sometimes claimants couldn't even prove they were born in the US. No birth certificate.
AI Overview
PRUCOL (Permanently Residing Under Color of Law) is not an official immigration status granted by the federal government; rather, it is a broad classification used by state and local programs to determine an immigrant's eligibility for public benefits like Medicaid.
To meet the standard, a non-citizen must typically prove the following:Government Knowledge:
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is aware of the individual's presence in the United States.
No Deportation Plans: The government does not currently intend or plan to enforce the individual's departure or deportation.
Common PRUCOL Categories
While eligibility varies by jurisdiction, the standard generally includes immigrants who fall into one of the following categories:Individuals with a pending application for asylum.People granted an indefinite stay of deportation or indefinite voluntary departure.Individuals with pending or approved applications for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).Visa applicants with an approved I-130 family petition who are waiting for a visa to become available.Certain non-citizens who have lived in the U.S. continuously since Januaruary 1, 1972.
I am completely in favor of allowing everyone to own as many single shot muskets as they desire, even though the right to do so is derived exclusively from the owners usefulness in a militia to protect the state.
Thank you for asking that question Duncan. It seems their integrity is loyal to our constitution depends on which way the winds blow or how many and what “gifts” might otherwise be in question. Your explanations of all these deep issues are invaluable Joyce. Thank you
I am so thankful I can strap on an AR-15 and wander down the street in my Great State of South Carolina with no permit and no training. Do I need to say sarcasm?
What are we gonna do now that it’s plain as day that this Supreme Court doesn’t think the Constitution means what it actually says? I say we get every darned person we can talk to to vote — and keep voting until we get the change we need. These guys have been playing a long game to get this far off track and we’re going to have run hard and long to fix it.
The Founding era, the 19th century, and the early 20th century all had thousands of gun laws regulating storage, carrying, sales, public behavior, and even banning certain weapons. The idea that America historically had a hands‑off approach to gun safety is a myth created by modern jurisprudence — not by history. And keeping the mythology going is none other than the Imperial Court cherry-picking that history to support its specious arguments. Recent decisions (e.g., Wolford v. Lopez, this term) show the majority again selectively using historical analogues while ignoring the vast regulatory tradition. I own two fine shotguns which I use for skeet, trap and sporting clays but which unfortunately don't compensate for aging reflexes. I am often in the company of second amendment zealots which means there are often heated exchanges about bringing some sanity to owning a firearm and especially what is essentially a weapon of war. At some point I'm prompted to say: "Nobody is coming for your guns. But someone may be coming for your kids."
Didn’t we have sheriffs who confiscated your gun if you wanted to enter the town and gave it back to you when you left? Not that those were laws, but, it seems to me, just common sense. But common sense has left the barn eons ago.
“Nobody is coming for your guns. But someone may be coming for your kids." I’m curious. How do they respond to that? You’re planting seeds, at any rate.
I would argue the myth wasn't created by jurisprudence but by greed and fear-mongering.
Jurisprudence got involved when it was clear they could get nice things from the manufacturers.
My daughter lives outside Cody Wyoming. She likes it there despite a grizzly having eaten three of her alpacas. Alpatrick was so traumatized seeing his friends attacked he had to leave.
She sees no need for an AR but keeps her rifle and bear spray handy.
We need some kind of check and balance with the Supreme Court! They are so corrupt. The few good judges we do have are holding the dyke, but they cannot totally keep back the flood of bad work as a minority.
It's one thing that birthright was far too close a decision than it should have been, but that the dissents were so exceptionally weak makes it even more gobsmacking. One that especially stands out is the so-called "allegiance" argument which is virtually the infamous "Dred Scott" theory word for word in defining citizenship by parental allegiance rather than by birthplace. Thing is the framers of 14A wrote the Citizenship Clause to explicitly do away with the idea of inherited allegiance and the Taney decision. They wanted a rule that no future court could twist back into "Dred Scott," despite the attempt by Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito to do so and rewrite history. One gets the impression that Alito and Thomas, especially, don't much care for the 14th Amendment.
And boy did they TRY HARD! I was stunned reading the dissents that they dragged out old Dred Scott, which I thought had been effectively placed in a garbage can over 150 years ago, in an attempt to justify tearing down birthright citizenship. It would have been as hilarious as the Marx Brothers if it weren't as dangerous as the Nazis.
"It was Justice Kavanaugh who contributed almost a fourth vote for cert. He issued an 11-page “statement respecting the denial.” He wrote: “Given that millions of Americans own AR–15s and that a significant majority of the States allow possession of those rifles, petitioners have a strong argument that AR–15s are in ‘common use’ by law-abiding citizens and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment.”
Never mind that AR-15s are also in 'common use' by non-law-abiding citizens to murder thousands of innocent citizens. That's called Kavanaugh "turning a blind eye to the telescope."
ChaGPT: AR-15-specific numbers are not officially tracked. As a rough upper-bound proxy, all rifles account for about 400–500 murders per year in recent FBI data, while rifles are used by private citizens in justifiable homicides only in the single digits to low teens per year in the most recent detailed FBI table available."
So Kavanaugh is saying that the rights of 12 or so individuals involved in justifiable homicides outweigh the rights of 400-500 victims murdered with rifles annually. That's a ratio of between 33:1 and 41:1.
Unfortunately, that is a weak argument, especially when it is made by those of us on the leftish side of things, given that we have OFTEN argued (and often won those arguments) for minority rights in various other matters. Weighing the relative minority positions is NOT (and has never been) considered a valid basis for overturning what the court has recognized as a "right" under the Constitution.
Maybe that needs to be changed, but under current theory of Constitutional law, that is not a strong argument to make (and obviously not a winning argument).
At some point the mortal injury to the vast majority to protect the rights of a tiny minority must sway the court. Like, for example, the court’s permission allowing states to ban transgender males from competing in women’s sports.
The correct term would be "transgender female". A transgender male is one who is female at birth but identifies as male, at least that is the clinical definition.
Theoretically, under the various Trump-aligned state laws, a transgender MALE (one who was born female but identifies as male) should be allowed to compete in women's sports, as they are, according to those state laws, women.
As expected, the grumbling about the Court not deciding the birthright citizenship case more narrowly --- having the effrontery to elevate it to a constitutional challenge --- has already begun. Yes, the Court had multiple narrow, non‑constitutional ways to strike down the executive order — statutory, administrative, procedural — but the majority chose a broad constitutional ruling because the administration directly attacked the core meaning of the Citizenship Clause. The administration’s argument wasn’t just statutory — it was constitutional. It claimed 14A never guaranteed birthright citizenship to begin with. Even this Court couldn’t ignore that. The administration’s argument was not a small technical claim — it was a full frontal attack on: the Citizenship Clause; Reconstruction history; the controlling precedent in "Wong Kim Ark;" the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and oh yes --- 150 years of settled constitutional meaning.
Thanks Joyce for sharing your legal expertise in breaking down all the Supreme Court Decisions in layman’s terms that all us non-lawyers can easily understand. Another great law lesson learned from an experienced former DOJ US Attorney, a former Appellate Division Chief and distinguished law professor. I’m glad to be a paid subscriber to your and I try never to never miss reading your posts or listening to your live interviews. Thanks for all you do each day to keep us all so well informed on everything legal.
Ah yes, so much for SCOTUS to do! Still libs out there … and women … and uppity everyone else … so threatening to rich white elitist America! But don’t worry—we’ll take care of everything! What could possibly go wrong?
Thanks Joyce for tirelessly laying out these cases so we can clearly understand where is is going. Your attention to the detail of who is voting one way or the other and why is critical to understanding the direction these things are taking.
Be advised that I "clearly understand" what is going on in our government. Therefore I assume you were speaking for "you" when you employed the collective "we" in your first sentence. Thus the next time you use the collective "we" in asserting you're position, keep in mind that you only speak for your groveling self
Maybe the fact that Joyce has so many followers is indicative of the value of her content, not because "you" require her interpretation and commentary in order to be informed.
I’m a lawyer so that’s why I appreciate her combing through the cases for the fine legal point so that I don’t have to, I do not consider that to be spoon feeding me like a child. And I read a tremendous amount about this every day so if someone can make the task easier I appreciate it. I think your reply was a bit condescending. You seem to presume some things that are not true.
I think news link is a bot, it always writes sruff like that crap above
agree, bot.
I think you are a crass, creepy, name calling excuse for an other wise intelligent individual - or maybe you're just a creep.
you're the one with deviant in your profile so....
Tell me your real name and then you can accuse me of whatever you want to but use your real name if you have one, bot
First time I encountered that bot
I have tusseled w/this bot before
Resorting to low rent insults when you get called out for speaking for others without their permission.
bot rot
There are also other good legal analysts writing on Substack and who I read in addition to Joyce: Steve Vladeck (forgotten the name) and Chris something in Law Dork. I’m sure there are others.
There are many. Katie Phang who just won big in court, Robert Hubbell, Jay Kuo and many others. I read them all, but I appreciate Joyce's style and detail. Thanks for the suggestions.
I read Phang and Kuo too—thank you for calling attention to their good work. I don’t know Hubbell.
In my long life, I have discovered that part of being an adult requires me to stop seeking the approval of lesser beings, therefore, ...!
I am old too, so quit it. And you don't have to worry about approval from this quarter.
Sometimes I wonder whether comments like those from USNewsLink above are merely generated by a bot with the intent of introducing meanness, sexism, and grievance into an otherwise positive expression of gratitude and respect.
Pam, I agree with you. Joyce is on the top of my list!
While it might be possible for superior beings like usnewslink or other illuminati endowed with uncommon faculties of discernment , I don't trust annonomus older adults .
who the fuck are you?
I guess it’s a bot
The price we pay these corrupt Roberts Supreme Court decisions are paid in blood. The justices get $30 million for their security paid for with tax payer dollars while they endanger the lives of the pople paying for their safety. Disgusting!
Check this map for how many people were shot across America on the exact day the Roberts Supreme Court struck down public carry restrictions?
https://thedemlabs.org/2026/06/28/shootings-the-day-scotus-allowed-public-guns/
The Trace is also a good place to learn more about gun violence and statistics. Here is their website:
https://datahub.thetrace.org/about/
Thanks for sharing this resource.
The modern arguments against immigration and birthright citizenship only make sense if you forget what immigration used to look like. The U.S. historically had far more immigrants, far fewer restrictions, far lower naturalization rates, and far more people living here permanently as non‑citizens — and yet the country built its economy, its labor markets, and its civic institutions on that reality. Today’s debates treat immigration as an emergency. Historically, it was the norm. Immigration fueled industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth. The same pattern holds today. Then: Irish were called “unassimilable,” Germans were accused of refusing to learn English and Italians and Jews were said to be criminal or anarchist. Now: Similar cultural anxieties, different targets. Historical reality: Every wave was once considered “impossible to assimilate.” Every wave eventually assimilated. Modern immigration debates treat immigration as a crisis. Historically, immigration was the foundation of American growth and if anything, it means even more today because of especially critical socioeconomic issues. Modern arguments against birthright citizenship recycle the same allegiance‑based theories the 14th Amendment was written to abolish.
We used to use a PRUCOL standard to determine whether we had jurisdiction in "benefits" cases.
When I worked for Social Security I heard dozens of these cases every year. Sometimes claimants couldn't even prove they were born in the US. No birth certificate.
AI Overview
PRUCOL (Permanently Residing Under Color of Law) is not an official immigration status granted by the federal government; rather, it is a broad classification used by state and local programs to determine an immigrant's eligibility for public benefits like Medicaid.
To meet the standard, a non-citizen must typically prove the following:Government Knowledge:
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is aware of the individual's presence in the United States.
No Deportation Plans: The government does not currently intend or plan to enforce the individual's departure or deportation.
Common PRUCOL Categories
While eligibility varies by jurisdiction, the standard generally includes immigrants who fall into one of the following categories:Individuals with a pending application for asylum.People granted an indefinite stay of deportation or indefinite voluntary departure.Individuals with pending or approved applications for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).Visa applicants with an approved I-130 family petition who are waiting for a visa to become available.Certain non-citizens who have lived in the U.S. continuously since Januaruary 1, 1972.
Does anyone know how many AR-15s were in ‘common use’ in 1791?
Asking for an originalist Justice.
I am completely in favor of allowing everyone to own as many single shot muskets as they desire, even though the right to do so is derived exclusively from the owners usefulness in a militia to protect the state.
Thank you for asking that question Duncan. It seems their integrity is loyal to our constitution depends on which way the winds blow or how many and what “gifts” might otherwise be in question. Your explanations of all these deep issues are invaluable Joyce. Thank you
I am so thankful I can strap on an AR-15 and wander down the street in my Great State of South Carolina with no permit and no training. Do I need to say sarcasm?
And yet RPG’s remain restricted. What’s with that?
/s
Well. Fireworks are legal where I live so the RP part is legal. Just a little bit longer? A matter of degree? Sarcasm again.
You didn’t. I got it.
What are we gonna do now that it’s plain as day that this Supreme Court doesn’t think the Constitution means what it actually says? I say we get every darned person we can talk to to vote — and keep voting until we get the change we need. These guys have been playing a long game to get this far off track and we’re going to have run hard and long to fix it.
Yep. Since the ‘70s. We’ve got a long way to go.
The Founding era, the 19th century, and the early 20th century all had thousands of gun laws regulating storage, carrying, sales, public behavior, and even banning certain weapons. The idea that America historically had a hands‑off approach to gun safety is a myth created by modern jurisprudence — not by history. And keeping the mythology going is none other than the Imperial Court cherry-picking that history to support its specious arguments. Recent decisions (e.g., Wolford v. Lopez, this term) show the majority again selectively using historical analogues while ignoring the vast regulatory tradition. I own two fine shotguns which I use for skeet, trap and sporting clays but which unfortunately don't compensate for aging reflexes. I am often in the company of second amendment zealots which means there are often heated exchanges about bringing some sanity to owning a firearm and especially what is essentially a weapon of war. At some point I'm prompted to say: "Nobody is coming for your guns. But someone may be coming for your kids."
Didn’t we have sheriffs who confiscated your gun if you wanted to enter the town and gave it back to you when you left? Not that those were laws, but, it seems to me, just common sense. But common sense has left the barn eons ago.
“Nobody is coming for your guns. But someone may be coming for your kids." I’m curious. How do they respond to that? You’re planting seeds, at any rate.
I would argue the myth wasn't created by jurisprudence but by greed and fear-mongering.
Jurisprudence got involved when it was clear they could get nice things from the manufacturers.
My daughter lives outside Cody Wyoming. She likes it there despite a grizzly having eaten three of her alpacas. Alpatrick was so traumatized seeing his friends attacked he had to leave.
She sees no need for an AR but keeps her rifle and bear spray handy.
That is the part I don't understand! They are your beloved children, if you don't care about them, what do you care about?
We need some kind of check and balance with the Supreme Court! They are so corrupt. The few good judges we do have are holding the dyke, but they cannot totally keep back the flood of bad work as a minority.
Too many states, too many extreme "justices."
It's one thing that birthright was far too close a decision than it should have been, but that the dissents were so exceptionally weak makes it even more gobsmacking. One that especially stands out is the so-called "allegiance" argument which is virtually the infamous "Dred Scott" theory word for word in defining citizenship by parental allegiance rather than by birthplace. Thing is the framers of 14A wrote the Citizenship Clause to explicitly do away with the idea of inherited allegiance and the Taney decision. They wanted a rule that no future court could twist back into "Dred Scott," despite the attempt by Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito to do so and rewrite history. One gets the impression that Alito and Thomas, especially, don't much care for the 14th Amendment.
And boy did they TRY HARD! I was stunned reading the dissents that they dragged out old Dred Scott, which I thought had been effectively placed in a garbage can over 150 years ago, in an attempt to justify tearing down birthright citizenship. It would have been as hilarious as the Marx Brothers if it weren't as dangerous as the Nazis.
Thank you, Professor for being a tireless defender of democracy and telling all of us to celebrate our 250 anniversary celebration.
"It was Justice Kavanaugh who contributed almost a fourth vote for cert. He issued an 11-page “statement respecting the denial.” He wrote: “Given that millions of Americans own AR–15s and that a significant majority of the States allow possession of those rifles, petitioners have a strong argument that AR–15s are in ‘common use’ by law-abiding citizens and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment.”
Never mind that AR-15s are also in 'common use' by non-law-abiding citizens to murder thousands of innocent citizens. That's called Kavanaugh "turning a blind eye to the telescope."
ChaGPT: AR-15-specific numbers are not officially tracked. As a rough upper-bound proxy, all rifles account for about 400–500 murders per year in recent FBI data, while rifles are used by private citizens in justifiable homicides only in the single digits to low teens per year in the most recent detailed FBI table available."
So Kavanaugh is saying that the rights of 12 or so individuals involved in justifiable homicides outweigh the rights of 400-500 victims murdered with rifles annually. That's a ratio of between 33:1 and 41:1.
Abortion is also in common use, as it has been for centuries, to protect a woman's life and her future.
They make no sense.
Unfortunately, that is a weak argument, especially when it is made by those of us on the leftish side of things, given that we have OFTEN argued (and often won those arguments) for minority rights in various other matters. Weighing the relative minority positions is NOT (and has never been) considered a valid basis for overturning what the court has recognized as a "right" under the Constitution.
Maybe that needs to be changed, but under current theory of Constitutional law, that is not a strong argument to make (and obviously not a winning argument).
At some point the mortal injury to the vast majority to protect the rights of a tiny minority must sway the court. Like, for example, the court’s permission allowing states to ban transgender males from competing in women’s sports.
The correct term would be "transgender female". A transgender male is one who is female at birth but identifies as male, at least that is the clinical definition.
Theoretically, under the various Trump-aligned state laws, a transgender MALE (one who was born female but identifies as male) should be allowed to compete in women's sports, as they are, according to those state laws, women.
Please don’t change that. They’re taking a pick axe to the margins as it is.
As expected, the grumbling about the Court not deciding the birthright citizenship case more narrowly --- having the effrontery to elevate it to a constitutional challenge --- has already begun. Yes, the Court had multiple narrow, non‑constitutional ways to strike down the executive order — statutory, administrative, procedural — but the majority chose a broad constitutional ruling because the administration directly attacked the core meaning of the Citizenship Clause. The administration’s argument wasn’t just statutory — it was constitutional. It claimed 14A never guaranteed birthright citizenship to begin with. Even this Court couldn’t ignore that. The administration’s argument was not a small technical claim — it was a full frontal attack on: the Citizenship Clause; Reconstruction history; the controlling precedent in "Wong Kim Ark;" the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and oh yes --- 150 years of settled constitutional meaning.
So all you need to do is sell enough guns that they become common and then they automatically become Constitutional. Well semi-automatically...
Thanks Joyce for sharing your legal expertise in breaking down all the Supreme Court Decisions in layman’s terms that all us non-lawyers can easily understand. Another great law lesson learned from an experienced former DOJ US Attorney, a former Appellate Division Chief and distinguished law professor. I’m glad to be a paid subscriber to your and I try never to never miss reading your posts or listening to your live interviews. Thanks for all you do each day to keep us all so well informed on everything legal.
Ah yes, so much for SCOTUS to do! Still libs out there … and women … and uppity everyone else … so threatening to rich white elitist America! But don’t worry—we’ll take care of everything! What could possibly go wrong?
Don’t know where things go from here. We are In This together. -but what the ‘this’ is and is becoming is increasingly sad