Curious Supreme Court opinion should be strong argument against excessive regulations (but it won’t be)

The standing argument when it comes to criminals being criminals is that not a single, extra law would ever prevent them from committing the crime they are hell-bent on committing. But that truth has never stopped big government proponents from adding new regulations anyway.

“More gun laws are needed,” they say, after mass shootings like the one in Orlando. “If only there was a waiting period after a gun purchase,” goes the thinking. Then what? The killer would have a chance to consider the law against murder and change his mind? This line of thinking is ludicrous, yet its prevalence runs rampant in Washington.

But a curious thing appeared in a recent Supreme Court opinion that if read out of context, would be considered a very strong argument against excessive regulations having any impact on lawbreakers:

But there is no reason to believe that an extra layer of regulation would have affected that behavior. Determined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statutes and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations.

As David French at National Review pointed out, you might think the Supreme Court had gone “crazy right-wing” were it not for the context in which the argument was made. And that’s what makes this all the more egregious.

The argument was made in the SCOTUS opinion that struck down the Texas law that required abortion facilities to be as sanitary as surgical facilities. The majority opinion stated on page 27 that no “new overlay of regulations” would have prevented the practices of serial abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who is serving a life sentence for killing live babies on his unsanitary abortion tables.

With that context in mind, reading, “Determined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statutes and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations,” has a whole new meaning.

The federal government is fine making this argument when it comes to “women’s health” but not when it comes to American’s guaranteed Second Amendment rights.

It’s yet another reason why we need, more than ever, a Convention of States.