Quote:
Originally Posted by taperxz
No conservative judge will leave during this presidency. They are not going to give up all they have worked for. They have all basically said this. It would take a death to lose a Heller 5.
|
No, it doesn't take a death, just a condition sufficiently debilitating that it would prevent the justice in question from carrying out his duties.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sholling
Fact: judges aren't any more immune from a debilitating stroke or fatal heart attack than the rest of us so based on the ages of the Heller 5 (Roberts 57, Scalia 76, Kennedy 76, Thomas 64, and Alito 62) and the average life expectancy for a white male of 76 years and the fact that only 49% white males make it to age 80 there is a 50:50 chance that we will lose one or more of the Heller 5 over the next 4 years. That's just the statistics.
|
Yes, though one might conclude from your statement here that the 50% figure is due to the 49% figure alone. It's not.
Based on the statistics (in particular, the proper use of the "probability of dying between ages x to x+1" column in the relevant life tables -- that of black males for Thomas, white males for the rest -- found in
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_09.pdf), the chances of each member of the Heller 5 dying within the next 4 years are as follows:
- Roberts (57): 4%
- Scalia (76): 19%
- Kennedy (76): 19%
- Thomas (64): 11%
- Alito (62): 6%
Taken together, that yields a 47% chance of one of them dying within the next 4 years.
The yearly probabilities that we'll lose at least one of the Heller 5 to death are:
- 2013: 13%, cumulative 13%
- 2014: 14%, cumulative 25%
- 2015: 15%, cumulative 37%
- 2016: 17%, cumulative 47%
Gotta show my work on the above:
Attachment 181721
Now, that's
death we're talking about in the above. The odds of a debilitating condition are
not factored into it, but will, I'd wager,
significantly increase the odds. It's why I believe the odds we'll lose one of the Heller 5 in the next 3 years remains at the 75% I
estimated a couple of years ago.
Quote:
As for ease of reversing Heller and ruling that the 2nd Amendment is not an individual right I've already quoted the Progressive justices's repudiation of Heller and any individual right to RKBA in the McDonald dissent. All those 4 and a 5th Progressive to be named later have to do is apply that reasoning in a future case and any constitutional right to RKBA is gone. They've already told us in the McDonald dissent how they will rule once they have a majority.
|
Precisely.