Deafening silence from the gun rights crowd about Hayes

With the Supreme Court’s Hayes gun possession decision now a few days old, I cannot help but note that none of the prominent gun rights groups or pundits have said boo about the decision.  Whenever there is talk of a new or expanded gun control effort, I can typically count on seeing comments (usually critical) from prominent gun groups like the National Rifle Association or Second Amendment Foundationor from prominent legal bloggers/pundits like David Kopel and Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and other folks at The Volokh Conspiracy and at Pajamas Media.  Yet, I am still awaiting a single word from any of these folks on the Supreme Court’s work in Hayes.

I am not especially surprised that prominent gun rights activists are disinclined to support domestic abuser like Randy Hayes even when he is being federal prosecuted simply for having a rifle in his home.  Nevertheless, I find it notable and telling that, while many traditional First Amendment advocates will vocally defend the speech rights of neo-Nazis, none of the traditional Second Amendment advocates will defend the gun rights of a misdemeanant.  And the conspicuous silence on the Hayes case shows that gun advocates would like to just completely avoid talking about any of the hard political and legal questions raised by the Heller decision.

Other recent posts on the Hayes decision:

• SCOTUS undercuts constitutional gun rights in Hayes without even mentioning Heller or Second Amendment
• Even the Chief and Justice Scalia are content to damn gun possession with faint praise
• One notable expression of concern about Hayes and gun rights
• Given Hayes, can jurisdictions criminalize gun possession by any misdemeanant?