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RIP, Judge Silberman

Josh Blackman has a legal obit on the good judge. He wrote the DC Circuit opinion in Parker v. DC, which thereby became Heller v. DC. That opinion, by splitting with all the other circuits, and by striking down a gun law, became a perfect vehicle for a Supreme Court case.

Irony: he spoke at a gathering which I attended, and said that when he was up for a Supreme Court nomination, NRA opposed him. He had been asked if he'd support a "Saturday Night Special" ban (which was the fad of gun control groups then), and replied he might, if anyone could tell him what a SNS was. This was interpreted as an anti-gun answer, when it was quite the opposite. Thus he never sat on the Supreme Court, but, he added, if he had we might not have gotten Heller (meaning he wouldn't have been in the DC Circuit to generate the Circuit split).