kcbrown
Super Genius
- Jun 16, 2012
- 1,393
You cannot say that the party of the judge is not the causation either. All that we do know from the data is that there is a correlation between political party and the vote on 2A issues. It may be true that political party does cause the judge to vote the way they do on 2A issue, but that conclusion cannot be supported by just the correlative data supplied.
Did you even read the study? Did you understand it? Do you understand what the p values it talks about represent?
Is there some variable you're going to claim they didn't control for? Because that's the only way the correlation they show cannot be causation, given the p values they obtained.
If the argument is the issue, then there could be several possible reasons
If the argument were the sole issue then there would not be a near-100% probability of a difference in outcome on the basis of nominating party!
Put another way, you have to answer why the arguments being made by plaintiffs are substantially more likely to sway a Republican-nominated judge than a Democrat-nominated judge. You can claim all you want that the judge's political stance is not the cause of the difference, but if you insist upon that then you have to provide alternative reasons that explain the probability difference, i.e. some difference in the judges themselves that explains the difference and that is not party. Your claim about the argument doesn't work here because the argument is being supplied equally to all of the judges in question, and is therefore a constant. Whatever the reason for the difference in outcome, it is a variable, not a constant.
I happen to believe there are two additions that need to be added. You need to make the court understand that the government is really presenting correlations that do not demonstrate causation. You also need to make the court understand that the 2A is really about who provides public safety. The government cannot protect us and that the people themselves need to retain the ability to protect themselves.
It is only speculative that doing that will work, particularly in light of the apparent fact that causation is not a precedential requirement for intermediate scrutiny, per our prior discussion here.
I'll reiterate my question here: in light of the absence of precedent that demands that causation be shown, why should we believe that an argument that the government's data does not show causation will succeed where an argument that says that the government's data is invalid has not?