A court trapped in amber

In United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court denied that the Second Amendment is “a law trapped in amber.” That metaphor has now exploded onto constitutional law, appearing in six Supreme Court cases this term and hundreds of lower court opinions. Somehow, an expression that traces back to 1970s liberals has become au courant at the most conservative Supreme Court in generations. What’s more, the metaphor is a negative one. Rather than tell us what the law is, the court’s viral expression tells us what it isn’t. But what, then, is the law? The intuitive answer: alive. In short, the court has indirectly embraced a form of living constitution…