1st Supreme Court Gun-Rights Battle In 10 Years May Transform Legal Landscape

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: NPR

LAW
1st Supreme Court Gun-Rights Battle In 10 Years May Transform Legal Landscape
December 2, 2019 5:13 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

Guns: when and how to regulate them. It's one of the biggest issues across the country. But the U.S. Supreme Court has rarely weighed in on the issue. In modern times, it has ruled decisively just twice. Now it's on the brink of doing so again.

With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, there now are five conservative justices who may be willing to shut down many attempts at regulation, just as the NRA's lock on state legislatures may be waning.

For the past decade, the court has been wary of gun cases. In 2008 the court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is an individual right. Two years later, the court said that right applied to state laws, not just federal laws regulating gun ownership and use. Since then, however, there has been radio silence as the justices have turned away challenges, one after another, to gun laws across the country. Until now.

On Monday the court hears arguments in a case from New York, a city and a state with some of the toughest gun regulations in the country. Several gun owners and the NRA's New York affiliate challenged the rules for having a handgun at home. They contended the city gun license was so restrictive it was unconstitutional.

Specifically, they said the state law and city regulations violated the right to bear arms because they forbid handgun owners from carrying their pistols anywhere other than seven firing ranges within the city limits. That meant that pistol owners could not carry their guns to a second home, or to shooting ranges or competitions in other states nearby. The lower courts upheld the regulations as justified to protect safety in the most densely populated city in the country.

But when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the gun owners appeal, the state and the city changed the law to allow handgun owners to transport their locked and unloaded guns to second homes or shooting ranges outside the city.

"Won't say 'yes' for an answer"

With those changes, the first question Monday will be whether the case is moot and should be thrown out because New York has already given the gun owners everything they asked for in their lawsuit.
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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/02/783394835/1st-supreme-court-gun-rights-battle-in-10-years-may-transform-legal-landscape

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Extensive quote, because it's NPR.

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Much more here:

Edith Roberts Editor

Posted Mon, December 2nd, 2019 6:39 am

Monday round-up
https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/12/monday-round-up-464/

This morning the Supreme Court kicks off its December session with oral arguments in two cases. First up is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, a high-profile challenge to New York City’s limits on transporting personal firearms. Amy Howe previewed the case for this blog. Subscript Law offers a graphic explainer.
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and here:

https://twitter.com/AHoweBlogger

https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Supreme Court shows little appetite for expanding gun rights in arguments over repealed NY reg.

POLITICS
Supreme Court shows little appetite for expanding gun rights in arguments over repealed New York regulation
PUBLISHED MON, DEC 2 2019 11:18 AM EST UPDATED 8 MIN AGO

Tucker Higgins
@IN/TUCKER-HIGGINS-5B162295/
@TUCKERHIGGINS

KEY POINTS

• The Supreme Court seemed unlikely to deliver a major win for gun-rights activists during arguments on Monday in the first significant Second Amendment case the justices have heard in nearly a decade.

• Some of the court’s conservatives, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, seemed eager to use the case to address the reach of the Second Amendment.

• But it appeared likely that Chief Justice John Roberts would side with the court’s liberals to dismiss the matter altogether as “moot,” or no longer an active controversy.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed unlikely to deliver a major win for gun-rights activists during arguments on Monday in the first significant Second Amendment case the justices have heard in nearly a decade.

The case was challenging a New York City gun regulation that barred the transport of handguns outside of the city, even to a second home or firing range. After the court agreed to hear the case, though, the city did away with the regulation and the state passed a law that prevented the city from re-implementing it.

While some of the court’s conservatives, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, seemed eager to use the case to address the reach of the Second Amendment, it appeared likely after an hour of arguments that Chief Justice John Roberts would side with the court’s liberals to dismiss the matter altogether as “moot,” or no longer an active controversy.

The dispute was one of the most high-profile of the court’s term. The court has not addressed gun legislation since deciding two landmark cases in 2008 and 2010, which held that the Second Amendment protected the individual right to keep guns for the purpose of self-defense in the home.

A decision is expected by July, in the midst of the 2020 presidential election. The nation’s gun laws have become one of the key issues in the Democratic primary amidst an uptick in mass-shooting deaths and youth-led activism, though substantive new legislation is seen as all-but-impossible for the foreseeable future under divided government.
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[Amishman]

2. Not surprising that Roberts would rather punt

He seems terrified to rock the boat more than required by the Republicans. This case is the gun lobby and gun nuts who benefit,not the Republican party itself.

I think the prospect of a Democratic Congress and President packing the court has him scared.

[Initech]

3. They might as well just make murder legal and get it over with.

[friendly_iconoclast]

5. Will there be blood in the streets?

[Initech]

6. Well it's not quite in the NRA's master plan...

But considering how much they've overlooked mass shootings and harassed the victims, it might as well be.

[friendly_iconoclast]

7. *Do* tell us more about "the NRA's master plan". For starters: How did you get hold of it,

and where can we find it?

I suspect it can be found right next to Stanley Kubrick's shooting script for the Apollo project...

[Initech]

9. I think I found it right next to the Snyder Cut of Justice League.

[Polybius]

4. Here's a link to NYC's gun laws, and what you have to go through to get a hand gun

http://nycitylens.com/wp-content/guns/new-york-city-and-its-gun-laws-how-strict-are-they/index.html

It's $340 for the application for a handgun, $140 for the rifle one, plus $90 for fingerprints. You pay whether you are approved or not. The waiting period is also between 3-6 months.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for gun-control, but this is too much. For a handgun application plus fingerprints, you are paying $430. That's the equivalent to a poll tax. The waiting period can be shorted as well with an instant background. Even a month waiting period I'd be ok with.

I'm not sure if these two things are being challenged or not. Does anyone know?

[Initech]

8. NYC has nothing on Japan!

https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-how-japan-has-almost-completely-eliminated-gun-deaths-2017-10

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. Aren't you glad to know that in Japan, suicides are rarely committed with guns?

Granted, their suicide rate alone is about 3X the combined US rates of both murder and suicide-
but guns are rarely used.

I guess that's the important bit for some observers...

[Amishman]

11. And Japan doesn't have the second amendment or our gun culture

Excessive taxes / fees on permits are one control measure we should think twice about. It makes gun ownership even more of a well off / white phenomenon.

If we are going to be stuck with a ton of guns in circulation, let's not compound it by keeping them away from the poorest and most vulnerable in this country, who are disproportionately minorities.