As Conservative Firing Line previously reported, the Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to take a case challenging New York City’s ultra-restrictive handgun law preventing travel outside the city with a licensed handgun, and it might open the floodgates a little wider, some experts are now suggesting.
It’s an NRA-supported case that seems ripe for high court review.
For example, Adam Winkler, author and UCLA School of Law professor, is quoted by USA Today observing, “There’s a bunch of unsettled questions that need to be answered in the Second Amendment area.”
Winkler, who has appeared at the Gun Rights Policy Conference co-hosted by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, appears to have nailed it. That’s not being lost on rights activists who agree with him.
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Michael Waldman, author of “The Second Amendment: A Biography,” was quoted by the New York Times noting, “This is just the first case but not likely the last case where at least four justices open the way to a major ruling that could limit gun safety laws.”
Likewise, Hanna Shearer, a Second Amendment litigation director for the Giffords Law Center, was quoted by Newsday fretting, “Today is a warning that we could see a new, more activist Supreme Court taking steps to limit gun safety laws.”
Well, gun owners would tell them, they’re not really gun “safety” laws, but gun control laws. And several firearms industry folks gathered in Las Vegas this week for the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show have been arguing that those laws really ought to go, as they are seen as infringements on Second Amendment rights.
David French, writing in the National Review online, suggested that SCOTUS review of the New York City gun law just might be a bad omen for the gun prohibition lobby.
“I sincerely doubt the court granted review to affirm the Second Circuit’s decision and uphold the New York City law,” French stated. “Barring an extraordinary jurisprudential reversal, the law is on its death march.”
A few lines later, French added this observation: “Now, the jurisprudential lines are more clearly drawn, and the Court’s originalist bloc is ready to render decisive Second Amendment decisions.”
The additions of Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh made that shift possible.
SAF and the National Rifle Association have both been patiently waiting for a high court that seemed willing to delve into Second Amendment issues. With the court’s acceptance of the New York case, that wait may be approaching its end.
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