Back to the Supreme Court Goes the Second Amendment

Looks like SCOTUS has granted Cert in NYSRPA v. City of New York, which challenges the city’s prohibition on removing a licensed firearm from the City. This is great news. It would seem Kennedy’s retirement may have changed things, and this is a case where the stakes are not that high if Roberts goes wobbly, since it would only affect New York City, which already sucks. Here’s hoping for a strong opinion from SCOTUS. The Second Circuit is in serious need of a smackdown on this issue.

18 thoughts on “Back to the Supreme Court Goes the Second Amendment”

    1. Precedent for the expansion of interstate transportation of firearms, and, striking down entrapment based, Intrastate “Deviation Laws” as seen in States like Massachusetts and New Jersey.

      Something also tells me that Ruth Bader Ginsburg won’t be around next year to hear this case, and I think she won’t be surviving past June of this year.

      The SCOTUS taking this up could mean that there will be a 6th Conservative Justice on the SCOTUS before 2020.

    2. It also helps that this is an extreme case where the NYC law doesn’t allow transport of licensed, unloaded, locked, weapons out of NYC for /any/ reason.

      As we saw in Heller and McDonald, SCOTUS seems to like the cautious cases (those were utter bans of an entire class of firearm).

    1. There are other reasons but…

      The ruling could be /very/ narrow.

      As in it says that a law mandating transport of an unloaded and locked gun only to a “designated range” is fine.

      Such a ruling would overturn the NYC law, but not many other jurisdictions in the US are that restrictive.

    2. The beauty of this case is that if their coalition holds, they can write a very strong opinion. If Roberts starts to go wobbly, they have a lot of room to narrow the opinion down to the very specific set of circumstances without saying much else.

      If you read the tea leaves, Roberts is a minimalist: he doesn’t believe the courts should be aggressive in countermanding legislatures or upsetting apple carts if it doesn’t have to. So they can take this case wide is Roberts is feeling frisky, or keep it narrow if he’s being wobbly.

      I also suspect that they might know a lot more about Ginsburg’s health than the public at large does, and if she departs the Court, it could change the dynamic a lot.

  1. This case has wide implication outside of the city of New York. It goes to the right of travel, the level of scrutiny And many other issues. This isn’t a curtailment of transport. It has to do with the fundamental right of travel and the exercise of a civil right.

    1. This case will also have more titanic impact than not over State Preemption Laws than what meets the eye too.

    2. If you get a strong opinion. The question before the Court is actually pretty narrow, and if their majority is weak you could see a very narrow ruling that doesn’t say much about any of those things.

  2. Hopefully we see a smackdown of the intermediate scrutiny too step. That would have broad implications.

    1. That is my hope. If Roberts holds, or Ginsburg leaves, that is a best case scenario.

  3. Great. Another court battle we will lose. And if we don’t lose will be totally ignored.

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