PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Why the Supreme Court will almost surely strike down New York City's gun law :: 01/26/2019
Any attempt to predict the outcome of a Supreme Court case is, at least, a risky business. But I will offer a prediction for the outcome of the case recently accepted for review by the high court, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs. City of New York. It will strike the law down, to give gun rights groups a small but meaningful victory they desperately crave.
In this case, a gun group is challenging a New York City rule that says city resident “premises” pistol permit holders (that is, the license allows for handgun possession at home, but not to carry, for which a separate “carry” permit is needed) cannot transport their guns for target shooting practice outside of the city, which has a total of seven target ranges. So a handgun owner is not allowed to transport the gun to a target range in Long Island, say, or New Jersey.
This is a highly unusual gun restriction. So why the law? According to the NYPD, it received reports that licensees would transport their guns to locations other than shooting ranges, making a de facto carry permit out of a “premises” permit, so it stopped the practice in 2001. Beyond that, the city argued in court that this restriction does not pose an undue burden on city gun owners, as they can continue to target shoot at one of the city facilities or keep a second gun at the shooting range or other location outside of the city where they might wish to use a gun. The city’s main concern is to minimize civilian gun carrying in the five boroughs.
A challenge to the law in federal district and appeals courts upheld the city rule. The Supreme Court’s decision last Tuesday to hear an appeal seems odd, given that it has not taken a major gun case since 2010, when it applied its new interpretation of the Second Amendment — that citizens have a right to own a handgun for personal self-protection in the home — to state and local laws. Since 2010, the Court has refused to hear dozens of appeals from lower courts for clarification of Second Amendment rights.
Among the questions it has not addressed: how high or strict a standard should the courts apply when considering the constitutionality of a gun law. And is or should gun carrying also protected under the Second Amendment?
So why take this case involving such an arcane and obscure law? I believe the answer is contained in the question. If the high court strikes down the city law, as I believe it will, it will have no direct effect on similar laws, because there are none. So there will be no wave of gun law repeals around the country. The case will also give the court a perfect opportunity to address some of the ambiguous questions about the parameters of gun rights. And given that swing Justice Anthony Kennedy has now been replaced by the reliable and more pro-gun conservative Brett Kavanaugh, there is every reason to believe that the court will broaden its interpretation of gun rights.
Of the over 1,000 challenges to gun laws filed since 2008, nearly all have failed, thanks in large measure to the many conditions imposed by the Court in the 2008 Heller decision. Among them: that the right was “not unlimited”; that it was “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner and for whatever purpose”; that “prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons” were allowable; that the government could restrict “dangerous and unusual weapons,” including military weapons; that guns could be barred from “felons and the mentally ill”; that they could be kept out of “sensitive places such as schools and government buildings”; that gun storage laws could be imposed “to prevent accidents”; that gun “commercial sale” could be restricted; and that gun laws with some historical provenance would stand a greater likelihood of being upheld as well.
Yet gun rights forces have grown increasingly unhappy with this state of affairs. Justice Clarence Thomas has gone so far as to claim that the lower courts have relegated the Second Amendment to a “second class right” and a “constitutional orphan.” Baloney.
Not only have the lower courts followed the Heller decision, but Thomas and others misunderstand America’s gun law history. As recent studies have shown, both gun ownership and gun laws are as old as the country. In fact, America’s colonies and states enacted literally thousands of gun laws of every imaginable variety. In many respects, guns were more strictly regulated in the country’s first 300 years than in the last 30. More importantly, in most of our history gun laws and rights were perfectly compatible.
No constitutional right is unlimited. Where guns are concerned, our own history is replete with sensible and necessary regulations. I predict that the court’s conservative majority will use this case to expand gun rights. But there’s nothing “originalist” about that. If anything, our country’s founders knew equally well the value of guns, but also of sensible gun laws.
Spitzer is distinguished service professor and chair of the political science department at SUNY Cortland. He is the author of 5 books on gun policy, including "The Politics of Gun Control" and "Guns across America."
