SCOTUS To Review Restrictive NYC Gun Law

Sticking with both the NY Times and the Supreme Court, we see them taking on an interesting gun control case

Supreme Court Will Review New York City Gun Law

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it would review a New York City gun law that limits residents from transporting their guns outside their homes, its first Second Amendment case in nearly a decade and a test of the court’s approach to gun rights after the arrival of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in October.

Justice Kavanaugh, who replaced the more moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and created a reliable five-member conservative majority, has an expansive view of gun rights. His presence most likely means that the Supreme Court will start exploring and perhaps expanding the scope of the Second Amendment.

“It could be a landmark case with major implications for gun policy,” said Adam Winkler, the author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” “The case could articulate broad principles about the Second Amendment, and especially the Second Amendment outside the home.” (snip)

The New York City ordinance challenged in the new case allows residents with so-called premises licenses to take their guns to one of seven shooting ranges within the city limits. But the ordinance forbids them to take their guns anywhere else, including second homes and shooting ranges outside the city, even when they are unloaded and locked in a container separate from ammunition.

Remember, the gun grabbers say they aren’t trying to grab guns, that they do not want to cause problems for the law abiding, they just want to make it harder for criminals to use them. Yet, against and again, we see them pass laws that make it more and more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their 2nd Amendment Rights.

Three city residents and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association sued to challenge the law but lost in Federal District Court in Manhattan and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Second Circuit ruled that the ordinance passed constitutional muster under the Heller decision.

In urging the Supreme Court to hear their appeal in the case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York, No. 18-280, the challengers said the restrictions imposed by the New York City ordinance were unique in the nation and made no sense.

“Only New York City flatly prohibits its residents from removing their lawfully purchased and duly registered handguns from the city limits, even to transport them (unloaded, and locked up) to second homes at which they are constitutionally entitled to possess them, or to out-of-city shooting ranges or competitions at which they are constitutionally entitled to hone their safe and effective use,” the challengers’ brief said.

On one hand, there needs to be consideration in that the permits were pretty darned specific in laying out scope of the permits and what can and can’t be done, and people went and obtained them in order to have a firearm for home defense. On the other, should there even be a permit which restricts law abiding citizens in this manner, one meant to pass “constitutional muster under the Heller decision” and not a millimeter past it? One made to really subvert the 2nd Amendment rights of law abiding citizens?

Now we wait and see. We might take the gun grabbers talking points about not wanting bad people to have firearms if the vast majority of their rules, regs, and laws were actually aimed at criminals, things like making punishments harsher, instead of at the law abiding.