Posted on 12/04/2019 5:58:48 AM PST by Kaslin
For the first time in nearly a decade, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case directly involving the Second Amendment. Not since McDonald v. Chicago in 2010 has the High Court taken up a gun rights case, despite several opportunities to further clarify its landmark decisions in that case and the Heller opinion two years earlier. Conservatives, however, would be well advised to hold off uncorking the champagne bottles.
While the case at hand, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, appears ripe for a favorable ruling especially as the Court has shifted to the right since 2010, such an outcome must first overcome several hurdles. Most important is the question of whether the Court will even issue a ruling now that New York has struck the offending law from the books, arguably making the case moot, and thereby sidestepping any strengthening of the McDonald and Heller rulings.
Before the City’s clever move repealing the law, it prohibited licensed gun owners from transporting an unloaded and stowed firearm from the home to ranges or dwellings outside the city limits. Conservatives, however, point to troublesome remnants of the revamped ordinance as reasons for a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court. Also problematic is the fact that the City could reinstate the statute as quickly as it earlier repealed it.
The nuanced and highly specific nature of the case also makes it less likely that the Court, even if it were to issue a ruling, would hand down the broad support for gun rights that Heller and McDonald failed to deliver. Instead, like those two cases, it is just as likely that this most recent case would follow similarly narrow lines and leave for another day the many unanswered questions about restrictive gun control schemes in the post-Heller environment; and, potentially, to a very different Court.
It is this last point that understandably has left conservatives frustrated. Opportunities to clarify its last two landmark but still narrowly tailored Second Amendment decisions, have been many; yet the Court consistently has demurred. This hesitancy prompted Justice Clarence Thomas to take the Court to task for such missed chances. In his 2017 dissent when the majority refused to accept for decision Peruta v. California, a perfect case involving the issue of firearms for self-defense in public, Thomas wrote, “even if other Members of the Court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the Court to answer this important question definitively”; adding that he saw “no reason to await another case.”
Nevertheless, the Court waited – as do we all.
The Court’s reticence on definitively affirming the practical effects of the Heller ruling, coupled with its general reluctance to expand further than the immediate merits of any new case, and disappointing leadership from other conservatives on the bench, are reasons why Republicans should not be overly eager to pin their hopes on the Supreme Court this time or in the future to save the Second Amendment.
Instead, conservatives should do what they have been successful at in the past; that is, winning at the ballot box and stopping disastrous gun control proposals at the state and local levels before they ever make it onto the statute books. There is no need to continuously fight costly uphill battles through the court system if Republicans can win legislatively; but this, too, is becoming more difficult.
The GOP’s feckless approach of late in defense of gun rights, has made Republicans vulnerable to devastating electoral losses, as in Virginia last month. Equally debilitating has been the embrace of certain gun control schemes as a way of appeasing anti-gun activists. Support for so-called “universal background checks” and “red flag laws” by Republican Senators like Florida’s Marco Rubio or Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, embolden gun control activists and improve chances for enactment of such constitutionally defective measures by state governments.
If Republicans seriously want to keep the Second Amendment from being gutted entirely, they should consider the Supreme Court as a last resort rather than the first and best hope for preserving this vital individual liberty. They instead must grow a backbone with which to proactively defend the Second Amendment in city, county, state and federal elections every cycle; and simultaneously support those men and women in law enforcement who do understand and support the individual right to keep and bear arms, even in the face of adverse publicity that inevitably follows every instance in which criminals abuse firearms.
No explanation of alternative remedies.
Bob Barr does not even know what the USSC decision is, yet it seems he’s declaring defeat already. Amazing.
I am of the opinion that the court could issue “guidance” not “ruling”. IOW, take the opportunity to instruct the lower courts without setting precedent.
SCOTUS should say that any future cases involving the 2nd amendment, strict scrutiny will be applied to the governments position / arguments. Then go further to explain why in this particular case, strict scrutiny would result in a ruling of unconstitutional.
Doesn’t matter. Heller is “settled law”. I mean, when the left likes something the law is “settled”, right? When they don’t like a news story it’s “Oh, that’s been debunked, everybody knows that.” I for one, am over the tricks of the left. The very ideas need to be smashed to a pulp.
The 1st Amendment is 1st, for a reason. The 2nd Amendment is there in case the 1st one doesn’t work............Dave Chappelle
Confiscation is a tide that is always coming in.
Wrong. Ultimately, like it or not we must rely on the Supreme Court to rule correctly on this issue.
States like Kalifornia, New York, and New Jersey will never relinquish their draconian gun laws without a mandate from the Supreme Court.
And Bloomberg will continue to spend millions (pocket change to him) to infect the rest of the states with the same anti-2A sickness.
Correct, and according to Justice Thomas (and he would know) - the court views the 2nd Amendment as a "disfavored right." It refuses to even hear most 2nd Amendment cases.
But without the court ruling in favor of the Constitution, lawless states like CA, NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA, VT, and soon VA can run roughshod over citizens and gun rights.
I love the Freeper around here who like to say, "The 2nd Amendment says it, so there!"
Yeah. Try that in CA. Try that in NJ.
Get stopped by a cop in an anti-gun state with a unloaded gun in your trunk and run afoul of their draconian laws. You will find yourself arrested, imprisoned, before a judge, and spending every cent on lawyers. Your life will be ruined. And good luck finding a jury that will acquit you, because the local DA and the judge will ensure they have an an anti-gun jury. Trust me.
Now, you can look forward to a long prison sentence. And all the way, you can point to the Constitution, but it won't undo any of the above.
And now, in 2019, instead of National Reciprocity, we have even more "gun control" in dozens of states since 2016.
Millions of American in several states are now Instant Felons because they own gun magazines greater that 10 rounds.
He has spread millions in Oregon, our Governor is very flush with his cash and his policies. Last session this summer, the R's had to walk out of the session due to the very left wing radical bills coming out of the majority D legislature.
They will probably be able to pass the next gun regulation they want. If your gun is stolen, locked up or not, robbed from you at gunpoint, you the former owner will be liable for all "its" crimes for the next 5 years!
So if someone broke into your house and threatened to do harm to your children or wife at gun point, you would open your safe and give them the guns, you will go to jail courtesy of the state. See this fear they create? So if we get rid of our guns then they can't be stolen, are were safer?
If the ‘Pubbies don’t grow a spine and defend gun rights, THE PEOPLE will do so. Folks are not buying record numbers and amounts of guns and ammunition to later turn them in to the government.
Admittedly, we need to vote “compromisers” like Rubio, etc. out of office as well, but.....there is a third box.
Yup. Those same police that are lauded by so many here as being the 'thin blue line' that protects us from anarchy will be all too willing to completely destroy your life for having the gall to actually attempt to exert your constitutionally protected rights. They are willing and active participants in this. Until this changes, as far as I'm concerned, if they leave me alone, I'll leave them alone.
There is no way millions of Americans give up their guns and high capacity magazines. This will end up like illegals sanctuary county and cities. This is what happens when the constitution is thrown out in part or as a whole. The courts are irrelevant when the shooting starts.
Next step is secession of territory to create new states. It will not end well.
Yes, but now, the Boogaloo is coming with it.
Or from the leftists completing their takeover of the country. We seem hell-bent on watching the destruction of our country from the sidelines.
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