The U.S. Supreme Court will start its next term after a summer punctuated by mass shootings that left more than two dozen dead, heightening the impact of pending cases that focus on when civilians can carry weapons in public.
The most immediate matter involves a New York City ordinance that placed severe limitations on transporting handguns that are locked and unloaded. The high court agreed in January to take up the dispute between three residents and the city government, marking the first time since 2010 — when it struck down Chicago’s handgun ban — the Supreme Court would hear a Second Amendment case.
The measure permits a handgun owner with a so-called “premises license” to take the firearm to one of seven shooting ranges located within the city, but forbids carrying it beyond the five boroughs, even to second homes or ranges.
The premise-license holders who live in New York City and the New York Rifle and Pistol Association challenged the ordinance, arguing it violates the Second Amendment and the Commerce Clause.
But in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case, city officials loosened the regulations so premise licenses allowed for out-of-city travel, and the state eased its limitations as well. As a result, the city asked the Supreme Court this summer to dismiss the case, arguing “independently and together, the new statute and regulation give petitioners everything they have sought in this lawsuit.”
The Rifle and Pistol Association, however, assailed the city’s move as a transparent attempt to head off a Supreme Court ruling that could expand the rights of gun owners nationwide.
“The city’s begrudging revisions to its restrictive transport ban reflect the city’s unwavering view that the ability to transport a licensed handgun is a matter of government-conferred privilege, rather than a constitutional right,” the gun owners told the Supreme Court.
The justices have not yet said whether they will still hear the challenge, and they’re scheduled to discuss the matter at a conference Oct. 1.
Any break a dismissal gave the court from weighing in on gun rights, which have been a subject of impassioned national debate following back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, would be temporary at best. A number of other cases touch on the same portion of the Constitution.
A New Jersey matter, for instance, involves a requirement that people seeking a permit to carry guns outside the home demonstrate a “justifiable need.”
Thomas Rogers, a New Jersey resident who operates an ATM business that takes him to high-crime areas, and the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs challenged the permitting requirements, and urged the high court to intervene “to prevent the lower courts from nullifying rights guaranteed by the text of the Constitution.”
Adding to the urgency is that federal courts of appeals are divided on the constitutionality of laws banning firearm owners from carrying their weapons in public, and such splits often prompt Supreme Court intervention.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the New Jersey challenge, upheld the state’s “justifiable need” requirement for permits, and three more federal courts of appeals have allowed similar restrictions.
Others, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, have struck down such laws.
A third case looming before the Supreme Court involves a gun manufacturer: Remington Arms Company asked the justices last week to consider its appeal in a lawsuit filed by families of nine victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
Gunman Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle in the attack, killing 27, and victims’ relatives sued Remington, which owns Bushmaster, in Connecticut state court in 2014. The gun manufacturer, they said, “knowingly marketed, advertised, and promoted” the gun “for civilians to use to carry out offensive, military-style combat missions against their perceived enemies” in violation of Connecticut law.
The state supreme court ruled in March the lawsuit could move forward. But Madison, North Carolina-based Remington is asking the Supreme Court to reverse that ruling because of a 2005 federal law that shields firearms manufacturers from liability when their products are used in a crime.
If the Supreme Court decides to take up the various challenges involving gun rights, the cases would come before a high court with a 5-4 conservative majority.
