In the wake of two deadly shootings in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX, the Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling in a New York state gun rights case likely to expand second amendment protections and afford individual gun owners carrying weapons off their own property.
The case in question, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen is likely not whether the conservative majority of justices will strike down the state’s century-old handgun licensing requirement, but how far they will go in questioning the constitutionality of other licensing measures in other states.
Can officials prohibit handguns in courtrooms and schools? What about college campuses or hospitals? When the Court heard oral argument in November, the six-member conservative majority seemed far more interested in exploring the contours of an expanded Second Amendment than in whether it ought to be expanded. This approach to gun regulation is a sea change from the Court’s historical approach to the amendment, but it should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the arc of the Court’s jurisprudence in this area over the past 15 years.
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The current Supreme Court is far more conservative and far more friendly to gun rights than the one that first recognized a personal right to bear arms under the Second Amendment in District Columbia v. Heller in 2008. Or the Supreme Court that acknowledged two years later in McDonald v. Chicago that such protections apply to state laws and regulations as well. Gone since then is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a foe of expanded gun rights. In her place is Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose view of the Second Amendment is viewed by many as even more expansive than that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the author of Heller.
That reports adds that “Justice Clarence Thomas, an extreme gun rights supporter, urged his colleagues on the Court over and over again to accept more Second Amendment challenges to existing gun laws. He wanted the Supreme Court to use the newly recognized “personal” right under the Second Amendment to sweep away regulations restricting the possession and use of firearms.”
Thomas’ arguments were rejected by his peers on the court for years, until that is, three ultra-conservative justices were appointed by Former President Donald Trump, meaning that gun restrictions may be facing a day of reckoning.
According to ULCA law professor Adam Winkler “It does seem relatively clear that the court is going to strike down New York’s law and make it harder for cities and states to restrict concealed carry of firearms. It remains to be seen exactly how broad the Supreme Court goes, but one thing is clear: as mass shootings become more of a political issue, the court is going to take options away from lawmakers on the basis of the Second Amendment.”
