According to Firearm Chronicles
The Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to the future of Second Amendment litigation Monday morning by rejecting nearly a dozen Second Amendment-related cases that it had been considering in conference in recent weeks. Despite four justices announcing in the challenge to a New York City gun law that was mooted by the high court that they wanted and were ready to hear one of the many 2A cases pending before the court, today’s orders take them all off the table.Here’s a quick look at the cases denied by the Supreme Court in its orders today.
Pena v. Horan is a challenge to California’s microstamping law, which took effect in 2012 and has curtailed not only the availability of new models of handguns, but has caused existing models of handguns to be barred from being sold in the state.
Gould v. Lipson is a challenge to Massachusetts’ carry laws.
Worman v. Healey is a challenge to the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons.
Rogers v. Grewal, Cheeseman v. Polillo, and Ciolek v. New Jersey all deal with challenges to New Jersey’s carry laws and “justifiable need” requirement for a carry permit.
Malpasso v. Pallozzi takes on similar requirements in the state of Maryland.
ustice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, released a written dissent to the denial of the Rogers vs. Grewal case blasting his colleagues for refusing to hear the case.
It appears that a handful of States throughout the country prohibit citizens from carrying arms in public unless they can establish “good cause” or a “justifiable need” for doing so. The majority of States, while regulating the carrying of arms to varying degrees, have not imposed such a restriction, which amounts to a “[b]a[n] on the ability of most citizens to exercise an enumerated right.” The Courts of Appeals are squarely divided on the constitutionality of these onerous “justifiable need” or “good cause” restrictions. The D. C. Circuit has held that a law limiting public carry to those with a “good reason to fear injury to [their] person or property” violates the Second Amendment.
By contrast, the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits have upheld the constitutionality of licensing schemes with “justifiable need” or “good reason” requirements, applying what purported to be an intermediate scrutiny standard. “One of this Court’s primary functions is to resolve ‘important matter[s]’ on which the courts of appeals are ‘in conflict.’” The question whether a State can effectively ban most citizens from exercising their fundamental right to bear arms surely qualifies as such a matter. We should settle the conflict among the lower courts so that the fundamental protections set forth in our Constitution are applied equally to all citizens.