Supreme Court Guns
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

As the court’s docket shows, the justices first discussed the cert petition at a private conference in March, before debating it again at two additional conferences in April. In each conference, however, the conservative justices failed to produce the four votes needed to grant review. (None of the liberal justices are likely to have voted to grant the case because they almost certainly agreed with the lower court ruling upholding New York’s law).

Then, at another conference held at the end of April, the justices voted to grant the case.

What changed? The record indicates just one thing: The court rewrote the question presented, limiting it to ask “whether the State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”

The rewritten question focuses the court’s review first to the matter of concealed-carry, rather than open-carry, licenses — a sensible move because that is the type of license for which the petitioners originally applied.

The second change is more important. Rather than asking about the right of all law-abiding citizens to carry guns in public, the court’s rewritten question focuses on just the original two petitioners — individuals who were denied special need licenses by New York. In doing so, the justices have made clear that the specific, factual circumstances surrounding the applications will be crucial to their analysis. (Otherwise, the original question presented would have sufficed.)

What, then, are the specifics of the applications? One of the petitioners, Robert Nash, explained in his application that he needed a concealed-carry license because of a “recent string of robberies in the area” around his home, including a robbery that occurred on his street just days before he filed for the license. Yet the New York licensing authority still rejected his application. In contrast, the other petitioner, Brandon Koch, openly admitted in his application that he did “not face any special or unique danger to his life.”

By training the question presented on these facts, the court hints at an outcome that both sides in the gun debate should be able to live with.

State laws that condition the right to public carry on a demonstrated need for self-defense could be constitutional, in keeping with a lengthy historical tradition of similar laws. So New York would be free to deny licenses to applicants like Koch who lack a special need, thus substantially reducing the number of guns on the streets. But states may not utilize a special need requirement as a de facto ban on all public carry. Doing so would infringe the 2nd Amendment right of those who face real and particularized dangers — such as Nash.

— Aaron Tang in Did the Supreme Court tip its hand on the blockbuster gun case it’s hearing Wednesday?

85 COMMENTS

  1. Wouldn’t surprise me if this is correct. I’m fully expecting SCOTUS to fail in their duty.
    Again.
    Still.

    Perhaps someone should remind the Justices that historically, kicking the can down the road and making rulings to please particular constituents always looks bad in retrospect.

      • It’s the egregious failures of ‘may issue’ that are so galling, like the woman who applied for a permit based on threats from her boyfriend at the time, who shortly after, carried out that threat.

        Perhaps making a law that makes the judge who turned down that permit personally liable may be in order?

  2. “State laws that condition the right to public carry on a demonstrated need for self-defense could be constitutional, in keeping with a lengthy historical tradition of similar laws. So New York would be free to deny licenses to applicants like Koch who lack a special need, thus substantially reducing the number of guns on the streets. But states may not utilize a special need requirement as a de facto ban on all public carry. Doing so would infringe the 2nd Amendment right of those who face real and particularized dangers — such as Nash.”

    yet a combination of history of numerous judges rulings and cases at both state and federal level past and present, and SCOTUS, and states constitutions and states laws, show requiring a permit to not be constitutional, except, it appears, when the question is limited to sharp focus on declaring specific need.

    what a world

  3. It’s amazing how complicated debate over this issue has become when the founders laid it out so simply, “shall not be infringed.”

    Makes you wonder if there’s an ulterior motive in there somewhere. No? Yeah, that’s just conspiracy talk I know…. 😉

  4. Wake me up when the Court takes a case to decide whether or not Gun Control is an agenda rooted in racism and genocide. Mountains of history, mountains of evidence shows Gun Control goes hand in hand with slave shacks, nooses, the KKK, concentration camps, gas chambers, swastikas, etc.

    Let’s get real…On one side sits The Second Amendment and on the other side sits a big bucket of sht.

    • I’ve felt for a long time now that they stuffed the whole constitution in the bottom of that bucket.

  5. Requiring “special need” is a de facto ban. Can’t have it both ways. Bias, prejudice and human nature says so.

    • Everyone knows, and has always known, what “special need” means. That is why we have an Amendment whose SOLE PURPOSE is to guarantee the universal and natural right to keep and bear arms, and why it is only 27 words long, leaving no room for any misunderstanding. This to be absolutely sure it cannot possibly be “misinterpreted” to say, for example, that it only means what it says in the event of “special need”. All of us had learned by the end of the 8th grade how to determine what it says, it takes another 15 years or so of “education” before we can learn how to use 10,000 words to convince gullible fools that it means something different.

      • Guaranteeing the universal and natural right to keep and bear arms isn’t the sole purpose of the Second Amendment (otherwise they wouldn’t have put the prefatory clause in it), but is the central purpose.

        And there has been a truly amazing amount of effort put into convincing people that 27 words of plain English somehow don’t mean what they say.

        Just imagine where we might be if progressives put just half that effort into something that actually advances human liberty and happiness instead (I have a dream…that one day progressives will realize that they’ve been marching backwards for over 100 years).

  6. Milquetoasts Kavanaugh and ACB and the traitorous pussy John Roberts will fail in their duty to uphold the constitution

  7. So you’re supposed to wait until the bad guy is beating your wife and raping your daughters to ask the state (and wait months for a reply) for permission to carry the only tool that’s effective at stopping such behavior? And that’s not infringing your right to keep and bear arms? What about the bribe taking? Is that constitutional?

    • Governor,

      “So you’re supposed to wait until the bad guy is beating your wife and raping your daughters …”

      The State will claim that their licensing scheme significantly reduces the number of “guns on the streets” and therefore reduces total harm to the populace to the absolute minimum possible. And then the state will use that claim to justify forcing you to wait until bad actors target you and/or your family.

      Disclaimer: I do not agree with that type of analysis and justification. I am merely declaring what the state will say.

      • And the state would be lying. But what else would you expect from politicians and bureaucrats?

        • Taking lots of money to negotiate our rights away and call us racist, sexist, privileged, or whatever the teachers union is telling the kids to call us if we oppose it?

      • “The State will claim that their licensing scheme significantly reduces the number of “guns on the streets” and therefore reduces total harm to the populace to the absolute minimum possible.”

        Claim all they want, the proof is clear. Lawful people licensed to carry are among the most lawful people who rarely, if ever, commit crime with their guns…

  8. The U.S. Supreme Court characterized this controversy before the court as, “whether the State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”

    The key aspect of that characterization: denial of concealed-carry licenses to non-felons for self-defense.

    According to various credible sources: our courts in the United States almost universally tell us that the Second Amendment only protects the right to carry openly-visible arms and does NOT protect the right to carry concealed arms. Assuming that is correct, there is a very good probability that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold New York’s “may issue” (which is essentially “no issue” in practice) licensing scheme.

    The only detail which could sway the Court to require “shall issue” concealed carry licensing is the fact that New York also bans open carry and therefore does not allow any method of being armed for self-defense.

    The down side to that last line of reasoning, however, is that it requires the plaintiffs to sue the State of New York to allow open carry which is NOT the case in this instance.

    I hate to say it: I think the U.S. Supreme Court will side with the state of New York.

    • Not that I have a whole lot of confidence in the new ‘conservative’ SCOTUS, but just to play devil’s advocate, or the court could understand that the plaintiffs applied for the only permit available allowing the possession of a weapon outside the home and rule a state can ban open or concealed carry but not both.

      • It probably all boils down to which side of the bed the Justices slept on last night or some such other flippant factor.

        Of course it could also boil down to who has suitable blackmail material and decides to use it.

        • If they are liberals then it’s a slam dunk for 2A restoration. Liberals believe in individual rights, including civil rights.

        • Liberals have been diametrically opposed to individual rights ever since FDR absconded the word 90 years ago.

  9. Mealy-mouthed and weaselly rulings just serve to muddy the waters, and cause future rulings to be mealy-mouthed and weaselly.

    • “Mealy-mouthed and weaselly…”

      Deborah? Is that you? 😉

  10. The reframed question is whether the petitioners were improperly denied, not whether the law conflicts with the Constitution.

    The solution: order licenses be issued to the petitioners, and only the petitioners. The 99.99% who can’t afford a federal court case just to get a license can do without licenses. Carry on.

    Yeah, that’s cynical, but I suspect it isn’t wrong.

    • FedUp,

      I posted a different argument above. I believe both of us bring up valid potential arguments.

      This is the down side to our legal system: attorneys and judges turn a simple matter (“Do we have an inalienable right to self-defense and do New York’s laws violate that right?”) into a giant controversy with multiple avenues of justification and attack.

      We have way too many busy-bodies, petty tyrants, and Ruling Class scumbags among us. People suck.

    • FedUp,

      I am becoming increasingly jaded with respect to the attorneys who frame these cases and bring them before the courts.

      Here is an example:
      Our local school district just opened up all school bathrooms and locker rooms to “transgender” students who cited federal Title IX which forbids sex discrimination and therefore does not allow the school to prohibit “transgender girls” (who are really boys, never mind the facts) from using girl’s bathrooms and locker rooms.

      There was already a lawsuit over this (at the federal Appellate level I believe) and of course the Appellate Court upheld the argument that federal Title IX prohibits sex discrimination–including “transgender” student access to bathrooms and locker rooms which match their “gender expression”.

      Something very simple recently occurred to me. Congress wrote Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on the actual sex of students, not based on “gender expression”. That is crystal clear and not up for debate. And yet, to my knowledge, none of the attorneys arguing against application of Title IX to “transgender” students has used that in their arguments. Why not?

      • Because lawyers no longer argue the principled idea. They are so entrenched and burdened by hundreds of years of “precedents” they have become lost in nuance, completely forgetting the original principle.

        Think of it as a spider web, that has another web added and another web and so on. So many webs are now adjacent to the original that you could easily transverse web after web and never touch a strand of the original underlying “principled” web.

      • “Our local school district just opened up all school bathrooms and locker rooms to “transgender” students who cited federal Title IX which forbids sex discrimination and therefore does not allow the school to prohibit “transgender girls” (who are really boys, never mind the facts) from using girl’s bathrooms and locker rooms.”

        Simple solution – “Transgendered girls” without a phallus are welcome to use the girls room.

        Any boy who wants to go there can report for a ‘Loppa-dick-offa-me’ at a local hospital… 🙂

    • The question is whether the denial of an unlimited concealed carry license was a violation of their second amendment rights under the Constitution. To rephrase, does the second amendment protect a right to carry a concealed weapon, and if so, what is the permissible scope of the regulations that may be imposed by licensing of such right? Or to put it yet another way, is a “may issue” (discretionary) permitting scheme for a concealed carry license allowable under the second amendment?

  11. never trust a government that stages a fake rebellion on JAN 6…THE FIX IS IN..all of Trump’s appointments will shockingly vote against the 2nd..THEY ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER…THE GREAT DECEPTION IS UPON US..

    • 24and7,

      “THE GREAT DECEPTION IS UPON US.”

      Is it just me, or is there a palpable sense of widespread evil suddenly and powerfully unleashed throughout the world in the last 24 months?

      • Particularly in the last 10. The answer is “yes”, with particular emphasis on “palpable”, There was a distinct and growing happiness until ONE YEAR AGO, and then we had a faux coronation for a faux president, and the clouds have been growing more and more dense ever since. It is important to remember all these problems are not likely the result of stupidity or senility, but much more likely to be actual malice. I perceived Osama’s rule to be consistent selection of the path most likely to lead to the demise of America, Biden seems to be even more focused on the outright destruction of the United States. It is not possible to get absolutely EVERYTHING so consistently wrong, by accident.

        • ̶B̶i̶d̶e̶n̶ Obama’s third term seems to be even more focused on the outright destruction of the United States.

          FTFY

          AND

          “..Is it just me, or is there a palpable sense of widespread evil suddenly and powerfully unleashed throughout the world in the last 24 months?..”

          The evil, Gandalf, has been rising for some years. It is just now become impossible to ignore.

          “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” ~ Gandalf

        • LarryinTX,

          I agree with your statement that evil is palpable particularly in the last 10 months or so.

    • “never trust a government that stages a fake rebellion on JAN 6… “

      I would truly love to see what evidence one could provide to support such a claim.

      • I would also like to see why people call me a snarky asshat.

        I just don’t get it.

        Is being purposely an oily slut really so bad?

        • Personally, I like sluts. Loads of fun to hang out with, mount, and then leave… 😉

  12. I have no confidence in SCOTUS. “Interestingly” both leftard Kagan & the squishy Kavanaugh sound like they’re reading from the same script. Why do so many republicans have no spine(soul?)

    • Stateisevil,

      I always have to ask the question, “Why would a branch of government act to decrease government power?”

      At best, I have heard statements from politicians and bureaucrats that discrete infighting as well as grudges often motivate them them to act against the interests of another politician and/or bureaucrat. In that regard I do sometimes see government act to decrease its own power. Otherwise, I am hard pressed to think of overt and purposeful government actions to decrease its power.

      Thus, beyond minor reductions in government power due to internal squabbles, I have to agree that government otherwise acts for the benefit of the Ruling Class and, indeed, the game is rigged. Hence the saying that, “The house never loses.”

      • Not sure whether to laugh or cry:

        I just realized that government representation of the populace and our courts operate in exactly the same manner as a casino.

        Both present a wonderful image of beauty and opportunity in a “well-oiled machine” which runs smoothly and predictably based on simple principles. Of course we see the frequent joyous celebrations when someone wins big at the blackjack table or a slot machine–analogous to when government passes landmark legislation for the populace or when the courts hand-down a landmark ruling for the populace.

        The lure of those joyous events dull us to the fact that every single trip into a casino is a gamble, as is every single trip wading into government or the courts.

        Never forget, at the end of the day, the House (casino) always wins. And at the end of the day, the Ruling Class always wins when you play their game.

        • So like WarGames (1983)

          So Joshua, this is a strange game, so then the only way to win is not to play?

      • I just realized that government representation of the populace and our courts operate in exactly the same manner as a ca$ino.

        Both present a wonderful image of beauty and opportunity in a “well-oiled machine” which runs smoothly and predictably based on simple principles. Of course we see the frequent joyous celebrations when someone wins big at a $lot machine or a card table–analogous to when government passes landmark legislation for the populace or when the courts hand-down a landmark ruling for the populace.

        The lure of those joyous events dull us to the fact that every single trip into a ca$ino is a gamble, as is every single trip wading into government or the courts.

        Never forget, at the end of the day, the House (ca$ino) always wins. And at the end of the day, the Ruling Class always wins when you play their game.

    • Same here! The stupid bastards let Google steal lines of code from Oracle in a case that should have been a slam dunk for Oracle. Roberts acts comprised and Kavanaugh turned out to be a real winner.

      • mucracker,

        With respect to Kavanaugh:

        I have to wonder if Progressive power brokers payed a “contractor” to discretely inform Kavanaugh that it is in his best interest to be sympathetic to Progressive interests.

        When Progressive power brokers have well over $100 billion at their disposal, quite literally anything is doable.

        • It’s possible, but frankly I doubt they would have needed too. Long before he was nominated to the SC he was pretty open about his judicial philosophy: history, tradition, precedent. In other words, if a shitty law has existed for long enough then it is presumed to be valid even if it’s fundamentally illegitimate in a manner that a 5 year old could recognize. He’s as pathetic and worthless as nearly every other Republican or Republican affiliate in the three branches

  13. This is a simple case. And followed to the only logical and legal conclusion would declare every single gun control law unconstitutional (federal, state and local) without exceptions.

    The Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, doesn’t give anyone any rights. Instead, it prohibits the federal government and the state/local governments (incorporated via the 10th Amendment) from infringing on rights that are natural and God-given and that preexist government. The Declaration of Independence sets forth the essential principles.

    Americans, were not terribly enthusiastic about approving the Constitution. If they hadn’t approved it, the United States would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation, under which the national government didn’t even have the power to tax people.

    We The American People finally decided to go along with the deal. The biggest argument that finally sold it to them was that the U.S. Constitution, which called the federal government into existence, strictly limited the powers of the federal government to those few powers that were enumerated in the document. Those enumerated powers did not include the power to infringe or destroy people’s natural, God-given rights — rights, again, that preexisted the federal government.

    Thus, even without the Bill of Rights, the federal government had no legitimate authority to control what people read or what people owned, including books and guns. That’s because these rights preexisted the government and because the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to infringe on these preexisting rights. Also notice something important about the Bill of Rights: It gives no one any rights. Instead, it prohibits the federal government from infringing or destroying rights that already exist. it really should have been called a Bill of Prohibitions rather than a Bill of Rights.

    The Declaration of Independence used to be read aloud at public gathering[s] every Fourth of July. Today, while all Americans have heard of it, all too few have read more than its second sentence. Yet the Declaration shows the natural rights foundation of the American Revolution, and provides important information about what makes a constitution or government legitimate. It also raises the question of how these fundamental rights are reconciled with the idea of “the consent of the governed” for which the Declaration is also famous.

    What the Declaration has to say is important because it is the Charter of the United States.

    The Declaration gives meaning to the Constitution. If the Declaration’s principles are separated from the Constitution, then the Constitution’s meaning is likely to reflect the transient whims of the majority, the highly vocal or a powerful elite. Both the Declaration and the Constitution are significant legal documents because both, by nature, comprise the covenantal foundation of the United States. Just as a corporate charter and constitution govern the corporation’s exercise of authority, so too the Declaration and Constitution set forth the legal and political principles that govern the national objects of the nation.

    As an appendage to the Constitution, the Second Amendment must therefore be interpreted according to the principles found in the Declaration and Constitution respectively. All men are equal in the sense that, since we are all human, we are born with certain inherent, natural, and unalienable rights. Those rights include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This essential equality means that no one is born with a natural right to rule over others without their consent, and that governments are obligated to apply the law equally to everyone.

    The Founders knew full well that while we are born with rights, we need some protection in order to have the freedom to exercise those rights. This principle helps explain the difference between “natural rights” and “legal rights.” While natural rights are innately part of being human, and exist prior to any culture or society, legal rights are those that are acknowledged and protected by a given government. So, in the Founders’ understanding, natural rights would include the right to life itself, the right to think for oneself, the right to self-defense, and the right to keep what one has worked honestly for, among others. Legal rights would include the right to vote, the specific methods by which fair trials are conducted, and copyrights and patents–all of which might be defined and protected in different ways in different countries or states, based on their particular customs and beliefs.

    2nd Amendment
    “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

    10th Amendment
    “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

    since the 2nd Amendment delegates to the people the right to keep and bear arms (it did not enumerate for the states/local governments to have any power over)

    additionally the PREAMBLE TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS identifies that the Bill of Rights was to further restrict the governments:
    Congress of the United States
    begun and held at the City of New-York, on
    Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

    THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

    • Pretty good. IMHO, “shall not be infringed.” explicitly males the right “prohibited by it to the States.”, the states cannot regulate RKBA either.

        • rant7,

          “[T]he 2nd presumes preserves participation in a militia.”

          There, fixed that for ya.

        • No where does the 2nd Amendment require or even presume participation in the militia.

          Some people think that the 2nd Amendment has a “prefatory clause” sentence, however the first half of the Second Amendment is a present participle, not a clause, so it does not modify the latter half.

          It is expressing an ideal, not limiting the right that’s described. This is very basic grammar.

          The operative clause “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” clearly states only the People have the right to carry, own any firearms they want; The Feds, the State, and the local governments have no legal authority to interfere.

          Folks attach emotional weight to the issue and forget how English works. If I replace the emotionally-weighted words with others, but keep the grammar precisely the same, I doubt you’ll have any trouble reading it properly:

          “A well balanced breakfast being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed.”

          See? Who has the right? A well balanced breakfast or the people?

          You should be able to see very clearly that the reasoning is for a well balanced breakfast and the people have the right to keep and eat food.

          “A well built structure being necessary for safe shelter, the right of the people to keep and bear tools shall not be infringed.”

          Same thing, who has the right?

          other variations:
          A WELL TAILORED SUIT BEING NECESSARY TO A SHARP DRESSED MAN THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND WEAR CLOTHING SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED

          Grammar Test: So who has the right to keep and wear clothing?
          A) THE WELL TAILORED SUIT
          B) THE PEOPLE
          C) NO ONE
          D) THE POLICE

          also, This: from an interview with Prof. Roy Copperud from the University of Southern California and the author of American Usage and Style: The Consensus
          He said the statement – “A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed’ – precisely parallels the 2nd amendment in grammatical structure.
          Think about that one. Could from that we infer that only a ‘well-schooled electorate’ could own a book?

          My questions for the usage analysis of this sentence would be, (1) Is the grammatical structure and usage of this sentence and the way the words modify each other, identical to the Second Amendment’s sentence?; and
          (2) Could this sentence be interpreted to restrict ‘the right of the people to keep and read Books’ only to ‘a well-educated electorate’ — for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?”

          “A well regulated Militia” is a nominative absolute. “being necessary to the security of a free State” is a participial phrase modifying “Militia”. The subject (a compound subject) of the sentence is “the right of the people.” “Shall not be infringed” is a verb phrase, with “not” as an adverb modifying the verb phrase “shall be infringed.” “To keep and bear arms” is an infinitive phrase modifying “right.” “,the right of the people” The right of the people is a possessive clause and independent of the phrase on militias

          Also he was asked, in the context of American usage of English: “Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms conditioned upon whether or not a well regulated militia, is, in fact necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is not existing, is the statement ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’ null and void?”
          Prof. Copperud: “No such condition is expressed or implied. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as a requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence.”

          http://www.libertygunrights.com/TheCommandIn2A.gif

        • “No where does the 2nd Amendment require or even presume participation in the militia”

          “A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” ‘t’s all right there.

        • Although damion Cocchi expressed this very well, perhaps it was a bit too long for you. Try this exercise in logic.

          If a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, but the people cannot keep and bear arms, it is impossible to have a well-regulated militia. No keeping and bearing arms, no militia. No militia, no free state. No free state, totalitarianism. Or monarchy. Or Liberal Progressive Hell. Or Chicago.

          “‘t’s all right there.”

  14. If history has any bearing on this decision,
    I’m willing to bet Roberts will be the one that screws it up AGAIN.

  15. No one should have to prove a need either special or mundane. The right to protect one’s health, safety and life is born into all persons. Whether or not a specific, identifiable threat can be stated ahead of time is entirely besides the point and off topic. Worse, it is a ludicrous false test for “need”. So few people can pass such a false measure that the vast majority of citizens are relegated to being a pool of hapless victims in the face of crime.

    However the Supreme court rules this political fight will continue in the States.

    • Whatever the Supreme Court rules will be binding on all states, although undoubtedly some will do their damnedest to apply a pro-carry ruling as narrowly as possible, just as they did after Heller, or to impose onerous conditions on a shall issue license, such as lengthy training requirements, annual or biannual re-licensing, high fees, mental health exams, etc. to place the cost of obtaining a license beyond the reach of the average man.

      • Don’t forget radar detectors. Virginia was taken to court, eventually to SCOTUS, to be told they cannot confiscate people’s radar detectors, and had to return that of the plaintiff after he had spent a few hundred thousand to get his $50 detector back. VA never even slowed down confiscating them, openly said that anyone else who wanted theirs back could take them to SCOTUS again. That was over 40 years ago, I’m pretty sure they are STILL confiscating them. The other 49 states followed the ruling, but VA demonstrated there is nothing binding on anyone coming from the Supreme Court, they can simply ignore it.

  16. I am hoping the Court follows the lead of Wren v. D.C., which was a challenge to D.C.’s “may issue” or “good cause” ordinance that was practically no issue in practice. Such a conclusion is well within the scope of the question presented, and avoids the much hairier issue of unlicensed open carry.

  17. I’m just hoping that if nothing else, the court will make them be consistent with who they issue a license to. Better they issue zero licenses than only give them to wealthy, politically connected cronies.

  18. The original question was asking if the New York law violates the Second Amendment. The rewritten question asks if (the fact) that the two petitioners were denied carry permit under New York law violates the Second Amendment. Is it possible that the SCOTUS did so to preempt New York State from changing the law to moot the case?

    • HippoGiang,

      “Is it possible that the SCOTUS did so to preempt New York State from changing the law to moot the case?”

      Oh, now that is interesting. That would be the only positive outlook on the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court that I have seen thus far.

      • It is too late. After the last go round, the Supremes were pissed that they’d done all that work for nothing, and pretty much signaled that they wouldn’t tolerate such shenanigans again.

  19. Yes the court will dodge the bigger question and here is why.

    On Nov. 3, the Supreme Court will hear the most consequential Second Amendment case since 2010. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, a local affiliate of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is challenging New York State’s century-old law requiring that you show “proper cause” to get a permit if you want to carry a gun in public.

    Gun safety advocates rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.© Drew Angerer/Getty Images Gun safety advocates rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
    But this case is much bigger than a single state law. For starters, one in four Americans live in a state with a permitting law similar to New York’s, and for good reason—research has shown that states that did away with such measures experienced an 11 percent spike in gun-related murders. If the Supreme Court strikes down New York’s law, public carry permitting laws will be thrown into limbo.

    Unfortunately, even that scenario is just the tip of the iceberg. To put it bluntly, if five justices side with the NRA, virtually every gun safety law in our nation will be put into jeopardy—and hundreds of years of American tradition will be swept under the rug.

    To understand how that could come to pass, you need to know a little more about the NRA’s argument in the New York case, which boils down to this: The Second Amendment should be read to guarantee a virtually unfettered right to pack heat in public. This interpretation of American history echoes the incendiary and inaccurate origin story currently being peddled by NRA CEO and Vice President Wayne LaPierre, who has said “For 150 years, NRA has stood like a rock to make sure that law-abiding Americans will always enjoy the freedoms that were enshrined for us in the United States Constitution.” But crucially, the “us” the NRA refers to is limited to a fringe group of gun extremists who believe their right to bear arms wherever they want trumps every other right laid out in the Constitution.

    This vision of the Constitution isn’t just exclusionary—it’s also historically inaccurate. The roots of the New York case stretch all the way back to at least 1328 and the English Statute of Northampton, which broadly prohibited the carrying of weapons in public places—and serves as proof that the desire to live free of armed intimidation and vigilantism isn’t a newfangled phenomenon. This tradition of common-sense limits on publicly carrying deadly weapons transferred over to the British colonies in North America, several of which adopted laws inspired by the Northampton statute, and it continued after the colonies won their freedom and formed the United States of America. Starting in 1836, for instance, many states enacted their own versions of a Massachusetts law limiting the public carrying of weapons to people who could demonstrate a need to carry a gun. Even the Old West wasn’t quite as wild as you might think, with many ranching towns prohibiting anyone who wasn’t a law enforcement officer from carrying a dangerous weapon, concealed or otherwise.

    To give you a sense of just how uncontroversial these laws were up until the last few decades, consider this: In the 1920s and ’30s, the NRA supported the passage of laws requiring a person to demonstrate a good reason to fear injury to his person or property before he could legally carry a concealed gun in public. In fact, Karl T. Frederick, a future president of the NRA, wrote a model of these laws that legislators could adapt for their own community.

    This all goes to show that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was correct when he wrote that “history and tradition show that a variety of gun regulations have co-existed with the Second Amendment right.” In fact, judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike have consistently ruled that common-sense gun safety measures are legal, including concealed carry permitting laws, minimum age laws and laws that allow law enforcement and family members to take action when someone poses a risk to themselves or others. Whether you’re looking at legal precedent or America’s past, the case for upholding New York’s permitting requirement is far stronger than the NRA’s revisionist history.

    But the American people—and the lawmakers they have elected to protect their interests—should look at this case not just backward through history, but also forward into the future. Last year was one of the deadliest on record in the United States, with the highest rate of gun violence since 1994. In order to reverse that trend, we need more gun safety laws, not fewer—and the vast majority of Americans know it. However the nine justices decide, millions of Americans who want to keep themselves and their families safe from gun violence will keep fighting for common-sense laws.

    • Too many factual inaccuracies to even begin to discuss. For one, “gun violence” in the past year is nowhere NEAR the levels of gun violence recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s, where there were over 30,000 murders using firearms. Second, the Statute of Northampton did not bar the carriage of arms, it barred the carriage of arms in terror of the people. If the intent was to completely ban carrying of weapons, the final clause is superfluous.

      • Proverbs 29:9:
        –“If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet.”

    • Your reliance on professor John Donohue’s (Stanford Law School) 2018 paper, is the only paper written about Constitutional Carry (something 21 states allow) that shows “gun violence” increases – the other 29 states having unconstitutional laws enforced by oath violators.

      his paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23510/w23510.pdf

      What’s interesting is that the real world data and his report are in conflict. States with more unconstitutional laws and restrictions being added recently, are the once with the largest increases in gun violence (NY, CA, NJ, MA, HI etc)….

      What’s left out of his report, is that the supposed rise in gun violence within the first year of Open Carry as to what type of violence is occurring (is criminal on criminal violence, criminal vs innocent victim, or criminal vs innocent armed victim) – could be the criminals weren’t expecting armed resistance and thusly no longer had the monopoly on guns? Gun Licensing laws only disarm the victims, not the criminals.

    • The National Rifle Association has been in support of workable, enforceable gun control legislation since its very inception in 1871.”
      — NRA Executive Vice President Franklin L. Orth
      NRA’s American Rifleman Magazine, March 1968, P. 22

      The NRA, has never been a civil liberties defending organization, it has a long history of writing, advocating and back-room dealing to pass all the unconstitutional laws in the US. More recently it has been staffed with anti-gun democrat operatives to continue the masquerade that they are a pro-gun civil liberties organization. Thankfully the NRA leadership is finally being caught and exposed.

      as for how NY has gotten away with unconstitutional laws for so long….

      the Sullivan Act of 1911, the first law in any state (other than the slave codes) to require a license for mere possession of a pistol, even in the home. That is today’s “premises license,” a license for a person to “have and possess [a pistol or revolver] in his dwelling….” For an all-but-unattainable “carry license,” one must show “proper cause” in the arbitrary mind of an official.The Sullivan Act’s sponsor was “Big Tim” Sullivan, a state senator who is described by historian Michael Walsh as a “Tammany Hall crook, a criminal overseer of the gangs of New York.” The catch was that the law would be applied to law-abiding citizens, not to the gangs that worked for Tammany Hall, who were handy at intimidating voters at the polls. Rivals of Sullivan sewed up their pockets so the police couldn’t plant pistols in them.The first person sentenced under the Sullivan Act was a worker named Marino Rossi, who was arrested for carrying a .38-caliber revolver in his hip pocket. The New York Times, in September 1911, reported: “Rossi explained that he was carrying the gun from fear of the Black Hand, and that his friends had warned him to do so in this city. He said that he was in fear of his life. He had no intention of using it wrongfully, and he was an honest working man and desired to know why it was that Black Handers were not arrested for carrying guns as well as law-abiding people.”While sentencing Rossi to one year in the Sing Sing penitentiary, Judge Warren Foster expressed no concern about the lack of protection for citizens from criminal gangs like the Black Hand; instead, the judge lectured Rossi on the bad customs of Italian immigrants: “You can say … that it was the custom of yourself as well as your countrymen to carry guns. You say you did not realize that you were breaking the law in so doing. It is unfortunate that this is the custom with you and your kind, and that fact, combined with your irascible nature, furnishes much of the criminal business in this country…. I and my colleagues on the bench intend to stamp out this habit, and with this end in view it is our object to let the community know that the violators of the Sullivan law are going to be severely punished.”Another defendant on the docket that day was Gustav A. Kessler, a night watchman, who “had to work late at night in a dangerous part of the city, and wanted a revolver for protection against gangsters. He said he did not get a permit because he did not feel that he could spare $10 of his small wages to carry a $5 revolver.” He was just another poor workingman left defenseless by the government and then persecuted by the government.The next day The New York Times praised the one-year prison sentence of Rossi, whose “hot-headed countrymen” customarily carried concealed weapons, adding: “The Judge’s warning to the Italian community was timely and exemplary.” The Times has had a long history of contempt for gun owners in the poorer classes.A test case was brought challenging the requirement of a license to keep a pistol in the home. As described in People v. Warden of City Prison (1913), Joseph Darling notified the police that he had a pistol at home and had no license, for which he was arrested. His defense was “the inherent and inalienable right to keep and bear arms.”The court acknowledged New York’s Civil Rights Law, which has a provision much like the Second Amendment, and said that “we fully recognize the proposition that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were not created by such declaration. They are of such character as necessarily pertain to free men in a free state.” But they upheld the law anyway, because they felt it regulated rather than prohibited the right. The court added: “If the Legislature had prohibited the keeping of arms, it would have been clearly beyond its power.”Imagine our Founders’ reaction to a law that limited possession of arms to those with a permit from the government. Now realize that, from there, the places like New York City have pushed the envelope so far that, in the last few decades, we have seen outright bans on handguns and ordinary rifles.Since the Sullivan Act referred only to firearms that could be concealed on the person, the dissent in the above case noted that it did not apply to “a blunderbuss or a horse pistol,” which were too large to be concealed. He suggested that “the professional criminal will generally violate the act and take his chances of discovery and punishment, while the law-abiding citizen will be obliged to disarm himself of his only effective protection against the predatory classes.”With his classic wit, H.L. Mencken wrote in 1925 that the Sullivan Law required that “the Second Amendment had to be severely strained, but … the courts, as usual, were willing to sign on the dotted line.” (How true that remains today!) The result was that New York “is the heaven of footpads, hijackers, gunmen and all other such armed thugs…. Not one citizen out of a hundred that they tackle is armed, for getting a license to keep a revolver is a difficult business, and carrying one without it is more dangerous than submitting to robbery,” reported the Evening Sun in November of 1925.While World War II raged, New York courts held that they must defer to issuing authorities on whether an applicant for a license to carry a concealed pistol had “proper cause” to utilize their rights. In Moore v. Gallup (1943), the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York opined that the right to bear arms, protected by the N.Y. Civil Rights Law, meant the same as the federal Second Amendment. But it added that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States, leaving one to wonder what the New York provision applied to if not to the State.While holding that the state could ban carrying a pistol without a license, the Court also said that “the Second Amendment created no right to bear arms, a right which long ante-dated the adoption of the Federal Constitution….” If that suggested a natural or common-law right of the individual, the court next added that the Second Amendment’s only purpose is “to enable the Federal Government to maintain the public security.” If that was not enough to discount any personal liberty, the court added that “the arms to which the Second Amendment refers include weapons of warfare to be used by the militia, such as swords, guns, rifles and muskets … but not pistols,” which “are habitually carried by … gangsters.”Yet the case was about a law-abiding citizen and Great War veteran who was appealing the denial of a license to carry a pistol. A friend-of-the-court brief was filed by two gun clubs, and another by the National Rifle Association, represented by Karl T. Frederick, a former Olympic shooter and Harvard Law graduate. The case had nothing to do with “gangsters.” (That seems to be the first NRA amicus brief ever filed in a court.)The dissent would have held that such construction of the law violated the right to keep and bear arms. It noted the current perceived threat of a foreign invasion, which demonstrated the “need of the citizens to become proficient in the use of firearms….” (German U-boats had sunk 397 ships off America’s coasts, including in New York harbors, in the first six months of 1942.)The Moore case set the stage for how New York courts would, to this very day, view the incredible shrinking “right of the people” to bear arms not actually to include “the people,” but only an elite endorsed by the authorities.It bears recalling that there is no municipal liability in New York “for failure to provide special protection to a member of the public who was repeatedly threatened with personal harm and eventually suffered dire personal injuries for lack of such protection.” That was the 1968 ruling in the infamous case of Linda Riss, who was repeatedly denied police protection against threatened harm and who was then viciously attacked. As the dissent pointed out, “in conformity, to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense…. Thus, by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her.” Nothing has changed since 1911 when Marino Rossi carried a pistol for protection against the Black Hand, for which he was sentenced to a year in prison. New York’s assurances that it will protect you and you don’t “need” a gun for protection are worthless. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, dissented when the U.S Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Peruta v. County of San Diego (2016), which upheld California’s “may issue” carry license law. His words should resonate with judges who, like Judge Foster when he sent Rossi to Sing Sing, just don’t care about ordinary people who need to protect themselves from violent crime: “For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it.”Just before this magazine went to print, the U.S. Supreme Court had turned down hearing 10 Second Amendment-related cases. In a dissent to one denial (Rogers v. Grewal), Justice Thomas argued that the Rogers’ case would have given the justices a chance to “provide guidance on the proper approach for evaluating Second Amendment claims” and thereby would resolve disputes among the lower courts on whether onerous restrictions are constitutional. (Attorney Stephen Halbrook has won gun cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, is a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute and is author of The Founders’ Second Amendment and Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France.) https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/articles/2020/7/26/how-does-new-york-city-get-away-with-this/

    • https://www.secondamendmentdaily.com/2019/06/exposed-nras-top-lawyer-donates-to-big-democrats/

      And now this…. Wayne

      Just got done reading this juicy thread on ARFCOM that evidences my longstanding suspicions (going on 20 years) that Whiny LaPee-yew of Negotiating Rights Away has maintained his Democrat Party connections from waaaaaay back in the day when he was a DNC operative BEFORE becoming NRA EVP. He may have even been laundering NRA member monies to some murky Demorat connections through his (and his wife’s) various SHELL CORPORATIONS.

      I wonder how much of this is known to the inner circle at NRA, considering that it didn’t take much for some nobodies in the gun community to dig up these PUBLIC documents:

      https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/BREAKING-NRA-s-Wayne-LaPierre-running-a-shell-company-

      The NRA has been unconstitutionally disarming We the People, long before the recent public outing by hoplophobic, anti- American Democrat National Party.

      They wrote and advocated for every unconstitutional law from the 1911 NY Sullivan’s Act, all the other state “license and registration edicts” to all the federal acts… while pretending to advocate for civil liberties and taking money from those trying to protect their rights

      Read the article, but be sure to read the comments. The people are finally waking up to the fact that the NRA has been the biggest reason why gun
      control has such a record of success… without the NRA the 1911 unconstitutional NY Sullivan’s Act wouldn’t have become law, none of the unconstitutional federal laws, ccw permits wouldn’t exist, bump stock bans wouldn’t exist, machine guns would still be
      available by mail order, etc……

      https://www.ammoland.com/2019/07/nra-board-member-joel-friedman-speaks-out-on-the-nras-record

      And more information about the NRA, that has a long history of anti-2A advocacy.

      massive amounts of money going to a lawyer, William Brewer, who had been sanctioned for ethical violations, and given substantial aid and comfort to candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

      in a new development, speculation is running rampant over on the AR15.com forum with documents about LaPierre “running a shell company with a Clinton CPA,” with some perceiving significance and others not so much.

      with LaPierre and with NRA under his stewardship – in terms of “compromises” and outright betrayals of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. While he’s not responsible for NRA-backed infringements before he took the helm, he has never spoken against or tried to correct them. He has gone on, post-Columbine, to denounce arming anyone in schools besides police/trained security. He was a prime mover in selling “Project Exile” to NRA members, even though more than violent criminals could be caught in its net including principled Second Amendment defenders who would become felons for refusing to obey edicts ordering them to surrender their arms (In 2002, NRA actually said that’s what “honest Americans” would do). While targeted to “[p]reviously convicted felons who possess guns and/or armed persons involved in drug or violent crimes,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office has explained: “When a police officer finds a gun while on duty, the officer can page an ATF agent, who is available 24 hours a day. ATF and the … police, in consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, review the circumstances and determine if a Federal statute applies and whether Federal prosecution would provide the most effective incapacitation for the offender.”

      It’s not hard to see how all kinds of incriminating scenarios could apply.

      Note that NRA had initially opposed many of the laws someone could now be hanged with, so it’s not hard to see how all kinds of incriminating scenarios could apply. And along with Cox, LaPierre gave green lights to federal bump stock “regulations” and “red flag” confiscations.

  20. “But states may not utilize a special need requirement as a de facto ban on all public carry”

    so what ny will do is hand out double or triple permits to the people who have them now, and say, “see, we’re handing out lots more permits!”

  21. I have zero faith that these nine, unelected, gods-in-robes will vote on the side of the Second Amendment. After all, any judgment against the Second Amendment will not apply to them, or Congress, for that matter. We will be lucky with a 5-4 ruling for our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Or, we will end up with a decision that “advocates” for the 2nd, only have it watered down so much, it is meaningless. Kavanaugh is another Roberts, and is black mail worthy, having a wife and children to hang over his head. Roberts is, well, need one say anymore? And Amy Coney Barrett is showing she is nothing more that Roberts with a skirt and bra on. And since when did the U.S. Supreme Court suddenly become the final say in everything? The only branch of our government? If that is the case, then get rid of our worthless Congress and our President, seeing is this branch of government views itself as the Supreme lords over the rest of us.

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