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Supreme Court punts on major gun rights case

gh1950

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Well, in the biggest gun rights case since Heller, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, the Supreme Court sucked it up, and punted on 3rd down.

Real short version of the facts. New York City had an ordinance that a registered gun owner could not take his handgun outside of his New York City home except to go to one of 5 (??) designated indoor ranges in NYC. Even if the gun owner had a second home outside the city, he could not take his handgun there.

So suit was filed challenging the ordinance, all the lower courts upheld the restriction. SCOTUS agrees to hear the case, Bloomberg et al. go all ape **** because they know on its face the ordinance is unconstitutional.

Soooooo, NYC amends the ordinance to allow more places from that owner can take their guns, the the NY legislature passes a law prohibiting all cities from enacting such a restrictive law.

The NYC files a motion to dismiss the appeal for "mootness" on the basis that the issue before the court does not exist any more and there is nothing for the court to decide. Nothing too radical here, standard legal sort of thing.

SCOTUS says "no, not going to do it," and briefing and oral arguments are had.

Well, yesterday, SCOTUS, by a 6-3 vote indeed dismissed the appeal for mootness and sent it back to the lower courts for further consideration.

https://apnews.com/ba2f079bf2472771ee1a9311a55f4bd5

The opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-280_ba7d.pdf

The reason that this is a punt is that SCOTUS had a perfectly legal out that it has used often in cases that were otherwise moot. There is a principal that although the facts of a specific case may be moot for whatever reason, the court can go ahead and decide the case if the facts are subject to re-occur for adjudication at a later time. This principal is used a lot in cases exactly like this where one of the parties knows it is going to get hammered, and does just enough to avoid having an adverse case decision.

Clearly, in this case, NY state can change the restrictions of cities at any time, and NYC for sure can pass a new ordinance. If Sleepy Joe gets elected doing so will probably be the first order of business.
 
My guess is that the pro-gun side didn't have the votes. Better to send it back then try it and lose... That would basically give NY and others carte-blanche to restrict gun being carried in their state anyway they wanted.

This was a good case though, since it forced NY to change their law, and even strengthen gun owners rights in that state by passing a preemption law.

The SAF has plenty of cases heading up the ladder to SCOTUS. This one would have been nice to win, but it still wouldn't be a 'Heller' with a clear, decisive outcome.

We still need RBG to go and another pro-gun justice to be seated to get anything done.
 
She has cancer and is 86 years old. She cant even hold her head up in public appearances. It wont matter. Democrats wont let Trump put another justice in the seat during an election year.
Man if the turtle could pull off getting a SCOTUS judge confirmed in an election year in the senate with what has gone down in the last 4 years I would be pretty damn impressed.
 
It would be nice if RBG were to go, but the Thomas should go ahead and retire. He is the longest serving justice, and he isn't getting any younger.

He would do the country a real service to retire and get someone 30 years younger in his seat.
 
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