Originally Posted by
Daycrawler
Found this on MSN
WASHINGTON – The late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia was asked in 2013 whether the Second Amendment's right to bear arms stood on equal ground with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech.
"We're going to find out, aren't we?" he quipped.
That Scalia — who wrote the high court's landmark 2008 decision upholding gun rights — could not define the reach of that right was telling. Now, three years after his death, the court appears ready to put some teeth into an amendment that some justices say gets no respect.
The case, on tap to be heard this fall, challenges obscure New York City rules that prevent gun owners from transporting their weapons outside the city, whether to second homes or shooting ranges. There's nothing else like it among state and local gun restrictions.
Yet from such outliers are major Supreme Court decisions of national import often born. And here, the court's conservative justices could clarify that all gun restrictions must clear a high bar, or state that the right to bear arms extends beyond the home.
“This could be a huge decision," says Adam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America" and a UCLA School of Law professor. "This case is going to end badly for gun violence prevention advocates."
Gun control groups are so worried about the court's direction on the Second Amendment that they would prefer to see New York City change the challenged rules. That could render the case moot and prevent the court from hearing it.
Jonathan Lowy, director of legal action at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, says if the rules were changed, "it certainly would not be an issue worthy of the Supreme Court's consideration.”
Otherwise, he says, “There is a potential that this case will lead to a discussion by some justices, and perhaps by a majority, about whether the right to a firearm extends outside the home into public places."
What is clear is that the Supreme Court now has four strong proponents of gun rights with the addition in October of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He succeeded retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose position on guns was viewed as more equivocal.
Before that personnel change, the court had declined at least eight opportunities to take on Scalia's challenge over the past five years. It had let stand Chicago's semiautomatic weapons ban and a variety of prohibitions against carrying guns in public, from New Jersey to California. It had refused to second-guess age limits for carrying guns in Texas and requirements for disabling or locking up guns when not in use in San Francisco.
Scalia's most famous opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller never defined the breadth of the right he declared. In fact, it made clear the court was not upholding “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."
"There are doubtless limits," Scalia said in that 2013 appearance at George Washington University. "What they are, we will see."