SCOTUS Gun Watch, Episode 4

The big news from this week is that the Supreme Court denied certiorari in the case arising from the Sandy Hook massacre—Remington v. Soto. As I’ve written about (here and here), the Court might have been concerned about vehicle issues with the petition. The petition raised a question about whether the federal law immunizing gun manufacturers in most situations, the Protection for Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, applied to these facts. Because the case came up from an interlocutory ruling, there was some question about the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction. But, in any event, the case may now proceed through discovery and to trial. More surprising to me than the fact that the Court denied review was the fact that there was no noted dissent from the denial.

I’ve also added one more case to the chart: Pennsylvania v. Hicks. The petition was filed a little over a month ago, but I didn’t initially include it because firearms are only tangentially involved. But, because it raises a question about how the presence of firearms affects law enforcement’s ability to conduct investigatory stops, and with increasingly loosened restrictions on public carry, I thought it worth keeping an eye on.

We also have our first briefing deadline extended into the New Year, ensuring that 2020 will bring just as much debate over guns as 2019 did.