Although the Supreme Court issued no new orders this week, there’s been some movement in the cases pending before the Court. Below isthe updated graph with the now-current status of the high court’s gun docket.
We’re excited to announce a new blog feature that will be a recurring Monday fixture of the blog throughout the Supreme Court’s Term. Each week, we will provide an up-to-date run down of where things stand with the Court’s firearms law and Second Amendment docket. To that end, each Monday will feature an updated chart […]
Last week, several plaintiffs filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review a Seventh Circuit decision upholding Illinois’s refusal to allow most non-residents to apply for a concealed-carry license. Here’s from the Question Presented: This Court has held that the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in […]
As I highlighted at the beginning of the week, heading into the new Term, the Supreme Court had (by my count) 14 outstanding petitions for certiorari raising Second Amendment or firearms-law related questions. Many of these cases had been considered at conferences last Term and, we suspect, are being held pending the outcome in NYSRPA. Coming out […]
As the Supreme Court starts its new Term, with one Second Amendment case docketed (for now), it seems like a good time to review the outstanding petitions awaiting action at the Court. These petitions raise a variety of Second Amendment and firearms-related issues, including important questions of statutory interpretation and the scope of agency discretion. […]
In Ezell v. City of Chicago, the Seventh Circuit concluded that it had “to follow the Court’s lead in resolving questions about the scope of the Second Amendment by consulting its original public meaning as both a starting point and an important constraint on the analysis.” In other words, the Seventh Circuit thought it was […]
In the last few weeks, two new cert petitions have been filed asking the Supreme Court to review recurrent issues in litigation over the right to keep and bear arms. Below are links to the petitions and excerpts of their Questions Presented. We’ll be watching these as the Court comes back to a new Term […]
In March, a federal district court in California became the first federal court in the land to strike down a ban on large-capacity magazines. In a striking opinion stretching for 86 pages, Judge Roger Benitez touted the timeless principles of “[i]ndividual liberty and freedom” when he held that California could not constitutionally prohibit the transfer […]
By now, Heller’s central holding is familiar: whatever other restrictions it may impose, the government cannot ban handgun possession in the home because “the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon.” But what “people” made that choice? Not The People who ratified the Second Amendment in 1791. For them, the […]
In 2012, Zina Daniel Haughton obtained a restraining order against her husband after he threatened to kill her. This restraining order prohibited the husband from possessing a firearm. Nonetheless, a few days later he posted a want ad on armslist.com seeking to buy a gun. He found a willing seller, arranged a meeting in a […]
A few weeks back, I highlighted the fact that there’s a surprising amount of congruence among the federal circuit courts in applying Heller. There’s uniformity on the methodological approach and on the constitutionality of a host of otherwise controversial public policies, like bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. I also noted several substantive circuit […]
Gun debates are notoriously contentious and controversial, and they seldom lead to consensus. Gun litigation is a different story. In the hundreds of Second Amendment challenges in the federal courts since Heller, there has been surprising judicial agreement. Among federal courts of appeals, there is near-consensus on most questions. There are some noteworthy circuit splits, […]
In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court declared that partisan gerrymandering is a nonjusticiable political issue. Two factors seem key to the Court’s holding: the difficulty of finding a manageable standard to assess such claims and the thorny expansion of judicial review into an area of deep political controversy. Some of these same […]
Twenty seven years ago this week, Justice Powell’s clerk sent him a lengthy fax with the subject line “Handgun Article.” Along with Justice Stevens’ post-retirement commentary (about which Darrell and I will have more to say shortly), I think it might be the most thorough statement of a Justice’s views on guns and the Second […]
Arguments about the right to keep and bear arms and the right to reproductive autonomy share a number of similarities. And, shortly after Heller, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson underscored similarities in the how Court’s decisions in Roe and Heller removed controversial political issues from the realm of democratic choice, in what Judge Wilkinson thought improper […]
An enjoyable feature of teaching Second Amendment is the flexibility and variety of possible approaches. A professor can use a wide variety of materials, depending on learning objectives. Social science, current policy debates, and political philosophy are easily included, if one wants. I use our textbook Firearms Law and the Second Amendment. It aims to […]
Last week, I wrote about the Supreme Court’s decision in Rehaif v. United States and how that decision, along with United States v. Davis, produced interesting lineups and may lead to big changes in the enforcement and prosecution of gun crimes. Today, I want to focus on Davis—and what it means for the future.
In the past week, the Supreme Court issued two decisions likely to have a major impact on gun prosecutions: Rehaif v. United States, in which the Court tossed out an immigrant’s conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm, and United States v. Davis, in which the Court tossed out a pair of convictions for possessing […]
On Thursday, in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, the Supreme Court held that a Latin cross installed over ninety years ago on public land to commemorate fallen World War I soldiers did not violate the Establishment Clause. In doing so, Justice Alito, writing for the plurality, shied away from the much-criticized Lemon test and […]
In reading the Supreme Court’s recent double-jeopardy opinion, Gamble v. United States, it struck me just how many major constitutional law cases involve guns and guns laws, even if sometimes at the periphery. Gamble, for instance, complained that his state law conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm precluded his indictment under […]
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court unanimously decided a sleepy statutory interpretation question concerning the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. That case, however, may contain clues about how the Court could approach the interpretive question involved in the Sandy Hook litigation over the Protection for Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
Last week, we highlighted the five pending petitions asking the Supreme Court to review gun-related rulings. We’ve got one update, in which the Court denied cert, and one to add to the “watch list.”
The Connecticut Supreme Court recently allowed a suit arising from the Sandy Hook shooting to proceed against Remington. In doing so, it rejected Remington’s argument that the Protection for Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) bars the suit. Remington plans to seek U.S. Supreme Court review. But can it seek that review now?
In a sign that litigants are hoping the changed composition of the Supreme Court—Justice Kavanaugh’s replacement of Justice Kennedy—will lead to reconsideration of some lower court Second Amendment precedents, plaintiffs recently brought a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s requirement that an applicant for a concealed carry permit show a “good and substantial reason” in order to obtain […]
In Heller, McDonald, and now potentially in NYSRPA, the Supreme Court established Second Amendment principles that have been the basis for more than 1,000 Second Amendment challenges in the past ten years. Notably, each of the Supreme Court’s cases involved an outlier law—DC and Chicago were the only notable US cities with handgun bans, and […]
