The Supreme Court has finally taken up a major gun rights case challenging "may issue" concealed carry laws.

 

My personal CZ-PO7. 

The Supreme Court has finally taken up a major gun rights case challenging "may issue" concealed carry laws. NBC News. The Court has been reluctant to cover gun rights cases since the landmark Columbia vs Heller case back in 2008. The case involves citizens of New York state who wanted to have concealed carry permits but were rejected for not showing a "special need" to carry a firearm and brought suit with the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association. New York also has a ban on open carrying firearms, and with permits being "may issue" carrying firearms is essentially banned in the state. The fact that the case was taken up at all may show that the Court's conservatives are more confident that they can get a pro-gun ruling now that Judge Amy Coney Barrett is on the Court. The last major gun rights case was dropped for being moot but Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch opposed the move while Justice Kavanagh said the court should take up more gun rights cases. 

My Comment:

Huge day for gun rights and gun rights supporters as the whole community will be waiting with baited breath for the outcome of this case. It's got the potential to be the biggest gun rights win since Columbia vs Heller and one of the only ones since then on the federal level. If it's a win then it will probably secure the right to bear arms at least for the foreseeable future.

I had always thought that the restrictions on concealed carry were nonsensical. If the 2nd Amendment allows for bearing arms (and it does) then how can you force someone to not be able to bear arms? The people of New York, Hawaii and other states that have "may issue" permit schemes have essentially banned the right to self defense in public as well as obviously violating the 2nd Amendment rights of their citizens. 

Indeed, it's clear that concealed carry laws have been loosened in recent years. In my state, for example, we had open carry for years but did not gain concealed carry until 2011. Many states have followed suit and every state has at least a chance to issue permits. Indeed, only New Jersey, and Hawaii are de facto no issue states with large parts of California and New York allowing permits on a shall issue basis. The rest of the states with "may issue" at least give normal people a chance to get the permits. The rest of the country either has "shall issue" permits or are constitutional carry states with no permits required at all. 

Jeff Dege.

As you can see the trend is clearly to moving to a permitless or shall issue system and it's only a few states that remain no-issue in practice or even "may issue". It's one of the biggest accomplishments that the gun rights community has done and now we could get a potential Supreme Court ruling in our favor protecting what we have gained. 

I think it also proves that the gun control community has been full of crap when it comes to their arguments for concealed carry. Though gun crime has ebbed and waned through the years the one thing we didn't see was a massive wave of permitted gun owners committing the crime. Wisconsin hasn't turned into the wild west and though people carry here every day I have never seen anyone draw a gun, or even accidently print or expose their firearm. The argument that allowing people to carry firearms will lead to violence is obviously wrong. 

The elephant in the room though is whether or not the court will rule the right way. Everyone thought that the previous New York case was a slam dunk for the gun rights community but the court ended up punting on it, declaring the issue moot. The main theory at the time is that Chief Justice Roberts did not want to issue a ruling that would upset the Democratic Party so he threw the case.  

Indeed, it was thought that the Courts four remaining conservative justices (Roberts is not conservative, no matter that he was appointed by George Bush) were blocking gun rights cases because they knew they didn't have the votes to actually protect the 2nd Amendment. In theory that has changed with Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead and Amy Cony Barrett now on the bench. If there are no further defections this ruling should pass in a 5-4 manner with a small chance of Roberts joining in a 6-3 ruling.

 The great fear is that there will somehow be another defection. It would be a massive disappointment and I can't imagine any of the five conservative justices ruling that way but you would have never thought that Roberts was going to rule the way he did in the past either. My guess is this is just the gun rights community being nervous, Justice Thomas would never allow this case to come to the court unless they had a good idea that they were going to rule in favor of gun rights. 

The bigger threat is what the Democrats do in response. Though Roberts is a coward, he is right that the Democrats do want to damage the integrity of the Supreme Court. Though the issue of court packing has faded into the background a major ruling in favor of gun rights might reignite the issue. I still say that court packing is very unlikely in this session of congress but in the unlikely event that the Democrats retain control of the house and senate after the 2022 elections then it's very possible the Court could be destroyed in revenge for a positive gun rights ruling, with the case reversed by the new liberally aligned court. 

Still, that's an unlikely outcome and it is a lot more likely that this case will end with a major victory for Americans and their rights. It's too early to declare victory but I am guessing that the few remaining "shall issue" states are going to have to adjust their laws fairly soon. 

Keep in mind though that the Supreme Court operates at a glacial pace. We are probably not going to see a ruling in this case until Summer at the earliest and Fall at the latest. Until then the people of the "shall issue" states will continue to have their rights violated.