Supreme Court will hear arguments in NRA-backed concealed-carry case out of New York
Decision comes more than 10 years since the Supreme Court weighed in on a significant case involving the Second Amendment
The Supreme Court Monday certified a case for arguments that challenges New York state’s requirement that applicants for pistol permits show “proper cause” to carry a gun, which the petitioners argue violates the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms. (Photo Illustration: America’s Conservative Voice)
The Supreme Court on Monday decided to take up a major National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed lawsuit that challenges a New York law restricting an individual from carrying a concealed handgun in public.
It has been more than 10 years since the Supreme Court weighed in on a significant case involving the Second Amendment, coming in the wake of recent pushes by Joe Biden and the Fascist Left for more gun-control initiatives including bans on so-called “ghost guns,” proposing models for “red flag” laws, and expanding and lengthening background checks.
“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following question: Whether the State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment,” reads a brief order from the high court on Monday.
The high court’s decision in New York State Pistol & Rifle Association v. Corlett could have major implications for laws in many states that restrict carrying a gun in public.
The case involves New York’s 108-year-old law that requires someone who wishes to carry a handgun in public to show “proper cause” in order to obtain a license allowing them to do so. Two men challenged the law after the state rejected their applications seeking concealed carry permits for self-defense.
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals based in Manhattan upheld the law, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court. Over the years, the multiple gun rights groups have criticized the Court for not taking up any major lawsuits relating to the Second Amendment. In 2008, the court said for the first time, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Second Amendment protects Americans’ rights to keep and bear arms for self-defense at home.
Since Heller, there have been two notable decisions that reaffirmed & further shaped the legal debate surrounding Second Amendment rights. Both decisions would appear to bode well for the Court striking down the restrictions in the New York law.
In McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, the Court held that the Second Amendment’s protections extend to state policies through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and apply to cities and states in the same manner Heller applied to D.C. The case concerned a similar handgun ban and restrictions on rifles and shotguns imposed by the city of Chicago, which were found to be unconstitutional.
The Court unanimously held in a 2016 case, Caetano v. Massachusetts, that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess "all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding, and that this Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States." The rulling struck down a ban on stun guns enacted by the State of Massachusetts.
Justice Clarence Thomas has been lobbying his fellow jurists for years to take up a Second Amendment case, saying that “the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this Court.” (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters)
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, generally considered the most conservative Justice, wrote several years ago that courts have engaged in a “general failure to afford the Second Amendment the respect due an enumerated constitutional right.” Going further, he wrote: “If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt that this court would intervene … The Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this court.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, after the court dismissed a gun case last term, wrote in early 2020 he hoped the court would take up a Second Amendment-related challenge in the near future, writing, “The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”
One of those pending cases was the New York case, where state courts have established an applicant must “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession” to get an unrestricted license to carry a gun. Merely wanting to carry for protection against the possibility of being a crime victim isn’t enough of a reason under the state’s law.
Robert Nash and Brendan Koch, the two men who brought the lawsuit, both applied for licenses to carry handguns in New York state for self-defense but were denied. A district court later said that neither had proper cause to carry a handgun because they did not face “any special or unique danger to [their] life.”
New York is one of eight states — along with California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware and Hawaii — that the NRA says prevents most people from getting a permit to carry a gun.
Eric Tirschwell, a lawyer with Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, a front organization for gun control run by Michael Bloomberg, said an increase in gun violence during the pandemic makes the stakes especially high.
“A ruling that opened the door to weakening our gun laws could make it even harder for cities and states to grapple with this public health crisis,” Tirschwell, managing director of Everytown’s litigation arm. “Fortunately, the courts have repeatedly backed states’ authority to pass public safety laws, and while the Supreme Court’s makeup has changed, the Constitution has not.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, wrote in a legal brief calling on the Supreme Court not to grant the case, saying the state law is consistent with prior rulings.
James said that New York’s law was “supported by a centuries-old tradition of state and local measures regulating the carrying of firearms in public” and existed in the same essential form since 1913. “New York’s law directly advances the State’s compelling interests in protecting the public from gun violence,” she said.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the New York case in the fall and issue a ruling next year.