quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
This seems like a strange case to pick. However I'm hoping this means with the arrival of Brett Kavanaugh that the SCOTUS will be more willing to look at gun rights cases, and actually enforce the Second Amendment.

In some ways, it is strange. It's a very innocuous case (if you don't happen to live in NY) but the legal logic of the past two decisions is extremely poor with regard to its use of any rigor. The beauty of granting cert on this is that the court won't have to decide on which types of weaponry or carry or magazine capacity or, or... They can simply address the basis for the appeal: "This Court should grant review to restore the rigor of the test that secures numerous individual rights and to underscore that it meant what it said in Heller and McDonald."

In other words, the court wouldn't have to touch the icky subject of guns directly, just direct other courts how to do so based on Heller and McDonald--yes, we meant what we said. If we were to get a solid direction of strict scrutiny for 2A cases, we would be far more successful in the courts.

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Generally, courts prefer to make narrower rulings so as to no set off unexpected consequences when broad rules have to be applied to fact patterns that don't match with the facts in the case in which the rule originated.

Been a while since I've been in a courtroom, but I agree.

SCOTUS also usually only takes classes with a wide impact. They also rarely touch the 2A cases and have passed up some good ones in the past IMO.

It has been long hypothesized that the judges who follow the constitution didn't grant certiorari to many 2A cases because they didn't think they had the votes to make good case law.

IF, and that's a huge IF, that was the case, it could mean good things about how our two new justices view the 2A. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I can't help myself.

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Originally posted by jhe888:
Generally, courts prefer to make narrower rulings so as to no set off unexpected consequences when broad rules have to be applied to fact patterns that don't match with the facts in the case in which the rule originated.

It would seem difficult to rule on a case like this without saying something explicit about being in possession of firearms outside the home or creating a degree of ambiguity that would drive city police nuts.

The question on my mind is this (and who knows how a court would answer it): why would the cops (and the city) not be satisfied with the ability to prosecute in cases where firearms are misused, rather than merely being arguably transported to an out-of-city destination?

Why would I be limited in my freedom to exercise my Constitutional 2nd Amendment Right ? New York voted for these IDIOTS !!! Hopefully the US Supreme Court reverses this. God Bless

Does anyone know who the Justices were that wanted to hear this case? I believe there needs to be at least 4 of them?

I am no lawyer but I wonder if those justices that have been supportive of the Second Amendment, such at Justice Thomas and Justice Alito, thought that a more limited scope Second Amendment case like this might be a good place to start in order to gauge a feeling on the other Justices thoughts on the Second Amendment though they probably have a pretty good idea on how Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Breyer will vote.

New York City is like its own little communist country. They do not care about the constitution. They do whatever they want, and pretty much no one can stop them. There is no check and balance to limit their nonsense.

The judges can utilize a narrowly crafted approach removing a single valve instead of re-engineering the entire mechanism on which this NYC law rests.

Namely, the court can, say, rule that FOPA protections allow interstate transport even for NYC premise permit holders. This would render moot the rest of the case.

However, out good old anti gunners at "Thinkprogress" seem to belive that:

"New York State Rifle in other words, is a huge case because it concerns a tiny issue. If the Supreme Court is willing to declare that even very minor burdens on gun owners violate the Constitution, then it is unclear what can still be done to prevent gun violence."

This may prove to be a big deal, indeed.

https://thinkprogress.org/brea...gh-era-0a95ed4fccf3/

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
This seems like a strange case to pick. However I'm hoping this means with the arrival of Brett Kavanaugh that the SCOTUS will be more willing to look at gun rights cases, and actually enforce the Second Amendment.

I too hold out that hope, but with Roberts running the show, I doubt it. Roberts doesn't seem to want to take any potential huge, sweeping gun cases. Maybe after Ginsburg croaks and is replaced will the high court welcome a 'real' 2A case that addresses the current issues.

Roberts has some sway over selection of cases for review, but ultimately he's just one vote for or against certiorari (and in deciding the case, still just one vote.)

Any Associate Justice can add a case to the conference list. If four justices vote to grant cert, it goes onto the calendar with or without Roberts' wishes.

I am looking forward to the next 20-30 years of 2A decisions.

Happiness is NYC in the rear view mirror!

quote:

Originally posted by ritter:
In some ways, it is strange. It's a very innocuous case (if you don't happen to live in NY) but the legal logic of the past two decisions is extremely poor with regard to its use of any rigor. The beauty of granting cert on this is that the court won't have to decide on which types of weaponry or carry or magazine capacity or, or... They can simply address the basis for the appeal: "This Court should grant review to restore the rigor of the test that secures numerous individual rights and to underscore that it meant what it said in Heller and McDonald."

In other words, the court wouldn't have to touch the icky subject of guns directly, just direct other courts how to do so based on Heller and McDonald--yes, we meant what we said. If we were to get a solid direction of strict scrutiny for 2A cases, we would be far more successful in the courts.

Your above reasons are why this is such an important case for the 2a in NY. No issue of carrying arms in public. No grandstanding on issues that make the left uncomfortable. Just the question of can a resident on NYC take their legally licensed firearm to a range or other approved destination for all lawful purposes?

What good will it do while lower courts continue to ignore pro-2A SCOTUS rulings ? I thought that disfunction was the norm these days for progressive courts. What am I missing here ? At some point the socialists will just tell the SCOTUS to .... What am I missing here ? Or not ?

Living in NY as a gun owener is terrible at best. Hopefully SCOTUS will alleviate some of the stress we suffer. Our inglorious Governor Cuomo is working on making it harder and harder to be a “LEGAL” gun owner in NY. If your a criminal, it is incredibly easy to get a gun and when busted to serve little or NO time!

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Originally posted by wrightd:
What good will it do while lower courts continue to ignore pro-2A SCOTUS rulings ? I thought that disfunction was the norm these days for progressive courts. What am I missing here ? At some point the socialists will just tell the SCOTUS to .... What am I missing here ? Or not ?

Heller and McDonald didn't really establish a level of scrutiny from what I understand. The lower courts have been able to skirt around these decisions by using a lower level of scrutiny for other 2A cases. If SCOTUS decides in such a way as to raise the scrutiny, this should close the avenues by which lower courts seem to rule in opposition to Heller.

Establishing precedence is a long, slow process. Perhaps SCOTUS feels that 10 years has been long enough for Heller/McDonald to percolate, and wish to further 2A jurisprudence, at best. At worst, the court is as political as every other branch, and they feel now is the time to move forward. Who knows? I hope that either way, we'll start to see positive movement WRT 2A case law.

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Heller and McDonald didn't really establish a level of scrutiny from what I understand.

Heller and McDonald established that intermediate levels of scrutiny don't apply to Second Amendment rights. There's a difference. Now we're in the middle of the long, slow process of forcing lower courts to accept that.

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Originally posted by Il Cattivo:

quote:

Heller and McDonald didn't really establish a level of scrutiny from what I understand.

Heller and McDonald established that intermediate levels of scrutiny don't apply to Second Amendment rights. There's a difference. Now we're in the middle of the long, slow process of forcing lower courts to accept that.

Exactly. Most 2A cases would carry under true strict scrutiny. For those worrying about Roberts, consider three things. 1) he signed on to the majority in Heller and McDonald. 2) Nothing in this case or opinion would need to go beyond what was already contained in those cases (Heller did define "bear"). 3) Roberts is concerned with the legitimacy of his court. Lower courts subverting two of his opinions regularly undermines his court's legitimacy and won't sit well with him. I suspect he'd like to be perfectly clear.

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Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
What good will it do while lower courts continue to ignore pro-2A SCOTUS rulings ? I thought that disfunction was the norm these days for progressive courts. What am I missing here ? At some point the socialists will just tell the SCOTUS to .... What am I missing here ? Or not ?

Heller and McDonald didn't really establish a level of scrutiny from what I understand. The lower courts have been able to skirt around these decisions by using a lower level of scrutiny for other 2A cases. If SCOTUS decides in such a way as to raise the scrutiny, this should close the avenues by which lower courts seem to rule in opposition to Heller.

Establishing precedence is a long, slow process. Perhaps SCOTUS feels that 10 years has been long enough for Heller/McDonald to percolate, and wish to further 2A jurisprudence, at best. At worst, the court is as political as every other branch, and they feel now is the time to move forward. Who knows? I hope that either way, we'll start to see positive movement WRT 2A case law.

Very interesting. So, IF the SCOTUS DID raise the level of scrutiny, how would that prevent a lower court from using a lower level of scrutiny anyway ? I never heard of lower court justices paying any price for telling SCOTUS to you know what. What incentive is there for a lower court to give a damn about any higher court, particularly the SCOTUS, about any precedent at all... isn't a judge allowed to do whatever he wants regardless of almost anything ? That's what I've heard, and it seems that what I've seen with the 9th. I thought the 9th ignores anything and everything regarding any kind of precedent and just rule anyway on anything regardless of the law or our Constitution, or any precedence established by the SCOTUS ? Is that a false statement ? I don't know law but I assumed that precedence is a superset of level of scrutiny in our discussion here, but I don't really know. So what about all that and the binding or otherwise relationship between SCOTUS level of scrutiny and lower courts, particulary progressive courts that are off the rails ?

SCOTUS did raise the level of scrutiny. The mechanism for dealing with the lower courts' continued use of intermediate levels of scrutiny is to have their decisions overturned by higher courts. In some places that means a case has to go all the way to the Supremes to be overturned - which is long, difficult, costly, contingent on enough Justices voting to insert the case in what is already a crowded docket, and so on. That is precisely what is happening now.

Whether there are actual sanctions that can be leveled on lower court judges or not, I don't know offhand.

Well that's exactly what I want to know. Appears there isn't, so the lower courts will continue to abuse their unchallenged powers no matter how bad they rule, and will continue to diminish the SCOTUS to the point that their existence is no longer effective. Lovely. Obviously I didn't go to law school but that's what it looks like to me. Oversimplified yes, but that's what I see from my limited elevation, and you know what they say.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
Well that's exactly what I want to know. Appears there isn't, so the lower courts will continue to abuse their unchallenged powers no matter how bad they rule, and will continue to diminish the SCOTUS to the point that their existence is no longer effective. Lovely. Obviously I didn't go to law school but that's what it looks like to me. Oversimplified yes, but that's what I see from my limited elevation, and you know what they say.

You may not have recourse against the lower courts directly, but a ruling by the Supreme Court would make cases much more win able for plaintiffs, and costly for local governments being sued. If I recall, that’s how Illinois became shall issue. They saw the writing on the wall and gave up the battle.

My WAG. If JALLEN were here, he’d correct me with his wisdom and wit.