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SCOTUS May Rule in Favor of Guns, Some Democrats Call for Near-Total Gun Ban
10/01/2019

Posted on 10/01/2019 5:33:03 AM PDT by Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

The biggest gun control case in over a decade might end up on the desks of America's highest court -- and for once, gun control advocates don't want it to.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York

Last January, the Supreme Court announced it would take a case in New York City, one of the largest Second Amendment cases in the past 10 years. This is also the first case that might be heard since Justice Anthony Kennedy retired and the Court's seating dramatically shifted to a more conservative, potentially "gun-friendly" status. The Court's current Justices have gun control advocates worried. So worried, in fact, that they're desperate to convince the Court to dismiss this case entirely.

Let's explain why:

New York Tried Stopping Travelers with Guns

New York offers two kinds of handgun licenses to residents. One license (a "Carry" license) allows state residents to carry a handgun for general use, like almost any other state. The other license (a problematic "Premises" license) is much less permissive. It allows handgun owners to "have and possess in his/her dwelling" a handgun. But this permit only allows gun owners to travel to seven pre-determined gun ranges in New York City to practice shooting. Handgun owners with a Premises permit cannot legally leave their homes with their weapons for any other reason.

That includes traveling outside of New York City. Yes, New York City's elected officials passed legislation that prevented gun owners from freely leaving their homes - and even the city itself - with their handguns. One could not legally leave the state with a handgun. Ever. If you owned a handgun and wanted to leave the city with it, you would've had to obtain a "hunting authorization" first.

Some might call that a pretty big restriction on the Second Amendment.

Some gun advocates decided to challenge the order. Frightened that the case would escalate and hit the Supreme Court (where it would most likely be struck down and more importantly, establish a Second Amendment-friendly legal precedent), the state acquiesced: City officials re-wrote the law to allow New York City residents to travel to and from gun ranges and second homes outside the city.

Only it may not be enough. The Court might hear the case anyway.

Anti-Gunners Back-Pedal (Hoping to Avoid Court)

Because the supposed legal controversy is now over, NYC officials and gun control advocates say there is no need for the case to be heard by the highest Court. The city asked the Court to dismiss the case as "moot", a case that is now irrelevant since the plaintiffs' demands were met. New York City is so desperate to dismiss the case that city officials rounded up a few anti-gun college professors to draft up legalese arguing why the court should not hear the case.

An excerpt from the argument against the case being heard by the Court reads:

"Amici are professors of law who focus their research, scholarship, and teaching on federal courts, federalism, and the role of the federal judiciary in our legal system. Amici do not all agree on the best understanding of the Second Amendment or the best regulatory policies for firearms. But each agrees that this case is moot under well-established Article III principles...

State law now grants petitioners all that they demanded in federal court. The claims in petitioners’ complaint are therefore moot. No federal court has authority to offer an opinion on constitutional law without a live case or controversy under Article III. An ongoing disagreement about law—even federal constitutional law—is insufficient on its own to sustain Article III power."

Unfortunately for anti-gunners, the Supreme Court has not appeared to yield. Tomorrow, October 1, the Justices are scheduled to discuss whether to dismiss the case. This revelation and the potential for the case to be heard - and an important 2A precedent to be set - is particularly worrying for anti-gunners, for one reason.

The Court could re-write how it interprets the Second Amendment

The late Justice John Paul Stevens offered a surprisingly blunt take on the psychology of the Supreme Court's internal rumblings on gun control. In 2008, the District of Columbia V. Heller case allowed the Supreme Court to decide, for the first time, that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual's right to keep and bear arms. The case was decided on a 5-4 split with Justice Kennedy siding with his fellow conservatives.

In the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that existing prohibitions against the possession of a firearm, including existing bans of "dangerous and unusual weapons", were still valid. Justice Stevens revealed that Justice Kennedy also asked for some important changes to be made to Scalia's original opinion, ensuring that the language in the case's decision "should not be taken to cast doubt on existing gun laws". But Justice Kennedy is gone. A more gun-friendly conservative took his place. That would be Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh May Upset Anti-Gunners in This Case

After D.C.'s case was decided, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that "both D.C.'s ban on semi-automatic rifles and its gun registration requirement are unconstitutional under Heller." Importantly - and damning for existing precedents that are set for the Second Amendment - Kavanaugh argued that nearly 10 years' worth of Second Amendment jurisprudence should be thrown out and made new. He said one of the Constitution's most important rights may need to be reinterpreted more appropriately, for the individual's sake.

Building on Kavanaugh's opinion in Heller, that case did something else that anti-gunners aren't happy about: It wiped out the Court's prior interpretations that the Second Amendment mostly existed to ensure a "well-regulated militia be maintained for the free state". Instead, the new jurisprudence now rests on the individual's right to keep and bear arms. Except the Supreme Court has heard no cases which flesh out this new precedent or ideology since ruling on Heller.

The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, if heard by the Court, is about to change all that.

Justice Kavanaugh is likely to see this case as the first test against (or opportunity to affirm) the individual's right to bear arms. Given his prior written opinions on Heller, the odds the Court will rule in favor of New York City's gun control advocates are slim.

Signs of Federal Gun Ban Battle Heating Up

With the nation barreling toward the 2020 election amid so much gun culture talk, it's little surprise many agencies, state officials, and left-leaning activists are working to get numerous assault weapon and gun bans on ballots and into state chambers. Florida gun control advocates are trying to meet a February deadline to get an assault weapon ban on the state ballot.

In a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Democrats called for outright banning most, if not all, weapons. One legislator stated, "I believe that any weapon that can be used to hunt individuals should be banned." New York attempted to push its own version of a ban without any due process. Attorney General Letitia James sent cease-and-desist orders to 16 websites - including 80-Lower.com - demanding they stop selling 80% lowers and AR-15 kits.

These kits include a receiver blank (an unfinished firearm) that the user must complete at home. This is a legal practice long established by the ATF and Gun Control Act of 1968. Nevertheless, New York is now in the fight against the black rifle once again, and companies are working to scrutinize the legal standing of the demands. All signs point to the high possibility the Supreme Court will hear quite a few more gun control cases within the next two to four years.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: banglist; guncontrol; judiciary; secondamendment; supremecourt
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

Roberts has become the new Kennedy.


21 posted on 10/01/2019 6:40:36 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

Something radically wrong with having our liberty in the hands of and subject to the whims of 9 politicians in robes.


22 posted on 10/01/2019 6:41:02 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

Don’t get your hopes up too much. Roberts is a traitor to the Constitution, and RBG is still on the court.


23 posted on 10/01/2019 6:41:40 AM PDT by backwoods-engineer (Enjoy the decline of the American empire.)
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To: PapaBear3625

Change that to any weapon you deem necessary...regardless if the police carry it or not.


24 posted on 10/01/2019 6:43:26 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Bonemaker

Never let a crisis go to waste. Especially if that crisis equals taking freedoms from citizens. For the children sake.
He has done some really amzaing things, but if he believes that only governments and criminals should have gun rights, what’s next . Free speech rights. Religious liberty....
Where does he draw the line?
I kinda wxpected him to veer left after immediately responding to the fake syrian crisis by giving in...
Then the bumpstock ban.
In between, he has some great foreign policies.


25 posted on 10/01/2019 6:52:04 AM PDT by momincombatboots (Ephesians 6... who you are really at war with)
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

I believe that this is one reason the Donkey party is going to try for impeachment of Trump.If Ruth Ginsburg checks out which maybe soon and impeachment hearings are underway the dems will have a perfect excuse to stop Trump from appointing another justice.They will drag the hearings out forever if need be.


26 posted on 10/01/2019 6:53:21 AM PDT by johnny reb
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To: ealgeone

At least we can now laugh in the face of any liberal who insists that “Nobody wants to take away your guns!!!”

Oh no, it’s now bare naked “We’re coming for your guns!!!”

That way lies civil war. They want war, they’ll get war.


27 posted on 10/01/2019 6:54:24 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam.")
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To: I want the USA back
The goal of the left is to disarm non-violent citizens, and to allow violent criminals to keep their illegal guns.

I have said this time and time again, and I have had people ask me WHY the left would want that to happen. The answer is actually very simple and quite clear to anyone willing to open their eyes and see it: if the violent criminals increase their actions (and they will if most of their potential victims are unarmed), then the Liberal Leftists will seek to INCREASE GOVERNMENT ACTIONS to solve this "problem!"

This is the basic MO of the Liberal Leftists (but really ALL Federal level actions)!

1) See a problem: politicize it to extraordinary proportions.
2) Create rules/regulations to "fix" the problem: which usually is a limit on local and individual responses to said problem (which always exacerbates said problem).
3) Further politicize said problem, as it escalates: leave those original, useless, non-solving rules/regulations in place; blame other party for limiting the regulations that COULD "fix" said problem!
4) Further politicize said problem, as it continues to grow: demand more taxes so that you can have more Government to solve said problem!
5) Go to step 2!

Basically, it is WASH! RINSE! REPEAT! If the Liberal Leftists can get MORE MURDER in the streets, they can almost demand outright Federally-managed, militarization of the all local police forces (like they have been trying to do slowly, but surely, with all of the B.S. charges of "institutionalized racism" within multiple local police forces)!!
28 posted on 10/01/2019 7:05:51 AM PDT by ExTxMarine (Diversity is tolerance; diverse points of views will not be tolerated.)
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To: momincombatboots; chris37

“Well that makes 2 of us on FR. Everyone has gone obamacare silent on his gun control package, including the he nra.
Meanwhile police departments are used to bypass posse comitatus.. the dept of Ed, the Irs and Noaa all have fully automatic weapons and we cannot even get a bumpstock.”


Make it 3. While (on another thread) we disagreed about the status of currently proposed legislation, momincombatboots, I think that we absolutely agree on gun legislation in general - IOW, we believe it to be unconstitutional. That applies to the bumpstock ban (which is regulatory, not legislative, and thus more easily revoked or challenged), the FOPA ban on new full autos for civilians since 5/20/1986, the 1968 GCA and the 1934 NFA - they are ALL unconstitutional (and so is all of their supporting legislation and regulations).

My grandfathers could have (but regrettably didn’t) walked into a hardware store, plunked down some cash, and walked out with a full auto of their choice - no tax stamp, no background check, no chief LEO permission, no registration of their ownership. My father couldn’t do that, but at least he could have (but regrettably didn’t) bought a 20mm Solothurn anti-tank cannon via the mail, with no background check and no registration. I cannot do that - but at least I could have (but regrettably didn’t, as I didn’t have the money) to buy a brand new full auto up until May, 1986 (though living in NJ, that would have been very problematic). My kids can do NONE of those things! How can something be a right if it is not valid across all states in all time periods?

Oh, and chris37, I agree with you regarding nobody being able to tell me what I can and cannot own. My paternal grandfather’s father was a reasonably well-to-do man in Russia in the early 20th century. He got that way by working hard and by risking his capital - first to expand a small water delivery business that he inherited into a large one employing about 50 people, and second by taking some of the profits he earned and building (literally, with his own hands and the labor of some of his sons) 14 homes to rent out. Come the Revolution, and the Communists took everything except his house. Fast forward to 1936, when he was 73 and suffering from cancer. Having no ability to work, and having no investment income, he had to do something to earn money to feed himself and my great grandmother - so he rented out 3/4 of his house to 3 other families. Well, somebody ratted him out to the NKVD, and they dragged him off to prison and beat the crap out of him for several months. He was released, and then dragged back in during 1937, and this time beaten so badly that he was released to die at home. So the bastards murdered my great grandfather, after having stolen everything that he worked for over the course of a lifetime. Separately, my mother’s family was from Poland. Only 4 years after my GGF was murdered by Russian Leftists, about 100 of my distant relatives were murdered by German Leftists, either outright in their homes, or at the work camp or death camp (2 separate facilities) at Treblinka. What my GGF and these relatives on my mother’s side (and everyone around them, of course) had in common was the utter inability to say, “No!” to the government. That’s because they didn’t have a 2nd Amendment, and their governments ensured that the number of civilians with guns was tightly regulated and restricted. While the same type of titanic political forces that victimized my family in Europe during the last century might someday victimize my family and myself, at least I am utterly certain that THIS TIME WILL NOT BE FOR FREE! Why? Because I’m not giving anything to anyone if I don’t want to do so. That is simply not open for discussion - especially since the American Leftists of today are making similar ideological noises to the Russian and German Leftists of the 20th century, and now they want to ban guns. My answer to that is: “No. Your move.”


29 posted on 10/01/2019 7:20:49 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

Brace for a conveniently timed Mass Shooting to occur right before any SCOTUS Decision on the Second Amendment.


30 posted on 10/01/2019 7:26:23 AM PDT by Kickass Conservative (Democracy, two Wolves and one Sheep deciding what's for Dinner.)
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To: MomwithHope

No, it is not ludicrous. He meant what he said and said what he meant. He knew what he was saying. He wants them banned because it is him or his Government Goons that may be hunted. Plus he wants you to be helpless to resist when he decides it is time for you to go.


31 posted on 10/01/2019 7:35:19 AM PDT by sport
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

This is a big reason domestic enemy number one, the commiecrats, are trying to illegally evict President Trump from his duly elected position. The commies have to change the make up of the Supreme Court in order to advance their heinous gun-grabbing, globalist, and cultural breakdown of American society.


32 posted on 10/01/2019 7:50:38 AM PDT by Boomer (Our melting pot has turned into a pressure cooker)
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To: ealgeone

Roberts has become the new Kennedy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We need two more nominations before we have a conservative court.


33 posted on 10/01/2019 7:52:55 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents_Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: mosaicwolf; Donald J Trump
There is no Trump gun control package.

There should be. The word "repeal" should be prominently featured in it.

Mr. President: What gun control 'laws' do you propose to REPEAL?

34 posted on 10/01/2019 7:53:31 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Ancesthntr

I am glad we dont agree on everything.. questioning each other and our leadership will keep a Republic healthy. Thanks for posting.
People who never question or criticize leadership are dangerous to our Republic.
3 people with constitutional principles is a darned good start.


35 posted on 10/01/2019 8:11:39 AM PDT by momincombatboots (Ephesians 6... who you are really at war with)
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

Judge Gorsuch is the big pivot on guns. He is a sportsman and shooter. He will not be permitting any Shiela Jackson Lee distortions to enter the debate.


36 posted on 10/01/2019 8:47:31 AM PDT by lurk
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

I’m convinced Leftists are more worried about strict constructionist Justices striking down their gun grabbing than they are about any other issue. They talk Roe V Wade a lot but gun grabbing goes to the heart of their agenda to centralize all power in the hands of government.


37 posted on 10/01/2019 8:54:29 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: FLT-bird

EXACTLY SO.

Yours, TMN78247


38 posted on 10/01/2019 9:37:17 AM PDT by TMN78247 ("VICTORY or DEATH", William Barrett Travis, LtCol, comdt., Fortress of the Alamo, Bejar, 1836)
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To: Bonemaker
I’d have to reread the law but I think that applied to interstate travel.

18 U.S. Code § 926A. Interstate transportation of firearms :

Notwithstanding any other provision of any law or any rule or regulation of a State or any political subdivision thereof, any person who is not otherwise prohibited by this chapter from transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm shall be entitled to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm if, during such transportation the firearm is unloaded, and neither the firearm nor any ammunition being transported is readily accessible or is directly accessible from the passenger compartment of such transporting vehicle: Provided, That in the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver’s compartment the firearm or ammunition shall be contained in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console.
Although the title mentions interstate, the text does not.

Then again, the text and title would seem to allow somebody to transport the gun from NYC to (for example) Vermont, then from Vermont to Upstate NY.

39 posted on 10/01/2019 10:32:36 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire)
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To: Black_Rifle_Gunsmith
The obvious purpose of the NYC law was to prevent a gun owner, anticipating some sort of confiscation measure, from transporting his firearms out of NY, to put them out of reach of confiscation.

With that law in place, if the cops came to your home and demanded your registered guns, and you told them that they were elsewhere, outside their jurisdiction, they could then arrest you for illegally transporting the guns.

40 posted on 10/01/2019 10:39:18 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire)
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