WASHINGTON (CN) — Over a decade since it last waded into the issue, the conservative-majority Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a case that Second Amendment rights activists hope will open up restrictive gun laws across the country.
The case pitting gun owners against New York permitting authorities turns on how the Second Amendment’s phrasing of “to keep and bear arms” is applied to carrying guns in public. Because existing precedent so far has only affirmed the right to keep guns in the home, there is no precedent for how those rights are applied outside the home. Led by Robert Nash, Brandon Koch and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, this case looks to define those rights.
New York, for the last century, has held gun owners applying for a concealed-carry permit to the "proper cause" requirements of the state's Sullivan Law. Nash and Koch both asserted that they wanted to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense, and sued when the state said they could not meet this hurdle. A federal judge backed the state law as constitutional, however, and the Second Circuit affirmed, bringing them to the Supreme Court's doors.
In the opening brief, the gun owners and their advocates argue that confining Second Amendment rights to the home “would defy both its text and common sense.”
“Those words would serve no purpose at all, which would violate the cardinal principle of constitutional interpretation,” the group wrote in their opening brief. “Their purpose and meaning is clear; the reference to bearing arms secures the pre-existing, fundamental right to ‘carry weapons in case of confrontation.’”
Asserting that New York’s law is “wholly antithetical” to Second Amendment rights, the challengers averred that “any faithful reading of text, history, tradition, and precedent forecloses New York’s attempt to prohibit petitioners from carrying handguns for self-defense just because the state is not convinced that they really need to exercise that fundamental right."
New York Attorney General Letitia James has shot back, meanwhile, that the Second Amendment, like all constitutional rights, is not unlimited.
“The scope of the Second Amendment right to bear arms thus cannot be deduced from the proposition, not disputed here, that it entails an individual right to carry arms for self-defense beyond the home,” James wrote in her brief. “History and tradition play a crucial role in defining the scope of that right. And they conclusively confirm the validity of New York’s handgun-licensing law.”
James argues there have always been restrictions on where guns were allowed to be carried particularly in populated areas. She points out that even early Americans were restricted by local officials who could imprison anyone who carried firearms.
“It does not follow," the state's brief continues, "that early Americans had an unfettered right to carry firearms in virtually any public place on the speculation that a confrontation might occur at a moment’s notice. … Anecdotes about founding fathers carrying guns and supporting ‘the right to do so’ cannot overcome these clear historical limitations.”
The case has garnered loads of attention from Second Amendment advocates and anti-gun groups alike with both sides together filing almost 90 amicus briefs before the court. The enhanced interest from everyone from the NRA to the March For Our Lives Action Fund underscores the implications the court’s decision could have.
Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, said in a phone call that the decision from the court could jeopardize the gun laws of many other states, not just New York.
“A really important principle in this case that we hope the court will reaffirm is that that choice really should be up to the elected representatives to decide whether they believe that protecting their constituents and the people who live in their jurisdiction is advanced by more guns in public or fewer guns in public,” Tirschwell said.