The Supreme Court Is Too Gun-Shy on the Second Amendment

By Ilya Shapiro, Matthew Larosiere Ilya Shapiro, Matthew Larosiere

Sometimes whether the Supreme Court decides a case is as
important as what it decides. A case in point is the right to keep
and bear arms. The justices decided that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right in District of Columbia v.
Heller (2008) and that states as well as the federal
government may not infringe it in McDonald v. Chicago
(2010). But it hasn’t agreed to hear a single case since to
define the scope of the right.

The court is supposed to give priority to “circuit
splits” among the lower courts, along with the emergence of
unresolved constitutional questions, when deciding whether to hear
cases. Yet the complete judicial disaccord on gun rights in the
decade since Heller has met with a deafening silence from
the justices. The federal circuits can’t even agree on how to
evaluate Second Amendment challenges, let alone what the result
should be.

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found AR-15s—one
of the most popular rifles in America—to be wholly without
constitutional protection. The Ninth Circuit held that the Second
Amendment “does not include, in any degree, the right …
to carry concealed firearms,” even when a state also bans
open carry. Earlier, the Seventh Circuit had held that “a
right to keep and bear arms for personal self-defense … could
not …Read the Rest

Source:: Cato Institute