What’s Really at Stake in the Supreme Court’s New Gun Case

By Matthew Larosiere Matthew Larosiere

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear N.Y. State Rifle &
Pistol Assn’ v. The City of New York (N.Y. Rifle & Pistol) in
late January, it broke a decade-long reticence on the Second
Amendment. The case, a challenge to a New York City law restricting
the transportation of handguns, isn’t the minor issue it may seem
at first glance. Indeed, N.Y. Rifle & Pistol is much more than
a case about a dumb city law—it will set the future of how
all Second Amendment cases are decided in this country.

N.Y. Rifle & Pistol concerns an utterly bizarre city law
that effectively bans pistol permit holders from transporting their
firearms outside of New York City (the irony of which seems to be
lost on the eminently anti-gun municipality, one would think they
would want as many guns to leave the city as possible). Still, this
absurdity offers an opportunity: The case gives the Court a chance
to set Second Amendment law straight after the lower courts have
spent the last decade running roughshod over the amendment.

In a nation where college
speech codes are (rightly) run through a fine tooth comb for First
Amendment violations, it seems anomalous that outright bans on
certain firearms are given the rubber stamp when brushed against
the explicit protections of the Second …Read the Rest

Source:: Cato Institute