Trump Administration, Other Pro-Gun Heavyweights Lend Support on Pending Supreme Court Case

[Elderberry]

NRA-ILA May 17, 2019

As NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox reported in March, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a challenge by an NRA state affiliate to a New York City gun control scheme that effectively prohibits lawfully licensed handgun owners from leaving the city with their own firearms. The plaintiffs in the case have raised a number of objections to the regime, the foremost of which is that it violates the Second Amendment. The case is New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. New York City.

Given the uniquely oppressive and bizarre nature of the challenged restrictions, many observers believe the real question in the case isn’t whether New York City will lose but on what grounds and how badly. The City itself, in fact, recently made a desperate attempt to avoid a ruling on its laws by claiming to the court that it was in the process of revising the regulations to address the issues raised in the case. The court rejected that gambit, and proceedings in the case have continued, with a number of stakeholders filing friend of the court (amicus curiae) briefs this week to help inform the justices’ deliberations.

Chief among them was none other than the Trump administration, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) filing a brief in support of the plaintiffs. The DOJ offered two possible bases for finding New York City’s regulations unconstitutional, including that the “transport ban infringes the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.”

The government’s brief offers the most detailed account to date of how the Trump administration views the Second Amendment. Critically, it makes clear that the Second Amendment does not end at the property line of one’s own home.

“The Second Amendment guarantees both the right to ‘keep’ and the right to ‘bear’ firearms,” the brief states. “Read naturally, the right to ‘bear’ firearms includes the right to transport firearms outside the home; otherwise, the right to ‘bear’ would add nothing to the right to ‘keep.’”

The administration also seeks to establish a method for resolving future cases that is faithful to the Supreme Court’s opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which has been largely ignored by lower courts. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision being challenged in the New York City case, like many other lower court Second Amendment decisions before it, used a judicial balancing test that Heller specifically rejected to uphold the disputed gun control measures.

More: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190517/trump-administration-other-pro-gun-heavyweights-lend-support-on-pending-supreme-court-case

[Elderberry]

U.S. Justice Department Submits Brief in Support of Second Amendment

 Ammoland Inc. Posted on May 21, 2019 by Dean Weingarten   

https://www.ammoland.com/2019/05/u-s-justice-department-submits-brief-in-support-of-second-amendment/

The United States Department of Justice has submitted an Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) brief on the New York Rifle and Pistol Club case. The Supreme Court has agreed to decide the case. It will likely be hearing oral arguments on the case in October of 2019.

The brief, submitted by Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco, concludes the Supreme Court should reverse the appeals court ruling and hold the New York City law to be unconstitutional.

The brief argues the New York law violates both the right to bear arms outside the home and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The brief does not address the right to carry firearms outside the home for purposes of defense of self, others, and the community, which is an obvious part of bearing arms. The argument submitted is well stated in the summary of the brief.

More at link.

Here is the summary of the amicus curiae brief submitted by the United States Justice Department. From supremecourt.gov:https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-280/99744/20190514172549610_18-280tsacUnitedStates.pdf