NYC firearms transport case gets SCOTUS cert

[WARFAB]

So they hear the case today, but what's the expected timeline to get a decision?

I think the decision is likely to be announced around June?

Everyone is going to be trying to figure out what the justices are thinking based on their comments and questions today.

Anyone know if RBG is going to be there for today's oral arguments?

[WARFAB]

[thughes]

Consider the source, but: I just saw a NY Times article reporting on the proceedings today, looks like SCOTUS may decide the case is moot based upon all the 11th hour law changes that NYC made.....

[Norm DeGuerre]

yep, dodge the real issue
don't ever expect "justice" from SCROTUS

[WARFAB]

Consider the source, but: I just saw a NY Times article reporting on the proceedings today, looks like SCOTUS may decide the case is moot based upon all the 11th hour law changes that NYC made.....

Consider the source.

Based on the different reviews and summaries of oral arguments that I've been reading, I'm not sure that they'll decide the case is moot. As far as I can tell, conditions haven't changed any since the court denied the NYC argument for dismissal. So to go through all this pomp and circumstance just to render it moot after oral arguments seems like a dumb move from a court that puts a high value on its time. Roberts pointed out that the plaintiffs' case could be amended for monetary damages, and that would mean that case is still alive.

Some of the information I've been getting from Twitter sources seems more optimistic, but nothing I'm reading is giving me the impression this is going to lead to a big "strict scrutiny" ruling. I don't follow these things on a regular basis, so I'm not sure how many times the court makes a ruling that isn't more or less aligned with what is being argued. In this case, it seems that most of the arguments were about mootness, and the plaintiffs weren't necessarily making a strict scrutiny argument. Sounds like a better argument could have been made by the 2A side, but time will tell.

I'm not really sure what to make of it. It seems like the SCOTUS would be more than a little concerned about legislatures being able to ignore their decisions and pass whatever law they want just to nullify it quick before it reaches the highest court in the land. But they only get to judge the cases before them so who knows.

[Norm DeGuerre]

https://www.law.com/nationallawjourn...20191103223833

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito Jr. on Monday appeared to strive
to save the U.S. Supreme Court’s first major gun-rights case in nearly a
decade from disappearing without a ruling on the scope of the Second
Amendment.

Groups supporting broad firearm rights, critical of how lower courts
have applied the Second Amendment, have urged the court to use the case
to announce a tough standard or test that governments must meet in order
for regulations to be upheld as constitutional.

Alito and Gorsuch dominated questioning of New York City Law
Department’s chief of appeals Richard Dearing, who argued there no
longer was a live controversy for the justices to resolve in the case
/New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York/. Before
the case was argued, New York scrapped its rule that set restrictions on
the transport of firearms outside the city limits.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan pushed
back at comments by Alito and Gorsuch that suggested the court could
still issue a ruling on the New York regulations.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh did not ask any questions
during the arguments. Kavanaugh’s silence was somewhat surprising given
his strong dissenting opinion in a 2011 Second Amendment case when he
sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In that ruling,
Kavanaugh wrote a *_lengthy dissent_
<https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/intern...36-1333156.pdf>*
explaining why he would strike down the District of Columbia’s firearm
registration requirement and ban on semi-automatic rifles.

The mootness issue surrounding the case arose after the justices agreed
to review the New York case. The defunct restrictions limited the
transport of guns—unloaded and locked in a container—from the home to
any of seven designated shooting ranges inside the city. License holders
could not transport their guns to shooting ranges or second homes
outside of the city. *[Clauses intended to protect the in-city
businesses and thereby increase city tax revenue.]*

After the city eliminated those restrictions, the New York General
Assembly, amending state law, said premises-license holders could
transport their handguns to any location where they are lawfully
authorized to have and possess such a weapon.

During arguments Monday, Gorsuch called *the city’s amended ordinance
“herculean, late-breaking efforts to moot* the case.” Alito described it
as a “quite extraordinary step” to attempt to moot the challenge.

But Ginsburg, questioning Kirkland & Ellis partner Paul Clement, *_lead
counsel_
<https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...18%20FINAL.pdf>*
for the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, said the new state
law blocks whatever the city attempted to do. “What’s left of this
case?” she asked. “Petitioners have gotten all that they sought.”

Whether the challengers received all they asked for in their lawsuit was
at the heart of the mootness arguments. Clement contended that if they
had prevailed in the lower courts, they would have sought an injunction
protecting against any future prosecutions for violations of the old law
and other collateral consequences of that law.

Clement and Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall also argued that the
challengers still might be able to ask for damages for economic losses
flowing from the defunct regulation. *But Dearing drew support from
Ginsburg when he countered that the high court had never used a late
damages request to save a case from mootness.*

The challengers also contend the city’s old law violates the Second
Amendment, the commerce clause and the right to travel. The U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a district court ruling in
favor of the city on all counts.

On the merits of the constitutional challenge to the defunct city
restrictions, Clement and Wall urged the high court to adopt “text,
history and tradition” as the constitutional test for gun regulations.

Clement said the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not
strictly limited to the premises.

Wall argued the justices’ landmark Second Amendment *_ruling_
<https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf>* in
2008—/District of Columbia v. Heller/—said to start the constitutional
analysis with text, history and tradition. History answers the question
about the city’s restrictions because, he claimed, “There is no
historical analog” for those restrictions.

But Sotomayor called that test a “made-up new standard.” Heller, she
added, was very careful to say: “We treat [the Second Amendment] as any
other constitutional provision.”

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. on Monday asked few questions during
arguments in the New York case and he gave no indication of where he
might stand on the mootness and merits issues.

More than 40 amicus briefs have been filed by a broad range of gun
rights groups, civil rights groups, victims of gun violence and others.
Major U.S. law firms, representing various friend-of-the-court parties,
were largely supportive of New York’s regulatory scheme for firearms.

Wall argued for the Justice Department likely because Noel Francisco,
the U.S. solicitor general, had recused. His former law firm, Jones Day,
*_filed a brief_
<https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...w%20Center.pdf>*
on behalf of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

[blackpowdershooter30]

Here is my only issue with the moot point deal. What is to stop the city from enacting the ban after it gets thrown out and then we have to go threw it all over again only to have them change the law once again. I'm getting very sick of this tyrannical way of government and running to another state isn't going to change the problem. Look at Virginia for Christ sake. All Democrat led and now counties are sandbagging their borders with 2nd amendment sanctuaries.

[camper4lyfe]

Here is my only issue with the moot point deal. What is to stop the city from enacting the ban after it gets thrown out and then we have to go threw it all over again only to have them change the law once again. I'm getting very sick of this tyrannical way of government and running to another state isn't going to change the problem. Look at Virginia for Christ sake. All Democrat led and now counties are sandbagging their borders with 2nd amendment sanctuaries.

That's my biggest issue, too, and what the city was hoping would happen.

[WARFAB]

Here is my only issue with the moot point deal. What is to stop the city from enacting the ban after it gets thrown out and then we have to go threw it all over again only to have them change the law once again. I'm getting very sick of this tyrannical way of government and running to another state isn't going to change the problem. Look at Virginia for Christ sake. All Democrat led and now counties are sandbagging their borders with 2nd amendment sanctuaries.

On the flip side, what's to keep them from finding another way to enact a similar travel ban under a slightly different premise if SCOTUS doesn't declare the case moot? In reality, that has been the name of the game for 2A cases. As soon as a ruling strikes down one way of limiting the RTKBA, the jurisdictons that are so inclined just come up with another way to restrict things. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[blackpowdershooter30]

I don't know a good solution to this problem. Well I do but we can't talk like that here lol

[Norm DeGuerre]

here is an image for you, Chas ) sic semper.jfif sic semper.jfif sic semper.jfif

[blackpowdershooter30]

I'm gonna get one of these

[WARFAB]

Well this sucks.

Moot.

[Norm DeGuerre]

SCROTUS is not your friend

[Norm DeGuerre]

Justice Samuel Alito Jr., joined by justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissented. They argued that the case was not moot. Alito, in his 31-page dissent, accused New York of manipulating the court’s docket by changing the firearm transport rule after the Supreme Court had granted review.

“One might have thought that the City, having convinced the lower courts that its law was consistent with [District of Columbia v. ] Heller, would have been willing to defend its victory in this Court,” wrote Alito. “But once we granted certiorari, both the City and the State of New York sprang into action to prevent us from deciding this case.” Heller was the 2008 landmark decision establishing an individual right to possess a gun.

The case, Alito said, was not moot because the city’s amended rule and a new state law did not give the challengers all of the prospective relief that they sought.

“We are told that the mode of review in this case is representative of the way Heller has been treated in the lower courts,” Alito wrote. “If that is true, there is cause for concern.” Alito, in his analysis of the Second Amendment claim, concluded that the city’s rule did violate the Second Amendment. “This is not a close question,” he wrote.

In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the majority that the case was no longer a live controversy, but he wrote that he also agreed with Alito’s general analysis of the justices’ 5-4 landmark Second amendment decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago..

“And I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald,” Kavanaugh said. “The court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the court.”

New York City Corporation Counsel James E. Johnson said in a statement Monday:

“Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. the City of New York is just right. The Court properly recognized that the only claims the petitioners ever brought no longer present a live case, because the challenged City rule no longer exists. The question is, in a word, moot. The Court’s resolution was supported by plain common sense, the facts, and the law. We are pleased with the Court’s decision.”

The Supreme Court has other pending firearms cases on its docket. The cases include challenges to Massachusetts restrictions on certain semi-automatic firearms.

The high court recently turned away two gun-related petitions: Remington Arms’s appeal of a Connecticut Supreme Court decision allowing a suit stemming from the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting to go forward and an appeal of a circuit court ruling blocking a suit against Armslist, the online marketplace for firearms.

At the core of nearly all challenges by gun rights groups is the goal to have the Supreme Court announce a tough constitutional standard or test that governments must meet in order for firearm regulations to pass constitutional muster.

The case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York appeared to be in serious trouble during December arguments.

The city claimed the challenge was moot because the city last summer scrapped the ordinance that restricted the transport of firearms outside the city limits. The mootness question in the case arose after the justices agreed to review the case.

In the arguments, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan repeatedly pushed back at comments by Alito and Gorsuch that suggested the court could still issue a ruling on the defunct regulations.

The city’s restrictions limited the transport of guns—unloaded and locked in a container—from the home to any of seven designated shooting ranges inside the city. License holders could not transport their guns to shooting ranges or second homes outside of the city. After the city eliminated those restrictions, the New York General Assembly, amending state law, said premises-license holders could transport their handguns to any location where they are lawfully authorized to have and possess such a weapon.

On the merits, the gun association, represented by Kirkland & Ellis partner Paul Clement, had charged that the city’s restrictions violated the Second Amendment, the commerce clause and the right to travel. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had affirmed a district court decision in the city’s favor on all counts.

Clement and Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall argued that the constitutional test should be whether the restriction comports with the Second Amendment’s text, history and tradition. But the city’s chief of appeals Richard Dearing endorsed the Second Circuit’s approach of applying intermediate scrutiny—testing whether the regulation serves an important government objective and is substantially related to achieving that objective.

[Norm DeGuerre]

follow the blue lynx !!