New York Just Won’t Give Up Trying To Get SCOTUS To Dismiss Gun Rights Case
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 5 months ago
Earlier this month, New York City sent a letter to Scott Harris, the clerk of the Supreme Court, to inform the justices that a challenge to the city’s ban on transporting guns outside the city limits is moot – that is, no longer a live controversy. The Supreme Court did not accept the letter, perhaps because the challengers in the case objected. The challengers argued (among other things) that the letter was “premature” because the developments that the city cited as rendering the case moot had not yet gone into effect. With changes to both state and city laws now in place, the city returned to the court today, urging the justices to remove the case from their docket for the upcoming term.
Changes to the city’s rules, the city explained, will allow licensed gun owners to transport their guns to, among other places, second homes and shooting ranges outside New York City. Those rules went into effect on July 21. And on July 16, the city continued, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that changes state laws to allow licensed gun owners to transport their handguns to other places – again, such as second homes, shooting ranges and shooting competitions – where they are legally allowed to have them.
These developments, the city told the court again today, mean that the case is moot. The challengers, the city reasoned, had asked only for the “modest ability to transport their licensed firearms, unloaded and locked away separate from ammunition, to a shooting range or second home outside city limits” – which they now are able to do, the city stressed. The case should therefore be dismissed as moot or, at the very least, be sent back for the lower courts to decide whether it is moot.
I’m not sure I completely understand this. Amy’s publication date for this post is July 22, the same evening I’m writing this.
We’ve already covered the NYC argument to the Supreme Court, as well as the response letter by Paul Clement. Is there yet another letter from NYC to the Supreme Court after Clement’s response, and if so, it doesn’t seem to be linked at Amy’s place?
At any rate, if I interpret this correctly, NYC just won’t give up making stupid arguments. Quite obviously, they’re afraid of what comes next.
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On July 23, 2019 at 11:15 am, Fred said:
“Changes to the city’s rules, the city explained, will allow licensed gun owners to transport their guns to, among other places, second homes and shooting ranges outside New York City.”
I don’t see any outcome, if heard in the Roberts court, that he states and has followed through upon, that all cases will be observed and decided narrowly. I have not seen the arguments of the defense or those filings but if the defense stipulates that ‘licensed gun owners’ can transport their guns then this case is a loser. How is this case then beneficial to Gun Rights? I realize that not hearing the case will embolden NYC as the SCOTUS should refuse to hear this case and strike down that law and reprimand the city, but that will never happen. (And the court should order the Governor to arrest and try those in the city, who have done this, on violation of Civil Rights, pfft, right, that’ll happen.) This is a lawyers dream case, all outcomes mean more laws and more licensing and more litigation. I maintain that this case will not be an incremental win, but again, a loser either way the court decides it.
Show me where I’m wrong.