Supreme Court says Second Amendment guarantees right to carry guns in public

State Attorney General Suggests Considering Applicants' Ideological Viewpoints in Denying Carry Licenses
The California AG endorses denying licenses based on the applicant's "hatred" or "racism."

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/2...logical-viewpoints-in-denying-carry-licenses/

excerpt:

But the AG's office concludes that the existing statutory requirement "that a public-carry license applicant provide proof of 'good moral character' remains constitutional," and that this requirement isn't limited to disqualifying felons, certain violent misdemeanants, and the like. And in particular the AG's office suggests that people who hold certain ideological viewpoints should be disqualified:

Existing public-carry policies of local law enforcement agencies across the state provide helpful examples of how to apply the "good moral character" requirement. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, for example, currently identifies several potential reasons why a public-carry license may be denied (or revoked), which include "[a]ny arrest in the last 5 years, regardless of the disposition" or "[a]ny conviction in the last 7 years." It is reasonable to consider such factors in evaluating an applicant's proof of the requisite moral character to safely carry firearms in public. See, e.g., Bruen (referencing "law-abidingcitizens").

Other jurisdictions list the personal characteristics one reasonably expects of candidates for a public-carry license who do not pose a danger to themselves or others. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department's policy, for example, currently provides as follows: "Legal judgments of good moral character can include consideration of honesty, trustworthiness, diligence, reliability, respect for the law, integrity, candor, discretion, observance of fiduciary duty, respect for the rights of others, absence of hatred and racism, fiscal stability, profession-specific criteria such as pledging to honor the constitution and uphold the law, and the absence of criminal conviction." [Emphasis added.]​

As to how law enforcement is to figure out such matters, the AG's office has some advice: Among other things,

As a starting point for purposes of investigating an applicant's moral character, many issuing authorities require personal references and/or reference letters. Investigators may personally interview applicants and use the opportunity to gain further insight into the applicant's character. And they may search publicly-available information, including social media accounts, in assessing the applicant's character. [Emphasis added.]​

This strikes me as clearly unconstitutional under the First Amendment, even apart from the Second Amendment. The government can't restrict ordinary citizens' actions—much less their constitutionally protected actions—based on the viewpoints that they express. People can't be denied benefits because they

1. endorse "hatred" (a potentially extraordinarily broad and vague term) and "racism" (a term that, especially in much recent usage, is likewise highly broad and vague), or
2. because they endorse certain extremist views of Islam (or any other religion), or
3. because they endorse violent Communist revolution or
4. are strongly anti-police or
5. anti-government or
6. anti-abortion or
7. pro-abortion-rights or
8. environmentalist or
9. pro-animal-rights.

Nor does it matter that some extreme adherents of the relevant ideology engage in violence (something that's true for many ideologies), or that there are strands in the ideology that overtly support violence under some circumstances (again, something that's true for many ideologies). Just as the Free Exercise Clause would bar the government from engaging in religious discrimination in deciding which citizens can do certain things, so the Free Speech Clause bars the government from engaging in viewpoint discrimination. (The rules related to religious discrimination and viewpoint discrimination may be different when the government is acting as employer, but here we're talking about the government controlling the behavior of ordinary citizens.)

And of course it's easy to see how, if California were allowed to deny concealed carry licenses to whoever California law enforcement officials believe is "racis[t]" or endorses "hatred," then some other state could deny such licenses—or lots of other kinds of licenses—to whoever its law enforcement officials believe is anti-government or anti-police or a Muslim extremist or what have you. Indeed, now that some states can ban abortion, presumably strong support of abortion rights might be seen in many states as lack of "good character" (since in those states' views, it would be support for mass murder). The First Amendment doesn't allow this.
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more at the link

 

It's amazing to me how people in 2022 still follow the words from some random dudes in the 1700s.

 

N.J. Attorney General Acknowledges N.J. Must Now Go "Shall-Issue" on Concealed Carry Permits

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/2...now-go-shall-issue-on-concealed-cary-permits/

 

Yeah if to go off the doctrine then why arm the populace with machine guns, rocket launchers etc. It is after all their right after all according to their logic.

 

a line in the NYSRPA decision that pretty much goes agains the strict "for the militia only" interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Hadn't caught this the first time around.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/06/thomass-moment.php

excerpt:

Second, Thomas invoked the infamous Dred Scott case in both Bruen and Dobbs, with strikingly good effect both times. The left is freaking out, attacking Thomas for supposedly citing Dred Scott approvingly, when he does no such thing. But we know reading comprehension is not a strong suit of leftists.

Here’s the passage in Bruen:

Even before the Civil War commenced in 1861, this Court indirectly affirmed the importance of the right to keep and bear arms in public. Writing for the Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), Chief Justice Taney offered what he thought was a parade of horribles that would result from recognizing that free blacks were citizens of the United States. If blacks were citizens, Taney fretted, they would be entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, including the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Id., at 417 (emphasis added). Thus, even Chief Justice Taney recognized (albeit unenthusiastically in the case of blacks) that public carry was a component of the right to keep and bear arms—a right free blacks were often denied in antebellum America. ​

From here Thomas goes on for a short recitation of the strenuous efforts of the Jim Crow South to deprive blacks of weapons to defend themselves. He politely doesn’t mention that it was the Democratic Party behind this disenfranchisement, but the subject is pretty clear.
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more at the link

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also some early analyses of the NYSRPA decision starting to land, this one from Josh Blackman:

Bruen's Originalist Analogical Reasoning Applies A Presumption of Liberty
A new framework for originalist judging.

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/2...l-reasoning-applies-a-presumption-of-liberty/

excerpt:

Justice Thomas's majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruenmay be the most important originalist opinion of all time. Its significance surpasses Heller, Crawford, and any other decision that came before it. Rather than trying to cram originalism into pre-existing standards--such as the tiers of scrutiny or a two-step test--Thomas starts from first principles. He employs originalist analogical reasoning. The Court instructs lower courts to determine the validity of a modern-day gun restriction by considering analogous restrictions in the past. But this mode of reasoning is weighted against the government, and follows a presumption of liberty. The state has the burden to justify that its restriction has historical analogues. And more importantly, the government cannot rely on sparse or attenuated historical analogues to meet its burden. Even if the evidence is at equipoise, the tie goes to freedom.

The majority opinion in Bruen methodically walks through this framework, illustrating how to apply it in different contexts.

***
Under the approach in Bruen, courts are required to use tight analogical reasoning between a modern restriction and history, and if there is any doubt, the tie goes to freedom.

Still, there is a single paragraph in Justice Thomas's majority opinion that could undermine--even ruin--Bruen:

While the historical analogies here and in Heller are relatively simple to draw, other cases implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes may require a more nuanced approach. The regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the Reconstruction generation in 1868. Fortunately, the Founders created a Constitution—and a Second Amendment—"intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). Although its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it, the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated.​

It will be very easy for the Ninth Circuit to deem mass shootings an "unprecedented societal concerns" or designate so-called assault weapons as the byproducts of "dramatic technological change." These two categories, buttressed by the original Heller discussion of "sensitive places" and "dangerous and unusual weapons," will provide judges with an escape hatch from analogical reasoning. Plus, combined with the limitations from Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence--much more on that concurrence later--the Ninth Circuit will have everything it needs to keep business as usual. If I had to guess, Justice Kavanaugh proposed this paragraph. If ever the price of the fifth vote, as the saying goes.
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more at the link

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Yeah a "good moral character" requirement should always ring alarm bells of an arbitrary and capricious system.

I'm not sure poor folk need more guns in their lives, but if they have no choice to defend themselves in that environment, then a law behind securing one seems pointlessly restrictive

 

Restoring the Founders’ right to bear arms

https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/restoring-the-founders-right-to-bear-arms/

 

The 2A is being screwed over in meaning by this biased Kangaroo court.

It was meant to arm a state militia to protect us from enemies both foreign and domestic.....and it was to be WELL REGULATED.......

The NRA has bastardized people's thinking.

DD

 

nope

 

poor folks working odd hours in bad parts of town they also live in probably need self defense more than people who have purchased safer housing and work in better areas.

seems logical to me anyway

 

I’m a New York City Liberal, and I Want a Gun

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/opinion/supreme-court-guns-new-york.html

excerpt:

By Laura E. Adkins
Ms. Adkins is the opinion editor of the Forward.

I lived in New York for a decade without fearing for my personal safety. But in recent months, I have been terrified. In May, I filed for and received a temporary order of protection against a former partner.

More than five million American women alive today have reported being threatened with a gun, shot or shot at by an intimate partner, and more than half of the perpetrators of mass shootings in the past decade shot a family member, intimate partner or former intimate partner as part of their rampage. Every month, 70 women on average are shot and killed by an intimate partner. But states like mine make it legally cumbersome to defend yourself with a legally purchased handgun.

If my life is ever in danger, I want to be able to protect myself with a gun. And now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, I am one step closer to carrying one.
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more at the link

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The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’ - POLITICO

...

But to appreciate how the founding generation thought about firearm regulation, we can look at what they did, and not just what they said. James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, twice introduced state legislation in Virginia that would impose penalties on any individual who “bears a gun out of his inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty.”

You read that right. The author of the Second Amendment drafted statewide legislation that was effectively a forerunner to the New York state law that the Supreme Court just struck down. The bill, which was really aimed at regulating deer hunting, did not pass. But it clearly demonstrated that Madison viewed individual gun ownership as well within the state’s regulatory prerogative.

In the Early Republic, local and state authorities frequently confiscated guns from persons they deemed a menace to public safety, or simply disloyal. Pennsylvania denied any individual who “refuse[d] or neglect[ed] to take the oath or affirmation” of allegiance to the commonwealth the right to keep firearms in his “house or elsewhere.” Massachusetts imposed the same restriction on “such Persons as are notoriously disaffected to the Cause of America, or who refuse to associate to defend by Arms the United States Colonies.” Otherwise put: no loyalty, no militia service; no militia service, no gun.

States in the Early Republic commonly regulated the concealed carry of guns. In Ohio, “whoever shall carry a weapon or weapons, concealed on or about his person, such as a pistol, bowie knife, dirk, or any other dangerous weapon, shall be deemed guilty.”

They also commonly regulated gunpowder, as well, limiting the amount of ammunition an individual could keep and store at one time. Why? Because it was dangerous. Whole towns could catch fire and burn to the ground. The logic of originalism would suggest that states therefore have a right to regulate magazine sizes.

By originalism’s own, tenuous standards, the right of states to constrict individual gun ownership is as American as apple pie. But the Fourteenth Amendment poses its own challenges.

...
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not a good response

 

the list of what's in this law is unbelievable

What does the New York Conceal Carry Law Require?
A lot.

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/07/01/what-does-the-new-york-conceal-carry-law-require/

 

New York Passes Additional Gun Laws Certain to Trigger New Constitutional Challenges
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/07/...ain-to-trigger-new-constitutional-challenges/

excerpt:

The Concealed Carry Improvement Act passed 43-20 and has some elements likely to pass constitutional muster like barring concealed weapons from certain sensitive places and taking a gun safety course. However, other elements are more questionable.

Even the limits on sensitive places are likely to be challenged. After Bruen was handed down recognizing that some sensitive places could be constitutionally permissible, Hochul went on television to say in a mocking tone that they would just come up with a long list of sensitive places. At the time I remarked that it was a rather foolish since that clip will be cited by challengers to show a clear attempt to undermine the ruling with yet another transparent loophole argument.

The list would seem to cover most areas outside of the home, including government buildings; any location providing health, behavioral health or chemical dependence care or services; any place of worship or religious observation; libraries; public playgrounds; public parks; zoos; the location of any state funded or licensed programs; educational institutions both in elementary and higher education; any vehicle used for public transportation; all public transit including airports and bus terminals; bars and restaurants; entertainment, gaming and sporting events and venues; polling places; any public sidewalk or public area restricted for a special event; and protests or rallies.

It is hard not to see that listing as an obvious effort to do precisely what Hochul said: to recreate the ban by including virtually every location as a “sensitive area.” Indeed, the Court stressed that few locations historically met such a definition:

“Although the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century ‘sensitive places’ where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions. … We therefore can assume it settled that these locations were ‘sensitive places’ where arms carrying could be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of ‘sensitive places’ to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.”

One of the most questionable elements is the requirement that gun owners show “good moral character.” That obviously raises comparisons to the invalid Sullivan Act of 1911, giving local officials discretion over who can carry concealed guns based on a showing of “proper cause.” The Court rejected the notion that citizens must prove their need to use an individual right as opposed to the government shouldering the countervailing burden:

“We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.

New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.”

Under the New York law, applicants must undergo “enhanced screening” with in-person interviews and submit to reviews of their social media, including required access to social media. That provision seems ripe for challenge on a host of grounds, including the denial of free speech and associations rights.

The law seems another overreach by the state. As I noted earlier, New York has thus far been about as effective in curtailing gun rights as Monty Python’s “Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad” was effective in combating Roman occupation.
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more at the link