Gun-control advocates concerned about courts
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, including a ban on the type of highcapacity ammunition magazines used in some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings.
How long those types of laws will stand is a growing concern among gun control advocates in California and elsewhere.
A federal judiciary that is becoming increasingly conservative under President Trump and the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate has gun control advocates on edge. They worry that federal courts, especially if Trump wins a second term next year and Republicans hold the Senate, will take such an expansive view of Second Amendment rights that they might overturn strict gun control laws enacted in Democratic-leaning states.
The U.S. Supreme Court so far has left plenty of room for states to enact their own gun legislation, said Adam Winkler, a gun policy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. But he said the success of the Trump administration in appointing federal judges, including to the high court, could alter that.
“Those judges are likely to be hostile to gun-control measures,” Winkler said. “So I think the courts overall have made a shift to the right on guns. We’ll just have to see how that plays out.”
Trump has the opportunity to fill a higher percentage of federal court vacancies than any president at this point in his first term since George H.W. Bush nearly three decades ago.
Gun-rights supporters are excited by the changes brought by Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate. The upcoming Supreme Court session “could be a real gamechanger” said Chuck Michel, an attorney who represents both the National Rifle Association and the affiliated California Rifle & Pistol Association.
“To the extent that the composition of the court has changed and that it will give the Second Amendment back its teeth, it’s very important,” Michel said. “It looks like there’s enough votes on the court right now to reset the standard.”