SCOTUS has the chance to clarify rights

The opening brief now has been filed in what could be a landmark Supreme Court decision on Second Amendment rights.

The justices will hear the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett during their October term. The question to be decided is whether New York’s denial of applications for concealed-carry licenses for selfdefense violated the Second Amendment.

Thirteen years after the Supreme Court established, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to “keep and bear arms” meant individuals have the right to possess a handgun in their homes, the New York case could establish that it also means individuals have the right to carry a weapon outside the home for self-defense.

Two individuals who are petitioners in this case, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, passed all required background checks and met all qualifications required by New York to have a license to carry, but under state law, special permission is required for an “unrestricted” license that allows a gun owner to carry a weapon for self-defense. New York requires “proper cause,” defined as a special need for self-defense that distinguishes the applicant from the general public.

According to a brief filed by public defense organizations including Black Attorneys of Legal Aid and The Bronx Defenders, New York’s law in practice has meant the criminalization of racial minorities in particular for exercising their constitutional rights.

“Each year we represent hundreds of indigent people whom New York criminally charges for exercising their right to keep and bear arm,” they write. “For our clients, New York’s licensing requirement renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction. Worse, virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment rights are Black and Hispanic.”

This case has implications for every state. Many laws excessively burdening the rights of gun owners are still on the books because until the Heller decision, the Supreme Court had never stated clearly that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s rights, unrelated to service in any militia. That left room for lower courts to allow restrictive laws to stand.

Justice Clarence Thomas repeatedly has called out his colleagues for giving Second Amendment rights second-class status and refusing to hear cases in which lower courts essentially ignored the ruling in Heller. The court agreed to hear this case after Justice Amy Coney Barrett succeeded Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In an amicus brief submitted by the California Gun Rights Foundation, the group calls on the Supreme Court to issue a ruling that provides clear guidance and puts a stop to the “freewheeling and deferential balancing used in lower courts to dilute Second Amendment rights.”

We hope the Supreme Court rejects New York’s unreasonable law and makes clear that constitutional rights, all of them, are enforceable limits on the power of government. People should not be criminalized nor demonized for merely exercising their constitutional rights. Period.