Gunning for N.Y.

The Supreme Court Monday heard a case Second Amendment absolutists are hoping might convince the conservative majority to crack open and strike down sensible gun-safety restrictions in cities and states across America, declaring some core constitutional right to carry a weapon.

Fortunately, a reading of tea leaves from oral arguments suggests that radical interpretation will not carry the day, largely because the city and state already discarded the regulations in question.

The restrictions were, we admit, puzzling on their face: New York City banned people with a home or business gun license — one of seven different permits the NYPD issues — from carrying those guns to second homes or ranges outside the five boroughs. They could only take them to and from ranges within the city limits.

Weird, but rightly deemed constitutional by lower courts, for the same reason that the permit only allows such guns to be transported when they’re unloaded and locked up. New York had sanely decided that it wanted to curb private citizens’ ability to move firearms meant for home or business use around the dense metropolis, due to hard-won lessons that a city awash in deadly weapons is a more dangerous one.

Then the state and city, fearing ideologues on the court might seize the opportunity to launch a broad assault on a battery of gun restrictions, in July got rid of the rules to try to render the case moot.

Since the rules in question are gone, baby, gone, the city should win in a walk on mootness grounds. But if it ever gets to the merits, New York should win there, too. The rules were constitutional.