Second Amendment showdown in high court possible after shootings

Washington — As mass shootings revive the U.S. debate over gun policy, the Supreme Court is weighing whether to go forward with a Second Amendment showdown for the first time in a decade.

The justices in January said they would hear a challenge to New York City rules that sharply limited where licensed handguns could be taken while locked and unloaded. Three city handgun owners said the regulations were the most extreme firearm-transportation restrictions in the country.

But then the city loosened its rules — and said the case should be dismissed because there was nothing left for the court to decide. Gun-rights advocates called the city’s move a transparent effort to avoid a ruling that would bolster the right to bear arms nationwide.

The court could say this month what it will do with the case. It will be acting against the backdrop of gun massacres that killed 31 people last weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio — and ratcheted up the political acrimony in Washington. Congress has passed only incremental gun legislation despite heavy public support for some measures such as universal background checks.

A decision by the Supreme Court to forge ahead with the New York case would mean a ruling next year in the heat of the presidential campaign.

Ironically, a decision to drop the case could open the way to an even bigger ruling in the nine-month term that starts in October. The justices could take up a more sweeping New Jersey case they have been holding while they consider the New York City dispute. The New Jersey case centers on the right to carry a loaded handgun in public — an issue that has divided federal appeals courts.

New Jersey is one of seven states, including California and New York, that bar most people from carrying weapons in public. New Jersey law requires people to show a “justifiable need” to get a carry permit — a standard critics say very few people can meet.

Gun-rights supporters have been pressing the court for years to take up another Second Amendment case. The court hasn’t heard one since it threw out a Chicago handgun ban in 2010, two years after it ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects individual firearm rights. The court could become more receptive to pro-gun arguments with the addition of the newest justice,