The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear its first gun rights case in almost a decade. The justices will decide whether a New York City…
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear its first gun rights case in almost a decade.
The justices will decide whether a New York City ordinance which strictly regulates the possession and transportation of handguns outside the home is constitutional.
Tuesday’s grant marks the first time that the Supreme Court has engaged with the Second Amendment since it issued a pair of landmark decisions in 2008 and 2010 which affirmed the constitutional right to keep guns in the home for self-defense.
Since those two decisions, however, the federal courts have upheld a range of gun control measures against constitutional challenges, to the consternation of Second Amendment activists. The high court’s continued silence on gun rights in view of those rulings baffled many observers and periodically drew fierce dissents from the conservative justices.
“For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a June 2017 opinion.
