Ian Patrick, FISM News
Gun rights will take the Supreme Court stage after ten years, as the justices will once again determine the scope that the government can play in regard to an individual’s second amendment rights. This will assuredly heat up tensions between the pro- and anti-gun right camps.
The New York based case that will be heard, known as New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett, is set to answer “whether the State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”
According to the Supreme Court analysis website SCOTUSblog, this case “sets the stage for a major ruling on gun rights in the court’s 2021-22 term.”
BREAKING: The Supreme Court agrees to take up a major gun rights case. In NY State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Corlett, the justices will consider the extent to which the Second Amendment protects the right to carry guns outside the home for self-defense. pic.twitter.com/0uGurWn46r
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) April 26, 2021
The case centers around two men who were denied certification for carrying a handgun outside of their home without “proper cause,” as is required by New York State law. The plaintiffs in their writ of certiorari to SCOTUS mentioned that the appeals court took part in a “New York regime” to deny law-abiding citizens their right to carry a firearm.
This circuit split is open and acknowledged, and it is squarely presented by this petition, in which the Second Circuit affirmed the constitutionality of a New York regime that prohibits law-abiding individuals from carrying a handgun unless they first demonstrate some form of “proper cause” that distinguishes them from the body of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment. The time has come for this Court to resolve this critical constitutional impasse and reaffirm the citizens’ fundamental right to carry a handgun for self-defense.
The writ makes multiple mentions to District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. Each of these rulings dealt with the right of an individual to possess a handgun where there were laws that limited or prohibited such possession, even in a person’s own home. In each case, the Supreme Court sided with the gun owners by acknowledging the power that the Second Amendment holds over both federal and state governments, ultimately determining laws that banned handguns or limited its use within a household violated that right.
The writ for this current case posits that the one question these previous two cases did not address is “the individual right to bear arms for self-defense where confrontations often occur: outside the home.”