WASHINGTON (AP) — A landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment is upending gun laws across the country, dividing the justices and creating confusion over whether restrictions on firearms could remain in place .
The Supreme Court’s ruling, which set new standards for evaluating gun laws, left many questions unanswered, experts say, leading to a growing number of conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to decide how to apply it.
The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts have long used to evaluate challenges to firearms restrictions. Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests, such as improving public safety, the justices said.
Under the Supreme Court’s new test, a government seeking to uphold a gun restriction must look back in history to show that it is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearms regulation.”
In recent months, courts have declared unconstitutional federal laws designed to keep guns away from domestic abusers, felony defendants and people who use marijuana. The justices struck down a federal ban on guns with serial numbers removed and gun restrictions for young adults in Texas and blocked Delaware’s ban on the possession of homemade “ghost guns.”
In several cases, judges reviewing the same laws have taken a position on their constitutionality following the decision of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. The legal turmoil caused by the first major gun ruling in a decade will likely force the Supreme Court to step in soon to provide more guidance to judges.
“There’s confusion and disarray in the lower courts because not only are they not reaching the same conclusions, they’re just applying different methods or applying the Bruen method differently,” said Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University School of Law who handles firearms law. .
“This means that not only are new laws being struck down … but laws that have been in place for more than 60 years, 40 years in some cases, are being struck down – where before Bruen – the courts were unanimous that these are constitutional,” he said.
via the Associated Press
The legal dispute unfolds as mass shootings continue to plague gun country and as U.S. law enforcement agencies work to combat rising violent crime.
This week, six people were shot at multiple locations in a small town in rural Mississippi, and a gunman killed three students and seriously wounded five others at Michigan State University before killing himself.
Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, including in California, where 11 people were killed while celebrating the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans. Last year, there were more than 600 mass shootings in the United States in which at least four people were killed or injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The decision opened the door to a flurry of lawsuits from gun rights activists who saw an opportunity to overturn laws on everything from age restrictions to AR-15-style semi-automatic firearms. For gun rights advocates, the Bruen decision was a welcome development, removing what they see as unconstitutional restrictions on Second Amendment rights.
“It’s a true reading of what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights tell us,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “It gives absolute clarity to the lower courts as to how the constitution should be applied when it comes to our fundamental rights.”
Gun control groups are sounding the alarm after a federal appeals court this month said that under the Supreme Court’s new standards, the government cannot prevent domestic violence victims from imposing restraining orders from possession of weapons.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans recognized that the law “embodies sound policy goals designed to protect the vulnerable in our society.” But the justices concluded that the government had failed to point to a precursor in early American history that was sufficiently comparable to the modern law. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the government will seek further review of that decision.
Gun control activists condemned the Supreme Court’s historic test, but say they remain hopeful that many gun restrictions will survive the challenges. Since the decision, for example, justices have consistently upheld a federal ban on convicted felons owning guns.
via the Associated Press
The Supreme Court noted that cases involving “unprecedented social concerns or dramatic technological change may require a more nuanced approach.” And the justices have made it clear that the right to bear arms is limited to law-abiding citizens, said Shira Feldman, counsel for Brady, a gun control group.
The Supreme Court’s test has raised questions about the suitability of judges to study history and whether it makes sense to judge modern laws based on the regulations — or lack thereof — of the past.
“We are not experts on what white, wealthy, male property owners thought about gun regulation in 1791. However, we must now be historians in the name of constitutional adjudication,” wrote Mississippi District Judge Carlton Reeves, appointed by President Barack Obama. .
Some judges “look really, really hard at history and say ‘these laws are not analogous because historical law worked a little differently than modern law,'” said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Gun Law.
Others, he said, “have taken a much more flexible inquiry and are trying to say, ‘Look, what is the purpose of this historic law, as far as I can understand it?’
Gun rights and gun control groups are closely following many pending cases, including challenging several state laws that ban some semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines.
A federal judge in Chicago on Friday rejected an attempt to block an Illinois law banning the sale of so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, declaring the law constitutional under the Supreme Court’s new test. However, a state court has already partially blocked the law, allowing some gun dealers to continue selling the guns, amid a separate legal challenge.
Already, some gun laws passed following the Supreme Court decision have been overturned. A judge has declared several parts of New York’s new gun law unconstitutional, including rules restricting the carrying of firearms in public parks and places of worship. An appeals court later stayed the sentence while it reviewed the case. And the Supreme Court has allowed New York to enforce the law for now.
Some judges have upheld a law barring people accused of crimes from buying guns, while others have declared it unconstitutional.
A federal judge has issued an order preventing Delaware from enforcing provisions of a new law that bans the manufacture and possession of so-called “ghost guns,” which have no serial numbers and can be nearly impossible to track by law enforcement agencies. laws. Order. . But another judge rejected a challenge to California’s “ghost gun” regulations.
In the California case, U.S. District Judge George Wu, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, appeared to be investigating how other judges interpret the Supreme Court’s guidance.
The company that filed the appeal – “and apparently other courts” – would like to treat the Supreme Court’s decision “as a ‘word salad’, picking one ingredient on one side of the ‘food’ and an entirely separate ingredient on the other. , until nothing remains but a fully bulletproof and unfettered Second Amendment,” Wu wrote in his ruling.
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