The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will hear a case on whether New York City’s handgun transport restrictions violate the Second Amendment and the U.S. Constitution — the first time in nearly a decade that the high court will take up a major case involving gun rights.
Gun-rights advocates had challenged the rules, which restrict the transport of licensed handguns to and from firing ranges within the city and require that the guns remain locked and unloaded.
A federal appeals court last year upheld an earlier U.S. district court ruling that the transport ban doesn’t violate the First or Second Amendments or the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, nor does it violate the plaintiffs’ fundamental right to travel.
Lawyers for the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association and several individuals challenging the ban said the plaintiffs simply want the ability to transport their licensed guns to a shooting range or a second home outside the city limits.
“If the City can trust handgun owners to exercise such care with their handguns at home, then surely it can trust them to responsibly transport them to shooting ranges and second homes,” the attorneys said in their petition for the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The rules are “like telling New Yorkers that they are free to golf beyond city limits, just not with their own clubs,” the lawyers argued.
Attorneys for the city said the appeals court ruling that upheld the ban should stand, saying the licensing rule doesn’t substantially burden the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights and that firearms present public safety risks that golf clubs do not.
The rule “only restricts their ability to transport firearms that are specifically licensed for possession and use inside their New York City residences through the City for the purpose of bringing them to shooting ranges or homes outside the City,” they wrote in their opposition brief to the Supreme Court. “That is not a fundamental right.”
Gun-rights advocates hailed the development as a step toward expanding Second Amendment rights.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to hear this case sets the stage for affirming the individual right to self-defense outside of the home,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s legislative-lobbying arm.
Mr. Cox said the importance of the case “cannot be overstated.”
“We look forward to the Supreme Court overturning New York’s draconian and blatantly unconstitutional law,” he said.
In the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that individuals have a constitutional right to have a handgun in their home for self-protection.
In 2010, the high court extended that right to the states in a separate case.
But since that time, the court has generally avoided taking up cases that could potentially expand the scope of those Second Amendment rights, repeatedly declining to hear cases on issues like bans on military-style, semi-automatic weapons and concealed carry laws.
Meanwhile gun control advocates said they had feared that the appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh would pave the way for more gun-related challenges reaching the Supreme Court.
“It appears our fears are coming true,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Gun safety laws in our country will no doubt continue to see challenge after challenge in court, so let it be known — we will be there every time to defend them, and we are ready for this fight.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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