OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Supreme Court has said that gun restrictions in Hawaii, California, New Jersey and Maryland should be looked at again.
The court said this on Thursday, around a week after it decided against New York’s concealed carry restrictions, The Western Journal reported.
One of the cases the justices sent back to a lower court Thursday involved a Hawaii statute similar to New York’s. In that case, a panel of 11 judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in 2021 that the right to “keep and bear arms” in the Constitution’s Second Amendment “does not guarantee an unfettered, general right to openly carry arms in public for individual self-defense.” But the high court said in its latest gun case that the Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” A lower court will now have to revisit the Hawaii ruling.
The high court also told federal appeals courts to revisit cases involving laws in California and New Jersey that limit the number of bullets a gun magazine can hold. A 2018 New Jersey law limits most gun owners to magazines that hold up to 10 rounds of ammunition instead of the 15-round limit in place since 1990. A lower court upheld the law.
California law also bans magazines holding more than 10 bullets. A panel of 11 judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 last year to uphold California’s ban.
The justices also sent back for further review a case from Maryland that challenged the state’s 2013 ban on 45 kinds of assault weapons. The high court had in 2017 turned away a previous challenge to the law.
“The Supreme Court said Thursday that gun cases involving restrictions in Hawaii, California, New Jersey and Maryland deserve a new look following its major decision in a gun case last week,” it said.
“In light of last week’s ruling — which said that Americans have a right to carry a gun outside the home — lower courts should take another look at several cases that had been awaiting action by the high court, the court said. Those cases include ones about high-capacity magazines, an assault weapons ban and a state law that limits who can carry a gun outside the home,” it said.
But the bigger issue, and one that the gun grabbers are most concerned about, is the part of the New York law that requires those seeking a permit to show that they have a “special or unique danger” and have “proper cause” to get the permit, The Western Journal reported.
“Carrying a firearm outside the home is a fundamental constitutional right. It is not some extraordinary action that requires an extraordinary demonstration of need,” attorney Paul Clement said in November at one of the hearings.
What anti-gun activists are concerned about is the decision in the case could crush many of New York’s restrictive gun laws, and those of other states.
“The consensus based on the oral arguments is that they will probably strike down New York’s law, which has been on the books for a century,” Saul Cornell, the Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History at Fordham University, said.
“We’re going to look at the ruling because the ruling could be on several different levels. We’re going to look at the ruling and see what powers we have and what are we going to need from our federal lawmakers to sort of put laws in place that could prevent the Supreme Court ruling from impacting our cities,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said, CNN reported.
“I’m very concerned,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said. “John Q. Public gets a gun he’s not trained to use and now he comes up on someone he thinks is committing a crime.
“Next thing you know, people are going to try to be super cops and take things into their own hands. Now you have a shooting incident that didn’t warrant that type of result,” he said. “There are a lot of violent incidents that come from people carrying firearms. Are they properly trained? Will they take matters into their own hands? People not trained, taking matters into their own hands, is concerning.”
