This case involves the New York Rifle & Pistol Association, as well as three residents of
New York City.
In New York City, people are allowed to obtain a firearm, and they can keep it in their home
pursuant to what's called a premise license.
The premise license only allows you to keep the gun in your home and transport it to perhaps
a shooting range in the five boroughs of New York City, or to a place to have your gun
repaired.
But what happens if you own two houses?
Or what happens if you want to transport your gun out of state, say, to a shooting range
in New Jersey?
New York City law prohibited this sort of transport, and this case considers whether
the city could ban transporting a lock handgun to a second home, or to a shooting range outside
of the five boroughs of New York City.
The Second Amendment provides a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of
a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The Supreme Court has only decided two cases about the Second Amendment.
The first case was District of Columba v. Heller in 2008.
This case held that the Second Amendment protects a right to keep and bear arms as an individual
right.
This right was not connected to any sort of militia service.
The second case was McDonald v. City of Chicago from 2010.
This case extended Heller.
It held that the states are also bound by the Second Amendment, and the city of Chicago
could not ban handguns.
Since 2010, the Supreme Court has had very little to say about the Second Amendment.
New York City has had this policy on the books for several years, and the New York State
Rifle & Pistol Association challenged the constitutionality of this rule.
Both the trial court and the court of appeals ruled that this policy is constitutional.
As a result, the Rifle & Pistol Association appealed the case to the US Supreme Court.
The law has a doctrine known as mootness.
Under this doctrine, if there's no longer a live controversy, courts will dismiss a
case.
There is an exception to the mootness doctrine known as voluntary cessation.
Under the voluntary cessation doctrine, if the government voluntarily ceases to enforce
a law for the purpose of frustrating judicial review, the courts will still consider the
legality of that law, even though the case might otherwise be mooted.
Once the Supreme Court granted certiorari, New York repealed the regulation at issue,
and they basically made it impossible to reenact this law in the future.
New York did file a brief arguing that their law was valid, but that the case is moot,
that there's no controversy to resolve, that the plaintiffs have received all of the relief
they were looking for.
During the oral argument, New York will argue that the Court should not be here, and this
case should be dismissed.
The Justices will probably ask, "Well, will you defend this law?"
And they will offer some defense, but they will always try to shift it back to the mootness
argument.
The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association argues that the case should continue.
They contend that New York is simply changing their law to avoid Supreme Court review.
For the first time in a decade, the Supreme Court is considering whether to extend the
Second Amendment beyond the home.
In addition, the Supreme Court may explain what the appropriate level of scrutiny or
review is, for laws that burden the Second Amendment.
To date, the Supreme Court has let the lower courts do whatever they want.
Uh, now that the Court has a case on its docket, they may provide some helpful and much-needed
guidance to the lower courts of how to review gun control laws.