Here Comes the Next Big Supreme Court Gun-Rights Case

[Purveyor]

By Paul M. Barrett July 29, 2014

Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, noted recently that the Supreme Court has been ducking gun-rights cases. I’m here to predict the end of that several-year tendency.

In 2008, the Supreme Court for the first time declared that individuals have a Second Amendment right to keep a handgun in the home. The justices expanded on that 5-4 ruling two years later, clarifying that it applied to all states. Then the court became, well, gun-shy.

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“There is no longer any basis on which this court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny,” federal Judge Frederick J. Scullin ruled in a decision made public over the weekend. “Therefore, the court finds that the District of Columbia’s complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public is unconstitutional.”

The Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF), which, as its title indicates, also came from the nation’s capital, left open the question as to whether the Second Amendment precludes not only a ban on gun possession in the home, but also packing heat in the street. A lower-court ruling striking down a state or local law on federal constitutional grounds is the sort of legal collision that often attracts the attention of the Supreme Court.

Judge Scullin’s ruling, therefore, may provide an irresistible opportunity to address the public-carry issue, despite any uncertainty that may exist about Justice Kennedy’s leanings. Given the judiciary’s slow metabolism, the case could reach the justices just in time to become fodder for the fall 2016 presidential campaign.

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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-29/a-supreme-court-forecast-big-gun-rights-case-is-coming-soon#r=rss

[Eleanors38]

1. It seems likely the SCOTUS will say to the District recognize

Concealed, or Open, or Both. But don't deny both. Does the instant case complain of a de jure or a de facto denial? Heller saw through the rather clinical in-home ban in D.C. prior to the decision.