The current state of the Second Amendment is precarious at best.
You can bet your bottom dollar when the founders enshrined the Second Amendment, they never imagined just how far the government would go to restrict Americans’ gun rights.
Which is why it’s so refreshing to see that gun owners just got the best news when the Supreme Court helped strike down this law.
In the city of New York, it used to be virtually impossible for gun owners to legally transport their guns inside city limits.
Even if you had all the paperwork and weren’t traveling very far, moving a gun in NYC was next to impossible.
That’s because the city had set up unconstitutional travel restrictions where the only time gun owners could move around with their guns was going to or from one of the seven gun ranges in the five boroughs.
It didn’t even matter if the guns were locked up in a case and separated from the ammo.
Imagine the response you’d get if you told someone in Iowa the only time they could travel with their gun was if they were going to a local shooting range.
They’d be ticked.
And many residents of New York City were rightfully upset with New York City’s regulation and challenged the onerous restrictions in a lawsuit.
Sadly, the city successfully defended their position for more than 5 years.
A federal judge, along with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, supported the city’s draconian enforcement.
But then the gun owners appeal made it to the Supreme Court.
And just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided they’d give an ear to the appeal.
Reason.com reported:
“…after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of that decision, the city rewrote its rules, backed a state law that eased restrictions on transporting guns, and urged the Court to drop the case, arguing that the regulatory and statutory changes made it moot. During oral arguments today in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, several justices seemed skeptical of that claim, which is transparently aimed at avoiding a Supreme Court decision that could clarify the contours of the Second Amendment.”
Essentially, the Supreme Court’s decision to even hear the appeal put NYC on notice – they knew they violated the Second Amendment.
Because of that, they had to admit that their restrictions for limiting gun travel was, in fact, not necessary.
Nowhere was that more obvious than in this exchange between Chief Justice Samuel Alito and New York City attorney Richard Dearing.
Alito: Mr. Dearing, are the people in New York less safe now as a result of the enactment of the new city and state laws than they were before?
Dearing: No, I don’t think so. We made a judgment, expressed by our police commissioner, that it was consistent with public safety to repeal the prior rule and to move forward without it.
Alito: Well, if they’re not less safe, then what possible justification could there have been for the old rule, which you have abandoned?
Though it may not seem like much, it’s a huge victory for gun owners everywhere because it illustrates that all gun laws are by and large ineffectual – and thus, unconstitutional.