Saw it in the WDC HTF once I heard about the news.  NYC, your next!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/18/dc-good-reason-gun-ownership-requirement-halted-by/?page=all#pagebreak

I don't even get excited anymore.  Seems like we've been down this road.  Heller, MacDonald, Heller II....

It doesn't matter.  Municipalities continue to do whatever they want.  There's no consequence for flouting the intent of legislation, case law, instructions from the AG, etc.

NY, DC, Chicago, etc. will continue to deny 2nd Amendment rights, they will continue getting taken to court, and, occasionally, they will continue to lose.  None of that seems to matter.

Thought Chicago is shall issue now

Goodbye Sullivan Act.

It only goes to the Supreme Court if the city appeals. Let's hope they do.

Forget about it.  The Second Circuit just ruled on another NYC carry case and ruled for the city as usual.  You will never find Second Amendment relief in the Second Circuit.  If SCOTUS should rule otherwise, they will tweak their rulings just enough to get around it.  See http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/home/id=1202727009130/Citys-Denial-of-Gun-Dealers-Concealed-Carry-Bid-Upheld?mcode=1202617075062&curindex=4&slreturn=20150424081820.  The site is pay-walled so the text is here for reference:

City's Denial of Gun Dealer's Concealed Carry Bid Upheld

^ in summary:

Knight:"gun please"
NYC: "guns are for special people"
Knight:"my mom thinks I'm special"
NYC:"you're not special"
Knight:"but..."
NYC:"fuck off"

I'm going to apply for a NYC carry, chances are not good but I just like to be that guy. I'm gonna keep pushing it.

Dc will ignore the courts. Government only listens to courts when the courts agree with their position. They use the courts as their excuse, see EPA.

Whenever I hear someone say that it's possible we could win the SAFE appeal, I mention "dude, that means ak-47's with 75 round drums in NYC. This isn't just about upstate or long island." The argument usually ends there because there's just no way anyone is ever going to allow that visual in a newspaper picture to be possible again. That idea gives me pause that SCOTUS would make that happen as well.

 

Even if the SCOTUS overruled all these bans and clarified once and for all that the Second Amendment is a fundamental right on par with the First Amendment (strict scrutiny and everything), I cannot see anything changing in New York.  I have a hard time finding the downside for the state ignoring such rulings.  No politician or police chief/commissioner is going to go to jail for refusing to recognize a SCOTUS Second Amendment ruling.  Who would it fall upon to enact the changes of such a ruling?  The very people who are against it.  Lawsuits will be defended with taxpayer dollars and they will spend as much taxpayer money as necessary to maintain the status quo while the plaintiffs will run out of money.  I look at the ruling from two weeks ago that said the state had to release the "assault weapon" registration numbers.  Well... we are still waiting.  If they refuse to turn over the numbers, who is going to enforce the court order?  The NYSP?  The very ones ignoring the court?  The Federal government could sue the state for ignoring a SCOTUS ruling but who would enforce it?  The FBI? The U.S. Marshal's? The U.S. Military?  No politician will go to jail and they will all have their actions defended on the backs of the taxpayers.



D.C. is an interesting case because they are ultimately beholden to the whims of Congress.  Congress could override through legislation anything D.C. does if they can line up the votes and get a cooperative POTUS.  The same cannot be said for a misbehaving state.



 

I can't find fault in your argument, but it is indeed interesting. If you can have conceal carry for everyone and assault weapons in DC where the most powerful are, what chance would NYC have to say no.  That said, I think the last AWB case for DC didn't win. Not sure where it stands at this point.



 

DC is under the direct legislative control of Congress, unlike states. What is decided in DC will not matter to the states.

Are you saying even a SCOTUS decision would not apply to the states?

If so, then at least a SCOTUS decision would pave the way for another decision to apply this to the states, a la Heller / MacDonald.

Funny how "Women's reproductive rights" cases or voter ID cases decided in lower Federal Courts are binding instantly on the States according to the InJustice Dept. but 2nd Amendment decisions can be arbitrarily ignored by anti-gun States and they can find all sorts of excuses why the Federal decision does not apply?  Things that make you go hmmmmm.

I am curious if that would now be a requirement.  Heller established the Second Amendment as a fundamental civil right in regards to DC and MacDonald incorporated the Second Amendment under the Fourteenth Amendment by ruling Heller applied to the states too.  So does this mean any future SCOTUS Second Amendment cases in DC apply only to DC or are they incorporated under Heller?  If SCOTUS rules that DC's discretionary carry rule is unconstitutional, shouldn't that apply to the states too under MacDonald?  The funny thing is, DC claimed they took the "best" (or we would say the worst) parts of laws in NY, NJ and Maryland in crafting their law.  That should definitely put those states in the cross-hairs if a SCOTUS ruling goes against DC.

 

SCOTUS specifically stated that the Heller ruling only applied to DC as federal property.

The 2nd A has not been incorporated to the states as other rights have. The RTKBA is a natural right. It is an immunity, or a right against the exercise of a power by government. It cannot be legislatively disabled. SCOTUS is not the final arbiter of our rights, and their past record doesn't encourage that they ever could be. Heller, as other preceding decisions have, basically said that we have the RTKBA unless the government decides otherwise.

That was what MacDonald settled in his suit against Chicago.  The Second Amendment is incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment.  The issue now is how much that right can be restricted.  This whole "scrutiny" BS is what is throwing fits.  Some are applying intermediate scrutiny and we now have one or two applying strict scrutiny.  If they stick with strict scrutiny, a lot of these BS laws are going to fall by the wayside.  The bad news is I think egistration would more than likely be legal provided it never led to confiscation.  After all, you have to register to get a library card.



 

Been following this, stay request denied:

Federal Court Denies Admin. Stay In DC Concealed Carry Case

BELLEVUE, WA – The federal district court judge handling the Second Amendment Foundation’s challenge to the District of Columbia’s “good reason” concealed carry permit requirement has denied the city’s request for an immediate administrative stay of his ruling last week granting a preliminary injunction against further enforcement of the requirement. The District is also seeking a stay pending appeal.

Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr., announced his decision this morning, and set two important dates. By June 22, SAF and its co-plaintiffs must file papers opposing the city’s stay pending appeal request, and the city must respond by June 26. This development is seen as a clear win by SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.

“The Second Amendment Foundation is pleased that the court ruled immediately against the city and has forced them to start issuing carry permits,” Gottlieb said. “By now they should realize that when we say we will do everything in our legal power to force them to recognize that people have Second Amendment rights we mean it.”

The city has required concealed carry applicants to provide justification for wanting a permit to carry firearms outside the home for personal protection. Judge Scullin ruled last week that the requirement “impinges on Plaintiff’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.”

“Bearing arms is a civil right,” Gottlieb observed, “not a government-regulated privilege subject to arbitrary discretion. This case isn’t about making a political statement, but about making the District of Columbia comply with an earlier court ruling, and with the constitution.

“The city is running out of wiggle room,” he added, “and should immediately start issuing permits to all citizens who meet the legal qualifications.”

Under Judge Scullin’s order, the attorneys representing SAF and the District will appear in court July 7 to present arguments for and against the city’s motion for a stay pending appeal of his initial May 18 ruling.

The case is Wrenn v. District of Columbia.

Just a few notes about that:

1. Access to and removal from a library of publicly owned materials is not covered by the Bill of Rights.
2. You don't have to 'register' or get permission to purchase or receive books or other printed material.
3. Depending on the good will of government employees and elected politicians is an exercise in suicide.

I should have noted you have to register to vote.  That would have been a better example.



 

No, that is not a right either.

Nope.

The McDonald case incorporated the 2nd amendment as a fundamental civil right in all states, via the 14th amendment.

But states are ignoring that ruling.

That's not what I meant, so I will rephrase: The states have not accepted incorporation of the 2nd A as they have other Amendments.

Because the Federal Courts have not forced them to.  The Federal trial courts and Appellate Courts have bent over backwards in some Circuits (cough, cough Second) to pervert the holdings in Heller and McDonald and have done so with impunity.

This is the big difference between Second Amendment rulings and the civil rights rulings half a century ago.  Back then, the Federal government was very enthusiastic (as they should have been) at enforcing court orders for desegregation and voting rights.  You had the President, Attorney General and many other top echelon who believed in and supported the orders.  Federal Marshals were deployed to enforce those rulings.



Now you have a President, Attorney General and most top echelon who abhor the Second Amendment and will do nothing to enforce the same kinds of civil rights orders they so well championed 50 years ago.  In the end, we may eventually win most of our cases in the courts and have a declaration that the Second Amendment is a fully enumerated right with strict scrutiny, but no one in the Federal government will lift a finger to enforce it against states such as New York, New Jersey and Maryland.  If SCOTUS eventually ruled that AR-15's and other so-called "Assault Weapons" as well as standard capacity magazines are in common use and cannot be banned, who will it fall upon to get New York to recognize that ruling?  The very Federal people who would be just as happy to have the ban remain in place.



Since I reached my fifties three years ago, I have come to realize you can win court battle after court battle over time but still lose the war since it is the very people who lose the battle who are supposed to enforce the rulings.  The funny thing is, the government's ongoing disregard for the constitution and rule of law fosters, over time, the same disregard in the citizens themselves.  One learns by example and when the government simply says FU, we do not care about the "law", then people begin to realize they can disregard it too with the end result being anarchy.  I have to chuckle at the current debate over renewal of the Patriot Act and the NSA's mass collection of "meta data".  The world will come to an end on June 1st if it is not renewed we are being told and the President is in a tizzy twisting Senator's arms to get them to renew it as-is.  Honestly, does anyone truly believe the NSA will pull the plug at 12:01AM June 1st if the law is not renewed?  They were doing it for years without the legal authority so why would they stop now?  And who would be the ones to ensure they did shut the program down?  The very people who want surveillance to continue!



 

A very insightful and well thought out post.  I agree with you.

^ Hail Hydra