The Supreme Court tossed a significant gun rights case that could have expanded Second Amendment protections.
On Monday, the court issued an unsigned 6-3 decision to dismiss New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, which focused on a challenge to a New York City rule that banned the transportation of firearms outside the city, even for those who had a license to purchase firearms.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberal minority, Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan, in the decision. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s most recent nominee to the high court, concurred with the majority opinion but said objections raised by conservative justices ought to be noted in future cases.
“I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”
In 2002, New York state passed a variety of gun laws regulating firearm transportation and possession but amended its laws in the summer of 2019 following the Supreme Court’s decision to review the case. Though New York City argued for the constitutionality of its old ordinance to the District Court and the Court of Appeals, it also changed its rules to permit petitioners to transport guns to homes and ranges outside city limits.
Despite the changes, lawyers for the New York State Rifle Association argued the case was still alive because updated restrictions do not provide legal clarity in the event a firearm-licensed citizen would make an elective stop, including using a public restroom or entering a coffee shop, while transporting their unloaded weapon.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito, joined by fellow conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, wrote the decision to declare the case moot allowed the court to be “manipulated.”
“By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced,” Alito wrote.
