Kachalsky v. Cacase

Cert Denied for Woolard

The Supreme Court has declined to hear the Woollard case [pdf]. At this point, the only conclusion I can reach is that they’re doing their best to simply avoid the issue. When they turned away the Kachalsky case last term, the common wisdom was that they were going to hear this one instead.

As it is, we’ve got a clear split among the lower courts, so the matter begs for resolution. The 2nd Circuit decision in Kachalsky conflicts with Woollard, with two cases from the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, and with the 7th Circuit’s decision in Moore.

Two things are at issue: whether the right to keep and bear arms is limited to the home, and what level of scrutiny must be applied to regulations of the right. For now, both questions remain unanswered.

The Court is hearing United States v. Castleman, but that case is about a minor semantic issue with Tennessee’s domestic violence law.

Civil Rights

1 comment

The Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller and McDonald affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms. However, those cases only addressed a central issue of keeping guns in the home. Though the Court found the right to self-defense to be “most acute” there, in no way did either decision imply that it ended at the doorstep.

Yet Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have all claimed that their arbitrary and burdensome systems of issuing (or rather, refusing to issue) permits to carry a firearm outside the home somehow pass constitutional muster. So, we’ve brought lawsuits. We won in the 7th Circuit, and we won in the 4th Circuit. New York? Not so well.

Last November, the 2nd Circuit ruled that,

Plaintiffs misconstrue the character and scope of the Second Amendment. States have long chosen to regulate the right to bear arms because of the risks posed by its exercise.

Continued...