New York State Rifle & Pistol v City of New York
courtesy NYSRPA
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By LKB

Hot on the heels of Slate’s breathless recognition that the Supreme Court’s grant of cert in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association case may portend a major change in Second Amendment law, fellow liberal magazine The Altantic has gotten into the act.

Echoing many of the legal points and vote-counting predictions that I have made on the NYSR&P case, liberal University of Baltimore law professor Garrett Epps predicts that this will be the vehicle by which the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court will  “supersize” the Second Amendment.

In this article, Epps (and fellow liberal law professor Adam Winkler, author of Gun Fight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America) both predict, as I have, that in deciding NYSR&P, the Supreme Court will adopt a “strict scrutiny” test that would “move the Second Amendment up into the tier of rights that are insulated from virtually any regulation; most prominent among these are free speech and religious freedom.” 

Almost of necessity, the result is likely to give lower courts what they have lacked—a constitutional test that can be applied to a wide variety of handgun restrictions. And as Winkler suggested, the new conservative majority seems likely to create a test that will invalidate many local laws—and may in fact shred the entire fabric of state and local gun regulation.

He says that like it’s a bad thing.

The Rifle & Pistol case begins, then, with four virtually certain votes against the New York law—the two newcomers, Thomas, and Alito. Chief Justice John Roberts voted for the gun owners in Heller and McDonald. He may have been trying to keep the Court out of the Second Amendment area for institutional reasons since then, but that’s not likely to make him go back on his earlier votes when the time comes to throw down.

There’s a long way to go and we shouldn’t count any chickens quite yet. But the grant of cert was a very hopeful sign to those of us on the pro-2A side.

Let’s hope that (for once) these two left-leaning prognosticators are right.

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100 COMMENTS

  1. Interesting that the gun hating Leftist lawyers cited in the piece know enough about the Constitution that they can predict the outcome. Their personal opinions and desires may well be going up in flames.

    • They know so much about the constitution and choose to ignore all of it and attempt to deny all our human and civil rights.

  2. Good. I hope it goes strict scrutiny, and smacks NYC down and tells them their entire handgun permit system is unconstitutional.

  3. What? Yo want to supersize socialism? Let me get my little violin and I’ll play a happy tune for us and maybe for you guys the Hungarian Suicide Song. Not the one from M.A.S.H. I’d want it to be painful for you people.

  4. This is just the beginning of their freak-out.

    Just wait until they try and ‘read the tea leaves’ of the oral arguments.

    {The ‘Notorious’ RBG ‘Deathwatch’ update – 3 whole weeks and counting, with no sign of her…}

    • Being a generally good person, I wouldn’t wish death on anyone, even RBG. But if she announces her retirement, I’ll pay for the gold watch myself. That watch offer is good for Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Roberts as well.

      • RBG is 85 and recently had surgery. At her age, it takes much much longer to recover from the effects. I expect to see her back to “normal” in the near future. Expect some craziness too, as old brains doesn’t recover quickly either.

        • Ginsburg doesn’t have to sit on the cases. She can simply blink once for yes, twice for no at anything fully written by her clerks and there is nothing we can do. there is no precedent for removing a justice short of serious crimes, nor any way to force recusal on health, and they only have to keep a heartbeat in her for 22 months.

          If either Trump does not win a second term, or if the Dems take the Senate, Trump will no replacing ginsburg, if both a loss of the white house and the senate occur, which without a strong conservative turn out, is more likely than not, a Democrat will be replacing Ginsburg, and according to the actuary tables, also replacing Thomas with ultra left, more likely than n not.

      • Attributed to Mark Twain (and not convincingly refuted by (surprise) The Atlantic, ignoring the time space continuum), “I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” Now, that sounds like Twain to me.

    • You betcha. Heck, even NPR’s grossly-overrated “expert” Nina Tottenberg is predicting that NYC will go down in flames on this one.

      Shannon Watts is probably having kittens right now, but after oral argument she’ll graduate to having heifers. And if the stars line up and the Thomasator writes the majority opinion . . . I’m thinking it’ll be (figuratively speaking) like the scene in the movie Scanners (scroll to the 2:05-2:12 mark of this clip):

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnp1jfLhtck

      Interestingly, there’s a very good post by Dave Kopel over at lawblog The Volokh Conspiracy that gives a lot of good historical detail on just how bad and slimy NYC’s gun laws have been for over a century:

      https://reason.com/volokh/2019/01/22/supreme-courts-new-second-amendment-case#comment

      I note that one of the commentators there had an observation very similar to what I’ve recently predicted here on TTAG: that NYC will see the writing on the wall and will soon try and pull a fast one to avoid the coming adverse SCt. decision:

      Buckle up amigos, this is gonna be one heck of a ride.

      • Well, the quote from the Volokh Conspiracy comment didn’t come through. (C’mon DanZ, gimme back the edit function already!!). Here was the VC comment from Andrew H.:

        My guess is that NYC officials and Gov. Cuomo are now trying to brainstorm with their legal team what minimal changes are necessary to moot the case, knowing that if SCOTUS does reach the merits, they will almost certainly inflict a lot of collateral damage to the state’s anti-gun regulations beyond the narrow scope of regulations at issue in the case. Fortunately, SCOTUS recognizes an exception to mootness for voluntary cessation by government of the conduct at issue, but given how anti-gun NYC and Cuomo are, they will try hard to circumvent that exception.

        • While I am *beyond* pleased that case was righteously granted the cert. it deserves, I have a very bad feeling Roberts is going to be pressured the same way he was (most likely) pressured in the ‘ObamaCare’ ruling to twist and contort the law to essentially gut it.

          I just can’t shake it. The Leftist scum fully understand the danger they are in and will stop at nothing to try and sway him. Whatever ‘broken eggs’ are required to make the omelette, it will be worth it to them….

        • I’m with you on dreading Roberts. The guy’s only principle seems to be deference to the government. You’d think he’d got his law degree from Waffle House.

        • “I have a very bad feeling Roberts is going to be pressured the same way he was (most likely) pressured in the ‘ObamaCare’ ruling”

          This might seem like splitting hairs but bear with me here.

          I don’t think Robert’s was pressured in the classic “Nice Court you’ve got here, sure would be a shame if something happened to it” type of way. Instead I think he felt pressure to the point that he was thinking about ceding a battle to win a war.

          Roberts went to Harvard back in the 1970’s before it became a beta-male-PC-idiot production facility. As such I suspect he was well aware of a few things. One of them being FDR’s “court packing scheme” in 1937 and another being that Obama was a smart and ruthless snake who was none-the-less pretty popular.

          As much as we don’t like to admit it the SCOTUS does feel political pressure because while they can’t be overruled their makeup can be drastically altered by the other branches of government. This can be done to create a court that will do what the current administration wants. That’s exactly what FDR threatened to do when he didn’t get his way. Events came together in a timeline that radically altered the way the court looked at things for a long time because that particular court “caved” to the political pressure but at the time they granted cert on the cases that mattered they had no idea what the immediate future held, such as what would happen on 7 December 1941.

          The question is if that was a good idea or not. I would argue that in the longer term it was a good idea. Yes, it created a hell of a lot of problems for the next seven or so decades but it also prevented a almost certain permanent change to the court in terms of the court’s makeup which would have had far worse repercussions (from our point of view, not that of the Left).

          Now while some might argue that Roberts went too far in “protecting the court” I suspect that on some level he did try to “protect the court” from exactly the kind of changes threatened by FDR and which I’m fairly confident Obama would have had no problem inflicting, or at least trying as hard as he could to inflict, on us if he didn’t get his way on his signature legislation.

          At this point there is no reason for Roberts to do this again, if he does then we know he’s not what he says he is, but if he doesn’t and moves to direct the court in a completely different direction than it had in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) then we’ll have good reason to believe that the 2012 case was a CYA to protect the court so as to avoid a potentially damaging change created by the Democrats.

          I’m not saying that’s what happened in Roberts’ mind but I think it’s a decent possibility. If you’re a relatively conservative jurist and the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS, would you rather hand Obama a win in 2012 and hope you can take it back a decade later or tick off Obama and run the risk that he uses his political capital to add, say, six seats to the court and fills them all with RBG clones? If I’m Roberts I’m thinking the former isn’t ideal but can be recovered from while the latter means all is lost going forward with no real hope of ever going back to the “way things should be”. Granted, in hind-sight the chances of a court-packing scheme actually working were pretty slim but that’s not how things seemed in 2012.

          Just MHO.

        • I’m replying to Strych9 here. I agree with most of your comment and analysis, but would add this: I don’t think anyone, certainly not Roberts, anticipated DJT’s victory over the harridan, and so the below is in the realm of fantasy to imply that it was forethought, but without Robert’s folding on 0bamacare and finding the penalty to be a federal tax supported by the constitutional taxing power, when DJT did win and the Repubs did get off their asses to adopt the new tax act, since it was a tax, it can be repealed or modified, like any tax. And so it was, essentially gutting the coercive part of the law which was its linchpin. So there’s that.

          Here’s some fun: read the recent Third Cir. dissent in the NJ case against the new stupid dropping of max magazine capacity from 15 to 10, which on the constitutional level argues in the same vein re not treating the 2d Am. right as a lesser or subordinate right. It’s worth a read. But I share the fears of others here that the SCOTUS may well (as it often has) narrowly trim a result that won’t be broad. OTOH the silliness if you will of the case may well augur that it be a foundation for a sharp as it is put ‘supersize’ of the 2d Am, to put it where the 3rd Cir dissent would also put it (because there isn’t any plausible public harm downside from allowing licensed gun owners to travel (in accordance with state law, ie unloaded, locked, ammo locked separately, etc etc.) from their house to an out of state legit shooting match. Which is why the perceptive scum at Slate, NPR and The Atlantic are worried.

          Here’s a thought experiment: suppose the Notorious RBG departs leaving the court with 8 and the case comes up? How long before the 9th can be confirmed? If it’s late this year, will that invoke the nonrule rule of no confirms in an election year? How will an 8-8 split work?

          The 3rd Cir dissent starts on page 44: https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/183170p.pdf. See also: https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/06/powerful-dissent-charges-judges-who-casu. The dissenting judge, Bibas, was appointed by none other than our DJT.

      • I’m glad some have brought up the Roberts uncertainty and are taking it seriously. The analysis is interesting and in depth. I’m not going to add to it by additional overthinking and educated speculation. Fact is, Roberts has pulled some surprises out of the hat that stretch all legal logic but reflect he’s a comprehensive independent thinker who thoroughly understands the history and role of the Supreme Court (which many a president has regretted once a confirmed nominee hits the bench).

        I personally respect that, and, his ACA decision. Just saying he is the one to watch as a real potential spoiler. My $0.02 on this is states rights moderation is a very strong possibility either way he votes. I won’t be getting the hopes too high and the panties in a bunch. After all, I’ve saved the ‘Time’ magazine cover from Oct. 24th, 2016 predicting Trump’s ‘Meltdown’ as a collector’s item. Another example of how the ‘experts’, as Abby Hoffman put it, are just a bunch of fast talking people from out of town.

        • I think that expecting Roberts to vote to excuse NYC’s system based on “states rights” is more than a bit misplaced. For one thing, that would overrule MacDonald, which held that 2A rights are fundamental, and as such were incorporated by the 14th and thus applied to state/local governments. For another, reviving “states’ rights” as a basis for allowing infringement of rights that have been declared “fundamental” under the Constitution would be a sea change in civil rights law — and Roberts is not big on overturning huge swaths of law, especially when none of the parties are making that argument.

          The federalism / “states’ rights moderation” play *might* be something that Roberts throws out as a sop to NY / NYC (e.g., “*this* particular regulation doesn’t appear to pass the giggle test and as such likely infringes 2A, but in applying our newly announced strict scrutiny on remand the court should bear in mind and give due respect to states’ inherent / traditional powers to regulate activities that they have historically”).

          I don’t see even that happening for three reasons:
          (1) You rarely see a Supreme Court make major changes to two areas of constitutional law in the same opinion. Reviving “states’ rights” as a factor in strict scrutiny balancing and expanding the Second Amendment in one bite would be shocking.
          (2) The libbies on the Court will read and loudly object to do such a holding as battlespace planning for future abortion / gay rights cases; i.e., future abortion / gay rights case will reason “if strict scrutiny of laws regarding 2A rights (which are written right there in the BoR) must be “moderated” by states’ rights concerns, then the same “moderation” must be applied when reviewing state laws on abortion / gay rights.” Roberts is unlikely to want to create that impression on such hot button issues, so my guess is that he’d want to keep the focus of the NYSR&PA opinion narrow and on 2A issues.
          (3) It would be creating a loophole that would effectively gut any expansion of the Second Amendment. As such, he’d probably never get Thomas / Alito / Goresuch / Kavanaugh to join that portion of the opinion. Roberts isn’t going to want a bunch of conflicting plurality / concurring opinions that just muddy the water further.

      • Sorry, that would be a 4-4 split.

        Why oh why isn’t there an edit function on these comments? You know, like Disquis.

  5. For all those who support the 2A but despise Trump…… we’ll, he may be the most consequential President we’ve had in over a hundred years. And for what he’s done for our federal judiciary, in addition to our SC, he deserves our support in the future.

    • Make America Great Again, Build the Wall, Drain the Swamp and put Hitlery and the rest of the criminals in JAIL!! He’s already created the best economy in 50 years and we now have SCOTUS that will move the 2A back a few notches in the right direction.

      I vote for euthanasia for RGB to put us out of her misery. If it is good enough for millions of unborn babies then it should work for her.

      Oops, my politics are showing ….

    • “most consequential President we’ve had in over a hundred years”

      You do realize Grand Emperor Concentration Camp held power between 1933 and 1945 and that’s LESS than 100 years ago right? Literally everything we’re fighting about the federal government began with him.

      • You made a similar comment in response to something I posted on this issue recently. I think you’re misunderstanding my point. When I say “consequential” I am alluding to the restoration of our judiciary not its perversion.

      • Democrats held control of the White house for 20 consecutive years and Congrees for 44, with no less than 16 years with a super majority.

  6. Between now and the final ruling, I predict the Leftists will go on a mad rush to pass as many anti-2A laws as they possibly can, with the hopes a few of them will ‘stick’…

    • That sure as hell seems to be the plan here in WA.

      The shitheels are trying to out-California California. And succeeding.

      The Supreme Court slamming the lid of the cookie jar down on some statist fingers is becoming the only hope for this beautiful state.

    • “I SO want to count those chickens before they’re hatched.”

      Same here, but I remember all to well how things looked after the oral arguments in the ‘ObamaCare’ ruling, and what we actually got.

      If Roberts doesn’t come through on this one, we will be truly fucked, unless RBG gets replaced by Trump.

      *Then* we may have hope…

    • The “explanations” I have seen are that you are emphasizing the wrong part of that clause. Freedom of speech, for instance, isn’t absolute; there are exceptions for libel and slander, or security secrets, because those were always understood to be exceptions. Thus “Congress shall make no law to abridge freedom of speech (as understood since time immemorial)”. Similarly, “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed (in ways it hasn’t always been infringed in our fevered imaginations)”.

      See how simple Constitutional Law is?

    • There is a very simple, easy to understand way to deal with guns.

      If you are a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, the police leave you and your guns alone.

      If you are a legally-prohibited person found in possession with a gun, then you should have some explaining to do in court…

        • There is a legal term for your day in court. It’s called; “due process”. It’s the part that is conspicuously absent from all the current “red flag” laws. As in; anybody who wants to screw somebody over just raises a red flag, and the police come to either arrest or kill them. The police are quite a good way to harass someone you don’t like, and these laws just make the problem worse.
          That’s the way with governments. The problems they create never get smaller, only bigger.

  7. Living in upstate New York, I’ve encountered many of my fellow New Yorkers (online) who have had nothing but hatred and disdain for the NYSRPA. Imagine the criticisms of the NRA we see on this blog, but amplified. Many of those same people put their money behind SCOPE (another NY gun rights group) that talked the talk but really never did more than produce pro-2A yard signs for people. Now SCOPE has fallen apart and squandered their funds, mainly due to gross mismanagement and greed. It didn’t stop those same people from relentlessly trashing the NYSRPA.

    Now, the NYSRPA’s lawsuit is the first major gun rights suit to come before the SCOTUS since Heller. I’ve perused various gun blogs with those same angry gun owners – many are either silent or are still taking superficial shots at the organization’s “Fudd” President, NRA board member Tom King. No, the NYRSPA isn’t perfect, but all those people who shredded their memberships and refused to support them for “doing nothing” look pretty stupid, in my opinion. Funny how life works out.

  8. What effect will this court ruling have on states with “assault weapons” bans and magazine capacity restrictions? I live in WA and we are under attack and I want this shit stopped right fucking now.

    • “What effect will this court ruling have on states with “assault weapons” bans and magazine capacity restrictions?”

      Initially, not a whole lot. States like Cali, Washington, etc, will have to dragged kicking and screaming to respect it.

      This ruling *potentially* can be a very powerful ‘tool box’ to right a whole lot of wrongs, but it’s gonna take time…

    • Right there with you. I’m hoping for the best, but also investing in some stripped lowers and magazines. I’m sure those ridiculous bills are going to pass. At least they aren’t as stupid as what Oregon is trying to get passed. Probably won’t pass, but with Portland types, you never know…

      • The magazine bill already made it out of Senate committee and is headed to the floor. Please contact your legislators and keep up the fight!

  9. BTW, I just realized Comcast blocks subscribing to this stie. Those fucking Communists.. When I used my gmail address I didn’t have any problems (which is surprising given Google is also run by a bunch of Communists).

  10. I’m afraid it’s a word play. Opening the door for scheming lawyers to use to pick apart the 2a….The right to keep and bear arms,under the scrutiny of central scrutinizer’s shall not be infringed. I’m not into politics at all,care not Rep/Dem, and with an, bias/ unbiased attitude, I can see a lot of people putting a lot of faith in one man and who he’s chosen to tinker with the Bill of Rights.

  11. When you consider the 2nd Amendment to mean nothing at all, as the Left does, any ruling that insists it means something, no matter how insignificant, represents a major expansion.

  12. 1- The third option is that the SC sends the case back to a lower court to be re-decided, without making a formal decision that expands gun rights. They’ve done similar with several cases already this year.
    2- Don’t bet the farm on Roberts doing the Constitutional thing, or even anything that makes sense. This is the guy who said that Obamacare was simultaneously A Tax and Not A Tax.

      • See my comment above re Roberts and the tax holding – as soon as a Repub gov’t was elected which passed a tax reform act, the ‘tax’ could be repealed, which it was. Had it been a penalty, all of 0bamacare would have had to be repealed, which the deceased McCain stopped by hisself. But a tax can be changed at any time. And so it was. Maybe Roberts has outsmarted all of us.

  13. Not put my hopes up, or holding my breath…Globalism/EU NWO on the march in the USA…One step closer to full fledged “paramilitary authoritarian police-state.” Until I see my “Eastern Bloc Socialist Utopian authoritarian police-state” forced to walk-back numerous anti-2nd amendment laws and restore full 2nd amendment rights to it’s lawful residents…Then I’ll call it a day….

  14. The test was already invented during the first SCOTUS challenge against the 1934 NFA. All carryable infantry weapons (arms) that are viable in modern warfare are protected under the 2nd Amendment. No ifs, ands, or buts.

    By the way, that means they have to eliminate the “in common use” clause because that phrase would justify preventing the introduction of new technology onto the civilian arms market.

    • That’s alright with me. I’ll keep my AR-15 and all my semi-auto pistols. They can have their “ray-guns” or whatever they have in the future military. Just don’t fuck with what I have. LMFAO…

      • Actually, I want ALL the small arms the military has. That means newly manufactured full auto, including belt feds, auto-grenade launchers, and every weapon that will be invented/adopted in the future. Period!!!! Anything else is a gross infringement. Anyone who supports those infringements must be declared a domestic enemy and tried under the provisions of the Patriot Act as terrorists and be subjected to the death penalty.

        • If a weapon is commonly used by the military, then it is in common use, and therefore everyone had the right to keep and it.

          Me for SCOTUS =P

    • The leftists have gotten awfully bold. If the SCOTUS rules in favor of gun rights, I wonder if DeBlasio is dumb enough to question the legitimacy of the court, you know, with the whole Kavanaugh smear. Cuomo is dumb, but not that dumb, but DeBlasio is a special kind of dumb.

  15. Trump has my vote in 2020 based on what he’s done with the supreme court and lower courts alone. Not to mention all the things he attempted to do with the Obamacare- (“TAX”) and immigration. Pretty good considering all the obstruction by the Rhinos and Liberals. Anything from here on out will be the frosting on the cake so to speak. 6 more years of cleaning up the sewer AKA Washington DC as far as I’m concerned. Trump is the best POTUS since Reagon.

    • Oh Trump! I really don’t like or trust the guy… but you aren’t wrong. Between the surprisingly good results from him in many (but definitely not all) areas, and the absolutely malicious and lunatic behavior from the left these days… yeah, he’ll get my vote next time around, assuming he doesn’t do something absolutely mad in the interim (I just can’t rule it out with him).

      The whole Kavanaugh hearing thing kind of did it for me: the left revealed themselves to be a whole new flavor of despicable and dangerous. Not for the first time, of course, but never so boldly or proudly. Their supporters (I work with many, and they are – mostly – good, nice people) were totally blind to it. Shocking and dismaying to be sure.

      It has become much easier for me to appreciate the good of Trump, and maybe the need for him, these past couple years.

      • And how exactly did the good people with whom you work react to the revealed leftist scumness of the Kavanaugh hearings and the 35 year old allegations no one (save a shrink and a husband) had previously heard? Seriously, I’m curious and interested.

  16. Let the Libitards start their hand ringing. I wishfully hope all their fears comet o fruition.
    The 2nd is to me the most important of the Bill of Rights amendments.
    It should have been the first from the get go with all the others to follow.
    In the mean time. Im not counting my chickens just yet.
    It would be nice if Trump had 1 more conformation before October.
    It should be a women this time too.
    Im very curious what lies the Libitards would pull out of their collective asses.
    If a women was the nominee.

    • I’m sorry, but all you folks that think the “Biden rule” will be in effect for Trump’s final year are entirely mistaken. McConnel already spoke on that months ago. His “interpretation” is that it ONLY APPLIES WHEN ONE PARTY HOLDS THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE OPPOSING PARTY HOLDS THE SENATE (google to confirm if you’d like). And yes, he said it with his trademarked shit eating grin. The senate will confirm up until the very last day of Trump’s presidency, hopefully in 2024.

  17. Let’s not count the chickens just yet. Remember we still have John Roberts as Chief and Kavanaugh is a question mark. And if Ruthie stays home and doesn’t vote or can’t then any decision is just for that one deal it won’t be precedent setting.

    Sorry to rain on anyone’s parade but frankly this isn’t the kind of case that’s needed to get that extra oomph. I doubt even if they do find for them they still may not say strict scrutiny must apply hence forth. There’s already been a few of those that they would not rule on.

    And I don’t trust Roberts at all to do the right thing.

  18. We have reports that the Altanitic, sister ship of the Titanic and the Britannic, has struck and iceburg and is taking on water.

    What? Oh, the ATlantic. The ocean… or that shitty leftwing rag. Gotcha.

  19. I fully expect Roberts to write a very narrow ruling striking down the law. Forbidding transport out of City limits is so facialy ridiculous even he won’t be able to defend it. Breyer and Kagan might even join to give us 7:2 as long as the ruling is narrowly focused on transport.

    So I think we will win, but it’s not going to be a grand ruling that moves the bar much if at all

    • Maybe the 3rd cir case upholding NJ’s recent stupid 10 round max mag capacity ruling will be the one to do so – see the dissent cited elsewhere in these comments.

  20. Supersize the Second Amendment? Yeah, not looking for that. All I need is the original size. The one we had before all those infringements.

    So I hope they do well kicking NY’s ass on this one. It is long overdue.

  21. I think a lot here have missed the boat.
    The main ruling would be for the future interpellation of any new gun laws that have been or go before any court.
    If they say there must use a “strict scrutiny” test. for any new 2nd Amendments proposals.
    Gun banners will be screwed as you can get.
    That’s what Ive taken from this case before the SC.

    • You are correct. This case is entirely about 2A cases and strict scrutiny. The NY transportation restrictions are entirely secondary. I’d venture to guess nearly everyone commenting here is already well aware of that fact, fwiw.

  22. Progs hate the 1A as much as they hate the 2A. Their jurists will begin to assault and water down strict scrutiny and their media will provide cover.

  23. If it does, they should blame themselves and their staunchest supporters in NY that wrote laws so fucking ridiculous that the only way to uphold them is to make up whole new levels of (un)scrutiny.

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