Last week — a holiday week — the Supreme Court relisted all ten Second Amendment cases that are awaiting cert decisions. As the term winds to a close, the Washington Post’s editorial board has taken a preemptive shot in the Court’s direction letting Justice Roberts them know that everything is just peachy in the world of Second Amendment jurisprudence (all evidence to the contrary) and that granting cert to another gun rights case would make D.C. opinion-makers…uncomfortable.
Since Heller,there has been virtually no disagreement among lower courts about how to apply these principles. Appeals courts have established a working consensus on how to evaluate gun measures, carefully following the Supreme Court’s guidance. When there is no disagreement among circuit courts, the Supreme Court typically declines to step in.
The court refused last month to consider a New York gun law that New York City repealed while it was being litigated, saying the case was moot. In dissent, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said they would have taken the case and repudiated the law. Meanwhile, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh sided with the majority of the court that rejected the case, but insisted that the court should address the Second Amendment “soon,” suggesting at least four conservative justices are searching for a gun rights case on which to take a stand.
The fact that the Supreme Court is now more conservative than it was a decade ago is no reason to upend — once again — its Second Amendment directives. Such a naked power play would only imperil the court’s fragile credibility.
– Washington Post editorial board in We don’t need another Supreme Court guns case