Tennessee News

Supreme Court looks at reach of gun rights

The Supreme Court appeared willing March 2 to say that the U.S. Constitution’s right to possess guns limits state and local regulation of firearms. But the justices also suggested that some gun control measures might not be affected.
The court heard arguments in a case that challenges handgun bans in the Chicago area by asking the high court to extend to state and local jurisdictions the sweep of its 2008 decision striking down a gun ban in the federal enclave of Washington, D.C.
The biggest questions before the court seemed to be how, rather than whether, to issue such a ruling and whether some regulation of firearms could survive. On the latter point, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority opinion he wrote in the 2008 case “said as much.’’
The extent of gun rights are “still going to be subject to the political process,’’ said Chief Justice John Roberts, who was in the majority in 2008.
At the very least, this argument suggested that courts could be very busy in the years ahead determining precisely which gun laws are allowed under the Constitution’s Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms,’’ and which must be stricken.
James Feldman, a Washington-based lawyer representing Chicago, urged the court to reject the challenges to the gun laws in Chicago and a suburb. Handguns have been banned in those two places for nearly 30 years.
The court has held that most of the rest of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights applies to state and local laws. But Feldman said the Second Amendment should be treated differently because guns are different. “Firearms are designed to injure and kill,’’ he said.
But Feldman ran into difficulty with some of the five justices who formed the majority in 2008. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined Scalia’s opinion two years ago, said it seemed to him that Feldman was arguing that the court got it wrong two years ago.
Of the other two justices in the majority then, Justice Samuel Alito also appeared to agree that the Second Amendment should be extended to state and local laws and Justice Clarence Thomas said nothing, as is his custom during argument.