SCOTUS declines challenge to handgun law

[jeaniebueller]

...

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-refuses-to-take-up-challenge-to-san-francisco-gun-law/2015/06/08/6a752596-0de3-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html

Over the objections of two justices, the Supreme Court Monday declined to review a decision leaving intact San Francisco’s law requiring that handguns be stored in a lockbox or secured with a trigger lock.

The court said it would not take up a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that the law did not pose an undue burden on Second Amendment rights.

Justice Clarence Thomas said in a dissent that lower courts are not giving full recognition of the individual right to own a handgun that the Supreme Court recognized in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller.

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Joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, Thomas said there is “no question” San Francisco’s law burdens that right.

“We warned in Heller that ‘a constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all,’” Thomas wrote. “The Court of Appeals in this case recognized that San Francisco’s law burdened the core component of the Second Amendment guarantee, yet upheld the law.”


The vote of four justices is required to accept a case.


The case is Jackson v. City and Country of San Francisco.



Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006.




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[ttt]

Good.

[Velar Fricative]

Not that I'm dissatisfied with this decision but it does seem inconsistent when comparing it to the fact that they did consider and make a decision on Heller. SCOTUS peeps, help explain!

[ttt]

Jun 8, 2015 10:12:05 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Not that I'm dissatisfied with this decision but it does seem inconsistent when comparing it to the fact that they did consider and make a decision on Heller. SCOTUS peeps, help explain!

I think the difference is that Heller was an actual ban on handguns while this is merely requiring that those guns be stored with particular safety standards. So, disallowing ownership is an undue burden but requiring that they be stored safely is not. 

[Velar Fricative]

Jun 8, 2015 10:14:06 GMT -5 ttt said:

Jun 8, 2015 10:12:05 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Not that I'm dissatisfied with this decision but it does seem inconsistent when comparing it to the fact that they did consider and make a decision on Heller. SCOTUS peeps, help explain!

I think the difference is that Heller was an actual ban on handguns while this is merely requiring that those guns be stored with particular safety standards. So, disallowing ownership is an undue burden but requiring that they be stored safely is not. 

Ah, thank you. That makes sense.

[earlgreyhot]

I know I should feel good about the decision, but really I just feel sad that it was a challenge and that there are still a million loopholes around basic gun safety laws.

(I say that as someone who is personally anti-gun, but understand that our constitutions protects the right and therefore supports responsible ownership. Requiring trigger locks to me falls under than category to protect children and drunks).