SCOTUSblog
The Supreme Court, following a pattern that is now quite well established, chose again on Monday to remain on the sidelines as the national debate over gun ownership heats up in the political realm. Without comment, the Justices denied review of the latest attempt to test whether the Second Amendment right to have a gun extends beyond the home.
The denial of review in Kachalsky, et al., v. Cacace, et al. (docket 12-845) was the latest in a series of denials of attempts to get the Justices to explore the reach of the Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, recognizing a Second Amendment right to have a gun for personal self-defense. That decision, though, was limited to a right to have a gun ready to shoot inside one’s own home.
In the Heller decision, the Court emphasized that the right it was recognizing for the first time was not an “absolute” right, and that gun ownership could be subjected to “reasonable” regulations. It provided some examples, such as having a gun in a sensitive public place, but the list was not intended to be complete. That has left it to Congress and to state legislatures to decide whether they want to impose new forms of gun control.
