March 22, 2019
By Chris W. Cox
A headline in Reason Magazine said it all: “Have Gun, Can’t Travel.” (click here)
That’s the plight of New York City “premises licensees” under one of the most bizarre and oppressive gun control laws in the nation.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court has that law in its sights.
In January, the high court agreed to review a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upholding the regulation against a challenge under the Second Amendment and other constitutional provisions. The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York.
Should the court resolve the case on Second Amendment grounds, it will be the first time since McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010 that the Supreme Court applied that provision to a gun control law.
Even many gun control advocates probably don’t expect New York City’s regulation to fare any better before the high court than the handguns bans from Washington, D.C. and Chicago did in 2008 and 2010, respectively. Like those laws, the handgun travel ban is an outlier....
