In the months since the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court expanded gun possession rights and weakened states’ ability to limit the carrying of guns in public spaces, the high court has identified several cases in need of rehearing in light of the new precedent.
This week, the Supreme Court ordered a lower court in Massachusetts to vacate its ruling on the state’s gun control law and reconsider the case Morin v. Lyver. At issue is a state law imposing a lifetime ban on purchasing handguns on anyone convicted of nonviolent misdemeanors involving the possession or use of guns.
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SUPREME COURT DECLINES TO HEAR CASES OVER TRUMP-ERA ‘BUMP STOCK’ BANS
The law also conflicts with a major area addressed in the 6-3 summer ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, which quashed New York’s unconstitutional regime requiring a “proper cause” to obtain a concealed carry handgun permit. Massachusetts law imposes a need for a license in order to carry a pistol.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in the Bruen case, underscoring that the Constitution’s Second Amendment is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”
The Monday decision by the high court to vacate the lower court ruling and have the case reheard was unsigned by the justices.
“History shows that peaceable persons have full Second Amendment rights,” the Firearms Policy Coalition wrote in a March statement after filing a brief in Morin against the state law. “Yet across the country, many continue to be denied their right to keep and bear arms based on nonviolent offenses,” the group added.
The remanding of the Massachusetts case signals that the high court is eager to see state laws correspond to the new Bruen standard established this summer. The Supreme Court has ordered the revisitation in other gun-related cases related to magazine limits, AR-15 bans, and open carry permitting.
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“This just the first of a number of cases working up to the Court,” tweeted Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor.
“The state refuses to make exceptions for such non-violent misdemeanors, even when the individual complied with its own state law in securing a license to carry. Those are bad facts for a new challenge in the post-Bruen world,” Turley added.
