Supreme Court rejects New York gun retailers' bid to block new concealed carry laws

[JohnnyB 4,323]

The Supreme Court rejected a bid by New York gun retailers on Wednesday to block a slew of new gun control laws in the state, which they argued violate their Second Amendment rights and hurt their businesses. 

There were no noted dissents in the order or explanations from the justices for their decision!  This is NOT GOOD! Perhaps they did not act in order to force the lower courts to make the decision?

 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/supreme-court-rejects-new-york-gun-retailers-bid-block-new-concealed-carry-laws

[siderman 1,137]

Well it was a unanimous decision so something smarter than us is amiss. Probably something to do with commercial/retail vs civilian?

[JohnnyB 4,323]

1 minute ago, siderman said:

Well it was a unanimous decision so something smarter than us is amiss. Probably something to do with commercial/retail vs civilian?

How did the case even make it to SCOTUS unless the lower Circuit Court ruled for NY State? Either way, I hope you're right!

[124gr9mm 859]

It's tough when there's no comment from the court.

From the article:
""So it really was unfortunate to see that we couldn't get any emergency temporary injunction against those laws." "

So it looks like someone will actually have to sue after they're somehow harmed by the new law?

[JackDaWack 2,895]

The same reason they did it last time. 

Alito looks at this as "skipping the line". SCOTUS is NOT the gate keeper of state laws, District courts and Circuit Courts should both have formal rulings prior to SCOTUS spending time on the issue.

The only time I see SCOTUS taking on these kinds of requests if it's a federal law in question. 

[raz-0 1,259]

20 minutes ago, JackDaWack said:

The same reason they did it last time. 

Alito looks at this as "skipping the line". SCOTUS is NOT the gate keeper of state laws, District courts and Circuit Courts should both have formal rulings prior to SCOTUS spending time on the issue.

The only time I see SCOTUS taking on these kinds of requests if it's a federal law in question. 

SCOTUS is 100% the gatekeeper of state laws when they violate civil rights. They are also the gatekeeper of errors of law at lower courts. That is in fact their job. But that does not mean they decide how the courts work in terms of process, and it does not mean that being denied a a TRO or injunction is a misapplication of the judicial process. 

This particular suit has a lot of issues. At least from the bits I've read, and temper my opinion with the fact that I haven't been watching the wrangling on this one, so I may be missing a lot of stuff. 

So first up is the question of standing. Standing, unfortunately, requires harm. In the case of civil rights stuff, the fact the law is clearly harmful often isn't sufficient, you have to actually step up and be harmed in most cases. TROs and injunctions do tend to deal more with unavoidable harm, but you still have to demonstrate that you will be harmed, not that you might be. 

So first up, like half the arguments are that you can't regulate us like this because 2A. I doubt the court is going to see that the state does not have great leeway in regulating the operation of a business. If regulations are going to get canned over the 2nd, it's going be because they infringe the rights of an individual in the end. 

An example of a shit claim in the case: NYS can't require a POC implementation of NICS. NICS is a federal law and very clearly allows for a POC implementation. That would be a totally different suit and I'm not sure why it is even here. 

A more ambiguous claim in the case: They are creating a registry and the 2A and 4A says you can't. Well, is there actual case law on this. There are opinions, and legislation around said opinions, but not case law. It's a valid challenge, but do the FFLs have standing? Have they been harmed? More importantly is that harm irreparable? A registry can be destroyed, and if actually destroyed, the harm it does is gone.  You are not likely to win a case with the argument that the people running the registry are scumbags and can't be trusted to work that way. 

A different ambiguous claim: That the laws will put them out of business due to cost. While one can argue that unlike the other amendments, the 2nd really does kind of require commerce, so things that effectively forbid a commerce in arms can be infringing. The suit claims that compliance will cost $200,000-$1,000,000 to comply with, and I have yet to see where they get that number. From what I've read, it sounds unlikely to be accurate. So they may have standing potentially, but have they demonstrated inevitable harm? A lot of things on the list likely ARE 2a violations, but the winnable case is going to come from the customer side of things, not the business side of things. 

It does not strike me as a particularly strong case in general, and specifically I don't think what merits it does have lend themselves particularly well to winning TROs or injunctions. 

I mean really, are security systems expensive to the degree that it is an existential threat to anyone being able to operate a business? Is there something special about that requirement with regards to this law that makes it move from something private households and small bodegas can afford, but not FFLs? 

[YankeeSC 1,204]

@raz-0 is spot on here.  When evaluating SCOTUS decisions, it's very important to understand the subtle nuances in the case - the context and the arguments made by plaintiffs.  Just because they rejected it, you can't assume they agree with NYS and will rule the same on another matter against this law.

[JackDaWack 2,895]

1 hour ago, raz-0 said:

SCOTUS is 100% the gatekeeper of state laws when they violate civil rights. They are also the gatekeeper of errors of law at lower courts. That is in fact their job. But that does not mean they decide how the courts work in terms of process, and it does not mean that being denied a a TRO or injunction is a misapplication of the judicial process. 

This particular suit has a lot of issues. At least from the bits I've read, and temper my opinion with the fact that I haven't been watching the wrangling on this one, so I may be missing a lot of stuff. 

So first up is the question of standing. Standing, unfortunately, requires harm. In the case of civil rights stuff, the fact the law is clearly harmful often isn't sufficient, you have to actually step up and be harmed in most cases. TROs and injunctions do tend to deal more with unavoidable harm, but you still have to demonstrate that you will be harmed, not that you might be. 

So first up, like half the arguments are that you can't regulate us like this because 2A. I doubt the court is going to see that the state does not have great leeway in regulating the operation of a business. If regulations are going to get canned over the 2nd, it's going be because they infringe the rights of an individual in the end. 

An example of a shit claim in the case: NYS can't require a POC implementation of NICS. NICS is a federal law and very clearly allows for a POC implementation. That would be a totally different suit and I'm not sure why it is even here. 

A more ambiguous claim in the case: They are creating a registry and the 2A and 4A says you can't. Well, is there actual case law on this. There are opinions, and legislation around said opinions, but not case law. It's a valid challenge, but do the FFLs have standing? Have they been harmed? More importantly is that harm irreparable? A registry can be destroyed, and if actually destroyed, the harm it does is gone.  You are not likely to win a case with the argument that the people running the registry are scumbags and can't be trusted to work that way. 

A different ambiguous claim: That the laws will put them out of business due to cost. While one can argue that unlike the other amendments, the 2nd really does kind of require commerce, so things that effectively forbid a commerce in arms can be infringing. The suit claims that compliance will cost $200,000-$1,000,000 to comply with, and I have yet to see where they get that number. From what I've read, it sounds unlikely to be accurate. So they may have standing potentially, but have they demonstrated inevitable harm? A lot of things on the list likely ARE 2a violations, but the winnable case is going to come from the customer side of things, not the business side of things. 

It does not strike me as a particularly strong case in general, and specifically I don't think what merits it does have lend themselves particularly well to winning TROs or injunctions. 

I mean really, are security systems expensive to the degree that it is an existential threat to anyone being able to operate a business? Is there something special about that requirement with regards to this law that makes it move from something private households and small bodegas can afford, but not FFLs? 

The entire point of district courts is to serve at the state level. SCOTUS serves to rule over the entire country. So to speak that makes districts courts the gatekeepers of state law. 

It takes two really bad decisions to make it to SCOTUS. Many times(way more often then not), SCOTUS or even circuits decline to hear appeals ruled on by districts over state law. With regard, SCOTUS decides on less than 3% of laws challenged at the state level. 

Your points are all valid and I agree with them. I dont see how they planned on getting emergency relief with arguments that would require to set precedent and did not rely upon it.

[raz-0 1,259]

38 minutes ago, JackDaWack said:

The entire point of district courts is to serve at the state level. SCOTUS serves to rule over the entire country. So to speak that makes districts courts the gatekeepers of state law. 

It takes two really bad decisions to make it to SCOTUS. Many times(way more often then not), SCOTUS or even circuits decline to hear appeals ruled on by districts over state law. With regard, SCOTUS decides on less than 3% of laws challenged at the state level. 

Your points are all valid and I agree with them. I dont see how they planned on getting emergency relief with arguments that would require to set precedent and did not rely upon it.

OK, if we are getting pedantic, neither district courts nor circuit courts, nor scotus make decisions on state laws. They make decision on federal law and state laws in so much as they violate federal regulations, the constitution, etc. Case in point, their eminent domain decision that said clearly that as long as there is due process and compensation compliant with the taking clause, it's a state law issue. 

If it is GENUINELY state law, then the STATE supreme courts are the last word. District, Circuit, and SCOTUS are all just arbiters of that. SCOTUS being the ultimate arbiter of that. 

So "gatekeeping" isn't well defined. You may be using it differently than I am. But what is a matter of state law is ultimately decided by the plaintiff giving up, or SCOTUS. That's it. That is how I am using the term gatekeeping. They ultimately decide what passes through that barrier of being a federal matter or a state matter.  The district and circuit are there to weed out the obvious shit, and when they do that properly, SCOTUS effectively just rubber stamps it and tells the plaintiff to pound sand.