If so, we can only hope the Court takes these cases and crams their rulings in Heller, Caetano, McDonald and Bruen down the lower court’s and state’s throats
Groundswell of Second Amendment Cases Seems Destined for the Supreme Court
Federal courts in blue states seem to be upholding the majority of gun control laws, even after landmark Supreme Court decisions upholding the fundamental right to keep and bear arms
We recently posted about the New York Second Amendment case challenging New York’s concealed carry permit law that requires that a permit applicant prove to a local official that he or she is of “good moral character.” Not only is this an absurd requirement (how exactly are you supposed to prove that you have “good moral character”), but even after doing so, said local official then has complete discretion on whether to approve the applicant’s permit request . . . or not. The challengers in the case just asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case after the Second Circuit approved the “good moral character” requirement:
From our report: Second Circuit’s Partial Upholding of New York’s Gun Carry Law Appealed to SCOTUS:
The key part of the Petition [asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case] is its discussion of the New York law’s requirement that New Yorkers prove that they have “good moral character” before obtaining a concealed carry permit:
[T]his case would allow this Court the opportunity to clarify that government may not selectively disarm law-abiding members of “the people” whenever licensing officials feel they are of poor character, potentially dangerous, or otherwise unworthy of enjoying the natural right to self-defense with which they were endowed by their Creator….
In Bruen, this Court rejected New York’s requirement that, to be authorized to bear arms in public, citizens first must demonstrate “proper cause” — defined as “a special need for self-protection.” Here, the panel sanctioned New York’s stand-in requirement that citizens convince licensing officials of their “good moral character” prior to licensure. As the district court explained, New York simply “replaced” proper cause with good moral character, “while retaining (and even expanding) the open-ended discretion afforded to its licensing officers….”
New York’s “good moral character” standard is…a prohibited “suitability” determination and, as the district court noted, is merely a surrogate for the “proper cause” standard that was struck down in Bruen…Indeed, under the CCIA, New York officials decide whether a person “ha[s] the essential character, temperament and judgement necessary to be entrusted with a weapon….”
It is quite difficult to understand Bruen’s criticism of “suitability” not to include “good moral character.” And it is even more difficult to believe that this Court would approve the discretionary power to deny carry licenses to “all Americans” unless they first “convince a ‘licensing officer’” of their general morality.
[bold added; italics in original]
In doing some research to see if other cases exist that are working their way through the courts, I was surprised to find out that there are — a lot of them.