The Supreme Court ruled on a second amendment case this morning involving mental health. The court granted cert then instructed the lower court to dismiss as moot Beers v Barr, Attorney General.

What that means is this; The case is moot as a matter of law as the ATF certified Pennsylvania’s mental health rights restoration program and Beers’ rights have been restored and he has been able to purchase a firearm.
So, with no “live controversy” there is nothing to decide.

Here is a summary:

Beers was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric inpatient hospital in, 2005.
He had no further mental health issues, but was later denied a gun purchase, due to the mental health commitment.
He challenged federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms by anyone who has previously been adjudicated as mentally ill or committed to a mental institution, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4), arguing that, as applied to him, it violates the Second Amendment, claiming that, although he was previously involuntarily institutionalized, he has since been rehabilitated, which distinguishes his circumstances from those in the historically-barred class.

The Third Circuit rejected his arguments, noting that “the traditional justification for disarming mentally ill individuals was that they were considered dangerous to themselves and/or to the public at large. Courts are ill-equipped to determine whether any particular individual who was previously deemed mentally ill should have his firearm rights restore.”

The issue was that for anyone, previously mentally ill or convicted felon, to have their rights restored they must ask the Federal Government to restore those rights. However, congress hasn’t funded that program since the 1990’s. Instead, congress allows people to petition their state governments, but state mental heath programs must be certified by the feds and the Pennsylvania program hadn’t  been…yet.
In this case, Pennsylvania’s program was later certified, Beer’s rights were restored and later he actually had bought a gun.  So the case was moot.

But the Supreme’s didn’t just moot the case. They vacated the 3rd circuit’s ruling. “Courts are ill-equipped to determine whether any particular individual who was previously deemed mentally ill should have his firearm rights restore.

Now, that’s not a decision that means court are now ‘well-equipped’ it just means that the circuit’s ruling that court’s aren’t ‘well-equipped’ was trashed.
It’s not a clear win, but it did wipe out a bad circuit court ruling for RKBA.