{"id":63061,"date":"2020-12-19T15:23:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T21:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=63061"},"modified":"2020-12-19T15:23:17","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T21:23:17","slug":"63061","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=63061","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Gun Groups Take Concealed Carry to the Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n

New York State doesn\u2019t recognize a right to carry a handgun in public. To get a concealed-carry permit, applicants must show they have an unusually strong need for self-defense, not just a normal and healthy desire to keep themselves safe. The state also bans the open carry of handguns entirely. There\u2019s a \u201ccircuit split\u201d among the nation\u2019s courts as to whether such strict restrictions are kosher.<\/p>\n

The New York State Pistol and Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association are\u00a0asking the Supreme Court to step in<\/a>. And now would be a good time for the Court to better enforce the Second Amendment, a project it began with\u00a0Heller<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0McDonald<\/i>\u00a0more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have more to say about this case if the Court takes it, but here are a few things I\u2019m interested in when it comes to gun-carrying and the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n

Most important is the core question of whether the right to \u201cbear arms\u201d includes a right to carry weapons in public. Since the previous Supreme Court cases, some academics have purported to find strong evidence that, instead, the term overwhelmingly referred to military-related activity in Founding-era writings. I find their methods unimpressive \u2014\u00a0here\u2019s a good demonstration<\/a>\u00a0of the problem with counting a term\u2019s uses and pretending that\u2019s the same as\u00a0defining<\/i>\u00a0the term, and\u00a0here\u2019s a more positive take on the method<\/a>\u00a0that also discusses its limits. Further, their conclusion flies in the face of several direct analogues to the Second Amendment, including state declarations of rights. These provisions protected the right of the people to bear arms \u201cfor the defense of themselves and the state<\/a>,\u201d \u201cfor the defense of the state<\/a>\u201d (which would be redundant if \u201cbear arms\u201d inherently referred to the defense of the state), and even \u201cfor the purpose of killing game<\/a>.\u201d But I\u2019m curious what the Court and especially its conservatives will make of this new evidence.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the question of how states may restrict\u00a0how<\/i>\u00a0arms are carried. Bans on concealed carry, as opposed to open carry, have a long history in this country, and\u00a0Heller<\/i>\u00a0explicitly noted that history. Yet while concealed carry was once considered unmanly and dishonest, now it\u2019s considered polite and wise, because it avoids announcing to everyone you come across that you\u2019re a scary gun person who packs.<\/p>\n