Gun Control & RKBA

This isn’t just a case where a city repeals a challenged law to evade judicial review while standing ready to restore it later. It’s a case where the state has stripped the city of power to do what was being reviewed. There’s no real case left.

As the nation renews debate over gun control, the Supreme Court must decide whether to press ahead with a Second Amendment case it has accepted for the coming term, its first in a decade.

Gun-control groups operate under a no-news-is-good-news approach to the Supreme Court, leery of giving what they view as a strengthened conservative majority the chance to expand gun rights and weaken restrictive laws.

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, which the court accepted in January, the city and state of New York appear to agree. They have essentially surrendered, changing the restrictions at issue even though the city successfully defended them before a district judge and a federal appeals court.
New York says it has given those who hold licenses to have guns on their premises exactly what they asked for — a greater ability to transport their weapons through and outside the city — and there no longer is a controversy for the Supreme Court to settle.

“New legislation or regulations giving plaintiffs all they seek moots the case,” wrote Zachary W. Carter, corporation counsel for New York City. He cited Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s dissenting opinion on a mootness question in an unrelated case in 2016, in which he said the court may not rule on a plaintiff’s entitlement to relief simply because he “won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer.’ ”